Double Feature: Too Much To Drink / I'm Dead, I Think?by Super TrampolineChaptersPrologueIn Stone No One Can Hear You Scream. Valkyrie VodkaStudying InternallyPrologueFourteen days ago... WHEN Spike left the tree house a few hours ago to help Roseluck clean and organize her plant store (something about a "noble dragon code" insisting he repay her for healing his bonsai), his older sister Twilight was sitting at her desk calmly studying differential equations. At least that's what she told him she was doing--in truth it just looked like a bunch of letters, numbers, and scribbles to him. HOWEVER, when he returned in the evening, much sweeping and watering later, he could hear loud muffled shouting coming from inside the library. Uh oh. "Twilight, why are you drunk?!?" Spike asked with much consternation. "I step outside for a few hours to repay a friend, and I come back to THIS!" The "THIS" he motioned to with his hands was math. Math ALL over the library. Furniture, books, the floor, the walls, the ceiling?: no usable writing surface had been spared a plethora of complex equations and jumbled shorthand notes. Which he would have to clean up. In the morning. By himself. And of course, OF COURSE, there in the center of it all sat the star attraction, the showstopper, the grand finale: a purple unicorn hunched over a bucket, muttering strings of numbers and expletives. Spike sighed and looked at a clock. What time was it? 6:27 p.m. It was going to be a long night. "Whoa whoa whoa. Hold on. Let me get this straight." Spike sighed, scrubbing ink and vomit off of the floor while he tried to get some coherency out of Twilight. "You're telling me you got yourself drunk for the sake of getting drunk? ON PURPOSE?!?!? What the Tartarus Twi? Why on Equiis would you do this?" "I ugh I told choo aready. I wannnnted to shast - I mean cashed a shpell I wouldn't remember. Heh, isn't that fuuunnnnnnyyyy?" The mare was lying on the floor, staring at her brother with a bit of drool hanging from her lips. "No Twilight, it's not funny. It's irresponsible. And why would you not want to remember casting something. AND isn't casting under the influence illegal? You're breaking the law!" "Notttcchhh in your HIC! own home Spiiiikie Wiiiiikie. Silly Willy. You shoulda... shoulda... uhhh oesh..... GACK!" She vomited into the bucket she was holding again. Spike face clawed. She had puke dribbling down her face and in her mane. Disgusting. "You owe me sooooooo hard Twilight," Spike grumbled. "For now lets just get you to bed. I love you, but seriously? Ugghhh!" In Stone No One Can Hear You Scream.AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH...? Hello? Hello? Hello? Anypony? ...Anyone?... ...Anything? I... ? What happened? I... ... Am I dead? ...nooooooo. If (IF!) I was dead (or would that be were? I can't even grammar.), I wouldn't be having this conversation with myself.... Would I? I'm not dead am I? Oh my Goddess I'm dead aren't I? Oh no. OH NO. OH NO NO NO NONONONONONONONONO!!!! NO!!! I can't be dead! I CAN'T BE! I NEED to be alive. The princess is counting on me. My friends are counting on me. I...I ... NO! NO TWILIGHT! GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF! CALM DOWN! YOU are a reasonable, rational, logical young mare. You are Princess Celestia's student. you are above freaking out. I'm sure there is a PERFECTLY reasonable, rational, logical explanation for why you are a disembodied voice in the middle of the forest. Yes, perfectly calm. Caalllmmm. Good Twilight. Wait, how do I know I'm in a forest? What happened anyway? I feel like I was going somewhere. Or... something. What was I doing? Think Twilight, think! Twilight Sparkle walked through the Everfree Forest on her way to to Zecora's hut to pick up some herbs for her rash. She probably shouldn't be have been by herself, but it was the middle of the day on a familiar path, so she wasn't too worried. Ok, so I was walking through the forest. I remember that... But ugh, then what happened? I just, I remember sounds. And a weasel [1]. Why the heck do I remember a weasel? She was humming to herself. It was a comfortably warm spring day, and the late-afternoon sun filtered down through the trees in ephemeral patterns that danced about like nature's marionettes. She sighed contentedly, feeling unusually at ease. She would never admit it to herself, but the forest, for all the chaos it was, still had its own odd beauty. Up ahead off to the side of the dirt path, the leaves were rustling particularly hardily. Curious, she trotted closer to investigate. Um alright, I think i remember a bush, and... Oh! A weasel popped out of it. But... that's it? I, a weasel, I... what? That makes no sense. But was that all? There was a