//------------------------------//
// Drinks Between Friends 
// Story: Things Are Rarely as They Seem 
// by Orkus 
//------------------------------//

	As she had told him, Persica and Habeas left the house at noon. Knowing that the public would probably not be happy with having a changeling in their midst, Habeas chose to change his form. The disguise he had decided to put on was a simple form that he didn't take long to think up. After shifting into it he appeared as a unicorn of a simple complexion, with light gray fur and a darker-shaded mane. His injured hoof, still in its sling, was able to transform as well with its current condition, making his disguise practically foolproof.

Earlier that morning Peach Blossom had been picked up by her friend, leaving the mare and the changeling on their own for the rest of the day. After hooking herself to the cart, Persica and Habeas set off from the house to Canterlot. While traveling on the barren road, Habeas thought of the fine city and pony capitol of Equestria.

Habeas had been to Canterlot before, during the time where he and his hive invaded not two years ago, and that same memory still remained as fresh as a daisy. As a matter of fact, he was also once here visiting peacefully for a short time before he took a trek along the road that led him to Persica in the first place.

It was as the city came into their sights that Habeas voiced his question toward their mission. "So what kind of drinks are we fetching, exactly? Some kind of juice?" he asked.

Persica snorted at his naivety on how brewers worked. "Peach schnapps," she answered. "The very best, too."

Habeas looked confused. "Schnapps?" he questioned. "My cookbook never mentioned those. What're they?"

"Just a form of alcoholic beverage," Persica said. "You know, these ones are made by one of my friends, Cider Keg. Let me tell you, when he makes drinks out of my peaches, you'd think you never had anything else as good."

"I don't think I've ever even had a drink like that before..." he replied. When a few more minutes of walking passed by, they came into the city.

Habeas loved to be in Canterlot. He never grew tired of having such grand, fantastic buildings take up his sight. He had lived most of his life in a dark and shapeless, cavern-esque hive in the Changeling Kingdom, and spying the colorful architecture here that bore such alien, but extraordinary visages and stable geometries to them that he could not help but admire it. After a walk through the square with all of the passing townsponies none the wiser, Habeas and Persica came to a plain-looking establishment neighboring the main castle and entered it after parking the wagon aside.

Inside, behind a counter and clearly waiting for his next customer, was an earth pony who Habeas quickly distinguished as most likely being Cider Keg. The first thing he noticed right off about him was that he was a stallion of a somewhat wide girth. Covering his stout configuration was coarse orange fur and a mottled white-and-blue shirt, as well as a curled mane of a dark shade of brown. On his flank was a cutie mark resembling a large brown barrel. His face, bearing a grand handlebar mustache and a pair of bushy eyebrows, looked perpetually, if not roughly cheery, and this instantly made Habeas feel welcome.

"Top of the morning to you, Persica!" he greeted in a hearty voice. "Came at just the right time, too! It's been a hustle for most of the first half of the day, but we've finally got us a break here."

Persica smiled back as she approached the counter. "That's why I always come here at noon, Cider. Is my order ready?"

"Indeed it is!" he replied. "Let me go fetch it for you."

He turned around and casually entered the door standing behind him. Coming back from it after less than a minute, he had a large crate wrapped in his left hoof, and he placed it on the counter for both the mare and disguised changeling to see.

"Half-a-dozen bottles of my finest peach schnapps," he said, patting the crate's wood as though it were a pet. "All as a token of my thanks for the peaches you so graciously delivered to me yesterday. The rest'll sell good once winter comes around."

"As they always do," Persica grinned.

"Hey, what happened to your friend?" Cider then asked her, pointing to the disguised changeling as he took notice.

"Him? Oh, he, um..." Persica tried to answer for Habeas, only for him to answer with an excuse before her.

"I... fell down some stairs," he said.

"Some stairs?" Cider Keg questioned.

"Yeah, some stairs."

"Oh... that must've been a nasty fall!" Cider Keg winced back and rubbed his foreleg as he imagined the idea of hurting himself in a similar way. Getting back to his previous stance, he turned to Persica again and smiled. "But anyway, enjoy the drinks!"

