In... inebri... Fuckit, I'm drunk.

Death is unbecoming of you. Get up. Kiss the girl.

Feet? Check.

Hands? Check.

Arms? Check by extension.

Head? Checkerooni.

Okay, the important ones now: Eyes?

Opening my eyes rewarded me the sight of a trio of mares watching me from above. One blue, Rainbow Dash, one orange with a stetson and the other white with a purple mane and a horn, presumably Rarity. Eyes? Check, hahaha!

“Well, that was exciting.” I groaned as the fires in my body roared on despite being alive. “Definitely don’t wanna repeat that again but I suspect I will be in the future.”

“Incredible! You were right! He does have lovely green eyes!” Rarity announced, looking up at Rainbow Dash while the orange one merely stared at me in curiosity. “Just like the brightest jade!”

“I never said that…” Dash replied and disappeared from sight sounding cross with Rarity.

“Of course not, RD. That would just be silly for ya to use such frilly words to describe a stallion like him.” the orange one replied with that southern accent and a devious smirk.

Watch this: “Wow, ya’ll are gonna make me think ya’ll are comin’ on te me.” I remarked, mimicking the orange mare’s accent perfectly. This little trick always annoyed my squadmates… whoever they were.

“Woah, hold on there! Ah didn’t know he spoke like ah do!” the orange one backed away suddenly, letting me sit up once Rarity had backed away as well.

“I don’t, but I’m pretty good at replicating accents.” I explained in my usual voice and shrugged back in accompaniment. “What’re you two doing here?”

“My dear, we both heard a couple of explosions from this way and came running. When we got here, Rainbow Dash was trying to pull you out of the tree.” Rarity explained as she rounded in front of me to be seen and respectful. She certainly had a simplistic design about her, snow white fur with a very articulately cared for purple mane and matching tail. A quick glance backwards showed an imprint of three blue diamonds on her flanks.

The orange one was almost as simple. Almost. She was all orange, with a blonde mane and tail both tied up at the end. A brown stetson adorned her freckled head as her face grew ever more red as I examined her. For a flank mark, three red apples.

“What’re yeh starin’ at me fer?” the orange one backed away slightly, looking put off by my examinations.

“Dear Applejack, please think nothing of it. He’s never actually seen us before so this is like meeting us all over again for him.” Rarity gently knocked a hoof against her friend, acting as my mouth in this instance. Turning to me, she offered a hoof. “My name is Rarity. We’ve met before when I redesigned your suit.”

“A pleasure, I'm sure madam.” I replied, defaulting to propriety I didn’t remember I had by taking her hoof and lifting it to my lips for a respectable kiss. “I’d give you my name, but I don’t know it.”

“It’s nothing to worry about, dear.” Rarity smiled warmly and retrieved her hoof to set it back on the ground. “A gentlestallion by all accounts, I’d say.”

“Wouldn’t hold your bits on that, ah reckon.” Applejack replied, eyeing me over with suspicion. “But, ah’ll be nice. Ah’m Applejack. I run Sweet Apple Acres with my family.”

“Good to meet you.” I nodded back and spun on my seat looking for the third member of our troupe. “Where’s Dash?”

“Looks like she’s sulking behind that tree you broke in half.” Rarity remarked with a grin and pointed out the destroyed tree in particular. Upon a quick look, it seemed that when I impacted the tree, I had destroyed a good portion of the trunk and had caused it to nearly bend over under the breaks in it’s fibres. “I think you should see to her, she is the one who pulled your body from that tree.”

“I will do that.” I agreed and stood, spinning in place to get to my feet to approach the tree. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that Rainbow was busy raiding the picnic basket for food ahead of me and figured from the mild angry mumbling to turn back to Rarity and Applejack to motion for them to be on their way. Seemed I had a female to comfort.

“Stupid human, getting stuck in the stupid tree and then stupid Rarity and Applejack having to help stupid me pull his stupid dead body out again…” Rainbow muttered to herself as her body stuck out of the basket, her head buried for something that was stuffed inside. Lifting my tags from around my neck, I read the inscription and finally introduced myself to myself.

“Soren, actually.” I announced, making Rainbow jump out of the basket with a yelp. “Captain Soren Mercer, according to my tags.” I added in, offering a handshake in final formal meeting.

Rainbow simply glared at me as she calmed herself down from her jumpscare before she turned away entirely and returned to the picnic. “Well good for you. Aren’t you going to spend some time with AJ and Rarity?”

