Starlight had beaten them to the orchard and harvested just as much, if not more than Kelly and the others had the day before. Actually, that was irrelevant. Why was she even there? Why did she look so happy to see them? Welcoming them as if the events of last night hadn't happened? Chris's upbeat outlook on the day instantly went south, and Kelly was pissed.

She turned to look down at the mare who had led them out this way. "Uh, what the hell AJ?"

Big Mac quickly interjected to try and break up the tension. "Now hold on a second, Miss Kelly. Starlight explained what happened at your house last night. That's why she's here."

"That's right, Sugar Cube," Applejack answered back. "I gave Starlight a firm talk'n to last night. She came here this morning asking for a chance to talk to ya's and set things right. She even agreed to help with the chores so that y'all could have the rest of the day to relax and actually go out and learn yer way around town."

The facade of everything being fine was futile, and Starlight dropped the act, letting her remorse show through. "I'm sorry, all of you," She lamented with a sincere depth of grief. "Last night I was confused, really uncomfortable, and in some ways a little scared about how much you knew about us. It doesn't excuse the way I acted, but I'm hoping for a chance to start over and not be so quick to judge this time."

For something that would otherwise be considered rather trivial in most circles, Chris was like Kelly's little brother, and she took particular offense on his behalf. "Mac, I don't want to be here for this," - She turned to Chris from atop Big Mac's back, ready to leave. - "Come on Chris, let's just go back up-"

"It's fine," He coldly answered, raising his hand to dismiss her. "She wants to apologize; let's hear her out."

Starlight hung her head. She knew they had every right to be mad at her. "You don't have to accept my apology, but that doesn't mean that I'm any less sorry about what I said or for how rude I was. I just want to make up for what I did, and maybe be friends like everypony else."

"Miss Kelly," Big Mac spoke up to the lady on his back. "Me and Starlight didn't have the best salutations when we first met," He glared down to the sad sap of a unicorn - "And I'm still not completely over her putting all them words in my mouth. But..." - He took a moment to repose himself - "it ain't right to hold a grudge and not give her a chance just because she was nervous and didn't know how friends are supposed to treat each other."

Being stuck on his back as she was, she couldn't really give too much of a protest to his request. She knew he could hold her there as long as he wanted. "Fine. I accept your apology. But I'm not going to put Chris out like this until he says it's all good between you two."

Applejack wasn't going to push the issue and risk making matters worse. "That's fair enough. That sound alright there, Starlight?"

Starlight nodded, though not feeling much better about the response. "Yes, I understand."

The tension in the air started to grow thick as the silence between everyone drew on longer than it needed. Big Mac thought it would be best that everyone should leave and let the two of them hash things out. "Well, how about I show you around the rest of the farm while these two work things out, Miss Kelly?"

Again, Kelly couldn't do much to protest. "Chris? You want me to stay?"

Chris hated confrontations, but he didn't want to be looked down upon so much that his friends had to fight his battles for him. "It's fine, Kel. I'm a big boy."

Applejack had faith that she had steered Starlight in the right direction enough that she could handle this without making matters worse. "Well, alright then. When yer both done, or if you need anything, you can give us a holler up in the house. Just follow the trail back up, ya can't miss it."

Big Mac and Kelly parted off from the group going further into the orchard while Applejack trotted back up to the house, leaving the two to stare at each other awkwardly. Neither really knowing what to say or what the other would comment with first.

Since Starlight was the reason they both were there, she took the initiative to be the first to break the silence. "Look, Chris. I'm really sor-"

"It's fine. You're sorry. You apologize. I accept," Chris was quick to say he accepted, but everything about his posture and tone said otherwise. "You don't have to talk to me-"

"No, wait!"

"We don't have to be all buddy-buddy-"

"Chris, just let me apologize! For crying out loud!" Starlight made the switch from hurt to offended. "Do you think this is easy for me? I. Am. Struggling. Here. The only friends I have are ponies who are still afraid I could destroy their world or who used me to get back at Twilight and then tried to shoot herself into the mouth of a manticore! And you!" - She shook her head trying to reign in her frustrations from the complete lack of guidance on how to deal with this whole situation. - "I can barely handle figuring out how friendship is supposed to work, and then you all show up out of nowhere, practically making friends by just saying "Hello, I'm lost!', and then hint that you might want to be more than friends? Yes. It creeped me out and made me freak out at the idea of some alien creature maybe wanting to be," - She gritted her teeth thinking about the possibilities her fears could have manifested as - "more than friends with me... I'm a terrible pony and a failure as a friend. I can't even begin to comprehend how much of that I wouldn't be able to manage. Or even worse, how bad I'd screw it up and probably hurt you in the fallout!"

The rant only seemed to pester Chris even further. "What do you want me to say?" - He raised his arms to his side, presenting the world around them that was void of a proper response to her struggles - "What am I supposed to do, now?"

"I don't know!" Starlight hollered back at him. "We're supposed to talk... I think. Right?"

Chris shrugged obnoxiously.

The careless response did not improve Starlight's outlook. "Oh, come on! You know practically everything there is to know about us and how our world works. Right? You certainly know more than I do."

"I thought I did," Chris shot back.

"Wait," Starlight called out, looking like she was holding something back. "Let me start over because this clearly isn't working."

To Chris's surprise, Starlight turned around and trotted off. For a moment he wondered if she meant she was literally going to start over by walking back up to him and start the conversation over with a 'Good Morning,' and everything. Whatever her plan was, he was going to find out in just a moment.

Starlight trotted back up to Chris with a sack she hovered over in her aura. "Okay, Chris," - She maneuvered the sack out in front of him, making what sounded like glass bottles clink together inside - "I would like to apologize for the awful things I said about you last night. I already explained to you why I said those mean things, but to prove that I'm serious about trying to make this up to you, I made you a gift."

Chris gazed in utter amazement as his bottle of vodka from the house levitated out of the bag and was presented to him at eye level. "Wow, Starlight. You went through all the trouble of not only stealing my only bottle of good vodka I have left, you even managed to give it back to me as a gift... Unwrapped, even... Awesome."

