Waking Up

by Betty_Starlight

Chapter 7: Functional

Twilight sighs, turns her head right to take another belt of whiskey, and then, very calmly turns towards me and Hyacinth, but speaks with her gaze raised as if talking to somecreature behind us while smiling, “Discord! I was wondering when you’d be back! You’re so predictable!”

“Oh, Twilight! You should know by now, that I’m anything but predictable!” We hear the oozing voice say before a distinct snapping sound and suddenly, the bottle of whiskey is a bouquet of flowers!

Twilight giggles, and blinks her eyes, causing her horn to glow, and it soon turns into a bottle of Wild Pegasus!

I frown at this, “I thought you were drinking Scotch?”

She stares at me, “Well, I want bourbon, now!”

“You should know by now, my dear Twilight that you are not to have bourbon!” We hear the male voice say, before another snapping sound…

Nothing changes…

Twilight giggles while raising her gaze again, “Oh, I studied your chaos magick Discord… “and widens her eyes, “And I wrote a book on it and how especially skilled unicorns can even learn to use it! You got nothing on me!” before turning her head right to take her first belt of bourbon before withdrawing her head from the impact as the bottle quickly turns upright and she screams. “Whoa, yeah! That’s the bad medicine mommy needs!”

I glare at this and casually say, “Oh, golly! The Legend of Drunken Master, huh?”

“This isn’t over!” I hear the male voice say before another snapping noise and then, an energy blast noise as if he had teleported…

At least, that’s what I’m pretty sure he just did as Twilight stares at us and says, “Now then! Where were we?”and turns her head to take another belt of bourbon…

“I hope you ate something? That’s gonna tear up your stomach, you know?”

She smiles at me, “Oh, I’m counting on it… When I throw up, I’ll just drink more bourbon!”

I widen my eyes, “That’s not safe, is it?”

She frowns, “I dunno? Probably not?”

“Do you even care?”

She sighs, “Not particularly?” before turning her head to take a smaller sip, before puckering and saying, “Whew! I know you’re not expensive, but I always loved your taste!”

I turn towards Hyacinth and whisper, “_{This might get weird?}”

She turns to me and smiles, “_{Well, still beats life in The Empire!}”

“_{Uh, I guess we’ll just enjoy the show?}”

Twilight suddenly burps loudly and says, “Whoa! I think it’s starting to work? I really need to go to the toilet now!”

Oh, golly…

She blinks at me and says, “Meet me in the study!” and forces her horn to glow violet and her body disappears!

… Pretty sure I know where she went…

<*****>

15 disgusting minutes later, we’re all sitting there… She has a tumbler she must’ve gotten from the kitchen along with most of that bottle of Wild Pegasus from earlier… It’s dim here and all of the old books are faintly illuminated in their myriad of dull colors by the lantern glows spread throughout the room…

We can all hear the grandfather clock ticking away on the wall…

Tick… Tock… Tick… Tock…

She smiles and says, “I feel better!”

I stare blankly and wide-eyed as I calmly state, “I have no idea what you ate?”

Hyacinth turns her head left to me, “I’m just amazed that you watched!”

Twilight’s smile lowers, “You didn’t have to! Uh, honestly, for future reference, I’d kinda prefer if you didn’t… “before staring off to the side pensively and calmly breathing to herself, in and out…

I stare at the purple pony, “And why’s that?”

She sighs and stares directly at me again with her purple gaze, “I uh, I don’t like it when ponies know about the things I do… “

“Why not? You’re an alcoholic!” I say before nodding… “Own it!”

“Do you really think I have a problem?” Twilight says before staring at me and floating her glass up to her snout for a small sip…

“Well, gee! You’re throwing up to make room for more booze at this point!”

Hyacinth raises her hoof, “And you regularly prepare to be hungover pretty much every night now!”

Twilight stares at the other filly as the glowing tumbler adjusts in the air, “Well, not every night!”

“Oh, golly! Do you actually NOT drink sometimes?”

She sighs and turns her gaze back to me, “Uh, no… “and smiles… “Sometimes I get so carried away with my drinking, that I forget to get ready… “and blinks… “But it’s okay, because if I just drink plenty of water the next day and pop a few aspirin, I’ll be alright!”

“And you quit drinking for that period?”

Her eyes widen, “Well, technically, no, not really… “before she sighs and takes another small sip of bourbon…

I stare at the Princess of Friendship while listening to her speak about her addiction, and I’ll admit, I felt something strange… Something I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before? I felt a pang of sadness… I felt her regret and her misery at her new life without the one thing that made it worth living earlier… I’ll admit that I truly felt for the alicorn princess at that point…

I had to make this right…

<*****>

I stare down at Hyacinth on her sparkly purple bedroll in the center of my room, from my perch on my bed… “Will you be okay down there?”

She stands on her hooves on the blankets and smiles as she says, “Oh, I’m fine Cozy! I’m not one of those princesses, who always needs the best sorts of bedding every night! I’m okay here! I promise!” while I see the faint illumination of her two-toned mane in the moonlight from my window…

I smile back at her, “Uh, there’s a perfectly good guest room with a big bed and all kinds of comfortable pillows and blankets and stuff, right next door to my room, you know?”

