~ V ~

Anon VS Dragon

I showered and I showered, for a time that felt like years, unable to care about that fact or any fact at all—mind relaxed after spending so much time dirty. There'd been some bullshit I recalled hearing in whatever place was before this.

Cleanse the body to clear the spirit.

It sounded like bullshit at first. The kind of crap someone says with the hope to be wise. Yet maybe that passage was wise. Dirt and filth washed with the warmed currents across and down and off my body. Coat becoming drenched and strands becoming clean and skin burned lightly across from the temperature.

The rising steam cleared all the gunk from inside my head.

It's been way too fucking long since I've had a wash. Makes me wonder how Twilight even put being an inch close to me. Twilight... Twilight... Tears across the brain forced me to wince down as a crack fractured my skull. High-pitch whining vibrated in the stall. Enough for me to turn on my back legs, a hoof shooting into my closed eye and the other into an ear.

As the water poured from overhead.

Twilight... you weren't there when I woke up... why weren't you there?

My other eye opened to the steam becoming dense like a fog, the surroundings consumed into its depths, the space becoming nothing but precisely that. I shook my head to a thunderbolt of pain. Soon the water stopped. It's pelting ceasing to be a sound.

I stood only in fog.

It took me a few seconds to breathe. To bloody get my head in the game. Even then I couldn't. It was like some curse had stolen me awake. Was it that crazy bitch from my dreams? Doubtful the slut had power here. Yet I knew I was in a place both real and not.

The fog spread before me, a divide in its sea, one going forward, inching up, to a silhouette of a distant mound. Groaning of earth rocketed in my ears as the hill erected from the density. Once more I was shaking my head and struggling, down on my knees and forced to look up, seeing, with terrible familiarity...

...something I could not remember.

I gazed up at it to see the hill with its grass dressed in memory. Eyes drawn to missing spots and little rocks that I somehow knew would be there. It was crazy because I was mad. Yet what killed me was the tree. Great and large and in the middle of the hill. Thick branches and dense foliage, both gently bobbed to the wind, promise of paradise to those underneath it.

Someone else was there. Small and black and without features. Lying forward with a hint of a book. Legs kicking like a child as the pages flipped. I couldn't do shit as everything started to fade—an illusion: imploding.

Then a voice cracked me from the dream of a memory.

"Anoooon! Anon! It's time to get out of there—you've been in the shower for way too long!"

I huffed and puffed and spat the batch of water on my lips. Miniature waterfalls streamed down my face as the feeling of them being chilly caused me to shiver. My head whizzed around for the tap. It was behind me. I slammed that bitch to the squeak of a cease.

"About time you listened to me! I've been banging on this door for a couple of minutes now!"

I panted steam and looked beyond the glass to the door. Knocks still rocked it in place. I shook my head in having to deal with a twerp of all things. Was there a reason for Twilight to keep him around? Surely adoption would have been possible.

"Name's... Spike, right?"

"It's Spike the DRAGON to you."

You're making it way too fuckin' easy to be hated kiddo.

"What's the longest you've knocked on the door for Twilight to come out of the shower."

A satisfied huff. "Only a few seconds—unlike you.”

"Well congratulations! You just set a world record for longest knock in this castle to get someone out of the shower!" I spat on the ground and shook my head. Lying back in the tub, I curved to its slope, eyes closing on their own. "Now go celebrate in your room. I need a few moments to... rest up."

I expected him to leave. In fact I hoped he would. My mouth opened a bit at the thought of that. I don't have a memory of who I was before coming to this world. Entry wasn't exactly kind. Well. Nearly being sucked off by the element of kindness itself wasn't kind.

Well. I mean. Maybe anyone else would have seen that as a good thing.

My eyes squint. The girl was hot for a horse. And she wanted to suck my dick free of charge.

I wonder why I rebelled so hard at that.

Shaking my head brushed my ebony mane across the smooth counter. My eyes squint as I'd been afforded the first moment to think. I'd always been with Twilight. Forced to put up and answer her. I hadn't been by myself ever since coming here. No time to think, to process whatever the fuck I felt, or some other third thing.

