Dash awoke to a loud pounding on her door. At least, it seemed pretty loud. She looked over at her alarm clock. Noon. "Ugh." she muttered. She had been home for nearly two weeks now and had fallen into a predictable pattern: Wake up at noon, go to town, piss about, maybe have a late lunch with Pinkie and spend a little time together, go attempt flying, fail miserably, go home, drink, pass out, repeat the next day. A little different than her previous life but still, having a routine was supposed to be a good thing, right? The knocking sounded again. "Coming." she shouted, rolling out of bed.
She opened the door to find Twilight there. "Afternoon, sleepyhead."
"Twi. What's up?"
"Well, I was just talking to Fluttershy and..." Twilight suddenly noticed Dash's bedraggled condition. "Say, Dash, you look a mess." Her eyes narrowed as a thought struck her. "You haven't been drinking again, have you?"
Dash fidgeted nervously. "What? No, no of course not. Just, um, having some trouble sleeping, that's all."
Twilight remained suspicious, but decided to drop the subject for now. "Well, like I was saying, Fluttershy mentioned something that hadn't occurred to me. Without your flying, you don't have a job."
"Yea, Twi. I was just thinking about that last night. But what can I do? My only real skill was flying. I don't know other stuff."
"Well you could always try something simple. What about waiting tables? Anypony could do that."
"Meh, its better than nothing, I guess. But Ponyville Cafe isn't hiring that I know of."
"Well there's that new restaurant, 'Soup's On!'. They're hiring. I've met the owners, too, Brown Gravy and Mushroom Gravy. They're a wonderful couple. Two of the nicest stallions I've ever met. We could go down there this afternoon."
"Sounds to me like you already had this all planned out, Twi."
"Well, I might have wandered by there on the way over from Fluttershy's place and mentioned that I had a friend who needed a job."
"Okay, okay. Just let me get myself together here and we can head over."
The Gravys were every bit as pleasant as Twilight had described. Dash particularly liked Mushroom. He seemed pretty cool (and she knew cool). Dash had been surprised to find that he actually followed stunt flying and even knew of her. She was even more pleasantly surprised when he had managed to chat a bit about her erstwhile career without trying to shower her with pity.
In the end, she made the cut. Today was Friday and she would start on Monday. Starting pay would be 6 bits an hour, plus tips. It was a far cry from what she had made on the weather team, but it was a job. She would even get to see Pinkie everyday at work, since the Gravys had contracted with Sugarcube Corner to provide fresh deserts, which Pinkie would deliver daily. She had met some of the others who had been hired. Berry Punch, Minuette, and Candymane would be working day shifts with her. Candymane, being Scootaloo's mom, knew Dash right away. They four chatted a bit, then Berry Punch suggested they go out to celebrate their new jobs with a round or two. Candymane and Minuette exchanged a knowing look and politely declined. Both Minuette, being Berry's roommate, and Candymane, being a longtime friend of them both, knew that Berry had quite a liberal idea of what constituted 'a round or two'. Dash, however, was more than willing.
With the strong encouragement of the proprietor, one White Ashes, Dash and Berry staggered out of The Thirsty Pony at 2 a.m., each one trying to support theirself on the other. Dash was in the middle of a story and talking quite animatedly:
"... and then I shaid to her, I shaid 'Fine. The schlown can shtay but the donkey in the griffon coshtume hash to go.'"
Both ponies busted out laughing, causing them to lose their balance and topple over. For some inexplicable reason, this only made them laugh harder.
"Oh, Dasch," slurred Berry between giggles, "you're jusht too mush, you know that."
"Heh. Thanksh, Berry. You're pretty school yourshelf."
The two staggered their way along toward's Berry's house, laughing and talking loudly (and even occasionally breaking into song). At one point a window opened and an old tin can came flying in their direction. "Hey, knock it off, you lushes. There's decent ponies trying to sleep." came an irate voice. This only prompted more giggles from the pair.
The pair were greeted at Berry's house by a rather peeved Minuette, who proceeded to drag her inebriated roommate off for a good tongue lashing (for all the good it ever did). Dash blinked in surprise, finding the door abruptly closed in her face, and then proceeded to stagger on to her own house. After nearly falling off the ladder several times, she finally manged to get there. Upon getting inside, she decided it was far too much effort to stagger all the way to her bed, and just decided to take a nap right there in the foyer.
Dash groaned and rubbed her head, trying to remember why the hell she was laying in the floor. As the events of the previous night slowly filtered back, she managed to laugh despite her condition. That Berry sure was a trip. She glanced at her clock. Almost noon. She groaned again, realizing that she was going to have to change her sleeping schedule now that she was going to be working from 10 to 6. She sat up. Suddenly there was a knocking. Dash opened the door, her bleary eyes taking a moment to focus on the bouncing pink figure on her doorstep.
