Author's Note: This is just a short little one-off that I wrote the other day for the heck of it, on a whim, with no plan whatsoever. I'm surprised how it turned out. I hope you enjoy it.
---- A Cold, Wintry Evening ----
---- And a Knock at the Door ----
Hoppy Draft was a well-respectable stallion who dealt in all kinds of liquors and ciders, as his name for himself and his establishment indicated. Of course, he only called himself well-respectable, the rest of his regular patrons defining him with phrases such as “a stuck-up old coot who sells us good beer”, that being one of the nicer ones that they said. Of course, a pony of his stature and respectability wouldn’t let such comments faze him as he cheerfully kicked out the patrons of his bar whenever closing time came.
It was that hour once again, the bawdy stallions walking or staggering out of his bar to return to their homes. “Come again!” He called out into the night, his raspy voice grating on even the hardest of stallions. A gust of wind blew through his sparse mane, prompting him to slam the door shut against the frigid air. He looked around the still-tidy bar of his, smiling slightly before letting out a hoarse chuckle. “Looks like I don’t have to clean up tonight.” He wheezed out another laugh before collecting the various glasses and tankards that sat in neat groups on the tables. His patrons knew well enough that they would be the ones to stay and clean his bar if they left it in disarray. It was always a source of entertainment for the older stallions to watch a barely-out-of-colt-hood pony get set upon by the aged proprietor.
He set the dirty materials in the sink, where the soapy water accepted them gladly, and turned back to admire his clean bar once more. He sighed softly and rubbed his hoof along the smooth wood of the counter fondly. In his mind, the hazy memories that he had garnered running the place resurfaced from underneath the sands of time. He sighed again as he tore himself from them to clean the mugs that soaked in the sink.
For a few minutes, the only thing that filled the bar was the sounds of splashing water and the clunking of wood on wood. His task completed, he resumed his normal ritual of walking along the path between the tables and chairs, wrapping himself in the past; its folds wrapping around him like a cloak. He loved owning the Steady Drink and loved sharing the different alcohols he had gathered behind its walls, but deep down it wasn’t enough. He was old and, as all elderly people tend to be, wanted to be alone with his memories both happy and unhappy. Of course, when one owns an establishment bent on providing stress relief in a stress-filled city such as Manehatten, it becomes hard to simply sit alone all day.
However, this didn’t stop the old stallion from spending his evenings, after the door was shut and locked against intrusion, recalling to mind his earlier days, as he did now. A chair creaked as he settled into it with a groan, his joints cracking painfully and his bones seeming to groan alongside them. He was soon pulled by the scarce strands of hair on his head to the present as his windows rattled in their frames. Standing up, he stomped over to the offending panes of glass and looked outside to search for the offending thing that had interrupted him. His window rattled again as he leaned inward, trying to decipher the faint outlines of objects from behind the glass. After a few more moments of frustrated searching, he pushed up the lower half of the noisy window.
A gust of icy air blew in from the space that he had created, filling the room with cold and making the fire flicker weakly before he managed to shut it with a slam. “Looks like the snow’s gonna be blowin’ tonight.” He shivered lightly as the last vestiges of the cold were banished from the space with his adding wood to the fireplace, the dry oak catching flame in a matter of moments. He returned to the chair he had just vacated, groaning once more as he lowered himself onto the creaky wood. The fire crackled merrily as he sat in silence, his eyes looking at the dancing flames yet somehow also in the distant days of his past.
Minutes turned into hours, in which the wood sputtered and snapped warmly as the fire worked itself into their core. He furrowed his brow as his lips, just about to touch a beautiful mare’s in some club at Las Pegasus, found themselves touching empty, slightly dusty air in his pub. The offending noise sounded out in the form of a timid knocking at his door. He rubbed a hoof into his temple, where a small pain had begun to throb. “Bar’s closed! Come back tomorrow!” A small squeak came from behind the wall of pine boards. He shook his head and leaned back in the chair, trying to bring back the beautiful mare who he had spent a good week with in that sinful city. After a few moments of staring up and down the mare’s (he had never gotten her name) graceful body, the knocking came once more, this time much weaker but much more urgent.
“I said the bar’s closed! Can’t you hear?” The taps on his door faltered for a moment, allowing him to relax slightly, before starting up again. He growled as he stood once more, kicking backwards into the chair that he had been sitting in and walking over to jerk open the door. “What do you want?!” A white wall of blowing snow greeted him as he looked out into the night. His head swirled side to side as he searched for the prankster that had decided to attack his peace. When he saw nothing, he backed into the Steady Drink and let the door swing shut.
