The gray stallion who sat next to Natalie watched as Shining personally dragged a screaming Napkin out of the tavern with his magic. He was barely aware that said Fantasian had downed her first glass of Gleaming Cornucopia as soon as the half-horned rapist was out of the building, his cries fading to nothing but lingering echoes after a minute or so had passed.

He turned to her and his eyes widened as the apron-wearing mare poured a second dose of the concoction into the wine glass, and the only effect the drink had on Natalie so far was that it made her cheeks turn slightly redder. With her natural cream coloring, she looked a little on the orange side, but the color intensified as she took a sip of more Cornucopia. "How are you able to stand that stuff?" he asked.

Natalie turned to him and snorted once she swallowed the bit of drink, eyes going half-lidded with pupils dilating. She studied the stallion who'd asked for a bit, and he couldn't tell whether he was being checked out or his question had gotten admission to start registering in the mare's mind. "I have the liver and stomach for it," she replied after a few seconds, a slight slur in her words.

The stallion turned to the mare in the apron, missing Natalie raising her glass to ingest the rest of the drink. "Cider Trough, is it okay if I had a glass of Cornucopia?" he asked.

Cider Trough sighed, and swept another small wine glass off the shelf with her magic. She plopped it before him and asked, "Cold, hot, shaken, or stirred? I ain't pouring into your glass from the red canister—that shaker's all her's."

"Like what she's got, except without strawberries. I'm allergic to strawberries," the stallion replied. Cider nodded and pried off a blue shaker from the shelf, and only nine of ten liquor bottles. She threw in the ingredients, grabbed some liquified rainbows and frozen fruits to add to the mix, and shook it up and poured his glass. She then gave Natalie her third dose out of the red canister, and without missing a beat the two guests looked at each other before raising their glasses.

"Cheers?" Natalie offered, tilting her head slightly.

"Cheers," the stallion replied, and the two clinked glasses before they both tossed their heads back and downed their drinks in one fluid motion. Natalie set her glass down first, with the stallion barely able to keep up as his eyes almost bugged out. "Spicy, s-strong—" he stammered. He choked and then coughed furiously, trying to talk through his hacking and gagging. Next thing he knew, he couldn't speak because his tongue began hurting from all of the different flavors playing a round of musical chairs upon his hapless taste buds.

His eyes widened some more when he saw Natalie staring at him in concern, still seemingly unaffected by her drink except for the red on her cheeks. "Dude, you alright?" she asked, blinking dazedly. All she got was a rapid shaking of the head, in addition to the hapless pony's face turning from green to red and back to its natural grey.

The stallion slumped and chuckled, but the sound had no mirth. "Whoo… gonna have to get used to that flavor," he groaned. He got up and bumbled his way towards a triad of doors that stood between a set of tables at a far wall, opened the leftmost one, and went into the room beyond before slamming the obstacle shut behind him.

"'s what the strawberries were for," Cider groaned, watching as the grey stallion waded away from the bar. "If you hadn't been allergic to them, Silver Lining, then you wouldn't have had to deal with the spicy part of the drink."

"I didn't know strawberries could negate spicy," Natalie stated, turning to Cider with a brow slightly raised. "What kind do you use?"

"Crystal strawberries, locally grown," Cider replied, pouring in the fourth dose of Cornucopia into her guest's glass. "Don't ask me how it works; I ain't a rocket scientist."

Natalie nodded, making a mental note to consult the nearest pony who sold the supposed crystal strawberries as she took a small sip of her fourth glass. As she swallowed, the back of her head went just a little numb, and she giggled like a filly that didn't understand a joke that was relayed to her by an adult.

The teal stallion who held Napkin before said troublemaker got dragged out trotted into view from behind the bar, looking at Natalie with a slanted brow. "Lass, are you okay?" he asked.

"Just… buzzed," Natalie replied, wearing a dopey grin on her face.

"Just four glasses get you buzzed?" Cider asked in disbelief, her eyes widening. She turned to the teal stallion and pointed at Natalie with a hoof. "White Grape, you seeing this?"

