//------------------------------// // Hangover // Story: Little Choices // by Skijarama //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash had asked many questions in her life. Some were important, some were just stupid or meaningless. She had gotten many answers, each one just as varied and interesting, each one answering her question with a wide range of levels of satisfaction, from complete to nonexistent. Right now, Rainbow Dash had one very, very important question above all else. Why am I waking up on the couch? She had napped on the couch in the past, sure, but never when actually going to bed for the night. She used, well, her bed for that. Now that she was thinking about it, she didn’t quite remember when she went to sleep last night. Then the headache hit. Rainbow groaned, her voice a dry and airy rasp, and opened her eyes to examine her surroundings. Immediately she slammed her eyes shut again when the dim illumination in the main room of the library was akin to gazing into the sun. Her headache flared horribly. With her limbs shaking, Rainbow tried to stand up off of the couch. She failed. With a gasp of pain, she toppled off of the couch, having somehow forgotten that she was upside down. Now on the floor, on her back, with her head being the first thing to make contact with the hard wooden surface, Rainbow had only one thing left she could do as the aching in her head rose to amazing levels, as her stomach turned and protested to movement, as her heart hammered in her chest. She screamed. Well, tried to scream. It came out as more of a pitiful wail that echoed throughout the building. Were somepony else to hear it, they may compare it to a long moose call, if the moose in question sounded like the cyan princess. “Twiiiiliiiight…” Dreading the day ahead of her, Rainbow sighed as a realization came to her. She was hungover. “Rainbow?!” Twilight squawked when she came down from the loft, maybe twenty minutes later. Rainbow was still on the floor, now cradling her head and moaning quietly in discomfort. For a few long seconds, Twilight just tried to process what she was looking at before an exasperated sigh slipped out of her. Still, she managed to smile somewhat at her friend before gingerly approaching. “Hey, you okay there?” “Noooo…” Rainbow groaned into the floor, barely moving. “Please don’t talk so loud…” Twilight rolled her eyes before reaching gently out to Rainbow. “Alright, come on. Up, up,” she said gently, carefully pulling Rainbow up. The rainbow-maned pegasus wined pathetically in discomfort before Twilight was able to get her sitting upright on the couch. After a moment of looking Rainbow over, Twilight couldn’t help a small snicker. “You look horrible.” Rainbow shot her a glare, which then melted into another low groan of pain before she slowly rested her head back against the couch. “Just… shut up and… I don’t even know.” “I’ll get you some water and the pain meds,” Twilight said a bit more gently before cantering for the first floor restroom. She paused in the doorway and glanced back at Rainbow with mild concern before continuing on her way. When she came back, it was with a bottle filled with water and two small medicine tablets floating alongside her. “Open up.” she commanded. “I can still use my hooves, Twilight,” Rainbow grunted while holding out a hoof. “I don’t need you catering to my every need.” “Sorry. Kind of an instinct, I guess,” Twilight replied sheepishly while setting the tablets down into the outstretched hoof. “I just don’t like seeing you like this. I mean, it’s funny at first, but it gets kinda sad as the day goes on.” “Meh,” Rainbow humphed before downing the meds and then a large swig of the water presented to her. She exhaled and leaned back again. “I feel sick…” “You probably are,” Twilight noted before turning to head for the kitchen. “Hang on. I’ll get you something.” “Cheap Chineighs food sounds good.” Rainbow called softly from the couch while Twilight moved off. “You know that greasy food doesn’t really help with the hangover, right?” Twilight called after she pulled open the fridge, scrutinizing the contents. “My stomach won’t let anything else in,” Rainbow called back while her tummy gave a very displeased rumble. “Oooh…” Twilight soon came trotting back with a cardboard box full of ramen noodles and brown rice, lightly heated to be acceptable. She set the container down in Dash’s waiting hooves before joining her on the couch, careful to not jostle her in the process. Already, Rainbow was eating a rather large mouthful of the rice, a few stray noodles dangling from her lower lip. Twilight giggled. “You’ve got a little something on your lip, there.” Rainbow glanced at her, then crossed her eyes at the offending noodles. She noisily sucked them up before glowering at Twilight. “Laugh it up, egghead.” Twilight gradually lost her smile to a more genuinely concerned expression. She reached out with a foreleg and tenderly pulled Rainbow against her side. For a while, the two were content to just sit there and be silent while Rainbow ate her cheap food. Finally, when she was done, Twilight took it in her magic and set it down on an unpopulated end table. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you go that hard on Applejack’s cider before, Dash,” Twilight noted in a whisper, looking sideways at her friend. “Hmm.” “I know you drink at Pinkie’s parties, but I’ve only ever seen you have a hangover a few times in all the time we’ve lived here. Is something wrong?” “No.” “You sure?” Twilight asked softly, rubbing her hoof down Rainbow’s opposite foreleg in a comforting series of strokes. “Every other time you got like this it was because you were trying to forget something.” Rainbow groaned slightly before closing her eyes and taking a shaky breath. “There are a few things eating at me, yeah…” she finally mumbled, pushing herself a bit closer into Twilight’s side. “I’m listening.” the unicorn urged her on softly, giving her a gentle squeeze of assurance. “You’re always listening…” “Rainbow…” “Right, sorry…” Rainbow took another breath and closed her eyes. “I… I hadn’t thought about my birth parents in a long time… I’m not mad at you or anything, but being held in your magic like that… it poured salt on some old wounds.” Twilight winced at the memory before leaning over to gently nuzzle Rainbow on the head. “I’m sorry… I didn’t have any other