The Incredibly Blitzed Night of Rainbow Dash

by Chengar Qordath

Rating: teen
Tags: Lyra, Applejack, Cloudkicker, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Drama, Bon-Bon, Slice of Life
Length: 22030

Rainbow Dash thinks about what she wants from her friendship with Cloud Kicker while enjoying a night on the town with her.

Rainbow Dash and Cloud Kicker have been good friends for years now. But when Cloud Kicker comes to Ponyville for one last visit before heading off to join the Royal Guard, Rainbow has to face some difficult questions about just what she wants to do on what might be their last chance to hang out in a long time. Her decision might be a little easier to make if Cloud spent less time thinking about banging and more time thinking about her awesome friend, Rainbow Dash.

Obviously, this calls for a night on the town. And booze. Lots and lots of booze.

Part of the Winningverse.

Published 2013-05-01 18:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-05-01 18:30:01 UTC

Rainbow's Radical Reunion and Ridiculously Rambunctious Romp

Cloud Kicker was finally coming to visit Ponyville, and I was pregnant.

Well okay, not really pregnant. That would be crazy. But I had a pretty reasonably convincing fake pregnancy belly thing. Cloud let me know she was gonna be visiting a month before she actually showed up, so there had been plenty of time to get everything ready. I had to give her a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ prank. It was like one of her banging rules, except this one was about something that actually mattered.

So anyway, for something as big as faking a pregnancy, I needed a partner-in-crime. After all, there would be lots of obvious questions like ‘who’s the sire?’ that I would need a good answer for. Yeah, I could’ve just said I didn’t know or blamed some random stallion, but it would work a lot better if I had another pony backing me up. That’s where Lyra came in.

Lyra Heartstrings was an old banging buddy of Kicker’s, who’d moved to Ponyville a couple months back. We’d first gotten to know each other over at the Ponyville bowling alley. I’d gone there with some of the other weather ponies after work for a friendly game. I was winning, naturally, but then somepony saw Lyra playing in another lane, and getting more or less the same score I was. Naturally, I couldn’t let such a challenge go unanswered.

After a bowling battle I totally won (mostly, that bit at the end didn’t count) we decided to hang out for a bit, and pretty soon it came out that we both knew Cloud Kicker, and liked pranks. So once Kicker told me she was gonna come to Ponyville for a visit after she graduated from West Hoof ... well, there was only one thing we could do. Seriously, with a setup like that it would’ve been a crime not to prank her.

With a month to get ready, we’d had plenty of time to cover all our bases. We’d come up with a fake pregnant-me belly that would easily pass inspection. At first I’d wanted to have it be Lyra that got knocked up, but she shot that down ‘cause Kicker might freak out and think she’d gotten Lyra pregnant. I guess Lyra had a point there about that going a bit too far—I wanted to freak Kicker out and get her good, but not to the point where she was, like, seriously freaking out and stuff.

So, we’d settled on it being me who was pregnant, while Lyra was the sire. After that, it was just a matter of getting a couple other ponies in on it, at least enough that I wouldn’t have random ponies I know flying up and asking why the hay I suddenly looked all pregnant and stuff. Cloud Kicker and I had been pranking buddies back at Flight Camp, and it’s always tricky to prank a prankster. The tiniest screw-up, and we’d be so busted.

Lyra turned to me, grinning like mad and practically bouncing up and down with excitement. “You ready for this? Because I can’t wait to finally nail her! I’ve got practically everypony in town in on it, so there’s no way anypony’s gonna blow our cover!”

I was just about as excited as she was. Between having the most radical prank in the history of pranking set up and the flat-out coolness factor of Cloud Kicker coming to visit, this was gonna be the best day ever! “I know! This is gonna be so awesome!” I was so worked up that my voice actually got a little squeaky there at the end.

My pranking partner gave a couple eager nods, then dropped her voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. We didn’t need to whisper about it really, but it just feels prank-ier when you do things that way. “Okay, start acting all pregnant and stuff. Basically, lots of moaning.”

I frowned and cocked my head to the side. “Pregnant ponies moan?”

She let out an annoyed little huff. “I thought we'd gone through all this? Don’t you remember everything we worked out about about how to fake being pregnant?”

“Yeah, I remember.” We’d actually done some research at the library, and I’d made a trip back home to ask Cool-Mom about it. This prank had to be just perfect. “I remember everything, but there was so much stuff! Seriously, Cool-Mom just went on and on, plus I had to separate all the sappy stuff about how wonderful it felt from what I actually needed.” Although I guess it had been kinda cool, hearing about how happy Cool-Mom was about being pregnant with me and stuff. I just wish she hadn’t gotten all lovey-dovey about it. I needed pranking advice, not my mom hugging me and going on about what a beautiful foal I’d been.

On top of that, then Awesomom got all curious about why I was asking pregnancy questions, and I had to make something up. I guess I could’ve just told them it was a prank, but then Awesomom would wanna give me pranking advice, and that would mess everything up. I mean, getting advice on how to act pregnant was okay, but if Awesomom was showing me how to do the prank, then it wouldn’t really be my prank anymore.

Lyra gave a sympathetic nod. “Yeah, my mom got pretty sappy on me too when I asked her for advice. Must be a mom thing. Anyway, just give it your best shot, okay?”

“Yeah yeah, this’ll be easy.” I took a deep breath and got my mind into the pranking zone. “Oh, wow, I am soooo pregnant. I’m, like, the pregnantest pony in the history of pregnant ponies!”

“Oh wow, yeah!” Lyra nodded along. “So when are you expecting?”

We’d worked out an answer for that a while ago, but I decided to throw that out and say something cooler. “Like, I'm so pregnant I could be popping the kid out any minute now! Right here in the train station and everything!”

“Now that would be awkward!” Lyra let out an amused snort. “Maybe I should get some water ready, so we can pretend to have your water break too.” She took a look around the train station. The place wasn’t all that busy, but there were a couple other ponies waiting for the train from Canterlot. Nothing obvious for setting up some kind of fake water-breaking thing, though. “How long before the train’s supposed to get here, anyway? Dangit, a month to plan and we had to get a great idea for how to make the prank even better five minutes before she shows up...”

I was gonna tell her to stop wasting time talking and get to work already, but then I spotted the train. “Aw feathers, too late now. We’re just gonna have to improvise.” Wouldn’t be the first time I’d had to wing it on a prank—hay, back when I was a kid my prank planning was pretty much just me getting an awesome idea for a prank, and then me going out and doing it. Kicker’d kinda gotten me in the habit of planning my pranks out a bit more—so really, she’d kinda brought this on herself if you think about it.

Lyra started actually jumping up and down as the train pulled into the station. “Ohmygosh ohmygosh here it is!” After a couple more bounces she took a deep breath and tried to take inspiration from me to calm down and get her head in the pranking game.

Some crazy little part of my brain wanted to let out an excited little squeal like I was still a schoolfilly, but I was way too cool for that. Mostly. Look, the important thing was that I definitely kept my cool. “This is gonna be the best prank ever!”

“Hay yes it is!” Lyra and I exchanged a quick hoof bump, then got our game faces on. Getting your pranking game face on is a big deal. I mean, first you gotta get all serious and ready to go, and then you have make yourself look like you’re not all serious and prank-planning. After all, looking like you’re in the middle of planning a big prank is kind of a huge giveaway that you’re up to something, and it’s a lot harder to prank somepony who knows it’s coming.

Then Cloud Kicker stepped off the train, and for a little bit I forgot all about the pranking. What can I say? Seeing one of my PFFs again just felt all kinds of awesome. Sure, Kicker and I had gone through a lot of ups and downs, but we were friends. I just wanted this visit to be the most radical thing in the history of radical things, because now that she was fixing to go into the Guard we probably wouldn’t get to hang out very much. She’d be too busy kicking dragons in the face and stuff to hang out with me.

Anyway, she looked like her usual awesome-but-not-quite-as-awesome-as-me self. I was a little disappointed that she wasn’t wearing some of that Guard armor, ‘cause she probably would’ve looked pretty cool in it. I mean, she’d looked alright in her uniform and cadet armor, so the real thing would have to look even more hardcore, right?

Eh, whatever. I guess it wouldn’t really be fair for me to expect her to really understand coolness as well as I do. I mean, asking another pony to be as cool as I am just isn’t a very realistic thing to wish for. I waved a foreleg to get her attention. “Kicker! Over here!”

Lyra joined in on the waving, but she was acting all energetic and eager about it instead of being cool and laid back like I was. “Kicky!”

Cloud got about two steps off the train before Lyra hit her with a tackle-hug. For just a second, I was a bit annoyed that she got to hug Kicker first instead of me. It’s not like I wanted to get all sappy and stuff, but I kinda wanted to be the first one to hug her. After all, I’d known Cloud Kicker way longer than Lyra did. I guess that all works though—it’s not like I wanted this turning into some big emotional reunion where we spend all day crying and talking about how much we missed each other and stuff. I have a reputation to maintain.

Too bad Lyra didn’t get the memo on playing things cool. Sure enough, she was getting all misty-eyed while she hugged the hay out of Cloud Kicker. “I missed you so much, Cloudy! It feels like it’s been forever!”

Cloud tightened her grip on the unicorn, which got me shuffling a bit and clearing my throat. I mean, I had been a bit worried that if she hugged me too hard she might knock my fake pregnant belly off or figure out it wasn’t real, but she could hug me a little. Instead of being all over Lyra and ignoring me.

Then Lyra went and pushed things right into crazy territory. “Kiss. Now. Gimme.”

Kicker being the banging-crazy pony she’d turned into since Flight Camp, she went and locked lips with Lyra right then and there. Seriously, I was right next to them, and there were ponies watching and stuff. Well, nopony was actually watching them kiss, but they could be, and it was weird to do stuff like that out in public. Why did Cloud Kicker have to be such a weirdo? Oh yeah, and I should probably say something about the fact that Cloud was kissing the supposed sire of my foal. “Sheesh, get a room, you two.”

Cloud finally stopped getting all slobbery with Lyra, thank Celestia, and started paying attention to me, like she should’ve been doing the whole time. She hadn’t even noticed I was knocked up yet! But instead of saying anything about that, she just turned to me and grinned. “I think somepony’s jealous. You want a kiss too, Dashie?” She pursed her lips at me and started making a bunch of kissy noises.

Yeah, that wasn’t happening. “No way!” I put my forehooves on her chest and shoved her back. Not hard or anything, but enough to keep her out of range. “You can't kiss me, I'm pregnant!”

That got Cloud to stop joking about kissing me, at least. “Bwuh?” She blinked a few times, then looked down at my big fake belly. “Huh. Well that’s ... huh. That’s—that’s certainly something.”

Lyra jumped in to cover her part of the prank. “Oh! We should've told you first thing. We're just so used to it.” She trotted over and put a foreleg across my back, then grinned at Cloud. “See, Dash and I banged and, well—happy accident.”

I nodded along and tried to act all couple-y with Lyra. “Yeah. And now I'm, like, massively pregnant and stuff. I could start popping out kids any minute now.”

“Yeah, sure.” Uh oh, didn’t look like Cloud was buying it. “So you two found enough true love to start making kids?”

“Hay yes we did!” I was really gonna have to sell this, or the prank wouldn’t work. “We’re crazy in love! I’m completely nuts about her!’

“Yeah.” Lyra tightened her foreleg around me, and I resisted the urge to shrug her off. I’m usually not a touchy-feely kinda pony, but if I was gonna pretend that me and Lyra were a thing I needed to put on a good act. “We're totally in love,” Lyra continued. “I’m sure if you give me a couple minutes, I could come up with a song about it.”

“Yeah, sure you could.” Kicker was still looking pretty skeptical, but before I could come up with some other way to convince her that this whole pregnancy thing was completely legit she smirked at us. “So, if you two are having a baby, you'd be fine with kissing each other right here and now, wouldn't you?”

Aw horseapples. Okay, the most important thing was not to panic, ‘cause as long as I didn’t start panicking I could figure out a way out of this. Not that I was scared or nervous or anything, but I didn’t want Lyra panicking. “Oh yeah! Sure, we can kiss. We do that kind of thing all the time! And all the other stuff too! We have loads of sex—like, sometimes we do it a dozen times a night! ‘Cause that’s what couples who are crazy in love which each other do.” I cleared my throat. “So yeah, we could totally kiss and stuff. I’m just not in the mood right now, is all.”

For some reason, Kicker was frowning at me and just generally looking completely unconvinced. No idea why, ‘cause I’d done an awesome job of acting all couple-y and stuff just then. Before I could come up with another, even more awesome plan Lyra decided to take the lead, setting her forehooves on my shoulders and kinda getting into my personal space. “C'mon, Rainbow, gimme a kissy for your foal's other mom.”

She had to be kidding, right? I shot a look at those mint-green lips very slowly moving towards mine, then over to Kicker. Cloud didn’t look nearly freaked out enough—in fact, she was kinda waving her hoof and signalling us to just get on with it already.

Okay, I guess I was gonna have to go through with this. It’s not like it was a big deal or anything. I mean, it was just a single stupid little kiss. I could do that, no problem. I slowly pursed my lips and started leaning towards Lyra. It must’ve been cold out, ‘cause I was shaking just a little bit. I’d have to check that nothing weird was going on with the weather later.

Lyra puckered up as I got closer. Oh yeah, I should probably get my lips all sticky-outy too. That’s something ponies are supposed to do when they kiss, right? I also really needed to check on the weather ponies, ‘cause now they somehow had things so messed up that I was sweating like crazy and trembling at the same time. Stupid weather ponies messing up the weather to make it do weird stuff. But what other explanation could there be?

