Update: A Duet For Land And Skyy

...stupid random-draw post image...

(Seriously:  I thought I was going to get the Badvent Calendar cover!)

We're back to Applejack for this chapter, which is basically a 7k word count of fallout from the previous night's events.  (There's a bit of timeline jugging going on right now:  she's currently a few hours behind Snowflake.)  The next chapter will go back to Canterlot for Snowflake's meeting with Celestia -- and between them, they have a shared theme:  two extremely uprooted people speaking with their elders.  It just won't work out the same way on both ends.

My timing is actually fairly fortunate here.  I often have trouble sleeping after I write, and I have to stay up tonight.  All night -- well, local midnight through mid-to-late afternoon tomorrow.  She's repeating the spinal procedure from December, and that means it's my turn to play Fridge Guard again:  she can't eat or drink from midnight on, or the anesthetic can't be brought in.  Fortunately, I have books I haven't read yet, movies I haven't watched, a hot shower on standby, cans of Monster, and I am fully aware of the occasional need to step on my own foot.  

I can probably make it to morning, and she's being checked in at 9 a.m.  After that, I need to stay awake until she's out of surgery and in the recovery room.  Last time?  That was close to six hours (for a procedure which takes around ninety minutes), they didn't even give me her procedure tracking number for the Big Board, and I didn't make it out of the hospital until well after sunset.  This time?  I'm at least ready for all of that to go wrong.

Of course, even if everything else comes through, the anesthetic has a chance to permanently spike her dementia level.

...and you wonder why I've been doing comedies.

Rambling over.  The Long Watch starts soon enough.