The next day, around noon, the mares, with the exception of Applejack, who was running cider sales, all anxiously marched down to Sweet Apple Acres.

Pinkie, bouncing along, sang out, “I’ll be so happy if that stallion comes! Then, I’ll be able to sing my welcome song, and then we’ll be instant best friends!”

“Well, I’ll be rather shocked if he doesn’t come to the opening day of cider season. It’s inconceivable that he could have missed the signs we put up all over town yesterday, and it’s the biggest festivity west of Canterlot at this time of year,” stated Rarity.

Her blue companion floated to her side, and giggling, said, “I still can’t believe it was Fluttershy’s idea to try and get him drunk.”

The mares giggled while their yellow friend only blushed, forcing a nervous smile.

“If he shows up, it should be pretty easy to keep him drinking,” said the town’s librarian.

“What do you know?” countered Dash, “You’re an egghead. When have you ever even been in a bar, let alone gone over your limit?”

“Well, I’ve read about the effects of too much cider on ponies’ minds, and I saw a tavern in Canterlot once.”

The others laughed, but Twilight didn’t see anything wrong with it. As they approached the edge of A.J’s farm, they could hear faint notes of music in the direction of the barn and could see dozens of pastel ponies around the barn, a string band playing on a makeshift stage a few yards out in the pasture. They quickened their pace towards the party, with Pinkie leading the charge.

The group found their way inside. The Apples had done an amazing job transforming the barn into a communal gathering place in just one night. Wooden tables filled the expansive room, all of which were filled with cups of cider and the ponies drinking from them.

The five pushed their way through the crowd of cider sippers, and approached a new wooden bar the Apples had built. Big Macintosh and Applejack were handing out drinks while Applebloom and Granny Smith sold cider tickets.

When Applejack saw her friends, her fresh eyes lit up even brighter, and she made her way over to them while her kin continued turning a prophet.

“Hey y’all!” she shouted from the other side of the counter.

“Wow! You did a great job this year A.J.!” remarked Twilight.

“I can’t wait to try the cider!” said Pinkie excitedly.

“Aww, shucks. Y’all are makin’ me blush.”

“So, has the stallion come yet?” asked Fluttershy.

“I think we should stop calling him ‘the stallion’. He has a name you know,” advised Twilight.

“You’re right dear, but we don’t really know him yet either,” explained Rarity.

“Well let’s change that today. So A.J., has he come by yet?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Yep, he bought a cup o’ cider and went to drinkin’ it real slow-like. He’s been sittin’ at that table there for ‘bout an hour or so.”

A.J. pointed to the back of the barn, where the grey stallion sat alone, staring into his drink, then up at the crowd, then back to the drink again.

“Alright, what say we try or luck girls?” suggested the fashionista as she bought a glass of the sweet drink and began making her way over to where the stallion sat.

The others followed suit, trailing her to the secluded table with cider jugs in hoof. As they approached, the stallion leaned back in his chair and turned his head to them. Twilight could see that he recognized her, as well as Rarity, by the spark in his eyes. That was when she noticed that Pinkie Pie had disappeared. She paid no heed to her friend’s absence; she was sure she would pop up again later.

As the group approached his table, he smiled, finally recognizing somepony at the gathering.

He bowed his head slightly, and in a voice as smooth as honey, he greeted them, saying, “Twilight, it’s good to see you again. As well as you Ms. Rarity; how’s your ankle?”

He spoke very deliberately, annunciating every syllable of every word, and his voice held no trace of an accent.

As Rarity was blushing he looked behind the two whom he knew to two fellow pegasi, and said, “I don’t believe we’ve formally met. I’m Clyde.”

Fluttershy whispered a nearly silent greeting, and the stallion was able to make out her name; he obviously had good hearing.

But Dash, remembering the night she first saw him, was hesitant. She was surer she would be able to confront him when he was a distance from her, but now they were face to face, and she felt intimidated. But, when she found solace in his fiery emerald eyes, she forgot her preconceptions and introduced herself.

“I’m Rainbow Dash,” she said, “You sure we’ve never met? You look pretty familiar.”

The stallion lowered his glass, and answered, “Can’t say that I remember you from anywhere. Then again, my memory could be failing me.”

The two stared each other down, each suspicious of the other. Clyde refused to break eye contact, let alone blink, and didn’t even look away when he raised his cider glass to his lips. Suddenly, the lock was broken by a sudden burst of confetti and the sound of noisemakers and kazoos.

Pinkie Pie had returned, towing a massive cart behind her.

The four mares around the table made way for her, stepping to the side. They stood facing the huge party wagon, which she had somehow towed inside without being noticed. She promptly set up her cart in front of the table, and started excitedly shaking.

“You’re new here!” she yelled.

“Umm, yes,” said the stallion, looking around to find that nopony in the barn was as confused as he was.

“Well I’m Pinkie Pie, and I’m friends with everypony in Ponyville, and now you’re here, and so I’m gonna be your friend! But first, I need to welcome you to town!”

Clyde looked to the mares on his sides, his confusion growing into concern. They weren’t shocked or surprised in the least at the unusual and very direct pony jumping up and down and vibrating about in front of him.

Pinkie pulled a string on the multicolored cart, and the entire contraption unfolded revealing a very random set of objects; some he recognized, others he hadn’t an inkling of what they could be.

Music started playing; it varied from the folk genre the band outside was performing, and Clyde realized it was coming from the collapsible wagon. Pinkie began to serenade him. He could only watch in disbelief as the pink mare recited a seemingly rehearsed song welcoming him to the town. He began to panic, and looked around the rest of the barn to see that though all present had seen what was going on, none of them paid attention to it, almost like it was a normal occurrence.

