Raindrops and White Lighting entered White Lightning’s home, the latter throwing herself onto the couch and the former doing some deep stretches.

“Wow,” Raindrops said as she cracked her shoulder, “that was some serious cloud-busting we did today.”

White exhaled deeply. “I’ll say.” She snickered. “At least the preceding storm was fun to make.”

Raindrops sighed. “Definitely. It’s always exciting, making it rain.” She turned to White. “By the way, is it okay if I raid your fridge for some food?”

White waved with a hoof. “Yeah, sure. Take whatever you want.”

“Will do,” Raindrops said as she headed into the kitchen and opened the fridge door. Inside were various fruits and vegetables, as well as various dressings and condiments. She had trouble deciding what to eat because everything looked rather tasty.

There was one bottle, however, that caught her attention. It looked to be a mostly unmarked bottle with a piece of paper that had the words “SAUCE” taped onto the side. I’ll have to ask Whitey about this, she thought as she grabbed an apple and the mostly unmarked bottle and returned to the living room.

White looked up when Raindrops returned and sat down. “I see you’ve found an apple and… what’s that?”

Raindrops bit into the apple, the obvious freshness presenting itself as a crisp crunching resonated across the room. “What do you mean, ‘what’s that’? I found it in your fridge.”

“Well, what does it say on the label?” White asked as she sat up and leaned towards Raindrops.

“It says,” Raindrops started before she took another bite of her apple, “it says ‘sauce’ on it.”

White hummed. “What do you think’s inside of it?”

“I’m going to assume there’s some kind of sauce inside the bottle.” Raindrops shook the bottle. “I’m checking for any identifying sediment in it right now.”

“That’s strange,” White said as she leaned back. “I don’t remember buying a bottle of sauce, or anyone coming over and leaving a bottle of sauce in my fridge.”

Raindrops turned over the bottle of what was presumably sauce in her hoof, examining it. “I mean, we don’t even know if it’s sauce.” She grunted. “It could be something that isn’t sauce.”

White lazily raised an eyebrow. “Why would you label something sauce that isn’t sauce? That seems dumb.”

Raindrops tilted her head while looking at the bottle. “It could be a prank.” She shook it again. “Like, we’re supposed to think it’s sauce but it isn’t, and then drink it and it’s like carriage oil lubricant or something.”

White leaned in again. “Well, it doesn’t look like carriage oil lubricant from here.”

Raindrops let out a breath. “Well, I’m going to open it and get a whiff of―”

“Raindrops, I don’t know if opening it is such a good idea.”

Raindrops glared at White. “What do you mean?” she asked as she looked at the bottle and White Lightning in turn.

White stood up and paced around. “What if it’s like… um… a highly pressurized explosive or something? Like,” she continued as she rotated a hoof, “like you open it and it blows up and glass gets everywhere and we end up in the hospital?”

“I don’t think anyone would be that malicious with a prank,” Raindrops said with a chuckle.

“You do realize,” White said, “that we live in the same town as Rainbow ‘put a brick in Carrot Cake’s sandwich’ Dash.”

Raindrops looked at White Lighting, then back at the bottle of supposedly sauce. “Good point. What do you suggest we do about it?”

“Well, my suggestion would be to open it at a high altitude so as to avoid casualties.”

“Hmm.” Raindrops pursed her lips. “Screw it, I’m opening it.” She twisted the cap and removed it. Nothing exploded. “It doesn’t appear to be a highly pressurized explosive, Whitey.”

“Well don’t sniff it directly. It could be some kind of chemical concoction―you just sniffed it directly, didn’t you?”

Raindrops inhaled of the mysterious liquid deeply. “It smells like some kind of sauce.”

“It’s not necessarily sauce,” White said as she sat back down on the couch, “it could be some kind of juice.”

“I think you’re examining this too deeply,” Raindrops said as she swished around the what she assumed to be sauce in the bottle. “I think it’s just sauce.” She peered at the apparent sauce. “It looks a little thin, though.”

“Then, um.” White pressed her eyes shut, then opened them. “Then why don’t you take a sip?”

Raindrops pointed a hoof at White Lightning. “I think I just might do that.”

“You know what, Raindrops?” White said as a smirk formed across her face. “I’ll give you twenty bits if you chug the whole thing in one go.”

“I dunno about that.” Raindrops said, “it could be Marecestershire sauce,” she said with a shudder. “That stuff doesn’t exactly go down easily, if you know what I’m saying.”

White rolled her eyes. “Does it smell like Marecestershire sauce?”

Raindrops took another whiff. “It appears to not smell like Marecestershire sauce, but I’m still a little leery about chugging the entire bottle for twenty bits. Make it two hundred and you have a deal.”

“I don’t know if I feel comfortable paying you two hundred bits for something that could just be gravy.”

“I don’t know if gravy is considered a sauce.”

“I don’t see why you’re so fixated on it being sauce, Raindrops.”