“Mister?” His tail brushed against a chair as he whipped around, his eyes looking down towards the source of the noise and spotting a small, purple hoof that was between the door and its frame. “It’s c-c-cold out here… c-can I p-please c-c-come in?” He pushed open the door to reveal a small, light purple filly with a mane that was a shade darker than her coat. The small pony was shuddering as the white snow washed over her body, small pieces of the stuff sticking in her hair and tail. He looked at her with a furrowed brow, trying to figure out which of the local ponies that this little one belonged to but finding no answer.
“Sorry, this is no place for a little filly, go on home.” He nudged her a small distance away and moved to close the door again, at least until she looked at him with those pained eyes.
“Please, mister? It’s s-so c-c-cold.” He heaved a sigh as he held open the door to allow the small pony to enter his bar. He followed her with his eyes as he shut the door behind her, cutting off the frigid air that blew outside. Underneath the snow and wetness that was layered on top of the filly, she looked slightly dirty and scruffy. He looked closer at her mane and saw the distinct signs of neglect in the hair, which was tangled in upon itself in some places so badly that it formed little knots of purple. He mentally shoved away the feeling of unease that had with no-doubt originated from being near the little pony, moving over to his chair and sitting down with a huff. The purple filly looked to him and to the floor uncertainly, eventually sitting down when it became apparent that he wouldn’t say anything.
Soon, the silence nettled at the old stallion enough to coax words from his mouth. “So, little filly, where are you from?” The small pony didn’t turn at the words directed to her, but the hooves that she was rubbing up and down each of her arm froze in fear. “All right, you can have your secrets then. Just don’t expect anything from me.” They remained silent for what seemed like ages, each of them waiting for the other to speak but at the same time wishing they wouldn’t. However, one thing was nettling Hoppy to no end. “Why did you come over here, of all the places out in the street?”
She looked over her shoulder at him and shrugged. “I don’t know, I just felt as if something was… drawing me here.” She patted around her stomach uneasily, as if she could still feel something grasping her. “Like, somepony had a rope around me and was pulling it. Hard.” She looked up at him reproachfully as he let out a soft chuckle, to which he responded with a raised eyebrow.
“Sounds a lot like me when I bought this old place.” He gestured to the room proudly, his waving hoof taking in all aspects of it. “I just had a… feeling, just like you, that made me spend every bit I had taken with me from Fillydelphia on it.” He voice was husky with pride, a bright light burning in his whisky-golden eyes much like the fire in the hearth. “You wouldn’t guess it now, but this place was pretty banged up when I got it. Nothin’ but hard work from me, and it looks like this now. Steady business too.”
The pomegranate-colored pony looked around at the bar that he gestured to, wonder lighting her eyes as she stared. She smiled at him warmly, bringing a raised eyebrow from him once again. “It’s really nice.” He grunted noncommittally in response. Silence fell on them again, broken only by his shifting in the creaky chair and the crackling of the flames. “Thank you. For letting me in, I mean. It was really cold out there.” She shivered lightly at the memory of the snowstorm’s cold.
He stood suddenly, the little filly jumping up as well. He shook his head at her jumpiness. “I’m only going to get you a blanket. Can’t have you freezing.”
She blushed slightly. “I’m fine, you don’t have to do that.“ Clearly she was a pony who wasn’t used to accepting gifts, even if they were grudgingly given.
He waved away her objection with a hoof. "Just stay right here, I'll be back." He waited without moving until she sat back down in front of the fire before turning away and beginning the climb into his room that was just above the bar. It was a simple flat, containing a bed, a dresser to hold the few clothes he possessed, and a mirror that had cracks spider webbing from a circular hole in the glass where his rear hoof had kicked into it during a drunken rage. That was one of the disadvantages of owning a bar; one tended to seek alcoholic remedies to drown their woes in just like their patrons.
His hoof nudged a small picture frame that lay on the floor, a pair of ponies hugging each other and smiling up at him from behind the dusty barrier, their love apparent in how they held themselves. He felt his heart ache as the picture pulled him into the folds of memory, placing him back in that black-suited occasion that had been accompanied by falling rain. A single tear found itself falling down his face to drop onto the glass with a small plip.
He moved his hoof across the film of grey that coated the picture, brushing away the dust that clouded the image. A mare long-gone smiled to him from a different time, her magenta eyes calling to him from the past. Setting the frame on the small table that was next to his bed, he rubbed a hoof slowly across his eyes. “I miss you every day, Berry Vine.” He remained enraptured by his love’s glazed stare for a few minutes before remembering the reason he had even ventured up here in the first place. “Where’s that blanket at?”
