“Uggggghhhhhh…”
Cadance groaned as consciousness forced itself back into her head, which felt like it had been shaken like a maraca. Her brain, or what was left of it, throbbed like it was getting a deep tissue massage from an overzealous yak. The only mercy was that her head was apparently underneath a pillow. She pushed it away and immediately regretted it, as both her eyes were stabbed with light. She moaned and pulled the pillow back over her head, and both head and pillow back under the covers. It wasn’t until she was fully insulated from the brightness that she realized she had no idea whose bed she was in.
“Well, well, well,” said a familiar voice. “Look who’s finally awake.”
She wracked her aching brain, trying to figure out who was talking.
“Celestia?” she asked. Or tried to ask. What actually came out was a muffled “Cmlstna?”
“It’s time to wake up, Cadance!”
She could feel her covers and pillow being dragged away. She tried to hold onto them with her telekinesis, but she could barely even remember where her horn was, let alone how to coax any magic out of it. The covers vanished and she found herself assaulted by bright light and chilly air. She curled herself into a ball and shielded her eyes with her wings. If she squinted, she could just barely make out her surroundings.
It took embarrassingly long for her mind to put the pieces together. The combination of architecture, furnishings, and scent indicated that she was in one of Celestia’s private chambers. The fact that it was Celestia who had just stolen her blanket was also a tip off. The Princess of the Sun was staring at her with a mixture of amusement and manufactured ire, like a parent trying not to laugh at the mischief their child had gotten into. She was holding a mug.
“Coffee?”
Cadance blinked a few times, nodded, and dazedly accepted the cup. “Can’t you turn it down?” she asked.
“Turn what down?”
“The… uh…” Cadance waggled a hoof at the window. “The big bright thing that you move around.”
“Oh, the sun.” Celestia rolled her eyes. “I generally don’t turn it off just when somepony finds it too bright, though I’ve certainly been tempted a few times. I can, however, close the blinds.”
“Thanks,” Cadance croaked as she took a sip of coffee. “Ow! That’s hot!” The gears in her mind began to grind as they absorbed the caffeine, and some of the questions she had been too addled to answer began to float to the surface. “What am I doing here, anyway? Me and Shining Armor were staying in one of the towers on the other side of the castle, weren’t we?”
Celestia shook her head. “You really don’t remember anything about last night, do you?”
“It’s all a bit of a blur really.” Cadance took another sip of coffee. “Refresh my memory?”
“Of course.” A mischievous smirk crept across Celestia’s face. “Let’s just say that you really can’t hold your cider.”
Vinyl Scratch stumbled out of her bedroom. Under normal circumstances she would’ve stayed in bed for another few hours, especially after a party like last night’s. But she could smell Octavia’s pancakes from miles away, and they were worth getting up for. She could go back to bed as soon as she finished, anyway.
“Up at the crack of noon, I see,” Octavia said as Vinyl entered the kitchen.
“Oh come on, it’s not that late. It’s only” —she looked at the clock— “eleven forty eight.” She glanced at the stack of pancakes that sat on the table. “So this is brunch, then?”
“I knew that you would never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t leave some for you,” Octavia said, as she picked up the morning paper. “I assume last night went especially well?”
“Oh, you have no idea!” Vinyl poured a cup of coffee, and then took a swig from the pot. “Great food, free cider, good crowd. I even got to make out with a Princess!”
“That does sound like a lovely...” she froze, and slowly lowered the paper. Octavia had very good ears, but she couldn’t believe that she had had heard that. “Wait, you did what?”
“Oh, right, I’m not supposed to tell you about that.” Vinyl rolled a pancake up and stuffed the whole thing into her mouth. “Itf a thstate thsecret.”
“A state secret?” Octavia’s stare slowly became a glare. She had known Vinyl long enough to tell that there was at least a 60% chance that Vinyl was just messing with her. Though the fact that Vinyl normally could hardly come up with such a ridiculous idea so soon after waking up lent it some credence. “Surely you must be joking.”
“I said I’m not supposed to tell you about how one of the princesses had too much cider and started to come on to me.” Vinyl winked. “But since you’re sooooooo curious about it, I suppose I could tell you about it as long as you promise not to tell anypony else.”
Octavia tried not to look too intent as she answered. Vinyl’s escapades always made for great stories, and she wasn’t about to miss out on this one. “Very well. ”
“Great!” Vinyl grinned. “Well, I was starting to get hungry, so I put the turntables on auto for a few minutes and went over to the buffet, and Princess Cadance was standing by the cider barrels—”
“Princess Cadance!?” Octavia stared incredulously at Vinyl, who was grinning like a loon. “There were four princesses at that party, and you picked the one who's married?”
“I did not!” Vinyl retorted proudly. “She chose me!”
“Really? Seventeen mugs of cider?” Cadance couldn’t help sound slightly proud of the accomplishment, even though she knew she shouldn’t have been.