“Maybe later when I’ve got free time.” I sighed and sat myself down next to Dash and the basket, stretching myself out and crossing a leg over the other to stare out at the water. As the afternoon was growing on, the newly bent shape of the tree provided for a bit more foliage to cover the sky above and provide a bit more shade than before. “But right now I’m here with you. If you want AJ and Rarity to join us, I can call them back.”

“Do what you want, doesn’t matter to me.” Rainbow protested as she worked at trying to open a jar of… something brown and watery. “Stupid jar, open!”

“Here.” I offered, taking the jar from between Rainbow’s teeth. “Benefit of hands.” I explained and cranked hard on the lid to separate the pairing with a pop.

“Well then that’s one thing those stupid hands are good for.” Rainbow grumbled but took the jar regardless and tipped the contents directly into her mouth, chugging it down hard. “Stupid wing still hurts after that crash…”

“You know, there are other things that hands are good for.” I raised an eyebrow suggestively and lifted my hands to wiggle them in her direction. Before Dash could react negatively, I dropped my hands and leaned back on posted arms with a release of a heavy breath. “But, I suppose you wouldn’t want this ‘stupid human’ to help relieve you of your aches?”

She merely glared death at me as she tipped the jar back slowly this time, taking pull after pull of the drink in till half the jar was gone. This was no small feat, either. That jar had to have been at least a litre in volume and she’d drank half of it in two goes. I suspected it was alcohol and for that, I had to tip my hat at her, she could really hold her liquor.

With an uncaring shrug of the shoulder, I turned back to the calm lake before us before taking a first look into the basket to see what was actually in there. Ooh! Potato/egg salad! With a fork and the plastic container in hand, I set to quietly snacking away while Dash seemed content with drinking in silence, also staring at the lake where I’d saved her life not that long ago.

“You know,” Rainbow finally set the jar down with a bit of difficulty but managed not to spill anything. “I didn’t really need you to save my life back there.”

“No, but I’m not about to let a friend who can’t come back after death die so easily and to such a stupid death. If it was something like… giving your life for someone else, then I could totally see it being a respectable death, not falling to a watery grave because of a muscle spasm.” I replied around a forkful of potato and eggy goodness. It felt like it had been years since I had any decent potato or egg salads so I was going to enjoy every moment of this. “Besides, you can be as mad at me as you want, you’ve already thanked me.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m still trying to forget that.” the pegasus beside me growled back, though it wasn’t really so much of a growl when it was cute as fuck. “Don’t think for a moment that I kissed you because I wanted to. I only kissed you to thank you for saving me, nothing else.”

Where the fuck did that come from?

“You sure? Because you were blushing pretty hard if I remember.” I teased and wiggled my eyebrows at the now fuming mare fueled by whatever alcohol she’d already consumed.

“Ass.” Rainbow mumbled back under her breath and laid down with the jar to suck back more of its inebriating goodness.

Remaining silent while I ate and eventually finished the entire carton of the salad, I turned back to the basket to look for something drinkable and found a similar jar to Dash’s.

Breaking the seal on the lid, I took a whiff and almost lost it when I detected the hint of Rye whisky fermented with apple. Apple-fucking-whiskey! Testing the quality, I tipped back the jar to my lips and let the liquid splash into my mouth to savour the flavours before letting it burn it’s way down my throat. Oh, that was excellent!

“Damn, if this is what you’ve been chugging, I don’t know how you still have a liver after over half a litre of this!” I grinned and held the jar up by the neck as a toast to the pegasus who ignored me openly.

“What, big soldier boy can’t hold his liquor?” Rainbow teased back, almost challenging me. “Because you’ve got a long way to go to match me, skidrow.”

“What the hell is this skidrow thing?” I set the jar back down near to me and placed the lid over it to be safe. I didn’t want Dash knocking this thing over onto me as an attempt at drunken revenge for whatever I didn’t do.

“Oh you know, after your own crash landing, you kind left a massive skidmark on the landscape. Expect a landscaping bill from the town, by the way. For the tree too, this is a popular date spot for couples and I suspect there’ll be some angry mares coming for your bits.” Dash explained with a huff and dove face first back into her own jar to lick at the liquids inside. It was like a canine licking peanut butter from the jar… I couldn’t help but stifle a giggle to myself at the thought.

“So, if it’s just the two of us at the most popular date spot in town, does that mean we’re on a date?” I gave a sly smirk as Rainbow’s face turned from blue to bright red and she pulled her face out of the jar with a pop.