"Weeeeeeell, that's the thing, ya see," Starlight answered back with an all too pleased with herself smile. "That's not your bottle of vodka, Chris. This is."

From the sack, more clinks and clanks chimed out as another bottle of his favorite vodka rose out. The only difference being that this one had a bow tied around the stem of its neck. "Where did you get this from? I only had one bottle."

Starlight had a more honest smile now that her backup plan seemed to be working. "Oh, no place special. Just the same place I got these other two bottles."

The sack fell freely to the ground, revealing two more identical bottles to Chris. He had trouble believing what he was seeing. It had to be some kind of trick.

"Soooooo," - Starlight looked down to the ground and rolled a loose apple under her hoof before tapping it away - "it's kind of against the rules to use duplication spells on high-value items." She raised her head up to Chris again - "And I didn't check, but it might also be illegal in Ponyville. But that might be only if I try to sell it. Regardless!... I gathered that you really like this drink. And since we don't know how to make it ourselves... I thought that I would try to make another bottle, or three, for you. At least the only way I thought I could."

"Alright, I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" Starlight asked a bit puzzled. "I'm the one who needs to apologize. You've been nothing but kind and accepting of us. Not to mention helpful. I was the one that-"

"Would it help if I said I don't blame you for what you did?" Chris asked bluntly.

There had to have been some miscommunication between these two, Starlight thought to herself. She stared the human down accusingly. "You're messing with me right now, aren't you?"

"Alright, time for the old confession and pep talk conclusion to this conflict." - Chris moved over to the nearest apple tree - "Have a seat, and I'll have some liquid encouragement to help me spit this out."

Starlight raised a questioning eye. "You're going to spit out my drink just to spite me?"

"No," Chris stammered out while he took a seat to rest against the tree. "I'm going to sample your bootleg vodka, treat this whole misunderstanding between us just like an episode would play out-"

"Again with the show about us?"

"Fine," He cracked open the bottle and snuck a gulp of the crystal clear alcohol before continuing. "I'll treat this like it were any other day in Ponyville where two ponies don't get along and have to work out their differences."

Despite the good intentions from Chris, Starlight saw this as being unabashedly forced. "I can't tell if you're being painfully sincere or obnoxiously sarcastic right now."

Chris had to ponder his words for a moment before answering her. "Probably both. But!... Do you know why I was mad about what you said?"

Blunt or sincere, she was back on the spot and was going to feel terrible to have to answer that question. "Because it was mean and-"

"Because I'm so sick and tired of hearing it." He answered in that voice someone makes when they try to sound happy, but it still comes off as bottled up anger being repressed. "I'm creepy. I'm weird. I'm too quiet; there must be something wrong with me. 'Oh no. I hope he doesn't like me. I don't ever want to talk to him." He finished with a mock female voice.

Starlight raised a hoof to her chest, finally starting to feel where he was coming from; an outcast. Rejected as she had felt before. "Chris, there is no way I could have known you'd been treated like that."

"And you know what's worse?" He asked pointing his finger at her from his hand holding the bottle. "You know what was the worst part about me hearing you say that?"

"Chris, I-"

"It meant that every hope and dream, every fucking fantasy I ever had about this impossible reality?… Of being here in this world? It was dead." He ended that statement so matter of factly that Starlight thought he must have felt that his words would end the conversation. "Even with Applejack inviting me out here just so she could do you a favor," - He took another drink, tilting the bottle back hard - "Ugh... It's just the same miserable life as back home."

"Applejack didn't invite you here so I could apologize to you, Chris," Starlight addressed him, a ring of compassion in her voice. "I set all this up this morning. Coming out to talk to her brother early in the morning to ask- Well, first I had to apologize profusely to Big Mac for a spell I cast on him-"

"Yeah, I have that scene on my phone. I saw it."

Insult to injury, meet Starlight Glimmer. "... Yes. Splendid... But after I did that, I had to convince him that I was serious about trying to make this right between him and me by agreeing to do his chores so he could have the day off, before that he wouldn’t let me have the chance to apologize to you. The, uh... The vodka thing was more of a last minute idea." - She brought up one of the duplicated bottles and examined it - "And I must still be exhausted after jumping in to help all the others use the elements. I tell ya, it was so hard using my magic to fly in fast enough and sneak in to grab the bottle as you were leaving and still make it back here in time to probably break the law with my spell and still finish gathering all these apples in time."

"Well," Chris examined the quality of her work in his bottle. "You did a bang up job on it." He finished with taking another drink.

Ignoring his compliment, Starlight started to walk closer to this perplexing figure before she took a seat herself, directly in front of him. "And what did you mean all your hopes and dreams died?"

Chris recapped his bottle, letting it fall and roll off to his side. His face started to give way from the anger and frustration to something much sadder. "You have no idea how badly I wanted this to happen. How much I had to fight to not let my friends know how happy I was to end up here. That it was all of you I would have the chance to meet."

"And you have. You've even met Princess Celestia. Had breakfast and spent the whole day with her. I don't know how many ponies besides Twilight can even say that." She tried to be encouraging, but her efforts all seemed to fail to hit their mark.

"But I can't enjoy it," His face started to flush with red, and his eyes were slowly starting to shimmer as the tears built up. "My fantasy was to be here. Alone. Not with my friends here to judge me."

Starlight wasn't getting it. "I can't imagine your friends to be the kind that would judge you. They... really seem to care about you."

"They would judge me the same way you judged me. Like Twilight did," - Another bout of anger rose up in Chris as more of his resentment started to show through - "And even after you all had your magic exhaustion. All of you needed help or a shoulder to cry on, and all of you found one of us to latch onto. Except for you, and except for me.... fuck this place."

"No. Don't be like that. We didn't know you all that well when you said... those things. They all just came out wrong, so we thought that you were..." Her lips suddenly grew still as she observed Chris's expression change again. It wasn't anger or sadness. It was a deep hurtful shame that he must have been hiding all this time, and she couldn't begin to process what was going on in his mind or how to approach this. So she just stood there, dumbfounded with the realization that her initial overreaction, of a fear that he was attracted to them, was true.