Raindrops glared at White Lightning. “Because it had a piece of paper with the words ‘sauce’ taped to it, Whitey. I don’t see why that would be such a weird conclusion to make.”

White pursed her lips. “Also I think gravy is a kind of sauce.”

“Are you sure gravy is sauce?” Raindrops asked as she peered at the bottle. “I think gravy traditionally also has sediment in it, and I don’t see any sediment in the bottle.”

“I’m pretty sure gravy is classified as sauce,” White said before she let out a groan. “And like I said, I’m not paying you two hundred bits to chug that. Make it fifty and we have a deal.”

“Ehh… I’m not sure I feel comfortable with that. Maybe a hundred?”

White rolled her eyes again. “Seventy-five is my final offer. Take it or leave it.”

Raindrops traded one last glance between the bottle and White Lightning. “I could use seventy-five bits.” A wicked grin crossed her face. “Alright, you’ve got a deal,” she said as she brought the bottle to her lips.

“Remember, the whole thing or no money,” White said as she watched her friend start to drink the contents of the bottle.

Raindrops took a sip, then yanked the bottle away from her mouth. “Whitey, it tastes like hot sauce.”

White whistled a bit. “Seventy-five bits, Raindrops.”

Raindrops sneered at White Lightning, then looked back at the bottle. She didn’t fancy chugging hot sauce, but she did like money.

So she inhaled deeply and poured the contents of the bottle down her throat, drawing a wide-eyed glare from White.

“Where’d you learn to do that?”

Raindrops clutched her throat as tears involuntarily poured down her face. “College.” Raindrops inhaled again, then quickly exhaled. “Okay, breathing doesn’t seem to be a good idea right now.” She clenched her jaw. “Holy Celestia, that’s hot.”

“Like, um,” White said as she rolled a hoof, “like, ‘I’ll be okay with bread’ hot, or ‘I need to go to the hospital right now’ hot?”

Raindrops shook her head as she clutched her stomach and tears dripped off of her chin. “It’s more like, um,” she said between ragged breaths, “like, ‘I’m achieving Spicepotheois’ hot.”

“I’m not quite familiar with that word.” White narrowed her eyes at Raindrops. “Spicepotheosis.”

“It’s a, uh.” Raindrops’ breathing grew more and more labored. “It’s a portmanteau between spice and apotheosis.”

White groaned. “I gathered as much, but what does it mean in this context?”

“It means.” Raindrops grimaced as her eyes squeezed shut. “It means that I’ve discovered the meaning of life through the massive amount of simulated pain I’m experiencing.” She clenched her jaw. “And that meaning is ‘an intense amount of pain’.”

Raindrops then slumped onto the couch as her head rolled to the side.

White Lighting looked at Raindrops’ unconscious body. I should probably let her sleep it off. She then heard a knock at her door.

“Come in,” she said.

The door opened to reveal Muffins. “Hey, Whitey!” she said as she entered the house and closed the door behind her. “Why’s Raindrops napping?”

“She, she drank a bottle that was labeled sauce and it turned out to be hot sauce. I guess she passed out from the pain or something.”

Muffins stopped in her tracks. “It… it wouldn’t happen to have been a glass bottle with a piece of paper that had the word ‘sauce’ taped to the side, would it?”

White Lightning’s eyes slowly widened as she faced Muffins. “Yes, that was exactly the bottle. Why?”

Muffins grimaced. “That’s Maretonian chili oil. It disappeared from my fridge the other day. It’s horrifically spicy.”

White Lightning leapt to her hooves. “Okay, I have two questions.”

“Shoot.”

“Number one, if you put it in your fridge, how did it appear in mine?”

“Well, that’s actually a funny story,” Muffins said with a nervous chuckle. “Things tend to… disappear from my fridge. In fact, my avocados keep ending up in Twilight’s fridge and Starlight keeps eating them.”

“Um,” White started before she shook her head, “I’m not even going to ask.” She then looked at Muffins. “Number two, am I going to have to drag her to the hospital to get her stomach pumped?”

Muffins looked to the side. “I don’t think so, but she’s not going to be having a good time for the next few days once she wakes up.”

White buried her face in her hoof. “Why do you even have Maretonian chili oil?”

“I like to put it on hay tacos,” Muffins said with a sheepish grin.

Mumbles emerged from Raindrops’ mouth. White held a hoof to her mouth, then creeped over to Raindrops and listened. She then looked up at Muffins. “She’s saying “the sauce must flow’.”

Muffins nodded. “Yeah, delusions are common if you consume too much Maretonian chili oil at once. You know my friend, the tech pony?”

“Brown, hourglass cutie mark?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.” Muffins sighed. “He had too much one time and he started referring to himself as ‘Coramoor’ for a few days.”

“So.” White Lightning sat back down and rubbed her face. “So we wait it out?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Muffins’ eyes widened. “Hey,” she said as she faced White. “You wanna play Yahtzee?”

White looked at Raindrops, who was now mumbling something about a ‘kwisatz haderach’, back at Muffins, then shrugged. “Sure, why not?”