//------------------------------// // Chapter 5. A Slap on The Wrist. // Story: My Large Villain: Alcohol is Magic // by Hotel_Chicken //------------------------------// Tirek’s fingers rapped against the wooden counter of the bar as he watched the bell above the door sway with a gentle breeze. It was still a few hours before Princess Celestia would decide to raise the sun. After she finally got off of her fat plot to make sure the world didn’t freeze over, Tirek would be able to trade shifts with his boss. Business had been slightly increasing during the daytime shift, allowing Tirek to not worry as much that fewer and fewer ponies were coming to the bar each night. He wasn’t entirely sure what had caused business to come to a slow crawl. It wasn’t as if ponies decided to suddenly become abstinent at night or anything, many of the ponies that he initially leached off of were drunk morons that were stumbling home blindly and too drunk to remember reporting a cloaked figure to the authorities. Something was amiss, and Tirek wasn’t sure what it was. There was nothing in the papers that alluded to a mandatory curfew, and he didn’t remember anything from his past life that would explain the slow nights that came to a mind-numbing crawl. On a lighter note, Nermal was able to pawn off the medallion that Tirek’s brother gave him. Tirek was fairly certain that Nermal wasn’t paid nearly as much as the medallion was worth, but it was still an arguably decent amount. The only downside of it was that Nermal became very… emotional when he got the money. Needless to say, Tirek never wanted to see an abyssain cry after that, if only so he could spare his ears. Nermal was able to resupply the bar, pay off a good deal of his growing debts, and actually pay for an advertisement in a local newspaper. Granted, it was smaller than any other advertisement on the page, but it should have hopefully caught some creature’s attention. More bits for the bar meant more peaceful days of sleeping in the basement, which meant that he could live another day outside of the caverns of Tartarus. Tirek glanced at the calendar that hung on the wall, silently counting down the days when Discord arrived in the previous timeline. The centaur had lived for almost a year above ground before the draconequus found him, and it would only be ten months until that fateful day would come to pass. Tirek hoped that he would be able to avoid the chaotic chimera in his new timeline, allowing the crimson centaur to amass enough bits to board a ship to another country before the princesses could double their efforts in finding him. From what Nermal had told him, the Abyssian kingdom had been taken over by a tyrannical king so that was out of the question. The dragon lands were too warm for Tirek’s tastes, the Griffon kingdom was too close to Equestrian, and half of the Hippogriff kingdom was underwater and still hadn’t been revealed to the rest of the world yet. So, with nowhere else to go, Tirek planned to ship himself off to Minotauria to live quietly amongst the bipedal bovine. As he imagined what pleasures his new life would hold, the sound of the bell brought him away from his fantasies to his bleak reality. Casting an uninterested glance at the door, Tirek saw a yellow earth pony mare in a trench coat and fedora with sunglasses. She eyed her surroundings warily, glancing at every shadow as she walked into the bar, as if she had expected a changeling to leap from under the floorboards and ceiling beams. Tirek couldn’t help but raise a befuddled eyebrow at the mare’s antics. She really couldn’t have been less inconspicuous if she tried. And coming from a giant red centaur, that said a lot. Being completely oblivious to his mocking thoughts, the mare took a seat at the counter before casting one last glance over her shoulder. After the mare had made one more futile attempt to interrogate the bar with her eyes, she placed a bag of bits on the counter. “Whatever’s the most expensive,” she ordered. Once Tirek made sure that the bits were safely tucked away under the bar, he turned to fulfill her wishes with a bottle of overpriced bottom shelf quality bourbon. She didn't take a sip of it as she brought it to her lips, instead electing to smell the glass he poured before letting her gaze trot around the room. “So, you uh… Have any interesting customers trot in here, buddy?” She asked, shooting him a sideways glance as Tirek made himself look busy. He never understood why ponies wanted to talk while they were drinking. It always felt uncomfortably social. “I suppose that depends on your definition, ma’am,” he replied, reaching down to pull out a rag from below the bar to wipe the clean counter. His ear flicked as he heard something plop into the mare’s drink. Her hooves were wrapped around the glass tightly, pulling it closer to her barrel as she replied with an awkward smile. “Uh, anypony I might know?” “… None that I could guess,” he answered, studying her with a curious glance before returning to his menial task. "I don't think we've met before" "Right, yeah. Well uh… Know any good places around here?” “You’re looking at it. I don’t know a better place than this one on the block,” he