Chapter Twenty: Morning In Canterlot... Could Be Worse

Sunrise. Applejack and Pinkie Pie were used to this incredible event, and Invictus had once again returned to a high end pub once the Monday morning had begun anew. Applejack prided herself on her instinct to wake up early, and Pinkie too, was an early riser most days. Today, they had both cut themselves a little bit of slack for not being there when the sun began to shine, but it was at least a blue sky and right around when most normal folk woke up.

They weren’t in a high caring mood at this current moment.

Both of the mares had simply let their manes go; Applejack was content to let her berserk wheat colored mane roll down her shoulders and back in a disheveled mess, and the gel in Pinkie’s hair had dried up and turned it into a catacomb of spires, bubbly blobs, and simply a mash of every hair style she had ever had. Neither of them were concerned about how they looked.

A large pot of coffee brewed at the center of their table, the two mares barely glancing at the growing flow of ponies seeking early morning pub food. Applejack was content to drink what must of been her third cup of coffee by this point to counter the slowness of her mind. She was thankful she didn’t drink too much alcohol last night, and that Earth pony biology granted an excellent boost to nearly all of her internal organs, including her kidneys.

She had smoked far more than she had in perhaps all of her past engagements combined. Perhaps ‘royal’ weed was not supposed to have side effects, but maybe in her dosage, it just did.

Normally, she’d consider herself just a bit cranky after what had happened last night; she was a bit more inclined to give an annoying pony a good bit of country vulgarities instead of a discontent grunt. Normally, a mild hangover and blurry cannabis blues made her only slightly agitated. But there was a massive problem, and that made her far more along the lines of pissed.

“I can’t freakin’ believe I didn’t get any last night,” she growled. “My modesty was nice an’ all last night, but son of a bitch, this mornin’ stinks more than a donkey with dysentery.”

The pink mare in front of her, was clearly not amused by the current passage of time or events that had followed either. “Tell me about it,” Pinkie rumbled in fatigue, her muzzle resting on the table top. Mixing far too many different kinds of alcohol for her own good, and her own repressed sexual urges remaining unfulfilled, had made the famously bouncy mare a ticked off, tired time-bomb of need. She had a moderately bad hangover, and was completely lost as to exactly how yesterday happened the way it did. That was a rare occurrence.

“I mean, hay, it just isn’t fair," Pinkie whimpered, peeking up at Applejack. She rested her muzzle on her arms, letting out a stressed exhale of air from the end of her muzzle. "Why do we have to be the ones who don’t need a lot of sleep, and we party, and then we get nothing? Celestia, I smoked too much last night.” Pinkie whined like a neglected dog, dragging her muzzle across the wooden table.

“Yeah, I’m swearin’ off the dope and stickin’ to alcohol,” Applejack grumbled, gulping down her caffeine like water. She stared at her drink as if it had the solution to all of her woes. “Though, I’ll pass on that for several years too. Or... maybe a month. Or until Rainbow makes me want ta break her wings and make her eat them.”

Pinkie’s eyes drifted upward to look at Applejack's, blinking several moments to digest her friend's sentence. She felt more mortal now than she could recall in recent memory. “That’s… that’s kinda mean," she said tiredly. "Like...seriously, you should not say that kinda mean. There’s you meanness, and then Rainbow meanness, and then Twilight-thinks-you’re-an-incurable-idiot meanness, and then not funny meanness. Kinda the last, Applejack.”

“I don’t give a buck right now,” Applejack droned, rubbing her forehead with a hoof. Any sort of decency filter she had for her rougher vocabulary had been put to pasture. She wished she had been too. “Ya know I’d never do it, I just… I just need my crop rotated, damn it, and Twi’ just… just had to teleport and knock herself out. She could've had me carry her and we could've done somethin' light.” She growled loudly. "I can't believe I'm mad at her for not gettin' me off. I sound... stupid."

Applejack leaned forward, looking back down into Pinkie's eyes. She shook her snout gently. “I… damn it. Yer right, Pink’; I have to apologize to Dash for even thinkin’ about it.” Applejack exhaled sharply through her nose, letting the pressured air escape from her lungs. “I’m just, ticked. Ticked more than I can remember. Epona bethankful I just don’t got the energy to beat it out of the next pony who tries to say somethin’ stupid.”

Applejack sat back down on her pub chair, curling her thick, golden tail haphazardly around her side. Free of the tail wrap to keep it in check, it hung beside her like a cycle of wild grain. “I… I think I now know what Twilight feels like when somethin’ retarded happens.” Her olive eyes opened wide in sudden clarity. “I know what I feel like, but for her ta have this much stress on her? I… I can’t think of a single word to describe how she puts up with it. A-a-all I can say, is that she is stronger than all of us, combined. She… she needs me.”

