Time & Space

by SomeoneD

Liam: Salt

wondermentWizard [WW] has started pestering temporalWierdness [TW]
TW: Paul
TW: It’s like 10PM
TW: What the everloving hell are you after
WW: man youv got to coe to pikies
WW: you’ve* come* pinkies*
TW: Are you… are you drunk?
TW: I thought we couldn’t GET drunk
WW: nor culd your mom
WW: cold*
WW: could*
TW: Dude you type by a neural link to the headset
TW: The only way you could be making spelling errors is that you were so drunk you were thinking the errors
wondermentWizard [WW] changed their handle to partyPurveyor [PP]
PP: Hiiiiiii~ Liam!
TW: I see you finally chose a handle instead of just turning Pauls pink
TW: Hello Pinkie
PP: Hehe! Paul was trying to invite you one of my parttttiessss~
PP: I think! I asked him if he would~
PP: But he fell asleep :(
TW: He didn’t fall asleep
TW: He passed out
TW: For gods sake Paul you always do that
PP: Anyway where are you! You should be here! :D
PP: It’s a “Two-Week Celebration!”
TW: Why should I?
TW: Pauls the party animal
PP: Twilights here!~
TW: I’ll be there five minutes ago
PP: >:O!
partyPurveyor [PP] has ceased pestering temporalWierdness [TW]

Sitting in one of the quieter corners of Pinkie’s immensely huge party, being held in a nearby barn, you allow yourself to have a small chuckle at Pinkie’s antics. She had never managed to wrap her head around the time mechanics that your powers enabled, especially when it came to hopping backwards. Irrespective, you shake your head, trying to clear the small mental block that always happens when you use your abilities.

It was about 17 hours ago – when Paul received his invite – that you found out that alcohol wasn’t a thing in Equestria. 16 hours, 55 minutes ago, you had become near depressed until about five minutes ago, when Paul revealed that even though alcohol didn’t exist, intoxication definitely did. How he had managed it was important; as you want join him.

In fact, if you had typed a list of your current priorities, getting absolutely hammered would be up there. Just below that would be preventing yourself from doing that to avoid embarrassing drunken shenanigans (often involving female ponies) and professing eternal love for Twilight, mainly because that would be stupid and possibly inaccurate. Your third priority would be getting Paul’s drunken self home. While you would normally let him teleport himself, he’s passed out and as such is a touch incapable.

You sigh, clearing your thoughts. Now you’ve told Pinkie that you were at the party – for five minutes, from her perspective – she was likely on a rampage trying to find you. It was one of her traditions to greet every pony, griffon or otherwise that goes to her parties, and if she doesn’t she responds with a pirouette off the handle. As such, her tackling and greeting of you was imminent. Trying to avoid it was a pointless venture, which you had quickly found out. Even you and Paul working together couldn’t avoid her.

You attempted to form a second coherent thought, but that was interrupted by being blindsided by a hyperactive pink blur, gripping in you in a death hug.

PINKIE: LIAM! :D
LIAM: Pinkie, would you mind getting off of me?

Thankfully, Pinkie was happy to cooperate, giving you a final squeeze before letting you get up to your hooves. You shake yourself, clearing the debris that had stuck itself to you, before taking a look at Pinkie. In a major surprise, she had (to use the common phrase) ‘tarted herself up’, complete with fancy dress, hair restyle and makeup. If you hadn’t known better, she could have passed at a sophisticated, restrained and boring party, if it wasn’t for the fact her dress was covered in sweets of all kinds.

If you were honest with yourself, she looked really good.

PINKIE: I brought you this~! :D

She then – without warning or explanation as to where she retrieved it – held out a cup of what appeared to be punch. Grabbing it carefully, you watch her giggle before running off, presumably to dance more or consume more sugar, whichever she was able to do first.

You look cautiously at the drink she just handed you, having had a few bad experiences with her ‘fire punch’, which made you imitate a dragon. Raising it to your nose, you take a sniff, and after smelling no trace of anything spicy gingerly take a sip. You quickly relax; not only is it just normal punch, but it’s also extremely salty, which begins to dull your nerves after said first sip.

Alcohol, thy name be salt.

Punch Cup #2:

Your mind is a touch duller, your thoughts are slower, and you can just about – after a fashion – still access your most difficult ability, [Handstop]. Salt appears to be a lot more powerful, and a lot faster acting, than any of the alcohol you used to drink, which might go a long way to explain why you are currently using your abilities to fetch Rarity some supplies she needed earlier.

After heading to her boutique – a bit wobbly on your feet – you fetch the box she asked for earlier. Sneaking a peek, you find the box has about six dresses in it. After grabbing hold of the box, you put it on your back, before engaging another temporal warp. Your aim was about five hours; but you end up overshooting by 27 minutes. Making a mental note to be more careful with your powers when intoxicated, you sneak back into the party, making every possible attempt to avoid Pinkie.