Even if everything had gone swell on me coming here... I... I still would have been a dick... wouldn't I? Was that who I was before? Some fucking asshole? They allow me to get away with it more here. Or, at least, it feels that way. Mares love stallions no matter what. Treat them like kids that they then proceed to suck off like lollipops—w-wait, I don't like the imagery on that one at all.

"How are you like that?"

I blinked from my thoughts as, even in the bathroom, I couldn't get a fucking moment to myself. I huffed and I puffed as I realized the little scaly bastard wasn't fucking off for a bit. His back smacked into the door as he slid down it. Sitting there. Lil fuck had me trapped.

I rolled my eyes and laid my head back on the counter. "How do you mean little jackass?"

"Jackass?"

Fuck. Profanity still isn't a thing. Need Twilight to let me spread the unholy words to the masses when she gets back.

"It's the lightest form of insult you can call someone from wherever the fuck I'm from." Why was I explaining this? Following these tangents led me back into the past and helped me remember a bit about it. Cues to unlock stuff from my passive memory. Twilight had explained it better. "Basically you asked me a dickish question—although, to be fair, I was being the dick first—and are refusing to leave and blocking my way out."

"So I'm a jackass for it?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "But... it sounds like you're doing it somewhat for a good reason. So you don't deserve a harder delivery." I groaned and rubbed the side of my head, in the place where my skull had cracked, feeling, beneath the skin... nothing of the kind. Yet it felt so real. "Plus I was a dickhead first and all that. But I still need to call you something. So jackass is the term for that."

Silence for a second.

"Does it ever bother you that you talk funny?"

I'll fucking skin you alive as a coat and ask Twilight how I look.

I winced at that. Where had that aggression come from? Did I really mean that? "Little bit. But... it's who I am at this point. Least in this current state." My chuckles blossomed into laughter. "Dropped into a strange ass fucking world where horses rule the world and the guys submit while the girls dominate."

Out of all the things to latch onto from that previous statement.

"You mean you come from a place where mares don't run the world?"

I closed my eyes and forced a smile for, as it was unseen, still affected one's speech and mood. "Not that I remember fuckall about it—but yes. It was more so the reverse in that. Well, actually. Not quite. It was getting closer to equal or... something like that." Anger flared and my hoof slammed into the tub. "How the fuck am I supposed to know anymore?"

Silence for a few more seconds.

Then another statement that settled the character of the dragon.

"Are you sure you're not really a dragon underneath it all?"

There are some statements in life that cause you to shut down. To wonder what the fuck everything is about. How someone could ever come to such a position in life to say the stupidest shit you'd ever hear in your life.

Anger flourished.

Then as quickly.

A strange kind of pity.

"Maybe I am... maybe I ain't... but I'm definitely something different inside for sure." I guess it was harder to discount his theory when I was not even a pony to begin with. Maybe it was wrong to harp on him for a possible misunderstanding. "Why the question kiddo?"

"Because that's how dragons are like around here."

I blinked as my head rose from the tub and looked to the door. "No shit?"

"I think I know this one... Rainbow was telling me about it." Intense mathematical equations roared through Spike's head in the attempt to understand my bullshitery. "That's you asking if I'm over-exaggerating what I just said. Then no! Dragons are actually a bit like you."

I closed an eye. "And how would you know?"

Hard huff from him. "Because that's exactly what a dragon would ask."

"So dragons are dicks?"

"Does dicks mean not nice?"

"Yeah."

"They are very dicks."

I clenched an eye. "You're getting closer with the language."

"And their things are huge too!"

"Their dicks?"

"No their things! Y'know that thingy between our legs?"

“Yeah a dick.”

"That's what you call them? You don't think they're nice then?"

One wrong word. Phrase took out of place. And all of this could go awful. Possibility ran through my head in the kid thinking I was gay or that I hated dicks. Well. I hated dicks but I liked my dick. Not that kind of like. Preferably in how it sometimes made me feel good.

When the hell did I become such a confused retard?