lied. “So, what brings you here tonight?” “Work.” “Oh? What kind?” “Uh-cookies,” she quickly answered. “I mean candies. I work in a candy shop and I wanted to come to Maehatten.” “Really?” Tirek asked with faux interest. He had met a number of bad liars in his life, and the mare sitting on the other side of the counter was certainly one of them. Before he could attempt to interrogate the mare any further, a series of green flashes came from the glass in her hooves, causing both of them to stare at the flashing light before she suddenly galloped out of the bar. That... that was certainly weird. But, before he had the time to think about what the mare had done, he noticed an odd chill run up his spine. The lights slowly flickered with a faint buzz, as the bottles behind him began to rattle on the shelves. Thinking quickly, Tirek turned to grab the various glasses before they could shatter. He missed a bottle as it clattered off the shelf, tumbling to the ground before it was caught in a blue aura. The bar stood still as the spell caressed the glass bottle, lifting it up into the air as it slowly returned to its shelf. The familiar aura gently nudged and pushed the other drinks, neatly putting them all back into place as Tirek stepped away. His wide eyes flew to the door as the mare behind it stepped inside, revealing a pony straight out of his nightmares, in the most literal of ways. "Tirek. It has been many moons since we last met," Princess Luna said, letting her gaze slowly slide across the bar as she stepped inside. "And I must say that I am quite surprised to find you here of all places. Tirek took a step back as the mare approached, feeling her spells latch onto his legs to hold him in place. "Do not even think of trying to flee, Tirek," the princess warned, flicking her gaze back at the centaur as she spoke. "If you believe I have come unprepared then you are surely mistaken. Should you leave this room, the mercenaries I hired would pounce on you without hesitation. If I remember correctly, you couldn't drain the magic from minotaurs or dragons, could you?" She rhetorically asked, taking a seat at the bar and grabbing the previous pony's glass. She drank it without hesitation, letting the flavor sit for a moment before giving her thoughts. "If this is your best, then I must say that I am very disappointed." "... Why are you here," Tirek finally managed to ask, earning a small smile from the mare. "Never the one for small talk, were you, Tirek?" "To be fair, I don't think we ever had a chance to 'talk' outside of shouting at each other." "Ah, and I see you still have your silver tongue," she noted, taking another sip of her drink as she lit her horn. The record player jolted to life, playing a simple tune. Standing silently as the princess finished her drink, she placed the empty glass on the counter and wrapped her hoof on the bar. Falling back into usual routine, Tirek quickly refilled the mares glass. He was a little surprised to see her pull out a small crystal and drop it into the drink, letting it sink to the bottom as a series off green flashes lit up the bar. "Interesting. To think you wouldn't poison it," Luna observed, taking the glass in her magic once more as she took a drink. "I don't make it a habit to poison customers." "Then what are your habits? Because the Tirek I knew would have never stooped so low as to work in a bar." "I've changed a lot since we last met." "As I can see," Luna noted, placing the glass down once more as she pulled out a familiar medallion. "I couldn't believe the last report I received. 'Tirek pawned off his precious medallion to pay off for his boss' debts.' Of course, it's not the strangest report I've read about you." "Is that how you found me?" "Oh no, I found you three weeks after starting this job," the princess clarified, placing the medallion on the bar as she returned to her drink. "You... you knew for that long?" "Not much escapes our sights, Tirek. Although I wanted to act quickly once we found out about your recent endeavors, we... found an odd issue in our real. We have gazed into the mind of a certain foal as of late, and noticed you in many of her nightmares." "How shocking," he sarcastically replied. "You are not the monster she fears Tirek," the princess clarified, picking her own choice of poison off of the shelf as she served herself. "You are the thing she is afraid of losing." "... You're talking about Cozy Glow." "Yes. It's odd, we've tried speaking with her once before, but she denied knowing you at all, despite you appearing in her dreams nearly every night." "She hasn't done anything wrong." "Yet," Luna hinted. "And I hope we may keep it that way. From what I could gleam from her dreams, she seems to be afraid of us more than you. At first I thought it was some horrific delusion or spell, but every dream was so vivid. Sadly, I must admit that I don't know what has happened to her, which is why I'm here tonight. "So, Tirek... I want you to tell me, what did we do to that filly for her to be so scared of us?" She asked, giving the centaur her undivided attention as he thought back to his first meeting with Cozy. It was going to be a dreadfully long night for both of them.