She visibly giggles slightly in the pale light, “Oh, Cozy! I wanna be in here, with my best friend!”

My smile lowers, “You don’t have a lot of options, huh?”

She laughs again, “Cozy, when are you gonna understand that your friendship is worth treasuring?”

I widen my eyes, “Uh, sometime between, a long time from now, and never!”

She giggles again as I see her snout go towards the ground, “Cozy, you’re hilarious!”

I frown, “I am?”

Her eyes widen and I see them gleam ever so slightly in the light from my window, “Yeah, Cozy! I like you a lot! So, what do you wanna do now?”

“How would I know? I’ve never had a friend before!”

She frowns, “You haven’t?”

I sigh, “Well, none that I can remember?”

“What do you mean?”

I close my eyes, “There’s so much of my life that I just can’t remember anymore, Hyacinth…

“What? Why is that Cozy? Did something happen?”

“Y-yeah Hyacinth…”I open my eyes, “I don’t like to talk about it… “*

“Well, you don’t have to, if you don’t want to, Cozy?”

I sigh, “Th-thanks Hyacinth… “I smile, “What about you? You’re a princess in the Crystal Empire! You gotta have the most awesome life ever!”

Her eyes widen, “Hardly! I NEVER get any time to myself, and ALWAYS have to do all these annoying little things EVERY SINGLE DAY! And it’s always stupid crap, too! Who cares if I cut the ribbon at their grand re-opening? Why should I bother getting out of bed to give your stupid high school class a lecture on responsibility and being prudent? It’s just stupid, annoying nonsense, every…single...day…”she sighs…“Honestly, I’m just glad I was able to arrange for this sleepover!”she smiles at me, “What about you Cozy? I mean, sure you’re a prisoner, but it can’t be that bad in here, right? I mean, you got all of those books and everything in the castle to entertain yourself with!”

I widen my eyes and laugh hysterically for a few seconds before saying, “Not really! I’m confined to this little room most of the time!”I sigh, “They bring me books, and toys, and games, and stuff, but I don’t normally see many other ponies… “I swallow… “It gets kinda lonely, honestly… “

She smiles, “Well, I typically study when class gets out at three-thirty until I eat dinner at six-thirty, you know?”

I adjust my view to her, “Oh?”

“Yup!”She nods, “And having my favorite study companion with me during that time, sure would be swell!”

At this stage, I’m pretty sure she’s mimicking the way I talk, “You mean me, don’t you?”

“Who else would I mean, Cozy?” She says while smiling…

“Maybe the pegasus filly next to me?”

“You’re a goober!” She shouts before using her magick to pick up the blue dinosaur plushie from the side of the room and throwing it at me!

It smacks me in the face! I narrow my eyes at her, “Oh, this means war!”

Her eyes widen while she keeps the grin on her muzzle, “Oh?”

I quickly grab the plushie with my teeth and lift it with my snout while staring at her and saying, “Oh yeah!”between my teeth!

“Oh, no!”She gives a wide-eyed shout as I leap at her from the bed while using my wings to propel me towards her to tackle her to her bedroll and begin pummeling her with the stuffy lodged in-between my teeth!

All the while making sure I don’t actually hurt her of course!

“EEP!” She eeps before recovering and using her magick to force several plushies from the shelf where I had them to smash into me and get me off of her!

I begin flapping my wings so I hover off the ground and stare down at her a few feet beneath me and drop the dinosaur so it lands on the ground in front of Hyacinth as I say, “No fair! I don’t have magick!”

“So! You got those wings!”

“But you got wings too! It’s not fair!”

“Oh, yeah? Well you’re a jerk!”

“Am not! You’re a jerk!”

“Jerk-head!”

“Jerk-face!”

Hyacinth giggles and says, “I can’t hear you! Because the mouth doesn’t work right on your jerk-head!”

I stare at her and say back, “Oh, yeah? Well, I have no idea what you just said because the mouth is weird on your jerk-face!”

We stare at each other silently for a few more seconds before we both burst out laughing hysterically!

I look at her, “This sure is fun! It’s great to get this stuff now, because I’m actually not even sure if I ever had it before!”I say while gently floating down towards the ground…

She looks at me, “Well uh, better late than never, right?”

I land on my hooves with a soft clack! I stare at her and smile, “Yeah… Thanks Hyacinth! I love you!”

She smiles, “I love you too, Cozy! Lemme go make us some cocoa in the kitchen and I’ll be right back!”

I grin back, “Sure thing! And you know, my bed is pretty big!”

She looks at me, “This is true!”

“Between what I got and what’s on the floor here, there’s plenty of pillows too, huh?”

She blinks, “Yeah, you’re not wrong!”

I giggle, “Hyacinth, stop being silly! Sleep in the bed with me tonight! You can have the left!”

She frowns, “Yeah, but we were gonna have cocoa?”

I smile, “I meant later, silly! Cocoa now! Bed after!”

She blinks and gives a startled giggle, “Oh! Right! Uh, hang on!” before forcing her horn to glow blue and soon vanishing in a blue zap!

(To be continued… )

Author's Note:

*There’s technically several reasons I have amnesia, but we’re not gonna get into that here…