“At least,” Celestia said. “I didn’t think to start counting until you had already had several. I know Sweet Apple Acres’ cider is delicious, but that’s no reason to overindulge.”
“I didn’t think it would be that strong,” Cadance said defensively. The headache had subsided just enough for her to start feeling irritable. “What exactly did I do, anyway? The last thing I remember was seeing Shining Armor over at the buffet table.”
Celestia snorted, making the distinct sound of a muffled laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Cadance asked indignantly.
Celestia gave up trying to hold her amusement in and began to chuckle.
“That wasn’t Shining Armor.”
Cadance’s face, normally resistant to blushing, flushed a bright red.
“Then who was it?”
“So there I was at the buffet table, loading up on those little pickles. What do they call those again?”
“Gherkins,” Octavia answered.
“Right, gherkins. They had a whole big bowl of ‘em, so I was over there getting a bunch to take back to the DJ booth, when I feel somepony poke my haunch. You know, right in the cutie mark.”
“I still don’t understand what’s so great about gherkins,” Octavia said wearily.
“Because they’re sour, and also delicious,” Vinyl retorted. “Anyway, I feel this poke, right? And it wasn’t just one of those ‘Oops, I wasn’t looking where I was going’ pokes either. It was on purpose. I can tell.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“So I turn and look, and there’s the Alicorn Princess of Love staring at me with the same face you have when you see a donut.”
Octavia wrinkled her nose in displeasure, but resisted the urge to interrupt.
“So at first I really didn’t think too much of it. You know, she was looking at me kind of funny, but I figured that maybe she was just getting tired or she wanted to talk to me about my music selection or something. Then she says ‘So, how are you doing?’ Which doesn’t sound all that weird, but she was talking all breathy.”
“And that didn’t tip you off that something was amiss?”
Vinyl shrugged as she took more pancakes. “I had been standing next to the speakers all night. I just figured my ears were playing tricks on me or something. So anyway, I just tell her I’m doing alright and just taking a quick break to get some food, you know, making some small talk. Mostly about the gherkins.”
“I can’t believe it,” Octavia said as she shook her head incredulously. “You finally meet a princess face to face and you talk about gherkins.”
“She’s the one who kept bringing it up,” Vinyl said. “I just rolled with it. Anyway, that was when things started to get really weird. She started to get kinda… flirty.”
“Flirty?” Octavia raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, you know, bedroom eyes, getting kinda touchy-feely, making innuendos about gherkins. I thought it was strange, but figured that maybe it was just the whole ‘Princess of Love’ thing.”
“Making innuendos about gherkins?” Octavia was at least 90% convinced that Vinyl was just making things up. The other 10% hoped she wasn’t. “I wasn’t aware one could make a sexy gherkin-based innuendo.”
“Oh, she couldn’t,” Vinyl said. “I didn’t mind though. You always think that royalty is all stuffy and proper and boring, but she was cracking jokes and laughing and having fun.
“Anyway, after a few minutes I said that it was great talking to her and all that, but I had to get back to the turntables and get the music back up. Then she grabbed my face with both hooves and said ‘Before you go, give me some sugar!’ That’s when things went sideways.”
Cadance’s hangover was not helped by the growing embarrassment that seemed to be weighing heavier and heavier on her head as Celestia recounted the previous night’s events. She could already see where the story was going. It was like watching a cart loaded with fireworks catch fire, and then careen out of control down a hill towards a fine art gallery. It could only end in a massive, costly, and spectacular disaster, and there was nothing anypony could do to stop it.
“And then what did I do?” she asked, reluctantly.
“Well, I can only assume that you were attempting to steal her gum with your teeth.”
“Uggghhh,” Cadance groaned, partly from the hangover, and partly from shame. “I really kissed her?”
Celestia nodded firmly. “You certainly did. And not a simple peck on the cheek either.”
Cadance made a face as if she had just eaten a pickled persimmon.
“She used her tongue?” Octavia stared at Vinyl with a mix of horror and curiosity. Listening to the story was like watching the burning fireworks cart careen into the art gallery. In her gut she knew it shouldn’t happen, but she couldn’t not want to see what happened.
“Oh yeah. All who-knows-how-many inches of it.” Vinyl’s eyebrows waggled. “Let me just say she’s the Princess of Love for a reason.”
Octavia shook her head in not-quite-disbelief. “What did you do?”
Vinyl shrugged. “I just sort of went with it.”
Octavia’s jaw dropped as if she were a snake readying itself to devour a watermelon.
“What?” Vinyl grinned at her friend’s momentary discomfort. “Like I said, she was good. I figured I might as well just enjoy it. Not like I’m going to get a chance to mack on a Princess anytime soon.”
“Yes, but...still.”
“Heck, I even learned some stuff.” She stuck her tongue out. “Wanna see?”
