A Canterlot Stall

On the eve of his nineteenth birthday in some Canterlot bar, Caramel was riding the buzz he'd been building since he stepped into the establishment half an hour ago. He knocked back a shot of cheap brandy, shaking his head back and forth as he felt the stiff drink torch his throat. Licking his lips to catch a stray drop, he slammed his hoof over and over down on to the counter. Calling for another shot over the loud shouts and conversations of ponies with better lives speaking over him. And his loud pounding continuing even after the drop in the song playing through the speakers of the bar, bringing all eyes to him. Staring at him like the skinny, stupid flake that he was.

If Caramel could believe they gave a damn, there was a question they were asking. What was this nobody doing in Canterlot? Who did he think he was interrupting the mood just so he could get another glass? Well Canterlot chumps, he had no business being here! None what so ever. That was the point. Caramel was free to do whatever he wanted and the Canterlot blowhards in this bar could suck it!

Still he winced in embarrassment as the bartender made her way to him and refilled his glass, ducking his flushed face and feeling the blood rush up to his ears. If he had a better life and lived in precious, precious Canterlot, he wouldn't want a loud drunk ruining the party even thought he wasn't the loudest. The bartender, a white unicorn with red eyes and pair of headphones hanging of her neck, her head was bouncing to the beat as she gave him a silly smile and mouthed something he couldn't understand. He shrugged. The bartender seemed to repeat what she said until she stepped away, heading to another customer down the line.

Oh well, he didn't hear a thing but he liked this. Drinking with a sea of strangers in a city of strangers. It was so liberating in a sense that it felt like a daydream. Some part of him worried when he closed his eyes this night however it ended, he'd wake up home like nothing ever happened. Still living that stupid life with his family and his fucking brothers who just couldn't understand a thing. Just thinking about that gave him a slight headache and Caramel rushed for the drink.

Canterlot was great.

Canterlot was really great.

Why did he need to think about home and responsibilities? He was free now. This was the first night of the rest of life. The night was young and he still remembered his name. That needed to be fixed.

Caramel gulped down the rest of his drink and rocked back and forth, liking the pain tapping into his temples. He settled for waiting quietly for his next drink as the room rose back to it's former head-collapsing level of music, talking and drunken shrieks. The earth pony turned his stool slightly. Enough so he could watch the crowd of self-proclaimed cadets cheering and doing keg shots, tube challenges and body shots off the tables they pushed together. He guessed because they were wearing that gold training uniform, nobody was calling them out for being a crew of loud dicks.

The mix of large unicorns and earth ponies twice his size made Caramel a little weary as they got louder and things started crashing and breaking as the cadets switched who was drinking off who. That massive giant pegasi with small wings should have know that little table couldn't have held him. But the trio who dared the pegasus only got on their knees and resumed slurping lines of salty and icy drink off his body.

'Makes me want to recruit...' Caramel thought wistfully, watching a pair of unicorn sisters double team a large male earth pony in a drinking contest and getting shit-faced all around. 'All I have to do is take orders and know when to bend over. Yeah...'

“Hey beautiful, what's a fine mare like yourself doing drinking alone?” Some unicorn stallion, white coat and blue two-tone mane, slid into the seat next to him and leaned over. Their muzzles almost touching as the unicorn wiggled his eyebrows as like a come-on. Was he serious?

Caramel forced down his hoof that was about to point to himself and go what the fuck. The unicorn's horn was shining with a green shine as Caramel glanced into his eager blue eyes for some sort of explanation as to how drunk off his ass the unicorn was to confuse him with a mare. Wait. Green glow and blue eyes? Wasn't unicorn glow supposed to match the eyes? Caramel blinked as he felt the alcohol kick in and kept his question to himself.

“I dunno.” Caramel slurred, giving a slobbering smile as he started cracking up. “I don't know what a fine mare is doing alone but this stud-cake of a stallion might be up for answers! Yeah! Do you really think you can handle all of this good stuff?”

The unicorn recoiled. His eyebrows slapping his forehead as they stretched to the top as the stallion took a double-take. Then another one. And another, his eyes roving Caramel's sitting figure as if he was making excuses to himself. Caramel snorted, his eyes fluttering close as he laughed harder. The unicorn's face...! Caught in twisting lust and disgust as he visibly fought to stay in his seat and leave Caramel hanging to try his luck again.

“I wasn't serious about answers.” Caramel managed to get in, wheezing all the while. “I'm not a colt-cuddler so... I was just messing with you. You are free to try your luck elsewhere but you should probably bring along a pair of glasses with you too.”

“Then shit, what are you?” The unicorn said a little loudly, turning the heads of other ponies at the bar as Caramel went red as he tried to tell them to mind their business and fuck off. This wasn't what they were thinking! The guy made a mistake. “You looked like a mare and I'm a stallion...” The unicorn trailed off. “I thought you looked lonely.”

“How does any of this make me look lonely?” Caramel waved a hoof in the general direction of cadets getting drunker and noisier as the seconds passed. “I'm having the time of my life here. I came to this bar to get drunk off my ass and I can say for sure, I am getting it done.”

That being said, Caramel began to consider how much of a mare he looked to this stallion. Soft hips aside because Caramel has tried all his life to get rip like the many earth ponies stallions in this bar. He was still taller than the average mare and had a tough jawline that could cut through bread.