weasel, and ... Ugh! Why are my thoughts so hazy. What happened? "Oh hi weasel!" she said enthusiastically. "How are you doing?" The weasel ignored her and scurried away across the path. "Oh look at me. I'm so silly. Talking to weasels? I must be turning into Fluttershy or something." Suddenly, something else started to shake up the leaves. So something else was in that bush? What was it? I remember... It's so fuzzy. Yeah, fuzzy! It was a... chicken? But what would a chicken be doing in the Everfree Forest? That doesn't make any sense. Maybe it only looked like a chicken. What looks like a chicken? Scootaloo? No. Wait. Wait. Oh no. Ohhhhh no. Oh Godess. Oh Luna's Beard! OH CRAP! SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT! BY CELESTIA'S ETHEREAL PUBIC HAIR OH NO! What ever was in the bushes sounded like it was about to pop out. And when it did, Twilight found herself face to face with a cockatrice. "Well, fuck." Author's Note I later learned in my research that the weasel is the only animal that is immune to the glance of a cockatrice. ~T.S. Valkyrie VodkaValkyrie Vodka Thirteen days ago: Unsurprisingly, Twilight was quite miserable the next morning. All the classic hangover symptoms were there: sleeping in, extreme sensitivity to sunlight, a pounding migraine, thirstiness, nausea, and irritability. In other words, for Twilight, a typical morning. "Ughhh, How much did I drink last night?" Twilight muttered as she clumsily made her way down the stairs. "I feel like..." She stopped dead in her tracks. She looked around. The library was covered in math. The floor, the walls, the books, the furniture, the ceiling?: every usable surface it seemed had notes and equations scrawled messily upon it. She blinked. "Wow, I drank that much?" ...several hours earlier... It was nine in the morning, and he was finally finished with his part. Spike had immediately decided that he would NOT be cleaning the math up. Vomit he could handle, but he didn't want to accidentally erase something important and face the infamous wrath of Twilight "I'm an egghead even when I'm drunk" Sparkle. So he left the ink on the furniture and everywhere else it had ended up (seriously, how did it even get on the ceiling? He wasn't sure he wanted to know.) and was getting ready to go back to bed (Celestia knew when Twilight might finally rise.), when he noticed a piece of paper on Twilight's written-on writing desk. Normally, this would not be unusual, considering the amount of writing Twilight in fact wrote. However, all her scrolls were littering the now vomit-free floor, all except for this one. Spike looked at it, and read aloud: Heyyyyy, Spiek, I'm suuuuper drunk. See, I'm even wriiiiiiting like I'm drank. But din't wurry, I got a reesn. I caught a spell. A very good spell. But I don't wnat to remebmer what I cast in the mmmmorning. Tat's y I'm so drink. So don't tell me what I casted, okey? Spike stared at the letter. "Uhhhhhh, OK?" ...sometime the previous night... "Valkyrie Vodka Twilight? Vodka? Really? "HIC!" she replied. "And FIVE of the them? This stuff is 80 proof! How are you even still standing? How do you NOT have alcohol poisoning?!?!" Spike was flummoxed by her behavior. "Buck youuuu," Twilight slurred. "I'm a shoonicorn. I'mph magic beeeeeeeyatch." "Ugghhh, I do not get paid enough to be you handler." Spike sighed as he grabbed an ink quill and one of the many blank scrolls lying on the floor, and started to write a letter. Dear Princess Celestia, You freaking better double my pension next month, or I'm stuffing "your faithful student" into a box and mailing her back to Canterlot Castle. ~XOXO, Spike Author's Note Vomit he could handle, but he didn't want to erase something important and face the infamous wrath of Twilight "I'm an egghead even when I'm drunk" Sparkle. Pretty sure that's my favorite line. Studying InternallyTwilight didn't know how, but she was hyperventilating. DEEP Imaginary breaths Twilight! Deep imaginary breaths. Don't freak out. Don't Don't Don't! Calm down. Deeeeep long breaths. Even though I can't breath. Pretend you're breathing. In... out... in... out. Nice and sslloooooooww. Ahhhhh. Okay. I'm relaxed. I AM relaxed. I am relaxed. I am relaxed. Now, let's take stock of the situation. I'm frozen. In stone. By a cockatrice. In the middle of the Everfree forest. And nopony knows where I am... My first deduction: this sucks. Meanwhile in the Canterlot Castle game room... "Hey Luna, you should come look at this." Celestia had been sitting on her favorite couch, studying the chess column in the Canterlot Evening News, when a short scroll popped into existence in front of her. Surprisingly though, it didn’t just fall down, but rather, one end dangled curiously