As you sneak, you spot the reason as to why Paul was so intoxicated he couldn’t think straight. After watching him down an entire punch bowl in one fell swoop, with some help from Pinkie, you realise with a frown that he truly was totalled. Ignoring him and his disregard for his liver, you trot towards Rarity, carrying a box of dresses.

LIAM: Hey, Rarity.
RARITY: Oh, hello, darling. Paul said you weren’t going to attend. Something about ‘needing your sleep.’
LIAM: Yeah, I don’t actually arrive here until later.

Rarity chuckles, a delicate, light laugh.

RARITY: Having that time power must be so useful. Think of all the things you could do...
LIAM: Anyway, I need you to do something.
RARITY: What is it?
LIAM: In about... three hours, can you ask me to go get you these dresses from your boutique?
RARITY: Of course, Liam, but... why?
LIAM: The explanation would give you a headache; just leave it at ‘timeloops’.

You trail off, your attention having been drawn to Paul and his pitiful attempts to (apparently) hit on Pinkie. Immediately realising how badly this might end for Paul, you decide it is your duty as his friend to step him and bail him out. You gesture to Rarity for a hand, her knowledge of social dynamics quickly leading her to the same conclusion.

Rarity walks towards Pinkie, rapidly involving her in a conversation – something about fancy dresses. At the same time, you walk towards Paul with a sense of purpose in your step, grabbing him with your teeth. (You have learned many years ago that a totalled Paul is impossible to reason with.) You begin to drag him, and he puts up a small effort to resist, but the alcohol in his system is making his legs fail to work properly.

You drag him to a nearby table, where he promptly plonks his head onto the table with a groan. With Paul safely away from Pinkie, you finally warp back to the point of the party you left, your buzz significantly lowered.

You eye up one of the many bowls of punch on the tables, this one labelled as ‘extra strong!~’ in the typical pink handwriting you have learned to associate with Pinkie.

Smiling to yourself, you decide it’s time for another drink.

Punch Cup #6:

You were willing to admit to yourself at this point that you were leaning to the side of ‘smashed.’ Your opinion on salt had changed rapidly, as well, from something to flavour food to the world’s best intoxicant. At some point in your jumbled train of thought, you had been roped into dancing with everypony’s favourite unicorn, who through what appeared to be a combination of drunkenness and bad dancing skills was doing a worse job than you at keeping her hooves straight.

Pinkie had taken to the stage, and was doing her best efforts to belt out a tune that was incredibly familiar – almost like a song you had before the Game. You look around the room, keeping yourself in sync with Twilight’s admittedly haphazard movements, and spot Spike doing his level best to chat up an extremely drunken Rarity. Rarity’s response was to push the somewhat drunk – and you laugh to yourself as you realise that makes no sense – Spike towards a similar coloured but thankfully sobered younger pony, close to his height, in what could only be described as the worst matchmaking attempt after leaving anonymous fanfiction under the doors of the couple-to-match.

Having a personal chuckle at the sight, you turn your attention back to Twilight, who is trying to take the lead. ‘Trying’ was the operative word, as neither of you had any form of skill at dancing. Pinkie, having ceased singing, began running towards you both with more drinks in hoof. Deciding to wow your partner, you finish with a flourish, spinning Twilight by holding her on the hoof, and dipping her salsa style. You manage to pull it off without dropping her, which in your mind increases your cool points by a factor of fifty.

If anything good came out of that, Rarity is looking at you.

Punch Cup #Unknown:

You lost count of the amount of the alcohol-equivalent you had drunk after the time she brought out salt shots. All you can really comprehend right now is that the room is spinning rapidly, you have decided to lay down somewhere comfortable, and that there is a unicorn snuggled up at your side. Before you can take in more details about the situation you are in, you black out, with your final thought being a sense of fear at how terrible your hangover is going to be.

Comments

[SomeoneD]

852525

It's selling burgers. I work at a McDonald's.

[NotHereAnymoreProbably]

Completely pointless, completely absurb, and so, so like Homestuck.

You know. If Homestuck had drunken magical ponies. Well, it kinda has one - you should find a way to stick Maplehoof into this. Remember? The pony from around Act 3 or 4?

You were right about the tense; significantly more past tense than present tense. For the most part it was at least consistent with one or the other, which at lease didn't take too much away. You ought to go through it again though.

Also... waking up next to a unicorn...

Did he screw Twilight Sparkle, or Rarity?

[SomeoneD]

864934

Chapter updated, and no longer as terrible.

I also rewrote it to fit the tense properly - it's back to 2nd person current.

I hope it's better.

[Notional Materials]

873487 ....If by burger you mean patty of "meat" then I guess you sell burgers..

[nekomyah]

Perfectly hilarious!
This was exactly what i had needed to cheer me up today X3
Yay for homestuck