White Grape turned to Cider and nodded slowly. "Hearing it, too," he replied. He looked at Natalie and asked, "Lass, are you tasting anything spicy?"

Natalie shook her head. "After I swallow," she answered. "Otherwise, no. The kick of the spicy stuff, whatever it is, doesn't really bother me, even if it's consigned to the back of my throat."

"Guess her mane's red for a reason," Cider murmured, watching as her guest downed the rest of dose number four and sighed in contentment.

Natalie hummed for a moment, her head swaying a little to the left. "Oh… this stuff's stronger than I gave it credit for," she stated, a heavy slur in her words. With cheeks turning a scarlet that rivaled that of her mane, she gave off a hearty giggle. "Throat's burning, tongue's swimming in sweet… and in a good way."

Grape and Cider exchanged glances before turning back to their Fantasian patron. "Lass, you alright?" the former asked, his brow slanting further, until it threatened to weigh down on his upper eyelids.

"Better… than ever," Natalie replied, languidly waving a hoof dismissively. "Fifth dose, please."

Cider obliged, filling the emptied wine glass with another dose of prismatic fruit-laden booze. Once she finished pouring, she set the shaker down with its lid uncorked. "Help yourself out," she said, and as soon as Natalie nodded, she turned to Grape. "Got a bad feeling about this 'un," she whispered.

"Lass seems tame," Grape whispered back with a nod. "Dunno why you've got a… I'mma guess a feeling in the pit of your gut, though."

"She's got that… air about 'er," Cider began, watching as Natalie downed her fifth dose and helped herself to a sixth. "The kind that speaks volumes, oozes… grace an' power, like our Emperor Shining does."

"She don't look like much, though," Grape noted, nodding slowly. "Sure, she's gorgeous and all, but… given what she did to our trouble-making vagrant, I wouldn't want to mess with her."

"'spose you have a point," Cider agreed, turning to her patron as she downed her sixth dose. "Lass, you need a refill?"

Natalie used her magic to pick up the shaker, and she tilted it a bit to let its contents slosh around for a few seconds. "I'm good," she replied as she filled her glass for a seventh time. Just as she set the shaker down, a flash of light combined with a cloud of smoke exploded right next to her, and her eyelids slammed shut while the acrid stench of something burning filled her nostrils.

She coughed and gagged, and so did Cider and Grape, until the light died and the smog cleared to reveal that Discord had taken a seat next to the Fantasian in his pony guise. "So, I heard you were in the process of getting utterly smashed, Miss Starcovert?" he asked, turning to Natalie as she stopped coughing enough to open her eyes, raise her glass with her magic and down her seventh drink.

"Ordered twenty glasses… going on number eight," Natalie croaked, using her magic to pour herself another dose of Cornucopia. She took a moment to lay her head down on the bar, eyelids hanging heavy and threatening to snap shut again.

"Twenty?" Discord repeated, looking at Natalie with widening eyes. "And you're going to have your eighth? How much liquor can you hold, mare?"

Natalie nodded her head and used her magic to pick up her glass, lifting it to her lips and tilting both that and her head back to down it. "A lot," she replied upon finishing the concoction and putting her glass on the bar.

"You certainly don't look the type to be able to hold that much," Discord noted, frowning when Natalie magically grabbed the shaker without also grabbing her glass again.

"I can down the rest of this canister," Natalie hissed rather matter-of-factly, eyes narrowing as she turned to Discord. She turned to Cider and let her glare ease into a red-faced neutral expression. "If that's okay with you."

Cider and Grape exchanged glances, then turned back to their patron. "I wouldn't advise it, but… nothing's stopping you," Cider sighed with a shrug. Natalie nodded and brought the shaker's rim to her lips, and then opened her mouth wide before putting the shaker's mouth inside. She clamped around it and tilted her head all the way back, dragging the shaker with before downing the rest of the contents without so much as a drop of sweat forming on her brow in the process.

When it was emptied a minute later, Natalie put the shaker on the bar and used her magic to nudge it to Discord. "Check… and—" she paused as a hiccup managed to worm its way out of her throat, "—and see if there's any left."