Lyra leaned in close enough that I could feel her breath on my lips, and now the weather had gotten so crazy that my cheeks were getting all hot. It almost felt like I was blushing, but that obviously couldn’t be what was going on. Sheesh, Lyra must be really freaking out right now about having to kiss me. So, I decided to help her out, and leaned in the rest of the way, very lightly brushing my lips against hers, then backing off. I didn’t wanna kiss her too much or anything, just enough to do the job. “S—see Cloud Kicker? We’re totally together!”

For some reason, Lyra facehoofed and Cloud was just looking at me and grinning. What was up with that? I’d kissed her and everything. “I don't buy it,” Cloud was frowning skeptically at the two of us. “I’m not exactly an expert on the subject, but I’m pretty sure that was no true love's kiss.”

“Oh come on!” I grumbled. “Were you even watching? My lips totally touched hers and everything!”

“I’ve seen you kiss your moms with more passion than that,” Kicker shot back.

“Ew. And bleg.” I shook my head to get rid of that mental image. “Biiiiig difference between a fillyfriend and my moms, 'kay? Don’t get all gross on me, Cloud.”

Cloud Kicker rolled her eyes at me. “I’m just saying, if you want me to buy this whole ‘Lyra and I are lovers’ thing, you’ll need to kiss her like you mean it.”

“That was just a warm-up kiss,” Lyra announced, popping a mint. “Dash always needs a bit to get into it. She’s shy that way.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s it.” Cloud let out an amused half-snort. “Seriously, you two. If you’re gonna prank me, you can do better than that. Were you even trying?”

“Oh that is it!” I might not be much for all that stupid sappy romantic stuff, but nopony, and I mean nopony, questions my dedication to pranking. “You want true love? Fine! Here’s your true love!” Before I could take any time to start second guessing myself, I marched right up to Lyra, grabbed her, dipped her down, and planted a big old smooch right on her lips.

For the record, kissing Lyra was weird. And wet. And minty. What was I supposed to be doing with my lips anyway? I mean, aside from getting them onto hers? After a little bit Lyra started kissing back, so I just tried to mimic what she was doing.

Okay, so that’s one thing dealt with. Too bad I still had no idea what I was supposed to be doing with my hooves. Or my wings—was I supposed to force a wingie, or just focus on keeping us balanced? Well, at least the hoof thing got answered when I felt one of Lyra’s hooves running down along my side. Before I could copy that, though, her hoof brushed against one of the straps holding my fake preggobelly on.

I backed off and quickly tried to get it back on, but it was too little, too late. A second later the strap we’d gone to all the trouble of painting blue so it wouldn’t stand out gave way completely, and then the whole thing flopped off to the side, still loosely hanging from the left-hoof strap.

Aw horseapples, busted. “Um...” I let out a sheepish chuckle while I desperately tried to think of something really clever to say that could get me out of this. When nothing came to mind, I decided to just wing it—trying to plan the whole thing out hadn’t really worked anyway. I whirled on Lyra, and put on my best shocked and betrayed look. “You lied to me, Lyra! How could you?”

Lyra seemed to be mentally scrambling for an answer too, if the way she was sweating and her eyes were darting all over the place was any indication. After a couple seconds, she came up with a good answer. “It's just a complication, those happen with pregnancies. That's the mother of all detached placentas, I'll tell ya!”

Cloud just smirked and shook her head. “It was a nice try, but you two really should’ve thought things through. That’s always been the problem with your pranks, Dash. Great ideas, but you always overlook the little details, and that’s what trips you up.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Stupid Cloud Kicker and her ‘you should plan things out and account for all the variables and stuff’ way of pranking. Yeah, I guess her way of doing things usually worked out alright, but it was so boring to just sit around planning and stuff when we could’ve gone out and done the prank already. Sure, you gotta do some planning to get a good prank, but she just kept worrying about every single stupid little detail that probably wouldn’t matter. “I’m still gonna call this prank ninety percent successful, though. Admit it, we totally had you going there for a while, didn’t we? I had the fake belly and everything! We even kissed!”

Oh yeah, I’d kissed Lyra. Bleck. Well, it’s not like she was gross or anything. I guess it was okay. But just kissing her at all was weird.

“Well, you certainly had an interesting idea and took a good try at it.” Cloud admitted, before hitting me with that annoying ‘I’m smarter than you are’ smile again. “There’s just one thing you didn’t think about. When was the last time you came to visit me?”

“While you were on spring break from West Hoof.” That had been pretty cool, too. I spent a whole week hanging out with her clan, getting to do practice stuff with them and even getting to try out some of the weapons and armor they use. The whole thing had almost been awesome enough for me start thinking about trying out the Guard if the whole Wonderbolt thing didn’t work out. Not that I needed a backup plan, since I was obviously gonna get into the Wonderbolts any day now.

“Exactly.” From the tone of her voice, Cloud sounded like that was important, somehow, but I didn’t get it. Lyra facehoofed pretty hard though, so there was obviously something to it. “How long ago was spring break, Rainbow Dash?”

“Like, two or three months ago,” I answered.

“Well, there you have it,” Cloud announced with a satisfied nod.

“There you have what?” I demanded, waving my hooves in the air. “So I visited you two months ago. Big deal.”

“You weren’t pregnant two months ago.” Cloud shot me a level look. “If you were ‘so pregnant that the kid could pop out any minute now’ then you sure as hay would’ve been showing two months ago. Not to mention that you’ve sent me at least a dozen letters in that time, and never once mentioned it before today? Pregnancy is kind of a big deal, you know.”

“Oh, yeah.” Stupid eleven-month equine pregnancy cycles. Should’ve stayed with my original plan of just throwing water balloons at her instead. Sometimes, the best thing to do is stick with the classics.

“Well we failed,” Lyra grumbled, crossing her forelegs over her chest and pouting. “Damn it.”

Cloud was still looking at the two of us like we were a couple of foals she’d caught raiding the cookie jar. “Yup, you two are completely busted.”

“Eh, whatever.” I shrugged and took the preggobelly off. “Not every prank works perfectly.” It’s just part of the pranking profession—even a prankster as awesome as I am isn’t gonna nail the target with every single prank. Not that I’d made a mistake or anything, but sometimes stuff happens even when I get everything perfect on my end. S’just bad luck, is all. “I’ll just get you twice as good next time to make up for it.”

Lyra nodded along like a proper veteran prankster. “Sounds like a plan, Rainbow.” She turned back to Kicker and grinned. “It's not like you could do anything to stop us, anyway.”

“Not true.” Ugh, Cloud just would not wipe that smarmy grin off her face. “I can prank you back. For the record, I wouldn’t make mistakes like not remembering that I’d visited my prank targets a couple months ago when I’m trying to pretend I’m eleven months pregnant.”

Ugh, she was probably gonna keep bringing that up for years. Stupid details, why do they always have to screw up my awesome prank ideas? “Yeah, well good luck trying to prank me. I’m completely unprankable. I’ve got eyes like an eagle, and ears like a—well, something with good ears. And that’s not all! I’m, like, swift as a coursing river, got all the force of a great typhoon, and all the strength of a raging fire! Short version is, I’m awesome.”

Lyra let out a little snort. “Not to mention incredibly modest,” she murmured under her breath.

“Yes, yes, it’s all true.” I buffed a hoof against my chest. After all, I could go on all day about why I’m cool, and I’d limited myself to just a couple seconds. I didn’t wanna brag too much and make it look like I had a big head. “So yeah, stuff went off track with the prank, probably ‘cause Lyra messed up somewhere. But you have to admit, if we’d pulled it off that would’ve been an epic prank, right? It was all my idea, too! She was just, like, backup or something.”

Lyra let out an annoyed huff of breath. “Excuse me? I messed up?! You were the one who forgot that oh so important detail of visiting Kicky during her spring break!”

“Okay, so maybe we both made mistakes,” I conceded. “You more than me, but whatever.” I could totally be the bigger mare about this.

“Wow,” Cloud commented dryly. “You two are just paragons of loyalty and maturity. So what was the plan for after you pranked me?”

Lyra thought about it for a bit, then shrugged. “I don't know, we didn’t plan that far ahead.”

“You didn’t plan for anything beyond the first minute after I stepped off the train? That’s—” Cloud Kicker paused, looked at the two of us, and just sighed. “That’s probably something I shouldn’t be surprised by, considering the ponies I’m dealing with.”

“You and your whole planning thing.” I rolled my eyes and blew a chunk of my forelock out of my eyes. “We’re just gonna do the same thing we do every time we get together. Something awesome?”

“Yes. That.” Lyra nodded along in agreement.

Cloud rubbed a hoof under her chin for a bit, then nodded. “Awesome, sounds great. There any good hangout spots here?”

“Yeah, there’s lots of great places for such a small town!” Lyra smirked over at Cloud and flicked her tail. “We could go back to my place, but...” She paused and shot a speculative look my way, then shrugged. “Well, I wouldn’t mind bringing Dash along for that, but I’m not sure how the two of you would feel about a threesome. If that’s out, we could always just go to Sugarcube Corner. I heard they were baking up a new batch of mint cupcakes today.”

I wasn’t sure whether I should shudder in horror or just facehoof, so I settled for doing both. “Okay, first off, you’re pretty okay Lyra, but a threesome is just gross. Especially with Kicker there. That’s just ... no.” Seriously, why do I always end up hanging out with ponies who get all stupid about banging? I guess it was my own fault for spending time with one of Cloud Kicker’s old banging buddies, but still. “And your other idea’s almost as bad. If we go to Sugarcube Corner, we’ll probably end up running into ... her.” I shivered again, and this one I’ll admit had nothing to do with the weather. Some things are just that scary, messed up, and wrong.

Lyra frowned at me and cocked her head to the side. “Who are you talking about? Do you mean Pinkie P—”

I shoved a hoof into her mouth to cut her off. “Don’t say her name!” I all but shouted at her. “I swear, she’s got some kinda freaky ability to know when ponies are talking about her or something. She’s like one of those fairy tale creatures from the stories, where if you say her name three times she’ll just pop outta thin air.”

Lyra pointedly removed my hoof. “You’re being completely ridiculous,” she grumbled. “She’s a perfectly ordinary—okay, she’s a mildly insane and incredibly hyperactive pony, but she’s just a pony. Look, I’ll prove it.” She took a deep breath. “Pinkie Pie Pinkie Pie Pinkie Pie.”

A second later, the fake preggobelly I’d set off to the side exploded into a mass of confetti accompanied by the sound of those noisemaker things that always show up at parties. Then I saw her. The Pink Terror herself. “Hiya!”

Lyra was the first one to recover, maybe because she’d been the one to unleash the Pink Horror upon us. “Huh. Didn’t think that would actually work. How ‘bout that?” She smirked over at Cloud Kicker. “Told you Dash was pregnant.”

“Lyra, shut up!” I hissed at her. “She’ll—”

Before I could get any further a wall of pink slammed into me, and immediately started trying to break all of my ribs. “Ohmygosh, you’re pregnant? I’m sooooooo happy for you! I love babies!”

“I’m not pregnant, it was just a stupid prank that didn’t even work!” I planted my hooves on Pinkie Pie’s chest and tried to shove her away, but instead she just latched on even tighter. Seriously, had she never even heard of personal space? “Dang it, get off! I don’t want your weird freaky hugs!” Despite my best efforts to get rid of her, she just seemed to be attaching herself more and more firmly to me, until I was pretty sure the only way to get rid of her would be to just chew my leg off or something. That would almost be worth it, if it meant she would never bother me again, but I decided to try out something a bit less painful first. “Hey, Pinkie, there’s a new pony!”

A second later she stopped trying to hug me to death, thank Celestia. Instead she was standing nose-to-nose with Cloud Kicker, with a big stupid smile on her face. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! What’s your name? Are you a friend of Dashie’s? I hope you are, ‘cause I’ve never seen you before, and I know everypony in Ponyville so if I don’t know you then that means you must be new! So if you’re not friends with Dashie then that means you wouldn’t have any friends in Ponyville, so you’d be all lonely and sad and that would be terrible! Don’t worry though, ‘cause I’m gonna be your new bestest best friend forever!”

The pink madmare tried to charge in and hug Cloud to death, but when Pinkie closed her forelegs, CK just wasn’t there anymore. She must’ve done some slick Krav Pega dodge or something. Pinkie whirled around and found her again, but by now Cloud Kicker was ready. When Pinkie rushed in, Cloud Kicker picked up a big long stick and planted the end of it firmly in Pinkie’s chest, holding the crazy pony safely at bay. Pinkie stretched her forelegs out as far as she could, and then started quietly whining when she still couldn’t reach Cloud to unleash one of her equicidal hugs.

Once she was sure that the lunatic pony wasn’t gonna hug her to death anytime soon, Cloud Kicker took a deep breath, and answered her questions. “Okay. I’m Cloud Kicker, and yes, Rainbow Dash is my friend. So’s Lyra, and I’ve got plenty of other friends too. I’m just visiting for a while. Nice to meet you.”

“Okay!” A hopeful little smile appeared on her face. “Now can I hug you?”

Cloud Kicker brought a hoof up under her chin, and adopted a thoughtful expression. “Well gee, I’d really like that. There’s just one problem: right now Rainbow Dash looks like she really, really needs another hug.”

“WHAT? No I—” The Pink Lunatic slammed into me again, and I’m pretty sure I felt half my ribs break.

The worst part was, over Pinkie’s shoulder, I could see Cloud Kicker looking at me with this smug little grin on her face. She made eye contact with me, and mouthed a single word. “Gotcha.”

Dammit, she’d definitely won this round of the prank war. Siccing the Pink Monster on me was just fighting dirty.

After several hours of horrible tortures like listening to crazy random songs that came completely out of nowhere and being force-fed enough sweets to give a dozen ponies diabetes, I finally managed to escape from the Pink Terror’s clutches. After what felt like years, Mr. Cake finally came to my rescue and made the Pink Monster get back to her work, so I could finally get away from her and back to Cloud Kicker.