"Listen. This one's going to be a little bit hard to explain."

"Hard like a dick?"

Do not lose your shit. Do not lose your shit. Do NOT lose your shit.

"We call the things between our legs a dick. It soon became an insult because of what those who had dicks did." It amazed me the shit I could pull out without having to think about it. I never thought before where the term 'dick' came from in the form of an insult.

Yet I pretended that I did. Maybe because it was so easy to work out when you gave it a second's thought. "Banging someone for the sake of banging them or acting only in a way to get you laid. Kind of behaviour you get in thinking only with your dick. It's a bit of a power play too. Everyone wants to have the biggest dick in the room."

The curtains rattled on the pole above as I pulled them to the side. Stepping out of the shower, I pulled a towel and draped it over my waist—not bothering to attempt an impossible gambit with hooves. I stopped before the mirror and honestly looked at myself.

"That's so different from how it is here."

I turned my face before the mirror. Coat of emerald in a hue seeming like creamy and minty ice cream. Black mane draped over my face with my eyes peeking through the strands. I turned my muzzle to catch it at different angles. It was a protruding thing. So strange to actually see.

"How so?"

"Stallions tend to brag about whoever has the smallest dick."

I stopped and I froze and my head spun again. Too much layered on at once that I needed a second to breathe. In through my snout and out through my muzzle. Something about those two seemed wrong as they were not things I had throughout my life.

I feared I was going to need a blowjob or something soon.

"And how long has that been a thing?"

"Hmm." Spike's head rubbed into the frame of the door. "Ever since Princess Celestia's been princess."

"How long has that been?"

"You kidding? She's always been princess! She was an alicorn before even Twilight was one!"

"And she's kept the world like this ever since?"

"Hmm... she doesn't tend to do much in that regard." The dragon still sounded so much like a kid, yet he was apparently of age with the rest of the girls. Those most guys here either seem regressed in either age or attitude. Is that what happens when sex and everything else were guaranteed supplied to you? "She lets the world be as it is and steps in if there's an issue. Every mare tries to be like her. She's like the image for them all!"

But every mare tends to do everything and leave the stallions at home to be sucked off later... is that the moral she embodies?

I coughed and moved on. "And what about dragons? You said they're like me?"

"Yeah! Though, like you, there's... not too many of them left."

I finished looking myself off over in my new body. I wasn't fat or skinny. Seemed like I had a bit of muscle but nothing that caught the eye. I was different from the rest of the pack at least. Their colours were light, whereas mine was strong.

No wonder I stood out so much.

Should I change my appearance to fit in? Get less attention and less hassle.

Fuck a makeover.

"Who the hell wiped out the dragons then? They're proper dragons, right? Not little ones like you?"

Silence came and, this time, it wasn't because of anything else but pain. It wasn't even my intent to hurt him this time—but I had. It was merely my way of being. It didn't feel like much of a problem in my previous life. But here. Males were overly sensitive.

Does that mean I have to be more careful with my words?

Fuck... that?

"...they were proper dragons." Spike's tone was low and it felt like the confidence built in our conversation vanished. He forgot to be afraid in being a dumb kid, though now, he went back to being a scamp. "And a little bit like you. Princess Celestia used to tell me stories about them when I was younger. They used to scare me a lot."

Just who were these ponies? I always thought it was weird I ran into a princess in coming here. Did others have connections like her or did I stumble into something unique? Your head is fogging again. Cool it with the questions. You're going to overload yourself at this point.

"So you personally know this Princess Celestia?"

Spike seemed to think about it for a while. It appeared my questions were as strange to him as they were to me. Did ponies know his tales as commonly as they did Twilight's? Why the fear of going out or dealing with mares? Or maybe it was because of that he was so afraid.

Or maybe it was due to how the public came to see him.

"Well... yeah." His spines slid on the frame of the door as he nodded. I took a moment to stare at myself in the mirror. Turning my muzzle and pulling down on an eye. Dim eyes, emerald layered in filth, unable to be vibrant. "She practically raised me and tutored Twilight. Princess Celesta's the one that told me all those scary stories about dragons—and made me promise to never become one!"

