A Drink Between Friends

Cigars had been lit, beers had been drunk, the second round of drinks had come, and the stallions had regained their spirits. Difficult, painful topics could be left for another time. Instead, Cheese had reworked himself into a good mood. After taking a pull and puffing out a smoke ring in the shape of a rubber chicken, he set the cigar on the ashtray and leaned in.

“It was back when I was about twenty-one. All this technology you kids have just plain didn’t exist ,and I wanted to see Equestria. My father had been in the guard before marrying my mom and moving back to Applewood, and he’d encouraged me in everything I did. From learning accordion back when I was a child to getting into my joke songs, and even helping me find a way to use my talent after I got it. My parents were great, and though I didn’t have them, I wanted to spread my wings and see what I could make of myself.

“I’d never been far from home before, but I knew how to camp and how to feed myself. I made up a pack, put on my poncho and sombrero, and set out to cross the Palomino Desert. A smarter pony might’ve taken the train to get across that Goddess-forsaken land, but me? I wanted to see Appleloosa, the frontier town. Why in the world would somepony set up a town out here, and how in the world did they live in that dry heat? Stubborn ingenuity, that’s how. Pumping water from the ground, digging up copper to sell for fortunes, and more recently, even finding oil out there.

“I did a few performances, and they told me the strangest thing: somepony like me had been here before.”

Whiskey had cousins in Appleloosa, most notably, an uncle who is exactly what Cheese is worried about. He’d been there a few times, and it had changed a lot compared to what Cheese is describing now. It was more of a small city with rows and rows of cookie cutter houses these days. Lots of ponies powering mining, oil, and tech industries out there.

“How could there be anypony like y’all Mister Cheese?” Whiskey asked.

“That’s what I said!” he took another puff of the cigar, this time leaving an accordion in the air. “Still, I was avoiding the trains to travel on hoof to low-traffic places, so I headed north next. I travel from place to place, coming across little villages and settlements with vague directions from ponies who vaguely remembered coming across them. I took to making my own map, but what was so strange is that, anywhere I’d get the chance to perform, I always got comments about how I reminded them of this mare who’d been here before.”

“I finally bit the hook and decided to take a trip to Ponyville after the fourth encounter like this and meet this mare. I’d been all over, I’d met all kinds of ponies or otherwise, and not once had I ever encountered somepony like me. My parents passed before you were born, but even they weren’t all that much like me. Supportive and happy to join in on the things I came up with, but we weren’t exact. I had lots of friends but never anypony I felt would be there no matter when or where. Of course, this was all until I met her.”

Whiskey nodded. “Meanin’ yer wife.”

“Meaning my wife! She honestly rubbed me the wrong way when we first met. She was doing my thing. Nopony but me had ever been doing my thing, you know? She felt the same way and we sort of competed over it until something went wrong and I nearly got myself killed doing something crazy. She ended up being the better pony and called a truce. We started doing stuff together, which led to us doing stuff together after things had settled down and Princess Twilight began to modernize Equestria.

“Now, while this is all well and good, in some of the places I traveled to, people were not always so nice. Gambling and sleight of hoof tricks sometimes kept me fed while on the road and other times got me on the road to keep from being fed to something else. Play stupid games, get stupid prizes.”

Whiskey shook his head. “Very ‘Cotton’ of ya, Mister Cheese.”

“It was. But it was either that or go hungry. Not a lot of options. But where I did it out of necessity, he does it for fun, which is not okay.”

Soarin downed his third beer. He was the reason this place was called Tipsy Wings. “Cheese, Cheese, tell him about the dragon, Cheese.”

“The dragon?” Whiskey asked.

Cheese nodded. “The dragon. An infamous story of mine. Not my proudest moment. I know you’re Fin’s kid, so you know how to keep your mouth shut. Remember to do that.”

Taken a little aback by the harsh tone of the somewhat drunk stallion, Whiskey nodded. “Yessir.”

Smiling again, Cheese pulled hard on his cigar, turning the whole end red. He let out smoke from his mouth and nose like dragonflame. “Dragons are united and friendly now, of course, but that was not the case twenty years ago. You’d have them wander into mountains and caves, terrorizing the creatures that lived there, and if it happened to be ponies, Celestia or the Guard would deal with it. This was a lot farther north than Celestia or the guards would go, though, so I was on my own. I was running low on food and water, and since I’d been wandering without much in the way of a map, things were beginning to look bad.