By the time I found the two of them walking around Ponyville, it was getting pretty close to sunset. Both of them had these big grins on their faces, probably ‘cause they were so happy to finally see me again. No idea why their manes were looking so messy though, or why Cloud smelled kinda minty. Geeze, they must’ve been so bored, with nothing to do for hours while they were waiting around for me to get away from Pinkie.

I came in for a landing, and took a moment to strike an appropriately dramatic pose. “No need to worry anymore, I’m here now. You two are safe from the horrors of boredom and a general lack of awesomeness as long as I’m around.”

“Gee, thanks Dash,” Cloud Kicker was using that flat, uncaring tone she always uses when she’s pretending not to care about my awesomeness. “Lyra and I would just have no idea what to do with ourselves without you around.”

“Oh, I bet we could think of a couple things...” Lyra giggled and bumped her rump against Kicker’s Oh barf, they were getting all flirty and stuff. I hope they weren’t gonna keep doing that, or I’d have to clear out. No way I was putting up with them being sappy and maybe even kissing and stuff right in front of me.

Time for a quick change of subject. “So, what’s the plan anyway? It’s Cloud Kicker’s first night in Ponyville, so we have to do something awesome to celebrate.”

“I’m definitely up for awesome,” Cloud Kicker agreed. “Lyra was telling me all about this one hang-out spot of hers, a place called Sun’s Flank...”

“Sun’s Flank, huh?” I wracked my brain for any info about the place, and came up empty. “Can’t be anywhere that cool, ‘cause I’ve never heard of this Sun's Flank place.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t be familiar with it.” It was probably just my imagination, but Lyra sounded just a tiny bit annoyed for some reason. “It’s a fillyfooler bar. Well, not exactly a fillyfooler bar as such, since it’s not strictly for single mares who are looking for company. It’s more like a cool place for mares to hang out, and if you happen to hook up with somepony, so much the better.”

Oh for the love of Celestia, don’t tell me Cloud was planning to go looking for ponies to bang. That was why I’d spent the last trip to Canterlot in the Kicker Compound instead of going out on the town with Cloud Kicker. It was just weird, hanging out with her when she was in the middle of trying to find somepony to bang. Plus, whenever she’s going around doing stuff like that, it means she’s not spending time being awesome, cool, and radical with me.

“Pfft, that place sounds really boring.” I gave a dismissive wave of my hoof. “If we need somewhere to hang out, we could just go to my place. That’s way cooler than some sun-butt bar place.”

“There’s a few problems with that, Dash.” Kicker countered. “First off, you live in a cloud-house, so we’d have to leave Lyra behind. Second, I’m gonna guess there’s not nearly as good of a selection of drinks, or as much music and dancing at your place. Finally, and most damning of all, the only other mare there would be you. No offense Dash, but I wanna get laid tonight.”

Lyra giggled and nudged Cloud in the shoulder. “You already got laid, you goof. Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten.” She grinned and tossed a foreleg over Cloud’s neck. “But you're in luck. I think Ponyville has the highest per-capita concentration of sexy, cute, and/or adorable mares in the whole of Equestria. I’ve heard the stallions are pretty decent too, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

“Don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it, Harpflank.” Cloud grinned and bumped rumps with Lyra. “Mares are great, don’t get me wrong, but there’s some stuff that you just gotta have a stallion for.” Cloud paused and brought a hoof up under her chin. “Well, unless some of those new toys I’ve heard about work as well as advertised...”

Ugh, why were they still talking about all this stupid boring banging stuff? Cloud had to know I didn’t care about this kinda thing, but they just kept on talking about it instead of changing the subject to something that was actually worth talking about, like my new flying tricks or the Wonderbolts or something. I let out a snort, and crossed my forelegs over my chest. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s just go to this sun-butt place already.”

Lyra and Cloud looked at each other, then Lyra kinda shrugged and started leading the way. By now the sun was completely down and what nightlife Ponyville had was starting up. Normally I didn’t really do much at night, unless there was weather work going on. I could try practicing my moves in the dark, but that was a little too risky even for me most of the time. Not that anything would ever go wrong with my flying, but if something did it could get a lot worse if I couldn’t see where I was going.

Anyway, going off my admittedly limited experience with nighttime hangout spots, this Sun’s Flank place didn’t seem too bad. At least they didn’t have the music blaring so loud that I could barely hear myself think, the way it had been at that one club Kicker dragged me to one time when I was visiting Canterlot. The worst part was, Kicker wound up pretty much ditching me so she could hook up with the feathering DJ who’d been responsible for all the too-loud music. And it was definitely loads better than that one time Cloud actually took me to a brothel.

This place didn’t seem so bad, though. “I guess it could be worse. They have any decent grub here?”

“I’m seeing plenty of good pie,” Cloud commented, looking around at all mares. “So I guess it really just depends on how picky you are. Personally, I see enough for me to keep eating for weeks.”

I’m pretty sure that was some kind of innuendo, even if I didn’t quite get what she was going at. With Cloud Kicker, it was usually a safe bet that any time she was saying something weird that didn’t make any sense on its own, she was probably going for some kinda sex joke. “Yeah, whatever. What about real food?” Sure, I’d technically been fed by Pinkie while I was her party prisoner, but Pinkie’s idea of food is ninety-nine percent pure sugar. I needed something with some actual nutritional value.

Lyra shot a grin over at me. “You really haven’t ever been here before, have you Rainbow? This place has the best hayfries in all of Ponyville. Nice drinks too.”

I took another look around, just to see if I’d missed anything worth seeing. Nothing all that fancy really, just booths, tables, a bar, a dance floor. “Not really my kinda place, but if the food’s decent I’ll give it a fair shot.”

“This place deserves more than a fair shot, it’s awesome.” Cloud gave an appreciative whistle, though I couldn’t tell if she was admiring the decor or just one of the patrons. Probably both. “I like this place. It’s bustling like a proper club, but they manage to keep it classy without going overboard into stuck up and pretentious.”

“Still can’t believe you’ve never even been here once.” Lyra trotted over to grab us a nice corner booth. “Even if you’re completely straight, it’s a pretty nice hangout spot to get away from all the stallions for a bit.”

“I’m not—aww hay, who cares?” I grumbled and settled down on the other side of the table from Lyra. “Look, I just never really bothered with the whole romance thing. I’d rather focus on something that’s actually important, like getting ready for the Wonderbolts.”

Cloud Kicker let out a snort and rolled her eyes. “I'm starting to think Dash has no sex drive. Seriously, you have no idea how many times I hooked up with somepony and tried to get Dash set up as well, only for nothing to happen.”

“Huh?” I frowned over at her. “What are you talking about?”

Cloud groaned and facehoofed. “You never wondered why whenever I took you out clubbing with me, I always looked for ponies who had a spare friend?”

“I figured you were setting up a threesome,” I offered in my own defense.

“Well, it did end up working out that way more often than not.” Cloud Kicker didn’t even try to hide the smugness in her voice, but a second later she stopped her ego trip and got back on topic. Geeze, some ponies and their egos... “But yeah, I was trying to be a good wingpony and get you hooked up too. Not my fault you couldn’t seal the deal.”

“Oh.” I blinked a couple times as that thought processed. “Well, thanks, I guess. You didn’t have to do anything like that, though.”

“Wish you’d told me that before I’d tossed a couple of the hot ones your way while keeping the slightly-less-hot ones for myself,” Cloud grumbled. “Hay, I wasted a set of twins on you. Twins, Dash. How can you say no to that?”

“Eh,” I shrugged, “they just weren’t all that interesting. All they wanted to do was giggle a lot and take me back to their place to hang out.”

Lyra frowned over at me. “You do realize that when they said they wanted to hang out, what they really meant was that they wanted to take you back to their place for a night of wild sex, don’t you?”

“Well duh, ‘course I knew that.” Sure, I’d only really figured it out about a minute or so ago, but why quibble over stupid little details? “I mean, it’s not like I’m some prude or I think there’s something wrong with the way Cloud likes to bang anything with a pulse, but I just don’t really care about that kind of thing myself.”

“Well, everypony’s sex drive works a bit differently.” Lyra shot a slightly downcast smile at me. “Though I think it'd be a real shame if you didn't find somepony who’s right for you. You’re too nice of a pony to be single forever.”

Cloud smirked over at me and Lyra. “Why the sudden interest in Dash’s sex drive, Harpflank? Don’t tell me that one kiss you swapped trying to fake me out made an impression?”

What? Kicker thought Lyra might have a thing for me? Whoa, that’d be weird. I mean, I guess we’d gotten along well enough while setting up our completely awesome and ninety-percent-successful fake pregnancy gag, but I dunno about anything past that.

“Sheesh, you whine about your lack of success in setting Dash up, but half a minute later you’re already trying to get her together with the hottest mare in the place.” Lyra smiled over at me. “Dash is a lot of fun to hang around with, but I’m not interested in her that way.”

“Well why not?” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my forelegs over my chest. It’s not like I wanted her to be interested in me or anything—that’d probably end up being really weird and awkward anyway, I just wouldn’t blame her getting stuck on me, since I am pretty awesome, after all.

“You’re a great pony, Rainbow, but I’m just not interested in you that way.” Lyra grinned and reached over to put a hoof on my shoulder for a few seconds. “I just think it'd be a real shame if you never found anypony.” There was a bit of an awkward pause, and then Lyra shrugged the whole thing off. “Anyway, drinks.” She waved to one of the waitresses.

A couple seconds later a cream-coated earth pony waitress with a pink-and-blue mane trotted up to our table and gave us that fake ‘my tip depends on how much you like me’ smile. “What will it be, ladies?” She turned to Lyra, and her smile got a bit less forced. “You’ll want your usual mint cocktail, right Miss Lyra?”

“Sure do,” Lyra grinned right back at her. “And toss in a big plate of your fancy hayfries. I’ve got hungry friends.”

“Can do.” The waitress turned to the two of us expectantly.

Cloud Kicker put her order in first. “I’ll have a lemonade.”

I could barely believe my ears. “Lemonade? Really?” Lyra was frowning at Cloud’s choice of drink too. “Hey Cloud, did you miss the part where we’re having a big ‘Welcome to Ponyville and congratulations on graduating West Hoof’ pa—celebration for you?” I almost made the mistake of saying ‘party,’ but that word could summon up Pinkie Pie almost as reliably as just saying her name.

Even the waitress joined in. “You don’t need to worry—about your friends, or yourself. Ponyville's pretty free of riff raff, and we're very strict about our blacklists. We can even have the bouncer or somepony else walk you home, if you’re worried.” She paused and shot a smirk at Lyra. “Or too drunk to manage on your own.”

“Aw be nice, Bons,” Lyra whined. “Those mint cocktails seem all nice and light when you’re drinking them, then half an hour later they start catching up with ya. Besides, I gave you a ginormous tip for that.”

“Which is why you’re still getting served,” the waitress declared with teasing grin. “You keep getting plastered and paying me extra to walk your drunk plot home, and soon I’ll have enough to get that candy stand up and running.”

“Everypony wins.” Lyra grinned right back at her, then turned to Cloud Kicker. “But that’ll only work if everypony helps out.”

Cloud rolled her eyes at the two of them. “Fine, make it a hard lemonade, then. Still not gonna get plastered, though.”

Lyra grinned over at her. “That’s more like it, Kicky.”

The waitress nodded, then turned to me. I thought about it for a second—normally I’m not a huge fan of booze, but with the way this day had been going I think I could make an exception. “Got any of the good cider?”

“We’ve got a pretty good selection,” she answered. “I’d recommend the Sweet Apple Acres cider—Applejack and Big Mac are actually in the back unloading a delivery right now.”

“Sweet!” I’d been hanging out with Applejack some ever since I moved to Ponyville, and her cider was just awesome. AJ herself was pretty cool, too. “Yeah, gimme the cider. And tell her I’m out here too, so if she wants to come hang with us once she’s done unloading, that’d be cool.”

“Can do. I’ll be back in a bit with your drinks.” Bons trotted off to the bar—and both Kicker and Lyra watched her go with way too much interest. Sheesh, what a couple of pervs.

Once she couldn’t ogle the waitress anymore, Lyra apparently decided to spend some time talking to us again. “I come here almost every night, you know.”

Cloud grinned at her. “Oh really? You come here every night? Must be hunting for love...”

“Not really.” Lyra shrugged and settled back into her seat. “I wouldn’t mind finding somepony, but mostly this is just a nice place to hang out. I've met lots of good friends here, like Colgate and Berry Punch. Bons too, I guess, though we can’t exactly be friends when she’s on the clock, and we don’t really see each other any other time.” Lyra stretched her forelegs out a bit. “But yeah, if you’re just completely uninterested, the worst you’ll have to do is shoot down one or two ponies who offer to buy you a drink.”

Turn down free booze? Yeah, right. The waitress came back, carrying a big platter of hayfries covered in cheese, chopped onions, seasoning, and bits of haybacon. I didn’t waste any time with pleasantries before digging in. “Theshe‘re gud.” Cloud and Lyra shot me a look, and I kept my mouth shut until I finished chewing and swallowing.

“Told you it’s a nice place.” Lyra gave a satisfied little nod, then she and Kicker got into the fries as well. They were all delicate and manner-y about it though, which is just dumb. Sure, we had a lot of fries now, but if they took their time eating, that would just leave more for me. Wait, why was I complaining about that? “Anyway,” Lyra continued, “I’m not too worried about finding my special somepony just yet. I’ve got plenty of time, and there’s no sense getting all worked up over it. I’ll find her eventually.”

Bons the waitress came back and set our drinks down. “There you go, ladies. Lemme know if you need anything else, okay?”

