All in all, Moondancer's little trip down to Ponyville had not been that bad. Her relations with Twilight were not back to what they had been. No, the trip had confirmed that they never could be; both of them had changed too much. But she did feel that she could look on Twilight as a friend again.
And though she had seen many interesting things in Ponyville, she was glad to be home. For the trip, however pleasant, was at its heart an aberration. Now normalcy could be restored. Now she could return to her studies without distraction.
She picked up a quill, and began outlining the topics for tomorrow's research; she did so every night. It took longer than usual, though. She felt distracted, but did not quite know what by. Residual effects of the trip, probably.
When she was done, she climbed into bed. A sudden tiredness washed over her, and sleep, which normally came only timidly, embraced her as the blankets did.
She went back to the library.
She did not attain such a state as she had managed a week before (only a week? why did it feel like so much longer?). Those episodes were rare, to her sadness. It was a unique pleasure when all the world contracted down to a single point of whatever problem she was trying to solve, and she could feel or at least remembered after the fact the whole resources of her mind racing to solve it—it was a singular pleasure. And a unique agony, too, to be interrupted, wrenched down to earth, to a world of petty concerns and unimportant details.
The day slid by. On a high tower, Celestia's horn gleamed as the sun sank below the horizon. Moondancer went home.
The next day was similar.
The next day was similar.
The next day was similar.
The next day was similar.
The next day was similar.
The next day was similar.
The next day she went home early.
There was... something distracting her. Something that made her attention keep sliding away from her books. Every few paragraphs she found herself looking somewhere else; her notes were becoming terse and bare. She recognized this: burnout. It terrified her. The last few times it had happened had been agonizing. The one thing she was good at had become boring, distasteful. She nearly ran out of the library as soon as that horrible word hissed in her head.
It was only a partial solution, running. She still needed to pass the time somehow. She would see how she felt in the morning, but that still left a whole evening to get through, and she was not in the habit of going to bed early.
After pacing around in her room for a while, she felt the walls closing in on her. she was something in her telling her to move. She had to move. She went out into the street. It was so much better out at night. She walked; she did not care which way she was going, she just let her hooves carry her along through the humid air.
Street after street passed her by. Moondancer really was not paying attention, because she soon wandered into a part of the city that was active even at night. She kept moving, not looking at anypony. Bad enough in the day. The shadow-distorted forms of the ponies around her were almost grotesque.
She looked up, to try to get her bearings. The buildings here all had bright signs on them. The one she was standing in front of proclaimed itself in neon green to be "The Galloping Gelding." She grimaced at the name, but, there was something familiar about it, as if she had heard it before.
Moondancer was not an impulsive pony. She rarely did anything without carefully turning it over in her mind. But she was in a strange mood that night. She had hardly been in control of her hooves all the way there, so it was somehow less of a surprise when she found herself walking inside.
There was music playing. She felt it more than heard it at the volume it was going. A rumbling in her chest accompanied each pulse of the beat. Despite the obvious loudness, it did not crash in her ears—it sounded almost distant.
Heat, too, came with the wall of sound. She could see in the middle of the building a sea of bodies. They were dancing and thrashing wildly. Their energy was palpable. Not just in the heat and sound, there was something else radiating from those ponies. Moondancer could feel it stirring something in her. Her hooves knew what to do, even if she didn't.
But she could not let herself approach just yet. After all, she was a stranger here, what if it was some kind of exclusive club that you were supposed to be a member of? She just needed to sit down for a minute, work things out.
She was interrupted by a voice that somehow sounded perfectly clear despite the noise. "What can I get for you?" said the stallion she saw as she turned around. He (the bartender, she realized) was looking at her expectantly.
"Uuum," she said, "Uh, this is my first time here. What's good?" At the end of the sentence her voice rose high, as if to emphasize the ignorance behind the question.
He chuckled and grinned from behind his mustache. "Well in that case, I know just the thing. One moment." He turned, and pulled down bottles with his magic—it seemed like there was a chandelier's worth of glass flying down from the shelves—pouring and mixing some concoction in front of him. He paused every few moments to inspect his work, sniffing at it carefully. At last he was done. He set down two shot glasses in front of her. "That," he said, pointing at the right one, "is The Galloper, our specialty." It was glowing softly. Moondancer was pretty sure drinks weren't supposed to glow. "Well, one of our specialties. But if you're new here I ain't letting within a mile of The Gelder." Moondancer wasn't a stallion, but she still could not help but wince at that name. "And this," he continued, pointing at the other glass, "is water. You'll need it. Drink up." He smiled.
Moondancer didn't see any other way out of the conversation than to obey. She raised the glass to nervous lips, she looked at the bartender, hesitating.
He nodded. "One gulp."
"One gulp," she whispered to herself. She closed her eyes—
"Hold on," the stallion said. "Tilt yer head farther back. It'll go down easier that way. Less time to think about it." He demonstrated.
Moondancer tilted her head back, and tipped the glass. It felt like somepony dropped a hot rock down her throat. She gagged and sputtered, but everything had slid down without her even needing to swallow. She fell off her seat, staggering. She groaned, her voice came out hoarse through the burning in her throat, "What was that!"
The bartender just laughed, the son of a nag. "Just gallops right through ya, don't it."
Moondancer grumbled and walked away. She certainly wasn't going to spending any more time around disgusting things like that "drink". Why'd she even let him give it to her, Celestia dammit. But hey, she didn't mind the music so much anymore. It was getting louder, though. And the lights seemed brighter. The air seemed hotter. She wandered onto the dance floor because why not. It felt different than normal having all those ponies around. She felt herself moving to the beat, dancing with everypony. It was easy. The lights seemed brighter. She felt almost weightless as she moved. There were so many other ponies around. She was moving with them. It was good that she could feel the music in her bones, because it was hard to hear it. The lights seemed brighter. The lights were getting brighter. The lights were getting whiter.