“You might know that my family has a fairly high metabolism. In spite of all the sugar, it wasn’t until after the kids came that even Pinkie had to start watching her weight. This is, of course, a double-edged sword because we eat a lot. On a good day, I can pack it away with the best of them; eating contests were more like excuses to stuff myself for once.

“While I was wandering near the base of a mountain I didn’t recognize, fighting off hunger pangs, feeling the dryness of my throat, I smelled something. Someone was cooking nearby and whatever they were making had salt and butter in it, and I needed to find out what it was and hopefully take some with me. I tracked the smell to the opening of a large cave with an orange glow coming from inside. Smoke flowed softly from the ceiling and the smell had only intensified. I was salivating, those hunger pangs were stronger than ever, and in there was food.

“Nothing else on my mind beyond getting a piece of whatever it was, I went in and down and down and down. I didn’t notice at the time, but the walls of the cave were strangely smooth and very dark, almost black. Specks and hints of the real color of the rock outside told me something was off about all this, but I was too hungry to care. It’d been a day since I last ate, and I was on the verge of trying to eat a rock.

“After a few minutes trot down this weird smooth hole, the orange light had grown brighter and brighter until the cave opened up to a large space filled with shiny things. Bits, treasures, gold, gemstones, the whole shebang. Immediately, I knew I’d made a mistake. When I realized what that delicious smell was, I began to wonder if this mistake would be my last one. A big dragon, a greedy dragon with a horde to lay on, was roasting not bread, but a carcass over a fire he’d made. The hole I’d wandered in through couldn’t have been for him. With the way he’d breathe fire and scorch the ground while he worked his meal, that tunnel was like a vent he might sneeze into. And of course, being a bright, yellow-orange pony coming out of a black tube wearing a colorful poncho, he noticed me immediately.”

For all Whiskey knew, most dragons were not too much larger than ponies, and while carnivorous, not usually so toward the sentient creatures on the continent. The worst of the dragons had been banished to remote parts of the world, and even fewer were as big as the legends say. He’d once heard a story of Miss Fluttershy scaring one of the big ones off as a teenager, but never considered the details of that story.

“What was he eatin’? How did ya not die?” Whiskey asked.

Cheese rubbed his hooves. “You see, part of my abilities involves a bit of trickery. To make something appear out of nowhere as an earthpony takes a lot of work and careful misdirection.”

Whiskey frowned. “Ya stole somethin’ from the horde, huh?”

Cheese sighed. “Ya know, I was leading up to something there. Has anyone told you you act like your mother?”

Soarin leaned in woozily. “You at least gotta make it funny, otherwise you’ll end up just like your little sister. When Applejack is with Dash or Rarity, you can, like, feel the weight of the sarcasm. Sometimes, I was, like, ‘damn, that’s my wife, but you got her good,’ and I wish I could talk sense into her like that sometimes too, but we’d been together for years before she finally started taking my advice. Am I out of beer? Can somebody call Loop-de?”

Discord clapped his hooves and a glass of water appeared in front of him. “Drink this first. We’ll call Loop-de after you finish it.”

Soarin went to pick up the glass, missed once, and then was finally guided to it by Cheese. He downed it, set it back down, then turned back to Discord. “Beer now?”

The dark gray unicorn pointed at the cup. “It’s not gone, Soarin, look.”

It had refilled on its own somehow, but the confused, drunken Soarin simply picked it back up. “Huh. I thought I drank it…”

Whiskey turned to his father. “Does… does this happen a lot?”

“About once a month.”

Mac finished off his second stout. “He doesn’t hold it well. One or two over an hour or so and he’s like putty, but more than that and he starts forgettin’ things and gettin’ weepy. Drinkin’ is one of the things his wife won’t do with him because of it. We cut him off like this until he’s sobered up a little.”

“It was like this, however, that I managed to get out of that cave,” Cheese said. “Without the magic, of course.”

“Alright. How’d ya do it?” Whiskey asked.

Cheese smiled. “Discord, would you get me a beer?”

The dark stallion curled his lip. “It is not very nice to prank your friends like this, Cotton.”

“Come on, it’s for the bit! You love the bit.”

“I do love the bit.”

A frothy bubbly beer appeared in pink smoke in front of Cheese, who then picked it up and put it on top of one hoof. “You begin by showing the target the object of their desires. Pretend this cup is a very hastily tied together collection of coins and gemstones from the dragon’s horde.”

