***

Ponyville, Equestria. May 12th, Year 3 of the New Diarchy Calendar.

Twilight Sparkle looked over her shoulder, before turning back to her drink, studying the glass mug carefully. It was filled with Ol' Trotspur, a particularly famous brand of beer made by the moles of Mol Trotspur near Trottingham, known for its dry, bitter flavour. Twilight had never been particularly fond of beer, but recently…

Only a week back. Only a week.

She sighed, observing the drink. She knew from her reading that drinking was a normal (if unhealthy) reaction to adverse psychological effects, but as much as she found herself longing for the sweet oblivion of a drunken haze (a somewhat lyrical description she had found in more than a few old journals she’d discovered in a war museum), something was stopping her from taking that first drink.

"Hey Twi," a voice said. She looked up, to see Lyra and Applejack approaching and sitting at her table, both wearing wry, somewhat mirthless smiles.

"Lyra," she greeted warmly. "Applejack. What are you guys doing here?"

"Same as you, I reckon," Applejack said, nodding at the beer. "Fancy getting myself a drink and doin’ some thinkin’. Same fer you?”

“Yeah,” Twilight said with a sad smile. “Something like that.”

“Misery loves company, I guess,” Lyra commented with a slight smirk, before heading to the bar.

“What was that about misery and company?” a new voice said. The three looked around, to see Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Pinkie approaching. Rarity, the one who had spoken, looked surprisingly ill-kempt, like she hadn’t bothered combing her mane for a week.

“Rarity, what happened to you?!” Twilight asked, eyes wide.

“Nothing happened per se,” Rarity replied with a tired smile. “It’s just been several months since I needed to dress up… well, several months since I’ve been able to. Not quite the same thing. I’m sure I’ll get back to it… eventually.”

She didn’t sound convincing - and none of them would have believed her even if she had.

Rainbow Dash hadn’t said anything, and had merely gone to the bar, returning with her own beer and a glass of what looked suspiciously like sherry for Rarity. Pinkie had gone to the bar too, but she was currently engaged in a rather over-eager - some might say to the point of overcompensating - conversation with the barmare about, of all things, the different smells of drinks.

“And everypony knows that ‘Ol’ Trotspur’ smells like mole sweat because it’s moles who make it in their city!” she was saying loudly. “And the whole place smells like mole sweat because their air-conditioning is awful. I mean sure, they can breathe, but once you go in there you won’t be able to - still, smells better than gunpowder. That stuff’s nasty…!”

She giggled loudly, her smile wide, almost painfully so.

“Pinkie,” Applejack called over. “Get your plot over here.”

“Oh!” Pinkie said, waving to Applejack with a forced-looking smile. “Sure, AJ, one moment!”

Applejack sighed and sat down, taking a swig of her drink (what looked suspiciously like hard cider) and sighing. “Big Mac only let me do ten hours of farm-work today. I reckon he thought I was overworking myself. Truth be told, the farm feels like a holiday after…”

She trailed off and shrugged, taking another swig. Twilight took a sip of her drink, and tried not to gag at the taste. She took another, mulled over it, and sighed. She didn’t like it - but she supposed it would grow on her.

Rainbow sat down, before taking a drink, not speaking all the while. Rarity took the sherry, sniffed it and then took a sip. A moment later, Pinkie arrived, three tankards of what looked suspiciously like ale in her hooves. She put all three down, and a moment later, without any clear sense of what had happened in-between, all three were empty and she was wiping her mouth, a contented smile on her face, tempered by slightly half-lidded eyes as an alcoholic haze quickly descended onto her expression.

Lyra returned a moment later with her own drink, what looked like a shot of some kind of Horssian Vodka.

“Cheers,” she said, and downed it in one. She gasped, hit the table softly, and coughed.

“Room for more?” a soft voice asked. Everypony turned, to see Fluttershy sitting with them, another beer in her hoof. She took a sip as she sat, smiling mirthlessly. “I guess we all had the same idea.”