Chris was about to reach his breaking point. The sole brony of the group who lived up to the stereotype of wanting to be with a cartoon pony character. Only now, he was too scared to make any attempt on his desires in fear of the consequences from his only friends finding out. But that would only have been if he hadn't found himself reliving his same shortcomings from the world he left. Even here in Equestria, the land of friendship and unity between all intelligent species, he was rejected before he could even try. Dejection knew no boundaries or limitations.

Surrounded by friends, or living among the fantasy characters he dreamed he could meet, he was still doomed to be alone. He raised his knees up to his body and laid his arms on them so he could bury his face out of sight to hide the tears fighting their way out from all of his disappointments billowing up on him again.

"I don't get it," Chris grumbled through his arms. "Even Sniff has some of you wanting to be around him. And he's been the biggest asshole of any of us since we got here. I've been as nice as possible, did everything I could to be helpful, but all of you just want to keep me at arm's length away or out of sight."

There was no response from Starlight. She offered no support or rebuttal to his claims. It was only the sound of her magic flaring up and the sloshing of liquid in a bottle that finally drew Chris out of hiding. He looked up to see Starlight looking almost as distraught as he was, raising one of the bootleg bottles of vodka she made. The cap of the bottle slowly twisted off and was discarded carelessly behind her.

"What are you doing?" Chris asked, unsure as to why she would want to drink.

"Don't drink alone," Her response was very soft-spoken through her depressed state but showed a weak smile as she turned to him again. "You need a friend... That's what Sniff said to you the first time we all met. Right?"

The likelyhood that Starlight was being legitimate with him started to look like a real possibility to Chris. That perhaps this wasn't all lip service and obligations. Maybe he had been too harsh and quick to dismiss her.

"Look, I don't know what to tell you about how every other pony thinks about you. But none of them hate you if that's what you think. And Applejack really does seem to care about you for some reason," - She raised the bottle and took a long drink herself - "I don't know what you did or said to win her over, but she really laid into me hard last night after we left. She seemed to know a lot more about how unhappy you are than I could have. And since you know so much about us, I imagine you know that I'm no stranger to being alone or feeling unwanted."

Chris leaned over and grabbed his bottle, cracking it open again. "You and me," - He raised his bottle as a toast - "Just a couple of undesirables trying to win over other ponies because our lives suck, just to have our plans fall apart and end up being won over by the pony that hurt us the most."

"That's not-" She thought about the timeline of events between them. All of the kind things he had tried to do for her. Heck, he even saved her a verbal lashing by lying to Celestia. Did she even thank him for that? Regardless, she wounded him, for sure. The heart can hurt more than the body of which it lives in. But being won over? Even still, she didn't know how to feel about such an analogy. "Are you seriously comparing what happened between me and Twilight to me and you?"

Chris shrugged. "Well, outside of having a musical cult, nearly destroying your world, and singing about how great friends are... Okay, I see your point." - He looked to his bottle and then to her with an apologetic grin - "Cheers anyway?"

Starlight stared deadpanned at the fool that sat before her. That was until she felt a twinge on the corner of her lips. She tried to fight it, tried to be serious, wanted to be angry, but those muscles that pulled the edges of her lips up couldn't be stopped and left her grinning. That grin was short lived as her lips grew tighter with a broad smile and she struggled even harder to repress the urge to laugh, but all was lost. She doubled over and rolled from side to side. "I can't believe you! You're the first one I've met who hasn't used my history of horrible choices against me or as an insult."

She rolled upright, lying her chest flat on the grass but her hips angled off just enough to be an accidentally erotic pose to any adventurous eye. "You didn't make any of that up, did you?"

His bottle lowered again, cutting short what was probably another two shots worth of vodka down his throat. "I might have embellished how I felt a bit, but I didn't lie about any of it."

As funny as that turn around had been, she tried to be a bit more serious again. "Well, I didn't lie either, especially about wanting to make it up to you. And if you're willing to accept me with my past as it is, while not walking on eggshells about it, I think I can get over the whole wanting to have a special somepony dream of yours. I mean, come on. I doubt going out on a date with a mare will wipe out Equestria."

"Knowing me, it probably won't have her singing about it either." Chris scoffed.

Starlight could see the humor in his self deprecating jokes. "Oh, please. I think you're being too hard on yourself, Christh... Curr-iss... Chris... Why am I talking funny?"

"How much have you had to drink?"

She started to float the bottle over to him. "I dunno? How much is this?"

He grabbed the bottle and did his best to guess. If the bottle was full when she opened it, she must have had four or five shots worth. "For a newbie lightweight like yourself?... enough."

"Are you telling me I can't have anymore?" She whined.

"Depends, do you plan on walking back home? Like Applejack had to?"

"Not really," - Her horned glowed and grabbed the bottle again, pulling it out of Chris's hand - "But drinking together is what friends are for," -She went to tip the bottle again but stopped before taking her next drink - "or something."

"Sure, well go with that," Chris said, raising his bottle to hers for a cheers.

The effects of the liquid courage started to add a little bravery to Starlight. "What's so bad about wanting to enjoy yerself here that your friends would judge you for it?"

"Because humans only socially and romantically interact with other humans. It's considered a mental illness, or a crime in some ways, where I come from. And before you ask any 'why' questions, understand that all other species on my planet are not sapient creatures that share a common language. Probably not even Fluttershy would be able to communicate with them," - He thought for a moment on any in-world comparisons he could make - "Imagine a pet here, like Owlowiscious or Winona, but not enough brainpower to understand words or concepts."

"Oh..." That painted a better picture for Starlight. "I guess that would be weird."

"Yeah," Chris took another drink and wiped his mouth clean. "So they'd probably say things like I was using all of you as an excuse to pursue some gross fantasy of loving an animal. Which I'm not, and obviously you're not an animal."

"So, I have to ask you now," Starlight proposed a question, hoping to understand more of where he was coming from. "Can I ask just why you choose to tell me all this? Were you mad and that's why? Did you know it would make things better, or is this just the way you humans do things?"

