Whiskey Business

Applejack and Rainbow Dash settled down by the cool water of the small stream that formed the Apple family's southern border.

Applejack put the basket behind her and spread the linen table cloth on the soft grass with deliberate slowness, fussing like Rarity over every little detail. Rainbow knew she was doing it on purpose, but that only made it worse.

Come On Applejack!" "Out with it already!" Rainbow whined.

"Hold your horses. Somethin like this has to be savored." Applejack smirked as she slowly, painfully, inch by inch revealed the neck of a glass bottle. Rainbow Dash flitted between giddy excitement and frothing rage at her friend's impertinence.

"OH COME O~" she had started to shout, but Applejack suddenly jerked the bottle into view and Rainbow Dash was struck dumb with shock. Applejack was smugly wiggling a 750 ml bottle of Apple family triple distilled barrel aged apple whiskey. Rainbow Dash was floored. Tears started to well up in her eyes. She had never seen something so awesome since the last time she had looked in the mirror.

"Whu whu ho~" was all rainbow Dash could stutter out. Applejack popped the cork and took a small sip, carelessly letting one small drop trace it's way down her muzzle to her neck. Rainbow Dash eyed the drop greedily. Applejack grunted and smiled at the old familiar burn.

"Hoowee that's the good stuff." She passed the bottle to Rainbow Dash who took a swig that was imprudently large. Her eyes swam as the not unpleasant heat filled her throat and face. The only way she could think to describe it was like drinking fresh liquid rainbow but made out of apples. Rainbow coughed violently while passing the bottle back to her friend who couldn't contain her giggles. "That's why they call it sipping whiskey, sugar cube." She took a long pull from the bottle and Rainbow couldn't help but be impressed by how well Applejack could handle her liquor, but just before she could say so Applejack coughed and spluttered.

"Ha!" Rainbow Dash spat "Not so easy, is it?" this time taking a sensibly smaller sip of the liquid fire. "That is smooth."

"Shoot," Applejack finally catching her breath rejoined, "this ain't nothing compared to Granny's secret Apple moonshine, that stuff'll buck ya right into next week."

"Sounds cool." Rainbow Dash choked out trying not to cough after her latest swig. "Can't get anything like this in Cloudsdale"

Applejack stopped before taking another sip. "Why's that" Applejack asked putting the bottle down for the first time since opening it.

"Oh" the blue pegasus disembled not wanting to give the real reason. "Because it's hard enough to walk drunk much less fly, plus alcohol hits you harder at higher altitudes so it's way easy to overdo it for Pegasus."

"Oh" the orange mare started to seem nervous again. "Well since you're on the ground you should be fine right?"

"Puh lease A.J. I think a pony of my awesomeness can han~." She was cut off in the act of rising to strike a dramatic pose by flopping ungracefully onto her side. Applejack let out a creaking cackling drunken chortle as Rainbow Dash tried to settle herself. Normally wounded pride would've caused the Wonderbolt to be upset at being the source of ridicule but her frown quickly gave way to her own innebriated laughter. The two laughed until their sides hurt enjoying the sensation the alcohol produced.

Eventually the raucous laughter died down and Applejack became suddenly pensive, as if remembering something of great moment. The fall had made Rainbow Dash notice the alcohol kicking in. She didn't even register that Applejack had started talking again. Opting instead to gently sway back and forth enjoying her drunken stupor. Eventually the stream of word noise made it's way into a now very drunken Rainbow Dash's brain but instead of the pleading tear laden confession that Applejack was pouring out all that reached her was a babbling incoherent ramble.

"What is she on about?" Rainbow thought to herself. She turned to look fully at her friend to try to deduce what was so damned important when she finally noticed that Applejack was crying. HARD.

Rainbow Dash was nonplussed. This didn't make sense! This is Applejack, the pony who cries on the inside. Rainbow thought to herself "weren't we just laughing our plots off, where'd this come from?" Rainbow staggered to her hooves. She tried to ask what the matter was but all she got out before Applejack bolted was "Applejack wh~." The crying mare was now in full, if slightly off center, gallop.

Rainbow tried to give chase but stumbled the opposite direction into the creek. "AAH FUCK YOU WATER." She regained her hooves and was pleased to find herself managing a trot in the general direction Applejack had galloped off towards when she ran SMACK into a low branch she hadn't noticed. "AAAH FUCK YOU TREE." With one last heroic effort she regained her hooves. She managed a whole two steps before slowly lazily her front hooves buckled under her and her back hooves walked over them until she was lying on her back facing the sky she loved so much. "FUCK . . . You . . . sky."

Her righteous indignation at all creation around her was halted as she heard the sound of a phone ringing in her head. "Hellooo" she called out hesitantly.

"Hi boss this is your liver, just wanted to let you know someone up there must have accidentally sent a whole bunch of C2H5OH we don't need so I took the liberty of sending back for you, TOODLES" and the line went dead.

"C2H5OH" Rainbow muttered to herself. "Wait! I know that one that's AlcoHUUu." The triumph of Twilight Sparkle's subliminal science lessons was interrupted by Rainbow Dash vomiting profusely. "Damn that purple egghe~" another wretch. "Oh fuck! That is way smoother on the way in!" She wretched again and all quips or snippets of laconic wit long gone.

After an agonizing few minutes she finally regained enough composure to begin to scream "FUCK YOU APPL~" she gasped "APPLEJACK!" She had finally remembered that her best friend had just taken off crying. It then hit her that she now had no bearing on which direction she had run off towards. . . "DAMMMMMMIT" she drunkenly slurred. Rainbow Dash, the most coordinated pony in Equestria, couldn't seem to find her hooves. The element of loyalty was not to be deterred however. If she couldn't walk she was sure as tartarus below going to crawl. She started dragging her way vaguely in the direction she thought Applejack galloped away in. An assertion in which she was mistaken of course.