Never Mix The Two Together
The soft, almost imperceptible humming sound of magic reached Spike, feeling his body being lifted off the wooden floor against his will, towards a clearly inebriated Twilight. There was something off about her: was it the mess on her mane, her slurred speech or the fact that the bottle of hard cider wasn't going to be drunk by her? It could have been all of them - no, it had to be all of them. Putting up any kind of resistance just wouldn't work, as he was completely powerless against her magical aura. He had really blown the only chance he had had to come out unnoticed, becoming rather observant of the rapid coherence loss she had gone through.
Of course, it had been all fault of the cider...
It was cider season once again. The sun was high on the sky, apparently indifferent to the suffering of the population under its scorching heat. Beneath the clear sky, ponies from just around all Equestria traveled either from hundreds of miles away or just walked for some minutes, ending up at Sweet Apple Acres in a long queue (really long, noted Spike in his mind) waiting for their long-desired tasty cider. All of that was entirely okay, and he was rather excited with the situation, even.
Things started to escalate a tad too quickly for him to intervene when Rainbow Dash, apparently already drunk from either excitement or suspiciously acquired apple cider, "snatched the heavenly nectar from the hooves of the green-eyed monsters and brought its refreshing tastiness to the masses", to put it in her own words. He watched, incredulous, as she flew towards a spot near his position and landed beside the lavender librarian with a mischievous grin on her face. There he was, together with Twilight and a rather interested Fluttershy.
"Come on, everypony! Why are we here!?" she shouted towards the crowd.
"Cider!!" responded basically everypony waiting in line. Chatter took over the group, as the words of the ponies turned more and more impatient.
She could be quite a good public speaker, thought Spike. The group seemed to respond with the same fervor she had enunciated her words, if not more, even.
"That's right! And that's why I'm going to be showing somepony the greatness of this cider right here!" she exclaimed, like she was presenting the biggest sport event of the year.
"Tell me, have you drank any of this before!?" she asked, acting like she was doing an interview with Twilight, and one that had to be heard over through the entire crowd of ponies, at that.
"Rainbow, what are you doing!? Can't you cut it out!?" Twilight scolded her harshly.
The crowd had a mixed response: booing, gasps, and phrases that encouraged nopony in particular were shot in every direction. At least they were doing a great job as entertainers.
Rainbow looked at the lavender unicorn with an expression that screamed 'you shouldn't have said that'.
"Are ya gonna bug, or are you gonna chug!?" she screamed at her face, taking off a few centimeters over the ground, the barrel in one of her legs and Twilight's head on the other. The two met with a thud, as the gilded liquid started to rapidly gush out of the opening, filling Twilight's mouth with impressive speed as it started to dribble out as nothing more than a trickle.
The entire crowd was surprised, but an overall message of 'now we're talking' could be received in-between the disorienting mass of phrases that had formed from that seemingly average incident.
Frozen in his spot, Spike could do nothing but stare at the scene in front of him:
There she was, Twilight Sparkle, respectable student of Celestia herself, forced to drink what must have been a quite large amount of cider in root of a drunken frenzy one of her close friends had encountered.
Even when it was just wrong and he felt like he was the only one who could help, he just couldn't muster enough courage to do it. Rainbow Dash was already an unpredictable pony to deal with when she was clean, but who knows what could happen if he tried to put a stop to her intoxicated glee.
A smile crept up on Rainbow's face as feelings of pride and accomplishment developed in her mind.
Twilight, on the other hoof, was having an all-out war between extremely polarizing thoughts about her current situation. The ranks of the Correctness Nation had been flawlessly flanked by the Kingdom of Thoughtlessness, and were being mercilessly attacked in an ambush at the Fields of Wisdom. The battle seemed one-sided enough for her to put it behind her as soon as it started. A misplaced, at least for her, pleasure emanated from her mind as the golden beverage continued to flow deeper into her in seemingly never-ending waves.
Before he could try to do anything to help...