from the portal from which it came, as if more was to come. As Luna paused her game and trotted over, more came, like from a typewriter. “What is it sister?” she asked. "It’s a scroll.” Luna rolled her eyes. “You don’t say. What, pray tell, are its contents?” Celestia scanned the lines of text pouring down and furled her brow. “It… appears to be Twilight Sparkle… freaking out?” Luna raised her eyebrows. “Surely that must be a first time occurrence?” “No, actually,” Celestia responded, “she has a tendency of… oh, ha ha. Very funny Luna.” Luna smiled and went back to reading the message alongside her sister. “Tia, this message is most curious. She claims that she is ‘a disembodied voice in the middle of the forest’. Do you not find that at all odd?” Celestia shushed her. “Shhhh, this is getting good.” The sisters continued to follow the lengthening scroll: Um alright, I think I remember a bush, and... Oh! A weasel popped out of it. But... that's it? I, a weasel, I... what? That makes no sense. But was that all? There was a weasel, and... Ugh! Why are my thoughts so hazy. What happened? Luna snickered. Celestia gave her an annoyed look. “Luna! This isn’t funny. Twilight could be in serious trouble.” “In trouble with you perhaps. Isn’t it obvious? Even after being gone for so long, I still remember what a hangover is like, and it’s perfectly clear that your star pupil is suffering from one.” Celestia gave her sister a look of shock. “Luna! How DARE you insinuate that Twilight would ever drink herself to a blackout. The Twilight I know would never do that. Ever!” Luna just rolled her eyes. “That’s what she wants you to believe, Celly. But look, the evidence is right there!” She pointed to scroll, where the words were appearing faster now, reflecting Twilight’s increasingly panicked state. Oh, Luna's Beard! Luna laughed nervously. “Ummm, is it that obvious? I shaved last week.” BY CELESTIA'S ETHEREAL PUBIC HAIR! Celestia’s cheeks flushed a much brighter shade of pink than they usually were. The two stared at each other with wide eyes. “Sister?” asked Celestia. “Yes?” replied Luna. “I think this is a serious matter.” “Agreed. I’ll go get the mouthwash and the spanking paddle.” Celestia facehoofed. “Priorities, Luna.” Author's Note Thanks to Azusa for hanging out with me on Google Docs while I wrote this!
PrologueFourteen days ago... WHEN Spike left the tree house a few hours ago to help Roseluck clean and organize her plant store (something about a "noble dragon code" insisting he repay her for healing his bonsai), his older sister Twilight was sitting at her desk calmly studying differential equations. At least that's what she told him she was doing--in truth it just looked like a bunch of letters, numbers, and scribbles to him. HOWEVER, when he returned in the evening, much sweeping and watering later, he could hear loud muffled shouting coming from inside the library. Uh oh. "Twilight, why are you drunk?!?" Spike asked with much consternation. "I step outside for a few hours to repay a friend, and I come back to THIS!" The "THIS" he motioned to with his hands was math. Math ALL over the library. Furniture, books, the floor, the walls, the ceiling?: no usable writing surface had been spared a plethora of complex equations and jumbled shorthand notes. Which he would have to clean up. In the morning. By himself. And of course, OF COURSE, there in the center of it all sat the star attraction, the showstopper, the grand finale: a purple unicorn hunched over a bucket, muttering strings of numbers and expletives. Spike sighed and looked at a clock. What time was it? 6:27 p.m. It was going to be a long night. "Whoa whoa whoa. Hold on. Let me get this straight." Spike sighed, scrubbing ink and vomit off of the floor while he tried to get some coherency out of Twilight. "You're telling me you got yourself drunk for the sake of getting drunk? ON PURPOSE?!?!? What the Tartarus Twi? Why on Equiis would you do this?" "I ugh I told choo aready. I wannnnted to shast - I mean cashed a shpell I wouldn't remember. Heh, isn't that fuuunnnnnnyyyy?" The mare was lying on the floor, staring at her brother with a bit of drool hanging from her lips. "No Twilight, it's not funny. It's irresponsible. And why would you not want to remember casting something. AND isn't casting under the influence illegal? You're breaking the law!" "Notttcchhh in your HIC! own home Spiiiikie Wiiiiikie. Silly Willy. You shoulda... shoulda... uhhh oesh..... GACK!" She vomited into the bucket she was holding again. Spike face clawed. She had puke dribbling down her face and in her mane. Disgusting. "You owe me sooooooo hard Twilight," Spike grumbled. "For now lets just get you to bed. I love you, but seriously? Ugghhh!"
