//------------------------------//
// "You need more straws." 
// Story: Caverns & Cutie Marks: Companion Stories 
// by TheColtTrio 
//------------------------------//

	Silver Lining looked around the ball. He wasn’t as easily impressed as some of the others were. The light grey earth pony could see several points where the king had chosen to cut corners. He frowned at wine he had; it having been one of the cut corners. Not being one to waste unnecessarily, he quickly finished the little bit he’d been given. Once finished, he began looking around for something else more interesting than his now empty glass. Finding nothing, he began to aimlessly wander as his mind sifted through the most recent rumors he’d learned of. Before he could get too far though, the familiar sense of having missed something tugged at his mind. This nagging feeling snapped him from his thoughts he noticed his eyes had focused on a strangely familiar looking grey pegasus. Determined to clear the distraction from his mind Silver Lining began to approach the strange pegasus.
The closer he got, the stronger his feeling of recognition got. It wasn’t until he was close enough to make out the pink stripe in the stallion's hair however that everything snapped together.
“Are you the adventurer, Light Patch?” Silver Lining inquired curiously, coming to a stop near the pegasus, his robes fluttering about his hooves.
The pegasus jumped and jerked in surprise before turning to face the noble. “Yeah, that’s me. If you don’t mind me asking though, how’d you know my name?” Silver Lining smiled and shrugged.
“I have my hooves in several rather informative pies,” the earth pony explained, “and I found your claim of drinking a water elemental to death to be most intriguing.” Light Patch’s eyes widened in surprise before he gave a small sigh and face hoofed.
“Of course she’d have mentioned that bit,” the grey pegasus muttered quietly before looking at Silver Lining again, “Ah, yes that little tale of stupidity. It was a while ago and I was a brand new adventurer,” he finished, hoping that the conversation would end after that.
Silver Lining chuckled. “My sources tell me that you travel with several curious ponies, two of which are close personal friends of your’s. You and your friends managed to defeat a horde of bandits with little effort. You definitely don’t seem like a brand new adventurer.” Light Patch grimaced.
“Well, we had the villager’s help and enough time to set some things up, as you also mentioned they were bandits not a well trained army.” he retorted defensively, not noticing his ear twitching nervously. The smile on Silver’s face grew as he saw how uncomfortable the pegasus was becoming. With a wave of his hoof, Silver Lining sighed.
“That's beside the point,” he said dismissively. “I merely want to make a propo-”
“No,” Light Patch answered. He spoke up again as he noticed Silver Lining readying to say something else. “I have a good idea of what you're thinking, and no, I’m not gonna do it.” Silver’s smile shrunk by several teeth but he didn’t give up.
“Not even for-”
“Not even for a scooby snack, or three,” Light Patch deadpanned. Silver frowned at the pegasus’ stubbornness. Apparently, he would have to employ his most trusted and proven tactic: throw money at the problem until it’s fixed. His smile grew again as he baited his hook before casting it at the grey pegasus. Silver Lining turned and looked over his shoulder at a knot of royals gossiping by the wine.
“Lord Topaz,” Silver called, “Lord Bronze Bit, Lady Winter.” Three ponies all turned as their names were called, two of which were male earth ponies and the other a female unicorn. Silver beckoned them over and turned back to Light Patch, his smile still apparent on his muzzle.
Light Patch was just about ready to run for the hills, “I would love to stay and chat more but I’m afraid I need to go and, uhm, go and...” he paused and looked as if he was deep in thought, “I need to go and find my excuse.” He began to leave.
“Tell me, Topaz,” Silver said loudly, “how many bits would you pay to see that pony-” he pointed a hoof at Light’s retreating hindquarters, “drink a water elemental to death?” The gold earth pony shrugged.
“Oh,” he mused, speaking just as loudly, “5,000 bits.”
“I see you and raise to 10,000 bits,” the white unicorn, Winter, piped up.
“Make it an even million,” Bronze sighed. “Half to pay for the arena, confections, and elemental while the other half goes to the pony who does the deed.” The rusted earth pony sniffed imperiously. “If he succeeds.” None of them failed to notice the departing pegasus freeze in his tracks.
With a sigh, Light Patch turned around and walked back. He glared at Silver Lining. “You fight dirty,” the pegasus said before turning to look at all of the other ponies looking on with interest. “I guess I can consider this, but I at least want a team of ponies to save my stupid hindend if things go wrong. It was as much luck as it was skill the first time I did this.” Silver Lining smiled and nodded,
“Of course,” the silver pony promised. “I will personally oversee the medical ponies that standby in case any danger begins to befall you.” Winter stepped forward.
“Don’t you think this would be more interesting if the pony in question contributed something as well?” she piped up. “While entertainment is well and good, the arena will desire danger.” She narrowed her cold eyes at Light Patch. “Have you any thoughts?”
Light Patch’s head whipped around to look at her incredulously, “Provide you with something?” He asked, his look changing to that of annoyance. “I’m already offering to stride into an arena with a water elemental armed with nothing but a straw, if even that.” His face shifted to anger. “Are you not entertained? What do you want me to do next, chew my own leg off next and beat an Ursa major to death with it next!? And then how about I shave my coat off, paint a bunch of blue stripes all over me, and charge uphill carrying a tree trunk to throw at the army on top of it! Or how abou-”
“Why don’t you convince your purple friend to participate in a little bout afterwards?” Winter suggested, a small smile curving her lips. “I believe he would be enthusiastic about cracking some heads for the masses.” Light Patch frowned in confusion.
“What makes you say that?” he asked cautiously. Silver Lining smiled and pointed.
“That,” he said simply. Light Patch turned his head to follow the royal’s outstretched hoof with his eyes. He immediately caught sight of his barbarian friend talking animatedly with a couple of young ponies. And if Light Patch was reading the faces of young nobles and gestures of his friend correctly, he was obviously retelling their fight with the bandits.
“Okay,” the stallion answered measuredly, “Not that it would be probably be hard, he’s always up for a little more practice as of recent. But if you want me to try and convince him to kiss you thats gonna be extra,” Light Patch said using what little snark he could muster.  The blush on Winter’s light features was very apparent and she turned away, hiding her face. Bronze and Topaz chuckled at the unicorn’s reaction. Silver stepped towards Light Patch.
“I believe convincing your purple friend will be sufficient,” he decided, holding out a hoof. “A pleasure to finally meet you, Light Patch. I shall send a courier with the necessary information on when and where on the morrow.”
Light Patch took the hoof and politely shook it. “A pleasure to meet you too,” he lowered his voice so only the five could reasonably hear it. “And between us, see if you can get some of these other nobles to put some bits in on this action. If I’m gonna die during this, I don’t want my tombstone to say 'he died for a lot of money'. I want it to at least read 'he died for a frack tonne of money'.” The grey pegasus finished before letting go of the hoof shake. Over the course of the conversation, the smile had never left Silver’s face. It didn’t change now.
“Of course,” the earth pony said. “But I am certain that you won’t die. On occasion, I’m a gambler. I’ve no doubts about this venture.” He turned and left, taking the other three ponies with him. The blush had begun to fade from Winter’s cheeks, but was still vaguely present.
“Embarrassed much?” Bronze teased the white unicorn.
“Buzz off,” Winter hissed, parting from the group and trotting over to where Purple Heart was conversing politely with several other royals.
“Oh Magoo, you’ve done it again” Light Patch muttered to himself sighing before he set off into the crowd. He figured he should enjoy the ball as much as he could, because he knew his friends were gonna chew his ears off when he told them about this.