Discord did as instructed, lighting up his horn to gaze into the abyss that was a once-full shaker, and his eyes widened still when he saw that there wasn't anything left inside. Not one drop of liquid glistened under the light, not one morsel of frozen fruit gleamed to let him know it was there; the shaker was effectively emptied. "... nothing's inside," he murmured, setting the container down. "Nothing at all."

"You're kidding," Cider mumbled, whereupon Discord replied by tilting the shaker in her direction just enough that she could see it was indeed spotless within. "Well… I'll be damned by Sombra and turned into an ice cube by windigos," she murmured, her pupils dilating.

Natalie returned to resting her head on the bar again, a dopey grin forming on her face. "That was some good booze…" she purred, before hiccuping and subsequently giggling like a little filly.

"Hrm... " Discord hummed, tapping at his chin with a hoof. "Miss Starcovert, tell me… do you have any friends who happen to drink on occasion?"

"Matt," Natalie replied tersely, keeping her head on the bar. Discord nodded and vanished in a flare of light for one second, and then re-appeared in a cloud of smoke the next. Now accompanying him and secured with a hoof wrapped around his barrel was a swaying Matt, whose eyes spun in their sockets as he coughed and gagged to get the smog out of his lungs.

It was around this time that Silver Lining had emerged from the room he fled into, green in the face and stumbling about into tables and chairs as he made his way back to the bar. "What the hay's goin' on here?" he asked as he managed to sit next to Natalie, using a hoof to gesture to Matt and Discord for emphasis.

"Dragged here… at ludicrous speeds… dizzy," Matt answered, still swaying his head. After a minute, he shook his head to make his bout of dizziness go away, and his eyes fell onto Natalie thereafter. He took in her rather red face, and the fact that she had her head resting on the bar without her hooves to prop it up. "Natz? You don't look so good…"

"'m drunk as a skunk," Natalie replied, turning to Matt with a small and rather sultry grin on her face.

Matt's eyes widened, and he wiggled out of Discord's grip before getting closer to Natalie and leaning in so their muzzles were inches apart. When she chuckled, he recoiled as the strong, bitter scent of alcohol hit his nostrils like a slap to the face. "How much did you drink?" he asked, frowning.

"Whole shaker's worth," Natalie answered, her grin widening as Matt made a choking sound.

"It's true. I've seen her down the whole thing," Discord stated, whereupon the stallion he dragged in turned to Cider and Grape, both of whom nodded slowly with concerned frowns and slanted brows painting their faces.

Matt groaned and turned back to Natalie. "Any particular reason why you're drinking?" he asked, eyes going half-lidded as a tight frown formed on his face.

"Orange-coated bastard who had a saddle put on my back was here, and he was stirring shit up," Natalie groaned, her smile fading as she spoke. "I have witnesses." She rose a hoof and gestured all around the room, barely avoiding hitting Silver by accident as he ducked beneath her flailing limb.

Matt groaned, taking a seat next to his buzzed companion as one of his hooves hit his face. "Did you kick his ass?" he asked.

"Sent 'im flying, and broke his horn," Natalie confirmed with a sluggish nod. "He landed exactly the wrong way."

Matt nodded, removing his hoof from his face and letting it drop onto the bar with a thud that was muffled thanks to his leg fur. His eyes fell on Cider Trough. "Alright, what exactly did she order?" he asked.

"Gleaming Cornucopia. Strongest, sweetest, fruitiest drink we have available," Cider answered, her ears flattening against her head.

"What's it made of?" Matt continued, his brow raising no more than a centimeter or two.

"Ten different fruit cocktails, Cloudsdale liquid rainbows, and if you want, fruit frozen in ice cubes," Grape piped up, sighing begrudgingly. "But we wouldn't advise drinking it."

"Why not?" Matt pressed, his brow rising higher.

Cider and Grape shared glances. "Well… Cloudsdale rainbows are really spicy, and they make the taste of alcohol pop out on your tongue. That, and there might be certain fruits you're allergic to, if you order the drink," Grape said as he broke the gaze with his unicorn colleague.