“Equestria to Applejack: you are having Post Pot Philosophical Ponderings. Stop tripping and come back to me.” Pinkie Pie leaned forward, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Now simma down now, relax, and let’s… let’s not try to think too hard? Twilight’s not going anywhere, and Fluttershy isn’t either." Her forehoof twirled a spoon into her mug of coffee, mixing up the sugar in the raw. It was her own turn to rub at her temples, closing her eyes to keep the throbbing in her head down. It only brought back the pounding music of the night before. She liked dance music. Not anymore.

Applejack snorted out another trundle of steam from her nose, nodding her muzzle solemnly at her friend. She raised an eyebrow at Pinkie's coffee. “I thought you don’t drink coffee? Rarity and I are really the only drinkers.”

“I started five seconds ago,” Pinkie grumbled, suckling on the drink in a physics and biologically normal manner. “It’ll keep me from passing out, maybe make me get my trunk bouncing again, and it could make me think less about my hangover. Or more. My brain doesn’t let me control much. It’s being really nice now though.” She chuckled in amusement. "Or maybe it's tired too. I didn't even know that was possible."

“Heh.” Lifting up her orange hoof to pour her fourth cup, Applejack’s green eyes scanned the club for a moment, feeling the budding kick of a culturally critical plant counter another culturally critical plant. And one not so culturally critical, although that was debatable. “What were the chances Rarity got three rooms all connected together as a herd sized suite? I can’t think of her plannin’ that intentionally.”

“Meh, she most likely thought Twilight and Rainbow would get a room, and then the four of us our own.” Pinkie shivered at the bitter taste in her mouth. “Doesn’t matter though, cause… heh, that would’ve been very messy if Fluttershy and Twilight weren't goners." She stroked her chin, taking another sip of her drink. "Not sure if it would be in the good or bad kind of messy. I’d say both.”

“You can say that again," Applejack smiled softly, "but you aren’t as peeved as I am about... well... not gettin' some action, and you got more wasted than all of us. Why?”

Pinkie rested her arms on the table, leaning toward Applejack. She was unable to hide the faint blush from going across her muzzle. “W-w-w-ell, when... uhh... we ‘bumped’ into the wrong room, we made a hasty retreat into the next empty one, and we got into a bit of hooving and grooving, and then… Fluttershy passed out. Kind of like Twilight did.”

A snide smirk appeared over the corners of Applejack’s lips. “That’s because I shooed you two off. Didn’t want anypony to bother Twilight since she was knocked out. And well… I’m not exactly keen on seein’ or hearin’ two of my friends gettin’ at it.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie sighed, “so we got half way to Candyland, so I guess getting a bit off didn’t make me more antsy, but helped a bit. Until this morning.” Her snout collided with the table once again, forehooves scratching and half swimming over the surface. “And when I woke up, Fluttershy was nuzzled in with Twilight, and you were with me.” Her eyes dragged upward to look at Applejack’s, fear trickling over the corners of her blue orbs. “You didn’t-”

“Reagan’s rectum I would never do that to anypony,” Applejack gasped. “I just didn’t want ya to wake up alone, so I just laid beside you is all, Pinkie Pie." She shook her muzzle rapidly from side to side, as if cold water had been thrown in her face. "Goodness, girl, that woke up me up. And I had to escape the noise Rainbow and Rares were makin’. Or what I thought they were gonna make again.”

“You’re going to tell me, even though I don’t want to hear it,” Pinkie whimpered.

“Eeeeyup,” Applejack smiled, folding her forehooves across her chest. “I can’t be theonly one who knows that they hit notes I didn’t even know the vocal chords could make. Celestia’s crotch creases, I’m glad it was twenty minutes before they passed out, ‘cause if it was five minutes more I would’ve broken down the wall and forced their snouts between my thighs until they choked.”

Gently, Pinkie pushed herself up onto her hooves, her eyes looking at her friend’s in a sudden dawning near enough to what Applejack had felt earlier. Applejack flicked an ear at Pinkie staring at her, tilting her snout to the side. Fatigue still filled Pinkie's eyes, but there was a budding light underneath.

“Uhh… Pinks?” Applejack asked, scratching at the floor with a hind hoof, “I guess to some carnivore I’d be mighty tasty with all my muscles-”

“Muscles,” Pinkie stated flatly. “Applejack: will you have sex with me?”

Applejack's eyes rapidly blinked at the question directed at her, her mind blank despite the caffeine that was going through her body.

“Okay,” Pinkie said, waving a forehoof dismissively. “I know we would make the worst couple-”

“You and Rarity.”

Pinkie fell over onto her side at the reply, letting out a deep laugh several octaves lower and far more powerful than any Applejack had ever seen. Tears poured down Pinkie’s cheeks at the simple thought of the idea, the filly rolling around on the ground in incoherent bliss.