As quickly as she started, the mare stopped singing, and the music halted abruptly. Suddenly, the stallion felt a gush of hot air blow into his face. He closed his eyes as his lips were blown back around his face by the force of the wind. He reopened his eyelids to find himself almost completely covered in confetti and glitter, including the inside of his cup, and Pinkie holding a string connected to an enormous howitzer of sorts.

“Oh dear,” said Rarity from his side, seeing Pinkie’s party cannon had ruined his drink. “Here, let me get you another.”

“Thanks,” he said, pushing his first glass away and shaking the colorful strips of paper off of his hide.

Rarity trotted off to the bar. Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie, excited to be at a fun party, began singing another song. This one was about cider, and she jumped around the barn, singing words she seemed to make up on the spot to everypony with a cup.

Clyde looked to his side, and saw Dash watching her hyperactive companion’s antics with a blank expression on her face.

“Is this normal?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

The group watched the shenanigans of their friend until Rarity returned to the table, telekinetically holding several mugs of cider in her magic. Each at the table took one. Dash, recalling their plan to try to loosen the stallion’s tongue, proposed a toast.

“Let’s drink to our new friend,” she said, lifting her cup towards the center of the table, “To Clyde.”

Six jugs clinked together in unison, and the group began to drink. Clyde swallowed slowly and smoothly, while Dash chugged the drink down in noisy gulps, licking her lips when the last of it flowed down her throat. The others drank their entire cup in one go as well, but when Twilight finished, she began hiccupping noisily.

Dash looked to the stallion. His face wasn’t flushed yet, which couldn’t be said for her bookworm of a friend. Dash ordered another round, and again, proposed a toast. The mugs clinked together in the middle of the table a second time, and the group downed the sweet refreshment.

Hours had passed since they began. The stallion had drunk at least forty bits’ worth of cider, and he hadn’t much changed since they first saw him; his face was only now beginning to turn red. It was well into the night now, and most of the other ponies had gone home. The only ones left were the mares, still lingering around the table.

Clyde was still reclining in his chair, smiling contently, but the others were sprawled around the room. Dash and Applejack, who had come over and joined in the toasts when business had slowed, were seated across from him, intent on their goal of loosening the stallion’s tongue and persisting to reach it. The others weren’t as enduring.

Twilight was passed out in a chair, snoring audibly. She had been done before they even really got started, but she had tried her best. Fluttershy was passed out on a bale of hay, sprawled out over the yellow stalks, mouth agape. Rarity was fighting sleep on a stool, leaning against the counter and mumbling incoherently, nodding off occasionally. Pinkie Pie was on the stool next to her, laughing hysterically at the badly slurred jokes she was telling, though nopony was listening at all.

Clyde looked across the table. The mares’ faces were both bright red, and it was obvious that they were well past intoxicated. In all honesty, he wasn’t really feeling that buzzed yet. His thoughts were still, for the most part, clear, so he began contemplating why they kept buying him rounds.

“Maybe they're just trying to be friendly?” he hypothesized, “But then why me? I wouldn’t spend as much money on a stranger as they have. Maybe it was a dare? No, that doesn’t seem likely, none of them have even made a move on me yet. Unless they’re trying to get me drunk? That’s got to be it, but why? Ah, who cares; at least they’re buying.”

Rainbow Dash was battling her own eyelids, struggling to keep them open and pretending she was fine. She forced another toast, and began to drink from her cup, groaning as she did. When she felt the cider hit bottom, she belched, loudly.

Applejack drank as well, then looked at her winged friend, her eyes heavy, then back to the stallion, and then fell backwards out of her chair, passed out. The sky-blue mare watched as her friend hit the wooden floor, hard, and then slowly turned to look back across the table.

Clyde was still fine.

He looked at the blue mare across from him, the only one of her group that was still awake, and began asking questions; it was unsure how much longer she would even be conscious, and he decided not to wait for her to start talking on her own.

“So, why did you keep buying me drinks tonight?”

“Well, I wanted you to tell me stuff,” she slurred.

“What kind of stuff?”

“Oh, ya know, like where you’re from, and what you do, and why your eyes glow,” she responded, nodding through heavy eyes as she raised an empty mug towards him.

“So that was you on the mountain?”

“What mount… oh yeah, the mountain. That was me. I saw you. Your eyes were white then. I told my friends about you, and we wanted to meet you, because we thought you were kinda weird.”

“That’s all you want to know? Where I came from, why I’m here, and why my eyes glow.”

“Yup.”

“Well then,” he said, lifting his glass and handing Dash another as well, “It’s my turn to make a toast. To new friends; may they be wiser in the future.” He nodded to his fellow pegasus, then tipped back his cup. When he looked back down, His newfound drinking buddy was face down, her head buried in the table and her cider spilling out onto the floor.

Clyde clanked his mug down on the wooden table top and gauged the room. He was the only sober one left; each of the mares was sound asleep with warm apple cider in their bellies and strange dreams in their heads. The two mares at the bar had passed out like the rest of their companions, and the room was filled with the sound of silence.

Sighing heavily, he muttered to himself, “And then there were none.”

He rose from the table, and began picking up the mares one by one.

Author's Notes:

Hey guys! I'm really having fun with this story, and I hope it's just as much fun for my readers. Please comment with the good and the bad, and I'll try and fix the bad. Thanks!