"Or what?"

Spike chose not to answer that question. My gaze dropped into the immaculately clean sink. It poked me a little. This castle was perfect down to even cleanliness. Yet here was a wimp of a dragon, regressed from becoming one, the scars established from fucking childhood.

"There many dragons around now?"

That zapped him from the previous silence.

"N-Not too many," he choked on the first syllable but, in coming to clear his throat, had to do so again. His tone, sensitive and coarse, weak though keeping on. "Nothing really came and took them out. But there was a great magical incident a long time ago. Celestia told me about it. Dragons can't have kids anymore."

I brought my face closer to the glass with the intent of staring at my eyes. I saw the filth dense over it. It darkened them, though, in the dots through the grime, miniature spotlights shining of green: glowing through.

Another effect of my transformation?

"How the hell is that possible?"

"Dunno." He sighed. "Celestia didn't tell me more about it. Only that I would probably end up being the last dragon." He blew a long breath. "But she said if I was a good dragon, maybe, she would find a way for me to have an egg. I would have to make sure it would be a good dragon like me as well. Then ensure that if it had a kid, that it would have to be a good kid too!"

My reflection arched his eyebrow sky-high.

And Twilight went to go see this crazy bitch about me?

Explains why Twilight is crazy in some places.

And why she's a bitch in others.

Hehehe. I don't really mean that last part!

Wait.

I cracked that joke to get a rise out of someone... inside of my head.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Would it be wrong to ask Rainbow for a blowjob?

Nah. She doesn't even like guys.

She offered one to Spike.

Cause she feels bad.

She feel bad enough for me to give me a blowjob?

Doesn't thinking that make me a bad stallion?

Someone's talking.

Listen retard.

"So how come you're not more worried about that? About being a good kid or stallion or whatever you said you were supposed to be?"

Can I bullshit this? I think I can bullshit this.

"I... can't really give you an honest answer to that one kiddo." I breathed and blinked and wondered why I wasn't passing this off to the usual bullshit the idiots of this world spawned on me. Even the verbal fight I had with previous stallions wasn't enough to actually scare them—maybe because I wasn't trying hard enough. "Truth is I don't know myself. Just a matter of different senses. Getting attacked by mares and stuffed through bullshit. I dunno. My first sense is to speak up about it."

I turned to the door. "You don't have any sense like that?"

His head shook against the wood. "N-Not really. I'm too scared to speak up to anyone about anything." He breathed heavily again. "Mares don't take an interest in me because I'm a dragon. Stallions think I'm a wimp. A-And to d-dragons? They... o-oh..."

All I could imagine was the twerp walking to a full-on beast, arms behind his back and a bow on his head, looking cutely—before a torrent of flames blasted him clean. Dragons always seemed like the 'fight and kill and fuck and wave our dicks around' sort of creatures.

For a twink like Spike to step into the middle of all that.

Maybe I was too tough on the little fuck.

Or maybe being tough on him will make him less of a little fuck?

But isn't that what scarred him into never leaving this castle?

Why the fuck should I care? Because I may need to deal with him in dealing with Twilight?

No... that doesn't feel right.

Feeling right? Nothing about this world feels right.

I.

I.

I really need to stop thinking.

My lazy ass walked itself to the door but, instead of opening, as I wanted to do, the idea of him rolling through, shocked and scared, further proving the clumsy fuck that he was... I fought such temptation. Instead I turned and rested my back into it as well. My aching muscles soon found their rest.

"Anon?"

"...yeah kiddo?"

"How... how do you get that sense you were talking about?"

I blinked and thought about it for a second. Then I rolled my head on the frame, attempting to look through it, seeing mane drape over an eye. "Think you already got it or you wouldn't have asked that question in the first place. Something can't feel wrong unless it's going against some sense."

Silence.

"Everybody makes fun of me."

"Kinda easy to do."

