Author's Note

For Clever and my friends.

CH 1: Cider will make it sting less right?

"Keystone cheated on me. Can you believe it?" I levitated my glass, well no really I scooted it across the bar to where my chin was resting and tipped it up. I could have just grabbed it, but I wasn't done feeling bad for myself. "I spend hours with a quill to make sure she's got dresses imported from that designer in Ponyville–have you seen her work? And then I find one of them crumpled up at the hoof of somepony else's bed."

"How'd ya manage that, fella?" Tap asked, sliding a rag across the bar with a stubby blue foreleg. "Like, ya saw it?"

I spun the glass with my magic, the silver sparkle fading as it twirled. "Well, no. But I imagined it after she told me she was leaving." Tap put his hoof against the top of the glass to stop its spinning and poured me another glass of cider. "Thanks Tap."

"Well, seems like you need it." He mumbled through the bottle's neck as he bit and poured. "You still work with her though, don't you?"

I watched as the liquid gold foamed and filled my glass. The cider bobbed around until a foamy head crested the top and a single drip slipped free down the side and onto the bar. It was the color of her eyes just at the top where the lamplight shone through the bubbles. "Yeah." I laid my head along the bar, mane spilled out behind me as my magic wrapped around the glass and brought it to my lips again. "No, you know the messy thing, she's been hooking up with another guard in her unit. So now I'm lucky if I get more than five minutes in my office before I see both of them."

Tap nodded, nostrils flaring as he rolled into his own thoughts. "You got a plan?"

That felt like a shot in the foreleg. I sat upright and threw back my drink, the cold burning my throat before the heady blur caught up with me and I felt a little dizzy. "I got–" I hiccupped so hard it hurt my chest. "Sorry. I have a great plan. You know the new Princess?"

"Nightmare Moon?" Tap asked as his neck tensed and he looked towards the picture of Celestia over his register. He had this way of stiffening up that looked like his head was about to unscrew while the rest of him fell away like some kind of wind up guard. Tap had family in Ponyville, and he’d always been a little superstitious if the variety of upturned horseshoes nailed above every door and window were anything to go off of. He’d once told me that it was to catch Celestia’s light. "The one who tried to bring unending nightmares to the world?"

"She goes by Luna now. Which–honestly, I think it sounds a little sweet." I dangled my glass in front of him. "Speaking of sweet."

Tap looked at the bottle and snatched it up, sniffing it. "I must have given you something spoiled because it sounded like you were planning to go work with an actual crazymare."

"She's not that bad." Dangle dangle.

Tap snorted and poured again. "Isn't she the one yelling all over the castle grounds? She's been making the fillies in the nursery cry!"

"She doesn't really know how to meter her voice, true." I swirled the cider and watched; I watched the cider lift up past my nose and drain away from the bottom of the glass towards my gullet except for the little bit of foam stuck to my nose. I wish I could have laughed about it, but the mood wasn’t right, and when I thought about laughing in the split moment I remembered how stern she’d looked at me for making fun of myself. She’d always wanted a serious stallion, so much so that she went and found someone who fit the bill besides me. So instead I winced at the sudden influx of liquid, of liquor, the burning in my stomach got worse but who was counting. I slammed the glass down, cushioning the bottom with my magic so that it snapped against the bar and didn't shatter it like I’d really wanted to. Tap, was after all my friend, and my last little grace to Tap was reeling in how bad I was about to pop off.

My voice was raising, my chest tightening. "But she has never said anything evil since she was cursed! She wasn’t herself! We’re not always in control! She's just loud, and that, my friend, is not a crime!" I slid the glass to him, the slight grinding against the bar nearly flinging me into a fervor I canned for Tap, for the bar, for not making another scene.

Tap caught the glass with a hoof and stopped it cold. "How do you know? You're not a lawyer." Tap jabbed me in the chest with the point of his hoof, making me hiccup yet again. "And I think you've had enough. I thought that as soon as you mentioned this whole thing, oh he’s gonna go on a tear, and still you got me to give you another. You’re a menace!" Tap pushed the glass back between us. I could see him weighing our friendship. How much of me could he really put up with before it ticked over into a drain. He did so with the patience of a hero, of someone who’d been through a turn under Nightmare Moon, and said. “Ya know, I just get a little worried about you.”

"My bits glitter just the same, drunk or sober." I cackled out a bitter laugh. I’d have a lot more bits to spend now. I was right when I thought laughing would hurt. It really just felt like I was the butt of a never ending joke. I shook it off. Tap was in front of me, concern written across his face in thirteen different languages. “Why worry?”

