"Sweetie Belle, wake up dear." Rarity nuzzled her sister gently, eliciting no response from the slumbering filly. "Rise and shine," Rarity said as she yanked the covers off Sweetie's bed. Laid about the rest of the bed were Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.
"Maybe we ought to leave them be a bit longer," said Applejack from beneath the brim of her hat. "Little extra shut-eye ain't gonna hurt none, given the circumstances."
"I think they've had quite enough rest as it is." Rarity spared a sideways glance at Applejack. "You wouldn't be trying to put off admitting to the 'little mistake' you made, would you? Not very becoming of you, I daresay."
Applejack tilted her head up and looked at the sleeping fillies. "Only thing I'm tryin' to put off is the mess of a headache those girls are going to be in for when they wake up."
"Unless they sleep in for the next week I think you're out of luck." Rainbow Dash pulled her head out from under Sweetie's bed, an empty bottle in her mouth. On the label was a golden apple with the words "Sweet Apple Acres' Cider" running through it. She tossed her head back and the few drops left in the bottle trickled into her mouth. "That's way stronger than your hard cider," she said as her muzzle scrunched against the strong taste. "What was in that bottle, AJ?"
"Applejack."
Rainbow Dash grunted. "'Applejack, what was in the bottle?'"
"No." AJ rubbed her temple with a hoof. "The stuff in the bottle is called Applejack."
"It's a bit self serving to name a beverage after yourself, isn't it?" Rarity asked, still standing over her sleeping sister.
Applejack let out a long sigh. "Other way around, actually."
"Wait, so you're named after liquor?" Rainbow Dash said before falling into a full laughing fit.
"Consarn it all, Dash." Applejack stomped her hoof on the ground. "That's beside the point and this ain't the least bit funny."
"Yeah, you're right." Rainbow wiped her eyes clear and looked back and forth between the empty bottle and the sleeping fillies, letting her gaze linger a moment longer on Scootlaloo. "It's about to go from 'not funny' to 'downright sad' in about five seconds." She flew over to the curtains and yanked them open wide, letting the full brunt of the late morning sun fall on the sleeping girls. After a deep breath she yelled, "HEY SQUIRT WAKE UP IT'S TIME FOR A BIG SISTER-RAINBOW DASH LESSON FROM THE 'WISH I KNEW THIS LAST NIGHT' CLASS!"
Sweetie, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo snapped awake. For a moment they scrambled about in the bed in a state of shock. Then that moment passed and the scramble slowed to a halt as the force of sun and scream met the sapling of pain inside each of the their heads and bloomed into a migraine. The girls fell back down onto the bed, desperately grasping for some shield against the encroaching light and noise.
Rarity hit Rainbow Dash in the shoulder hard enough to knock her off balance. "What in the name of Tartarus are you thinking Rainbow Dash? You can't just wake them up like that! Hearing a scream like that first thing would be awful under normal circumstances, and these are anything but normal."
"Waking up drunks is like pulling off a bandage: it's going to hurt anyway so you may as well make it fast and be done with it," Rainbow Dash said, rubbing her shoulder.
"There has to be a more gracious way to—"
"—Complaints later, treatment now," Rainbow Dash cut in. "Do you have any of that hoity-toity flavored fizzy water in this place?"
"I have citrus carbonated beverages, yes," Rarity replied.
"Great. Go grab that, and some pain killers if you have 'em. The kids'll need all the help they can get. Applejack, you..."
Applejack turned from looking at the girls writhing on the bed, their heads now huddled beneath a single pillow. "Who the what now? Where'd Rarity run off—"
"—Pity party later, treatment now." Rainbow flicked up the brim of AJ's hat. "Time to get the girls up the rest of the way." Rainbow closed the curtains up again. "Since this is your fault you can wrestle the pillow away from them."
"Fine, fine. Come on little ladies, time to quit hidin' and start gettin' fixed up." AJ walked over to the girls and yanked the pillow off the top of their heads, exposing their frightened red eyes to the world.
"What's wrong with us?" Sweetie asked with pained breath.
"Maybe we're sick or something," Scootaloo answered as she rolled herself upright.
"Partial credit, dear. You three are in the throes of your first hangover," Rarity said as she walked back into the room, floating several fancy green bottles of water beside her. She twisted off the caps from three bottles and handed them over to the three inebriates, along with a few small pills. They each popped the medicine into their mouths then took long, grateful drinks from their bottles.