"Ponies make fun of me for being a dragon and dragons make fun of me for being a pony." His breathing was coarse. "S-So which one am I supposed to be more like? I-It feels like I can't win no matter what." Another exhale composed of heft. "No matter how hard I try, I can't be a pony and, j-just the same, I can't be a dragon either. Plus. I-If I'm a bad dragon... then that... that means..."

“That means you're focusing too much on the what than the who.” I suddenly became tired in looking down at my body. Nothing special about it. No different from another stallion. Yet it was who I claimed to be sparking the popularity. "It's a losing gambit no way you play it. There's one thing I've noticed in dealing with you."

"T-That is?"

"You don't give a fuck about yourself."

I swear I could hear him blink. "I-I thought 'fuck' was a bad thing?"

I squinted an eye. "Sometimes it can be used in a good context as well. But you don't care about yourself. You've done nothing but yap about what other ponies think or expect from you or all the shit they say. When the fuck are you going to confess your own opinion?"

Spike's breathing slowed as the submersion into thought began. Looking to my left, I leaned toward the sink's cabinet, pulling back its door—no hidden whiskey to be found. Dunno why I thought that would be the case. Still. Worth the search.

"But guys... they... they don't really have those." I could tell he was inside the heft of some though as some backwards-ass-lock had caught him in some mental trap. Knew there was some bullshit with this world. But never had a chance to think too deeply about it. "Maybe on manes and mares and gardens but... nothing more than that. It's too much to think beyond that. M-Mares always have the answer after all."

I pissed myself laughing. "Do they now?"

"Y-Yeah! If stallions ever get into a debate about something, a mare will come in and give them the absolute answer! Sometimes the guys are a little upset though." Was he pulling from memory on this? "So usually a group of mares will come in. They tend to stroke everyone's head before doing... you know what."

Laughter slowed to a chuckle. "One hell of a consolation prize... so what if a mare doesn't have an answer?"

"Unlikely! B-But, if that were to happen then, I-I guess, they would go and see Princess Celestia about it."

One controlling bitch to rule them all.

I wonder if I'll get to fuck her.

Why am I so suddenly set on getting fucked?

Damn head.

And you.

Just as big other head.

"Yet mares are the ones treating you like shit aren't they? What kind of answer did they give you?"

"To... stay in the castle... and never come out again."

"See! Now fuck that! Fuck that to infinity and the plus fucking one!” Fire blazed through me at the injustice. It wasn't anger for my sake, though; that usual rage flared anyway. "How could you let a bitch say something like that to you? Are you happy like this? Stuck in your room and afraid to go out or deal with shit?"

Mumbles and stutters before the dragon could string them into words. "B-But that's what they said was best. I-It doesn't matter what I t-think or feel. They know better! So that's why... why.."

"And what about that Rainbow chick? What she say about all this?"

"T-That I shouldn't have listened... but she's not a proper mare! Or, at least, other—"

"Other what? Other cunts? She's your friend—isn't she? You're goin' to listen to mares that treat you like shit and don't even like you and, not only that, but let them talk shit about your friend on top of it?"

"B-But... I... it's how..."

"How it is is a bunch of shit! Rainbow's your friend! Doesn't matter that she's not a usual mare in wanting to sleep with a guy—if the selections were the pussies you call stallions here... then no shit you'd think pussy itself was more masculine!"

I always knew I had a way with words.

"I mean I ain't much better in that regard." Anger deflated in a breath as it reversed its course. "I'm still a bit scared shitless about what these mares can do or if too many of them look at me in public. Bloody near had a panic attack yesterday were it not for Twilight caring for me instead of comforting me like a child. H-Had she pulled that stallion shit there... ho oh... it would have been some absurdist nightmare for me."

Spike leaned off the door and the clack of his feet was on the crystal floor. "Y-You mean you're... actually scared underneath all that? But you act so bravely! Telling mares off and getting into fights! Just the way you are! It's not normal and no mare would approve of it. Y-Yet you do it anyway!"

Not for a reason that's good... but I guess it's better than being a slave.