"Hi, Dashie, are you ready to go cause you don't look ready in fact you look like you just woke up but I know you didn't just wake up cause that would mean you forgot and I know you didn't forget, did you?"
Dash shook her head in confusion. "Wait, what?"
Pinkie stopped bouncing and frowned. "You did forget didn't you?"
"Forget what, Pinks?" Dash was genuinely confused.
"Why your super spectacular fantabulous 'Welcome back again' party, silly. Duh." replied Pinkie, bouncing again. "C'mon, we gotta get going."
Dash found herself being practically dragged along by Pinkie as they rushed towards Sugarcube Corner.
With Dash being sober (if somewhat hung-over) the party proceeded far more smoothly this time. Dash and Pinkie enjoyed a few actual dances together and things were going splendidly. About two hours in, Dash was sitting at a table near the door, regaling Scootaloo and her friends (and whoever would listen, really) with tales of her awesome coolness (or was it cool awesomeness?) when Berry Punch arrived, just as Scootaloo was again affirming how awesome Dash was.
"Oh, you bet she is," Berry chimed in loudly, taking a seat. Why you should hear the stories she was telling me..."
"Um," Dash interrupted nervously, "Berry, I'm not sure those stories are really suitable for..."
Berry continued as though Dash hadn't spoken, "... last night over at..."
Dash began frantically waving her hooves and trying to shush Berry. Due to Berry's volume, several ponies had begun to look in their direction, including Twilight, who was trotting over to see what the commotion was.
Berry noticed Dash's frantic gestures. "What, Dash? Those stories you were telling last night were hilarious. You had half the bar in stitches."
Twilight arrived at the table just in time to hear this last. She glared daggers at Dash, especially as Scootaloo chimed in to ask: "What's a bar?"
"Yes, Dash," Twilight said, menacingly, "why don't you tell Scootaloo what a bar is, hmmm?"
Dash gulped and fidgeted nervously. "Um, uh... gee, would you look at the time? Gotta go." She bolted for the door.
Dash got about ten feet out the door and felt herself yanked to a halt by a magic field. Twilight trotted up next to her, still steaming mad. "Where do you think you're going, missy?"
"Um, I was just on my way to, uh..."
"We need to have a little chat. My house. Now." Twilight's tone made it clear that it was not a request.
Dash was a bit startled as Twilight dragged her along. She had never seen Twilight this mad before.
Dash had had enough. Twilight had been busting her chops about 'having a drinking problem' for a good ten minutes now, and frankly, it was tiresome.
"You know what, Twi, just what the fuck is your problem anyway? So Berry and I went out for a few drinks to celebrate getting our new jobs. Honestly, I don't see where it's any of your fucking business or where you get off thinking you have the right to tell me what to do."
"I wish I had never gotten you that damn job. I think Berry is the last pony in Equestria you need to be hanging out with."
"Seriously? What the hell? Are you my mother now or something? What's next, you gonna tell me what time I have to be home? Or maybe set a fucking bedtime? I'm a grown pony, damnit, I can take care of myself."
Expecting another tirade, Dash was surprised and somewhat mortified when Twilight buried her face in her hooves and began sobbing.
"Twi? Aw, geez, Twi, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."
Twilight sniffled. "'I'm a grown pony.' That... that's just what he said." she choked out.
"Who? What who said?"
"Dusk Starbeam. My cousin." Twilight levitated a book down from a nearby shelf and opened it. It showed a number of family pictures. She pointed to one, a picture of a handsome grayish pegasus pony. It was dated about ten years ago. He looked to be about the same age in the picture as Twilight was now.
"He looks like a pretty cool fellow." Dash opined. "Howcome you never mentioned him before?"
"Probably because it hurt too much to think about him. You see, Dash, this is the last picture we have of him. He died just two weeks later."
"Geez. I'm sorry, Twi. But what does this have to do with me?"
