Cold tile is one of the many things one does not wish to wake up on. This is especially true if the frigidness of the floor is intensified by sore joints, and a throbbing headache. The uncomfortableness is tripled, if there is a distinct taste of stale alcohol hanging in the back of one's mouth. Trixie despised that she could say that she knew this feeling well, but she had never really done anything to stop herself from feeling it either. She could say the same about a lot of the things she had done in her life.

She threw her hoof wildly, trying to get a sense of her location without having to expose her eyes to whatever blinding light she may be near. She swung her hoof violently to her right, and heard the distinct clanking of a glass bottle sliding across a ceramic floor. These two hints gave away where she was: Her kitchen. While the number of kitchens in the city of Fillydelphia with ceramic tiled floors numbered in the thousands, the only one she could see herself passing out on was her own. Whenever she passed out in the house of another, she would always wake up on the sofa: Felt lining had become a very close acquaintance of hers over the past year.

Testing her luck, she placed both of her forelegs beneath her body, and slowly lifter herself. She found that she could hold her weight well enough, and gingerly lifted her hind legs, easing her way into a standing position. She raised a good five inches before stumbling into a nearby counter, her face barely missing the edge of the wooden top. She was lucky that she relied heavily on paper plates and plastic cups: She heard several of them clamor against the floor, but none of them shattered. Leaning against the counter, she avowed that she had drank too much, and promised whatever higher-power was listening, that she would never again consume the monstrous poison. Deep inside, Trixie knew that she would be making this same exact vow in a week's time, but it still gave her some solace: Then again that sense of serenity may have just been the remnants of gin whispering sweet nothings into her ear. Taking a chance, she opened her eyes, and was pleasantly surprised to find that, while she was indeed, in her apartment, the curtains had been drawn. She let her eyes say their thanks, before heading out of the kitchen, tripping over an empty bottle.

In her partially-drunken haze, she managed to stumble to her bathroom. After relieving herself of the demons of the previous night, she trotted over to the mirror, using the base of the sink as a crutch. She looked like a nightmare, as was to be expected after a forgotten night. Her silver mane was strewn about at angles she didn't think were possible, and her blue face was still partially covered in smudged stage-makeup. Black circles hung beneath her eyes, and her pupils were still glassy. Using her magic proved to be a painful task, and brushing her mane took significantly longer than it usually took. Satisfied with her appearance, Trixie left the bathroom, walking in a much straighter line than she had when she entered.

Her apartment was on the small side, and she could get from room-to-room (all three of them) in only two steps. The earnings of a vaudevillian performer were not enough to purchase a luxurious penthouse, or even an average apartment. After her traveling show had been ruined by an incident in a backwoods, hicktown called Ponyville, she had attempted to start over in Manehattan, but found that even the most rundown of tenements were very rough on her coin purse. It got to the point where she had to choose between living in a dilapidated, drug-lord-run apartment complex in a crime-ridden neighborhood, or leaving the city in it's entirety. She chose the latter, and had wound up settling down in Fillydelphia. It wasn't Manehattan, but it was a paycheck, and the monthly-fees for her apartment were far easier to take: At least in Filly she could afford food.

She entered her minuscule bedroom, and found it to be exactly as she had left it: A mess. Trixie was definitely one to keep her image pristine, but that spotlessness only applied to her own physical appearance. Her apartment was typically a mess, mainly because she spent twelve hours a day performing magic-routines in hole-in-the-wall theatres and on random street corners. She would then spend around two hours drinking, and six hours doing Celestia knows what. All in all, her total time spent within her house on any given day was around four hours- five hours on the weekend, if she was lucky. Still, despite all the cons, she was still receiving just as much attention as she had before the Ponyville incident, and that was more than enough to satisfy her.

At some point during the night, she had removed her trademark hat and cape, and tossed them on the bed, adding them to the mountain range of muddled cloth that spanned the entirety of the mattress. Letting out a sigh, she levitated the hat and cape off of the bed, hung them properly on a nearby stand, and straightened them out. The faint sound of rustling cloth could be heard in the room, but Trixie ignored it, assuming it was just the sound of the fabric ironing out. However, her curiosity and fear peaked when the rustling continued after she had seized using her magic. She gulped, turned around, and slapped a hoof against her face.

'Damn it, Trixie! Again?'

Jutting out from beneath her zebra print sheets, was a long, toned hind leg. It was obvious why it was there, and it was obvious what had happened the night before. Trixie grunted to herself; this was a process she had repeated ad nauseam, and she was getting tired of it. Still, she couldn't help but give her alter-ego a pat on the back: From what she could tell, it had managed to make a decent selection in the midst of her drunken stupor. She wasn't sure if there was a number for the amount of times she had taken some sort of hideous beast back to her apartment after a night of partying: How she hadn't developed some sort of disease, or gotten an unwanted pregnancy was a miracle in itself. The new suitor she had dragged in seemed to be a better looker than her previous flings: Even if this particular pony had a face covered in boils, there would at least be a decent set of legs to look at.

Judging by the muscular structure of the leg, Trixie concluded that she must have dragged in a stallion, and an athletic one at that. Once again, she found herself punching the back of her own head. She had definitely been too drunk the night before to perform any pregnancy-prevention spells, and she was pretty sure that this stallion hadn't bothered with putting on any sort of protection. She could barely feed one mouth: Having another mouth to feed, be it a child, or even a child and husband, would surely lead to starvation. Not to mention the fact that a pregnant magician throwing up into her hat due to morning sickness, isn't exactly what spectators want to see when they go to a magic show. She told herself to look at the positives, but she could find none.

It took all of her will to walk up to the bed, leaving her courage tank empty by the time her shaking hoof was hovering above the pile of sheets. There were some veils that she didn't want to remove, and this was one of them. She wanted to just ignore the presence, but at the same time she wanted to know. She took a deep breath, and began coaxing herself.

'Trixie, you've done this how many times? It's going to be just like every other time. You'll both awkwardly stare at each other for a few minutes, and then they'll show themselves to the door, and that will be that.'

Her confidence refilled rapidly, and the blue unicorn threw back the sheets, to reveal...

Another pile of sheets.

She let out a miniature roar, and ripped back the next set of sheets.

Her magenta eyes grew in horror.

Squinted, rose eyes stared back at hers, and went equally wide once they processed what they were staring at. Rainbow-mane flew in all directions ,as she shook her head widely, refusing to believe what she was seeing.

Their voices rang out simultaneously, each cracking note spelling out a single word.

"You?"