"That is the most entertainment I've had in a while." Sombra's voice came from above the water. Twilight had no clue what he was talking about. Also why was everything wet? Also why did she feel so dizzy?

Any further internal questioning was cut off by a sudden and dire need to breath. She struggled for what she prayed was upwards and continued until she felt air touch her snout. Triumph came shortly after when the whole top half of her body broke the surface. She floundered around for a moment as she caught her breath.

Twilight could see she was a ways off the ground. Down below was Sombra his horn glowing and giving her a toothy grin. She then realised shed swam to the top of a hemisphere of water apparently held together by Sombra.

She tried to say something to him about how hard fluid manipulation was. It cane out as an extended "Heyyyy..."

"I'm going to assume by your behaviour that you've never been this drunk before." Sombra spoke up as soon as he was sure Twilight was paying attention.

Was she drunk? She didn't remember drinking much at the party. Just the punch.

Sombra stopped holding the bubble together, letting both Twilight and the water be taken by gravity.

"When was I drinking?" Twilight mumbled as a wave of nausea overcame her. The landing hadn't been too rough, but the sudden change in elevation was severely disorienting.

"When did you stop, you mean? You stole a bottle of wine from me and drank it, yelling something about not stopping until I caught you. I did catch you, but you teleported what was left directly into your stomach. Quite a feat for a drunk."

Twilight didn't remember any of what Sombra said, but the burning in her gut said he probably wasn't lying.

"Why am I out here now?"

"Because you can't hold your drink." He replied, pointing away from where he stood. Twilight looked and saw a large pile of what looked like vomit.

"I felt slightly responsible for you since the wine you stole from me was essentially poison. It was aged longer than I've been alive."

"Oh, oops."

"I would've stopped you, but at first I was fairly curious as to how you'd react to it. It was a slightly sobering realization that it might end up killing you. Your body took care of it luckily enough." He said dismissively. As an afterthought he added, "I recommend you never dance again though. For the sake of Equestria."

Twilight didn't know how to feel about the second part. As far as the almost poisoning went she felt pretty lucky; though she still felt more dizzy than anything else right then, also wet.

"Was it really bad?" She asked going about wringing her mane and tail out.

"The dancing?" He responded wryly. "As Celestia put it, 'At least she's having fun.'"

"Oh. Celestia noticed it too?" Twilight looked at the ground as shame took her.

"The whole room did as a matter of fact. Perhaps I'll make it another one of your lessons." He said teasingly.

Neither Sombra or Twilight, or anyone who happened to be in earshot would've expected the response Twilight gave.

"What makes you so great?!" She shouted, throwing her hooves up in anger.

Had the alcohol not been affecting Twilight so much, she might have seen Sombra fighting back a smile of amusement.

"What 'makes me so great,' is that I have lived several lifetimes beyond anything you can hope to accomplish on your own. I-"

"Yeah well I- hmmm..." Twilight interrupted but immediately lost her thought.

"I bet I have more magical aptitude in my left hind-leg than you do in your whole body."

"Excuse me Twilight, I must've misheard you. You think you're more magically capable than myself?"

"I- Yeah that is what I'm saying." She agreed, nodding eagerly as she shot him a challenging look. A very quiet voice in the back of her mind was telling her this was a mistake. At present she couldn't be bothered to listen to any voice aside from the one that was telling her to show up her teacher. If she lucked out, he might be so impressed that he would stop teaching her.

"Oh I haven't done this in so long." Sombra said menacingly as his horn came to life. "Three of the most complicated spells you know, and a raw display of power. You can do those in any order you please."

A bottle of some dark alcohol flashed into existence nest to him.

"Just so we have the same capacity to recall spells." He explained, before unstopping the bottle and chugging it's contents.

"Isn't that a bit much?" Twilight asked, slightly amazed at how he guzzled the fiery liquid.

"Your ability to hold a coherant conversation is fooling you into thinking you're not that drunk. Trust me Twilight, this is fair."

"You're up first since you're the challenger, by the way."

Twilight searched her brain for the most complicated spell she could think of. At the same time she searched for something to demonstrate on. An idea popped into her head when her eyes passed over the fountain that Sombra had drawn water from. With a slight grunt of effort she began to pull up water and form it into a roughly spherical shape. It occasionally lost it's shape as she lost focus, due to her state of mind.

Sombra waited patiently.

