The swinging doors to the Saddlesore Saloon in Dodge Junction burst open, and a pale-yellow earth pony walked in, squinting as she looked around. Behind her a teal pegasus hovered above the ground, examining the dark and dingy bar with equal parts wariness and unenthusiasm.
It took a moment for the two of them to adjust to the sharp contrast from the blazing desert sunlight, but soon enough the earth pony nodded, fixed her white stetson hard onto her head, and walked off towards one of the back booths. The pegasus followed, rolling her eyes but saying nothing yet.
A massive unicorn waddled around from the bar and up to the table as the two settled down, her face scarred and greasy. She glared at the pegasus, distrustful, almost annoyed even, but when she settled onto the other mare her pocked face lit up brighter than any of the lackluster lanterns that were scattered about the saloon.
“Oy, Fiddle, it’s been a coon’s age! ‘Ow ya been, hon?”
Fiddlesticks set her hat down onto the table next to her, careful to slide the lantern a bit further away. She met the bartender’s smile with one of her own, and nodded concisely.
“Howdy, Spitshine. Just round parts visiting family. No deaths or tragedies,” she said, holding a hoof up as Spitshine started to frown. “You’d have known before me, anyways. Just needed to get out of Appaloosa for a few days is all.”
“Well, it’s great to see you. Where’s your fiddle?”
“Up at the ranch. Didn’t feel much like playing right now.”
“Fair enough. We could use some entertainment round these parts, so if you find yourself up for a jig just let me know, hon. I’ll even let you get away with up to a keg of cider, on the house, for your troubles.”
Fiddlesticks smiled and nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind. Let’s start with a cider now, wouldja kindly? Got this awful Dust around me, making me parched.” She winked at the pegasus across from her, who responded with a death glare over a mocking grin.
“Two ciders, then?”
“Please.”
“And for the featherweight?”
It was Spitshine’s turn for the glare.
“You got any tequila?” the pegasus asked
“Dust, it’s hardly two in the afternoon.”
Spitshine cocked an eyebrow at Fiddlesticks. “When’s that ever stopped you?”
“You know I don’t drink all that much.”
“It’s not the much, hon, but the when.”
“Shows run late.” She laughed and then shook her head. “Spitshine, this here’s Lightning Dust. I found her in a bottle back in Appaloosa a few months ago. She’s about as pleasant as she looks. Throw a shot of tequila on my tab, and then a cider for her as well, please.”
Lightning Dust stuck out her tongue at Fiddlesticks as Spitshine spun around and waddled back to the bar.
“You’re in a mood,” Dust finally said to her. “What crawled up your flank? All that well water starting to get at you?”
“This is a hard place for me to be at. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but memories can cut deep.”
They fell silent, with Fiddlesticks tapping her hoof to the distant twang coming from an old, dusty radio on the bar, and Lightning Dust craning her neck around at the few other ponies who sulked around the saloon. Spitshine came back soon enough after, setting down a tray with three ciders, a shot glass filled with a vaguely yellow liquid, a lime, and a small container of salt.
Lightning Dust grabbed the small glass in a wing tip and held it up towards Fiddlesticks, who similarly picked up a mug of cider and tapped it against the offered shot. The two of them threw their heads back with their drinks and then dropped them to the table, hard.
Lightning Dust quickly winced. She reached out and grabbed the lime while her back started to shudder, biting down hard on it to cut the stringent burn of the tequila.
“For a pony who put as much liquor away as you had when I found you, you sure can’t handle tequila that well.”
“That is awful. Luna’s rump, that is nasty. Doesn’t this place have anything quality?”
Fiddlesticks made a show of looking around the dark room. She stared at the piano tucked away at the very back of the room, set upon the small stage. Then she turned to the bar, where Spitshine was laughing and threatening two elderly stallions who were suggesting all sorts of disgusting opportunities for the bartender to join them in. Beyond that, she settled her eyes on Lightning Dust’s orange irises.
“...No,” she said, taking another swig. “That’s why I like it. It makes no attempt to be anything that it ain’t. It knows what it is, it does, and that’s a place for ponies to wet their throats and drown their sorrows and maybe find a little humour in whatever sorry state they’ve found themselves in.”
Lightning Dust turned away, trying to hide an embarrassed blush. She shook her head and grabbed her own cider, testing it.
“This isn’t bad, at least,” she conceded, unconvincingly.
Another silence fell.
“Thanks for coming with me, Dust,” Fiddlesticks said, gripping her mug with two hooves. “I know I needed to get away from the farm for a week, but I was still unsure about coming here. You’ve made it easier for me.”
“Gay,” Lightning Dust said, smirking at her. “But you’re welcome.”
Fiddlesticks rolled her eyes and drank again.
“Besides,” Dust continued, “I needed a vacation too. Storm Chaser’s been getting cranky in his old age. Keeps yelling at me to quit showing off before I kill somepony, and all I’m doing is wrangling loose clouds.”
“Right, well, are you doing that ridiculous ‘fake audience cheering’ noise as you do it?”
“I-it doesn’t matter if I am!”
Fiddlesticks broke out into laughter, her high pitched giggling a far departure from the rustic farm girl accent.
“You are so easy to rile up.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t fly, so, nyeh!”
“Yeah, well, you suck at flying!”