"Didn't she try to kill one of Celestia's apprentices?" Tap's eyes flicked to a newsprint hanging above the shelves of cider and brandy. It was a heroic picture of the six fillies who had saved Luna lined up with golden accents hanging on their necks, looking like a whole royal procession all on their own. Pretty, tough, unfazed by the whole ordeal it would seem. The headline, though, read “Ponyville Saved from Eternal Night!” “Courageous ponies band together to defeat the recently returned Nightmare Moon and save Princess Luna!” The longer I looked at the print I was increasingly sure one of those fillies was my seamstress.

"Tabloids...." I put down another bit and slid it to Tap. "Listen, the job post mentioned travel, I'd be working a completely different shift from Keystone, and honestly I don't mind the night shift. I mean Tap, do you really want to spend your entire life in Canterlot? These herds of stuck up snobs coming and going, never bringing anything new into your doors? Do you wanna live without adventure?"

Tap was gawking at me like I'd just spoken in Deerish. “Tabloids? Sharp, what part of eternal night isn’t real to you? I–I have heard her yelling from the keep!” I was pretty sure I saw one of his eyes twitch. "And Sharp, you’ve worked the same desk, in the same office, since you graduated scribe college. How long has it been since you had an adventure? Since you brought anything new to my door except for your latest drama?"

"My drama is entertaining at least!" I slid the bit further towards him, touching the edge of the cider bottle. "You're not going to convince me not to do it."

"I'm not trying to!" He snapped his hoof down on the bit and slid me the bottle. "But I'm not happy about you going and turning evil on me just because your girl had an extra serving." He slung a rag over the back of his neck and sauntered off to tend the other patrons. His cutie mark was a pull tap. Maybe he was cut out to work at a bar for the rest of his life. Maybe a few lifetimes.

I still wasn't sure what mine even meant, a big white X on my ass. At least it wasn't red. If it was red, maybe he'd have a point about me turning evil. But no pony with my mark was going to end up as some evil goon or tortured for eternity. Ponies like me where mundane, simple, untethered. At least I hoped I was untethered. Would be awful to go through all this turmoil only to find out I hate traveling.

There was cider in my mouth without me even paying attention. Nice. I looked at the bar, at the bottle, at my grey forelegs barely keeping me steady in my seat. It really did make all of these plans seem far more better. I'd never have to see her bright gold eyes again. Never have to think about her with the guards, or hear them make a joke about spears and only hear one thing.

Maybe I just needed to move to Ponyville for a while. Celestia's apprentice was doing great, a kingdom heroine. Maybe I could just get a job at one of those tabloids. I could make headlines that were wrong. I threw a couple extra bits on the bar and levitated the bottle beside my head, taking a swig as I limped and swayed myself out of the bar and onto the cobbled streets of Canterlot. The castle looked so much taller this drunk. The points were perfect, scratching up at the sky like a gilded fork reaching up to the bright silvery moon.

I swigged again and threw the bottle into a bush. My walk home was long. I had a lot of time to look at the sky. To think about Keystone. To think about the X on my ass, the silver in the sky, the shimmering light coming down to blanket me in greyscale aurora.

Why was it so blurry, and why couldn't I stop hiccupping? My chest hurt so badly, and all I was doing was looking up. Waiting for her face to come into view, to peck me on the lips from above, but all that met me was the shining silver moon. How could something so lovely be evil? I didn't buy it. She was loud, she was terrifying, her guards had death hanging in their eyes. But they were quiet. She was loud and they were quiet. I wouldn't have to hear them joking, hear them say her name, hear her say theirs.

"Equestria looks pretty big from down there, doesn't it?" A voice called from an unlit lamppost ahead, intoxicating accent floating towards me and sifting through the tears. An amber-haired bat mare was sitting up there, just sitting on a lamp with her pale wings stretched out to help her balance. "It's not as much to handle as it might seem."

"What?" I used my magic to dab my tears with my tie. "What are you talking about?"

"Equestria is a big place, right? It's gotta seem bigger when you're low, like...low to the ground and low in the barrel, you know?" She looked up, watching the moon with me. "I always thought she'd come back one day. Mama had always said Luna would come back, and we could tell because everything would feel so much smaller."

I scoffed. The bats really were mad. "Yes I'm very happy for you. It sounds very nice, but I'm managing my–"

"The way you look at the moon reminds me of when I was waiting." She shimmied, gliding off the lamp and landing next to me with a clip-clop, clop-clip. "You're the stallion who's taking the job in Luna's court, right?"

