"Darling, isn’t-hic isn't this building just lovely? The colors! They're so… colorful." Rarity slurred as she gestured towards the tacky building that stood in front of them. "An-hic and the flashing of that sign is astutuh… uh, assta... clever advertising."
"I think it’s just, uh... it just needs to be fixed, Rarity. H-hey look! Those doors look just like me. Haha." Twilight replied, with a small fit of laughter as she looked over the rest of the building.
"Twi-hic, darling, that's periwinkle, you're lavender."
"I'm, uh, not Periwinkle, Rarity. She lives on Maple Way," Twilight said. “Wow, you really are inebruhh… drunk.”
Rarity returned a lazy version of her idiomatic pout, “No, the door… the door is periwinkle. I said-hic you’re lavender.”
“I’m not a bush either, Rarity. At least I don’t think I am,” Twilight said, taking a second to double check the statement as she looked down towards her forehooves.
Rarity bemusedly shook her head as she made her way to the set of doors, which she was pretty sure were not the same color as her friend.
“Nope, not a bush,” Twilight smiled before she noticed Rarity ambling away from her. "Hey, wait fo- wait for me. I don't want you to get lost."
As the two opened the door they were met with an almost empty bar, save for a little over half a dozen mares. Some were more conscious than others, Twilight noted as she glanced over a blue unicorn who sat passed out across from two mares who were either fighting or making out. It was hard to tell which from the front door, and Twilight preferred not to find out.
"H-hey, Rarity, do they also have tea here?" Twilight confusedly asked as they trotted towards the zebra-striped bar and its dusky-coated bartender, bumping into a couple chairs that had somehow stepped out in front of them.
"Darling, don't-hic don't you know how to relax? Here, allow me to order some-hic-thing for you." Rarity replied, as she drunkenly waved her forehoof around in an attempt to call over the bartender who was already directly in front of them.
Seated at the next stool down, a magenta mare babbled at the bartender’s backside, "And you wouldn't hic-believe how embarrassing it was after that whole 'love potion' disaster when everypony and their, um, when everypony and their mother was talking about it, and I have to talk to all the mothers." She rolled her eyes in exasperation which only made her look more woozy.
The mare behind the counter let her ramble and attended to the newcomers. She levitated a now-refreshed glass over to the talkative patron and addressed Rarity and Twilight, "My, my, you two look like you have had an exciting evening already. What can I get you?"
"Twilight are you-hic a lightweight or heavyweight?" Rarity asked her friend who was having trouble getting her own butt seated properly on her bar stool.
"Oh, so I’m Twilight now? I thought you said I was lavender." Twilight snarked feeling very clever both for her joke at Rarity’s expense and for her own conquest of the bar stool.
The drunken mare who had been content with babbling in the general direction of the bartender a few seconds before turned her attention to Twilight’s curious statement. "Your friend thinks you're a bush? You’re hic-not, are you?" she asked with a sloppy grin.
"No, I al-hic I already confirmed that I am not," Twilight nodded, certain of the conclusiveness of her findings. With a giggle she added, “She’s just a little” she drew out the word for comic effect, “drunk right now. You know she thought the door was a periwinkle?”
"Isn't the door made of wood? Can hic-trees be flowers?" Twilight’s new friend asked, oblivious to Rarity’s increasing impatience.
"Uhh, can they? Lemme ask my friend. Hey, Rarity, are, uh... can trees be flowers?" Twilight leaned in too close to the white unicorn and whispered the last part.
"Trees? No darling, can you hold your li-hic can you hold your liquor?" Rarity whispered back.
"Nope!” she said with an emphatic rap on the bar. The motion caused her to slip half-way off of her stool again, but, luckily, her diminished reflexes were still quick enough to keep her from face-planting. Unfortunately, for Rarity, Twilight had to use Rarity’s shoulder to brace herself “No drinking for me. I have to make sure you get home safely. Do, uh… do they have tea here, Rarity? They had tea at that other place. You should see if they have tea. Ask-hic ask her for green tea." Twilight slurred as she finally managed to get firmly re-seated between her friend and her new acquaintance.