* * *


Light Patch plopped down on a bench and glanced around the room. There were only a couple of other arena combatants in the room at the moment. There was a fight currently running and a second one after that, then it would be his turn. The stallion gulped as the roar of cheering and stomping of hoofs signaled the end of the current fight. “One minute to midnight.” the grey pegasus muttered quietly.
“That's a little grim, isn’t it?” Spoke a familiar voice from behind the grey pegasus.
“Purple Heart?” the pegasus asked surprise in his voice as he turned to see his friend. “How did I miss you in this room?”
“I was behind those two,” Purple Heart said, motioning to two large gryphons in the room. “What are you doing in here? I didn’t expect to see any other’s from the group in here.”
“Yeah, well, somepony heard about an exploit of mine and they asked for me to give an attempt,” Light Patch responded, shrugging. “They put up enough reward for me to give it a shot.”
“What exploit was this? Throwing yourself at the mercy of your opponent?” the barbarian stallion asked cheekily.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. For your information, it was the whole drinking a water elemental to death thing,” Light Patch retorted. “Apparently, a bunch of nobles think it’s worth seeing if the massive pile of bits I got just for attempting it is anything to go by.” Before either could say more the arena attendant walked up to Light Patch.
“You’re up, I was told by a unicorn friend of yours to give you this.” The attendant said hoofing over a brightly colored straw full of loops. Light Patch took the straw and gave a nod of thanks to the attendant before turning to his friend.
“Well, any last moment tips?”
“When in doubt, sweep the leg,” the purple barbarian responded. “But seriously, good luck and be careful. Having one pony from our group in the arena at any given time is enough.” Light Patch grinned as he followed the attendant, the straw hanging from his mouth. He stopped just short of passing through the gate.
“And now for a surprise match, I have been informed that an adventurer by the name of Light Patch, will be...” The announcer paused as several unicorns began channeling magic in an effort to summon the elemental. “Will be attempting to defeat a water elemental, alone. By drinking it!” Light Patch. with his straw hanging from his mouth, pranced out into the arena using the noise from the crowd to try and psych himself up. He heard the summoning spell end and turned to face his opponent. Only to see a small mountain of water, before he could even form a question let alone give voice to it the mountain took a step forward.
The grey pegasus’ quickly followed the water up to the top finding a very angry looking face. The straw fell from his mouth as his jaw hit the floor. I’m going to need a bigger straw, he thought with a gulp.