In Stone No One Can Hear You Scream.AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH...? Hello? Hello? Hello? Anypony? ...Anyone?... ...Anything? I... ? What happened? I... ... Am I dead? ...nooooooo. If (IF!) I was dead (or would that be were? I can't even grammar.), I wouldn't be having this conversation with myself.... Would I? I'm not dead am I? Oh my Goddess I'm dead aren't I? Oh no. OH NO. OH NO NO NO NONONONONONONONONO!!!! NO!!! I can't be dead! I CAN'T BE! I NEED to be alive. The princess is counting on me. My friends are counting on me. I...I ... NO! NO TWILIGHT! GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF! CALM DOWN! YOU are a reasonable, rational, logical young mare. You are Princess Celestia's student. you are above freaking out. I'm sure there is a PERFECTLY reasonable, rational, logical explanation for why you are a disembodied voice in the middle of the forest. Yes, perfectly calm. Caalllmmm. Good Twilight. Wait, how do I know I'm in a forest? What happened anyway? I feel like I was going somewhere. Or... something. What was I doing? Think Twilight, think! Twilight Sparkle walked through the Everfree Forest on her way to to Zecora's hut to pick up some herbs for her rash. She probably shouldn't be have been by herself, but it was the middle of the day on a familiar path, so she wasn't too worried. Ok, so I was walking through the forest. I remember that... But ugh, then what happened? I just, I remember sounds. And a weasel [1]. Why the heck do I remember a weasel? She was humming to herself. It was a comfortably warm spring day, and the late-afternoon sun filtered down through the trees in ephemeral patterns that danced about like nature's marionettes. She sighed contentedly, feeling unusually at ease. She would never admit it to herself, but the forest, for all the chaos it was, still had its own odd beauty. Up ahead off to the side of the dirt path, the leaves were rustling particularly hardily. Curious, she trotted closer to investigate. Um alright, I think i remember a bush, and... Oh! A weasel popped out of it. But... that's it? I, a weasel, I... what? That makes no sense. But was that all? There was a weasel, and ... Ugh! Why are my thoughts so hazy. What happened? "Oh hi weasel!" she said enthusiastically. "How are you doing?" The weasel ignored her and scurried away across the path. "Oh look at me. I'm so silly. Talking to weasels? I must be turning into Fluttershy or something." Suddenly, something else started to shake up the leaves. So something else was in that bush? What was it? I remember... It's so fuzzy. Yeah, fuzzy! It was a... chicken? But what would a chicken be doing in the Everfree Forest? That doesn't make any sense. Maybe it only looked like a chicken. What looks like a chicken? Scootaloo? No. Wait. Wait. Oh no. Ohhhhh no. Oh Godess. Oh Luna's Beard! OH CRAP! SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT! BY CELESTIA'S ETHEREAL PUBIC HAIR OH NO! What ever was in the bushes sounded like it was about to pop out. And when it did, Twilight found herself face to face with a cockatrice. "Well, fuck." Author's Note I later learned in my research that the weasel is the only animal that is immune to the glance of a cockatrice. ~T.S.
