Pain, and Punishment
B_25
Hard liquor was hardly for you. It was an intense punishment, without taste or release, that fouled your mouth and was a crime to your soul to get down. The sniff of whisky prompted vomit, and the taste of vodka was reminiscent of rubbing alcohol.
Beer was dry and dull and did not do much at all. You handled it, stomached it, and did not like the taste or the bite. It could push you toward the buzz—but the edge of something was never for long. Still, it was where you kept, at least, for a time.
You still remembered when Twilight had been introduced to drinking. The parties where she went rather far. She cut back to mainly wine. Soon, it was your turn to hit the scene, and the girls helped you to a few powerful shots.
And it was unkind to refuse a gift.
Despite your years of light drinking, the shots, the hard stuff, you never did get them at all. Big Mac and Shining Armour would glare at one another and down the next powerful thing. There was some proof to the amount of hair on your chest when ponies tried out-drinking each other.
But you weren't in it to prove yourself at all.
Dragons didn't grow hair on their chests, after all.
You sat at the bar, alone, as it wasn't quite night, but it wasn't much morning either. The bartender had left with the door unlocked, for you left the empty bottles with a pouch of sufficient bits when you were done. You'd tried bars in the past in a bid for independence.
To go out there and make some friends, create some memories, have a place to go, and something to do. The narrative of your life was dependent on Twilight and the girls. You had wanted to become your own dragon with your own path. Yet, the walk was short, with a dead-end.
You ceased to expect much from yourself after that.
But then something had happened that caused you to turn to the bottle. It wasn't something grand or a depression that could only be weakened via mental looseness. Rather, you were called to it. Without others to compose your life, you were taken to the act of doing things, and keeping within them.
You sat at the counter with an empty glass and a full bottle of vodka. The bottle was fancy and caused you to feel something more than just yourself. Twirling the cap, you sent your other claw to the bucket of ice, scooping a few and dropping them into the glass.
Once sprinkled, you poured the poison next, up until the ice started to float. You closed the cap and raised the drink. The sloshing of ice sounded sophisticated on your frills. Raising the drink to your lips, you risked the first sip, the stale liquid washing across your tongue.
There was no sensation.
Until you swallowed.
The burn was immediate, and the heat snipped out through your nostrils. Your body seized from the impact as your claws curled to withstand the flush. You'd made a mistake, but you did not care, reopening your eyes once the effect was through.
Your mouth opened. Dry, and of horrible breath. You cared not as you raised the glass again. Looking into that which was not water, you wondered how the previous you would take to drinking such a drink.
It was punishment. Plain and simple. To down the stuff was a punishment that smacked your chest and burned your core. It made no sense, in simpler, better days, to ever want to inflict such a thing upon yourself.
But then you have lived your life.
And then you had collected pain.
It was a strange, funny word, overused and the first thing to evoke an eye roll. There weren't many situations where you could say such or admit such a thing. But as peace is built from within, pain invaded from the events outside.
It collected and balled from mistakes and misery.
It grew and gathered across your body and soul. A dull, numb pain that pulsates with its cold slashes. You handled it, for there was no other choice in the matter. You were in pain. Both for the things you did—and for the things done for you.
When you raised the drink to your lips and stole another gulp again, that pain was quelled by the punishment of the drink. It was a battle of the two. Guilt can only be soothed either by punishment. Eased, maybe, by forgiveness—but always soothed by punishment.
The drink didn't hurt as much as the pain within, so you could swallow to brunt the effects of it all. It was then why others drank the hard stuff, why they would punish themselves with such a curse.
It was because there was something worse within, something solid and round, thumping with thrones inside their hearts. It was a search to find that challenge. The drink, the punishment, was stronger than the pain.
But, in your quest, you had found something different instead.
Even if it was rotten and foul, still within it, you had found the miracle found within your own breath. When you stole the drink down, and as the punishment rose, you focused the stream into a controlled exhale.
You smoothly breathed out what would have hurt you.
It was strange as the last of the daggers blew out from your mouth. That first shot, and your body had been squeezed. It was a fight to drink that shot. But when you did it the next time, you did not need to clench, to wiggle. Rather, you breathed the torment out. You blunted the pain and the punishment
It was then, in continuing to drink, that you had learned the importance of breathing. That those heavy breaths carried something heavy within to out there. Your body was lighter after that deep breathing—the act of lifting bricks from out of your soul. Your mind would be drawn to your pains, and you would breathe your way through them.
Even if you could not solve them, at the very least, you could soothe them for a time.
So you continued to drink, and you continued to breathe, and sometimes, you would breathe like that—except without the pain of the punishment. You would do it in the quiet, sunny moments, sitting against a tree.
And you would do it for peace.
Which, too, was built.