//------------------------------//
// Bugger Off 
// Story: Lost Without Love 
// by AnnEldest 
//------------------------------//

A savory aroma filled the kitchen at Capper’s house that evening. The last few ingredients were dropped into the bubbling broth, and a lid was placed on top of the pot.
From her seat in the living room, Luna inhaled the fragrance that was drifting in. Admittedly, it was nowhere near the grandiosity of the meal that she and Capper had at the restaurant before, but it was still sweet of him to offer to take her to his place for a home-cooked meal.
“It won’t be long now,” Capper called. “Feel free to occupy yourself how you like.”
“Of course, I will,” Luna called back, before stepping off the couch to examine the shelf of cassette tapes that she had been eyeing for the last five minutes.
She browsed the tiny library, finding not much that she knew about. There were some that had symbols from far off lands that she almost thought she recognized. Others were written in fonts that she could barely read. One she found made her raise a curious brow when she saw the image of a boar’s head made entirely of chrome. Putting the odd one out back on the shelf, she found one that she recognized immediately. A single that made her heart flutter.
“You have it? I don’t believe this,” Luna said.
“Have what?” Capper asked from the kitchen.
He heard the click of a play button, and the sounds of a ukulele filled the room. Capper dried his paws and walked into the living room, where Luna was back on the couch, smiling sweetly at him.
“You must really have liked this song to get it for yourself,” Luna giggled.
“Well, yeah. Before you showed it to me, I never heard anything like it. I guess they don’t make music like they used to back in your day,” Capper said.
“Yes. So many sweet memories are attached to this song. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t know about that,” Capper said.
Luna silently watched as he walked to take his seat next to her on the couch. When he sat down, there was somehow a different look about him. Like a cat who suddenly realized exactly why he chased mice and played with yarn.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You’ve been listening to this song a long time, haven’t you?” Capper asked.
Luna nodded.
“Then you probably understand its message. The brutal honesty about what love really is and what it does to creatures. How sometimes love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Like, instead of blossoming into something beautiful, there’s a chance that whoever you love isn’t the hero you hoped for, and it all just withers away. But if you never try, you’ll never find who really may be that hero,” Capper said.
Luna smiled, silently admiring his perspective. Not many others who listened to that song had such a deep understanding of it, only taking in the pretty words of the simple story of young love that it told.
Slowly, she shifted over until she was pressed right next to Capper and rested her head on his shoulder. Capper in turn put his paw around her shoulder.
“Do you remember when I told you about this song? How it’s traditionally sung as a duo by lovers?” Luna asked.
“Yeah,” Capper curiously said.
“Incidentally, the original couple who sang it split up shortly after the song was released. It makes the whole song a bit of a farce, don’t you think?”
“I think it just validates the message that they’re conveying.”
Luna mumbled something that Capper couldn’t understand as she sank deeper onto his shoulder. A smirk twitched onto her face when she felt Capper gently brush away her mane from around her ears.
“You changed your mane again,” Capper said.
“Yes. I thought I’d try it short,” Luna replied.
“Still got that ‘starlight silver’ color.”
“Of course. After a few hundred tries, I finally found a color I liked.”
“You know something? I really like it too. It brings out your eyes,” Capper said.
Luna bit her lip and blushed. There was one more question that she wanted to say, but feared to.
“Erm…After our dance in the garden…Oh, never mind,” she said.
“What is it?” Capper wondered.
“It’s nothing.”
“Come on, Luna. What’s on your mind?”
The feel of Capper’s paw stroking her mane put her mind at ease.
“It’s just that…I thought for just a moment…maybe you were going to kiss me. And then again on the boardwalk.” She sighed and turned her head away from Capper’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. It’s such a stupid question.”
She gasped quietly when she felt Capper’s paws start rubbing her shoulders and her neck.
“It’s not as stupid as you think. I really did want to,” Capper said.
“So then, why didn’t you?” Luna quietly asked.