"It comes from thinking for yourself and choosing to take whatever the fuck comes from that." I also leaned from the door and turned to face it. Heart rattling in my chest even though it was a pussy dragon on the other side. Looking around the bathroom, I was alone in here, safe, without having to be anything more. "Maybe it's easier to have a mare telling you what to do and what not. You don't have to face the consequences or endure blame for messing up. But that also means someone else is leading your life—and it can't very well be your fucking life at that point."

I shook my head and began toward the door, first step wobbly, the second, shivering, though, on the third, more stable than the first two. In dealing with the little coward's problems, I faced a bit of my own. "You have to decide those mares don't have it in the best for you. Rainbow Dash is your friend because of all that shit she does for you. In being there. You should care about that. You shouldn't care for all the bad-mouth shit other jealous bitches have to say about her."

"But... but they're right... aren't they?"

"Fuck 'em even if they're right! That rightness isn't what you spend your life with—isn't what makes you happy or any of that." Why was I standing up more so for someone that wasn't here? Is it because I cared for them? Hardly knew the cunt. Because what she was going through wasn't fair? Maybe I hated general wrongness. "Doesn't matter how Rainbow fits into the world or how others see her. What matters is how you see her and what you do for her. You two are the only ones who care for each other—that's especially important if the world is out to get you."

I laid my hoof on the knob and, in turning it, pulled it back.

It opened to the hallway of the dragon who, before, had been sitting and standing in shadow but, in the opening of the door, came bathed in light. Yet he was in my shadow and was shorter than my chest. That didn't feel right. So I stepped out of the way and gave him more light.

"Worrying about being more of a dragon is pointless bullshit that's swept you into nothing." My shoulders relaxed at my sides, no anxiety in facing another, no world becoming fog. The little dragon wrapped his tail to his front, hugging it, his green eyes a brighter glow than my own. "Focus on being a better Spike. Try to whine less and think for yourself more. Rainbow helps you a lot. Find a way to help her back. Then figure out what it is you want—even if that means to be a bad dragon."

His claws tightened on his tail. "But Princess Celestia..."

"Don't live in fear." I shook my head to the summoning of zero phantoms. In being with someone else, I was more in this world. Couldn't be zapped or taken or stolen. I was bound to reality so long as another was here. "I'm always worried about when I say or do something that takes it too far. But I... I'd rather have that... then be like ever stallion else."

I exhaled. "That princess isn't someone worth impressing if you have to be a certain way for it. Gotta impress yourself before you can impress the chicks. Don't worry about becoming a bad dragon because the wicked bitch of the west will not like you for it. Worry about the crap that causes you not to like yourself now."

My eyes jumped left and right in thought. "Like bitching less. And doing more. Being less of a tool. Y'know. Character shit. Be better than me in that right." I shrugged. "In fact you already are. I'm too much of a bitch to show how much of a scared bitch I am underneath it all. Yet I act like I'm great and shit. You? You have no fear in showing how much of a pussy you are—and that takes balls."

The dragon looked up to me, hopeful because of my words, despite not understanding a single one.

"You've certainly got a way of speaking."

I shivered. "What the fuck?"

I looked over the dragon to the other side of the hall where, in the darkness, I could see a hint of a blue form. Vibrant pink burned to life in the dark with an allure dangerous on the heart. Rainbow's eyes looked to me as a crunch from an apple sounded below.

"Mhmm! Ah! Knew you had another angle to you."

I growled. "You ears-dropping bitch."

"Y'know." Another bite of an apple to a loud and satisfying hum. "Mhmm! Really good apples.” One bite. Then two. Putting me at a pause to piss me off. Fucking mare knew how to work me. So much for all that nice shit about her. “I quite like that word. Bitch. So many variants too! I wanna rock them all."

I leaned into the door frame with a roll of my head. "Keep being you and you'll get them soon."

"Here's hoping! If you're going to be something then might as well be the greatest at it." The last crunch of the apple sounded to the whiz of it being tossed. Did she just litter inside a fucking castle? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE? "But I appreciate all that other stuff you said. Think you caught on to why I hang with the twerp so much."

I dropped my head and let it hang. "Bloody worse threesome of loners I've ever heard."