"Makes the spicy hit you harder if you miss even one fruit that would complete the Cornucopia. I wish I wasn't allergic to strawberries," Silver piped up, causing Matt to look at him and tilt his head slightly.

"So… a stiff as hell drink?" Matt inquired, garnering nods from the four ponies closest to him. He sighed and turned to Cider. "I'd like to try one m'self."

"Good choice," Natalie piped up, once more smiling at her companion. "'s wonderful." Cider and Grape froze for a few seconds, however, with eyes turned on Matt that widened as they took in his request. When he summoned a pouch of bits with a flash of light and scooted it to them with a hoof, Cider reluctantly took it in her magic with a small, ball-shaped lump visibly appearing on her throat that wouldn't go down no matter how many times she tried swallowing it.

Cider riffled through the pouch and frowned, handing it back to Matt. "Fifteen bits per glass. There's only ten in there," she said, sighing when he groaned and made it vanish as it had come.

Natalie summoned another bag, this one larger than the one her companion had returned to him. "I'll pay for 'is glass," she mumbled, forking over the larger bag without hesitation. This time, it was Grape who took the bag and rummaged through the bits within, before he turned to Cider and nodded once.

"Give the splotched lad what he asked for," Grape said. Cider nodded and pulled off a third shaker that sparkled like gold from the shelf, and a small wine glass before yanking the ingredients from their places and adding them to container number three. She closed the shaker, shook it vigorously, and uncorked the cap when Matt set one of his hooves next to the wine glass.

Cider's eyes darted between the rather large hoof itself, and the glass next to it. Her gaze then trailed up to Matt's face, and he eyed the small container with nothing short of a barely-noticeable frown and worry flickering in his irises. "It's too small for you?" she asked.

"Yes. I'd like a larger glass, please—or a tankard, if you have one," Matt replied in a soft, polite tone. Grape cantered over to the shelves and reached for the topmost one with a hoof, pulling out a large and sturdy tankard hewn of wood and metal after fumbling and pawing around for a minute or so. After he pulled the container off, he inspected it inside and out, constantly turning it so that not one square inch went unchecked. He nodded in satisfaction and trotted back on three legs, setting the tankard before his third patron.

Matt lifted his hoof and compared it to the tankard, studying the two entities side-by-side before his frown turned into a smile. "That'll do. Much appreciated," he chirped in glee, wrapping his leg around it and pulling it a little closer to him. Cider took away his too-small wine glass and set it back on the shelf with her magic prior to pouring his drink and filling the tankard to the brim. Before he took his first sip, he turned to Discord to find that the disguised draconequus had looked back at him with his chin resting on his left pastern.

"Be my guest," Discord stated with a wave of his right hoof. He proceeded to take a seat next to the Fantasian stallion, watching intently as he rose the tankard up to meet the waiting mouth that would soon be filled with Gleaming Cornucopia. Natalie, still smiling, giggled as he let some of the fruit-laden rainbow fluid into his mouth and went bug-eyed once his tastebuds were assaulted with stiff, sweet flavor.

Matt sloshed the liquid around for a bit like it was mouthwash, taking the time to discern each and every individual flavor before nodding and swallowing, his eyes going half-lidded in contentment. "Damn, Natz, this is good," he murmured. He then put the tankard to his lips again and took in another hefty mouthful of the stuff, swallowing the mixture with relish before setting his tankard down.

He jolted when a burning hot aftertaste assaulted his buds, eyes widening as if he were about to have his legs torn out of their sockets. "Gah! My mouth's on fire!" he exclaimed, raising his tankard again and downing the rest of his drink in an attempt to quell the heat—only to twitch in place as said attempt ended up amplifying the fiery inferno that danced on his tongue instead.

Natalie watched Matt, giggling uncontrollably as he snagged the gold shaker and, once again, downed the other half of his drink. Only when the container was emptied, she decided to quell her laughter and speak up, "Liquid Cloudsdale rainbows are spicy, Matt."

"I think it went in one ear and out the other when he was informed the first time," Discord interjected, guffawing when Matt turned to him with a scowl set into his face.

