Berry Punch staggered through the creaky barroom door, already rather tipsy from the last bar she’d been to. But as the hour had grown late, she'd begun feeling a certain itch that needed scratching, and this was her favorite place to try and get it scratched.
She looked around the barroom, sizing-up each of the stallions in turn. Big Mac sat nursing a cider nearby, but she knew from experience that he was no fun. Most of the others scattered around the room already looked to be with someone. She was just about to start taking a closer look at the mares, when she spotted one more stallion who looked promising: an earth pony with a brown coat, darker mane, and strong flanks bearing an hourglass cutie mark, sitting alone at the bar.
Berry wandered over and plopped down on the stool beside him. “Two ciders,” she said to the bartender, before giving the stallion a toothy grin. “Hey, good lookin'. What’s your sign?”
He considered this in silence for a moment. “Which is the one with the bad wolf again? No…” He reached down and took out a small billfold containing a single piece of paper. “Here, what does this say?”
“‘Time travelers do it over and over again.’” She smiled, and not just because of their ciders arriving. “You’re funny. I like that.”
“Really?” He glanced at the paper, then blushed as he put it away. “I suppose having a joke turn up instead of an astrological sign is hardly the most unexpected thing that’s happened to me today.”
Berry shrugged. “Well, what’s the story?”
“It’s a bit embarrassing… I woke up with a strange mare in my bed, and I’m retracing my evening to see how she got there.”
“Been there,” Berry said, grinning. “So that means you’re not… tied-down?”
“Ah, no.” The stallion gave her a nervous frown. “Not currently, at least.”
“Well then…” She gave him a wink. “Do you wanna be?”
He cocked his head, and took a good, long look at her, as if he was truly just seeing her for the first time. “Hold on,” he said, his mouth agape. “It’s you, isn’t it!”
Berry furrowed her brow. “Uh… yes? I’m me…”
“No, no!” he shouted, standing up and pointing at her. “It’s you! You’re the mare! What did you do with me last night?! Or… tonight, as it may be.” He paused, frowning. “You know, moments like these are why I try not to muck around with my own timeline.”
For a long moment, Berry tried to think back and consider whether she might’ve been with the stallion the night before. It didn’t seem like she’d been out much the previous night, but sometimes it was hard to remember. In the face of such uncertainty, she felt there was only one reasonable course of action: drain the mug, assume she’d made it with him once, and see if she could make it with him again.
Berry slammed the empty mug down on the bar, wiped her cider-foamed muzzle with a forehoof, and then winked. “Well, Mr. Stallion, it sounds like I gave you a night to remember.”
He leaned forward and gripped Berry's shoulders. “Yes, and now you must go home with me again. The integrity of the space-time continuum depends on it!”
She blinked several times before regaining her composure. “You know, that would be a lousy pick-up line if you weren’t cute and all.”
The stallion let her go and rocked back on his seat, looking aghast. “Great whickering stallions, I can’t believe this is going to happen…”
Berry went to take another drink of her cider, but found the mug empty, and reached for his. “Yeah, it’s pretty crazy that you were out looking for me, and I was just out looking...”
“Yes!” he shouted. “Yes, it is!”
“Still… you’re sure we did this last night?”
He pawed at his mane. “No, that’s the thing; your tonight is last night for me! And it’s already happened!”
“But… it hasn’t, yet.”
“It has, let me assure you!”
“Wait… just stop a sec, okay?” She took a long drink from his cider, then sat thinking for a moment. “So you’re saying that we did something together on your last night, which is my tonight… right?”
“Yes, precisely!”
Berry nodded. “Okay, but what about last night?”
“This is last night for me.”
“But you said you were retracing your steps, so doesn’t that mean you were here last night?”
“No! I keep telling you, when I say last night, what I mean is—” A look of panic overtook the stallion. “Oh no, I haven’t kept an eye on… what time is it?”