"Shhh,” Rarity whispered as she brought a poorly-aimed hoof towards her lips in an attempt to mimic a shushing motion. “Twilight, you’re making us look like, uh... like tourists. I don't hic-think this sort of place sells tea." Forgetting her attempt at subtlety, she turned to the bartender and asked, “You don’t do you?”
"How about I surprise you girls with this week's special? It's half-off," asked the bartender, displaying her well-practiced skill for managing the intoxicated.
Twilight leaned over the marble bar and out of Rarity’s personal space. "Special? Can I have that too? Is the special tea? Is it the island kind? Say, do you know Miss uh..." Twilight trailed off both waiting for a response and wondering whether or not she herself had actually finished saying what she was trying to say.
"Call me Cheeri-hic Cheerilee. Who are you?"
"I'm Twilight. I’m pretty sure. And this is Rarity." Twilight replied, causing Rarity to give a small wave of acknowledgment towards Cheerilee before turning to answer the bartender's inquiry.
"I guess it's up to me to order for the two,” Rarity paused to glance at the two mares beside her. "...or rather three of us. We'll have-hic we'll order whatever that special whatsit you mentioned was. I'll also cover our new aqua- acquain… friend’s order as well."
"Are you sure, honey? You don't have to feel obligated to buy another mare's drink, especially if you're already here with somepony else," the bartender asked. Not waiting for an answer, she began mixing their drinks.
"It's quite alright. A... true-hic lady must always be generous, especially with the liquor as I’m sure you know." Rarity giggled at her own bon mot while watching the mare work her magic behind the bar.
Bottles coated in an orange magical aura floated from the shelves. A bottle of rum uncapped itself and sent a measure of the sweet booze from therein upward into the air where it mixed with a stream of coconut cream and a splash of lime juice as well as sliced pieces of frozen pineapple. Then, shaved ice flew from a refrigerator hidden beneath the striped marble counter to join the congealed weightless blob of cocktail-to-be. Before Rarity could blink, a trio of cocktail shakers materialized in place of the ingredients and began to shake and rotate in a circle as if they were dancing together to inaudible music. About half-way through the dance the aura shifted from orange to an icy blue, and the shakers slowly came to a stop. Finally, they poured their contents into the glasses sitting on the bar, filling them each with what looked to be a yellow smoothie. Rarity was visibly impressed.
"The classic piña colada smoothie—one of my personal favorite drinks. I hope you enjoy these," the bartender stated, as she slid the drinks to the trio.
Rarity bounced in her seat and clapped her forehooves. "Oh, that was simply brilliant, darling, the, uh… the way everything seemed to dance and-and shake! Twilight, did you see that?" Rarity tried to get her friend’s attention with a rapid series of jabs that she had intended to be gentle nudges.
"Nuh, I'm certain that certain trees… certainly can be made into tea -ngah!" The drunken ramblings of a school teacher and a plant who believed that it was a unicorn came to a sudden stop as a perfectly pedicured white forehoof almost poked one of its eyes out.
"Twilight, wha-what happened?" asked Cheerilee as she first looked over the mare in question and then studied Rarity who was bouncing in her seat like an excited foal, a sight with which Cheerilee was uncomfortably familiar.
"I don't… I don't know. Rarity, did you see what happened to my eye?" Twilight asked while holding a fetlock over half her face.
"Twilight! Twilight, did you see the drinks fly around… around and dancing?" Rarity asked, not noticing her friend nursing her eye.
"Rarity, I’m nuh-hic… I’m not seeing a lot right now. And the drinks aren't dancing. They are… they're right here." Twilight slurred, pointing a hoof at the three drinks on the counter directly in front of them.
"No, they were telephon… uh, they were magic." Rarity replied, stumbling through her words.
"They don't look like, um... like they’re magic, they loo-hic like regular old smoothies," Cheerilee stated, as she put her face right over her drink, eyeing it as critically as a drunk mare can.
Twilight slurred at her new acquaintance, "Oh, do you… y'know who has good smoothies, Cheerilee? There's… There's this really, really good restaurant... No, a bakery? No… guhh! I forget what it is, but they sell really good smoothies there."
"Oh, never mind. Just forget it." Rarity huffed as she irritably stared at the glass in front of her.