Capper ran through all of the other times he had kissed a molly. Every honeypot scam he had ever run never ended with real love like they did in the stories about dashing con artists who crossed paths with a feisty pigeon. Then, he met Luna. The one creature he ever met who stirred something inside of him that he never thought any creature could.
“I…I don’t know,” Capper said.
His paws slowly stalled as he saw Luna glance over her shoulder at him. In time, he leaned Luna back against the couch and stood up.
“I’m gonna check on the food,” he said.
Again, Luna silently watched Capper leave the couch as he walked back to the kitchen. A small part of her was greatly disappointed by what had transpired. Then again, there was that thing her sister said to her once upon a time. How the first time counted the most, and how once it was gone you could never get it back.
A loud knock sounded from the door.
“Oh! For–Would you get that?” Capper tersely said.
Luna grumbled to herself, turned off the music, and walked to the door. Putting on the most pleasant face she could, she magically opened it.
“Princess Luna!?”
“Hello, Trixie,” Luna sighed.
“And Pinkie!” Pinkie said, peering out from behind Trixie.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Trixie said with a knowing smile.
“The hell you weren’t,” Capper whispered to himself. “So, what brings you here? I’m sure you mares have something else to do tonight.”
“It so happens that there is,” Trixie began. “You see, we were just in the neighborhood–”
“Actually, you dragged me onto the train from Ponyville to here, then we hiked for, like, thirty minutes to get here,” Pinkie said. Her nose began to twitch. “Ooh! What’s that smell?”
“Probably the dinner I made for me and Luna. The two of us,” Capper emphatically said from the kitchen.
“That, or the tobacco/vanilla cologne he’s wearing,” Luna joked.
“Tobacco/vanilla? Sounds exotic. Seductive,” Trixie suggestively said.
“Really? Glad you think so,” Capper said, peering into the living room, his claws dug into the door frame.
“Anyway,” Trixie interjected, “What we came to say was that there’s a little festival going on in Ponyville. Just a little fun to celebrate the beginning of the fall season.”
“And you’re both invited,” Pinkie said, “There’s going to be games, and dancing, and as many cupcakes as you can cram down your throat! And at eleven o’clock, when all the little foals have gone to bed,” she giggled deviously, “That’s when the real drinks come out to party!”
“It would be a shame to miss such a thing,” Trixie said.
“It does sound fun. But…” Luna wracked her brain to think of an excuse.
“Oh, no, no, no, noooo!" Pinkie said. “Nopony misses a party like this. Especially not when they’re invited. You’re gonna haul your hiney down there. No ifs, ands, or buts!”
Without either intruder noticing, Capper stepped beside Luna and put a paw around her.
“Actually, it’s been a really long day for the princess. Raising the moon for the night really takes it out of you. So, if you don’t mind,” Capper said, as he reached for the door.
“We don’t need to do anything too extreme,” Trixie said, jamming the door with her hoof. “We can just go to Sugarcube Corner for a cupcake. Or just one drink.”
“One drink? Right,” Capper said.
“I’ve been to enough of these parties to know that ‘one drink’ is never just one drink,” Luna added.
“It will be this time. Pleeease! Just come for a little bit. Everypony was really disappointed when your sister said she couldn’t make it because of a severe brain freeze,” Pinkie begged.
Luna cursed quietly to herself. Why did Pinkie have to mention the disappointed ponies? She gently removed Capper’s paw from the doorknob and opened it to face the two mares.
“Very well. One drink,” Luna said.
“One drink,” Pinkie affirmed.
Capper crossed his arms and doubtfully glowered at the two intruders. “Remember: one drink.”






The bell in Sugarcube Corner jingled as what must have been the two-hundredth customer trotted in that night.
“Welcome,” Mrs. Cake greeted the guest.
“Hi. Can I get a box of baklava and a–”
The rest of the customer’s order wasn’t heard when a loud, cacophonous retching sounded from the back.
“I…think I’ll try some of those muffins the mailmare’s been selling,” the customer said, before trotting off.