Valkyrie VodkaValkyrie Vodka Thirteen days ago: Unsurprisingly, Twilight was quite miserable the next morning. All the classic hangover symptoms were there: sleeping in, extreme sensitivity to sunlight, a pounding migraine, thirstiness, nausea, and irritability. In other words, for Twilight, a typical morning. "Ughhh, How much did I drink last night?" Twilight muttered as she clumsily made her way down the stairs. "I feel like..." She stopped dead in her tracks. She looked around. The library was covered in math. The floor, the walls, the books, the furniture, the ceiling?: every usable surface it seemed had notes and equations scrawled messily upon it. She blinked. "Wow, I drank that much?" ...several hours earlier... It was nine in the morning, and he was finally finished with his part. Spike had immediately decided that he would NOT be cleaning the math up. Vomit he could handle, but he didn't want to accidentally erase something important and face the infamous wrath of Twilight "I'm an egghead even when I'm drunk" Sparkle. So he left the ink on the furniture and everywhere else it had ended up (seriously, how did it even get on the ceiling? He wasn't sure he wanted to know.) and was getting ready to go back to bed (Celestia knew when Twilight might finally rise.), when he noticed a piece of paper on Twilight's written-on writing desk. Normally, this would not be unusual, considering the amount of writing Twilight in fact wrote. However, all her scrolls were littering the now vomit-free floor, all except for this one. Spike looked at it, and read aloud: Heyyyyy, Spiek, I'm suuuuper drunk. See, I'm even wriiiiiiting like I'm drank. But din't wurry, I got a reesn. I caught a spell. A very good spell. But I don't wnat to remebmer what I cast in the mmmmorning. Tat's y I'm so drink. So don't tell me what I casted, okey? Spike stared at the letter. "Uhhhhhh, OK?" ...sometime the previous night... "Valkyrie Vodka Twilight? Vodka? Really? "HIC!" she replied. "And FIVE of the them? This stuff is 80 proof! How are you even still standing? How do you NOT have alcohol poisoning?!?!" Spike was flummoxed by her behavior. "Buck youuuu," Twilight slurred. "I'm a shoonicorn. I'mph magic beeeeeeeyatch." "Ugghhh, I do not get paid enough to be you handler." Spike sighed as he grabbed an ink quill and one of the many blank scrolls lying on the floor, and started to write a letter. Dear Princess Celestia, You freaking better double my pension next month, or I'm stuffing "your faithful student" into a box and mailing her back to Canterlot Castle. ~XOXO, Spike Author's Note Vomit he could handle, but he didn't want to erase something important and face the infamous wrath of Twilight "I'm an egghead even when I'm drunk" Sparkle. Pretty sure that's my favorite line.
Studying InternallyTwilight didn't know how, but she was hyperventilating. DEEP Imaginary breaths Twilight! Deep imaginary breaths. Don't freak out. Don't Don't Don't! Calm down. Deeeeep long breaths. Even though I can't breath. Pretend you're breathing. In... out... in... out. Nice and sslloooooooww. Ahhhhh. Okay. I'm relaxed. I AM relaxed. I am relaxed. I am relaxed. Now, let's take stock of the situation. I'm frozen. In stone. By a cockatrice. In the middle of the Everfree forest. And nopony knows where I am... My first deduction: this sucks. Meanwhile in the Canterlot Castle game room... "Hey Luna, you should come look at this." Celestia had been sitting on her favorite couch, studying the chess column in the Canterlot Evening News, when a short scroll popped into existence in front of her. Surprisingly though, it didn’t just fall down, but rather, one end dangled curiously from the portal from which it came, as if more was to come. As Luna paused her game and trotted over, more came, like from a typewriter. “What is it sister?” she asked. "It’s a scroll.” Luna rolled her eyes. “You don’t say. What, pray tell, are its contents?” Celestia scanned the lines of text pouring down and furled her brow. “It… appears to be Twilight Sparkle… freaking out?” Luna raised her eyebrows. “Surely that must be a first time occurrence?” “No, actually,” Celestia responded, “she has a tendency of… oh, ha ha. Very funny Luna.” Luna smiled and went back to reading the message alongside her sister. “Tia, this message is most curious. She claims that she is ‘a disembodied voice in the middle of the forest’. Do you not find that at all odd?” Celestia shushed her. “Shhhh, this is getting good.” The sisters continued to follow the lengthening scroll: Um alright, I think I remember a bush, and... Oh! A weasel popped out of it. But... that's it? I, a weasel, I... what? That makes no sense. But was that all? There was a weasel, and... Ugh! Why are my thoughts so hazy. What happened? Luna snickered. Celestia gave her an annoyed look. “Luna! This isn’t funny. Twilight could be in serious trouble.” “In trouble with you perhaps. Isn’t it obvious? Even after being gone for so long, I still remember what a hangover is like, and it’s perfectly clear that your star pupil is suffering from one.” Celestia gave her sister a look of shock. “Luna! How DARE you insinuate that Twilight would ever drink herself to a blackout. The Twilight I know would never do that. Ever!” Luna just rolled her eyes. “That’s what she wants you to believe, Celly. But look, the evidence is right there!” She pointed to scroll, where the words were appearing faster now, reflecting Twilight’s increasingly panicked state. Oh, Luna's Beard! Luna laughed nervously. “Ummm, is it that obvious? I shaved last week.” BY CELESTIA'S ETHEREAL PUBIC HAIR! Celestia’s cheeks flushed a much brighter shade of pink than they usually were. The two stared at each other with wide eyes. “Sister?” asked Celestia. “Yes?” replied Luna. “I think this is a serious matter.” “Agreed. I’ll go get the mouthwash and the spanking paddle.” Celestia facehoofed. “Priorities, Luna.” Author's Note Thanks to Azusa for hanging out with me on Google Docs while I wrote this!