"Cheer up, gorgeous. At least you got to see the show," the bartender stated as she began to polish one of the shakers that was held aloft in her magic. "It seems your friend over there is enjoying herself. Any particular reason why you aren't?"
"Most ponies don't appreciate the finer things in life. This whole… this whole night has been a disaster. First, I met this dreadful..." Rarity wrapped her lips around the rim of her cocktail glass and sipped. The sipping turned to leisurely nursing. In short order, the glass was half-empty. "They just don't get me, you know?" The white unicorn finished, unaware that she had not actually been saying what she was thinking while she had been drinking.
The orange-maned unicorn nodded in feigned understanding as her gaze wandered towards the back of the room where the mint unicorn and the tan earth pony were still bludgeoning each other with their tongues. She silently weighed the pros and cons of tossing the pair out, since the only things that they seemed to not want to put in their mouths were their drinks. Rarity reacquired her attention by leaning to the side and blocking the bartender’s view of the amorous couple. “You understand, don’t you? Wanting to be in-hic the company of ponies with just a touch of class,” Rarity pleaded, her ‘s’s sounding almost like ‘f’s.
Meanwhile, a bar stool away, Cheerilee had gotten off on a tangent. “So, I said to Colgate, ‘Doughnuts for breakfast? You’re nu-hic nuttier than a squirrel.’” She sputtered a laugh at the memory.
“Uh, whoa-whoa-whoa,” Twilight said with a bit too much volume, and she waved her forelegs in front of her face while shaking her head. Her display drew Rarity’s attention away from the bartender. “Doughnuts are the be-hic best breakfast. They go with the coffee,” Twilight declared emphatically.
With Rarity distracted, the bartender could again see Bon Bon and Lyra at their table, or rather she could see Bon Bon seated at the table and Lyra slipping under it. The bartender telekinetically slammed the shaker that she had been cleaning on the bar, giving Rarity a start. “There will be none of that in my bar. You two beat it,” she yelled across the room. “And take Sleeping Beauty with you.” She nodded at Colgate who was just starting to drool.
“But it’s our anniversary,” Bon Bon pleaded. Lyra poked her head up from under the table.
The bartender glared. “Isn’t it about time to move the celebration to your hotel room?”
Lyra looked blearily up at Bon Bon from between her hind legs. “That actually sounds like a really good idea, babe. Come o-ow!” She clunked the back of her head into the table in her hurry.
As Lyra scrambled out from under the table, a pony leg thumping painfully against a table leg, Bon Bon pouted in her seat. “But we can’t get kicked out before Colgate does. She’ll never let us live it down.”
Lyra stumbled free of the table and stood lightly favoring her left hind leg. “Look,” she said indicating the sleeping Colgate. “She’s not even going to remember tonight.”
“I’ll tell her,” Cheerilee called from the bar with a laugh.
Bon Bon rose to her hooves and rolled her eyes. “Great. What are the chances that Cheerilee will forget tonight, too?”
Lyra did not respond. She was too busy trying to get her magic to work through the effects of the weird drink that she had earlier. With some squinting and grunting, her horn finally ignited, and the slumbering Colgate floated into the air in a mint-colored magical aura. She only got a foot off the chair before Lyra’s magic flickered and vanished, dropping her onto the table. Colgate just snored an inarticulate grumble in response.
“Oh le-hic leave the poor thing be, you ruffians,” Rarity scolded. She turned to the bartender with a dopey parody of her weaponized cutsey pout on her face. “You do have a pla-hic a place where a lady who has over induluh… had too much to drink can rest and recover, don’t you?”
The bartender narrowed her eyes at Rarity. “This isn’t a hotel, darlin’.”
Striking a dramatic pose that almost toppled her from her bar stool, Rarity announced, “Than I, as a prowa… as a proper lady, shall put her up in my Sweetie- um, suite at the castle tonight.”
“Are you sure about this,” the bartender said with a skeptical eye. “You don’t even know her.”
“Abfla- absolutely,” Rarity said with an emphatic nod.
“Is that alright with you two?” she asked Lyra and Bon Bon.
Lyra leaned over to talk into Bon Bon’s ear. “Well, I can’t carry her, and you look like you can hardly walk straight.”
