Rain pelted the windows of a rotting bar on a late night in Manehattan.
Tirek’s tired eyes trailed the descent of the rain outside, watching them fall down the window in a familiar pattern. The dull sound of rain hitting the Cat’s Cradle became background noise to the serenade of a stallion on the jukebox singing a merry melody about a brighter future. Tirek found himself unconsciously tapping his finger against the counter in rhythm with the music as he lazily watched the downpour outside.
He considered closing the bar for the night and retiring early with a nice book, but he pushed that thought aside in favor of listening to the song play on the jukebox. The few books that they had on hand were either about alcohol or something that only a degenerate would find stimulating. With nothing but time on his hands, Tirek elected to spend his time behind the counter in the vain hope that a customer would come in. The two unicorns who had come in the night before had spent the rest of their night celebrating their latest scenes over several different brands of drinks.
As the night wore on, Tirek found himself comfortably talking with them about their inventions and devices. He wasn’t quite sure why the two wanted to be conmen when they could easily sell their actual inventions for a great profit, such as their ponyless carriage and the fruit shredding instrument that could make healthy drinks. If they had just sold the designs of their inventions then they’d make a larger profit than they had while trying to con ponies. But, for whatever reason, the two brothers were insistent on being conmen.
Tirek didn’t really care if the two made any good or bad life choices, it was their life and they were free to ruin in any way they saw fit, so long as it didn’t affect him. Whether the two became successful billionaires or debt burdened beggars was of little importance to Tirek. Even if they succeeded, Tirek would never profit from their ill-gotten gains or their rightfully earned bits. They’d move on with their lives, hopefully forget about the strong centaur that worked at the bar, and leave Tirek in peace as he worked to earn a roof over his head.
Just as the song on the jukebox had finished and moved on to the next line up in the track, the bell of the bar chimed to announce a customer. Tirek gave the mare a curious glance as she entered, watching her trudge over the threshold with a sour expression on her muzzle.
Her eyes were obscured by a large wet purple hat that was decorated in colorful stars and cut outs of crescent moons, matching the purple fabric that was draped over her back. Rain water dripped off of her clothing as she trotted into the bar, giving little to no care about the mess she left behind her.
Once she hopped onto the bar stool at the counter, she took off her hat and glared at Tirek’s abdomen before her eyes slowly traveled up it to meet his gaze. Whatever words she had prepared died in her throat as she looked up at the centaur.
“Um… Where’s Dim Light?” The mare asked in a quiet voice.
“Who?”
“The uh… The bartender,” she clarified.
“Oh, he’s gone, and I’m the new bartender. Would you like me to get you something?” Tirek asked as he gestured to the bar’s limited stock of alcoholic drinks.
“… Trixie will have a shot glass with whiskey. Oh, and leave the bottle on the counter,” she politely ordered.
Tirek complied easily with the mare’s request, bringing out a glass of whisky and one of the few shot glasses they had on hand. As soon as he placed them down on the counter, they were instantly snatched away by the azure color of the unicorn’s levitation magic. In a matter of seconds, she uncorked the bottle, filled her glass, and threw her head back to down the drink as quickly as she could.
Trixie soon emptied three shot glasses worth of whiskey before throwing off her wet clothes and laying them on the stool next to her. The light of her magic faded away from the bottle after she placed it down, allowing her brain to not focus on controlling her magic as she prepared to drink more over the night. There had been a number of unicorns who caused chaos with their magic when they were drunk, and Tirek was mildly thankful that the mare was at least smart enough to know that magic and alcohol didn’t mix well together.
“So, what happened to Dim Light?” She asked as she poured herself a fourth shot with her fore hooves.
“Not sure. My boss just took over a while ago, so that pony probably left the second the owner changed.”
“Hmmm. That sounds like something he’d do,” Trixie shrugged.
“So, are you still going to be a regular even if he’s not here?” Tirek asked as he wiped off a small amount of water from the counter.
“So long as this place has something to drink, then Trixie doesn’t see why she wouldn’t,” she answered before abandoning the shot glass to drink straight from the bottle.
Tirek was impressed, worried, and disgusted by the mare’s decision to forego the small glass in favor of the bottle itself. With a loud pop, Trixie took her lips off the bottle and slammed it back down on the counter. Her body shuddered as she felt the alcohol flow down her throat and into her stomach, hopefully doing an adequate job of hilling whatever hole had been burrowed in her soul or heart.
“This shitty city is shit,” Trixie claimed as she laid her head down on the counter. “Buck this city, buck the world.”