“Who’d want to go on a date with the likes of you!” She rose to all fours and was in my face with wings wide in anger. Or drunken heat… It’s entirely possible! “I’m out, don’t call me, I’ll not call you.” Dash added before taking to wing but crashed down when her wing spiked with a pang of pain again. “Celestia dammit!”

“Come here.” I requested calmly and got up onto my knees, pointing before me for Rainbow to obey. Dash simply glared at me before I glared back. “I said come!”

“Okay! Fine!” Rainbow groaned but complied and flopped down before me, head to my left knee and let her wings spread out limp to both sides. I rose up and threw a knee over her back, mounting her behind her wings which gained protest from the mare now under me.

“Shut up and put up.” I ordered while taking a firm hold of her problem wing in both my hands, grabbing it by the tendon in front and stretching it out entirely. Doing the same for the other wing had Rainbow shutter under me but she obeyed and remained where she laid, her head resting on the checkered sheet under us both.

Beginning near the neck, I began to task of massaging the muscles moving gradually down her spine and into her shoulders. Reaching a point in her spine, right between the shoulder blades, I felt what seemed like a portion of her spine out of alignment and placed both hands over the lump.

“Take a deep breath and let it out slowly.” I ordered and timed my brief chiropractic work with her breath, pushing the vertebrae back into place with a click as she reached the end of her breath which came out in more of an oomph! Continuing with my massage having checked for other spots out of alignment, I soon reached her wings and began to massage the joints there around.

Lifting the left wing up straight first and trapping it in my arms, I worked at kneading feeling into the limb again making Dash groan into the ground beneath me each time I hit a tense spot. Digging in with my thumbs drew exclamations of surprise from Dash as she attempted to arch her back away from me, but with her trapped under me like she was, I was able to work out the knot that had formed and had even managed to somehow bring proper tension back into the joint itself. Must’ve been an older injury that was never treated.

Letting go of the wing almost suddenly, the limb fell limp at my knee as I went to work on the right wing. Gaining similar exclamations of groans and uneasy moans from Dash gave me all the words I needed as I worked life back into the wing and let it go.