Another loud retch and another customer put down the cupcake that she’d been offered as a sample.
Mrs. Cake winced at the noise and called into the kitchen, “Pinkie?”
“I’m on it,” Pinkie said.
She trotted out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into the bathroom. There, she found a grisly sight. Capper was on his knees with his paws on Luna’s back, while the lunar princess herself was keeled over with her face hovering over the toilet bowl.
“How is she?” Pinkie asked.
The question was answered with Luna heaving loudly as the contents of her stomach burst out of her mouth.
“Ooh. That was a bad one,” Pinkie said.
“We’ll have to thank Trixie for her big idea later,” Capper said. “Where the hell did she go anyway?”
The sound of hooves rapidly approaching came from down the hall.
“It’s alright. The Great and Powerful Trixie has conjured up a remedy for our inebriated princess,” Trixie said as she arrived, presenting her find.
“Coffee!?” Capper incredulously said.
“Black coffee with four aspirin mixed into the brew. Nothing better for a bad night of binge drinking,” Trixie said.
“Which we wouldn’t need if you hadn’t stuffed all those jelly shots down her throat!” Capper said.
“Yeah. Coffee’s not even good as candy,” Pinkie added.
“How many times must I say I’m sorry? Besides, it isn’t often you see Princess Luna enjoying herself so much. Why, after the third shot she was standing on her front hooves and drinking them with only her lips. At any rate, let’s get our princess some much needed relief,” Trixie said.
Before she could ever get the pot of coffee near Luna, she vomited loudly into the toilet.
“Wow! You got some range on that one!” Pinkie said.
“And to think that I haven’t eaten yet today…” Luna weakly said. She groaned and keeled over the toilet again. “Some–pony n-needs to tell–my sister I-I’m going to be–late toni–”
Whatever she said next was cut off by a heavy downpour from her mouth.
Capper patted her back, helping along the purging process.
“You okay?” Capper asked, getting a nod from Luna. “Okay. Trixie. Coffee.”
Trixie magically passed the pot to Capper’s waiting paw, then he tipped the pot to Luna’s lips.
“Alright. Honey, you’re gonna have to take this slowly. Just little sips,” Capper said.
Luna grabbed the pot, threw her head back, and guzzled it down.
“For the love of–” Capper snapped.
“It’s a good thing I let that pot cool before I brought it,” Trixie said.
“Wh-pch…! Hi-ch…!” Luna convulsed.
The pot fell from her hooves and was caught by Pinkie before it ever hit the floor.
A nightmarish stream of blackened bile cascaded from Luna’s mouth, filling the toilet almost an inch more.
“That’s why I never touch the stuff,” Pinkie said, placing the coffee pot on the counter.
“Aw, crap! Now look!” Capper said.
“In the bigger picture of things, she did this to herself,” Trixie said, earning a reproachful glare from Capper. “So, who wants to tell Princess Celestia about her sister?”
Nothing more could have been said, as Luna pitifully moaned one last time. Her head swiveled around on her shoulders before her body slid back from the toilet. And there she laid on the bathroom tile.
“Luna?” Capper asked. He jostled her shoulder. “Luna?”
A hot, foul breath blew from Luna’s mouth as a response, making Capper’s nose wrinkle.
“Great. We got the princess of the night completely blotto in the bathroom. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.” He looked Luna over, not even daring to lift her up on his own. “So? Who’s going to help me carry her?”
“Er…The Great and Powerful Trixie is not quite so great and powerful to lift an alicorn,” Trixie said.
“And I think I hear my cupcakes calling me,” Pinkie added.
“Okay. Fine. I’ll just ask Princess Celestia to help me out. It would be the responsible thing to do to tell her sister what happened, after all,” Capper said, draping one of Luna’s forelegs over his shoulders.
“Oh, no! Actually, I’ve just remembered lifting an alicorn once upon a time in another kingdom,” Trixie said.
“You know, it sounds more like coffee bonbons calling anyway,” Pinkie hastily said.