"Oh?"

I stuck a hoof to each of us. "We've got the lesbian, the dragon, and the alien."

Spike blew up in mirth as he started hopping up and down. "Oh oh! Is this some kind of pact! Us against the world and all that?"

Bloody fuck.

Rainbow shot up from the darkness as well, trotting over, both of them standing together outside the door. Her prismatic mane had a sheen and she was beautiful in an athletic way. Enough to steal the heart. She looked at me with a raised eye of relaxed confidence. "I don't see why not! You said it yourself—it's us weird three against the world."

I knew I was making a mistake in doing this. Yet I did it anyway. Spike laid out his claw in the middle with Rainbow's hoof over top of it and mine on top of hers. Thrust down that pulled me from the light of the bathroom and into the darkness of the hall, the glow of their eyes, pink and green, allowing me to see.

Our limbs went up and I even gave a muffled cheer.

And their brightness burning pinpricks into the filth of my irises, allowing a bit of a glow from my own, our terrible alliance of outsiders, formed, either for a purpose or to make us feel good. Maybe feeling good was a good enough purpose in of itself.

Even among my friends, I couldn't help but wonder.

Where the fuck are you Twilight?

Author's Note

Long time no see gang. It's been a year or so since we've last talked here. How ya doing? Kids well? Oh. No kids? How about your parents? They're good? That's good. Or, hopefully, that's good for you too.

I've never been the best at openers.

I always knew I'd come back to this story for the sake of wanting to finish it. Every writer has that compulsion to bring an end to a work—no matter how old it might be. Cleaning the plate. Tying up the past. Feeling like one has no loose errands.

Many people fear coming back to old projects because of the changed time and the changes in them. I don't subscribe to that theory. Everything resides in the back of the mind. Well. Not quite there but—allow me to explain real quick?

Some writers can write anywhere, due in part that, in writing, you are pulled to a different world. You cross the glass and exist in a place that's not before your eyes. You connect to another world. Being in this other world puts you in a different state of being.

And this different state of being is timeless and universal.

For me there is no trouble in going back to a story no matter how long ago I was written. Simply that in reading and typing for it again, I am pulled back into its world, the state it wounded me into.

Only that I'm more developed in making my return.

So forgive the different style or feeling to the characters and a few other things. I can only state I hope this is for the best but—we'll have to wait for the end to be sure of that. Only that in going back, I was returned to the same spell, the same plot and the line it takes.

Usually the course of a story will always be the same. What changes is how one goes about that course.

But I'll stop ranting the metaphorical at you. Time to get literal. Why have I returned to this story? It's thanks to a user by the name of Wings2004. They contacted me about bringing the tale back as part of a commission. I'd always wanted to get back to this story but, in given an excuse, I reduced my price and hopped on the offer.

So a special thanks to them for allowing me, in my work schedule, to justify working on this story.

Some astute readers may notice an issue with the previous chapters. First Twilight was in them, then she wasn't, said to have gone to Zecora—then thrown Celestia's way. Sorry for this. Truth of the matter I was fucked up at the time in a substance rather not talked about.

I basically wrote the same chapter, three times, convinced that, in this state, I hadn't come to write it yet.

...I'm a strange fuck indeed.

The previous chapter should have been touched on after the posting of this. Anon does wake up with Twilight but, in coming to pass out again, does not wake for a long time. Twilight is worried in nothing working. She goes to Canterlot to see if the princess can help with this.

That's the current state of events.

Anon is a bit toned down as well. Swears like a cunt and bit of a dick to an unlikeable extent—but not as foul as before. Forgive this chapter if it feels it spins in weird ways. It'll take a few in being back in this world to get everything and everyone down to pat again.

Aaaaand that's about it! I have the story plotted out with a rough course of how it'll go. It'll be a bizarre story. One that still touches on RGRE with sexy moments. It was never meant to be a nut blaster so forgive the lack of good sex for all the little teases littered throughout this thing.

Hope you guys enjoy it.

Back to 2018 Winter we go.

~ Yr. Pal, B ~