He turned to Soarin who was still trying to drink the bottomless water. “Hey, buddy, you’ve been doing great, here’s that beer you wanted. Can I have that?”

Eagerly, Soarin traded cups with Cheese, licking his lips over the new beverage. Cheese made a big show of going for a drink of the water before setting the cup down quickly. “Wait! Soarin, I forgot to tell you!”

Soarin paused, setting his cup back down to address his friend. “Huh? What?”

“I…” Cheese swallowed, his face going somber. “I found a condom in Cheesette’s room the other day.”

Soarin’s eyes went wide and his ears fell. “Oh, good Goddess, please don’t kill Prism.”

Like swapping masks, Cheese went from tragedy to comedy. “Oh, it’s alright, she got it from the sex ed course.”

Soarin relaxed, took hold of his mug, and drank it all. Except, it was the water again and not the beer. “Does this cup keep refilling itself? I swear I’ve drank this like four times now.”

It did not refill itself this time, and Cheese took the beer from under the table and set it in front of him. “Sorry about that. There’s your beer.”

Soarin happily went after it, and Cheese turned back to Whiskey. “So, did you see the trick?”

To be completely honest, he expected it, and still didn’t notice when Cheese switched the cups. He, like Soarin, had been just as shocked and horrified about the discovery, knowing full well Cheese might actually kill Prism in the event he ever caught him and his daughter screwing around. He’d never been too serious, but you could never be sure when something was a joke or not, and that’s what made Cheese, and by extension, Cotton, difficult to deal with.

“Ah did not.”

He took the empty water cup in one hoof, raised it just enough above the table that it didn’t make a sound, and very quickly swapped it with his martini glass. In spite of Whiskey's good hearing and the low noise level in the bar, he didn’t hear either glass touch the table. For that matter, Cheese’s barrel barely moved. He used his foreleg almost like it was detached.

“We’re social creatures, all of us. By our nature, we look at faces for cues and when something shocking is revealed, the first thing we do is check faces. You were looking at Soarin, Soarin was looking at me. So long as I didn’t show it, he wouldn’t notice what my foreleg was doing, thus, I can rearrange the table. And when you’ve practiced doing things quietly for decades, you get pretty decent at it.”

Whiskey huffed. “It’s like Ma this evenin’. She walks through the house like a specter.”

Mac shook his head, throwing the last of his cigar in the ash bowl. “She’s always been like that. Ya’d think with as heavy as she is, the creaky old house would let ya know when she’s around, but it just don’t and it never has. Even Granny couldn’t get away with bein’ as quiet as she is.”

Fin tossed his own stub in the bowl. “You’re telling me.” Then he turned to his son. “Did you see her go into the living room?”

“Ah did.”

Fin clicked his tongue. “Could’ve told me.”

“Sorry.”

“Anyways,” Cheese restarted, “the dragon and I played a little game with the stuff I’d grabbed and strung together from his horde so he didn’t recognize what it was. I had a deck of cards on me so that’s what we used, and we played for my life, the stolen treasure, and some actual bread he was making with whoever he’d roasted. I can’t honestly say I’m comfortable with the idea that I might’ve been salivating over the flesh of my own kind, and to this day, I don’t know if that was a pony or not that he had there. But, still, I won the game and offered the gold for the food just so I kept my life, and the minute he was distracted with the jewels, I made a break for it. Just as I’d managed to get outside, a column of flame shot out of the vent, blackening it further. He complained about being tricked and me being a thief, which, in fairness, I definitely was, and as those words were reverberating out into the open air, I ran the other direction with a full belly, food to spare, and without looking back.”

Cheese was pretty fast on his hooves, even for a 47-year-old. If he’d been in better shape in his twenties, he could’ve been a sprinter.

“Look,” Fin began, “I’ve seen some nasty shit in my life, and I can honestly say that enough perfume can make anything smell good. Besides, you have four kids. You’ve salivated over a pony before.”

Discord cackled, Soarin laughed and hiccuped, Mac chuckled, Whiskey groaned, and Cheese frowned.

“You make a good point,” the storyteller said. “Still, it bothers me. Some of the things I’ve done, some of the things I’ve thought. If I were born in this era, would I have just been Cotton?”

