The Same Coin

He wasn't the same stallion anymore, and he never would be again, not after what he had been through, not after what he had learned about the princess... and himself. Whether the changes brought about by his recent revelations were for better or for worse was anyone's guess, but he knew he wouldn't be able to look at himself in the mirror the same way ever again, for whatever that was worth.

His apartment had slowly become a disaster area just as his investigation had turned likewise. He felt no remorse for what he had done. They were bad ponies who had wanted to kill him, so he killed them instead. Nevertheless, the reminders would always be seared fresh in his memories. He knew all of the hard whiskey in Equestria couldn't drown out the voices of the ponies he had killed, but he would damn well try anyway. He continued drinking, likening the burning sensation of the alcohol down his throat to a cleansing flame. Another breath from his cigarette added to the faux pas.

He was a mess. Covering several parts of his body were cuts and wounds that stained his dark blue fur varying shades of red, some of them fresh, some of them partially healed, most of them bandaged. The casual, button-up short sleeve he wore was more or less torn to shreds. A damn waste of one of his favourite shirts. His normally sleek, silver mane had become tangled and unkempt, and his golden eyes were now sickly, bloodshot, and sleep deprived. Luna would never accept the way he looked right now, at least, not if he had arrived on duty, anyways.

Setting the bottle down, he took a long, slow breath as he leaned back on the wall of his bathroom, the cold ceramic was about as welcoming as anything else at this point. He massaged his temple wearily with a free hoof as his head pounded without the relief of any pain medication. Doctor's orders be damned, alcohol only *enhanced the soothing pill's effects. His leathery wings ached, but were otherwise uninjured, luckily. He mentally scoffed. Of course, the two parts of him that had done the most damage were unharmed. If he had known what kind of trouble those sickening, unnatural appendages would cause him in his adult years, he would have followed through with his childhood attempt of severing them from his body.*

Slowly and painfully, he opened his dreary eyes. Is this what his life was destined to lead up to? Of course not, it had been intended to go in a completely different direction, but something had gone terribly wrong... or right... He didn't fucking know, and he was quite possibly the last pony in Equestria to know right from wrong. In retrospect, it was morbidly hilarious how he had turned out exactly how they wanted him to be, and yet everything still fell apart. The forces of the universe could be a real bitch sometimes.

He let out another puff of smoke from his cigarette. Exhaustion was on the verge of taking him when he suddenly saw something out of the corner of his eye. His mind was fogged with inebriation--and likely Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but he could have sworn he had seen something in the mirror.

After a moment of contemplation, he slowly rose to his hooves, bringing his bottle of whisky with him like how a foal would cling to a security blanket. Slowly, he began to hobble over to the mirror on the other side of the bathroom, his eyes narrowing as if trying to spot something unseen in the reflection of a sorry-looking Lunar Guard. He nervously swallowed before giving his eyes a weary rub.

In the mirror, it was her.

Her white, regal image had impossibly formed in the mirror. She stood as she always did, authoritative and majestic. Her pristine white coat and sun cutie marks somehow seemed to shine despite the suppressed lighting of the room. Her face wore a stern, unapologetic expression that was a borderline scowl of malice.

Hargreave's face slowly began to twist into rage. Letting out a frustrated yell, he violently whipped the glass bottle at the mirror. The square-based bottle shattered into countless pieces as several large shards fell from the mirror, now laced with a spiderweb of cracks. He gave a small choke, and panted heavily as his heart rate beat faster than a jackhammer. He refused to remove his gaze from the result of his drunken rage until he could be sure that the damnable sight of the sun goddess was no longer in his bathroom.

He stumbled backwards a few steps before once again slumping to the ground, abandoning his cigarette to the cold ceramic floor, and burying his face in his hooves. Convinced that the hallucination was now gone, he finally fell into a dreamless, much-needed slumber.