Continuing down her back slowly, I began to feel Rainbow Dash’s breathing begin to slow down to a much more calm pace while I worked and after a quick check, found her completely sleep under my hands. Removing my hands altogether, I removed myself from the pony’s back and return to my drink once I’d reattached the lid to Dash’s.

~~~

An hour, half the jar of whisky and another carton of potato/egg salad later and I found myself nearly at the point of dozing like Rainbow still was. Taking that as my cue to pack us up and leave, I gently lifted Rainbow off the blanket and set her back down on the grass itself, though for a moment she latched onto me to use my arm as a body pillow.

Working my arm free as carefully as I could without touching anything I shouldn’t, I set to carefully packing the basket away with the remaining food items around the area then somehow managed to focus long enough to fold and pack the blanket away on top of the food within the carrier.

“Oookay…” I groaned to myself and stood myself, only to stumble around a little. “Let’ssss… get back to Twinkie’s…”

Shaking my head a little to try and clear the fog, I bent down and picked Rainbow up to cradle her like I would a small child while the basket hung from my arm.

Taking a second to breath and let my body process and stabilize afforded me the reward of slightly better navigation as I stumbled back towards town.

All eyes were on the pair of us, with a couple ponies chattering away to themselves while openly staring at me. I suppose they would’ve already gotten used to me being blind and as such would’ve been more open about staring at me.

“I have a problem…” I whispered to the second version of me stumbling alongside me. I was pretty sure he wasn’t real but I figured he could still help in this situation. “I don’t actually know what Twinkle’s house looks like…” I grinned and giggled giddily at the stupid situation I was in. “Should ask a local.”

Approaching near to a couple of mares, apparently they all shared a similar body shape to Rainbow and Twilight, “Escuse me,” I first whispered, covered up a burp and tried again. “Escuse me, I’m trying to find Twiddle’s place…”

“Oh, you must be that blind human, right?” the one, pink in coat replied.

“Wasn’t aware another human was here…” I shook my head again to try and refocus my mind. “Would love to meet them…” I added in a mumble under my breath. “Uhm, yeah.”

“If you’d like, I can lead you there.” the mare with three cut diamonds on her flank offered helpfully, her horn lighting up blue to take my hand and get it tingling. “Come on.”

“Thanks sho much…” I began the arduous task of putting footstep before footstep to follow after the pony, my hand leading me as it trailed along behind the mare as she watched me patiently. “Sorry I’m sho… fucked up…”

“It’s quite alright. I’m used to working with ponies who suffer from some kind of mental inhibitor. It’s not typically alcohol related, though, but the idea remains the same.” the unicorn explained as she slowly walked ahead of me, keeping just close enough to have her presence felt.

Now that I could actually see the town, I found that my earlier predictions of the town’s tribal status was severely off point. It was still very much a hamlet kind of place, with white stone walls and thatch roofing, but the buildings all certainly looked sturdy enough; at least sturdier than I was at the moment.

Stalls lined the main street that my guide, my co-driver and I strode down with many a small horse operating and hawking wares of different sorts. Food, housewares or furniture, there was everything here.

Turning a street corner revealed to me a giant ass tree planted directly in the middle of the end of the road ahead of me.

“It’s just ahead of us now, not much further.” the mare announced calmly.

“It’s…” I mumbled to myself while my foggy mind tried to process what it was I was seeing. “It’s a tree-house?”

“Wait, you can see?” the mare suddenly stopped and let go of my hand in surprise. “I thought you were blind!”

“I was, then Dash kissed me and now I can see. Rescued her from drowning in the lake, lost my hands in an explosion and they were really, really small for a time but it’s okay now because they’ve grown back. I sorry I wasn’t completely truthful but I still hadn’t ever actually seen this town and oh my god your all so fucking tiny and adorable, you all maybe come up to my thigh and you can all sit comfortably on my chest like a small dog and it’s adorable when Dash and Twilight does it and I’m rambling now and I’m sorry…” I replied, my voice growing lower in tone and slower as I drew on as I surprised myself with the apparent capability of my lungs as I had managed to get all that out in one solitary breath.

“Well, I can’t say I'm not surprised and more than a little confused about most of what you just said, but I’ll just take your word for it.” The mare replied after staring at me during my monologuing. “Can you continue on your way on your own now?”

“Yes, thank you very much. If it’s the funny looking tree at the end of the street then I'll be just fine if not take a bit to get us there in my state of total inebriation.” I nodded back and hoisted Dash back up to my chest as she was beginning to slide out of my grasp with only one hand. The slight jostle seemed to stir the pegasus, but soon she curled back up into me and returned to slumbers.

“Then, perhaps I’ll talk to you later when you’re sober? You’re an interesting guy. I’m Amethyst Star, nice to meet you.”

“Soren Mercer, ex-military captain now confused and racially alone.” I replied as I narrowed my gaze in on the tree before me. “I would agree to meeting you at a later date, but right now I’m trying not to fall asleep with Rainbow Dash on my shoulder.”

“Of course, I will see you later then.” Amethyst nodded back before turning away to return to whatever friend she was talking to before.

Trudging on ahead, Rainbow Dash and I eventually found ourselves at the door in the tree and allowed ourselves inside with a groan to announce our presence.

“Oh, you’re back!” Spike noted as he entered into the large main room from the kitchen. “How’d it go?”

My reply came out in a series of nonsensical mumblings and ramblings, nothing of which was intelligent enough to be understood by anyone though Spike took the basket from me once I’d removed it from my arm to begin putting the remainders away.

“What happened to Rainbow Dash?” Twilight demanded as she appeared at the top of the stairs. Like she had said, she had purple fur but a darker purple mane and tail, trimmed along the bangs with a streak of pink and magenta running the length. The mark that apparently every pony had was that of a six point star with smaller stars circling the larger one.

“Sleeping, shhh.” I whispered back, holding a finger up to my lips as I approached my couch and temporary living space.

“Oh, okay. She can share my bed. I’ll take her now.” Twilight offered as her horn began to light up with a purple shimmer and Dash’s body began to float away from me. I held on and merely approached the stairs directly.

“I got it…” I mumbled back and took the stairs two at a time, shocking Twilight as she finally got a look at my eyes once our proximity was close enough.

“Your eyes! They’re green!” she exclaimed suddenly, making me turn to scowl and shush her as Rainbow stirred in my grasp.

“Yes, I’m not blind no mo’. Talk later, want sleep now.” I growled back unintentionally, it was supposed to be more of just an average comment but my tired voice was breaking through.

Stepping into Twilight’s room, I gently laid Rainbow down on the only bed in the room before making my silent retreat back down the stairs and to the couch.

“I sleep now, good night.” I announced firmly and shoulder rolled onto the cushions of the couch to drape my arm over my eyes for comfort.

I was out before Twilight could properly reply.