My chest sunk, a dawning sense of danger kindling in my chest along with heartburn. "Do I know you? I don't want to be rude, but I don't think we've ever met before."

"I'm one of Luna's couriers, Glimmer Dart. I think I saw you get kicked out of the guard barracks for yelling."

I winced. I'd almost managed to drink enough to forget that. It wasn't even a day ago yet. "Yes. That's me. And yes, I am–well, no, I don't know. I've got a million things on my mind, and a million more on my desk. Seals to seal, stamps to stamp."

"Well, I think you should do it." She shrugged, mane swaying. It smelled strongly, a smell like fruit. It made my head swim worse than the cider. I remembered resting in a hayloft after training with Keystone, remembered how she looked at me, how her tail flicked. How she licked my horn one night and I couldn't use my magic for a day.

"That's nice." I said, voice coming out wrong. I'd sounded so sincere, so lost in responding to smell and memory that I forgot to be sarcastic. Really wasn't living up to my name, was I. "I'm still deciding."

"Well, we need the help."

"Well, I'm still deciding."

"Do you want me to show you what I meant?" Glimmer asked, offering me a shaggy fetlocked hoof. "About things looking smaller from up high?"

My mouth felt so dry. Keystone had tried to pick me up once. It was the most embarrassed about myself I'd ever been. She shed a bunch of feathers and I weighed her down so much she couldn't take off. "That's–" I swallowed and said what I thought. "That's kind of you. I don't think you could pick me up."

"I know a good cliff." She snerked. "No, but really, I can glide really well. Besides, you look like you wanna jump off a cliff in the first place. Might as well try the slow version first, right?"

Her words made my cheeks burn. I’d never made those kinds of jokes, and something about them just put me on edge. "That's not funny." This was getting frustrating. I was tired, and my eyes hurt. I didn't even want to think about moving too much lest I throw up.

"It might get your mind off of whatever happened." She flapped her wings a few times.

"Who sent you?" She couldn't be real. She couldn't be genuine. Somepony was trying to manipulate me.

She walked around behind me and nudged me into walking with her. "I heard you crying while I was flying by. I'm supposed to be at work right now but you were looking really bad."

"Oh, well, if you can tell, just tell everypony." I sulked, dizzy, head full of cotton balls soaked in lead. "So I'm Luna's messenger's charity project?"

"You called the guards who threw you, what was it?" Glimmer switched from ponish and spoke in thickly accented Bauty, "Ignorant seed munching birds. Now I've only heard my grandpa say that. So, I figured you spoke Bauty, maybe then it might be nice to repay that interest with kindness."

I'd learned Bauty for Celestia's service. Most of my job was translating letters from ten different languages. "Bauty has the best pegasus insults."

She stretched her wings. "I wonder why. Anyways. Give it a try?"

I followed Glimmer through Canterlot, up to one of the lower terraces of the castle. She dropped off her packages and told me to lay down. I didn't at first. She was talking about mounting me and I wasn't about that. Then she said "Well okay, but you might fall if I don't have a good grip."

She stood over me and tucked her forelegs under mine, scooping me and tipping us both off the terrace cliff and into an immediate glide. I watched my legs trail behind the rest of me, my mane flapping in the wind like a flag. The wind burned my eyes at first but after a deep flap Glimmer adjusted and carried me through the sky above lower Canterlot. I did my fair share of screaming, shouting, praying, begging, but it all left when we passed over Canterlake.

The houses of Ponyville seemed so tiny then, the water casting light everywhere almost more beautifully than daylight. Canterlot too was nothing more than a doll house. Thousands of ponies, bison, deer, bull, all of Equestria captured in a shoebox. I could see the guard barracks, see the hoofbeaten track, and it all seemed so far away for that moment.

Another bat came beside us and chatted with Glimmer about me. Apparently my episode at the barracks and my cross-cultural profanity had garnered more attention than I could have known. I had become the unicorn who spoke Bauty, the desk clerk talking about working for the terrifying Nightmare Moon, the mild mannered pencil floater that was ambling around drunk in Canterlot's royal district still sucking on a bottle. They made it out like my balls dragged on the floor when really they were lodged somewhere in my gut right then.

I had Glimmer and her friends, by the end of our chilly nighttime glide had grown to a hearty five, drop me off at Luna's offices in the castle. I signed the contract that night.

And then two steps out of that office I threw up two bottles of cider and limped home.