Drinks on me
The streets of Canterlot were bustling with ponies as they cleaned up some left over rubble and broke down their stalls. Most damage that had been done in my invasion had been repaired as I’d helped Princess Twilight release the alicorn magic stored in the Storm King’s staff.
The physical damage that was.
Of course, there were other kinds of damage that could be done. That was why I was keeping my head down walking through the crowd, though staying out of sight turned out to be fairly impossible. There are only so many unicorns with broken horns...
And honestly they’re right, I should be in some dungeon under the palace for what I did.
The sun had been lowered under the horizon a few minutes previously as I wandered around the city fairly aimlessly, my eyes eventually settling on an establishment that was still open. Deciding that I’d try my luck, I stepped inside and walked up to the bar. The barkeeper walked over to take my order but froze as he saw who’d entered the place. I could see him go through several emotions: dread, sadness, anger. He settled on the last.
“We have no need for troublemakers in this place.” Two fairly burley earthponies took position next to me, ready to throw me out if I became a problem. Honestly, I could without a doubt have taken them both, but with all that had happened my appetite for fighting had been almost completely been removed. “Leave.”
“Oh come on, she’s not any trouble!” someone called out, drawing our attention. Rainbow Dash jumped onto one of the stools next to me, surprising me as I thought the element bearers had all remained up at the palace.
The barkeeper huffed but waved off the two bouncers. “Only because of you, miss. If she starts trouble you both leave.”
“Yeah, yeah, just get us two cider,” Dash waved dismissively, looking over at me after while learning on the table. “So what have you been doing? Twi couldn’t find you in the castle for the entire day.”
“I... Was looking around the city. Trying to help clean up my mess,” I sighed, thinking back to my rather disappointing day.
“So, did you manage to get much done?” Dash asked as she got her two cider and pushed one over to me. “Drinks are on me.”
I took the mug, grasping it with two hooves and taking a sip. “Thanks, and to answer your question, no. Ponies didn’t exactly want my help... said I’d done enough already, they’re not wrong...”
“That’s horseapples,” Rainbow flatly stated.
“Everything that happened is my fault though!” I exclaimed, slamming the mug on the bar table, spilling some cider.
“Tempest, look at me,” Rainbow stated dead serious, the relaxed playfulness she’d just been displaying completely gone. “I’m friends with Princess Luna and the first time I met her she was Nightmare Moon. I’m also on decent enough terms with Discord and that should say enough. And besides, that there are plenty of other ponies that don’t exactly have the best track record that I get along with or am friends with. Ponies make mistakes, some way larger than others, but if there’s no way for redemption, then why would they change?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that, just staring at the pegasus. Out of the six bearers, which I’d studied before the invasion, she was the last I’d expect to hear something like this from.
“Anyhow, the castle was getting boring and the royal guards are being sticks-up-their-butts about flying right now,” Dash huffed, taking a good mouthful of cider out of her mug.
“So you went to drink at a bar?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Nah, I was ignoring them and flying anyhow but spotted you enter this place,” Dash casually stated, returning to her previous relaxed attitude. “Just went to say hi.”
“That simple?” It couldn’t be that simple, could it? There had to be another reason, the princess sending one of her friends to interrogate me for... what? There was nothing she really needed to know that I wouldn’t tell if she asked. Also, Dash had been way too sincere for this to be some ploy.
“Why not? I drink with AJ too, good bonding,” She smirked downing the cider as if it didn’t contain any alcohol. “So what do you say, play twenty questions with a twist?”
“A twist?” I asked as I drank my drink at a much more moderate pace.
“Yeah, every question you ask you take a sip. So the more you ask, the more you drink,” she proposed, already getting to the end of her first cider.
I really shouldn’t, this can go wrong in so many ways...
“Alright, you’re on.”
Dash pumped a hoof in the air before placing her mug on the bar. “So, is your name really Fizzlepop Berrytwist?"
"Yeah, but I'd rather be called Tempest for now," I stated with a frown. "Just with everything... I don't feel comfortable going back yet."
"Alright, I'll keep that in mind. I'll go again." Dash took a sip for the question she'd just asked before asking again. "I do various martial arts but never saw anypony fight like you, where did you learn it?”
“It’s actually a hybrid style, taking the bits I deemed best from various disciplines and combining them. There’s a significant influence from the eastern kirin in there but also Abyssinian fighting styles,” I explained, happy to talk about the style I’d created was it was very much a point of personal pride.
“Awesome. Think you can teach me?” she asked, catching me off guard.