That last part seemed to come out of nowhere for Chris, but it didn't distract him enough that he couldn't answer her question. "I was mad when we started, but I also had a hunch that if I was just brutally honest, that would force the conflict resolution. That's how it always works here. But what do you mean by 'the way humans do things?"

Yet another sip of her own goods flared up some red in Starlight's cheeks. "I dunno. It seems like all your friends picked a pony to trade secrets with or talk about private things. And you did the same thing with me. Is that normal?"

It would seem that Chris had been far too distracted to notice how deep all the connections were made between his friends and the other ponies. "Not really?" His answer immediately fell flat on his one-mare audience. "At least not this fast. Certainly not with my friends."

"Oh," Starlight thought it best just to chalk it up to the power of friendship, as corny as it was. "Then let me ask you a different question... Why us? Why ponies?"

Chris raised his bottle to take another drink but hesitated. He lowered the bottle with his thoughts that weighed heavily on his mind. "Because I hate my life and practically everything about it. I'm lonely and... I just want someone to love me for who I am," - He made some odd gesture with his hands, like he was trying to think of some complex solution to his thoughts, but couldn't - "I thought a pony would be able to look past all my faults. See the kind of person that I am on the inside. Fall in love with that... not just what they see on the outside."

"Is that not how it works where you come from?"

"Only in the stories we tell," Chris finally took that drink he held back from. "Most people are shallow where I come from. Even ugly people won't date each other half the time."

"What about the other half of the time?"

"They break up."

"Have you ever even gone out for a date?"

"Yes."

"Well, how'd that go?"

Capping his bottle, his agitation showed itself again. "She never showed up... So I ate dinner alone, watched the movie alone, and went home." - He sat the bottle in his lap, wondering why he decided to drink so much so fast this early in the morning. "It took her two weeks to text me." - Catching himself using a human tech term, he quickly adjusted to grab his phone and show it to her - "Sorry. A text is just a short message that I can have someone send me on this. Just like how Spike sends Celestia letters. Anyway, she asked if I was mad at her. Didn't even apologize for standing me up."

It was becoming more apparent to see why Chris felt the way he did. He'd given up. Though if his stories were true, it wasn't easy to blame him. "You know. I don't know if I should be admitting this, but I think if you actually talked more openly, and not just about magic and our history, you probably could find a special somepony here -" She took another gulp from her bottle, causing her to try and shake the drunkenness from her head reactively. "Wow does this stuff perks you up fast. Ooph... But, yeah. There are a lot of single mares out here."

Was that a green light for Chris, or did Starlight even have any authority to allow him to do so? His thoughts were interrupted as she spoke to him again.

"Although, probably don't want to get too attached," Her words started to slur together, just ever so slightly. "Who knows when we can get you all back to yer world."

And there went Chris's aspirations. "True... "

Starlight suddenly remembered Celestia's warning and realized that she was giving advice that might not pan out, only to turn around to try to talk him out of it. "So maybe don't get your hopes up too high. But I'm also not saying don't try. You can, just..."

"You're running me in circles GlimGlam," Chris jokingly protested.

She tried to get a better fix on her thought process, but the alcohol was making it difficult. "I know. I'm sorry. -" She groaned loudly. - "I don't know now if I should be encouraging you or... I'm terrible at this."

"Not really," Chris offered to her, nonchalantly. "No worse than me. At least you're trying. Not that I'm a high bar to pass."

"No, Chris. You have," - She started a drunken crawl over to Chris's side and reached a hoof up to rest it on his knee - "You tried really hard. You just, -" After drinking as she had, moving around presented a whole new challenge she was going to have to get adjusted to - "oh my goodness... You just need to put yurself, ya know. Out there, more."

"Oh my god, Starlight. You're drunk."

"Hey-" she jabbed him in the side. "Don't go try 'na change the subject we're talkinga bout. En hey. Trixie's gone now. So I need new friends too. An-and, we had a rea-he-he-eeeeeeealy rocky start. But we're good now." - She raised her bottle again, looking ready to have another drink - "We're even drinkin tagether now."

Chris grabbed the bottle out of the air before she could do more damage to her liver. "Okay, little pony lady. I think you've about had your fill."

"Hey! No!" She raised her voice while pawing her forehoof at his arm to lower the bottle. "I need a friend. Drink with me."

"Starlight, it is way too early to be this drunk-"

Starlight's voice made a curious shift to something unmistakably seductive. "Hey."

Chris couldn't believe what he was hearing. What kind of evil trick were the magic bottles of booze doing to them now? He looked down to her smiling at him. If she wasn't so drunk, it probably would have looked flirty instead of goofy. Despite the delivery, the intention behind it had him locked onto her, waiting to hear whatever demand or request she would have next.

"I like this feeling. Drink with me... please?" She batted her large drunken eyes, which even still managed to give off some illusion of desire. Probably fake, but still nothing he could turn down.

"Jesus Christ, I'm going to hell for this," Chris spoke out loud before tilting the bottle back for a good long chug. Not wanting to get drunk, but trying to leave less for the drunk tease pawing for the bottle again.

Starlight playfully laughed as she retook control of the bottle. "Ha ha! Let's party. Just me and you. Oops! -" She cupped her hooves over her mouth and looked from side to side - "Can't say that word too loud," She whispered. "The pink one could hear us."

Pinkie Pie was overloading another cupcake with frosting. "Okay, Misses Cake. I think this is the last batch-" Her body tensed up like she bit into a live wire, forcing the remainder of the frosting to drown the Berry Cherry Sunshine Cupcake in a mound of pure diabetes - "Who said that?!"

A pair of shutters on the back side of the bakery flung open with Pinkie's head bursting through. "Who said it! You know who you are!"

Starlight shuttered with a force akin to someone stepping out of a frozen pond.

Chris looked up through the trees. "Did you hear someone yell for us?"

Starlight wasted no time to steal away another long sip. "I hope not."

He could have sworn he heard a voice. "I can't help but feel like the longer I stay here, the less I really understand about how this place works."