Discord sat up. “Well, the idea may be considered, but here in reality, the world has already formed. You must see time and possibility like ice being made as water is poured over it. What has frozen is solid and cannot be changed. What yet pours might still be diverted from its intended path. So you have concerns; conduct an experiment. Do a trial, set variables and let the water freeze for a bit. If you find the way the water has frozen to your dissatisfaction, change the way in which the water pours.

“The unfortunate truth is that it is not you who decides what the frozen ice looks like. Trust me, I’ve tried. As a once bad father myself, you may do some introspection and investigating. Understanding yourself is the first part of your research.”

Cheese rubbed at his forehead. “I know that.”

“But it’s the fear of findin’ out that’s stoppin’ ya,” Mac began. “Ya think you’ll hear the answer ya don’t want ta, so you’re better off not knowin’. Ox already told me he’s gonna go inta software or game development or whatever, and it’s hard enough ta get him ta leave his computer as it is. Ah knew about that fer years before Ah finally worked up the courage ta ask him a while back. It hurt about as much as Ah expected it ta, but at least Malus would take care of my farm after Ah pass. Ah doubt Ah’d have ever asked if Ah never found out about Malus. But that’s one of the things Ah’ve started tryin’ ta fix about myself lately. Fer the longest time, Ah tried not ta talk ta my son.”

Soarin, who was pleasantly resting his eyes with an empty beer mug in his lap, raised an ear. “Th-that’s kinda shitty, huh, Mac?”

“It is. He loves his video games so much and Ah’ve been a little better about it these past years, but Ah still don’t really understand it, and when he talks, he talks about that. He knows more crazy math than Ah could ever fit in my head, and he can make that computer do all these things and even build one out of parts and all that, and ta be honest, it just hurts my head ta look at sometimes. If Ah’d ever considered it, Ah’d say Ah might even share Cheese’s concerns about whether he’s straight or not, but he’d have ta take interest in other ponies at all first.”

Thinking back, the only times Whiskey ever saw Oxford was during family gatherings at the orchard and sometimes at holidays. Once a month at best. He saw Malus every day, but he and Malus were more like brothers than his actual brothers. Even Liberty, their sister, was at the orchard every now and again to earn some extra bits, help out, or hang out. There weren’t many Apples in the Ponyville metropolitan area who didn’t show up every few weeks, but Oxford was one of them.

“Is he not goin’ ta college or nothin’?” Whiskey asked.

Mac shook his orange mane. “Nah, he thinks it’s a waste of time. Ah agree with him, but not fer the same reasons. He’s got a job already, ya know.”

Cheese reared his head back. “What? For real? When did that happen?”

Mac shrugged. “Hell if Ah know. Thousands of bits just started showin’ up in his account a few months ago and Ah had ta ask him where it was comin’ from. Apparently, he works fer some company out in Applewood remotely. Manages their website from his room, does somethin’ fer ‘em most hours of the day. Couldn’t tell ya what, but he’s racked up a lot in a short time. Been thinkin’ about chargin’ him rent, but Ah’m not sure Ah want him movin’ out either since Ah don’t know if Ah’d ever see him again if he does.”

Slowly, Soarin sat up. “Yeah, sucks to be left behind, but at least he knows what he wants. Other than Cheesette, I’m not sure what Prism is gonna do with himself.”

Whiskey lowered his brows. “What? Not gonna be a Wonderbolt?”

The white pegasus leaned over the table, putting a hoof on his temple. “I mean, it would be one thing if he acted like he wanted to, but he’s such an amazing flier that he doesn’t even have to try half the time.”

Fin nodded. “So it’s not that the goal is challenging, but rather it’s not challenging enough?”

Soarin groaned. “I need more water…”

Discord passed him the other mug and it refilled itself. “Here.”

“Thanks, buddy.” He drank the same glass for the fifth time and pulled himself off the table a bit. “It’ll be challenging once he does finally get into the pro-level stuff, but that’s only because he’s, like, sixteen and inexperienced. Once he gets the experience and a few years under his belt, I don’t see anybody above or below right now who could compete against him. He’s gonna be the Wonderbolt in the event he can pass the exam, which, let’s be honest, is not super likely any time soon.”

Not only was Prism in school a little late compared to his peers, but his academic record was the butt of many a joke in their circle. Applejack liked to bring up the wonderful irony of Rainbow Dash, who also failed the Wonderbolts exam many times and never had great academics herself, being a physics teacher now, and her own son not passing her classes. Unlike Stout and Cider, Whiskey’s younger brother twins who simply wouldn’t do the work, Prism is just a slow learner.

