Sunset Shimmer gulped in air the moment she was through the portal. Thankfully, her calculations and educated guesses had been correct and there was air to be gulped. It was even breathable! Going through the portal was a lot like the time Princess Celestia had taken her to see the Wonderbolt training academy and they let her ride on that swirly death machine they put the recruits on. This time it took twice as long for her head to stop spinning and her vision to clear. Her stomach revolted a second after she hit the hard ground on the other side, her last minute meal of stolen hay fries coming back up. At least gravity seemed to work on this side of the portal, which was of little consultation when Sunset toppled forward and came to a sudden stop face down next to the puddle of her own sick.
Nothing felt right. Everything seemed wrong and out of place, but she was alive, which checked off the most important thing on her list of guesses about where the portal led. When the nausea started to pass, things finally began to settle as her mind made sense of its new surroundings. She held up her hoof in front of her face and whimpered when she saw it now split into five long fingers, like a dragon’s claw, but without the claw part. Her limbs all seemed to be bending at weird angles and she could feel something on her, like clothing, though she hadn’t been wearing any prior to leaping into the mirror.
When she dared lift her head further, Sunset saw the world where she now found herself was dark, with stars and a moon overhead and many buildings in every direction. It wasn’t that different from Canterlot, though the architecture looked...uninspired and weirdly huge. Her belly turned again and she felt another wave of unease sweep over her, but she noticed a patch of manicured grass a few yards away. Crawling wobbly on hands and—she wasn’t sure, but probably—knees, Sunset made her way to it and dropped herself in a graceless slump, face first into the roughage. It wasn’t a high class thing of her to do, but simple grass always had a way of curing her indigestion.
“Heh. Heh...heheheh!”
Sunset swallowed down the nasty tasting greens and looked up at the sudden sound. Not far from where she lay sprawled on the ground, some odd monkey-like creature wearing a dress sat with its back against the base of large equine statue. The creature was surrounded by several dark bottles, with another one in its hand that swished faintly as it moved in slow circles.
“Man...I thought I was wasted…” It...she...grinned, showing more teeth than Sunset was strictly comfortable with, though they didn’t look too sharp. “And then here you come and eat grass! You must be drunk off yer ass…”
“Um...is it normal to...eat grass here when drunk?” Sunset looked around slowly, scanning th nearby shadows for any other cloth wearing monkeys. No matter which way she looked, it seemed like the two of them were alone in the immediate vicinity. Further out, she could hear sounds of some deep, rumbling thing, and lights flashed quickly between the far buildings. Now that she the creature for scale, the huge buildings started to make a bit of sense.
The girl creature nodded, or at least bobbed its head up and down vaguely. “Man...what even is normal? I...I don’t know…”
“Then yes, I am drunk. Off my ass.” Sunset licked her lips and grimaced at the grass taste. Even her teeth felt weird, sharper near the front, with duller, wider molars near the back. Whatever these creatures were, they must have a robust diet to need both incisors and grinding teeth. Sunset figured she'd find out soon enough what passed for breakfast here, right now she just needed to make sure she wasn't about to get eaten or jumped. Not that the creature looked all that menacing.
“Oh...cool…” This made the girl smile again for some reason, sadder than before. “Yer cool. My name’s Berry. Want some?” Berry held up the bottle in her hand and shook it, the liquid inside sloshing around.
“Uh...yeah.” Sunset carefully pushed herself up and crawled with a bit more confidence to Berry’s side, and sat back against the statue as the girl did. “My name’s Sunset, by the way.”
“Yer cool, Sunset.” Berry repeated herself and hiccuped before passing the bottle to the redhead almost as an afterthought. “I’m glad you came by...from wherever you came from.”
Sunset took the bottle, focusing on her new fingers as they moved and gripped the cool glass. She looked up into Berry’s flushed pink face, her defensive nature ready to fight or run from this creature’s sudden interest in her appearance. “Why’s that?”
“I...only drink when I’m lonely. Now that yer here...I can stop.” Berry’s smile sagged tiredly, her eyes misty. “I really gotta pee.”
“So yeah, I learned a lot about the human world right from the first day I got here.” Sunset shrugged, sipping from her soda. Her friends nodded and made affirming noises. They were all drinking or nibbling from their own food while they sat at Sugarcube Corner, discussing the early days of their high school careers. She was just about to say something else when her phone beeped with a new text message. Sunset swiped her fingertips across it and read the short message before she started packing up her things.
“Hey sugarcube, what’s up?”
“That was Berry. She needs pick up from her AA meeting.” Sunset shouldered her backpack, tossing her keys up and catching them with practiced ease. “Oh, that reminds me, her graduation ceremony is next weekend. Four years sober and counting!”
“Good for her!”
“You know we’ll be there!”
“I’ll bring the decorations!”
Sunset grinned and shot her friends a thumbs up before turning on her heel and heading out to pick up the girl that had taught her the most about about being human and about being a slave to her desires.
Not for the first time, Berry Punch cursed her affinity for alcohol. Her talent as wintner was undeniable. It was a nice source of income while in college, and she enjoyed the taste of her own wine quite a bit. A bit too much, as it turned out.
The alcohol had taken over her life for quite a while, to the point that waking up with no memory of the preceding day past noon had been a common occurrence. Only when she had met the strange girl from the other world had she started, with said girl's help, to sober up. It had been a long and arduous process, but with a friend by her side and regular AA meetings, she had managed.
And after Sunset had, basically out of the blue, lost much of the bitterness that always seemed to lurk underneath... Berry's gratefulness had taken a rather unexpected (or predictable) turn.
But of course, just like her wine, every sweet taste held, at its core, a note of bitterness.
So there she found herself, wiping a drunk Sunset's forehead with a damp towel, while two empty bottles of wine clinked together every time Sunset kicked her feet out from the sofa they were sitting on.
"I don' get it, Berrrrryyyyy. Why 'm I suuschh a coward. Why can' I tell 'er?"
God, how she wished for another bottle right now. Everything she could to avoid hearing this.
Instead she swallowed harshly and concentrated instead on rubbing circles on Sunset's back. Keep it to yourself. Be there for her like she did for you. YOu don't deserve this, anyway.
So she listened to the rambling. All about a girl that was not her. She held Sunset's hair back when the wine decided to return to take revenge, and she tucked Sunset into her bed, while she made resigned herself to the couch for the evening.
She had just turned off the light when a voice stopped her.
"Mhhhmmm. Berrryyyyyy. Don' go 'way. Stay 'ere with me."
She could hold her and be there for her. That had to be enough.