"It didn't; I just didn't expect the spicy to be an aftertaste," Matt argued, his face turning a shade of red along the bridge of his muzzle. Then he jerked his gaze to Natalie, who was still grinning at him like a fool. "What?" he asked, eyes going half-lidded again.

Natalie responded by raising a hoof and booping him on the nose with it. "The red on your face compliments your mane and eyes," she chirped, her remark causing Matt to start spluttering incoherently and Discord to toss his head back as he continued to laugh.

Once the laughter and blubbering ceased, Silver interjected, "Is he your coltfriend?" This only caused Matt to start speaking in gibberish dialects all over again, his face reddening so fast that one hue almost completely overtook his natural black-and-white coat. Discord, meanwhile, just fell out of his stool and landed on his back cackling, one hoof over his eyes and his back legs wildly kicking at the floor with such reckless abandon that he repeatedly kicked the Fantasian stallion in his rear fetlocks and pasterns.

Natalie patiently waited until the noise from the two-pony ensemble quelled before addressing Silver, "What's your definition of 'coltfriend?' I'd like to know."

Silver donned a grin that looked like it belonged on the face of an innocent lamb: small, barely noticeable, yet had that telltale twitch at the corners like it wanted to broaden. "Do you share the same bed? Go on dates? Have time to yourselves?" he elaborated, doing his damnedest to keep that smile as small as he could possibly manage.

Now, it was Natalie's turn to start mumbling incomprehensible nonsense in an attempt to speak, with syllables hopelessly tumbling over themselves and each other as she tried to confirm or deny Silver Lining's suspicions. "I—ah—wh—" was all he could make out of her ramblings, her pupils and irises shrinking so much it was as if her eyes had gone pure white. Her mouth continually jittered in an uneven, ever-faltering wide smile while her face just reddened some more.

"Alright Silver, stop hitting on the lass. I ain't helping you if she pelts you with a star-shaped spell, just saying," Cider piped up, her remark causing the stallion in question to turn to her to find that she narrowed her eyes at him.

"If I was hitting on her, I'd have asked her out already," Silver retorted, a firm frown set in his muzzle.

"She's drunk! She might not see it like that!" Cider argued, waving one of her front hooves dismissively. "In fact, she might take it as 'I want to screw you senseless' or something along those lines!" To punctuate her point, she slammed a front hoof on the bar, causing the emptied containers to shake and the still-filled shaker to wobble and slosh for a minute before it went still.

The two continued to argue about how drunk Natalie was, and whether or not her state of inebriation would make her take things out of context for a few minutes, during which said Fantasian managed to recover from her bout of trying to articulate a response. "Puh-lease, I'm not that drunk," she interjected, causing both Cider and Silver to look at her with brows raised.

"You sure?" Cider asked disbelievingly, her brow continuing to rise. "You did drink an entire shaker's worth of Gleaming Cornucopia…"

"I can hold more liquor than that," Natalie scoffed with a nod, raising a hoof and waving it again. She turned to Silver and added in a slightly slurred sarcastic tone of voice, "No, I'm single."

"Really?" Silver inquired, looking at Natalie with widening eyes. "You're single?" he added, either unaware or uncaring that the tone in which he'd been replied with was one that implied something else altogether.

A hope gleamed in his eyes and he lifted his hoof to touch her face, only to drop his limb and let that glimmer fade when Matt snarled like a beast and wrapped one of his fuzzy legs around Natalie's barrel. "Hooves off. She's not interested," he hissed in a slight slur. His eyes wasted no time narrowing to slits as he scanned Silver's features from head to hoof, enabling him to notice that the stallion in question was only the height of Discord's pony form if he were on four legs.

Silver took the hint and nodded. "Alright, I'll lay off," he sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly. "Besides, she's just a few inches shorter than Empress Cadence; even if I tried, I'd have trouble…" He deliberately left that remark unfinished upon seeing a gleam in the Fantasian stallion's eyes, one that could punch new holes in the nearest wall if it were able, and turned back to Cider Trough.

White Grape, who stood silent during the whole debacle, just rolled his eyes and shook his head at Silver Lining. "You're a hopeless colt," he murmured.

