Where The Wine Turns To Woe
Princess Twilight Sparkle, Sovereign Monarch of Equestria, had a headache.
No, headache wasn’t the right term to describe how she was currently feeling. Headache was far too generic, far too...minor. Her head felt like someone - Discord perhaps - had taken up residence inside and was currently playing a very energetic drum solo.
After some groaning, she carefully started to open her eyes, if only to see exactly where she was.
The frescoes on the ceiling took a moment to burrow through the thick fog that was curling around her brain, but she finally realized why they were familiar.
Oh, good. I’m on my back in Celestia’s study. Well, my study now.
Twilight was still adjusting to thinking of things as ‘hers’, even if the Palace itself was technically held in a trust. As Celestia had told her, that was mostly a technicality for tax purposes anyway.
As her body continued to wake up, she slowly opened her mouth, running her tongue over her teeth. Her tongue felt thick and furred, and her teeth felt...well, she clearly hadn’t brushed before passing out last night.
Swallowing, she called out, “Is anyone else in here?”
There was a faint moan in reply, somewhere to her right. Twilight gently turned her head, trying to see where it had come from. The slow waving of a starry blue mane clued her in.
“Luna? You alive?”
Something approaching a reply emanated from the area where Luna’s head most likely was. It sounded like a cross between a dying animal and a field mouse, but it was definitely intentional.
Satisfied, Twilight slowly turned her head to the other side. Her eyes were still swimming somewhat from the migraine, so it took her a moment to distinguish the white of Celestia’s form from the alabaster walls, but she managed it.
“Princess Celestia?” she croaked.
“Mmm...you should probably raise the sun soon,” came the quiet - yet strained - reply.
With this headache? Not likely. But Twilight refused to disappoint her mentor, even if it killed her, and so she focused, grabbing the sun with her magic and dragging it to the correct position to start the new day.
Sunlight blasted through the windows of the study, eliciting more groans and moans from the mares inside.
“What the hay did you do that for?” a new voice called out.
Twilight, squinting against the sun, raised her neck and head, looking between her legs to see a pink Alicorn sitting upright, her back pressed against the wall.
“Cadance? What...what are you doing here?”
Cadance snickered. “Well, you wanted me here for the party last night, remember?”
Twilight struggled to remember. Unsurprisingly, it was difficult to do so with a brain still coping with the effects of too much alcohol, but her neurons began to piece together a few things. Celestia and Luna had dropped by the night before, already quite tipsy after hitting several bars in Canterlot. Twilight had been quite stressed from her day, and it hadn’t taken much convincing on the part of the sisters to get her to order that several cases of wine be brought up from the cellars.
As Twilight rolled over onto her stomach, her legs bumped into several empty wine bottles, sending them rolling across the stone floor.
“By me," she muttered. "Just how many bottles did we drink last night?”
“Forty-eight,” Cadance replied quickly. “You must have really needed to let off some stress, Princess, because you drank sixteen all by yourself.”
Twilight felt a hint of heat creep into her cheeks. Taking a moment to gather what strength she could manage, she staggered to her hooves, closing her eyes to try and hold back the wave of nausea that washed over her.
The attempt was unsuccessful. She at least managed to teleport near the toilet, close enough that most of the vomit made it to its intended destination. Once her stomach stopped doing flips, she magicked the rest into the bowl, not wanting the maids to see the results of her indiscretion. She also took the time to swallow a few pills, if only to start to make a dent in her migraine.
Returning to the study, she finally took stock of her surroundings. The room was a mess; curtains were torn down, paintings hung askew on the walls, the couches had been shoved around, and it appeared that they’d tried to build a pillow fort in one corner at some point.
She looked over at Cadance, who was still sitting against the wall. Twilight saw she had a pillow beneath her and behind her, which looked quite comfortable, and made Twilight long for her own bed upstairs. But there was something that was bothering her.
“Why don’t you look like you’d rather be dead right now?" she asked, frowning. "You’re not a morning pony, especially after you’ve been drinking.”
“Some of us hold our liquor better than others,” Cadance replied. “You’re too much of a goody-four-hooves, Princess. You should cut loose more, it was fun seeing you like that last night.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “I...did anything embarrassing happen last night?”
“That depends on what you consider embarrassing,” Cadance replied. “If I had to pick one, it was probably when Celestia sprayed her chest with whipped cream and you started licking it off.”
Twilight felt her knees get weak. “Oh no…”
Cadance held a straight face for several seconds more before cracking, a cackling noise coming from her mouth. “Oh, I really had you going there, didn’t I?”
“Not funny,” Twilight mumbled.
“She’d probably let you do that,” Luna mumbled. “If you asked nicely and got her good and drunk first.”
“No comment,” Celestia said, raising her head up from the floor. She twisted her neck, popping several vertebrae and ending with a satisfied look on her face. “Aah...that’s better.”
“Sister always handled her liquor better than us,” Luna said, extending her wings to stretch. “That does make her a great companion for bar crawling, but it also means you have to be prepared for the aftermath of her big bottom smashing into things.”
“We didn’t break anything, Luna,” Celestia retorted, casting a quick glance about the study as if to reassure herself of that fact. “Just have to put things back in their place.”
“Speaking of things that need to go back in their place…” Twilight said, now glaring at Cadance with distaste.
Cadance looked back at her. “What?”
“Drop the act, Chrysalis,” Twilight replied. “I remember now.”
‘Cadance’ rolled her eyes, and with a burst of green magic, the form of Queen Chrysalis was revealed.
“Happy now?” she demanded. “We had such a good time last night, and now it’s ‘back to the stone with you’, is it? Fine. See if I agree to this next time you decide you're lonely."
She pulled a cigarette from somewhere, lighting it with her horn before putting it in her mouth. After a deep breath, she pulled it away, exhaling the smoke with a pleasured sigh before returning to muttering about not being appreciated.
“Sister...why exactly did we let her out?” Luna asked.
“We wanted the four of us, but Cadance doesn’t go out bar crawling anymore,” Celestia said, shrugging. “And since Chrysalis has played her before, well…”
“I think it was my idea,” Twilight admitted.
The four mares stared at each other.
“So, shall we do this again next week?” Celestia asked.
“Certainly,” Luna replied.
“I’m game,” Chrysalis added.
“I...no!” Twilight exclaimed. “I can’t be seen like this, I have to act proper! What will ponies think?”
“You are outvoted,” Luna said. “Now, how about brunch? There is a lovely spot down on Platinum Boulevard I want to try.”
Chrysalis got to her hooves. “So long as one of you is paying. Being a deposed queen isn't exactly profitable.”
Celestia looked at Twilight. “You coming?”
“...fine.”