“And what a good idea it was, too!” Pinkie said with a grin, slurring slightly - somehow, another round of drinks had both arrived and been consumed while they were sitting there, and she was finishing off the remains of a third round as she spoke. She hiccoughed slightly.

“You worked ten hours?” Twilight asked Applejack. The farm-pony nodded, finishing her cider as she did so.

“Eeyup,” she said. “Too used ta wakin’ up at five in the mornin’ with the sound of bombs and concussives goin’ off somewhere near my head, so I started a little earlier than usual. Normally don’t start while six-thirty. Breakfast an’ all.”

“Still, ten hours sounds normal enough to you…” Twilight commented with slightly narrowed eyes.

“Yeah, I reckon he was more concerned with the fact that I did four whole fields and didn’t stop for breakfast or lunch,” Applejack shrugged. “Or dinner. Or sleep. Or conversation. Or…”

“I get the picture,” Twilight said, raising a hoof, her eyes wide. “AJ, why did you do four fields without a break?”

“Kept my mind offa’ things,” Applejack murmured, looking at the bottom of the glass. “I’m gonna go get me another.”

And with that, she headed back to the bar, leaving Twilight to stare after her.

“How do they do it?” she heard Rarity ask. She turned to look at the fashionista, who was busy looking at other patrons of the bar.

“Do what?” Lyra asked before Twilight could.

“Just… carry on?” Rarity asked. “How can all these ponies just act as if the world is… as if it’s all…”

“They didn’t go through what we did,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, surprisingly softly. “They don’t know. They can’t ever know.”

This somewhat morbid pronouncement was met with silence, until Pinkie, now through a seventh round (somehow…) passed out, her head hitting the table with a loud thunk.

“Everything ok over there?” the barmare called over.

“Yeah,” Rainbow called back. “Just Pinkie being Pinkie. Much as she can be at the moment.”

“I ain’t never seen Pinkie do that before,” the barmare pointed out.

“I have,” Dash replied, smiling slightly. “Trust me, this is… the new normal.”

The barmare didn’t look convinced, but didn’t say anything else.

“This isn’t sustainable,” Twilight said, finishing her drink. The stuff tasted rank, and she could already feel a wooziness descending on her, not helped by the vague nausea that threatened to make her regurgitate the entire mug’s worth of liquid. “We can’t do this.”

“We can’t do what, darling?” Rarity asked.

“Drink ourselves into oblivion,” Twilight clarified. “Or work ourselves into oblivion like AJ. Or… I dunno…”

“Not come out of the library for a week?” Lyra asked, giving Twilight a pointed stare. The librarian shrank in her seat for a moment.

“That’s… yeah,” she said quietly. “Or that.”

“Ditzy’s spent the whole time with Doctor Hooves and her daughter,” Fluttershy said quietly. “I think she’s trying her best to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Aren’t we all?” Rarity asked.

“I’m not,” Dash said quietly. “It happened. Now we just need to… I dunno. Learn something from it.”

“Like what?” Rarity asked. “What exactly can we bring from that place to Equestria? Heaven forfend we should ever be involved in another conflict like that...”

“There’s gotta be something though,” Rainbow Dash said. “I dunno - we could join the Guard?”

“And do what?” Rarity asked.

“Fight something,” Dash said. “The Griffons are making noises again, I heard…”

“The Griffons are always making noises,” Twilight replied, still trying to keep herself from retching. “And joining another army wouldn’t help. What would it do?”

“The Guard would understand,” Dash pointed out.

“No they wouldn’t,” Twilight replied, almost snappishly. “Nopony would. Nopony can.”

She didn’t seem to realise that she had shouted the last sentence, and several ponies were now staring at them. There was an awkward pause.

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Fluttershy said meekly. “Nopony understands.”

“Then how do we make them?” Dash asked.

There was a long pause. That was a question none of them had an answer to...

Author's Notes:

First part of our examination of the effects this had on the canon characters...

Oh dear...