Born in Equestria

by Winston

Party Animal

"Welcome home, Rainbow Dash!" Derpy Hooves smiled and embraced Dash, with the affection of an old friend.

Though a little unexpected, it was actually kind of nice. Simpleminded as she seemed, the grey mare was all heart and sincerity, through and through.

"Thanks, Derpy." Rainbow Dash returned the smile and hugged her back. "It feels good."

It was true. It did feel good, that moment. It felt better than the cautiously polite welcomes that a lot of ponies had approached her with.

She couldn't blame them, though. Things were a little strange to her, as well. After three years away, Ponyville felt... It was like she remembered, but it wasn't. The streets were the same. The buildings were the same. The town looked the same, but something didn't feel the same. Not yet. She was still exploring, and it would be a process, finding that feeling again, the familiarity... Being really home again.

Derpy's greeting felt good, though. It felt great. That felt like home.

It was the way that she knew Pinkie Pie had intended this whole welcome back party to feel, but Dash just wasn't there, yet. Not her or most of the ponies around her.

Not that they weren't trying. They were. It just kind of... Fell flat. It was chit-chat. Smalltalk. Questions meant to create the sense that the pony asking them cared enough to ask - that's what this party was turning out to be, for the most part. Most of them asked the same things, one pony after another. What was it like? How many griffins did you clobber? Was it exciting? Was it scary? Did you learn a bunch of cool flying moves, are you gonna try to be a Wonderbolt now, what's next for you? They asked and Dash answered as quickly and as non-specifically as possible without being offending in her briefness. They were well-meaning, but it was awkward in a subtle way, and tiring, so tiring, being asked all these questions that felt like they were being asked because ponies thought they were the thing they should be asking to be polite.

It would have been better and much preferred, by far, if they could have just given her a simple but sincere "welcome back" and a hug with some honest warmth in it. It would have been so much easier if they could all just learn something from Derpy. She wasn't as dumb as they all assumed. She was a cross-eyed ditz, but at least she knew how to say how she really felt. She knew how to make you feel liked if she liked you, and if she didn't, she didn't pretend. That kind of purity, and that kind of honesty... That was something everypony could learn from. That was something Rainbow Dash wished she knew more of herself.

But as it was, most ponies were more diplomatic than blunt, more considerate than immediate. Questions were considerate, because questions implied interest. Thus they were question-askers. Maddeningly, but understandably and through no fault of their own (as Rainbow Dash had to keep telling herself), they were askers.

The questions were just so difficult because they were all things Rainbow Dash didn't especially want to talk about right now. She didn't want to think about them. All she wanted was time off. She just wanted a break, a change of pace back to what her life used to be before all this insanity, after three years. Being questioned about it was not helping her. Not the least little bit.

For that reason, Rainbow Dash kept drifting off alone to the less populated patches of the party's venue, the field in which Applejack's barn sat. She would have usually expected a party to be held at Sugarcube Corner or the library or something, but it was too big this time. It turned out Pinkie Pie had apparently so outdone herself in inviting everypony around that this was the only available continuous open space that could really hold the event.

Flattering that so many ponies would show up for her, but a bit overwhelming... Uncomfortable, really.

All she'd done was to go do the worst possible things a pony can do because there wasn't any better way. Why was that suddenly the thing that made her interesting, respected, the center of attention, getting her own big freaking giant welcome-home party?

She hated it, she realized.

They didn't know her. That was at the heart of it. They didn't really know her anymore because they didn't know anything about this. That was really the thing the questions revealed the most. They asked about it like it was glamorous, like it was fun and interesting, like it was prestigious. Like this was like being a Wonderbolt or something.

That notion was the first thing that had been beaten out of her head on day one of Advanced Flight Combat school.

"You're not here to learn how to fly to impress. Understand that right now. That is not what flight combat is about. That is not what we teach here. Don't try to fly fancy, just fly the right way. Fly the way we teach you and you'll be golden. Try to do loops, rolls, try to be a cocky show-off retard... You'll find out the hard way why this is known as a hard school. This school has a high attrition rate. It is not for everypony. If you wanna be a Wonderbolt and not an Advanced Combat Flier, well, you've already been through basic before you got here. There's other places the Army can stick their wanna-be-bolts. You can just as easily get kicked back to some other job not as demanding as this, so we have no problem with dropping you if you don't wanna be here and be one of us.

A lot of our graduates go on to become Wonderbolts later because of the excellence of the precision and tactical flight we teach. We are the best of the Equestrian Army and second to no other military in the world. But we don't make Wonderbolts. We don't need Wonderbolts, the Wonderbolts don't do the job we do. We make soldiers, the best ones. We don't fly to put on a show. We fly to fight and win wars.