Berry pointed to a clock on the wall. The stallion cursed, then vaulted over the bar just as the barroom door creaked open again, and his doppelgänger shuffled into the room.
“Hey!” the bartender shouted.
“I’ll pay you not to notice me!” The stallion proffered a bag of bits to the bartender, who shrugged and turned away. Then the stallion looked back up at Berry. “Did I see me?”
Berry glanced at the doppelgänger, who was moving sullenly toward the bar. “I… don’t think so?”
“Then listen closely! Our going home together is a fixed event, but there are always choices! Please, get me drunk in whatever fashion you deem agreeable… but you must understand, I never drink! I’m completely out of my depth here! So as a courtesy to both myself and… others… I would appreciate if you created only the appearance of sordid goings-on!”
Berry frowned. “Well, how’s that fair to me? I mean, it sounds like I’m stuck going home with you.”
His eyes went even wider. “That reminds me, there’s one other thing I need to…”
“Hello, miss,” the doppelgänger said, dropping onto the stool that the stallion had just vacated. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve come to get ‘shnockered off my docker,’ as the foals say.”
Berry glanced down at the stallion. She held his gaze for a moment, before frowning, rolling her eyes… and then turning a smile on the doppelgänger. “Sounds great, champ. What’re you having?”
The doppelgänger seemed to give this due consideration before answering: “How about… one of everything?”
She furrowed her brow. “That’s pretty ambitious. What’s the occasion?”
“I’ve had… I suppose you could say, a slight falling-out with my companion.”
“Aha, rebounding. That makes a lot more sense now.”
He looked at her with visible confusion. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing, hon,” she said, smiling. “Barkeep, how ‘bout a Manehattan for my friend here!”
“You’re quite accommodating,” the doppelgänger said.
Berry sighed. “Yeah, I dunno. I guess there’s always choices in life, and sometimes things don’t go the way you think they will. And that doesn’t make it bad, but I—”
She cut off at yet another loud creak from the door, and turned, and gaped in silence as an even more disheveled copy of herself staggered into the room.
Berry peered over the bar, and into the eyes of the original stallion, who was sweating. “I found you next to me cradling an empty bottle of Sontaran brandy,” he whispered. “Most sapients would take days to wake up after drinking that much of it. So, I brought you back with me for safekeeping…”
“I have a crazy-high tolerance. But now what?!” Berry hissed.
“I’m sorry?” asked the stallion’s doppelgänger, still oblivious despite being on the barstool right next to her.
“Oh, nothing,” she answered, giving him a nervous smile. “I just noticed that a friend… ah…”
Berry-Two plopped down on the other side of the doppelgänger. She gave Berry a slow, drunken leer, then winked. “Hey, good lookin’. What's your sign?”
The doppelgänger looked at Berry-Two, then back at Berry. “I’m sorry. Is it just me, or do you two bear a striking resemblance…?”
“Oh, we go way back,” Berry-Two said, grinning. “Or a day back. Whatever. The point is, I just need to get a little hair of the dog in me, and I’ll be good to help her with her problem.”
“You…” Berry furrowed her brow. “What problem?”
Berry-Two rolled her eyes. “Come on, this isn’t rocket science. You get him sloshed—” she pointed at the doppelgänger— “and he pays the tab—” she pointed at the stallion behind the bar— “and then you and I…”
Berry blinked. “You and I what?”
Berry-Two smiled and shrugged. “Why are you here?”
“Well, I… oh.” Berry went quiet. “Oh. You…? Really?”
“Got any better offers?”
Berry gave the doppelgänger a bemused look. For his part, he seemed very perplexed.
But then the barkeep set a tall, thin glass of off-clear liquid with a long straw and an orange slice in front of the doppelgänger, and Berry grinned. “Drink up, handsome. One of us—” Berry looked at Berry-Two— “give or take… is about to have a night they won’t forget.”
Author's Note
And from that day forward, Berry Punch just laughed when ponies told her to go f
k herself.