Fiddlesticks stuck her tongue out, but when she opened her eyes again she saw Lightning Dust was glaring at her. It was not her regular resting bitch face, but a more determined frown.
“Whoah there, nelly, it’s just a joke, Dust.”
Lightning Dust turned her glare away from Fiddlesticks, chugging her cider back hard.
“I’m sorry, yeesh.”
“Some of us,” she said, swaying a bit, “get to carry our traumas around with us.”
Spitshine came by then, noticing the two empty cups on the table. She picked them up and went to turn away, before Fiddlesticks held a hoof up.
“Hmm?”
“Can I get another?”
“Your mug’s still half full, Fiddle—”
In answer, the earth pony swung her mug up, chugging the amber liquid down quickly before dropping it to the table.
“Just one more, Spitshine, please.”
“Another tequila for me,” Lightning Dust said.
“I thought you said it was nasty?”
“Yeah, but it’s better than whatever that cider actually was.”
“What’s your issue?”
“You drag me out to this backcountry pitstop, turn all bitter and sad, and make fun of my flying abilities, and you wonder what my issue is?”
“I thought you wanted to come here with me!” Fiddlesticks snapped, angrily grabbing the mug of cider the second it was put down in front of her and drinking.
“I don’t care a bit about this place, I just wanted—”
She closed her mouth and blushed, before the frown came back. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t do something stupid like fall off a barn on purpose without me here to watch over you.” She slammed the new shot of tequila back, this time without a wince.
Fiddlesticks blustered and snorted, pounding the mug down onto the table so hard it foamed up and over the side.
“How… how dare you treat—”
She stopped, realizing she was standing up in her seat, leaning across the table towards Lightning Dust, her raised voice easily overpowering the dilapidated radio and echoing about the mostly-empty saloon. She dropped down hard, fuming but whispering harshly now.
“How dare you?”
“Why are you here, Fiddle?!”
The question struck her like a blow, and she slumped back in her seat
“Why the buck are we here if it makes you so damn miserable?”
“Because I miss my mom, okay?!”
“She wasn’t your actual mo—”
The punch came before Fiddlesticks realized she was throwing it. She had leapt up over the table in a flash and brought her right hoof down hard onto Lightning Dust’s cheek, blowing the pegasus out of the booth and onto the floor.
In another, more literal flash, Spitshine rolled her eyes and lit up her horn, and suddenly the two drunk mares were outside in the blazing desert sun, collapsed on top of each other.
The sudden teleportation did nothing to slow Fiddlesticks as she pummeled Lightning Dust, bringing hoof after hoof down onto her friend, missing most of the blows as the cider in her stomach settled into her blood. Those that did connect struck the pegasus with a divine fury. Lightning Dust didn’t respond more than bringing her hooves up to cover her face, rolling and shifting to help dodge the punches. Each swing came with a shout, an ongoing diatribe from Fiddlesticks that she accented with the whacks on dirt and flesh.
“Raised me like she was! Took me in and loved me as hers!”
Thump. Thump.
“Gave me a family! After mine didn’t want me! Gave me a home!”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“And now she’s gone! And right when I! Reconnect with my actual! Mother!”
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
“SHE’S. GONE. TOO!”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Fiddlesticks finally collapsed over Lightning Dust, sobbing in the street. She didn’t know when her eyes had shut, either in rage or in grief, and the added blindness had saved Lightning Dust from several more blows. She felt a rustling beneath her, a squirming sensation as the pegasus shifted from underneath the distraught mare, and went to roll off to the side and let her go before she felt a hoof on each of her cheeks hold her steady and still.
“Sniff… Huh?”
She opened her eyes to see Lightning Dust smiling at her warmly, one eye blackened and her left cheek bruised, yet all the same it was a delicate, caring expression.
“Feel better, nerd?”
“Wh.. I… A little—”
Lightning Dust pulled Fiddlestick’s head down and pressed her lips into hers, kissing her hard, her hooves sliding back around her withers and hugging her tightly.
It was then that Fiddlesticks realized it. Lightning Dust had goaded her to help her get it out. She had insulted her precisely to help her let go of the bottle of anger and grief and pain.
And she had let Fiddlesticks take it all out on her.
She kissed back then, pressing into the mare shamelessly in the middle of the street. It was hardly the most embarrassing thing she had done in public today, anyways. Shame wouldn’t have stopped her, anyways. They had been friends for a short while now… but it had been a lie, the entire time. They were more than friends, and always had been.
Two broken mares, their jagged halves pressed together to make something whole. It was not without its cuts, the sharp pieces of where they had been damaged pressing into each other’s souls. Sometimes pain, she thought, is necessary to heal.
When Lightning Dust finally broke the kiss, Fiddlesticks rolled off onto her back, her chest heaving as she caught her breath from the fight.
“There are far better ways to ask a mare out than pissing them off, Dust,” she panted.
“This way seems pretty consistent, though,” she said, spitting a bit of blood onto the dirt. “And hopefully I don’t need to try it again, anyways.”
Fiddlesticks chuckled and flipped, groaning as she got back onto her hooves. She stumbled a bit, the cider having fully set in now that the adrenaline was seeping away, and then laughed. After offering a hoof and helping Lightning Dust back up, the two of them leaned onto each other, one teal wing over the other’s back, and stumbled back into the Saddlesore Saloon.