"So dis thing here," - She poked at his smartphone - "What ez it really? What all can it do?"

Chris removed the bottle from Starlight's hold again. "Hold off on the drinking while I go over this. This... Well... it used to be able to connect to other phones so I could talk or send messages. I could also, uh... view information on it? Kind of like pulling the words of books through the air, or make music and movies show on its' screen."

"So kinde like... yer kinda human magic?"

"Let's go with that for now," - Chris thought of something that could act as a far better distraction - "Actually, I can show you something that you might recognize."

"Waz that? You got sum human magic in there to show me?"

Starlight struggled to keep up with his hand motions as he moved his fingers over the screen. Colors and words streamed across the screen, but she couldn't focus well enough to understand what she was seeing. Finally, the screen showed a cartoon picture of a blue unicorn with glasses in mid-swing with his tail raised up behind him and musical notes floating up above him splashed onto the screen.

Something near the bottom of the screen was moving, and as it moved she started to hear her own voice over a musical backdrop. Then Twilight's voice spoke to her.

"I never thought that I would find a place. To step right in and start again," She started to sing the words to her own song.

"You like it?"

"This is my song!" She exclaimed, smiling like an excited child on Christmas. "It's el lot more upbeat, and itz got that beat. Doot-doot-doot-doot-doot." Her beatboxing skills needed work, but Chris could forgive her in her inebriated state. "We didn't have all da extra music when we sang et. Theis version iz muuuuuch beder... Can I have et?"

Chris snorted with a laugh. "The phone stays with me. But I'll see what I can do."

"Gimme here," She beckoned while she tried to grab the phone with her hooves.

"No. You'll break it with yer hooves."

Just as Chris moved the phone out of her reach, his hand holding the it was empty. In a panic, he pushed the drunken unicorn just far enough away to keep her at bay so he could look for his phone. He could hear the music still playing, but it was now coming from just behind Starlight and her giggles. He looked to see that she had managed to focus her magic enough to teleport it out of his hand and into her control.

She shot a look at him that was half ecstatic and half mentally unstable, all beaten and molded together with half a bottle of Grey Goose. "Dun worry. I'm just wanna my song to have. Yul see."

All Chris could do was stare onward at the light that surrounded his phone and Starlight's horn. With Starlight’s power gathering, she squinted her eyes to focus, nearly falling face forward in the process before the magic flashed away with a snap in the air.

The phone fell from her hold, as it was no longer needed, and landed safely in the grass.

"Ah ha!" She proclaimed proudly. "Told ya I cud do et!"

Where the phone had been held in the air just moments ago, a shimmering spark of light held itself perfectly still in the air.

"What... what did you do?"

Drunk Starlight glared with her mouth hanging open, looking like she was surprised he didn't know. "It's moi song." She pointed a hoof up to it, shaking her hoof as she explained. "Dhat's my song. I just need somethin to play it in.. Awe nuts... I don't have any gems er crystals. Wait! We av shiny apples!"

She looked to one of the many barrels of apples and floated over the shiniest one she could make out of the bunch, raising it up to the spark. Her horn glowed again, and her magic forced the spark and apple to swirl closer and closer together, spinning in a quickly shrinking orbit until they were joined together.

"There," She proudly proclaimed. "Watch, an be amazed."

She rubbed her hoof over its ruby coated surface, and it began to vibrate and music played from the fruit.

Chris was impressed, but also not impressed. "That's Tombstone's remix of Pinkie's Smile Song."

"Wut the," She stared at the apple and roughly tapped it. "Okay. Watch d’this time."

Another song, another miss for Chris to call out. "That's a song about Trixie, and you're not even playing the songs from the beginning."

"I-I got it this time," She nervously scolded him while instead of touching it, she used her horn to try and control the musical apple.

The song switched to the deep voice of a man talking. His voice was soothing, alluring, and was narrating to the soft sounds of some synth accompanied jazz music playing in the background. "- believing that this is some crazy dream that you are having; that you are still on that train to Trottingham, and will simply wake up before it gets really interesting-"

If Chris had eaten more than just the two muffins that morning, he probably would have shit his pants. "Still not your song. Change it!"

Angered by her lack of fruitful results, she removed the glow and dropped the apple next to her sack she brought the bottles in. "It'll werk later."

"Yeah, I'm sure it will," Chris stated carelessly as he flipped through his phone to find something else to distract her with. "If you like that song, I got a bunch of other s-ow!-" He winced and recoiled back from a glowing vodka bottle being tapped against his face - "The fuck, Glimmer?"

Starlight was swaying as she stood before Chris, waving back and forth ever so slightly as her sense of balance was still on the decline. "We're drinking! Remember?" - She sloshed the contents of the bottle in front of him and did her best to give him a seductive grin - "Dun't you want me as yeur pony drin-" She hickuped as any comical cartoon character would when this sloshed. - 'king special pon- I mean, pony buddy. Special buddy. Drinking..."

Here laid a dilemma for Chris. Starlight couldn't be left alone in her current condition, but she also didn't seem to want to leave. Even worse, she was all but stumbling drunk, but she was also really warming up to him in the process.

It was still too early to tell if she was legitimately hitting on him even or just teasing him with flirts to keep him from wanting to leave, though he was too emotionally weak to walk away even if it was all a facade. However, he had hastily guzzled plenty more than she had and wasn't too many shots away from being just as far from sober as she was.

In the end, Chris couldn't pass up the chance for whatever this foolish choice was going to reward him with. "Only if you're serious about starting over and really do want to try being friends. Not because AJ or Twilight told you to, but because you want to."

"Yes," She answered, looking as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She was practically glowing.

That was good enough for him. "Alright. Friendship is magic. Starring Chris Breslin and Starlight Glimmer. Take two."

Such a cheesy joke, and being well over the legal blood alcohol limit Ponyville was going to need implement into law after this, got Starlight laughing hysterically. "Wut? Are we movie starz now?-" She stood up on her hind legs, a bit shaky at first, but took a dramatic pose with a fencing sword she fashioned out of her magic and held towards him - "My name iz Starlight Glimmer. Euw drank my vodka. Prepare to dine."