Octavia drained her coffee cup before answering. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Your loss.” Vinyl licked her lips.
“And then what?” Cadance nibbled unhappily at a biscuit. What little appetite she had left from the previous night grew smaller and smaller the more of the story she heard. “Do I even want to know what I did next?”
“What happened next was that I dragged the two of you out of the room,” Celestia said. “It was amusing, to be sure, but I wasn’t about to let that continue in front of everyone.”
“Thanks,” Cadance muttered.
“Think nothing of it.” Celestia waggled her hoof dismissively. “It was no problem at all.”
“I see,” Cadance looked down at her half-eaten biscuit. It wasn’t very interesting to look at, but she preferred it to having to make eye contact. “At least I didn’t cause too much trouble.”
“Now, prying you off of her, that was was more difficult.”
“What?” Cadance’s head snapped up.
“You really did not want to let her go,” Celestia said.
“It took Celestia and two guards like ten minutes to finally get her off of me,” Vinyl said. “I was really lucky that Cadance was too drunk to use her magic, or I might still be there. Must be the earth pony strength, I guess. Cadance has a real tight grip.” She popped her neck for emphasis. “Come to think of it, it was kind of like a massage. It actually felt pretty good.”
“Of course it did.”
“Princess of Love, remember?”
“I guess I don’t know my own strength,” Cadance said, her voice a mix of sheepishness and general still-too-hungover-to-enunciate-clearly-ness.
“You should by now. I very nearly pulled a muscle trying to get you off of her.” Celestia made a show of rubbing her shoulder. “I eventually had to take a page out of Twilight’s book and teleport her away from you. Needless to say, you didn’t like that.”
“I didn’t?” Cadance tried to think. The thinking made her brain hurt, and she couldn’t come up with anything more than a blur.
“No. As soon as I got her away from you, you started bawling about how you just wanted to spend some time together. Eventually I just brought you back here and you grumbled into your pillow until you fell asleep. Though it did give me a clue as to exactly why you suddenly started to begin energetically kissing the DJ.”
“Really?” Cadance asked flatly. “Could you clue me in? Because I really have no idea why I would’ve done that.”
“Well…” Celestia thoughtfully put a hoof to her chin. “The DJ was a unicorn with a white coat and a blue mane…”
Cadance’s eyes widened. Then squinted, because the room still felt too bright for wide-eyed staring.
“And furthermore, I understand that between all of the events scheduled for your royal visit, and taking care of your daughter, you and your husband have not seen much of each other for the past few days...”
“So she thought that you were her husband?” Octavia looked closely at Vinyl, trying to imagine how much cider she would have to drink to mistake her for any stallion, never mind the Captain of the Guard. Enough to make an Alicorn drunk, apparently. “Isn’t he twice your size?”
“Well, that’s what Celestia thought.” Vinyl shrugged. “I mean, as funny as it is to think that Cadance starts kissing everyone when she gets drunk, I’m pretty sure that would’ve been all over the tabloids by now.”
“Speaking of which, am I going to see this on the front page of the Inquirer tomorrow?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Vinyl said with a sigh. “It would’ve made a pretty awesome album cover, but apparently they didn’t allow photographers into the party, and Celestia hauled us off so fast that I doubt anypony would’ve had time to take pictures anyway.” Then she perked up. “But hey, I’ve got a good memory, and this is something I’m not gonna forget anytime soon.”
She resumed stuffing her face with pancakes. She got through three before she looked back up, as if she had forgotten something. “Oh, and you probably shouldn’t tell anypony else about this, ever. I’d probably get tossed in a dungeon if Celestia finds out I told you.”
Octavia just shrugged. There were only a few ponies she would’ve been inclined to tell, and it probably wouldn’t be long before Vinyl told them the story herself. “Very well, then.”
“But seriously,” Vinyl said, licking the syrup off of her lips, “that was like the best kiss ever. Shining Armor is one lucky stallion.”
“SHINING ARMOR!” Cadance wailed. Or rather, what came out was more like “SHNMBLG RMBRN!” since her voice got uneven when she wailed, and also because she was doing the wailing into a pillow for the sake of her ears. Then she removed her face from the pillow to take a deep breath before continuing. “What’s he going to think when he hears about this?!”
“Hears about what?”
“That I kissed another pony! I can’t hide that from him!”
Celestia rolled her eyes so hard that even the guard standing outside the room briefly felt as though whatever he had thought couldn’t possibly have been serious. “If we’re talking about the same Shining Armor,” Celestia said, “he’ll probably find it hilarious. As will you, once the hangover subsides.”
“But I’m a Princess,” Cadance grumbled. “How could I have let myself do something so foolish and undignified?”