* * *


Twilight glanced over towards Fluttershy as she got back from checking on Light Patch. “Well, how’s he doing?” She asked.
“Uhm, about as well as could be expected after what happened,” she quietly answered.
“Well, that's something,” Twilight replied bitterly. “I can’t believe he would do something so blatantly reckless, let alone to fight it in the way he did.”
“I can believe it,” Wits End snarked. “I’m just surprised he got away so easily.”
“Yeah, I gotta admit he’s surprisingly fast, ” Dash chimed in from her seat, “still not as fast as me, but I’d love to see what he could do without his armor and gear on.”
“An’ then he did the dumb thing and charged right back at it.” Applejack noted.
Wits shook his head and sighed. “I’ll give him one thing: I never would have thought of grappling a water elemental.” He paused for a moment. “Mostly because it seems like an incredibly suicidal plan, but he did think outside the box.”
“Waaaaay outside the box,” Pinkie chimed in. “I don’t think he could even see the box from how far outside of it he was thinking from it.” Twilight turned to look at her friends a small frown on her face.
“It still doesn’t excuse the fact he put himself at risk attempting such an absurd stunt.” She mentioned.
“He did win though,” Rainbow Dash noted. “You’ve gotta admit he did somehow pull through,” the rainbow maned pegasus sipped her drink. “somehow.”
“Ah’m more worried about what happens next,” Applejack muttered.
“What’d you mean?” Wits End asked.
“Well, ya see…” Applejack shifted uncomfortably. “Ah figure, Water Elemental’s gotta go somewhere after he drinks it-”
“I take it back,” Wits interrupted. “Let’s go back to thinking inside the box.” He turned to Fluttershy. “Do you think we should visit him? Or is it safer to give him some space for a while?”
“Well uhm, he was complaining of a slight stomach ache but considering all of what he drank,” the pegasus hesitated for a few seconds, “other than that he just seemed a little tired. though um,” The butter colored pegasus hesitated for a second, “it might be a good idea to not block his way to the bathroom. I guess we can visit him if you want, though if you do maybe you can help me convince him to stop trying to sleep on his pile of gold.”
“Hey yeah! I almost forgot about the gold we all got. Any of you got plans for what you might spend yours on?” Dash cut in.
“I was thinking of maybe buying some supplies to try out experimental rounds for my party cannon,” Pinkie mused.
“There was a fabric stall at the market that had some very nice and strong fabrics, I figured I could use them to spice my somewhat bland outfit up.” Rarity noted from her corner of the table.
“I’ll be holding on to mine,” Wits said. “I know how RPGs work. The moment I buy something, I’ll find a better version of it for free in the next dungeon.”
“Um, Twilight?” Fluttershy quietly chimed in, getting Twilight’s attention, “I think I can answer an earlier question of yours. I think he fought that thing for us, I mean we don’t really have to worry so much about money for a while or at least being ill equipped.”
Twilight considered that idea for a few moments and was about to respond when the sounds of scrambling hooves from above cut her off. The group turned to the stairs in time to see Light Patch sprinting down the the stairs. “Make a hole!” the stallion shouted rushing through the tavern’s first floor, it’s patrons jumping out of the way in surprise. The grey pegasus disappeared into the bathroom.
The mares and Wits End blinked.
“Nope,” Applejack said shortly. “Not even gonna imagine.”
“Agreed,” the other six ponies chorused.