After several minutes of frustrated searching involving his mirror nearly gaining another hoof-shaped hole, he pulled from the debris a fuzzy, if dirty, blanket. He banged it against the post at the top of the stairs, ridding it of the dirt and other small objects that were lodged in its folds. He began to climb down and called out into the room below. “I found it!” A gasp, followed by the sound of something shattering, came from below, urging him to hurry down the staircase and glance about the empty room worriedly. “What’s wrong? Where did you go?”
“O-over here.” Her small voice called over from behind the counter, guilt filling the two simple words and lit aflame by her stutter. He walked over to the door that led behind the bar and looked down the small space. The purple filly was sitting on the floor, a broken bottle of wine on the ground before her. She looked up at him with tearful eyes. “I’m s-s-so sorry! I-I j-just couldn’t re-resist it!” She hiccupped softly, confirming Hoppy’s suspicions and explaining what the pony meant by resisting something. He could see a soft blush from underneath the purple of her face, further adding evidence to what had happened.
“You drank some of that stuff, right?” He chuckled lightly as the little filly nodded and sniffled, ignoring the small spatter of irritation that came from losing a bottle of his wine; that stuff was expensive, nearly outrageously so, but it brought good business from the higher social classes. “It’s all right, I was like that when I was young too.” He roughly picked up the pony and set her on the other side of the glass, pulling out the broom and neatly sweeping up the broken bottle before depositing it in the garbage. He pulled out a rag and laid it over the spilled liquid, which ran blood-red over his floor before it was soaked up from his deft swipes. He turned and nudged her out from behind the counter with a hoof. “Go on then, get back out there.”
They settled once more before the red flames, each of them looking into its depths. “I… I’m r-really sorry about that…” The small filly moved her hoof in circles on the floor, searching for the words she wanted. “I just, felt some kind of pull to the bottle… like it would help me find something.” She sniffed loudly, rubbing a hoof across her eyes and turning her head away, hiding her tears from him. “Maybe it would have helped me find my mommy.”
Hoppy Draft felt as if something rather heavy had been dropped onto his skull, stunning him into silence. The small pony stood up and walked over to the window, pressing a hoof against the glass as she stared into the snowy landscape. “I know she’s still out there.” She turned and gestured to the bottles that rested behind the bar. “She always liked to drink stuff like that; she even gave me some one day. I couldn’t even talk it was burned so much in my mouth. That stuff tasted just the same.” Shaking her head sadly, the purple filly looked down to the ground.
He felt something urging him to speak, though he had no idea what to say. “Well, where’s your mother at now?” He winced as she glanced up at him, fresh tears welling up in her eyes. Idiot! Why would you ask her that?! He felt something stab into his heart as he watched the first glistening tear drop to the floor. “I’m sorry I asked you that, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” The last mutter made the little filly shake her head.
“Th-that’s okay, I-I can tell you. You’re nice; you won’t try to send me away like those other ponies.” She smiled tearfully at him with a trust that only a filly could give, bringing another grunt from the aged stallion. “W-well… she took me out one day to go to the store that she always got those red bottles from, telling me to wait outside in the park for her.” Her magenta eyes looked back into her past, sifting through the sands of time that dusted the memory. “I remember waiting for her all day… b-but… sh-she n-never c-c-ca-c…” She descended into silent sobs that wracked her small body.
Hoppy found himself at a loss for what to do, looking at the sobbing filly before him with a befuddled expression. Finally, he grudgingly decided on the simplest option, wrapping his hooves reluctantly around the small pony and drawing her into a small embrace. Her sobs gained a voice as she cried onto his shoulder, gasping for breath as she let out the years of emotion that had built themselves up behind a dam of secrecy. “Shhhh, don’t cry. It’s okay.” He whispered softly, feeling quite foolish as he patted her back. After a few minutes of release, she stifled her tears and pulled away, smiling at him once again. “All right now?” He theatrically held her further away from him, eliciting a giggle and a nod from the filly.
“Well, after that some police officers came by and tried to take me away. They wouldn’t tell me where mommy went, only telling me that they were taking me to an orphanage. I remember what my mommy always told me about those places though.” She shivered slightly as the unspeakable things that her mother had confided to her passed through her mind. “So I ran away from them and I’ve been by myself since then, everypony else throwing me out and calling me mean things.” She swayed slightly as she stood up, falling into him after a few seconds. “S-sorry, that red stuff makes everything silly.”
