//------------------------------//
// Starting the New Year Wrong 
// Story: Collab Cage Mini-Monthly January -- "What the hay happened last night?" 
// by The Collab Cage 
//------------------------------//

Written by: Comet Burst



The room was dark to the point where the color black was considered too bright. Strange noises echoed around the room as well. Moans, squeaks, heavy breathing and sighs were a continuous chorus breaking the stillness of the dark. It was three thirty in the morning as well.

By the time Amethyst Star gained consciousness, it was clearly midday. She weakly lifted her pounding head from a pillow, wishing she could go back to sleep. Her plum purple mane hung down into her eyes, shielding her vulnerable pupils from the light pouring in through the window. Her brain throbbed with each heartbeat; her body was achy, particularly her flank. She yawned and dragged herself out of bed. Last night was New Years, or so she guessed from the party hat that said 'Happy New Year!' Amethyst tried to concentrate, but her mind hurt when she did. Groggy and in dull pain, she trotted out of the room.

She walked like a zombie over to the kitchen, which her mind weakly noted was not in its usual place. She gave a large yawn again and kept walking, drifting back and forth between the hallway and kitchen and a dream. She got herself a mug of coffee with magic, making a slight mess in the process. "Whatever," she grumbled to herself as she spilled some creamer. She would clean it up later. She took a sip of the bitter liquid and felt her headache begin to subside. She took a deep breath and sighed. Maybe today wasn't such a bad day. At least, that's what she thought until an unfamiliar patter of hooves broke the still and Amethyst turned to see a young grey pegasus colt.

"Good morning!" he cried cheerfully and Amethyst froze. Her mind worked on the situation for two seconds before it had a solution. She didn't live with a grey colt. So, in response, Amethyst's mind did the expected reaction. She shrieked rather loudly at the colt and dropped the mug. Amethyst frantically tried to back away from the colt, but he just kept smiling at her. "You have such a pretty voice, even when you're scared," he complimented her and Amethyst's eyes went wide. The colt walked into the kitchen and said "If you're hungry, we have some cereal here." He flew up onto the counter and opened a cabinet full of boxes. "We have Fruity Oh's, Corn Puffs, Crunchy Berries," he listed as he dug through the cabinet, ignoring Amethyst Star's wild gaze. "Oh yeah! My favorite!" he exclaimed as he pulled his head out of the cabinet.

He was a cute kid with purple irises, black mane and a box bigger than his head in his mouth. He spit it out and grabbed it with his hooves. The box turned to face Amethyst and he spoke. "Wheat-E's!" he stated with excitement in his voice, "All the big strong stallions eat these!"

 Amethyst was unsure how to respond, so her mouth did. "Why are you in my house?" she asked. 

The colt tilted his head and said, "What are you talking about? I live here with my big brother." 

It took her mind some time to process this information, enough time for the colt to pour his cereal. "Wait." she began slowly "This isn't 4508 Thoroughbred Lane?" 

The colt looked up at her and said "No, this is 2210 Jockey Street."

Amethyst's mind suddenly slammed into place at the realization she was in the wrong home. Before she could say anything, however, the little colt continued. "You know, you are much prettier than the other mares I've seen." 

Amethyst narrowed her eyes and asked, "There are more here?" 

The colt shook his head and said, "No, but my brother hasn't brought over a nice and pretty mare like you before. They usually are mean to me when I say hi." 

Her mind took its time with the information she just heard and when it finally spit out an explanation, Amethyst felt an unusual sense of dread crawl over her. The words 'brought over' and 'brother' stood out in her mind. "Oh no. Oh no no no no no!" she breathed heavily. She now had a suspicion why her flank was hurting.

"Aaaaaauuuuggh!" Amethyst yelled and pelted out of the kitchen. 

The little colt watched her run and mumbled, "Did I say something wrong?" 

Amethyst bolted through two rooms before finally finding the door and yanked it open. She sped away from the house, desperate to find her friends Diamond Mint, Berry Punch and Sea Swirl. It took her twenty minutes, but she eventually stood at the coffee shop Star-Bucks with her three friends. Berry Punch was clearly hung over along with Sea Swirl, but Diamond Mint seemed to be fine. The trio sat in silence due to three of the four being hung over and finally Amethyst spoke up. "Do you three know what happened last night?"

Diamond Mint gave her an awkward smile and said, "Oh, nothing in particular. We went out and had a couple drinks for New Years and went home." 

As she finished, Berry Punch snorted with her head buried in the table and moaned, "Oh, you know darn well we did more than that." She spun her face off the table surface and gave Amethyst an evil grin. "So how was he last night?" she asked slyly. 