Still, most ponies talked about Prism like he already was a Wonderbolt. Whiskey wasn’t close to many of the younger kids, but he figured that at least was set in stone. “So… he doesn’t want ta be a Bolt or… what exactly?”

Soarin rubbed at his temple. “Like, I don’t think that’s it. He has fun doing it, he enjoys the racing and the performing, he’s got that natural people pleaser talent, and the kid is charismatic. He just has no drive, no ambition.” He pushed himself off the table, trying to hold it so he stayed still. “Like, I wasn’t super talented. I worked a lot, and since my dad has something against the Bolts, I had to pay for everything myself. I did part-time jobs after school and I practiced after my part-time jobs, and I barely slept from age sixteen to eighteen. That test is friggin hard, too. It’s got college-level meteorology and physics stuff on it, and it’s not, like, theoretical stuff like modern math classes, that was shit you needed to know so you didn’t get caught up in a storm during a race or something.

“He’s more like Dash in that he’s got the raw talent to just be a Wonderbolt, but he doesn’t have the knowledge base to back it up and he doesn’t take to that stuff quickly. I mean, I would know, I teach his history class, Prism's reports are awful. He just doesn’t retain information that’s not related to his hobbies and he can intuit too well. I wanna help him, but I can’t make him want to be a Wonerbolt, ya know?”

Whiskey had never been a very driven pony himself. He didn’t live much of a difficult life, he was born as much of an Apple as anypony in his family could be, he was set to inherit Sweet Apple Acres, and he loved working the orchard. If anything, the management of it was almost like a hobby to him since there was so much to keep track of and so many little things that could always be improved. Even worse, when he had nothing to do he then went on and played city and farm management games with his friends and siblings, or even on his own. It was what he was born to do, it’s where his talents lay, and it’s what he loved. Everything sort of lined up for him in a way that no one else could really understand it. He was content with the future set out for him. It was less about earning things and more about maintaining them. In Prism’s case, however…

“What about his talent? The cutie mark, Ah mean.” Whiskey asked.

Soarin rested his cheek on his hoof. “Hell if I know.”

“What did we use to call it?” Discord reminisced. “The mark of destiny? Ponies used to think their fates were set in stone, you know, that mark effectively determined one’s worth. Is Prism’s mark so inconsequential?”

Soarin narrowed his eyes at the unicorn. “Come on, you know what I mean.”

Discord rolled his eyes. “Of course I do, this is for our guest, Soarin.”

He slapped his forehead. “Right.” Turning back to Whiskey, he set his hooves on the table. “You’ve seen it, right? It’s a watch tower made of rainbow blocks, like a rook.”

“Ah’ve seen it.”

“Yeah, so, like, he’s got an art talent. Those damned expensive model kits of his have cost us a fortune over the years, but he’s, like, a painter or something. It’s actually impressive. He uses brushes and spray guns and cans, he can work a chisel, he’s good with glue and sand paper, and he’s a nut for architecture, but, like, he’s bad at math, and it’s his best subject. Maybe there’d be a way to make it work somehow, but architecture is a hard business to get into and it’s not like he’d want to be a normal architect, he loves all the cool artsy stuff that only the 1% can afford. He would have to be very famous with years of experience to actually do the kind of stuff he’d want to with his talent outside of his models. I mean, maybe he could even paint and sell models of things and the like, but he wants to get married and have kids the minute Cheese okays it—”

“And it won’t be okay until she’s eighteen and graduated from high school.” Cheese affirmed.

“—so he needs to be able to pay for a family. A couple years in the Bolts with the kind of money a star like him would make and he’ll be set for life. And it’s not like I’ve never told him this or anything, but I just don’t think he understands it. It’s easy, it’s fun, he just flies at the highest level because he was born that way, and it’s not even his special talent. The day he gets into the Wonderbolts, provided nothing changes, he’s gonna meet ponies for the first time who already hate his guts, and it’s just gonna get worse from there. Honestly, it was a lot easier to worry about Haze a few years back than this impending shitstorm Prism is gonna have to navigate.”

Whiskey’s eyes fell into the nearly empty orange juice in front of him. “Damn. That… that sucks, Mister Soarin.”

“Yeah.” Soarin sighed, went to pick up his beer, but realized the mug was empty. “I need another one of these.”

Discord clapped his hooves and the beer refilled itself. “Ask and you shall receive.”

“Thanks.”