"What's a hangover?" Apple Bloom asked.
"It's what happens after a pony drinks too much alcohol," Applejack answered. She tilted her head down again, hiding her eyes just below the brim of her hat. "By the looks of the bottle Rainbow Dash pulled out from under Sweetie's bed you three are hurtin' something fierce."
"But we didn't have any alcohol, we swear!" Apple Bloom looked back and forth to Sweetie and Scootaloo, and each nodded in turn. "We split the bottle of cider I took from the barn and that's it. I double checked the label and it wasn't the adult stuff. I promise." Tears began pooling in the corner of Applebloom's eyes.
"Calm down there, Sugarcube, y'all didn't do anything wrong and you're not in trouble." AJ took off her hat and tossed it on the dresser behind her. "I'm the one who made the fool mistake of not using the good sense I was born with. I should have marked off that crate or used different bottles for the 'Jack, but I didn't and now you three are paying for my carelessness."
The three fillies looked at each other, confused. "So if that wasn't cider in the bottle, what was it?" Sweetie asked.
"It's called 'Applejack,' apparently," Rarity answered. "Now, tell me dears." Rarity sat down on the bed next to Sweetie Belle and gently brushed the filly's mane back. "Did you not realize that you weren't drinking regular cider? Surely it didn't taste as you expected, yes?"
"Well..." the girls said in unison.
"The stuff tasted awful, for sure," Scootaloo began. "We all had a little bit to make sure it was actually bad and not just one of us being weird."
"We weren't going to have any more," Apple Bloom continued, "but after a few minutes we started feeling all warm and toasty from the inside out. That felt pretty nice so we had a little more."
"Turns out after a while you can barely taste how terrible it is." Sweetie took gulp from her water bottle. "So we, uh, just kept drinking until it was gone."
"Sounds about right for a first time bender," Rainbow Dash said. "How strong is this stuff, anyway?"
"I reckon that batch is about five times stronger than our good cider." AJ tapped her hoof on her chin for a moment while she did some quick math in her head. "Figure thirty-five, maybe forty percent alcohol. I hadn't made it around to measuring exactly yet."
"And why were you making such a strong concoction in the first place? Ponyville isn't exactly that kind of party town."
"I made that there 'Applejack' from a process Ma and Pa left behind." AJ climbed onto the bed and put a leg around Apple Bloom. "I was digging around the attic last Spring and found a stack of notes tucked away in an old cook book. Took 'em to Granny and sure as the sun rises she said they were in my parents' hoofwriting."
Apple Bloom hugged her sister tight, ignoring the pain still gnawing away in her forehead. "So, Mom and Dad named you after a drink they used to make?" she asked.
"Seems that way," AJ replied, again massaging her temple with her hoof. "Anyway, Granny said after I was born Ma and Pa didn't have the time to keep up the hobby, so they quit making it. I thought it would be nice to make a batch in their memory; maybe share it with my friends and let Apple Bloom have a small taste"—she poked her sister in the barrel twice—"so she could feel a bit closer to our parents."
"That's... that's kind of nice, actually," Rainbow Dash said as her previous mirth drained out of her. She caught herself after a moment and shifted back into her work attitude. "Alright, now that the girls are up and we solved the mystery of the disappearing liquor, we move on to the next step in treatment: breakfast."
Rarity and Sweetie climbed off the bed, followed by a wobbly Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. While the four of them left the room, Applejack climbed off the other side of the bed to retrieve the empty bottle.
"Hey, Applejack," Rainbow Dash said when the others were out of earshot. Her ears pinned back on her head and there wasn't a hint of playfulness left in her voice. "I'm sorry I laughed before. It's great that you found a new connection with your parents. I shouldn't have cheapened that."
Applejack cocked her head to the side and looked at her friend, then smiled. "Don't worry about it, Dash. It is kind of funny."
"Thanks. I just want... I need you to know I didn't mean to disrespect your parents or—" Rainbow Dash was cut off by the sudden application of a hoof to her mouth.
"Humility later, breakfast now," Applejack said.
Rainbow Dash's ears perked up and she puffed out her chest. "Right. Let's go take care of those girls. Alright fillies," she yelled as she flew down to the kitchen. "Prepare your mouths for the best, greasiest breakfast you've ever had."
Author's Note
Expanded from my entry for "The Morning After" Writeoff event.