Amethyst pressed her ears to her head and said, "Who?" 

"Wow, you must've had a blackout to not remember," Berry mused with a chuckle.

Sea Swirl chuckled as well and Diamond's eyes shrank. "Berry! That is not nice!" she hissed.

 Sea Swirl chimed in, "Oh, like you weren't there. She drank half a bottle of tequila, for Celestia's sake!"

"I did what?!" Amethyst gasped. 

Sea Swirl got a dreamy look in her eyes and said, "Oh, it was so romantic. You were so unhappy you were alone, so you drank a couple glasses of wine with Berry and he walked up. He saw you down a whole glass in one drink and challenged you to a drinking contest. You drank half a bottle of tequila in one setting and he was so impressed. He finished the other half and the two of you were inseparable after that." Amethyst paled in response to her friends words.

"That's not romantic!" Diamond Mint almost shouted.

Berry blew raspberries at her and said, "It's how I met Berry Pinch's father." 

Sea Swirl sucked her teeth and hummed, "Of course it is romantic! New love on New Years. When midnight came, you two were kissing like crazy, Ammy." 

Amethyst felt her stomach fall into her hooves and held back some of last nights... tequila apparently.

"Yeah, I thought you two were going to get on the bar and start doing it. Luckily, he invited you to his place before that happened," Berry childed. 

Diamond Mint's eyes were the size of dinner plates and she almost shrieked at the two mares. "You two need to stop it right now! Amethyst is our friend and you need to treat her better than that!" 

Berry shrugged her shoulders and retorted, "She was the one who blacked out." 

Diamond stomped her hoof and said, "Not like you haven't before, Berry!" 

Berry pulled her head up and scowled at Diamond. "Now that was uncalled for. I only get blackout drunk with my stallion." 

Diamond's face scrunched up into a somewhat angry face and glowered, "At least she didn't throw up on the bar!" 

Sea Swirl burst out laughing and mused, "That's why we had to leave! I was trying to remember that part!" She continued to laugh.

Berry turned her scowl to her coffee and mumbled, "It wasn't that funny."

Amethyst was sure she was about to throw up right there, but managed to ask, "Do you know who the stallion was?" 

Diamond spun to her and stated awkwardly, "It was nopony, Ammy! Nopony at all." She smiled unconvincingly again and Amethyst was sure she knew.

However,  Sea Swirl spoke up to allay Amethyst’s fears.  "Diamond, you knew it was Thunderlane! You told Ammy to talk to him in the first place!" Diamond Mint's face turned into a horrific stare and Amethyst felt her heart stop. 

Thunderlane, really?! He was probably the biggest mare chaser in Ponyville and he took her home last night? Amethyst couldn't hold back the tequila any longer and ran to a trash can. She emptied the foul smelling and utterly disgusting tasting contents of her stomach while Berry and Sea Swirl roaring with laughter. Diamond tried in vain to chastise them, but Amethyst felt herself go woozy. Without saying goodbye, she trotted off to her house with her head hung low.

As she approached her door twenty five minutes later, a voice came from behind her. "Hey, Amethyst Star?" She turned to face the speaker and her eyes shrunk horribly. 

The tall dark grey Thunderlane stood behind her grinning awkwardly and the small colt she had met this morning bounced around his hooves. "See? I told you this is where she lived, big brother," he said in an excited tone. 

Thunderlane swatted a wing in his face and felt a blush start to wander up his face. "Sorry about him. Um... Can we talk? You know, over lunch?" He gave Amethyst his best awkward grin.

Amethyst's mind raced. 'Oh, Celestia.' she thought 'Did we really?' She offered him her best awkward grin and mumbled, "Uh... Sure."

About half an hour later, Amethyst Star and Thunderlane sat in awkward silence as Rumble, whose name she had recently learned, drew on the paper placemat with a crayon. Thunderlane seemed very interested in the table and Amethyst spun her head around, hoping nopony she knew was anywhere near here. Finally, Thunderlane spoke up and said "Hey, Rumble, why don't you go get something to drink?" He tossed four bits on the table and Rumble eagerly took them and ran off to the counter on the other side of the restaurant. "So, um, about last night..." Thunderlane began, unsure how to broach the subject. Amethyst turned her gaze to him as he scratched his head, still not looking at her. ‘He is cute when he was nervous,’ she thought but then squelched it. "Um, just so you know, nothing happened. At least, Rumble told me nothing did."

Amethyst was unsure of his confidence in that statement, but Thunderlane pressed on. "I woke up this morning with a bad headache and rolled over to see you sleeping in my bed. I panicked as well and left before you got up and looked for my buddies. They said we kinda, uh, got a little crazy last night and I sorta, uh, took you home. Rumble said we woke him up last night because we were laughing so much, but we both passed out when we got to my room," He finished and waited for her response and finally met her gaze. 