Nodding appreciation, Persica lifted a crate up with near effortlessness over her shoulder. She intended to bring it out to the wagon, when Habeas trotted to her before she could so much as turn around.

"Allow me," he offered sincerely. Thinking for a second and eventually rolling her eyes, she plopped the crate onto his back. Though his body sunk low for a second, once Habeas collected his bearings, he nodded to the earth pony and set off for the door, as to deposit the crate in the cart. Cider Keg watched it all from where he stood with an intrigued glint in his eyes.

"Who is your companion, Persica?" he asked her, his mustache twitching with curiosity. "I've never seen him around here before, and I know most ponies to inhabit this fine city."

"He's from out of town," she replied. "He's staying at my house until he's able to go off on his own again, and I have him do work around it as payment."

"Seems like a delightful fellow," the brewer went on. "I can see why you keep him around."

"Among other reasons..." she uneasily sighed. "I'll see you around, Cider. Thanks again for the schnapps."

He grinned, showing his square white teeth from behind his thick and wiry facial hair. "Don't mention it, my old friend. It's what I do."





Habeas and Persica returned to the homestead soon after, and the changeling immediately went to work around the place. He checked the garden first, and then made sure the peach trees were all good to start off. Once that was done and over with, Habeas focused on the rest of the smaller work activities to be done around the house. Come sunset he finished the last of the chores set upon him by Persica, and went off to look for her in order to tell her that he was done.

Habeas eventually found Persica on the porch of the house, sitting upon one of the two wooden chairs resting on it and looking out to the property with her good, blue eye; a slight sparkle of contentment shining in it, causing it to look less like a cold chip of ice and more like a shimmering flower petal. There was a clear cloud of calm tranquility that sat over her like a wonderful morning mist, and Habeas could feel the vibe strongly. Taking notice of the changeling, she turned to him expectantly.

"I finished all the work that needed doing," he told her once her attention was on him.

"And you did a good job, Habeas. Care to sit with me?" she inquired.

"Oh, um... sure," he concurred. Slowly walking onto the porch, he looked at her with an unsure visage, and only sat down in the free chair when she gestured for him to do so with a hoof. With the limb in the cast sitting by his side, he tried to get as comfortable in his seat as he could. The only thing between himself and the pony was a small table propped up on three thin legs, and situated on its flat, round surface were two small glass cups, and one bottle of what Habeas recognized was the peach schnapps the two picked up that day; freshly plucked from the crate.

"What are you doing right now?" he asked in an effort to start a conversation, noticing how she only appeared to be doing nothing else at the moment.

"Meh... just admiring the sunset. Taking it in as much as I can," she replied, pointing out to the beautifully crimson horizon. With the way the rays of sunlight showed through some reddened clouds in the sky above, Habeas had to admit the view was lovely. But there was still another question in need of being answered now that he was up here.

"What's with the bottle and cups?" he asked next.

She took a quick peak at the items in question and gave a halfhearted shrug. "I guess I was thinking that you might deserve to have some of the first sips of this fine brew. For all the hard work you've done for me."

"But... peach schnapps? An alcoholic beverage?" his voice sounded ripened with concern and a minuscule hint of angst. "I've never once heard of a changeling that drank something like that before. What if I... have a bad reaction?"

"Please," Persica murmured skeptically. "It's nothing more than distilled and flavored fruit juice that's been processed into a light brandy."

"Are you sure it won't... kill me?" Habeas eyed her suspiciously, as though she was intending to poison him.

"Oh, c'mon. You'll like it," she insisted, grabbing the bottle and undoing its cork; already loosened from the corkscrew she previously used inside. Tipping it slightly, she poured some of the drink into her glass before setting the cork onto it again and putting it back onto the table. "Those brewers put their blood, sweat, and tears into making this stuff. A changeling like yourself will find as much love as you want, if I were to hazard a guess. So, put your worries behind you, pour yourself a glass, and let's allow a good and merry time to come between the two of us as friends sharing a drink."

Holding his breath, but releasing it with her gentle words, Habeas reached for the bottle. Picking it up and tugging the cork out, he carefully put its tip to the glass and watched as the contents within it spilled into the cup. After it was filled just over half, he placed the bottle on the wooden planks making up the porch's floor beside himself, as to not clumsily knock it over with his shoulder or elbow in the small chance he was to spasm out from drinking it.