“Amen to that,” Tirek muttered as he glanced at the slowly growing puddle of rain water that had been building up underneath the stool next to her. He would definitely have to mop it up later, assuming he could find wherever Nermal hid it.
“It’s like… You try to make everypony like you, you try to entertain them, an’ then they blame you for not being good at magic after you give them a free performance. Like, what the buck! Then, you gotta get a job at a rock farm. A rock farm of all bucking places. whooo has a rock farm? I worked my flank off there, and I still don’t get it. Stupid farm and stupid bosses firing me. Stupid wheels, and amulet, and revenge bullshit,” she groaned.
“You do, you do one baaaad thing, an’ suddenly you’re the bad guy. Buuuuuuuuck that. They’re the bad guys, not meee… I’m the good guy,” she whined as tears began to build up in her eyes. “I’m a good guy! I performed for orphans! I donated bits to them! But did that matter in Ponyvile? NO! They made me look like a bad mare, and that stupid Gabby Gummy shit made everypony think I’m mean! I’m not mean, I’m a good pony!”
In a flash of movement, her hooves wrapped around Tirek’s abdomen to tightly embrace him as she continued to cry. Her fresh tears stained his suit jacket as she shoved her muscle into is abs.
“WHY DOESN’T ANYPONY LHOOOAVE MEEEEEHH!” She whined as her cries grew in intensity.
Tirek stared at the mare for a few moments before he nervously looked around the bar, his eyes pleading for a sympathetic soul to pry the mare off of him and take the burden on themselves. Without anypony to help him, Tirek was left with the conundrum of either physically forcing the mare off of him and chasing away the only client who could potentially become a regular, or attempt to comfort her and earn a sizable tip for his help.
“Um… There… There?” Tirek said as he lightly patted Trixie’s back.
Unfortunately, his attempt at a comforting gesture failed to stop the freely flowing tears that continued to stain his lime green suit. Tried felt physically sick while hearing her wails echo in the empty bar. Her cries descended into incoherent gibberish that vaguely sounded resembled words making the mare act more hysterical as she struggled to convey her sorrows to the centaur.
Tirek accepted his fate as an oversized tissue and continued to pat the mares back as he counted the passing seconds. At some point, Tirek lost track of time and his thoughts drifted to lingering memories of his past, back to a time when he would have reveled in watching the mare in front of him turn into a sobbing mess of emotional distress. He idly wondered what his old self would have done in his current situation.
He would have taken advantage of the defenseless unicorn and drained her of her magic, amassed power to turn it against the ponies of Equestria, and laughed at the trail of mayhem that was left in his wake. However, it would have accomplished nothing more than a fair amount of property damage in the end. Tirek would have nothing to gain from taking her magic, if anything, it would have been a detriment in the end.
By the time he had tossed all of his thoughts aside, he realized that the blue coated mare had passed out during his self-reflection. After delicately picking the mare up, Tirek laid her down in one of the booths of the bar.
Trixie shivered slightly as he placed her down, prompting Tirek to glance at the soaked fabrics she laid across the stool at the counter. It was still just as wet as her hat was, and there wasn’t much in the bar that could cover her except for Tirek’s own tear stained suit. He wasn’t too sure why one of his first thoughts was to give the mare something to cover herself, but he decided to believe that it was because he was more worried about Cat’s Cradle than the mare. If she had fallen sick then she probably wouldn’t return the next night to spend her bits on more whiskey, and that would be bad for business.
As he decided to take off his stained suit to give Trixie something to warm herself up with, a small triangular medallion fell out of one of his pockets. It was the only thing he had from his homeland, a tool he used to manipulate the spirit of chaos, and his last connection to his brother, Scorpan.
Back in the previous timeline, Tirek had lost the medallion forever after giving it to Discord. He had never found out what the spirit of chaos did with it, and he had never given it much thought even when he returned to a time when he still possessed it.
It was an ancient artifact, one of the few items he had from his homeland when he first invaded Equestria with his brother, the last gift his brother gave him before Tirek was ultimately betrayed by his own blood. It had meant a great deal to him when his brother gave him the medallion, but after his betrayal, it was nothing but a consistent reminder of their past. As Tirek stared at the relic, a small thought in his mind slowly became more prominent.
He could probably sell it for a decent amount of Bits. It meant nothing to him during the thousands of years he spent locked in Tartarus, but it still had a decent monetary value to it.
How ironic that the token of his brother’s betrayal would turn into a possible light of salvation for the old and crumbling bar.