Okay, maybe cut through soggy bread if he was being honest here.

“What did you come for?” Caramel asked, not really caring about the answer and wanting to resume drinking in his apparent loneliness alone.

“I got accepted into the Royal Guard Academy, Canterlot Division.” So he was with the rest of those go-lucky fuckers. “I'm now a official private and you know how chicks dig a stallion in uniform.” The unicorn shot him a shit-eating grin as he began to flex his forearms, making aggressive grunting sounds. “I'm here to try my luck.” The unicorn purred and Caramel stiffened in his seat, hoping he was imaging that the unicorn was still trying to make a pass at him.

“Don't you mean cadet? I had three of you tough guys correct me already when I called them all recruits.”

“Recruit. Cadet. Private.” The unicorn made a show of waving off each military term before getting off his seat and stretching against the counter. His body at peak condition from all the training and heavy workouts he must do every morning. The unicorn wasn't wearing a uniform like the others but he didn't need to with a body like that.

Caramel writhed in his seat as he took a desperate look at the unicorn's large and toned back and hard hindquarters as if they were carved by artists, chiseling everything into excellence. In comparison, Caramel felt like a glob of fatty unmanly goo which was insulting because he was the earth pony here. Shouldn't unicorns all be fat nerds! “Same.” He said between  hot grunts, sending trembles down Caramel's spine. Angry trembles for sure! “Thing.”

“Sure, it is. You bastards probably just like having the chance to correct ponies.” Caramel muttered before deliberately turning his head and nudging the unicorn out of his fitness routine to where he was discreetly pointing to. Or blatantly pointing to. Caramel couldn't tell as he felt the room shake and spin and wondered when his next drink would be coming.

The unicorn followed his gaze to the orange pegasus with bright red hair sitting in the booth across from them. The mare was working though the drinks lined up in front of her like they were water as ponies cheered her on. From afar, Caramel could clearly see her as fine, flirty mare that would have his tongue in knots if he had a brave bone in his body to try and talk to her.

But this meat head right here had to have gotten his priories mixed up by hanging around. Caramel wasn't a mare and they weren't friends. The unicorn had to get moving. Just being around him made Caramel feel funny... Wait, he meant to say incompetent at life but whatever.

“As the best stallion in the room,” Because if he doesn't call himself that, who will? “The sweet mare over there might be more your speed, Mr. Trying Your Luck. Mostly because she is an actual mare and a little because she's hot. Literally. Do you see her hair whipping back and forth like that? I'm already feeling the burn! I'd lick her hooves if she let me.” He said, feeling the liquid courage running though his veins. “She could walk on me all night.” Caramel felt his tail lifting itself up and wagging, practically exposing his stupid hips and slapped his hooves on it.

The unicorn dragged his eyes from Caramel who squirmed under the slow gaze that said he saw Caramel getting worked up, took a long look at the mare and shrugged. The bastard actually shrugged. Caramel's heart dropped to the floor and swore vengeance. Why on Equestria would he shrug at that kind of mare? The mare that was so far out of Caramel's league that he couldn't choose between saying out of this universe or out of the two universes next door.

Was this unicorn that good at picking mares that he could stick his nose up at her? What a fucking bastard!

Shit, she could be in magazines on center-fold spread with her tight, slim body and those slick wings making her look like a some sort of sexy minx. Ummph, he couldn't wait until for the wet mane edition...

“Nah. Why the fuck are you the best stallion?” The stupid bastard said stupidly. Thanks for missing the point.“I'm the best stallion and as the best, I say you should do it.”

“Do you see yourself?” Caramel gestured to his muscles that could bounce off bits. The prince-y rich boy face girls adored. The muscular build that was the best he seen. Celestia, all of this was killing him on the inside. “You got a better chance than the rest of us, you dick. Do you have confidence problems? Have trouble getting it up?”

Caramel allowed a small smile to skirt across his face.

“Because you don't need to get up when you have a body like yours. If I was a mare, I'd be throwing myself at you and telling you not to look at that other mare because she'd make me jealous, then gay and I'd drop you like a hot potato.”

“All she's gonna think is that I'm trying to get her on her knees cause I look like I'm on a ego trip like the rest of the recruits. But with you, fellow girlie and all sensitive type, she'd want to talk to you.”

“Girlie.” Caramel silently mouthed before glaring. “Did you just call me girlie? As a name? Nick-name? Seriously?”

“I'm sure as hell not calling you manly.” The unicorn snickered. “Say I didn't introduce myself. My name's Shining. Shining Armor. Yours?”

“Caramel.” He replied, rolling his eyes and slightly shoving Shining. “At least my name doesn't sound something out of a cheesy book.” Caramel mocked but the unicorn seemed to be in deep thought.

“No last name?”

Was last names really that important? His wasn't at the moment.

“Not anymore.”

Shining went silent before, “Let me buy you a drink. It's not often I get to welcome fresh faces to Canterlot and in this city, you can name yourself anything you want.” The unicorn chuckled as if laughing at his private joke.

“I like anything that's free.” Caramel smiled and ordered the most expensive thing on the menu.

“Hey, I am not paying for that.”

“Don't be cheap. It's free.”

“But it's coming out of my wallet.”

“That's what make it free!”