Celestia snorted. “Believe me, dignity is overrated. Everypony does stupid things from time to time, and alicorns are certainly not exempt. I shouldn’t have to remind you that my sister attempted to conquer Equestria and doom it to eternal night. Compared to that I would think that accidentally kissing somepony who looks like your husband would be, how do they say it these days, ‘small potatoes’ in comparison.”
“If you say so,” Cadance muttered, in the surly tones of a filly who had just been told that if they only tried the boiled okra, they would love it.
“Still not convinced?” Celestia said. “Well, a number of years ago, I was once invited to the grand opening of a winery in Los Pegasus. After… sampling their wares, I went missing from the after party.” A trace of nostalgia crossed her face. “They found me in a bakery down the street, fast asleep, with my head buried in a seven-tier wedding cake.”
Cadance just stared at her like an elementary student who had just realized their teacher didn’t actually live at the school.
“What?” Celestia said. “It was very good wine. And very good cake. The point is, overindulging a little and doing something foolish isn’t the end of the world as long as you’re sure not to make a habit of it. Now finish your breakfast. I’m quite sure your husband will want to hear your side of the story.”
“Yes, of course. Wait.” Cadance grimaced. “What do you mean ‘my side of the story’? Did you tell him about what happened?!”
“I had to give him some explanation for why you did not come back to your room after the party, and I saw no reason to lie. Though I may have slightly embellished things a little.”
Cadance gave her such a stinkeye that the guard outside the room could smell it. “Exactly how did you embellish the story?”
“That’s for you to find out yourself,” Celestia said, no small amount of smugness in her voice.
“Yeah, I’d say today was a good day,” Vinyl said. Her mouth was full of pancakes, but she had long since perfected the art of talking around food. “Well-paying gig, free buffet, good crowd, got to make out with a princess, slept in, and got pancakes.” She belched loudly, as if she were trying to use the sound as a full stop.
“Clearly,” Octavia said. “It does sound like you had quite a good time. Though I think I could do without a drunken come-on from a member of Equestria royalty.”
“You’re only saying that because you haven’t kissed one,” Vinyl said, sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. “I’d recommend it.”
“Somehow, I don’t find it likely that I would ever be in a situation where that is a possibility,” Octavia said, rolling the idea slowly around the inside of her head. “Besides, do you really think that all of the princesses are up to the same… standard as Princess Cadance. She is, as you eloquently put it, the ‘Alicorn of Love’.”
“Well, Celestia probably has centuries of experience, and Luna’s probably a freak, if you know what I mean. Princess Twilight…” Vinyl thought for a moment. “She’s read a lot of books about it, I guess? I dunno.”
“You’re not thinking about trying to go after the others now, are you?”
“Nah. I was lucky enough to get away with this one without getting my memory erased or something. It was cool and all, but I’m not gonna try my luck.”
“You must be a bit hungover yourself,” Octavia said with a grin. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all morning.”
“We all have our moments,” Vinyl said. Then she stood, the chair screeching under her. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to bed.”
“Back to bed?”
“Yeah.” Vinyl yawned loudly. “Cadance wasn’t the only one who drank a lot of cider after all. Besides, I’ve got another gig tonight. Gotta make sure I’m well-rested, you know.”
“Very well.” Octavia shook her head. “Sleep well.”
“Not a problem. See you later.” She disappeared into her bedroom with surprising rapidity for somepony who was supposedly fatigued.
“I suppose I should’ve expected that,” Octavia muttered to no one in particular. She turned and noted the pile of dirty dishes that sat in the sink. “Well-rested, my behind,” she grumbled.
Cadance opened and closed the door to her chambers slowly. She hadn’t heard any ruckus, fracas, row, or any other type of chaos, which indicated that Flurry Heart was either asleep, or not in the room at all. Sure enough, the curtains were drawn and she could hear a quiet (but still loud for a baby) snoring from the crib. She tiptoed past with the same degree of care normally reserved for a minefield. The last thing her head needed was a screaming baby. Her skull would split in half.
She slipped into the bedroom and closed the door behind her, breathing a long sigh of relief.
“Welcome back, honey,”
Shining Armor was laying on the center of the bed. A comic book hovered in front of his face. One of his hooves was buried in a bag of chips, and the other was scratching a portion of his anatomy that wasn’t fit for polite company. He quickly hid the chips under his pillow.
“H-hey,” Cadance mumbled, too worn out to get angry at the fact that he was eating chips in bed again. One look at Shining Armor’s face told her that he knew it.
“So, I hear you had quite a night,” he said, grinning ear to ear. “What’s this I hear about you and the DJ?”
Cadance smiled weakly and sat on the edge of the bed. The events of the previous night were still somewhat blurry, but between Celestia’s account and the fact that her head was starting to clear, her memory was starting to return.
“Well, first of all, you have to remember that the cider was really good…”
Author's Note
Written as birthday present for Marston421.
Thanks to
Meta Four
Yami Vizzini
War887
for helping proofread.