Lyra grinned over at her. “Will do, thanks Bons.” She hoofed over some bits. “I'll pay for us.”

Okay, taking me to a pretty cool new place and covering my bar bill on top of that earned her a couple awesome points. “Cool, thanks.” I took a big old swig of the best damn cider in Equestria. “Ohhhhh yeah, that's the stuff!”

For a while the three of us just enjoyed our drinks, until Cloud Kicker decided to start talking about her favorite subject. “So ... who're the hot mares here?”

Lyra grinned and ran a hoof through her mane. “Me.”

I let out a snort at that. “Oh please. You're not that great, Minty.”

“Well, you're not interested in romance or banging, so you’re not exactly the best judge of who’s hot and who isn’t,” Lyra shot right back, sticking her tongue out.

“Play nice, you two.” Cloud put a wing over Lyra’s shoulders and grinned over at me. “Now, I’ve obviously got the two hottest mares in Ponyville sitting at the table with me, but how about you two show me some of the slightly less hot mares, just to humor me.”

Lyra beamed and nuzzled her. “Thanks, Kicky. But if I’m gonna be completely honest, there is one mare who’s probably hotter than me.”

Cloud’s ears perked up in interest at that, but I really didn’t care at all. It just bugged me that they were gonna start talking about stupid pointless stuff like who Cloud was gonna bang, when she could be hanging out with me instead. I mean, the whole idea behind her coming to Ponyville was so she could visit me and we could hang out, but if all she cared about was finding somepony to bang then there was really no point in me even being here. So instead I just slammed back the rest of my cider and tried to ignore the talking.

“So yeah,” Lyra continued, “There’s this one mare called Rarity. Dear Celestia, even her namesounds hot. Anyway, she’s pretty much the most fashionable pony in the town. Too bad she’s probably too much of a proper lady to really go banging around.” She paused and let out a wistful sigh. “Oh well. On the other end of things you’ve got ponies like Applejack who have that whole ‘rough and tumble country gal’ thing going for them. I kinda like both types, really, so it’s up to you.”

Cloud smirked at her and put her hooves behind her head. “You make it sound like I’d have a hard choice to make, instead of just going out and banging both of them.”

Lyra snorted so hard she nearly sent some of her mint cocktail squirting out of her nose. “Yeah, that would be your solution, wouldn’t it?” She took a sip of her drink while she thought things over. “Who else is there? Well, there’s my drinking buddy Berry, though to be honest all I really know about her preferences right now is which vintages she likes. Then there’s Pinkie—she isn't the hottest pony in the conventional sense of the word, at least not in my opinion, but she's cute as a button and full of energy.”

They were talking about Pinkie now? Seriously? I mean, I guess I could kinda get why Cloud might go for a pretty girly-girl, and Applejack was cool enough, I guess, but Pinkie Pie? “Did you two forget that she’s completely nuts? Cloud can’t bang Pinkie!”

“Why not?” Cloud asked.

“Because,” I answered.

“Because what?” Lyra shot back.

I crossed my forelegs over my chest. “Because of reasons.” Darn it, that came out way too petulantly. “It’s just ... she’s a total weirdo.”

Lyra grinned and nudged me in the ribs. “Careful, Rainbow. Saying she’s weird might just make Kicky wanna get with her even more.” Oh geeze, she was probably right about that. Cloud Kicker’s whole banging thing is pretty weird, so maybe she would get along with a pony who’s weird about everything. Lyra turned back to Cloud, and dismissively waved a hoof at me. “Rainbow is just being silly. She thinks Pinkie is weird just because she's energetic and touchy feely.”

“That is weird,” I pointed out.

“No it's not.” Lyra planted her forehooves on the table. “She's just got enough self-confidence to express herself however she wants, without worrying about what anypony else will think.”

“And she uses all that confidence to do weird stuff,” I countered.

Cloud turned to me and grinned. “If she’s really into all kinds of weird stuff then maybe I should give her a whirl. Sounds like it could be a lot of fun.”

“Look, you can't bang her, okay?” I grumbled.

Lyra frowned at me, and I could practically see the gears whirling in her head. “Why so upset at the idea of Cloud Kicker banging Pinkie?”

I don’t know what she was thinking, but whatever was going through her head was wrong. “No reason, I just don't want Cloud banging her, that's all.”

“Why?” Lyra pressed.

Sheesh, what was her deal? It’s not like this was complicated. “I don’t want Cloud Kicker banging Pinkie 'cause I don't, okay?!”

Lyra eyes widened, and she brought her hooves up to her mouth and let out a tiny little gasp. Then she started grinning like a madmare as she leaned across the table and loudly whispered, “You like Pinkie Pie, don't you, Rainbow Dash?”

What? No, seriously, what? “No! Ew! Don't even joke about that!” Just thinking about it was making me shiver. “I don't care about Pinkie at all, okay! It's just if Kicker does stuff with Pinkie, then it'll encourage her to bother me even more than she does already! I won’t be able to show my face in Ponyville without her running up and spending hours bothering me! It’s ‘cause of that and other reasons, okay?”

Lyra leaned back, shaking her head and giggling. “I think Pinkie's a bit more restrained than that.”

I shot her a flat look. “Pinkie Pie? Restrained? Have you even met her?”

Lyra sighed, her ears drooped down, and her voice got just a little grumbly as she conceded the point. “Okay. Aware. More aware.”

Yeah, that didn’t work either. “She thinks sarcasm is a kind of food.”

“Aware of other ponies' feelings!” Lyra burst out, smacking a hoof on the table. “Okay?! Stop calling me out on this.”

I gave an uncaring shrug and smirked at her. “Then stop saying stuff that’s wrong.”

Lyra crossed her forelegs over her chest and started grumbling under her breath. Hey, not my fault she can’t handle being called out when she says something stupid. I finished off my cider and signalled for a refill, while Cloud tried to get get the conversation back on her banging track. “So, how about all the hot ponies that aren't Pinkie...”

“Oh, whatever.” Great, now I was getting all grouchy and stuff too. Why did Kicker have to keep being so stupid about wanting to bang around anyway? You’d think she could turn it off for just one freaking night, so we could just chill and hang out.

The conversation kinda died for a while after that. Eventually, Lyra finished off her cocktail and ordered another one. “Love the mint cocktails here. Not many places you can get a drink like that.”

I shrugged and took a swig of cider. “Eh, hard to beat AJ’s stuff, if you ask me.”

A hoof slapped me on the back, and I heard Applejack’s unmistakable country twang. “Well glad ya like it, sugarcube.” The farmpony slid into the booth next to me. “Now be neighborly, and introduce me to these friends of yers.” Before I could actually do that, she extended a hoof across the table to the two of them. “Howdy do. Name’s Applejack.”

Cloud and Lyra took care of introducing themselves, and the three of them made a little small talk. Before long AJ was knocking back a mug of her own cider, and telling us about something crazy that happened on the farm the other day. “... and then Apple Fritter just looked me right in the eyes and said, ‘But Ah can't fit it all in!’”

We all cracked up at that, me especially. However, once I was done rolling on the floor and laughing my flank off, I noticed that Cloud Kicker seemed kind of distracted. Oh great, don’t tell me she was about to ditch us just so she could get laid again... “What’s up, Cloud?”

“Hmm?” Cloud Kicker gave a quick shake of her head, and turned her attention back to me, where it belonged. “Sorry, I was just thinking that Applejack’s coltfriend is kind of in an uncomfortable spot right now.”

The smile dropped off of Applejack’s face, replaced by a perplexed frown. “Mah wut now?”

Cloud waved a hoof in the general direction of Big Mac, who had been standing off awkwardly to the side while Applejack was chatting with us. I kinda felt sorry for the big lunkhead—it had to be just a bit awkward being a stallion stuck in the middle of a fillyfooler bar.

Applejack looked at her brother a couple times, then blinked and started shaking her head so hard it was a miracle her hat didn’t go flying off. “No! No no no no! That ain’t mah coltfriend, that’s mah brother!”

“Ah, gotcha.” Cloud Kicker shot another, much longer look at Big Mac. “So ... I guess that means he’s single then, right?”

Applejack didn’t say anything right away, but I could practically hear her teeth grinding. She’s kinda got a thing about not liking it when mares start sniffing around her brother. A thing that, in hindsight, I really should’ve warned Cloud Kicker about beforehoof. After all, it’s pretty much inevitable that she’s gonna hit on anything with a pulse that comes within her line of sight. “Uh ... Cloud? Ix-nay on the Ig Mac-Bay.”

Kicker nodded to me, then turned back to Applejack and tried to fix her goof-up the only way a pony as nuts about banging as she was could. “Sorry, misspoke. I meant to say ‘I guess that means you’resingle, right?” She shot a grin that was probably supposed to be flirty at Applejack.

One of Applejack’s ears flicked a couple times, and then she took a deep breath and finished off the rest of her cider in a single gulp. After running a hoof across her mouth, she turned to me and said, “Ah’d love to stick around, sugarcube, but there’s lots of farmwork needs doin’ in the morning.”

Oh hay no, Applejack couldn’t be ditching me now. With Kicker and Lyra being all stupid and talking about banging and stuff, I’d be totally lost if I didn’t have somepony normal around. “Aw, c’mon Applejack. Cloud’s just being herself, she didn’t mean anything by it. So, y’know, you can stick around, and I promise she won’t do anything weird. Okay?” I quickly signalled the waitress to bring refills for the two of us. “C’mon AJ, at least stick around for one more cider.”

Applejack hesitated long enough for Bons The Waitress to bring the ciders, and after that I had Applebutt locked down. With as much as she loves apples in pretty much any form, including cider, I kinda wonder how Sweet Apple Acres ever managed to turn a profit. The farmpony sighed and slipped her hoof into the mug. “Alright, alright. Reckon I’m gonna need a good drink or two as it is.” The mug paused halfway to her mouth, and she looked over at Cloud Kicker. “For the record, missy, I ain’t interested in what yer sellin’, and neither is mah brother. That clear?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Cloud let out a breath, then sipped some of her lemonade.

Well, I had them all sitting at the table, but things were still way too uncomfortable and awkward. I should probably do something about fixing that. “So, Applejack, Cloud just finished up at West Hoof. She’s gonna be a Guard.”

“That so?” Applejack grunted neutrally.

“Yeah.” I waited for a couple seconds, but nopony said anything else. Dangit, so much for starting up a conversation. I slipped my hoof into my cider mug and started pouring it down the hatch. AJ followed my example.

About halfway through the drink, I just kinda looked over at Applejack, and she looked at me. Our eyes met, and we both kept going—no way I was gonna stop drinking before she did.

Applejack lucked out, and our glasses ran dry before I could beat her. There were easy enough ways to fix that, though. “Hey, we need more booze!”

Lyra’s ears perked up. “We’re doing a drinking contest? Sounds like fun!” Lyra paused and brought a hoof up under her chin. “We can’t do a drinking contest without Berry, she’d never forgive me.” She turned and waved towards the bar. “Berry! Over here! We’re having a drinking contest!”

A couple seconds later, a purple earth pony mare trotted up to our table. Sheesh, I could smell the booze on her from here. “Yer doin’ a drinking contesht? I’m in.” Oh wow, sounds like she was already kinda sloshed, and I was definitely better than Lyra and AJ. I had this contest in the bag.

Alcohol: The Cause of, and Solution to, All Friendship Problems

I wasn’t drunk.

I just wanna establish that, for the record. Yeah, I’d had a lot to drink, but it wasn’t getting to me or anything. If I was slurring my words and stumbling around, it was just ‘cause Applejack had messed up the cider or—look, the point is, I definitely wasn’t drunk.

I reached for the new mug of cider the barmare brought around. Stupid mug wouldn't hold still ... and I think somepony put the handle on the top. Or else that crazy pink pony (who I'm not gonna name) probably did something to it. Anyway, dumb details. What’s important is, it wasn't where my hoof was when I was reaching for it. So I closed an eye, tried again, and got it with my usual accuracy—the fact that I lost, like, twenty percent of the cider halfway to my mouth isn't a big deal.

Okay, maybe I was a little drunk. AJ and Lyra were way more smashed than I was, though.

Speaking of those two, Applejack was busy telling Berry all about her apple stuff. I guess it figures they would have stuff to talk about—vineyards and orchards are kinda similar, right? I mean, they both involved growing stuff, and Applejack makes booze too. So yeah, they were talking about earth pony farming stuff.

That left Lyra free to talk with me. Well, that or go off with Cloud Kicker, but I dunno where Cloud was right then. She’d probably found somepony to bang and gone off with them. That’s what she’s always doing with me. Leaving me alone after she finds somepony else that she can bang. S’not fair, the way that she spends time with them when she could be spending it with me instead. I should be more important to her than all those other ponies. I’m Rainbow Feathering Dash, I should be the number one most awesome and important pony in her life.

“Stupid Kicker.” I let out an angry snort. “That’s what they shoulda called her. Why’s she even called Cloud Kicker anway? She never kicks clouds. They shoulda named her Stupid Kicker instead. ‘Cause she’s so stupid she kicks herself, or something.”

“Hey!” Lyra drunkenly wobbled over to me like ... like a ... like a pony who was really drunk. “Don’t be talking about Cloudy and hating her and stuff.” Lyra swayed on her hooves for moment, then threw her forelegs around my neck. “She loves you, an’ you love her. An’ I love both of you, ‘cause everypony should love everypony.”

Oh great, she was one of those lovey-dovey drunks. I just hope she didn’t ... oh horseapples, she was nuzzling me now. I put a hoof on her chest and pushed her back, trying not to be too rough about it. “Look, jusht back off a bit, ‘kay? I dun wantcha getting all up in m’face and stuff.”