The parody of the famous scene from The Princess Bride was nearly perfect to the movie. Good enough to get him laughing at the mis-quote at the end of it. "It's 'prepare to die,' not 'dine."

Her face turned to a mix of excited fear and sorrow. She lowered the tip of the sword into the grass and leaned on it. "No, no, no, no, Chris. The bad guy had ta die. Not you."

Without warning, the magic sword cracked and burst into a small cloud of magical dust, letting Starlight fall face first to the ground."Owf!..." She didn't move after she landed. To her, it was like her body was recalibrating itself to figure out how to move again. At least she could still speak, and her muffled words worked their way through the blades of grass. "Owwww... Concenturating is so hard like this.... I broke my sword..."

It was hard not to laugh at the sight of Starlight resting her neck and chin on the ground, her front legs stretched out under her, and her rear legs locked up straight which kept her ass stuck up in the air. By some unknown force of might or luck, Chris managed to add insult to injury the mockery of laughter. "Can you get up?

"Of course I can. Wanna fight about it?" Starlight barked from her uncomfortable position. "Ha, just joke 'n. I like you too much."

Her body vanished with a spark of light and a magical pop of the air. She flashed back in next to Chris, but somehow got the location wrong enough that it left her a good eight inches off the ground. The distance was quickly closed up as her rump crashed down to Earth. The drop surprised her, and she yelped. When she landed, the jolt forced out a small belch. Wide-eyed and embarassed, she covered her mouth, but the taste that came up from her throat removed the embarrassment.

"Oh ma gosh," She tried not to gag. ."That taste so bad."

She felt something soft and warm grab onto her shoulder. It was Chris's hand, there to provide some comfort and support.

"You gonna throw up? He asked coyly.

"No... am I supposed to?"

"Only if you drink too much too fast."

"Oh..." She swayed slightly, even with his support. She had to ponder a series of equations to gauge how much she had consumed in... she couldn't recall how much time had gone by since they started drinking. So, the next thought was how she felt. The answer? Awesome.

If she was fine, she had to know how he was doing and nudged his side to get his attention. "Hey... You gonna throw up?"

"Nah. I'm good."

Two nearly empty bottles floated up, one for each of them. She raised both her forelegs in a victorious display of celebration. "Then we continue on! More music! More drinking! Let's see those Happy Smiles!"

Chris fought through his laughter to try and reign her back in. "Hey now. None of that, you!"

Together they laughed and toasted to each other with their bottles. Chris woke his phone and went to the first pony song he could think of to kick off this party for two. "This song was a big hit for us long before you showed up, but I'll have to explain who Ferris Bueller is later. Just know that he's a cool guy that skips school when he wants to." He hit play.

Granny Smith sat a dirty plate that was missing a large chunk near the sink. "I'm sorry again about only having one dish and the sad state of our dinner wear."

Lumberman leaned on the table he managed to temporarily piece together and sat in a currently three-legged chair. "Granny, you got nothing to apologize for. And honestly, it's all of us who are in debt to you."

Granny managed to restrain herself and not admit that he was right. Southern hospitality and all. "Pish posh. T'aint nothin bout a house or what's in it that's more important than the ponies that live in it. Or the humans that come to visit, as it were."

"I appreciate that, ma'am," Lumberman thanked her with a grin and a nod.

"Everything in this here kitchen can be repaired and replaced. Celestia knows how many times I've had to with youngsters like Applejack and Big Mac-" She pulled up another busted chair and joined him at the table and sighed pleasantly as she thought back to all the shenanigans they'd pulled on her in the past - "Ahh. The stories I could tell. But anywho. You there mister took good care of my sweet little Applejack and Macintosh. You can't replace family."

"Not the ones you like at least," Lumberman joked.

Surprisingly, Granny took the joke in strides, enough laughed a bit along with him. "Well, as terrible as it is to say so, I've seen it myself, so I can't say yer lying bout dat."

"Yeah..." Lumberman admitted, looking down into his cup of coffee. "Been there myself, too."

Hoof steps made the two in the room aware of Applejack's return. "Granny, would you stop yacking the poor guy's ear off and let'm eat in peace?"

Granny took offense to her pleasantries being viewed as anything other than a common courtesy and a pleasure to be shared. "Humpf. I'll have you know Mr. Lumberman here is quite capable of carrying on a conversation with a meal. A meal he has already finished up, mind you."

"Oh really?" She hiked up a dusty old box with rolled up papers on the table before shooting a glance over to him. "What ya think of Granny's quiche? Not what you were expecting, huh?

"Hey, I never had quiche before or even knew what it was. But a man never turns down a free meal. Know what I'm saying?"

Applejack chuckled at the way he liked to answer things sometimes. "Heh, yeah. I hear ya. But I think I found what you were asking fer."

"Lemme see," Lumberman asked, grabbing one of the large sheets of paper and unrolled it. "Uhh... Yeah. This is one of 'em, but this is for the east facing wall, I think. I need the north facing wall."

Despite having hooves, Applejack seemed to have no issue flipping through the pages. "Barn. Barn. Doghouse. Henhouse. Barn. Roof. Ah, here it is. It's got the windows lined up like only the back side of the house does, ya see?"

She spread the large sheet of paper with construction plans on it over the well-fractured table. Granny peaked over to get an eye full, vaguely remembering when she first saw those plans. Lumberman stood up and walked around the table to get a better view, but didn't seem too excited about what he saw.

"Wha'cha think? Think you can rebuild from this?" Applejack asked, excited to see how fast he could put together the repairs with these plans.

"I could," Lumberman said, sounding with a tone of disapproval. "But I don't think I'd want to."

"What? Why not,-" Applejack started to point the drawing. "We've been living in this here house for generations. What could possibly be wrong with it?"