"At least I'm not drunk," Silver huffed, crossing his forelegs as he stared at Grape with half-lidded eyes.

"You tried to get drunk, though," Cider scoffed, sighing as Discord hauled himself up from the floor and wrapped both forelegs around the Fantasian patrons.

"Well, I do apologize, but I am afraid I must take these two back to the palace," Discord stated, an amused grin on his face as he retracted his legs from their forms and reverted to all fours. With that, his horn lit up and picked up the two drunk ponies in a baby blue aura, and he turned around to trot out the building with them floating behind him.

"Thanks for the drinks!" Natalie called out just before she and Matt were dragged out of the establishment, the fast-fleeting sound of Discord's hooves hitting the crystal pavement outside signaling her and Matt's departure. Said hooves hitting the pavement also drowned out the fainter noise of flapping wings, which likewise also became nothing more than hollow resonations that were entirely tuned out a few seconds later.

"Yeah! The booze was awesome!" Matt shouted, though by the time he cried out, his utterance was just a short-lived echo that resonated in the tavern for some seconds.

"Just another day on the job…" Grape mumbled under his breath, turning to Cider to find her silently nodding. "I'll start mopping the floor from here to the entrance; manage the bar and serve drinks while I'm on cleaning duty." Without waiting for his colleague to nod again, he trotted away from her and Silver, around the bar, and to the doors that stood between a set of tables. Upon reaching them, he studied them for a few seconds before flinging the middle one open to reveal an assortment of cleaning utensils.

He reached in with a hoof and pulled out a mop that was stationed in a water bucket on wheels, dragging said bucket with and hearing liquid slosh about before shaking his head upon finding dirty water within the container. White Grape shrugged and stood on his back legs, walking upright whilst using the mop to maneuver the bucket to the front of the bar.

Once it was stationed where he'd wanted it, he lifted the utensil out of the grimy gunk that was pure water at some point in the past and plopped its cotton-floor end onto the floor, sighing as a series of stained grey ribbons spread out like a filthy flower. Before he could start moping, something caught his eye. "Hrm?" He bent over to look at the thing that snagged his attention, one hoof holding the mop's handle as the other reached out to pick the secondary object up.

White Grape lifted it up to his muzzle where he could examine it better, finding a peculiar and medium-length feather that was purest white. The downy barbs and calamus were a very faded off-white hue that bordered on an excruciatingly pale grey, but against the snowy color the rest of the thing possessed, he couldn't make it out too well. His head swiveled around, and the hoof holding the feather rose up as he announced, "Who shed a feather recently?"

The patrons looked at him, then turned to each other and shrugged. "Is anypony among you a pegasus?" Grape pressed, and no more than half a dozen hooves shot up from the various tables, though he frowned when he saw that none of those hooves were even remotely white. "Did anypony bring a white pegasus here in the past day? If so, did they flap their wings?" he continued, and the scant few hooves raised dropped as an assortment of heads shook.

Grape groaned and lowered the hoof holding the feather dejectedly, and he looked around the floor for a bit before noticing some more white feathers erratically scattered here and there. But there was something off about them—not just their white color, which was doubtless strange enough by itself, but in this case, it was their placement that had him perplexed.

They all lead to the entrance of the establishment in a warbling line. A single, sporadic trail that he was certain hadn't been there before, if at all. He asked one more time, his head darting this way and that as he spoke, "Does anypony know who might have shed these feathers?" All that he got for an answer was another shaking of his patrons' heads, with each and every customer frowning at the inquiry.

Which led him back to square one. He turned to Cider, who merely spoke before he could ask again, "I don't know who shed a feather today. Sorry."

"Don't ask me," Silver added, turning to Grape and waving a hoof dismissively. "I just trot here."

"Did you notice anything else that was odd, aside from that one lad that teleported in puffs of smoke?" Grape asked, his brow furrowing at this point.

Silver nodded. "The red-maned lass's cutie mark had feathers paired with a shooting star… I couldn't tell you the meaning of that mark to save my hide," he stated with a shrug. "Maybe that lad who was with her—the one with the blue horn, not the big one—might have dropped them here?"