Save all of us the time and the pain and request to drop now if that's not who you are. Tap out. You might as well quit now if you have something else in mind or someplace else you'd rather be. Over the next few months we will find those of you who aren't dedicated to this... And when we do, it will hurt. It'll be easier if you just step up and admit it now. Anypony? Anypony not belong here? This is your free pass out before the fun begins. It's the only easy one you'll get. After this, it's on, ponies. It. Is. On."

That opening speech being screamed at her and the other Advanced Combat Flier candidates of her class, lined up outside in the frigid air before dawn on their first day, was still burned into her mind. Every word of it was true. It was nothing like the Wonderbolts. It was a completely different kind of flying... A different purpose, a different mindset.

It was a difference ponies who hadn't done it didn't understand. Maybe she should explain it, but... That didn't seem like what they wanted to hear. It was probably less upsetting to let them think about it in their preconceived ways than to set them straight. And how could she, anyway? If you didn't experience this yourself, it was impossible to really understand by just being told about it, and those who already understood wouldn't need to be told. Either way, this felt too difficult to really talk about beyond the superficial nicieties everypony expected to hear.

Nopony ever lied and said it was easy, but nopony told her how hard it was. Nopony could tell her because it couldn't be explained.

Anyway, ignorance is bliss, and who was she to ruin somepony else's bliss? It would only be upsetting or confusing for them without accomplishing anything.

It felt hopeless.

Was that the price for carrying that kind of burden of knowing what she knew, and the kinds of things she'd done? This alienation, this feeling of losing the sense of "home" when she came home? Did doing something so that other ponies don't have to know what it's like mean not being known herself anymore?

Why do I feel so lost now in a place I knew so well before?

This question ran through her head in a troubled stream, turbulent and preoccupying, while she kept wandering through the field. She was pacing herself slowly enough to not be perceived as hurrying anywhere but not really wanting to stop, since that was when other ponies, seeing her standing around alone, would approach her and try to chat. In part of the field, two temporary pavillions had been set up, next to each other, with a wide strip of space separating them like an alleyway down the middle. That was where Rainbow Dash meandered towards, half consciously, just to make it seem like she was headed somewhere distinct.

She walked between them and looked around. She already knew this was the food and drink area, but she hadn't yet been to it herself until now. There was a long table underneath both pavillions. One side was well stocked up with all kinds of snacks, cheeses, fruits, cakes, every kind of sweet, and a wide variety of drinks that anypony of any age could have.

The other side was... More for adults. It was an open bar, self service. Grab whatever you wanted. Bottles were lined up in a long row on the table, interspersed with stacks of cups. A pair of coolers piled with ice cubes, one at either end, held chilled bottles - beer, cider, a few different types of wine. A lot of the stuff was the typical bar fare - lower proof liqueurs for mixing, fortified wines, and then some harder stuff, rums, gin, vodka. A couple whiskeys and scotches were in there. Bottles of soda water sat with them.

She stared at the bottles, studying them. She pondered the shapes, the colored glass, the nicely designed labels with metallic colored lettering and flowy script and fancy words, and the irony that alcohol was invariably sold in bottles that were meant to stand out by having an appearance of good repute and class, looking tasteful and sophisticated, even while drinking itself was so often looked down at as distinctly the opposite of that image.

At least it was the way she found herself fantasizing about doing it.

The 80 proof hard stuff. That was her poison of late, the last times she'd been in that bar out there... Out there in J-town, up north... 80 proof, or harder when they had anything harder. Sometimes they got some real stiff moonshine in. That stuff was killer. That stuff would knock you off your hooves like nothing. Best bang for the bits by a longshot if you want a blackout night. But the usual 80 proof would work too. Whiskey or vodka, didn't matter, only difference was that one tasted woody and smoky and the other tasted mostly like nothing except the sharpness of alcohol's bitter bite and warm glow. But she wasn't in it for the taste, was she? No. Rum was okay, too, but sometimes the sugar could make her stomach a touch upset, especially drinking when she hadn't eaten much. Gin worked, but it tasted the way pine trees smell. It was kind of like licking an air freshener.

Vodka, she decided. That was really where her head was at. Goes down easy, as little taste as possible. As little thinking as possible. The most straight to the point of the options here. About five shots would do it, fired down in rapid succession. She'd drink them all before any of it hit, and then when it did, it would be in a rapidly rising wall of haze that blocked out caring much about anything. Five shots would make her nicely numbed and dazed. Anything anypony said would just roll off her passively, not sparking any stray thoughts, not triggering anything... It would get her to that kind of comfortable waking oblivion where she could just not deal with anything and just not give a buck. Then another occasional shot as a boost if the anesthetic effect started to fade away.