Lyra stuck her lower lip out in a massive pout, and settled for petting my foreleg. “Aw, c'mon Rainbow. Why won't ya let your good ol' pranking buddy hug you?”

“Be fine if that was all ya wanted,” I kept holding her at bay, but I tried to be a bit less forceful and shove-y about it. “Yer cool an’ all, s'just—dunwanna bang.”

“I wasn't gonna bang ya!” Lyra started giggling so much you’d think I’d just told the funniest joke in the world or something. “Silly Rainbow, silly, silly, silly.” She leaned down and nuzzled my foreleg as best she could, nearly falling on her face in the process. “Not tryin’ to bang ya, silly. I just want some love 'n' affection.”

I rolled my eyes and backed away. “Yeah, sure you don’t. Bet Kicker says that to all the ponies she’s tryin’ to bang too.” I let out an angry snort. “Stupid Kicker.”

“No!” Lyra latched onto my foreleg and started shaking it. “She isn't stupid. Why are ya even saying that? Tha’s crazy talk.”

I yanked my foreleg out of her hooves before she could try to shake it off. “I said she’s stupid 'cause ... 'cause she's dumb! Always talkin' 'bout bangin’...”

“Is not!” Lyra shook her head, but ended up overdoing it and nearly knocking herself off her own hooves. She probably would’ve wound up flat on her back if she hadn’t managed to grab a table for support. “Bangin' isn't dumb, Dash. Bangin' is... is...” Lyra spent a couple seconds trying to figure out how to put it into words, and eventually settled for waving her hooves in a huge circle. “It’s the most awesomely awesome thing that ever awesomed.”

“Is not.” I crossed my forelegs over my chest and felt my lower lip jut out a bit. It wasn’t like I was pouting or anything, it’s just that all the ponies in and out of this town are nuts. Especially Stupid Kicker. “I’m the most awesomely awesome thing that ever awesomed, not dumb stuff like banging. Stupid banging just takes her away.”

“Wait...” Lyra stared at me for a long while, rubbing a hoof under her chin. Finally, she asked, “Do you want some lovin' from her?”

Okay, where the featherhad she come up with something like that from? “Wha? No. Tha's dumb. Tha’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of, and I’ve heard a lotta dumb things. But tha’s really dumb. Yer dumb. Stop bein' dumb.”

Lyra frowned at me, then put a hoof on my shoulder. “That's a shame.” Her hoof started kinda rubbing my shoulder. “I think you'd be good at lovin', if you gave it a chance and stopped calling it dumb.”

“Hey!” I stumbled back from her and her weird touchy-feely hooves. “Nuh-uh! No bangin'. No dumb stuff. Just stay back, and don’t try anythin’!”

Lyra took a few steps back, holding her wandering hooves up in front of herself. “Relax, Dash. I wasn’t gonna try an’ bang you, ‘kay? I mean, yer hot an’ all, but ... not gonna bang.” She frowned over at me. “Have you, like, ever tried it?

Me? Bang? I let out an angry snort. “Dunhafta. S'dumb.”

“If ya never even banged, an’ ya dunno what it's like, then how'd ya know it's dumb?” Lyra concluded her argument with a massive booze belch. Dang, I could smell those mint cocktails on her breath from all the way on the other side of the table. “Stop acting dumb, you dumb dummy. Callin’ somthin’ as nice as bangin’ ‘dumb’ makes you a dummy.”

“Does not!” I put some deep thought into the whole thing. “Stupid Kicker.” It wasn’t really her fault though. “It’s ‘cause of of bangin’. Stupid bangin', takin' her away. Only ever makes things bad ‘tween me’n Kicker. Somepony should, like, un-invent bangin’ so it can’t take Kicker away. Betcha there’s some egghead somewhere who can find a way to get rid of it.”

“No!” Lyra put both her hooves on my shoulders, and looked me right in the eyes. “You can’t un-invent sex! It’s too sexy!” Lyra glared at me for a bit, then her eyes went wide, one of her ears twitched, and she let out an excited gasp. “Oh my Celestia, I think I get it now! You do want some lovin' from her, don't you? Maybe not bangin', but cuddlin' or somethin'. Y'know what I mean. Lovin’!”

Oh barf, not this again. “Nuh-uh. I don’t wanna bang Cloud, I just want her to stop bein' stupid. Bet the bangin’ stuff she likes so much isn't even any good.”

“Oh, it's good.” Lyra gave me a drunken grin and nodded. “Real good. Best feeling ever!” Her grin turned into a thoughtful little frown. “Why d’you hate bangin’ so much, anyway? S’not like you coulda had a bad experience, if you’ve never even done it. You’re not scared of it, are ya?”

“No!” Okay, she had to be really smashed if she could think something like that. Had she forgotten who she was talking to? “I’m not scared of banging, or Cloud Kicker. I’m not scared of anything! It’s not that I don’t bang ‘cause I’m scared or something, it’s just that I don’t wanna ‘cause it’s dumb, that’s all!”

Now that I’d set the record straight, Lyra finally stopped bugging me about the whole banging thing. However, now that I was thinking about it I couldn’t ... not think about it. I admit, maybe I was just a little curious. “What’s it like, anyway? Y’know, not that I care about it or anything, but ... yeah.”

Lyra’s smile got so ridiculously big it looked like it belonged on Pinkie Pie instead. Stupid Pinkie. She might not be so bad if she wasn’t always so ... bother-y and crazy. She was almost as stupid as Stupid Kicker. Anyway, Lyra was smiling and stuff. “Bangin’ is the best thing ever, Rainbow! It’s like ... imagine the best thing you’ve ever done in the history of things you’ve done, then make it twenty times better. That’s how good bangin’ is!”

Banging was as good as twenty Sonic Rainbooms? The crazy thing was, even though I knew she was wrong, a part of me couldn’t help wondering just how awesome it would be if she was right. Hay, I’d spent years trying to pull off another Sonic Rainboom, just to be able to do it again. If banging could make me feel the same way a Rainboom did ... okay, I could kinda get why Stupid Kicker might like banging so much. Still, I wasn’t gonna make this too easy for her. “Oh come on, there’s no way anything could be that good!”

“Oh, it’s even better than that,” Lyra announced with a confident grin, before leaning forward and teasingly adding, “especially when you do it with somepony you looooove.”

“Sheesh, just drop it already.” Lyra’s usually not this stubborn and annoying; it must the fact that she’s drunk. “I don’t love Stupid Kicker, okay? I mean yeah, I like her alright, but I don’t wanna do banging stuff with her.”

“You should totally bang her,” Lyra argued back. “Bangin' her would be great. It is great. Trust me, I know.” She gave a quick nod. “I’m a Heartstrings. Means I know all about love and stuff, and I’m telling you that, in my expert opinion, you need to go up to Kicky and tap that.”

“Already tapped that.” I announced with a weak grin. “Hay, I more than tapped her, I shoulder-punched her and stuff.”

For some reason, my perfectly legitimate answer just got an annoyed eye-roll out of Lyra. “You know what I mean! You should bang Kicky. I think it’d be good for both of you, 'cause bangin' is like... like... a trust thing! You're basically sayin' 'I love you so much I'm willing to get this intimate with you and share this with you.' That’s huge.”

Huh. I hadn’t thought of it like that before. I guess I’d always seen banging as a ‘I’m horny and wanna do stuff’ or ‘I wanna be all sappy and romantic and horseapples’ kinda thing, not a trust thing. I wasn’t all eager to suck Cloud’s face or waste a bunch of time getting all soft and weepy with her, but... “I trust Kicker.”

Lyra had a grin on her face, and was probably gonna make some kinda smartflanked comment about how I should do something crazy like bang Cloud Kicker, but we were thankfully interrupted by Applejack slamming back another mug of cider, then letting out a huge belch. I couldn’t let a challenge like that go unanswered, so I took a deep breath, then unleashed a much louder and far more awesome burp. Applejack refused to accept her defeat gracefully and tried to outdo my burp, but she didn’t even get close.

After I was done kicking her apple-y plot in our belching contest, Applejack started blearily looking around the room. After a bit of looking, she got to her hooves and staggered over to me, then started nudging me in the shoulder with a hoof. “Hey. Hey. Hey Rainbow Dash? Gotta askya where'd that loose friend o' yers get to?”

“Hey!” Lyra trotted up and poked Applejack in the chest. “She's not loosh, she's awesome.” She took a bit to look around for Cloud, but as far as I could tell Kicker had gone and ditched us again. Lyra picked up on something else, though. “Hey. S'all mares again in here.”

“Huh?” AJ started looking all over the place, but Big Mac seemed to be long gone. Figures, Stupid Kicker went and ditched me to go bang. Again.

“S’not fair,” I grumbled. “Why’s Stupid Kicker gotta run off an’ leave me?”

Applejack was busy being angry, when she should’ve been comforting me instead. Not that I needed to be comforted, but it woulda been nice if she’d tried. “Did mah brother really g’wan and run off with some hussy?! That dadgum sidewindin’ hornswaglin’ sodbustin’ tree-poundin’ corn-shuckin’ blockheaded barn-razin’ scruffy-lookin’ nerf-herdin’ bushwhackin’ cracker-croakin’ yellow-bellied galoot! What the hay is he thinkin’?”

“Wow.” Lyra blinked a couple times times, staring at Applejack in wonder. “That was authentic frontier gibberish.”

It took a couple seconds for me to stop giggling for long enough to actually give Applejack an answer. “He’s probably thinkin’ that he’s gonna get laid.”

“That dang ol' lunkhead!” Applejack grabbed another mug of cider from Bons the Waitress. “I ain't never lettin' him outta mah sight again!”

Lyra let out another little snort of laughter. “You might regret that if y'go chasin' after 'em right now now...”

Applejack blinked a couple times, then reluctantly nodded. “Reckon yer right there missy, don’t much care to see him givin’ anypony the old in an’ out.”

“Yeah, that’d be just a little weird.” I blinked and reconsidered that. “Nah, that’d be a lot weird. Like, pretty much the weirdest thing ever.”

“Dang right, it would be.” Applejack took a big pull of her cider. “Don’t y’all listen to none of that nonsense y’hear from Carrot Top and the rest of her kin, the Apples ain’t never done anythin’ with each other. We ain’t into no incest. Dang Carrots just ain’t never gotten over the War of Solar Aggression, is all. ”

“Hey!” Lyra slammed a hoof on the table. “I can’t believe there are still ponies in this day and age who call the Lunar Rebellion that. How can you even say something like that about Princess Celestia?”

Wait, was Applejack badmouthing the Princess? I kinda hadn’t paid attention back in school, but stuff like ‘Solar Aggression’ sure sounded bad. “Okay, that is seriously not cool, AJ!”

“Whoa nelly!” Applejack quickly brought her hooves up in front of her chest, sloshing some cider over herself in the process. “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ against the Princess! Everypony knows the war weren’t really about her, it was ‘cause of them fancified nobles in Canterlot wantin’ to mess tings up an’ give her lots of bad advice. They was the problem, not the Princess. Buncha stuck-up no good leeches, ain’t never done an honest day’s work in their lives. Then they go treadin’ on good, honest earth pony folk, tryin’ to destroy earth pony rights and traditions...”

Lyra’s ears went flat on her head and one of her eyes twitched a bit. “Y’know, I’m one of those ‘fancified Canterlot nobles’ you’re talkin’ ‘bout. Hay, House Heartstrings got it’s start ‘cause our founder worked for Celestia durin’ that whole mess.”

Applejack blinked a couple times. “Izzat so? Huh, well fancy that. Y’don’t seem like one of them stuffy Canterlot nobles with their heads so far up their own plots they’re fornicatin’ themselves with their own horns.”

I let out a bit of a giggle at that. “Oh, that’s a good one, AJ. I gotta remember that!”

Lyra thought the matter over for a bit, then gave a sage nod. “That sounds about right for some of the ponies I knew back in Canterlot. Thank Celestia I had Kicky around.”

“I dunno about that,” I scrunched my face up and let out a loud hiccup. “Seems like most of the Kickers are born with a stick jammed halfway up their plots. All ‘doody and honor’ an’ stuff.”

“Still better’n the Bluebloods.” Lyra blinked a few times, then scowled. “Oh horseapples, I think all this talk about the nobles is starting to make me sober up.”

“Well that just ain’t gonna do at all!” Applejack looked us over, the turned to the bar and called out, “Hey! Can we get ‘nother round over here?”

Lyra and Applejack were smashed. Not me though, I could totally handle my booze. Lyra’s friend Berry Punch didn’t seem to be too bothered by how much she’d drunk either.

“You know who’sh aweshome?” Lyra shout-slurred across the table at us.

“Duh, I’m aweshome,” I tried to pat myself on the back, but for some reason my back kept moving out of the way so I couldn’t quite pull it off. Stupid back. It was almost as stupid as Stupid Kicker. Almost.

“Well yeah, you’re aweshome.” Lyra leaned over the table to pat one of my hooves. “Yer really cool and shtuff. Sh’no wonder yer friendsh with Kicky. Sh’why ya should bang’er, ‘caushe that way the aweshome would be doubled.” She pulled back from me and gave a few bleary-eyed blinks. “But y’know who elshe is aweshome? Yer aweshome too, Berry!”

I’m not sure if Lyra was so drunk her aim was off, or if she was just too smashed to be able to tell the difference, but either way she wound leaning over to the side, her forelegs around Applejack. The surprise hug was a bit much for AJ, who was way more plastered than me, and the two of them fell out of their chairs and onto the ground.

The two drunk mares stared at each other for a bit, and then they started laughing like a couple of crazy ponies. “The floorsh and chairsh are all meshed up in thish plashe,” Applejack loudly announced. “S’all messed and movin’ an’ bendin, an’ shtuff. Shtupid way to make a bar. Inna mornin’ I’mma come back with shome toolsh and shtraighten everyshing out. Sh’the neighborly thing to do.”

