Pinkie hummed to herself as she proinked through the Rainbow Festival. Even beyond the awesome, super amazing food, it made her happy to see everypony having fun. A festival was just another type of party, after all, and nopony knew parties like Pinkie Pie. With an idea of what the Festival was like, she would have to work on plan for next year to make it even bigger and better! As she scanned the crowd, ideas had already started forming in her head.
The landing on her latest bounce brought her standing right next to Kerfuffle. The two exchanged a smile and a wave.
"Hey there, Kerfuffle!" Pinkie said, bouncing up and down in place. "You having fun?"
"Oh, I'm having a total blast, dontcha know." Kerfuffle sighed in contentment and looked out into the crowd. "Been a long time since I've seen everypony this happy."
"Well, I love making ponies happy!" Pinkie landed and wiggled her flank. "It's part of my cutie mark! I especially love to par-tay!"
"Oh, I used tah be quite the party animal back in the day." Kerfuffle giggled and motioned to her leg. "Sometimes too much, if ya get what I'm sayin'."
Pinkie frowned and tilted her head as she stared at Kerfuffle's fake leg. "What do you mean?"
"Well..."
* * * *
"Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!"
Kerfuffle finished draining the tankard of beer and slammed it down on the table to rambunctious applause. She giggled and wiped her mouth with the back of her hoof.
"That's five! Beat that, ya loser!"
The stallion at the other end of the table smirked and, with some effort, shakily picked his own mug up. "Y...yer goin' down, girl. Sh-shooow do *hic* down!"
"If yer talkin, ya ain't drinkin'!" Kerfuffle said with a smug smile. "Whatsa matter? Lightweight?"
"Ah, screw you," the stallion growled. "I can drink... you... under..."
Before the stallion could say anything else, his eyes rolled back and he collapsed on the floor. Everypony in the room broke out into loud cheers as Kerfuffle raked in a smile pile of bits. She scooped them into a small saddlebag sitting by her. She went to stand up, but her legs wobbled out from under her. She put a hoof on the table to prevent herself from collapsing completely, allowing her to ease out of the chair.
"Oh, that was easy," she said, stretching out her wings. "Anypony else wanna go?"
"You've already had eight, K," one of the mares around her said. "Don't try to beat a third pony."
"Pshhh. What do you know?" Kerfuffle wobbled where she stood. "The room ain't... spinnin' that much. All I gotta do is fly it off a bit, then I'm good ta go again."
"Uh, K, I don't think that's such a good idea!" one of the stallions said. "You shouldn't fly while drunk."
"I ain't drunk, though!" Kerfuffle said, spreading her wings and taking to the air. "Watch, I'll do a lap around the room ta prove it to all of ya that--"
Drunk as she was, she was completely incapable of flying in even a straight line. She put too much effort into one powerful flap of her wings, and shot forward before she could stop herself. She smashed straight into a china cabinet and crashed on the ground. Before anypony could help her up, they heard a groaning noise as the china cabinet slowly started to fall forward. It wasn't more than half a second before gravity kicked in, and it began falling faster than anypony could catch it. Kerfuffle only had time for two words.
"Oh dear."
* * * *
"So yah, that's why I always practice safe partyin' now." She shook her missing leg. "Not worth it, ya know?"
"Oh yeah, totally!" Pinkie said with a vigorous nod of her head. "Parties like that can be fun sometimes, but being drunk is never a good idea!"
"For sure. Learned that one the hard way, but if nothin' else, ponies can learn from my mistakes, ya know?"
"Definitely! I've made mistakes like that too, but never anything that led to that!"
Kerfuffle shrugged. "Guess I was just as unlucky as I was stupid. I don't drink at all now. Sometimes ya gotta learn things the hard way."