He grunted again as he pushed her up and stood with a hoof on her back to keep her steady. “Yes, I know it does. I do sell it to ponies after all.” He leaned in conspiratorially whispered in her ear. “Sometimes I can see ponies tell everyone their secret!” The small joke had the filly in hysterical laughter, her reaction bringing a small smile to his face as well. He left the laughing pony on the ground and moved over to the window, looking out into the snow-covered world beyond the clear surface. “Looks like that storm’s done blowing out there.” He turned back to the magenta eyes that looked at him sadly from by the fireplace. “Ready to go?”
“You want me to leave?” Her utter devastation was apparent in both the tears in her eyes and in her voice. “I—I thought that… you liked me.” She rubbed a hoof across her eyes as she sniffed loudly.
He kneeled down in front of her, looking into the depths of her eyes that seemed to reveal her soul to all those who were searching for it. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t a place for you to stay.” He gestured sadly at the bottles on the wall. “A little filly in a bar? That’s no place to grow up.”
“But—“
“I’m sorry, my little pony, but you need to leave.” He pointed to the door and nudged the filly towards it. “Go on then.” The purple pony’s hooves barely lifted from the floor as she slowly walked towards the door, small drops of water finding themselves on the floor after sliding down her face. The purple filly turned back to him, the ghosts of his past looking at him from within her eyes. They were as sad as his love’s eyes on the day of her death; their beautiful magenta irises marred by a sadness that she had to leave him alone in the world. Berry Vine…
Something inside him seemed to die as she opened the door, as if his heart was being torn in two and thrown into the fire that he sat next to. The pain of it was nearly unbearable to the aged stallion, tears welling up and overflowing in his eyes. “Wait.” The purple filly turned to see him with his hooves outstretched. She walked slowly and cautiously towards him, stopping a few feet away and looking at him uncertainly. After a few moments, she leapt into his embrace, nearly knocking him to the ground as she did so.
He patted her back slowly, looking up at the ceiling for instructions on what to do. Finding no divine advice from the heavens, he pulled away from her and returned the smile that she directed at him. “Welcome home.”
The magenta eyes of the pony looked around in awe at the room before returning to his own. “D-do you really mean it?” He nodded. “Really really mean it?”
“I really, really, REALLY mean it.” The filly squealed and tightened her hold on him, sobbing with tears of joy. He stroked her mane slowly, blinking away tears that were brimming in his own eyes. “Welcome home.” A few minutes passed as they both let the happiness drain out of them. Pulling away from the hug, he stood and brushed himself off. “What’s your name anyway?”
She giggled. “I don’t have one.”
His eyebrow climbed upwards on his face. “Oh? We had better find one for you then.” He pointed to her flank. “Judging by that mark there, I’d have to say it’d have something to do with berries.”
An excited gasp came from the filly as she turned in place to look at her newfound Cutie Mark, a bundle of grapes accompanied by a bright red strawberry. “My Cutie Mark!” He chuckled as she spun excitedly in a circle, trying to see more of the mark that denoted her special place in the world. Without warning, she tackled him in yet another hug, allowing more tears of joy to escape. “Thank you!”
Her name that he had been tasked to give made itself apparent in his mind and without a second thought he accepted it. He kissed the top of her head lightly. “Welcome home, Berry Punch.”
Ten Years Later
Berry Punch stood in the doorway to the small bar set against the many different buildings that towered above it, looking into the well-cared for, if dusty, pub. She stepped inside of the dark room and kicked up a bit of dust that had built up during its owner’s absence. The purple mare reached into her saddlebags and pulled out an envelope, drawing from its folds a letter addressed to her.
Dear Berry Punch,
I’m not one for words or speeches, nor do I have time to think of one or even have somepony write one for me. I just have these last few hours of life to write this, this one simple gift to you. You entered my bar that night during the snowstorm expecting to be turned away like you had always been, even as your mother did, but instead you joined my family of one, bringing to my life a joy that I had felt only once before. I could spend the rest of this letter remising about the past, but that would waste what little time I have, for I know you will already remember me when you read this, along with the adventures we’ve had.
I wish to depart this world knowing that my other child, the Steady Drink will be well cared for, and I know nopony else besides you who would do the job right. Therefore, I bequeath to you, upon the time of my death, ownership of all my possessions, including the Steady Drink and everything in it.
Good luck,
Hoppy Draft
A single tear dripped onto the paper as she looked up from it and smiled at the wooden walls of the pub before looking up into the ceiling, seeing past them into the loving eyes of her father. “Thanks, Dad.”
The End, and the Beginning