“No, sh’not like that.” Lyra waved a hoof around, and ended up knocking Applejack’s hat askew. “I think itsh a prank Bons likesh to play on me, ‘cause the floorsh alwaysh fine when I firsht come in. I think she, like, changesh the floorsh and shtuff after I’ve hadda few drinksh. She’sh shuch a pranshter shometimesh. She’sh really pretty too, and she shmells nice. She’sh not all shtrong and muscle-y like you, though.” Lyra leaned down and stuck her muzzle in Applejack’s mane. “You shmell really nice too. Like applesh.”

“Y’all shmell powerful nice too,” Applejack announced. “All minty fresh.” Applejack must’ve started thinking then, ‘cause her face got all scrunched up and concentration-y, and I’m pretty sure I could smell something burning. “Y’know, ‘fore I met you, I alwaysh figured them noblesh was a buncha stup-uck jerksh. Yer not sho bad tho’. Yer, like, fanshy and shophistimicated and shtuff, butcha don’t go puttin’ on airsh or nothin’.”

“Awww, thanksh.” Lyra smiled over at AJ, then her ears perked up and her grin turned playful. “Hey, d’you wanna shnog?”

Applejack blinked a couple times before she answered. “I dun’ reckon I know wha’ that ish, but okay.”

I thought about warning Applejack just what she’d agreed to ... for about two seconds. Sure, letting her know that she’d just agreed to get all sloppy and kissy-faced with Lyra would’ve been the right thing to do, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. So instead I just sat back and laughed my flank off when Lyra started slobbering all over AJ’s lips. I gotta say, the look on Applejack’s face when she realized what was going on was absolutely priceless.

After a couple seconds of slobbering, Applejack’s brain finally turned back on, and she shoved Lyra back. “What in tarnation wash that?”

Lyra stumbled a couple steps, and ended up tripping over one of the chairs and ending up all tangled up. Lucky for her, she was too drunk to care about that. “Tha’ wash shnoggin’.”

Applejack’s jaw worked up and down a couple times before she could finally figure out what to say. “Ya shoulda told me ‘fore ya went and done shomethin’ like that!”

“I did!” Lyra whined. “I ashked ya if ya wanted to shnog, and ya shaid yesh!”

“I thought it was shome kinda drink or shomethin’, not kisshin’!” Applejack grumbled, blushing like a schoolfilly. “It don’t count as askin’ if ya ushe shome fancified Canterlot wordsh I ain’t never heard of before. Jusht call it shmoochin’ or shomethin’, like normal pony.”

“Hey, plenty of normal poniesh in Canterlot call it that,” Lyra grumbled. “But fine. Y’wanna kissh, shmooch, and jusht generally make out?”

Applejack brought a hoof up to her chin, giving the whole thing far more thought that it deserved. Finally, she announced, “Aw hay, why not? Y’sheem nice enough, and itsh been way too lond shince I had some fun.”

And then they started kissing again. Okay, when it was Lyra kissing a completely clueless Applejack it had been pretty funny, but now that they were both getting into it, things had officially moved into gross territory. Seriously, I think I threw up a little in my mouth just from seeing the two of them. “Okay, shomepony’s gotta go get a hoshe or shomething, ‘caushe we gotta shpray ‘em to make em shtop. Or if that doesn’t work, we c’n ushe it to clean up after I barf from watchin’ ‘em.”

Then, completely out of nowhere, a hoof thumped me on the back. “Aw c’mon Dash, they’re barely even managing a proper kiss.”

“Kicker!” I whirled around and wrapped my forelegs around her neck. I wasn’t hugging her ‘cause I was glad to see her anything, I just wanted to grab onto so she couldn’t go running off to bang somepony else and leave me all alone with the stupid make-out ponies. “When didja get back? Been waitin’ for ya.”

“I’ve been here the last five minutes,” Cloud grumbled. “You were just too drunk to notice me.”

“Hey!” I poked her in the chest with a hoof. “I am not ash think ash you drunk I am!”

"You tell ‘er Dash!” Lyra shouted over at us, while Applejack was still slobbering all over her cheek in a way that reminded me of her dog, Winona. “We’re not drunksh either! I only had one shider. Jusht one shider!”

“One cider and a dozen mint cocktails,” Bons the waitress grumbled, rolling her eyes at us as she picked up the really impressive collection of empty glasses we’d left behind. “You can’t lie to the pony who served your drinks about how much you’ve had.” She turned to Cloud Kicker. “Thanks for coming back—I can’t handle all three of them at once.”

“Yeah, Rainbow and Lyra can both be a hooffull.” Cloud wrapped a wing around me, which felt way more awesome than it should’ve. “I’ll handle getting Dash back to her place. Kinda need wings to pull that off. Can you handle the other two?”

“Yeah.” The waitress nodded to Cloud. “Not the first time I’ve had to deal with Miss Heartstrings after she’s tied one on.” She sighed and trotted up to the two completely disgusting lovebirds. “Okay, that’s enough of that, let’s get you two home.”

Lyra stopped getting all gross with Applejack, and turned to face Bons, blinking a couple times. “Oh, hey Bon Bon. Y’know, you’re pretty nishe. An’ pretty ... pretty.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes again. “That might be flattering if you didn’t say it to me every single time you got drunk.”

Lyra smiled up at her.“Well you’re alwaysh pretty when m’drunk.”

“Nice to know it takes cider-goggles to make me attractive,” Bon Bon glowered at Lyra for a second, then got to work corralling the two drunk groundpounders.

I was gonna say something really awesome and funny about how drunk they were, when I finally figured something out. “Hey, hey Cloud. I just realished ... Lyra callsh Bon Bon ‘Bonsh.’ Isn’t that the funniesht thing ever?” Next thing I knew, I was laughing so hard I had to hold onto Cloud Kicker not to fall onto my face.

“Yeah Dash, it’s hilarious.” For some reason, Cloud Kicker wasn’t laughing. I always knew she was weird.

Cloud and I were headed out of the bar when we ran into that friend of Lyra’s who’d joined in on the drinking, Berry Punch. She took a moment to look me, Lyra, and Applejack over, and scoffed at us. “Heh, lightweights.”

“Oh it is on!” I tried to scramble loose from Cloud Kicker’s hooves, but for some reason my legs and wings weren’t quite working right. “I could totally drink more, I’m just getting shtarted! Hay, I’ll take two cidersh for every one you have and shtill drink you under the table!” Instead of taking me up on the challenge, Berry started laughing at herself for thinking she could ever take me, and walked off. “Yeah, tha’sh right! I win again!”

“Yeah, you sure showed her, Rainbow.” Cloud Kicker gave me a pat on the back, and the two of us started heading in a generally home-ish direction. She had a wing around me and was kinda leaning up against me for support, which I totally didn’t need, but whatever. I didn’t really mind; she was all warm and comfortable and stuff.

“Y’know what, Cloud? You’re aweshome.” I snuggled up a little closer to her, but only because it was kinda chilly out. There was a breeze or something. “I mean it, Kicker. You’re the beshtesht besht friend in histhtory of besht friendsh.”

Instead of properly appreciating the praise I was showering on her, Cloud just let out a snort. “Sheesh, you really got smashed, Rainbow.”

Oh, so that’s what it was like? Fine. “Your mom got shmashed.”

Kicker rolled her eyes at me. “Even by your usual standards, that's a lame comeback.”

“Oh yeah?” I put my mind to work coming up with the best answer to that in the history of Equestria. “Your mom'sh a lame comeback.”

Kicker blinked a couple times, then frowned at me. “That doesn't make any sense.”

“Your mom doeshn't make any shenshe,” I shot right back.

One of Cloud Kicker’s ears started flicking, and I saw her tail twitching in annoyance. Nice, I was getting to her. She took a couple deep breaths, and then grumbled, “You know, you can be really immature sometimes.”

Oh, she just made this too easy sometimes. “Your—paushe for dramatic effect—” I grinned at her and let the silence hang in the air for a bit before delivering the knockout blow. “Dad can be really immature shometimesh.” I started cackling so hard that if Kicker hadn’t been holding me up I probably would’ve fallen over. “I gotcha there, didn't I? I got ya shoooooooooooooo good.” Oh geeze, it felt like if I didn’t stop laughing soon I was gonna end up peeing myself.

Cloud didn’t take her defeat very gracefully. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

She just made this too easy. “Your mom ish whatever.”

Kicker just groaned and went silent. I guess she’d finally figured out that she was never gonna beat me. It was about time.

For a while the two of us walked along, just kinda enjoying the night and chilling out. It was nice, in a weird peaceful and quiet kinda way. I mean, pranking her with Lyra, or going out drinking and stuff was cool and all, but there was something kinda special about the two of us just hanging out together by ourselves. Not doing anything together, or even really talking. Just ... being together.

I poked her. “Hey, Cloud.” When she didn’t answer right away, I kept on poking her to make sure she would pay attention. “Hey. Hey. Hey.”

Kicker’s ear flicked again. “What is it, Rainbow Dash?”

I grinned over at her. “Your mom ish shooooo fat, when Celestia raishes the Shun, she has to ashk her to move outta the way!”

Kicker just groaned and facehoofed. I figured that meant I should keep it up. “Your mom ish sho fat, when she went to Ghashtly Gorge she got shtuck. No, no, wait, I gotta better one. Your mom ish sho fat, when she goesh flyin’ poniesh think it’sh an eclipshe.”

Cloud sighed, “Are we really all the way down to ‘your mom is so fat’ jokes now? I expected better, even from you, Dash.”

I smirked at her—obviously, I had her on the ropes now. “You mom ish sho fat, she hashta ushe Horsheshoe Bay ash a bathtub.”

Kicker pulled her wing off me, and I was about to try and apologize when I realized that she wasn’t mad at me, she was just taking the wing off ‘cause we’d made it to my house. “You good to fly up, Dash?”

“Sh’not a problem at all.” I mean, it was my house. I did kinda fly up there every night. Not a big deal to do it again. I spread my wings and flapped, but only got about five feet into the air before I wound up on my face. “Wind’sh bein’ shtupid or shomethin’,” I grumbled. “Shtupid wind.”

Kicker just sighed, then trotted over and settled down on the ground next to me. “Looks like you’re not quite sober enough to get airborne. I’ll fly you up, okay?”

“Hey, I could totally fly up there!” I took a couple more experimental flaps of my wings, but that weird air current or whatever was still throwing me off pretty bad. “I jusht don’t feel like doin’ it right now, ish all. Sho fine. You c’n carry me. Jusht don’t try any funny bishnesh, ‘kay?”

“Oh yeah, Dash.” Cloud broke out the sarcasm as she helped me climb up on her back. “I just take one look at that hot body of yours, and I can’t help myself. I’ll try to keep it under control, but I can’t make any promises when you’re just so damn sexy.”

“Damn right I am.” Sure, I might not be into the whole banging and sappy romance thing, but that was just ‘cause I didn’t feel like doing that kinda stuff. I still wanted everypony knowing I was all, y’know, good looking and stuff. It’s not like I was gonna go nuts and spend hours doing my mane and putting on makeup, but that’s ‘cause I look plenty awesome just the way I am. A pony can’t improve upon perfection.

I settled into place on Cloud’s back. It actually felt ... kinda cool. “Yer warm an’ coshy.” I tightened my grip around her, just so I’d be safe if anything went wrong. As for the way I was nuzzling the back of her neck ... look, she was really comfortable, okay? If she didn’t want me doing that kinda thing, she shouldn’t feel so nice. So maybe I enjoyed myself a little. No big deal. Friends can do that kinda thing. “Y’know, Kicker, you blow my mind. Sheriouashly, you jusht ... blow!” I thought that over for a second. “Wait, I mean the good kinda blow.”

Cloud blinked a couple times. “I ... thanks, I guess?”

“You do!” I had to make her understand what I was saying. Stupid Kicker. “You sho blow me. Yer, like, totally blowing me right now. Good blow, not bad blow.” I gave a nod, satisfied that I had cleared things up. Besides, there were important things to talk about. “Hey, Cloud Kicker? Who put the shun out? Sh'all dark 'n shtuff.”

“It's called night, Dash.” Cloud was being all deadpan serious. “It’s this new thing the Princess has been trying out lately.”

“Huh. I knew that.” I took a look up at the night sky. “Hey. Hey Kicker! Look. It’sh the Mare in the Moon. She’sh lookin’ down at ush and shtuff.” I nudged her shoulders to make sure she was paying attention. “If we can shee her fashe on the moon ... doesh tha’ mean the other side o'the moon hash her butt?” I started cackling so hard I nearly fell off her back. “Oh Celestia, I just realized. Mooning! Shoon ash we land, I’m sho gonna moon the moon!”

“That’s great, Rainbow. I’m happy for you.” Cloud didn’t sound all that excited. Maybe she was still trying to wrap her brain around the sheer awesomeness of my idea. It was one of my better ones. “C'mon, let's get you home.”

Wait ... maybe I’d been thinking about this the wrong way. Maybe it wasn’t that Cloud was in awe of my awesomeness ... maybe she was upset about all the stuff I’d said earlier? “Hey Cloud Kicker? Y'know I didn't mean any a'that shtuff I said 'bout your mom or dad. I wash jusht meshin’ around and shtuff. They're cool. You're cool.”

Kicker grinned up at me. “Thanks Dash. You're cool too.” She used one of her shoulders to give me a teasing little nudge. “I never knew you were such an affectionate drunk. That’s cute.” Kicker took off, and started heading for my home. “Almost cute enough to make up for your booze breath.”

