The next couple of days were very eventful for Twilight. The morning after her trip to Fillydelphia Beach was a bad one, she had woken up with a pounding headache. By the afternoon her headache had cleared up, so she was free to do her normal chores, as well as a light twenty six hour session of reading and note taking. A few ponies had stopped by to see how the academic pony was faring, however were pushed out by none other than Twilight herself, who considered herself to be too busy to talk with anypony.
Yesterday, Twilight was forced out of her library by Rainbow Dash, whom was worried that she was going to start yet another pandemonium in Ponyville. The last few times Twilight studied for such a long period of time, she had caused a massive riot over a toy. All because she couldn’t think of a friendship lesson to report on and hand back to Princess Celestia. Not to mention how she sent all of Ponyville to fix up every nook and cranny that was out of place. Typical of Twilight, it was due to a message from her future self, ironically enough, telling her not to worry about said message she was receiving.
Twilight was then hauled into one of Pinkie Pie’s famous parties. In her current state, Twilight hadn’t exactly heard correctly. All Twilight could remember was something about Gummy’s after after after after after birthday party. The party was exactly what Twilight didn’t need. Too much dancing around Pinkie Pie can cause broken hips, especially when Pinkie slams you into a wall (by accident, of course) just after complimenting her on how she always throws the best parties.
Twilight had returned home that night extremely drunk and feeling sick. The ponies had peer pressured her into drinking as much punch as possible in a short amount of time. Twilight lost control of herself after two glasses, ending up drinking a pony record of 49 full glasses of punch. Her best friends could only sit and watch in awe as she continually downed glass after glass of the alcoholic beverage. They continually tried to get Twilight to stop drinking, knowing that she could get alcohol poisoning, but Twilight just pushed them away shakily and kept on slugging it down. In the end, Applejack had to resort to breaking the bowl of punch to get her to stop. It was not a pretty sight, Twilight was so intoxicated that she started lapping some of the punch off the floor.
And today, she sure as Celestia was paying the price for her actions. Twilight woke up at 6PM with what was probably the worst stomach and headache in pony history. Along with bruises along her side due to Pinkie Pie’s antics and cuts on her tongue, probably from licking up some of the shattered punch bowl.
“Oh my gosh…” Twilight muttered, barely able to speak without gagging.
“S...Spi…SPIKE!” she managed to yell. She sat in agony, waiting for Spike to run up the stairs to her bedroom and assist her.
Moments later, Spike’s head appeared at the top of the staircase, shortly followed by the rest of his body.
“Yes, Twilight?”
“Please… Get me a bucket…” Twilight whispered, almost inaudibly.
Seeing Twilight’s terrible condition, Spike rushed to her closet and pulled out the biggest bucket he could find. The bucket was big enough to be classified as a bathtub in it’s own right. How Twilight fit these sorts of things in her room was beyond Spike, but it didn’t matter right now. He hurried back to Twilight, setting the bucket in front of her. Not keen on seeing Twilight heave, Spike dashed back down the stairs and got back to doing his evening chores.
---
It took Twilight another six days and several trips to Ponyville Hospital, but she finally got back to her normal self after some intensive care. She was scolded for even agreeing to the ‘silly drinking competition’, as the nurse had put it. Twilight was also warned that if something like this were ever to happen again, it would be most probable that death would occur. Twilight took these words very seriously and vowed never to get carried away in such a manner ever again. As soon as Twilight exited Ponyville Hospital, she immediately bumped into Applejack, who had been waiting for her patiently.
“Mornin’ sugarcube,” Applejack said to Twilight, who was unaware of her presence until now.
“Oh, good morning Applejack…” Twilight replied groggily.
“So… are y’all alright? After that mad night of drinkin’, we were all worried about yah,”
“Oh… The nurse warned me of the consequences I barely avoided, but apart from that I’m doing better than expected.”
“Well that’s good tah hear Twi. Y’all should go home and get some sleep, ah really don’t want tah see yah getting worse. None of us do.”
“Thank you for your concern Applejack. But I’ve been asleep for nearly six days; I don’t think I can sleep until tomorrow at the very least. I’ll be careful with myself though, so don’t worry.”
“Alright, that’s good tah hear. Ah best be gettin’ off to the farm, Big Mac’s probably going tah need a hand with buckin’ all them apples. Stay safe Twilight!” Applejack spoke, finishing their short conversation.
Twilight trotted off towards her library in a hurry. She always loved a good chat with her friends, however she had missed out on a lot in the past week. Not only had she unintentionally neglected Spike for so long, but she had also missed out on a few events she was planning on going to, such as the annual bookworm day and the seasonal audience with Princess Celestia. “Too late for that now,” Twilight thought whilst still heading towards the library.
She seemed to spend most of her life crammed inside that musty old tree, but quite frankly she didn’t really care. Sometimes she wondered why she studied all the time and didn’t just go out and ‘get a life’. She was in the prime of her short life, she should be out there, having fun; talking to ponies; playing some form of sports and partying with Pinkie more often (but not too hard), but instead she was always reading; cleaning; studying and the likes. Things a filly in school should be doing, not a mare of her age. But she usually regarded that as ‘dangerous thinking’ and would go back to studying. In the eyes of Twilight Sparkle, such was life. Studying comes first; partying comes second. That’s always how it’s been for Twilight and she wasn’t about to change it.
But Twilight never got that choice.