“I, uhh, maybe? I don’t know if I’ll be allowed around by the guard in the future,” I stated. “That was two questions by the way.”
Rainbow nodded. “I guess that’s fair.” taking her mug again she swallowed down two good portions of cider, calling for the barkeeper to get her another one. “Your turn.”
“That sonic boom of yours-”
“Sonic Rainboom,” Dash corrected.
“-Can you really do those on demand?” I asked as even I knew the speed required was legendary among pegasi.
“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean it gets easier, I still have to focus on breaching the barrier. The moment you do magic goes absolutely haywire, the boost you get there is, well, exhilarating.” The silly smile that had formed on Rainbow’s face proved to be infectious, the two of us grinning widely as I took my gulp from the mug of cider.
“I do wonder how it’d feel to fly on your own, I can jump incredibly high, manoeuvre over obstacles with ease but true flight... It sounds amazing to me,” I sighed at the thought of being able to soar through the sky freely, not bound to an airship or other device.
“Yeah, it’s something you ground-bound ponies really miss out on,” Dash agreed. “Maybe you can ask Twi about that, she had this spell that gave Rarity butterfly wings some years back, though those are really fragile.”
“She can do that?” I said in surprise, I knew she was good with complex magic but to give another pony wings, even temporarily...
“Yep. That was technically question number three though,” Dash smirked as she raised her mug. I rolled my eyes and chuckled, taking two additional swigs from my mug, emptying it. Rainbow immediately ordered another to replace it.
“So what does your cutie mark- wait, what?!” Rainbow stopped halfway through her sentence as her eyes fell on my empty flank. I suddenly felt really self-conscious about not wearing my armour but just a scarf. “You don’t have a cutie mark?!”
I Lowered my head and flattened my ears as a few heads turned in our direction at the loud exclamation. “Y-yeah, I sort of stopped looking after I lost my horn... I was so angry back then, felt so abandoned by my friends...” Tears welled up as old hurts were brought to the surface again. I felt a wing wrap around my back and pull me into a hug, Dash’s head pushing into my chest fluff due to the size difference between the two of us. “Why are you being so nice to me?” I sniffed with a cracking voice.
“Because you had some really stupid things happen to you and you deserve better... you also sort of saved me and my friends' lives so there must be a good pony in there,” she stated, tapping on my chest where my heart was. "So, in my book, that means you get another shot."
I swallowed a lump in my throat as I pulled her in close again and returned the hug. My heart warmed up as for the first time in a long time I felt I had a true friend. "Thank you."
"No problem. Just be careful around the crusaders, they'd go insane if they found out you haven't found your special talent and try to pull out every stop figuring it out," Dash warned in a serious tone. That just made me want to ask more questions though I decided to put that off for later as I'd have to drink enough at the pace we were going anyhow.
"I think we both asked a question there," I chuckled, wiping away tears and lifting up my mug again.
"Heh, we did, didn't we?" Dash smiled as she gulped down the entire mug.
"Careful there, that's quite a bit of alcohol there," I stated as Rainbow clearly was getting a little buzzed already.
She huffed and leaned in with a smirk, "Think I'm a lightweight? Wanna bet I can drink you under the table?"
"Uhh, no?" I replied but Rainbow had already called over the barkeeper and gotten eight more mugs between the two of us along with the same number of shots of Stalliongrad vodka. The pony had her pay for the drinks immediately, grumbling about how getting paid from passed out ponies was a pain.
"Too bad!" Dash laughed. "We go one for one, and you're behind one already!"
With a sigh I threw back my second mug of cider, slamming it back onto the bar empty. "And now we're even."
"Nu-uh!" Dash immediately threw back one of the shots, her nose wrinkling up as she swallowed the much heavier drink. "By the way, is that lightning the only spell you can cast?"
I nodded as I too took hold of a shot glass. "It's not really a spell, just raw magic flowing out uncontrollably which I got very good at steering."
"Huh, cool," Dash stated as I downed the vodka, she in turn grabbed a mug of cider as her turn.
"You're a Wonderbolt, right?" Dash nodded as she chugged the mug backwards. "What kind of training do you guys do?"
"Mostly Acrobatics, endurance and precision flight," Dash stated. "But Spitfire has been trying to refocus the team on search and rescue along with rapid response for a while now, probably will get the green light with your attack here... no offence."
I frowned as to me that was just something else I'd cause to change, though, after thinking about it for a few seconds, I could see how in the end it might be something positive to have come out of the whole ordeal. "None taken," I waved off her concern and drank my cider in turn.