Applejack shook her head, continuing her own trail of thought. “So… current you shows yer a great bit deeper than I knew before, and well... knowing you shows yer different than what ponies think you are. Yer a good girl, Pinkie, but... yeah... you’d make me contemplate drinkin’ Appleshine with you around me all day, every day. You just play a different fiddle than me and my bass can’t keep up.”

“You’re great with a bass guitar,” Pinkie squealed, gasping for air as if she had given birth. “Us... and Rainbow... should jam more.”

Applejack rolled her eyes, tapping at the counter-top gently. “Completely unrelated, but a true story.”

“Oh!” Pinkie chirped, her mane gelling itself back into what it had been the night before. “Thanks! Distracted. It happens.”

“I’m used to it, but-”

“So what I’m saying,” Pinkie continued, pressing her nose into Applejack’s, “is since we’re both needing our cookies stuffed, and we didn’t get any last night, and we’re both hung over and not really thinking straight," she giggled at her own words, "we should totally do each other this one time because-”

“I’m up for it.”

“-it’ll make us both mellow out, and maybe feel like old us’s cause I can feel old me-say what!?” Pinkie’s voice cracked. Her eyes bulged out of her muzzle, mouth hanging open.

Despite a part of her mind screaming for her to yield, Applejack shrugged both to herself and her ethical code that questioned how in the hay this had come to pass. It was an anal bastard sometimes, and vice city was looking right in front of her. In all its puffy and fluffy glory.

“I got four cups of coffee in me," she began, leaning on the table. "A bouncin’ pink pony who is offerin’ a long, hard, fun time. I got pent up juices that need to be squirted, and acomplete lack of self control until who knows when. So I say: why the hay not, before I decide to ride the nearest door knob. Rather fondle and ride a livin’ one, and oh sweet mercy you’re the only pony I can think of that’ll keep up with me other than Rainbow.”

A rumble deeper and more lustful than she had ever done in her entire life escaped from her lips. And she didn’t care that she did it. Repressed for too long, her loins - the most honest of loins - knew when they couldn't hold back any longer.

“Wait... you really mean it don't you?" Pinkie asked, her tone flattening. "I... wow. I don't know what to say to that."

Applejack slowly stroked the tip of her friend's muzzle. “Just say yes, and you’ll see what I’ll do to you and your 'pie'. And do it before I have a breakdown, and my breakdowns usually involve me running away or beatin' a tree. And I can't do either at the moment, so I might as well beat... a... cake. Crap. Daddy's genes failed me.”

Pinkie gasped scandalously, unable to hide the glowing blush going over her cheeks. “Miss Fruit!” she exclaimed, “but we’re so different, this is unheard of! But I must say yes-gah!”

Before Pinkie Pie even knew it, she was pressed against a wall, forced to stand on her hind legs as Applejack looked at her with the most sultry, dominant grin the pink mare had even seen. All Pinkie could do, was let out a nervous, soft squee of a mare who was caught wearing a skirt to a metal concert. Applejack stared down at her prey, forcing the front of both of their coats together.

Or more accurately, Applejack making sure Pinkie Pie wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon.

“H-i-i-i, Jackie.” Pinkie squeaked, eyeing the flowing and dancing yellow mane in front of her. Without her consent, her forehooves squeezed onto the thickly muscled flank cheeks of Applejack's. They screamed a raw power and torque that made Pinkie both envious, and scared. “B-b-beautiful hair you have. You are hotter without the hat! Wait. I need to find-”

“Rainbow said yer a switch, leanin' on a bottom, which is fine by me.” Applejack nickered darkly to her friend, licking Pinkie's ear as she dragged a forehoof through her fluffy back. “Cause I’m a natural top. Now why don’t ya go scoot that fine fanny of yours back into the room, and we’ll see how long you’ll last.”

“O-O-okay,” Pinkie whimpered, darting her eyes from left to right, looking for an escape. She found none. “Dear Pinkie Journal. Entry 246: You are really good at arousing ponies. Maybe you should not do that to a world class mage, athlete, and rodeo mare. Pick less threatening ponies.”

“I except at least five rounds with ya." Applejack dragged a hoof across Pinkie's cheek, lifting up her muzzle to stare Pinkie down with her emerald eyes. “Andyou offered, girl. Not me. Unless you were just kiddin’ around?” she asked, her eyes loosening their gaze. "If that's the case... I apologize and you shouldn't flirt with a needy friend. I owe you more cider than you can-"

“Oh no I totally wasn’t kidding-no shut up me-”

Applejack’s hoof slid noticeably lower down her friend’s front. “Eeeyup, I think you can’t back out of this now, little filly," she cackled. "Yer can of whoopass you opened.”