Bon Bon replied with a teasing grin and a playful hip check, “That’s not because of the booze. But Cheerilee’s with them anyway. She’ll be fine.” She called to Rarity and the bartender, “Yeah, that’s alright.”
“’Preciate it, Miss,” Lyra smiled and sidled up to Bon Bon, the pair giggling and jostling on their way out.
The bartender set down the shaker and her dish cloth and sighed. She slipped out from behind the bar and over to the table over which Colgate was sprawled. “I really have to stop doing favors for pretty little things,” she said as she carried the sleeping unicorn to a little alcove at the back of the bar which led to a cozy office with a decorative white couch in it that could be used in a pinch as a place to nap. At the bar, Rarity basked in the satisfaction of having done a good deed.
Cheerilee watched Bon Bon and Lyra walk and limp respectively out the front door. As it closed, she became aware that, through all that, Twilight had not stopped talking at her about doughnuts.
"...and that's why doughnuts shouldn't be classifcal-uh… called desserts," Twilight boldly stated with a wobbly nod of approval.
Cheerilee felt a twinge of competitiveness at Twilight’s smug gesture. "Oh, what does a flowery bush know about dessert?” She slurred, “You probably hic-have compost or something-" Cheerilee was interrupted as both mares' stomachs let out a rumble of hunger. "You know what? I'm going to get some doughnuts right now. For dessert. Want to see how it’s done?”
Twilight sputtered a too-wet scoff. "Fine. You have your doughnut for desert before midnight, and I’ll-hic have my doughnut for breakfast after midnight, and we’ll see who the doughnut mistruff-uh… mistersuh… the doughnut commander is," Twilight said as the two began trotting towards the door. Twilight, lifting a foreleg to nurse her sore eye, leaned against Cheerilee in an attempt to keep steady.
"Oh my, what a delicate lady you are, Miss Lavender," Cheerilee sarcastically remarked as she exaggeratedly made her way to hold the door open in order to drive the joke home.
Twilight blushed in embarrassment. "I guess that makes you a, um... gentlecolt for holding the door for me, miss, uh… Miss Cherry Tree. Uh, yeah." Twilight replied, struggling to come up with a plant based pun for her new friend. She stepped through the doorway, and Cheerilee followed.
Rarity watched them leave with a bewildered look on her drunken face. “Wha? Twilight, you’re leaving? But…” Her bleary eyes struggled to stay open.
The bartender sighed and began cleaning the shaker again. “You know, sugar, I think you may be right. Ponies could use some class. Walking out on your date with another another girl—that’s just bad manners.”
“Bad manners,” Rarity echoed loudly. In a gesture of profound agreement, she pounded the rest of her drink and carelessly laid the empty glass on the bar.
“And those two love birds had not respect for a pony’s place of work.” She put the shaker away and began cleaning Rarity’s glass with a cloth.
“No respect!” Rarity cheered and reached for her glass only to find it gone. “That’s funny. I could... I, um.” Her eyes rolled up and then closed. “Goodnight, Sweetie Belle,” she mumbled before collapsing onto the bar, immediately sawing logs.
The bartender smirked at Rarity. Her tired eyes glanced at the back of the room where Colgate was sleeping. She looked back at Rarity who snored away with a look of quiet contentment on her face. She finished with the cocktail glass and hung it in its place before walking out from behind the bar. With the orange magic that Rarity had admired earlier, she lifted her slumbering patron off of her bar stool and levitated her to her office. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”
~~
“So… do you know where to find donuts in this city?” asked Cheerilee as the two of them walked in a random direction that the earth pony had thought looked promising.
“Huh? I… I thought you had some at your home,” Twilight replied, stumbling her way down the street next to the older mare.
“I haven’t been here since, uh… a long time ago. What was that place called? Doughnut Jones? It… it should be somewhere around here,” replied Cheerilee as she made her own shaky attempts at walking, almost stumbling over a missing brick in the sidewalk in the process.
“Jones? Oh, you mean Joe's! I love that place, I remember my big brother taking me there all the time when I was a filly. It's just down the street from my parents' old place,” exclaimed the purple unicorn as she began prancing around her new acquaintance with about as much excitement and coordination as a foal.