...The scales of his lips met the rim of a full beaker, Twilight's eyes giving him a stare which he swore that could gaze into his soul. A disturbing smile formed on her face as her left eye twitched a few times.
"Aren't you enjoying this?" she asked, her voice raspy and with an irrational undertone.
Spike tried to fight it, and he struggled in an attempt to separate himself from the recipient. But how could he keep himself away from it? He was just a baby dragon against a unicorn that could teleport him and force him to move his body if she really wanted to.
He looked at her eyes once again, catching a glimpse of a stare that transmitted a powerful sense of dread; she really wanted him to drink.
The angle of the vessel shifted upwards, his eyes focusing on the slowly approaching golden liquid. It seemed like everything was lost when...
...The barrel was separated from Twilight's muzzle with a pop. In that rather short span of time, she had just sent every doubt to a second plane as she panted, her eyes expressing a deep ecstasy that nopony had expected.
After it, she stood completely still, looking at Rainbow Dash with an absent stare. The pegasus herself wasn't really sure of why she had forced her friend to drink cider, but she felt it was necessary, even when a bit too harsh.
A sudden feeling of fear took over him; a feeling being detached from the fervent cheering that surrounded him, that only made him feel more alien to the entire situation with every passing second.
"T-Twilight!" he stuttered out, immediately questioning his logic: would he be able to even try to help, in any way? "Are you..." he asked, slowing down on the phrase as it went on, as he noticed her current state. "Okay...?"
"'Okay'? 'Okay'!? I'm more than just okay, I'm great! I've never felt better in my entire life," she responded quickly, eliciting an incredulous "huh?" as response from him. "...Don't you want any, too?"
Spike directed his eyes towards a half-confused, half-proud Dash.
"Where did you even get that cider!?" he asked dryly.
"Pinkie gave it to me. She said that she had put some funny stuff on it."
"She what?" he muttered, dumbfounded. How has this gone from waiting in line to Twilight losing her ability to reason and Rainbow being surely drunk?, he wondered.
...The sensation of the cider spread through his entire body. There was something in the mix of factors that seemed to bounce off eachother and multiply the scene's impact: the unusually high temperature of the beverage, Twilight's behaviour, his own mind ranting against him for not ignoring the whole situation and the strangely large amount of both scrolls and quills scattered about on the floor.
The intoxicating, warm scent and taste of the drink seemed to burn his mouth and nostrils, making him feel out of his own self when considering that he had eaten Pinkie's infamous baked bads without moving a nictitating membrane.
When the fourth glass ran out of cider, Spike was completely out of his mind. A mixture of resignation and bafflement could be seen on his face as he struggled to breathe after a long while of nothing but chugging the golden beverage between stops of a pair of tenths of a second.
"Spike, take a l-letter please, to the-" she said, her voice slurred, before a hiccup made her jump. "The princess..."
He continued to pant for a while, seemingly oblivious to what Twilight had just said.
Her faint magenta magic aura engulfed a random number of quills, ink recipients and scrolls as she braced herself for a lengthy report while mumbling something about his number one assistant being a lazyassistant.
"No, Ah dun' care! You keep writhing, mister!"
"But Twi-- *burp*"
"No no no no! That's the f-- filth scroll you burn already! I was doing something important on that one!"
When Celestia woke up, slowly opening her eyes as she remarked herself that it was about time to raise the sun, she noticed something immediately: there was something over her right eyelid. It applied little pressure for the space it was using and, from the texture, it appeared to be some sort of paper.
Without saying a word, she got off the bed, blinking a few times as she tried to adjust her eyes to the lack of lighting. It was always so dark before dawn...
The sound of something being crushed beneath her hooves reached her ears as she took a step forward. A small 'huh?' escaped her lips when she noticed many other scrolls scattered about on her bedchamber floor.
7, or 8, she counted. Utterly baffled, she lifted them off the ground and left them over the pedestal table, beside a worn-out candle. She would read them later; dawn waits for nopony.
A golden aura engulfed the seal while it tore without a sound, the paper inside expanding in an elliptical motion at the disappearance of resistance.