“Hey, my breath’s jusht ash aweshome ash the resht of me! I bet it’sh, like, twentry hundrend million pershent better than yoursh.” Cloud landed at my extremely awesome cloud house, and I took advantage of having solid cloud underneath me to scoot up a bit so my muzzle was right in front of her mouth. “Lesh shee whatcher breath shmellsh like.”

“Rainbow, don’t...” I kept moving in closer. “I said no, Rainbow.” I sniffed after she said that, and got a good whiff of her breath. Darnit, why does her breath smell better than mine? Maybe she’s right about the cider giving me booze breath. Not that I’d ever admit it. “Anyway, you’re home safe and sound, so I’m gonna head back to the inn and...”

She was leaving me again? Gah! Stupid Kicker! Why’s she always gotta go away when I want her stick around for a while? Why does she always have to be so stupid? All her dumb, ‘I’m gonna leave now’ talk was really starting to get on my nerves, so I decided to shut her up. And, well, my mouth was still right next to hers from checking out what her breath was like, so ... yeah. That happened. I kissed her.

A couple seconds into it, probably about the time her brain got over the whole ‘What the hay? Am I getting the best kiss ever from Rainbow Dash?’ thing, she turned her head and kinda shuffled me off her back. She wasn’t rough about it or anything, but it was pretty clear I wasn’t gonna be able to ride her anymore.

Heh, ‘ride’ her.

From the stupid slack-jawed look on her face, Kicker’s brain still wasn’t working so great, so I decided to lay it out for her. “You know, I'm way cooler th’n whoever you went off with t’bang and shtuff tonight.”

“I, uh...” Cloud Kicker blinked a couple times, and finally managed to string together a coherent sentence. “Rainbow, did you just kiss me?” Sure, it was a stupid question to ask when she’d been right there for the whole thing, but at least she’d managed to put all the words there in the right order.

“Shooo...” I grinned over at her. “Wash that a great kish, or the besht kish ever?”

“It was...” Cloud blinked a couple times, and shook her head to clear out the massive afterglow of kissing yours truly. “Dash, why did you kiss me?”

“Tha’s a shtupid queshtion, shtupid.” I trotted up to her and poked her in the chest. “I got a better one for ya. Why d'ya alwaysh leave?” I crossed my forelegs over my chest, and stuck out my lower lip. “Why ya alwaysh gotta go runnin’ off t’bang other poniesh when I’m here? ‘M I not good enough for ya?”

Kicker’s jaw worked up and down a couple times before she actually got around to talking. “Of course you're good enough. You're one of my PFFs.”

Oh great, so I was just another face in the crowd to her? Not good enough. Not even within a hundred miles of being close to good enough. I couldn’t just be another buddy of hers, I had to be. “Am I your bessshht PFF?”

One of Cloud’s ears flicked. “Friendship isn’t some kind of competition, Dash. But yeah, you are my best friend.”

“Sho it’sh not a competishun, but if it wash one I’d win!” That got my ears perking up and a smile on my face. I always like winning. There was just one little thing that maybe had me just a tiny bit worried. “Yer not jusht shayin’ that, are ya?”

“Nope.” Cloud walked over to me and put her wing over my back again. I wing-hugged her back a second later—I would’ve done it at the same time, but my wings were still acting all weird and stuff. “I mean it, Rainbow Dash. You are my best friend.”

Aw dangit, I could feel my eyes getting all watery and a bunch of sappy emotions getting stirred up. Ugh, I hate it when that kinda thing happens. I blame the cider, ‘cause there’s no way I’d get all stupid and weepy normally. Anyway, I ended up leaning up against Cloud Kicker, enjoying how soft and warm she was again, and trying to hide those stupid little sniffles the boozes was forcing out of me. “You're aweshome, Kicker.”

Cloud nuzzled my cheek, which for some reason made my cheeks get all red and stuff. I wasn’t blushing, it was just ... oh fine, I was maybe blushing a little. Stupid Cloud Kicker, making me get all blushy. Then she went said something that made it even worse. “Not as awesome as you are, Rainbow.”

Aww. Maybe I got a tiny bit emotional for a second or two after she said that. What can I say? It kinda got to me, knowing that she felt that way, especially with all our messy history. Honestly, she should probably hate me after everything I did to her, and instead she calls me her best friend and says I’m even more awesome than she is. It was almost too good to be true. “If I’m really all that great, then why'dya alwaysh leave?” I wasn’t that upset or anything, but I had to pout my lips and frown a bit so Cloud would get the message.

“Why do I leave?” Kicker frowned at me, apparently not getting what I was saying even though it had been in plain Equestrian. “What do you mean?”

“You never shtick around.” I poked her in the chest again. “Whenever we go out and shtuff. You alwaysh leave to go bang shomepony you never met b'fore instead of shtaying with me. Why you gotta do that? ‘Cause it really, really shucksh.”

“I didn’t stick around once I'd hooked up with somepony because you’ve always been all freaked out about me banging.” A second later closed her eyes and raised a hoof to cut off my answer. “No, freaked out’s not quite the right term for it. Uncomfortable, maybe? I dunno ... Look, the bottom line is, you don’t exactly like it when I’m banging around and stuff. So whenever I got my bang on, I tried to give you some space. Was that the wrong move?”

“Nuh-uh!” I blurted out on pure instinct. I didn’t wanna see Kicker banging and stuff, that would be weird and gross. Except then I thought about it a bit more, and started realizing that it was a bit more complicated than that. “I mean, yeah. I dun’wanna watch ya bang or anythin’ weird like that, it’sh jusht that if you're my besht friend, why don't you ever wanna do thingsh with me?” I felt my hooves start wobbling under me. Must be a cloud-quake or something.

What? Cloud-quakes can happen. Honest.

“I mean, yeah, we hang out and shtuff,” I continued on once I’d recovered. “But then you do thish other shtuff an' leave me all aloooone!” Dangit, why did my voice sound all whiny just then? ‘Cause I wasn’t whining or anything, just letting Kicker know all the stupid stuff she did that was pissing me off. “It’sh jusht, there’sh thish huge part of yer life and who you are, and I don’t undershtand it or have anythin’ t’do with it. An’ that both shucksh and blowsh.” I stomped a hoof on the clouds. “I want you to like me n' trust me n' love me and lemme be part of your life and shtuff, not jusht be shomepony you leave when you’re doin’ that!”

Cloud Kicker closed her eyes took a couple deep breaths, then got to giving me an answer. “Look, I do like you Dash. And I trust you. Hay, I love you.”

Aww yeah! I won—not that there was ever any doubt that I would, eventually. “Thash great! I love and trusht you, and you and trusht love me. Let'sh get banging!”

I moved in for another kiss, but Kicker put a hoof on much chest to stop me. “Look, Rainbow, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to bang.”

“Why not?” I could tell I was pouting and sulking again, but right now I was too annoyed with Kicker to care about my less than one hundred percent awesome body language. “I'm not too good with mushy wordsh and shtuff, but I wanna show you how much I trusht you and like you.”

That’s when the best idea ever hit me. To hay with words and talking, I was a mare of action. If I wanted to show Kicker just how much I trusted her, there was a perfect way to show it. I reached and grabbed one of her forelegs. At first she wasn’t too sure about it, but after I gave it a couple insistent tugs she let me take control of her limb. First off, I pulled her inside so I wouldn’t have to worry about anypony seeing us. I probably should’ve done that before I kissed her, but ... eh, details. There’s no way anypony saw us.

So, I pulled Cloud Kicker inside, and back to my bedroom. Then we got to the bed, and I kinda got comfortable. Then I took Kicker’s hoof and started moving it south. Once she realized what I was doing, she tried to take her hoof back, but I kept hanging onto it. “No! I gotta show you that I trusht you and shtuff!” I yanked her hoof, and actually managed to pull her a bit off-balance. “I had nightmaresh and shtuff, y’know? ‘Bout that shtupid fight. ‘Bout when you hit me down there. It’sh shtupid. I’m not shcared of you, an’ I trusht you to do shtuff and touch me and not hurt me an’ all that horsheapplesh.”

“Rainbow...” Cloud Kicker wasn’t letting me control her hoof, but at least she wasn’t trying to pull it free anymore. She took a deep breath. “Rainbow, you don’t have to have sex with me just to prove that you trust me. That’s not a good reason to have sex.”

Wow, she sounded all serious and stuff. She wasn’t even calling it banging anymore. Stupid Kicker. “Well why don’tcha wanna bang me? You bang everypony elshe! I thought we were friendsh! Hay, you just shaid you were my beshtesht friend! You were gonna bang AJ or Big Mac sho why not me? What makesh them sho much better’n me?”

Cloud groaned and used her free hoof to facehoof. “It’s not that they’re better than you, Rainbow. I don’t want to bang you because ... well, because you're drunk, for starters.”

“I’m totally not drunk.” I tried to lean forward so I could get up in her face, but I wound up overdoing it. If she hadn’t used her free hoof to steady me, I probably would’ve fallen off. “Okay, maybe ‘m jusht a little bit drunk, but that doeshn’t mean nothin’. I shtill know wut 'm talking 'bout! It’sh just shome liquid ... whaddya callit?”

“Liquid courage.” Cloud Kicker filled in for me. “Tell you what, Dash. Let's talk in the morning, when you're sober. If you still wanna bang then ... we’ll see.”

Yeah, right. And I bet in the morning she’d say I was too hung over or something, and then after that there’s be some other reason for her to keep putting me off, until she got around to joining the Guard and leaving forever. “N-no! No we're gonna talk about thish righ’ now!” I gave another yank on her foreleg, and actually managed to catch her so off guard and I nearly got her hoof ... down there. About halfway there she must’ve figured out what I was up to, ‘cause her eyes got as wide as dinner plates, and she pulled some kind of slick Krav Pega move that got her hoof out of my grip. “Shtupid Kicker!” I all but shouted at her. “Don’t you shee that I’m tryin’ to show you that I trusht you an’ shtuff? ‘Cause I do. Totally. Sho why don't you ever even hit on me? Why ish every other pony you meet shoooo much better than me? ‘M I ugly or shomethin’?”

Cloud facehoofed and let out an annoyed groan. “No, you’re not ugly.” She put a wing over my shoulders and bumped foreheads with me. “Dash, take it from me, you are one hot piece of flank. The only reason I’ve never gone after you is because you matter too much to bang.”

“I—eh? Wha?” I blinked a couple times, trying to figure out just what the hay she meant by that.

“I’ll explain in the morning, okay Dash?” She brought a hoof up to my cheek for a moment, and I kinda leaned into the touch a bit. “Tell you what, Rainbow? I won’t leave you tonight. I’m not gonna bang you, but I won’t leave either. That work?”

I thought it over for a bit. “Sho you’re gonna shtay with me ‘shtead of leavin’?” Kicker nodded. “I guessh that worksh, then.”

And then we got into bed. I wanted to stay awake and, y’know, bond and stuff, but the clouds and Cloud were just so comfy...

The first thing I noticed when I woke up the next morning was that my bed was really warm. Pretty soft and comfortable too. Now, clouds are always pretty comfortable for napping on—I don’t know how the groundpounders can ever manage without them—but this one felt really nice. I grabbed it and pulled it up a little closer, burying my face in its soft fur.

Wait, what?

My eyes snapped open, and instead of puffy white cloud I saw a bunch of lavender pony. I blinked a couple times, and then poked the purple thing in my bed, just to make sure it wasn’t some very strange kind of cloud. You can get purple clouds sometimes, usually when somepony in Cloudsdale decides to play a prank. I need to find a way to pull that off.

The poke prompted the pony in my bed to shift a bit, and then I saw that unmistakable yellow mane. “C-Cloud Kicker? What are you doing in my bed?” Then the memories from last night started crashing into my sleepy brain. A lot of it was kinda fuzzy, but I definitely remembered kissing her and telling her I wanted to bang. Oh Celestia, don’t tell me we’d— “Arrrgh! We didn't do any of that weird stuff didn't we? Because if we did, that's totally not cool—and I can't even remember it! Aw, hay, this is bad. This is really, really bad!”

“Whoa, easy there, Rainbow!” Cloud wrapped her hooves around me. “Calm down, okay? We didn’t sleep together. Well, okay, we slept, but we didn’t bang or do anything sexual. Hay, we didn’t even spoon!”

I gave my head a couple shakes to clear out the mental cobwebs, which I ended up regretting when the hangover hit. My metabolism is awesome enough that I don’t get bad hangovers, but I’d been drinking a lot last night. The only thing awesome enough to beat my metabolism was my tolerance for drinking without getting drunk.

It took a minute or two, but I managed to remember enough about last night to stop freaking out about whether I’d done stuff with Cloud. Well okay, we’d definitely done stuff, like me kissing her and trying to put her hoof down there, but we hadn’t done the big stuff. Y’know, like banging and whatnot. So, I only needed to be a little worried. Er, concerned, not worried. Worried is kind of like scared, and I definitely wasn’t scared.

So, guess we should probably talk about what happened last night. Just not right now. “So ... um ... hey, Cloud Kicker. S’up?”

“Oh, you know, the usual.” Cloud’s forelegs tightened around me. “Hanging out with my awesome friend, taking it easy.”

“Oh yeah? Cool.” Thank Celestia she wasn’t gonna dive right into the whole ‘hey, about what happened last night’ thing. I wanted to sort all that out, but it could wait until after breakfast. And... “Hey, Cloud? Not that I don’t like hanging with you, but I really gotta go to the bathroom. Bad. So couldja...”

“Oh, right. No problem.” She let go, and I got out of bed and made a beeline for the bathroom. If she’d been a little slower on letting go ... well, let’s just say it would’ve sucked for anypony who was walking underneath my house. After all the cider I’d had last night, I needed to get to the bathroom bad enough that if there’d been a bit more room to build up speed I probably could’ve pulled off another Sonic Rainboom.