Lumberman stood up and looked to the large hole in the ceiling. "Well, I can see this place must have been here for generations - " He pointed up to the boards running lengthwise above the ceiling and under the second story floor - " You got five pieces of lumber tacked on to the old busted floor joist. Whoever built the floor only used what looks like untreated lumber. I mean, it's an old house, so that makes sense. But the lumber is all one by...-" He pulled out a tape measurer and worked it up along the busted piece of wood - "Yeah. Them are all one by fives spaced at least eighteen inches apart. Lumber like that ain't made for supporting that kind of weight. That's why the floor was dipping, and they had to add so much extra timber underneath. I imagine the support beam running over the center of the house was too big, too. That's why there's a tilt to the floor in this room."

For all the good Lumberman provided, Applejack didn't like him talking down the quality of their construction. "Well, that's just how us Apples do our build'n. From houses to barn raisen's, y'all ways gotta have a strong center to support what yer build'n."

Lumberman looked to the pieces of lumber behind the tarp that covered the hole in the wall. "Well, yeah. For a barn that's fine. You don't have indoor plumbing and weight bearing walls to worry about. Your floor joists should be two by sixes with a twelve-inch gap. And it looks like your walls don't have the two by fours evenly spaced. And why do the walls have a two inch width but the floors only have one?"

The stubbornness in Applejack was starting to rear its ugly head. "Well, as I said, that's just the way us Apples-"

"How hard is it to do it your way, Mr. Lumberman?" Granny asked with a smile, intentionally cutting off Applejack.

Grateful for avoiding a needless argument, Lumberman turned his attention back to Granny. "Not hard at all. This is what I do for a living. I can easily fix up a lot of this myself. Might need help with a few support beams I'd like to run across. But after that, putting in some new insulation and drywall is a snap."

"Hmm. I see," Granny uttered like she was in deep thought. "Welp, that sounds good to me. How's about you whip up some of them fancy drawings and swing by my hotel when you got the estimates for the job all worked out."

She then stood up and shook his hand. "It was nice meeting ya. But I had my fill of this place for the day and could use a nap, so I'll be heading back for now." Granny let his hand go before he could even accept taking payment for the job, which he wasn't going to charge for anyway.

Applejack couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Granny!"

Granny snapped back around with the kind of stare you know not to talk back to. "What? How many times you and Big Mac want to keep bringing half the clan over to raise these walls again? And how many times you and yer brother already had to pay me back or work off replacing another wall?"

"But-but-but Granny?"

"But nothing, missy," Granny fired back with a scowl. "Dis here house is still in my name. I own it, and I got a letter from Princess Luna herself that says I'll be covered fer whatever the cost is to have it fixed. And if he can fix this ol heap of a home up so that I'm not freezing my flanks off this winter, you better believe I'll let the princesses pay top bit to keep me warm come Hearths Warming."

Applejack could see this battle was lost before it even started and surrendered her cause. "Yes, Granny."

"Hmph," Granny grunted as she continued back out to the front door. "Dang youngsters. Think they own the place and are gonna buck me outta uh warm winter house."

Her grumblings continued as she made her exit and they all slowly faded out to the sounds of an empty house, minus Lumberman and Applejack, of course. Applejack returned to her seat in the kitchen. A little upset with herself for getting as angry as she did. Though she was also sad knowing that part of her home might end up losing part of its heritage.

"Problem?" Lumberman finally asked.

"No."

"You lying?"

"... yeah."

Lumberman took the last sip of his coffee before trying to approach his next set of questions. "You don't like my idea for how to fix your house, or you just don't want me to be the one to fix it?"

"No. Nothing like that. Not really." Applejack admitted. "It's just... We Apples have a certain way of doing things. We ain't changed 'em for generations. And this house. It holds our legacy, and I don't want to see it changed."

"That makes sense," Lumberman said, trying to keep some common ground with her. "But it's like your Granny said. It's not the house or what's inside it that really matters. It's who's inside it."

Applejack hated that she was going to concede to them. "Yer right. I just don't want to give up all the memories I still have locked up in this old place. Some of those memories are the kind I can't even share with the ponies I made them with."

Hidden somewhere in that exchange was an all too familiar sound that told him what her real issue was. "Would I be wrong to guess to say that these memories are of your parents?"

"I...-" She sighed, not wanting to start up any kind of argument with him - "Is it that easy to see through me like that?"

"Just a good guess."

Applejack knew she couldn't fight it, but she didn't want to leave the topic just yet. Too much weighing down on her that she wanted to get off her chest. "Well, aren't there things about those you lost that you would hate to see changed. Things that you see and can remember the good times with 'em?"

Being honest about that meant revisiting some memories that still felt raw. "Yeah. I know what you mean. My dad...-" He paused as he remembered one of the last times he saw his father - "Uh. Yeah. He was a big sports guy, and every year it started to get cold, he had this badass looking leather jacket for the Colts-" He chuckled at that, realizing where he was- "Irony. Right? But yeah, he said he stole it from Peyton Manning, their star quarterback. I doubt he did. But he made it sound so cool. Like he really did."

"I'm guessing you really liked it, huh?"

"Apple Hat," He said with an honest smile. "I loved that jacket. And every year, as soon as it started to get cold, I'd sneak into his room, take it, and hide it in my closet. He'd let me hold onto it for a few days, or till it started to get really cold, and he needed it. Then he'd just barge into my room, take it out of the closet, button it up in front of me, and tell me to steal my own jacket if I wanted one so badly. 'I stole this one fair and square,' he would say."

Applejack rubbed her hoof along the brim of her hat, understanding the attachment to certain clothes and how they are connected to those who used to own them. "Do you still have it?"

Lumberman's expression changed. The whimsical smile was washed over by resentment. "Nah... Never got to wear it after my dad was killed. My selfish bitch of a mother sold it. Told me she didn't know I wanted it. Which was a fucking lie. But to make it better, she said she sold it so she could buy me a new better jacket... you wanna guess what she never got me?"

It was a rhetorical question she didn't need to answer, the knowledge of that truth made her decide not to bring up her own hand-me-down hat she still wore. "I think I know. And I'm sorry she gone done did that to ya. Doing that and then lying about it. Why that's lower than a snake's belly slithering under Ghastly Gorge."