Amethyst tried to wrap her head around nothing happening and asked, "Can you be sure?" 

Thunderlane's face hardened and spoke in a hard voice, "I trust Rumble. He wouldn't lie to me about that."

Amethyst looked down at the tiles and mumbled, "Well, you are known as a tail chaser." 

Thunderlane sucked his teeth and angrily voiced, "I am not a tail chaser. Yes, I date a lot of mares, but I do so for Rumble." He gave a heavy sigh and stopped. After a few moments of silence, he continued, "When our parents died, Rumble was horribly upset. He missed our mom and dad so much. I took him under my wing and raised him by myself instead of him being sent off to an orphanage. He acts like I’m his dad now, but he really wants a mother figure. I've tried to find one for him, but the mares just don't work out. I don't date them just for fun, I’ll have you know. I do plan on settling down at some point."

Amethyst was silent as Thunderlane’s gaze dropped to the table and the two ponies sat there in awkward silence. It appeared to Amethyst that the stallion was very sensitive about his younger brother, to which she could relate. Unknown to many ponies, Amethyst was a foalsitter by trade. She often watched Dinky Hooves and Tootsie Flute for Derpy and Shoeshine since the two single mothers worked almost all day to care for the fillies. Caring for the two little ponies had made her quite sensitive to hearing talk about them or their mothers, often leading to large confrontations with random ponies who whispered behind the families backs. Now that she had heard Thunderlane’s story, she felt an odd twinge of regret for believing such rumors about him, similar to the regret she felt when Derpy and Shoeshine told her their stories.

It took a little bit of courage, but Amethyst gave a smile to Thunderlane as he looked up. He sheepishly looked away and her gaze spotted Rumble in the background, smiling happily as he sipped on some multicolored drink. She felt a familiar feeling of contentment watching him, like when Dinky or Tootsie was happy, and returned her gaze to Thunderlane.

“Hey,” she started gently, “I’m sorry for calling you a tail chaser. I had heard rumors about you and I just kinda went along with it.”

Thunderlane offered a small grin in return and said, “Well, you’re the first mare to believe me.”

The two ponies got to talking and soon Rumble rejoined them. They happily spent the day together, all of them going for a long walk around town, playing ball at Rumble’s suggestion and going to Sweet Apple Acres to pick up some apples. The day just kinda blurred for Amethyst, but she knew she was smiling all day. Finally, night fell and after dropping off Rumble at his house, Thunderlane walked Amethyst back to her house. The two talked happily about the day’s events, punctuated by some bad jokes by Thunderlane which amused Amethyst. 

Upon reaching her door, Thunderlane said, “Hey, thanks for not getting upset about yesterday. I’m really sorry about how things turned out, but at least it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.”

Amethyst Star chuckled and batted her lashes at him. “Yeah, that true,” she mused.

Thunderlane scratched the back of his head, unsure about what to say now. However, before she went inside, he managed to blurt out, “Hey, Amethyst?”

“Yeah?” she responded.

“Youwannadothisagain?” he asked quickly.

“Huh?”

Thunderlane cleared his throat before trying again. “I said, do you want to hang out with me and Rumble again sometime?” His face contorted into a weird smile as the last word rolled off his tongue.

Amethyst gazed at him from the doorway and wondered if he really had just asked her that. “Uh,” she said lamely as a small blush crept onto her cheeks. “Uh, yeah. Sure. I’m usually not busy on the weekend.”

Thunderlane’s grin brightened and he said happily, “It’s a date!” As soon as he finished speaking, the grin left his face and a hoof met his forehead. Did he really just call it a date?

Amethyst’s laugh broke his moment of sheer embarrassment and she replied, “Okay then, tail chaser.” Thunderlane looked up to see Amethyst grinning happily and bid her goodnight before returning home. Inside her own, Amethyst grinned happily to herself. Thunderlane was cute and a nice stallion to be around, plus he had that adorable Rumble with him. She trotted into her kitchen and noticed a bottle sitting out on her counter. Curious, she walked over and saw a note pinned to it. She used her magic to unfold it and it read:

Dear Ammy,
This should help you remember.
-Berry

Amethyst returned her gaze to the bottle and noticed the label. El Equineno Premier Tequila stood out to her and she tilted her head. She levitated the bottle and spun it around in midair to find a picture stuck on the back of her and Thunderlane in a very unsettling position on a bar. Amethyst frowned at the picture and threw it away, but not the bottle.

Apparently she and Thunderlane liked tequila. Maybe she should bring it over next weekend.