Once I’d made decent progress on emptying out my bladder, I heard Cloud’s voice just outside the bathroom. “Hey, Dash? How about you take some time to freshen up and everything while I get some breakfast ready?”

Well, I wasn’t gonna complain if Kicker wanted to cook and save me the trouble. She’s a pretty good cook, though honestly I’m not all that picky about my food. I don’t want it to taste like horseapples or anything, but as long as it’s edible I’m alright. It’s all just fuel for the awesome-machine, in the end.

I tapped the shower cloud a couple times, and got a decent little rain going. After last night I kinda felt a little gross and sticky, so washing up actually sounded like a good idea. I might not be some neat-freak who’s always gotta look pretty like that pony who owns the dress shop, but that doesn’t mean I wanna go around feeling dirty and smelling bad.

I lathered up and rinsed off. Then I decided that I still felt kinda icky, so I washed off again. Then a third time, just to be sure. Then I decided to mare up and stop putting the talk with Cloud Kicker off.

It’s not that I was scared or anything. It’s just ... well, things did get kinda weird last night. What if Cloud was mad about it? What if she didn’t wanna be my friend anymore? I’d been kinda upset about her leaving me behind to go chase after tail, but now she could end up leaving forever ‘cause I’d gone and gotten stupid. Out of all the bad stuff that could possibly happen, that was just short of being told that the Wonderbolts would never take me.

I stepped out of the shower, took a bit to dry off, then took a deep breath and headed into the kitchen. What I found there actually managed to take my mind off the whole impending talk of doom thing. Food. Lots and lots of food. My stomach took the opportunity to remind me that aside from a bunch of cider, I hadn’t really had anything since those hayfries last night. “Wow, Kicker! When’d you get all this together? I wasn’t in the shower that long.”

“I picked up a lot of it while you were still sleeping.” She fluffed a couple clouds for us to sit on. “Funny, but my first morning in Ponyville, and I decided to go and throw together a full Canterlot Breakfast. Guess I must be feeling homesick already.”

My mouth might have been watering a bit. “If this is what you getting homesick looks like, you should do it more often.” I grabbed a plate and started piling eggs, beans, hash browns, toast, haybacon, mushrooms, and tomatoes on. So much food. Delicious, delicious food.

On top of how tasty all the food was, a nice big breakfast meant we were both too busy stuffing our faces to do any serious talking. Not to say that we didn’t get any talking in, just that we kept things light and casual. “So I guess I kinda slept in a bit, huh?”

Cloud put down a slice of grilled tomato and smirked at me. “Let’s just say that when you woke up it would’ve been inaccurate to say ‘good morning.’ Hope you’re not missing work.”

“Nah, I’m fine.” I waved a hoof dismissively. “I took a couple days off so we’d have time to hang out and stuff.” Yeah, that idea probably wasn’t gonna work out so great. After what happened last night, Kicker was probably gonna hop on the train back to Canterlot as soon as she could. I’d kinda feathered things up with her. Again.

At least the breakfast was good. Too bad it couldn’t last forever. Although I really didn’t wanna talk about what happened, I guess there was no avoiding it. Better just jump into it right away, and start the conversation off on my terms. “Look, Kicker, I’m sorry about going all weird on you last night. We cool?”

“Yeah, we’re cool Rainbow.” I let out a relieved breath at that. I probably calmed down a bit too soon though, ‘cause right after that Cloud held up a hoof to cut off my response. “But we still need to talk about what happened.”

“Do we have to?” I crossed my forelegs over my chest and refused to meet her eyes. “I had too much booze, and things got a little weird for a bit. No big deal. Nothing we need to talk about, or even mention. To anypony. Ever.”

“We kinda do need to talk about it, Rainbow.” Kicker shuffled around on her sitting-cloud. “You kissed me. Wanted to do a lot more than that too. That’s a little bit too big for us to just sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened.”

I groaned and flopped down on the table, once I made sure I wouldn’t be messing up any of the food in the process. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I knew I was sulking, which I’m usually way too cool to do, but this kinda a special situation. “It’s just not fair. I don’t want some stupid thing I did while I was drunk to screw up our friendship.”

“It won’t.” Kicker put a wing over my back, and pulled me in for a proper hug. “I promise you, Dash. No matter what happens, we will always be friends. However, we need to talk about what happened and sort it all out, or things could get awkward between us. So...” Kicker took a deep breath, and jumped right into the awkward zone. “Was everything that happened last night just alcohol, or do you want a sexual relationship with me? Be honest, there’s no wrong answer.”

My first instinct was say no, that everything that happened last night was all because of the booze and nothing else. But ... well, don’t they always say that ponies reveal their true feelings and stuff when they’re drunk? Maybe I’d been lusting after her sun-and-cloud butt for a while, and it wasn’t until I got all boozey that I realized it. Nah, that didn’t sound right. I mean, I guess that made more sense than me just randomly hitting on her out of nowhere, but it just ... didn’t fit.. “I dunno. I don’t think I wanna bang you, but...” I shuffled around a bit under her wing, “So, why didn’t you wanna bang me? Aside from the the whole me being drunk off my plot thing.”

Was I not good enough for her? No way, I’m awesome. I’m way better than all those other ponies she’s messed around with ... right?

“Well, you being incredibly blitzed was a pretty good reason all on its own.” She gave me a gentle little nudge with her shoulder. “Alcohol rarely leads to good decision-making. As for the rest of it ... well, it’s pretty much exactly what I said last night. What the two of us have means a whole lot to me, and I don’t wanna mess that up by turning you into just another bang.”

“But I thought banging was a good thing.” I frowned over at her. “You seem to like it just fine, and Lyra was telling me that it’s all about showing trust and love and closeness and all that. If that’s what the deal is with it ... well, I do trust you. I do wanna be close to you. 'C'mon—it's you and me.. We can do anything together, and I know you've got my back. I maybe even ... y’know...” I waved a hoof about in the air for a bit. “L-word. A little.” Dammit, why was I blushing and ruining my cool image? “Y’know, not like ... um ... sappy romance stuff, but still ... yeah.” Oh Celestia, I’m turning into Fluttershy!

“Aww, you’re so cute when you get all shy and blushy.” Kicker leaned in and nuzzled me on the cheek, which just ended up making me blush even more. Stupid Kicker. “For what it’s worth Rainbow, I L-word you too. As far as banging goes ... Lyra was right. It does show love and trust in your partner, and it’s one of the closest, most intimate things two ponies can do. But it only does those things if you do it for the right reasons.”

“But...” I gave into my sappy impulses for once, and nuzzled her back. “But you're my friend, Kicker. We’re supposed to be close and stuff.”

“And you're my friend, Dash.” My stupid annoying blush went into overdrive when she kissed me on the cheek. “We don't have to bang to prove that. And us not banging doesn’t make our friendship any less important to me.”

Dangit, now my vision was getting all misty. Must be the humidity, or maybe there was something in my eye. Whatever. “Thanks, Cloud.”

I felt one of her hooves on my cheek, gently turning my head until I was looking her in the eyes. She was smiling at me, and there was just a hint of teasingly playfulness in her eyes. “That said, if you ever wanna bang me for the right reasons...”

And the she kissed me, right on the lips.

Whoa.

Maybe I’d just been too drunk to appreciate it last night, or maybe she hadn’t really gotten into it. Probably both. Either way, this was ... nice?

She pulled back after a bit, but my brain was still flying a mile a minute, trying to work its way through the fact that Kicker had just kissed me, and it felt kinda cool. I almost wanted to keep doing it. Almost. It felt all warm and trusty, and I kinda got what she and Lyra had meant about the whole closeness thing. But at the same time, it just felt sorta ... not us. I mean, the kissing felt nice and all, but at the same time it just sorta felt like ... not the way Kicker and I were supposed to work. It kinda felt like if we kept going we could find something really radical, but at the same time we’d be messing up something that was even better.

I dunno, maybe I was just being stupid. It was just a feeling.

It was about that time I realized that I’d just been sitting there with my jaw hanging open ever since she’d kissed me. I quickly got to work on recovering my coolness factor. “I guess that was alright. Y’know, as far as kisses go.”

Cloud just chuckled and gave me a squeeze with her wing. “Never change, Rainbow.”

“Can’t improve upon perfection.” I smirked and puffed my chest out. My good mood didn’t last all that long before reality went and messed it all up, though. “We’re gonna have to change, though. I mean, now that you’re done with all the classes at West Hoof and everything...” I gave into my emotions again, and latched my forelegs around her. I might have been sniffling just a little bit, too. “You’re fixing to go into the Guard forever. You’ll spend all your time banging guards and guarding bangs, and I’m gonna be back here in Ponyville doing weather stuff. We won’t be able to hang out together or anything. Where’s that gonna leave me?”

Cloud blinked a couple times, and she gave me a thoughtful little frown. “Rainbow, was part of the reason you wanted to bang me not just because you wanted to be close and showed you trust me, but also because you’re scared of losing me?”

“I’m not scared of anything!” I answered automatically. A couple seconds later, I tightened my grip around her and put my head around her shoulder. “But, y’know, maybe I was a little bummed out over you heading off to go have this whole big life I wouldn’t get to be a part of. I just wanna be ... y’know ... special. Even after you’re gone.”

Kicker’s ears drooped, and she shifted around a bit in my forelegs. “Rainbow, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, but there hasn’t really been a chance to say it since I got here. Well, that, and maybe you’re not the only one who was a little scared.” She took a couple deep breaths before she worked up enough courage to continue. “I'm not gonna be a Guard, Dash.”

“What?” I checked my ears, just to make sure I’d heard that right. There was no way she could’ve said what I just thought I’d heard. “You’re not making any sense Kicker ... are you the one who’s drunk now or something?”

Cloud took another deep breath, and this time she sounded a bit more sure of herself. “I'm not going into the Guard.”

“But why?” This just didn’t make any sense at all. Unless... “Did some stupid general say you’re not good enough or something? Well, I'll show him!” I took a few practice swings with my forelegs to show exactly what I had in mind. “I'm gonna love and tolerate him! Meet Love—” I swung with my right foreleg, “—and Tolerance!” I punched out with my left.

Cloud put her hooves over mine, keeping me from doing any more punching. “Whoa, settle down, Rainbow. You don’t need to go beat anypony up. It was my choice.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Bwaaaaaaaaaa?” The more she tried to explain what was going on, the less sense she made. “But you love the Guard! You were always going on about how it was your dream to join the Guard and uphold your family legacy and stuff, just like I'm gonna join the Wonderbolts! Why would you do a thing like that?”

Cloud’s head drooped down, and when she finally spoke her voice sounded small. Like she was beaten down. “I got scared. Once it was time to actually lock in and do it. I’d just ... Dash, once you're in the Guard, you're in for life. Or at least, that’s the way it felt to me—like I couldn’t just do one or two tours of duty, then call it quits. I’ve spent my whole life saying I wanted to be a Guard, but I’ve never even tried anything else. What if the only reason I wanna be a Guard is because I keep telling myself that’s what I’m supposed to do? I can’t just sign away my whole life on something I’m not sure about.”

“Oh.” Wow, I never knew there was all that going on in Kicker’s head. “So that was really bugging you? Why didn’t ya tell me about it?”

“You weren’t—” Cloud sighed, and took a bit to figure out what she wanted to say. “I wasn’t really thinking about the whole thing until it all just came crashing down right on graduation day. There wasn’t time to get a letter to you or anything, I had to figure it all out right then and there.”

I went back to hugging her. It seemed like the thing to do. “Wish I’d been there. Y’know, to talk to you and stuff.” I’m not really much of a talking pony, but that’s what friends are supposed to do. I mean, I could’ve done something to help, at least. I felt kinda bad about the whole thing—Kicker needed a friend, and I hadn’t been there. “So, whatcha gonna do now? Any way I can help?”

Kicker thought about it for a bit, and shrugged. “No idea what’s next for me. I was hoping getting out of Canterlot could help me clear my head some.”

Guess that made sense, considering her family and all. It would be a little hard to think about stuff like whether she wants to be in the Guard when she’s surrounded by her whole clan where pretty much everypony’s in the Guard. “Your folks okay with it?”

Kicker’s face fell even further. “Not really. I mean, they’re not being horrible about it and threatening to disown me or anything. Hay, Mom and Dad told me that they’d support me no matter what I decide to do. But I can tell they’re disappointed I’m not gonna go into the Guard, even if they’re trying to hide it.” She let out a frustrated groan and dropped her head down onto the clouds. “And them trying to be cool and reasonable about the whole thing just makes me feel worse. They’d already gotten a graduation present for me and everything.”

I put my wings around her to go along with my forelegs. I mean, dang. I’m not much of a hugging sort of pony, but even I could tell that Cloud really needed a hug right then. “Well, you've always got me!”

Kicker turned, and slowly started hugging me back. “Yeah, I do.”

I gave her a little squeeze. “Tell you what, you can stick around Ponyville while you’re sorting all that stuff out, okay? Hay, you can crash on my couch, and I can probably get you a job on the weather team or something. Just stick with me, and we’ll work this out. I mean, you’re the best, and I’m better than the best, so together we'd be, like, the most supercoolawesomeazing thing ever!”

“Yeah. Sounds good.” She kissed me again, but this wasn’t like the last time. It was lighter. Friend-ier, I guess. Still cool. “Thanks, Dash.”

I grinned over at her. “S’no big deal. You’re my friend.” Okay, things were starting to get just a little too sappy, time to knock them back to normal. “So, I was thinking ... Did you see the way Applejack and Lyra were sucking face last night? We totally have to come up with some way of pranking them for that. Seriously, it was beyond gross.”

Cloud Kicker let out a little snort. “You would think that, wouldn’t you?”

“Well it was!” I leaned my head in conspiratorially, even though we were the only two ponies in the house. “Now, I was thinking we...”