"You're sure this is okay?" he inquired a final time, picking the glass up and examining the clear, peach-tinted fluid within.

"I'm sure," she responded, truthfulness in her tone as she lifted her own up. "The only side effect I bet you'll experience is a relaxation of the joints and an ever so slightly slightly dulled mind."

"Well then... here I go," Habeas mumbled, trusting her. Putting the cup to the tip of his fanged snout, he took a small sip from it and allowed the cold fluid to enter his mouth, right before Persica did the same.





"Y-you were right, Persica..." Habeas hiccuped in a heavily inebriated and happy voice. "This stuff is good. Like, really good."

Silence was all that responded back to him. Persica had been looking at him with a widened eye for the last few minutes, and still could only scarcely believe what level of drunkenness had become of the changeling's once-meek and cautious disposition. "I... told you, I guess," she finally said, a smirk of slight amusement coming over her.

"You sure did, heh... Wait, how much of this stuff did I have s'far?" he asked, his brow sluggishly curling in confusion as he eyed his cup and the drink that still occupied a fourth of it.

"You're still on your first glass," she answered with a small snicker. "I must say, you changelings sure get tipsy real fast."

"I don't think any of us had peach schnapps before!" he said back in a hearty laugh. "This stuff izz... different from anything I've had before. It makes my insides feel warm, and soft, and... warm."

For a time after that, Habeas spoke of many, mostly trivial things in his addled state, and Persica was an avid listener of these drunken rambles, until he spoke of something else. "You know, yesterday, Peach Blossom and I talked a lot. And I mean a lot. She told me about how much she liked school, and how fun it is to have a changeling as a friend, and what she was going to dress up as for 'Nightmare Night', or something like that," he droned on with the occasional hiccup to accompany his dizzied words, still warranting Persica's amused expression. "And another thing, I think something she told me... er, asked me, was if I... if I liked you, Persica."

The mare's face went as still and blank as a pale slab of stone, and once she had a proper grip of what her ears picked up, her cheeks flushed like the tint of the setting sun. "What... did she ask you?" she inquired in an emotionless whisper.

"If I... heh, heh, like you!" he repeated with a childish chuckle, causing Persica's face to remain as it was. Still, past Persica's shocked visage, Habeas continued on; his expression as lightheartedly mirthful as ever. "A-and you know what's a li'l bit funny?"

Persica ground the teeth in her mouth around in gritting circles and placed her empty glass to the table beside her as her eyes formed into a glare. "What's funny, Habeas?"

He looked to his cup for a moment; swishing around the contents within it and watching with dumb amusement on his face at how the ripples swirled about. "I think I... kinda, sorta... maybe... do. Heh, heh!"

Habeas laughed aloud, unaware of how Persica was taking this sudden news. The color on her face returning to normal as a minute passed by, her face soured and she folded her forelegs over her chest. She remained looking like this for a while, casting her malevolent leer toward nothing but the far off red horizon as though hoping to cause the sun to explode with just her dirty gaze. "Habeas," she finally spoke, her tone mollified a fair bit, but facial features holding onto their bitterness. "Could you please pass me the bottle?"

He blinked at her groggily and let his wits slowly catch up to him. "Y-you sure you want another round of this stuff?" he asked her.

"Just give it here," she muttered back. Shrugging, Habeas turned to the floor behind him and, with as much care as he could muster up, lifted the bottle from where it rested in his wrist and gave it to Persica. Without delay she snatched it out of his hole-filled hoof in a quick motion, pulled the cork off with her teeth, and spat it out onto the table. 

Currently uncaring of anything else, she took a long swig from the thing, not even bothering to hesitate in performing such an inane action. Though his mind was blunted immensely, the changeling was still very much startled by what he witnessed Persica do.

"Persica," he spoke, his voice only partially sobered by his surprise. "Are you okay?"

Finally parting the bottle from her lips, Persica set the thing down on the table with a light clap of glass-on-metal from the momentum. "I'm just fine, Habeas," she grumbled back in a tone that was beginning to sound a little bit intoxicated. "Just. Perfectly. Fine."