So put off by remembering his families past, he picked up his coffee cup, only to put it back down when he saw again that it was still empty. "Tell me about it. Only things she didn't sell of his was some pictures. Course, all those are back home... Fuck." Lumberman ended that on a sour note, like he just realized something was wrong.

Applejack took in everything and could see something had him upset. "That's the really bad word. What's wrong?"

Lumberman shook his head, the same way someone does when they know they just got fucked. "I'm willing to bet all my shit back home is gone. I don't know how long a person has to be missing to be declared dead, but I wouldn't put it past her to have already picked my place clean."

"What the?" Applejack was surprised by such a claim. "You saying she ain't gonna wait to see if you're okay. She probably don't even know where you were taken off to."

That wasn't a joke, but it might as well have been one for Lumberman. "Pft. My mother cares only about herself. She stopped pretending to care about me when I stopped supporting her money-grubbing ass. Both her and my sister."

This was a rough subject to cover, but also one she never got into with him. She was curious now. "How big of a family you got? If yer okay with talkin bout 'em."

"If you mean livin relatives, I disowned my ma and sister years ago. My dad's parents are in an old folks home, but they don't even remember who they are anymore. But my family are all here with me, as far as I'm concerned."

Again, Applejack didn't feel like countering his lackluster history with her ever-growing family. "Sorry. This seems like a pretty sore subject to talk about."

He had to agree. Just talking about it had him even madder than when Applejack came back telling him that Kelly and Big Mac wandered off for the day and that she left Chris and Starlight to hash things out. "You're right, but I'll tell ya what. Any work I do on your house will be just to fix up the structure. I'll do everything I can to make sure it looks and feels the same. Besides being warmer in the winter and hopefully less sagging in the floors."

She laughed to herself, thinking about how upset she had gotten over the prospect of no longer having furniture in her house that all sat on a tilt. "You drive a hard bargain, but I'd be hard-pressed not ta trust ya."

Lumberman extended his hand to shake on it. "I won't let ya down, Apple Hat."

She met his hand and confirmed their agreement. "If you treat this house like it were my ass, I know it'll be in good hands."

That caught Lumberman completely off guard, and he cracked up. "Damn it, Apples. Don't be start'n back up on that this early in the day."

Applejack pulled back her hoof and made her way to the counter to grab a notepad. "Alright, alright. It is a bit early in the day, isn't it?"

"Thank you." Lumberman wasn't sure how far things would go if the two of them were going to go back and forth the whole day like they did the other night.

Applejack dropped the note pad in front of Lumberman and looked up to him with a smirk. "How about tonight when I draw us another bath?"

Lumberman moved his eyes from the blank paper to Applejack's shit eating grin. She winked and playfully swatted her tail back and forth like she was cracking a whip.

"Swear ta god, Apples," He fired back, all too willing to play along now. "You don't want me giving in to your temptations. You can't handle all of what I got to give."

"Oh, really?"

Lumberman leaned in a little closer, getting cocky with the persistent pony. "Yeah, really."

Applejack leaned in even farther, happy to have this simple distraction to play with him again. "You find my offers tempting?"

"Yea-I mean, no! Shit!" Lumberman called out, slamming his hands on the table and standing up. "Ya got me. I'm walking. Taking a walk on that one."

Applejack didn't expect him to say that. "Taking a walk? You mean that game y'all friends play? I didn't know I was playing."

"You are now," Lumberman loudly declared as he exited the kitchen.

"Wait! Where ya going?" Applejack shouted back. "I thought you were gonna start writing up stuff to fix the house?"

"I'll do that after the walk. I'm gonna head out back and see how Chris and Starlight Hater are doing. They've been out there for hours."

He was right. They had been gone for more than just a while, and Applejack didn't know if she should be worried or not if they hadn't checked in. Only Celestia could know what kind of damage that mare could do if they got into it with each other. "Well hold on. Don't go wandering off all on your own out there. Ya might get lost." - she trotted out to the living room area to catch him just before he was about to shut the door - "Besides, ya gotta fill me in with the rules of this crazy game 'uh yers if I'm playing along now."

It wasn't too long of a walk out to where the two mismatched pair we left to patch things up. There was just enough time for Lumberman to go over the rules and give a few examples. However, going over the history of the game, Applejack pointed out that the walk away wouldn't be very fun if it were just the two of them like he had walked out on her just prior. He met her halfway, and they agreed if they played, the walk away rule would only be enforced if the joke was 'really good,' or 'Top Shelf' as he put it. The conversation would have continued had it not been for something drifting in the air that caught their attention.

Lumberman took a few hard sniffs, and confirmed his suspicion. “I smell smoke.”

Applejack’s stomach sank. What had she done by leaving those two alone. “Awe, fuck me.”

“Not now, Apple Hat.”

“You know what I mean! I think? Ju- Never mind that! Let’s go!”

Ponies, Bronies, and Vodka... What could go wrong? Well, apparently a lot. But at least it was fun watching her get goofy on the sauce. Gotta wonder how bad things are gonna get. Find out the damage in the next chapter: Straddles and Bed Sheets Confessions

Otherwise, got a nice little look into some of the histories of Chris and Lumberman. Not to mention some quality bonding between their respective counterparts. I still love the chemistry between Applejack and Lumberman, and always have a fun time writing them together.

I'm also putting in more effort by sharing links to the music they share. If you feel like giving the tunes a listen, I think they really help to pass on the atmosphere they create and the message they share when they listen to the music together.

Also, not so proud of the intro art to this chapter. The pencil version came out better in a lot of ways, and my digital line work needs a lot of of.. well.. work... Oh, well. All in due time.

[Easter Egg Spoiler]
For those who might not have caught it, I snuck in a little easter egg that is not easy to pick out unless you really knew the work of either contributor. Regardless, a big thank you to MaxBeezy for letting me pull part of a line from one of his stories, as read by Wuten. Why Chris felt the need to keep that narrated story on his phone is anyone's guess. Either way, it was still good for a laugh.