“Yeah, that one! It had that big pink doughnut-shaped sign out in front, right? We used to eat there a lot because of how cheap it was compared to other places in town.” Cheerilee added as she continued after Twilight down another random street and into the night.
After several detours and about a half-hour wandering about town, the pair managed to find themselves in front of the aforementioned doughnut shop, a two-storied cafe sporting a simple pink stucco and brown brick aesthetic. It was located just off of the thoroughfares leading toward Canterlot Castle in the distance and half a block from Crowned Avenue with its middle-class town houses. As the pair happily stumbled towards the entrance they failed to realize the lack of interior lighting in the building, nor did they see the flip sign hanging upon the doors’ glass window announcing that it had closed for the night.
Cheerilee face planted into the glass door with a thud. “Oof- H-hey, why isn’t this door opening?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s one of those doors that open the other way. Here, lemme try.” Twilight replied as a mulberry aura wrapped itself around the door handle. “Huh? Why isn't it opening?” asked Twilight as the door refused to budge a second time.
“Hey, Miss, uh… Lavender, I think it’s closed,” Cheerilee stated as she stood back up and took a step back in front of the entrance.
“What? Oh horse appl-*SNAP*” As Twilight processed what Cheerilee had just told her, she gave the door handle one last tug with her magical aura which caused it to break off and fly straight into Cheerilee's forehead. Reeling, she fell backwards onto Twilight, her styrofoam takeout container cracking with a loud pop inside her saddlebags. Twilight panicked upon seeing the sticky, red-colored filling of Cheerilee's hours-old cherry chimichanga that had just coated the two mares. “Oh no, Cherry Tree! You’re bleeding!” She danced frantically on the tips of her hooves. “Dear Celestia, what-do-I-do, what-do-I-do? I think she’s dead! This is bad. If anypony finds out about this, I’ll be tried for murder… and vandalism! Oh, my perfect record will be ruined!”
In the midst of her terrified shouts, the voice of an older stallion rang out from above her. “Oi! It's three in the morning. Store’s closed, go home before I call the guard!”
Looking up, Twilight’s eyes went wide at the tired store pony who hung haphazardly half-way out of the second floor apartment above his store while he continued to grumble inaudibly.
“Ow. My head hurts. Wait, why am I covered in food?” Cheerilee asked. She looked about, trying to get her bearings as she lay in front her new acquaintance before she pieced the situation together. “Hey, Lavender look, I’m fine. See?” Cheerilee assured the Twilight, rising to her hooves in the process. Her legs were a bit wobbly and her eyes a bit bleary, but she was unhurt.
Twilight was lost in her apocalyptic vision. “...and then my friends will abandon me, and the princess will banish me to the moon. As neat as it would be to see the Oceanus Procellarum up close, I don't wanna become another Mare in the Moon!”
“Hey! Look at me!” Cheerilee shouted as she lightly jostled Twilight with her forehooves, grabbing her attention as well as her shoulders. Cheerilee’s stained coat met Twilight's clean coat, smearing the cherry sauce over both of them. “It’s just some leftovers from something I had earlier.”
“Thank Celestia,” Twilight exclaimed as she sprung forward, enveloping Cheerilee in a surprised bear hug. “I th- thought that I killed you!”
“That’s it! I’m giving you drunks until the time I get down there to get outta here, or I’ll make you two quiet down with my own hooves,” shouted the sales pony as he disappeared back within the window he had been hanging out of.
“Oof, hey… hey, did you just hear that pony?” Cheerilee wheezed as she tried to wriggle her way out of Twilight's grasp. “We’ve got to, uh… we have to go. I don’t want to wake up in jail again,” Cheerilee finished as she pried herself free.
“But I thought we were supposed to… we were going to get doughnuts. We’re still getting doughnuts, right?” asked Twilight, confused at the sudden change of plans.
“We can come back tomorrow. W-we should go, I'm gonna go home before that pony gets over, uh... gets down here.” Cheerilee stated while she began to pick herself up and walk away as the interior of the store floor lit up.
“Hey, uh… Cherry Tree? I’m pretty sure home is this way,” Twilight said as she vaguely pointed up the street with a wobbly foreleg. She stumbled up from the brick sidewalk in front of Doughnut Joe’s and led Cheerilee on.