With an expression of uncertainty, Celestia telekinetically unrolled the first paper of many that sat at a side of a cup of coffee.
"Dearest Princess Luna," she read aloud, rather confused. "Wait a second..."
"What is this...? It looks like it's Spike’s handwriting..."
Another scroll was picked out at random as she took a sip from the cup. What had happened yesterday?
The scroll was extended, and the contents inside of it were something completely different from what she had in mind.
"What is all of this...?" she asked nopony in particular as her eyes passed through the paper before her. Crude, shaky doodles could be discerned: what looked like two quills superimposed over a star and a flame were the only thing present in the message.
"Wait a second, what is this?" she said a third time when she noticed an almost unintelligible phrase in a corner.
"Commission... for..." she could make out, the handwriting itself being impossibly unkempt. She squinted in an attempt to comprehend the nigh gibberish sentence. “Celestia-- me...? ...Spike."
A third scroll found its way towards her, the confusion inside her head becoming rather difficult to contain, together with a new feeling of interest. What was going on here, exactly?
Dearest Princess Celestia,
I profusely apologize about any potential misunderstanding that the incident with the latest letter I sent your way could have brought forth. I wasn't feeling right and I swear it wasn't my fault.
"I don't understand..." was all that she could say as she tried to join the pieces of an unfinished puzzle. The writing style changed from what she could recognize as Twilight's writing back to Spike’s handwriting, that seemed strangely inconsistent.
Do you think I could go to Canterlot, princess? I need to get away from Twilight. She's a little dr
The message ended abruptly, an ink stain plastered over the last word.
Submerged in curiosity, she continued to read the scrolls while constantly sipping coffee. There was something on the entire situation that filled her with an out-of-place feeling of intrigue.
Dearest Princess Cadence,
Argh, not this again!
A long silence invaded the room.
"...Swing and a miss."
You,
Listen, I'm doing my best to write something here, so please oh please don't banish me to a dungeo
The word dungeon became just a downward line.
"Again with the banishment...? What is the matter with my beloved subjects...?"
I mean, uh, I've learned that friends are not better than cider.
…I'll wake Spike up.
The mirror in front of her was assaulted with a high-pressure blast of coffee as her eyes passed over the word 'cider'. Had it been that all along? A towel was hastily brought by her, cleaning the stain almost immediately.
"What does she mean with 'I'll wake Spike up'...?"
My dearest teacher,
I'm about to black out. Send help.
Spike's also out.
"Oh."
The last scroll was deposited in front of her. There was something still out of the picture, though; she had the idea that Twilight had drunk too much cider and had forced to Spike to do so as well, but there was no reason behind that. Maybe... maybe this one explained it all?
Dear Princess Celestia,
I'm writing to you to report my newest find in the magic of boo-- I mean friendship; if you try to force your tastes in other ponies, you might just be in for a surprise when you discover that, indeed, everypony loves cider and you should just keep on forcing everypony to drink
The handwriting was way better than the one present in any of the other scrolls, but the message ended just as suddenly as in the others.
Before she could stand up and continue with her day after a rather strange but amusing awakening, a could of smoke appeared in front of her, finally condensing into another scroll.
"Huh, and what about this...?" she muttered, remarking herself that she was supposed to maintain composure.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today... I've learned that you have to know when it's the moment to stop. I didn't know what the point of no return was when drinking cider yesterday and I swear I couldn't be more regretful. If only I knew how hard it would become to stay rational...
Spike has sent the other letters without me knowing, so my best guess is that you already know what has happened. I'm truly and honestly sorry about all of this. I understand if you're disappointed in me, because so am I.
Your faithful and repenting student,
Twilight Sparkle.
"Seems like you’ve learned a valuable lesson about friendship... well, about how to handle your liquor, actually..." said the princess as she wrote. "I still think that you should stay away from fermented drinks, given that you seem to exhibit little no to tolerance to it."
"...And yes, I expect a report on that, too. You've gone without an assignment for too long: a week and a half. Yes, I know, too long of a time."