"So do you know what the Princesses are gonna do to you now?" Dash asked next, going for a shot again. Her speech was getting slurred very rapidly as the alcohol was filtering into her blood.
I shook my head as I simply didn't know the answer. "Honestly, I had expected to be sitting in a dungeon right about now."
The barkeeper huffed but didn't speak further as Rainbow shot him a glare. "Well, I'm glad they didn't. Would have missed out on having a drinking partner right now!"
"Hear, hear," I chuckled as I matched the shot and we simultaneously finished the next cider. I too was starting to feel the buzz from all the alcohol though I had the significant advantage of size on my side, each shot and mug hitting Rainbow much harder than myself... Not that it stopped her as she threw back the third shot.
"So, ever had your eyes fall onto a stallion?~" Dash asked in as sultry a tone of voice she could manage, it almost made me choke on my shot.
"N-no, I never really took the time. Always too much focus on getting back my horn, and magic in turn," I stuttered, Rainbow smirking predatorily.
"So no stallions... though maybe you're into mares?~" She tried grasping the next mug of cider, missing it on her first attempt but managing to get it on the second.
"Uh, Rainbow Dash, I-I think you may have drunk a bit much," I continued to stutter as the pegasus had closed the distance between the two of us and was chugging her mug of cider.
"You giving up, Fizzle?~" She taunted as she placed her empty mug back on the bar table. The reasonable part of me said yes to that question, knowing I could still drink way more before reaching the same state Dash was in right now. That reasonable side of me, though, had been drowned two mugs of cider prior.
"As if!" I smirked, grabbing my fifth mug of cider. "So what does the winner get? A personal flight demonstration?"
"Ha! Sure, but if I win you sleep with me tonight!" Dash exclaimed, making me choke on the cider, going into a coughing fit as a little of the alcohol went down the wrong hole. My face turned red completely as well at the implication.
"W-whoa there! I uhh..."
Dash too pulled back, blushing as well. "Wait, no, that came out so wrong. I mean like as a heat source or pillow!"
"R-Right, sure, I can do that," I stuttered, my blush lessening a bit.
"Wow, we really need to get our mind in the gutter there," Dash chuckled nervously as I finished my mug of cider. "Unless you're fine with that of course."
And there my blush returned in force. Come on, Tempest, you really can't be considering this?! Besides, you've had way too much to drink...
Dash threw back her last shot, making me wonder for a moment how she was still able to sit straight on the stool. "Why'd you even want to date me? I-I mean, I don't exactly look like a stereotypical mare, more like a stallion, a-and that's without the scars," I stammered, the mind fog from all the alcohol making it harder to argue.
Dash snorted as she pulled closer her mug of cider despite that I hadn't downed my shot yet. "Not pretty my flanks, and the scars just give character!" She slurred. "Come on, you're a shot behind!" Taking the last shot glass I downed it without a thought, my mind too occupied with what Dash had said. The pegasus in question barely managed to place her empty mug back on the bear table. "So yeah, you're pretty!~"
"I-" Any other words were cut off as Rainbow fell forward and planted her lips straight on mine. My face lit on fire as she kissed me right before passing out in my hooves. I stared down at Rainbow as she softly snored in my forelegs, making herself comfortable in my chest fluff and smiling contently.
"Look, somepony is gonna have ta carry her out of here and it sure as Tartarus ain't gonna be me," The barkeep stated as he'd been keeping half an eye on the two of us. "Ah don't care where ya go next but Ah want you two out of here," he added indifferently. Grabbing the one remaining mug of cider, he tossed back the bits it cost. "Make sure she gets those back."
"Yeah, yeah," I muttered as I loaded Rainbow onto my back and got out of the establishment, stumbling back up to the palace where I'd been allotted a room. The royal guards looked at me sternly but allowed me to pass with Rainbow, It didn't take long for me to find the small room that contained my bed and for me to place Rainbow into it. I myself drank a whole bunch of water and used the bathroom before sitting down and watching the pegasus snore.
Was she serious, or just drunk? Maybe a bit of both? I couldn't help but feel my heart fluttering as I remembered the kiss she'd given. Whatever it was, she was here now. Stepping forth I joined her under the sheets where the pegasus immediately latched onto me. Technically she'd won the drinking contest, after all, me not having finished the last cider due to the barkeep.
That should be a good enough excuse... We'll figure out stuff tomorrow after the hangover wears off.
Author's Note
Relatively short fluff thing, going back to finishing other stories soon. 
Remember that comments are like authors' food, we gain energy from them. Constructive criticism is welcome.