"Well, Dash, Dusk was a lot like you. He liked speed, loved flying. You know, he even liked pranks like you." Twilight frowned. "He also liked drinking. A lot." She looked up at Dash. "Oh we all thought it was great fun, you know? Ha ha, there's crazy cousin Dusk again, acting all silly. It started off slowly enough. He would drink just enough to get a little tipsy. But over time, it grew. Me and my other cousins, being the young, stupid foals we were, still thought it was all some funny game. Eventually he would drink so much he would pass out. The next day we would all have great fun trying to see how little he remembered about the night before. Sometimes I would overhear the arguments he would have with my aunt and uncle. I remember hearing him say that line more than once. 'I'm a grown pony, I can take care of myself.' Then one night, it happened." She started tearing up again. "He passed out, like he had before. The next morning we went to get him up, so we could tease him about what he did, like always. But... but he didn't get up. When we realized something was wrong, we rushed him to the hospital, but it was too late. Dusk never woke up again. He died three days later of alcohol poisoning. Dash, I just... I don't want to see the same thing happen to you." Twilight grabbed Dash, burying her head in the pegasus' shoulder and sobbing uncontrollably.
Dash didn't know what to say, so she just held her friend. After a few moments, Twilight stopped sobbing and lifted her head. Dash looked her in the eye. "Look, Twilight. I... I understand why you're so worried now. But I'm telling you, I can be responsable. I know I haven't been doing very well these past couple weeks but try to understand what I've been dealing with. Everything I dreamed of my whole life has been taken from me. And it's not like I lost my wings or they don't work at all. I just can't fly. And I can't really understand it, no matter what the doc says. It's like... I dunno, like chasing something, and just when you're about to catch it, it just up and moves and you can't ever get there. You know? For a while there, it was just darkness for me. But, honestly, I've been really thinking about it today. I mean, here I am, I just got I job. I should have been happy, right? So why did I find myself doing the same thing I had been doing when I was miserable?"
"Oh, Dash, I..."
"No, wait. See, I just had an... an insight, I guess. When I was in there, sober, and I was dancing with Pinkie, I was just floating. It was the greatest feeling and it occurred to me that I really did have something to live for. That maybe what I needed to do was find a new goal. I don't know what that is yet, but I do know I can't just waste my life. I owe all of you better than that. Especially Pinkie."
"But why did you run? Why did you get so mad when I confronted you?"
"I dunno, Twi, I guess I was just embarrassed. I didn't want the others to know that side of me. I suddenly realized how ashamed I was of it. As Berry started in with her talking, I suddenly realized that I don't recall ever seeing her sober. And I realized you were right, Twi. I mean, bless her heart, she's a wonderful, fun, nice pony but that's no way to live. Then you caught up with me and started lecturing again and I guess my stubborn pride kicked in again. I'm really sorry I cussed you out and everything."
"Oh, Dash, I forgive you. Now we better get back there before Berry tells too many crazy stories."
Dash blushed at the thought, but then she stopped Twilight. "Actually, there's one thing I want to do first. Maybe you can help me."
Once again, the party was winding down without it's guest of honor. At least she had actually shown up this time. Pinkie wondered why Dash had left in such a hurry. The stories Berry had told were, perhaps, a little off-color but they weren't that bad.
Suddenly the door opened and Dash returned, followed by Twilight.
"Dashie!" Pinkie ran over and grabbed her up in a huge hug. "Where'd you go?"
"Oh. I realized I had forgotten something at home. I just had to go get it."
"What is it? Huh? Tell me, tell me." Pinkie bounced up and down excitedly.
"It's a surprise. Now stand still and close your eyes."
With great effort, Pinkie stopped bouncing. As she closed her eyes, Twilight motioned the others in their little group to come closer. Dash got down on one knee and produced a small box. Now it was the others who were almost ready to bounce with excitement, as they realized what was happening. "Ok, Pinks," Dash said as she opened the box. "you can open your eyes now."
Pinkie's eyes flew open. "What is it, what is it?" She spotted the box and was suddenly, amazingly, speechless.
"Pinkie, will you marry me?"
Pinkie practically tackled Dash, embracing her and giving her a kiss that seemed to last forever. "Of course I will, Dashie. Oh, we're going to have the biggest bestest wedding ever. There's gonna be all kinds of pretty decorations and lots of food and cake and Rarity will have to make the outfits, won't you Rarity, and oh we'll have to think of someplace fun to go for our honeymoon and figure out who to invite and, oh, Dashie, I love you so much."
Dash just smiled and ran her hoof through Pinkie's poofy hair. "I love you, too, Pinks."
Author's note: Well, that got quite long and was a while in coming. Sorry. Only one more chapter left, folks.
A few credits are in order here:
Brown Gravy and Mushroom Gravy are not mine. They were invented by Present Perfect in his excellent fanfic "Whisk" - I highly recommend it. - and are used with his permission.
White Ashes, the briefly mentioned bartender pony, is my invention, and was based off my stepsister - If you're a brony in the Dubuque, IA area, stop by her bar, Fusion (formerly Hammertime) - and tell her I sent ya.