"So if I can just separate the-" Twilight began, just before everything went white.

~~~~~~

Twilight woke with a start. She immediately regretted coming back to the waking world. Her everything hurt; it felt as though she had been doing strength training for an entire day while simultaneously allowing someone to hit her hard enough to leave bruises. The worst of it was her head; where a constant throbbing accompanied by what felt like a wound exposed to open air left her feeling disoriented and a little nauseous. The morning sun spilled into her bed chambers and she wanted desperately for the sun to go away for at least the next year. Applying her magic to the curtains to get them to close sent pain lancing through her skull, and she groaned in agony and frustration as the misfired magic caused the curtains to open slightly wider.

Sombra's face came into her vision as she lay paralyzed by pain. She'd never really taken the time to appreciate the designs on her bedroom ceiling, or how badly it needed to be repainted.

"Everything hurts." She tried to say, but her throat was so dry that it came out as more of a croak. She barely even heard it herself. She missed Sombra nodded sagely, and repeated herself.

Sombra recoiled slightly and glared at her. He started speaking very softly; so softly in fact that Twilight wasn't even sure he was making sound at all.

"What?" She asked, once again misjudging the volume she needed to use. Every time she spoke the throbbing in her head doubled, just for the effort of speaking.

Sombra sighed, or at least Twilight thought he did. She didn't hear it, but he made the motion at any rate. He materialized a chalkboard and a piece of blue chalk.

Twilight groaned again. Magic chalkboard meant lessons, for once in her life she didn't want to learn at all.

You've lost most of your hearing, stop shouting. Was hastily scribbled on the chalkboard he presented.

Twilight let out an "Oooh..." of understanding.

"What happened last night?" She asked in what she now approximated was a normal speaking voice.

An eraser also materialized and he quickly removed the previous message. Magic contest. You were drunk. Sombra's chalkboard explained.

"Is that why I'm so much pain?"

Since I expect you've never been hungover: Yes that is the source of your head pain. He paused to erase than write again. I imagine you're likely sore from being launched 30 yards. Your first act was to make an explosion.

"How'd I do that?" She asked as the night up to, but not including the contest came back to her. Her cheeks were glowing red from embarrassment at the memories.

You used very fine magic to do science. Not technically a "magic" contest, but impressive. He erased and wrote again.

Vaporizing water separating molecules and adding fire. You're lucky I...

Her stomach worked itself into a knot as she tried to imagine just how big a reaction she'd caused, and if she'd managed to hurt anyone.

I noticed you hadn't magically protected yourself or you'd just be dead.

"Did I hurt anyone?"

Aside from yourself, no. I warded the area against catastrophic damage. Blast was contained. While Twilight was reading Sombra's head jerked around to look behind him.

He erased and hastily scrawled.

Celestia is coming. Tell her you're alright so I don't get in trouble. Twilight got to see the new message for all of two seconds before the chalkboard, chalk and eraser all disappeared.

Sombra stepped to the side and just as he'd said, Celestia came into Twilight's limited view; right where Sombra had been standing. She looked over Twilight's form, her gaze filled with a motherly intent.

Celestia started speaking.

"I can't hear you." Twilight explained, cutting off whatever Celestia had been saying. From the furrowed brow it was likely either a serious question or an equally serious lecture.

Sombra shook his head as he explained. The chalkboard and chalk came back. Celestia took one look at the small board and shot Sombra a glare. She turned it to him and he cringed. He produced the eraser and offered to her as well. After erasing the message Sombra had forgotten about she wrote her own.

How are you feeling?

How was she feeling? Twilight wasn't exactly sure how to answer that. She didn't want to get Sombra into trouble with Celestia, but at the same time simply talking hurt. Celestia would likely know instantly if she were trying to play down her misery.

At length Twilight swallowed hard and said, "Everything hurts, but my head is the worst of my pain. I don't feel like anything is broken or that I'm dying though."

That's probably the alcohol as much as anything else. It was nice to see you cut loose and have fun. Erasing.

Knowing your limit is important.

Sombra spoke up when he caught a glimpse of what Celestia had written. His words seemed to have the strange effect of making her want to smile and still wanting to be upset with him. She instead gave him a nod and a warning glance.

"It's not his fault, entirely. Like you said I should be careful not to drink too much. Don't be too mad at him." Twilight pleaded a case for Sombra.

Celestia sighed again and her gaze softened. Celestia wrote a short message on the chalkboard.

You live and you learn, I suppose. Get well soon. With that she bent down and gave Twilight a small kiss on the forehead. In a flash of golden light she was gone. Probably to tend to her other duties Twilight guessed.

A glass of water held in Sombra's aura floated into Twilight's vision. He moved closer and raised a questioning eyebrow.

Twilight nodded weakly and the glass was tipped to her lips. It was going to be a slow recovery, Twilight realized as Sombra controlled the rate at which the water left the glass. Very very slow.

Author's Note

I think I'll be able to wrap this story up in a couple chapters. Also I think I'm doing this "slice of life" thing correctly, but I'm not sure. At any rate here's some reading for you. Leave a comment let me know what you think.