“Four rounds, and you let me curl up in your lap afterwards?” Pinkie gulped down a baseball sized wad of saliva down her throat.

Applejack, for the second time in her entire life, squeed. “Deal.”

What awoke Twilight Sparkle from her deep sleep - that was also made worse by a thankfully small hangover - was something she didn't want to hear. Ever. There were several things in life she didn't want to hear. Ever. The sounds softly thudding through the walls and into her ears were very high up on that list. Extremely so.

She was relatively positive four of her friends were having sex. Very, very, very loud sex.

She made an addendum: she was one hundred percent positive from the sonic resonances that four of her five closest friends were having very, very, very loud sex.

"Damn it," she whined tiredly. "Couldn't you have done this in the middle of the night? It has to be morning by now."

At least she had a wonderfully warm and sweet pillow and half blanket. While the covers and sheets of her bed had been thrown about, Fluttershy had half curled up around the unicorn, resting her muzzle on Twilight's rump as the purple mare hung lazily over Fluttershy's back. Twilight was stupidly comfortable, and that made the vibrations that clearly were meant to be gently heard from room to room slightly bearable.

Slightly.

"W-w-what?" Fluttershy hummed drunkenly, pulling open an eye. Twilight was shocked her friend hadn't needed to puke. The mako grogginess in the pegasus' eyes melted away once her ears picked up the nearby sounds. Twilight was thankful she didn't have the better hearing of the Pegasi. She would of attempted suicide if she did. "O-o-oh my!" Fluttershy gasped. "That's-"

"Yes." Twilight's horn crackled to life, cursing the very origins, ancestors and being of the mage as she channeled her magic to silence the sounds around her. Twilight's proven mana reserves and abilities to shuffle through spell matrixes were in the top one hundred of all non-divine creatures in Ungulia. All three hundred million of them, and she was climbing up that list every year. It didn't do anything to make a fatigued, horny, hungry, hungover, edgy, barely awake unciorn cast the spell that much easier.

Okay, she was lying astronomically to herself with the above statement: it made casting a sound canceling spell vastly easier and it would've made most specialized casters faint. It still made her even more fatigued, horny, hungry, hungover and edgier.

It did wake her up a bit though, and it did remind her of how incredibly talented she was. She did however, make a note to learn ways to save drunken mana drain. It could come in handy in the future.

The silence of nothing but herself and Fluttershy, was bliss. "Yes," she said once more. "They are enjoying themselves, aren't they, Fluttershy? I'm just peachy that I didn't get to have anything, aren't you?"

"I'm enjoying having you around me, even if... ouch." Whatever force or fire Fluttershy had drunk was gone. She had an awful hangover by the way she buried her snout into Twilight's cutie mark. "My head."

"I'm sorry, Fluttershy," Twilight whispered. There was no such thing as a headache curing spell, and Fluttershy simply had not drank enough fluids or eaten enough, despite knowing better. "Would you like me to get you something?"

Fluttershy shook her head, nuzzling into the warmth of her friend's flank. "I'd like to sleep more, if you don't mind?" She opened an eye to look up at the smiling Twilight, feeling her own smile gently spread across her muzzle. "And if... you didn't move, that'd be better than anything." What came out of Fluttershy's muzzle was close to an owl's trill. It was an arrow of cuteness shot at Twilight's heart.

"How can I say no to that?" Twilight replied, stroking gently across Fluttershy's stomach. "And while food and water sound really good right now, sleeping for a few more days sounds... wonderful." She didn't know what time it was or cared to know in fact. They were in Canterlot, and whatever plans and jobs they had today were on hold. And maybe for the rest of the week, at this rate.

"Yay." Fluttershy hummed, rubbing her nose up her friend's cheek until her snout rested once more on top of Twilight's cutie mark. "I'm glad Pinkie Pie and Applejack are having fun too. They deserve it. I'm just glad to wake up with you."

Twilight could not keep her ears from wilting at the raw peace coming from her friend's lips. "That's so sweet, Fluttershy, thank you. I feel much better having you around me too. I just can't promise feeling that way when we all are together again."

A painfully pure giggle escaped Fluttershy's muzzle. "Oh I don't think I'll be all flowery either. Tell you what. Let's yell at them later today for leaving us out dry. I know we don't have a good reason to other than we were to tired, but it sounds fun. Just you, and me. I'd really enjoy that." Fluttershy could not help but have the smallest of smirks appear on the corner of her muzzle.

Twilight grinned back, closing her eyes as she inhaled gently through her nose, smelling the scent of her friend. The logic of Fluttershy's statement made no sense. It was why it made even more sense. "That'd be fun. I just hope Spike is doing okay." She snorted at her own statement. "Of course he is."

"He'll be fine," Fluttershy cooed. "He's thirteen now. He can take care of himself."