options.” “I know, Twi. I know…” Rainbow assured, leaning into the nuzzle before shuddering slightly. “I still miss them, you know?” “I can only imagine.” For a long moment, the two were silent, Rainbow forcing her emotions back under control before glancing into Twilight’s eyes. “There’s… there is another thing, Twilight…” Twilight perked her ears up and listened intently. She could already feel a subtle tension around Rainbow and felt her muscles start to shiver from anxiety. She reflexively pulled the shaking mare closer, offering as much comfort as possible. “Go on…” Rainbow lowered her eyes. “You…” she hesitated, her lips pressing into a thin line. She shifted slightly to better look into Twilight’s eyes. “You remember Starlight Glimmer?” Twilight’s brow furrowed as she recalled the enigmatic mare in question. “Yes, I remember her. She’s the mare that catalyzed the change in history, right?” Rainbow nodded solemnly, her eyes lowering slightly. “...I know I should just ignore what he said. I mean, he was trying to get under my skin and it worked, but…” she closed her eyes. “Discord mentioned her when he was… uh… ‘discording’ me. And I can’t shake the feeling that he actually made a good point.” “What did he say?” Twilight asked skeptically, the corners of her lips turning down into a frown. “He said that she’s still out there in our timeline. He said that there’s a very real possibility that she may try to rewrite history again. I know he was probably just trying to get under my skin and all that, but I’m worried that he may have been right.” Rainbow explained before opening her eyes again. Twilight’s eyes lost some of their intensity. “We don’t have any reason to think she’s up to something. I mean, isn’t she under surveillance?” “No, she’s not,” Rainbow shook her head with a mildly displeased look coming onto her muzzle. “Mom refused to send somepony to take her in or spy on her or anything, even after we got the elements. So far, Starlight hasn’t committed any crimes or done anything wrong. Plus, Mom is very stern about the risks of acting off of foreknowledge. Things are already very different here than they were the first time through, so…” Rainbow sighed and looked back up into Twilight’s eyes. “She doesn’t wanna risk something going wrong because she tried tampering with events that may not even happen.” Twilight nodded slowly. “Well, to be fair, I can understand her worries. Even seeing fleeting glimpses of me becoming a princess has probably thrown a lot of things off course.” “I know, I know…” Rainbow sighed again. “But… I don’t want to risk things changing again. What if they end up going badly? What if something breaks or, or… I don’t know!” she threw her forelegs into the air in exasperation before her headache flared and she sank back into the couch. “Uuugh...“ Twilight looked on in sympathy. She was about to offer some consolation and urge Rainbow to let it go for now, when the pegasus spoke again. “I don’t want to forget you… I don’t wanna forget growing up with you…” Twilight’s ears fell flat against her head when she spied a few tears in Rainbow’s eyes. The pegasus shook slightly at even the thought. “If it all gets rewritten… none of this will have ever happened, right? Our whole lives, undone and… I won’t remember this… any of this… I might never meet you… the girls…” Rainbow turned to Twilight before wiping a foreleg over her eyes in an effort to dispel her steady steams pouring out of them. “Rainbow…” “We don’t have to do anything or act in any big way… I just…” Rainbow sighed and gave up on her eyes. She looked down at the couch, shaking. “I just want to make sure that we can keep the lives we’ve got…” Twilight stared wide-eyed at Rainbow before a small, tentative smile appeared on her face. She reached out and pulled Rainbow in for a comforting embrace, patting her on the back. “This really scares you, huh?” “Yeah… y-yeah it does.” Rainbow admitted before pulling away a bit. “If you tell anypony, anywhere, ever, that I just said that…” “I won’t, Rainbow,” Twilight said good-naturedly. “Don’t worry. To the rest of Equestria, you’ll always be the brave and fearless Element of Loyalty who never cries and never gives up.” Rainbow smiled slightly before leaning back into the hug. “Thanks.” “What are friends for?” For a good few minutes, the two remained in silence. Finally, Rainbow pulled away and winced when her headache flared again. “So… Twilight?” “Yeah?” “When I’m done being a whiny little pony and my hangover is gone, I’m going up to Canterlot to see if I can find out where Starlight lives. There should be files for that or something. When I go… I want you to come with me. I’ll need the help to find her file anyway.” Rainbow explained, a slight hint of unease in her voice. Twilight frowned. “What are you going to do if you find her?” Rainbow flinched, feeling like she was already being accused of a crime. “I just want to make sure she isn’t up to anything. Once I know for sure that our future is safe, we can come home and forget about it.” Twilight analyzed Rainbow’s shifting eyes and uncertain expression for several moments. Finally, she lightened her frown and nodded. “I’ll go with you, sure. And if we find her, I’m going with you to see her, too. The rest of our friends, too, if they’re up for it.” Rainbow knew already what Twilight was doing. She wanted to keep their entire circle of friends close to make sure she didn’t do anything rash or reckless. “That’s fine by me, Twi.” Twilight nodded and then removed herself from the couch. “Okay, go on and go shower. You need it more than I do right now.” “You sure?” Rainbow asked, smiling weakly through another spike in her hangover. “Yes, Rainbow. Go get cleaned up.” Twilight urged with a smile and hoof gesture. “Thanks, Twilight. You’re the best.” Rainbow said quietly before slipping off of the couch and, still with a bit of a shake, made her way upstairs to make use of the shower. Twilight lost her smile when Rainbow’s back was to her. She could already feel a pang of nervousness over their plan to find Starlight. Twilight knew Rainbow was scared and just wanted to make sure that they’d be alright, but still, it didn’t do much to assuage Twilight’s concerns. Still, with little else she could do for now, Twilight decided to focus on the rest of her day, glancing out a nearby window and into the morning hours of Ponyville beyond.