Part of her wanted that so badly right now. She wanted to just line 'em up and knock 'em down, five in a row nonstop.

She wouldn't be able to fly to get home if she did that. You don't drink like that and then fly, that was a hard and fast rule that she'd never broken and never would. But who cared? She knew perfectly well Applejack would let her crash here at her place for the night instead of letting a completely smashed friend wander off alone into the dark. At least she still knew that much. Applejack was always cool like that, and she hadn't changed.

Sleeping here wouldn't be a bad thing. Maybe that would actually be just what she needed. Maybe that was another good reason to get blitzed, because she could use a night on the ground, in a house that made some noise and had some other ponies living and moving around in it, instead of going back home alone to her cloud house, where it would be dead silent, and where she would just sit around in the dark with all her creeping thoughts and all the pictures in her head and all her waiting nightmares. Two nights in a row now, and she wasn't feeling great about facing number three.

She just didn't want to see it all again. It wasn't fair, was it? Now that she was home, to still have to see it? She was tired. She needed a break. It was supposed to be over.

Why wasn't it over?

Sure, it was unrealistic to expect it all to just be back to normal, like the last three years never happened. But she didn't want it to feel like it was *still* happening. She wanted some time off from thinking about it, from seeing it all in her mind's eye. She just... Needed a break. Worse than anything she'd ever needed before.

"Hey Rainbow Dash!" Pinkie Pie's voice suddenly broke into her awareness. She turned to look and the pink pony was standing right behind her, looking at her with the usual wide smile. "Gettin' a drink? Oooh, try the amaretto! It'd deeee-lish!"

Pinkie's voice brought her snapping out of her thoughts. That was a good question. Was she looking for a drink, really? Would it actually make anything better, or would it only remind her... Of... Of that place... Of that pony... And of after that pony was gone, the way she'd taken to drinking then... Would binge-drinking herself mostly senseless here and now really be that kind of break she was looking for, or would it just be the same thing all over again? Would it be comfortably numbing or would it be the worst kind of pain? Especially... Especially when she woke up the next day, hung over as hell, thinking again, and all those thoughts augmented by that unique kind of pounding pain that would only remind her of... Why she'd done it to herself before.

No. No way. She didn't want that at all. Not for a single second. No, her opinion rapidly swung, this was the most terrible idea she could be entertaining right now. There was a reason she stopped doing it out there, and why would that really be any different here? Did she want to fool herself into going through it all again, even once?

"Nahh..." Rainbow Dash turned to face the other table in the opposite direction. "I was... Just getting some juice or a soda or something," she said quickly.

"Aww, c'mon, live it up a little, Dashie." Pinkie Pie said. "It's your party. Tell you what, all your drinks are on me tonight!"

"It's an open bar. They're all free anyway," Rainbow Dash pointed out.

"Well, that just makes it even better. Like I said, on me!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. "Have a beer or something. Oh, cider! You love cider!"

"Ehh... Y'know, Pinkie, actually I'm not much in the mood for anything hard right now," Rainbow Dash said. "Thanks, though."

"Are you alright, Rainbow?" Pinkie narrowed one eye and glared suspiciously at Rainbow Dash for a moment.

"I'm fine, Pinkie," Rainbow Dash said, "it's just not really a good idea to drink and fly, though, right?"

"What are you talking about?" Pinkie Pie asked cheerfully. "The party's still gonna be going for hours, you can have a drink or two and be just fine by the time it all wraps up."

"Actually..." Rainbow Dash felt slightly uncomfortable, and couldn't help looking like it. "Yeah... I was thinking I'm probably gonna call it good and head out kinda sooner rather than later..."

"What?! The hay you are!" Pinkie Pie protested. "You can't ditch your own welcome home party, Dashie!"

"And I'm not!" Rainbow Dash replied. "I'm here, aren't I? I appreciate it, Pinks. Thank you for all this. Really. I'm just still kinda worn out, though, with the long trip home and settling back in and everything. I'm... Just... Y'know. Not sure how much more partying I can take tonight. That's all."

"Oh! There's not too many ponies, are there, Dashie?" Pinkie asked, suddenly worried, prancing in place on her hooves. "I mean, I wanted everypony to have the chance to welcome you back and I didn't wanna leave anypony out, but I didn't think about that maybe it could be too much to be the center of attention this big and have to talk to all of them and have 'em all welcoming you home at the same time..."

"Nah, it's fine, Pinkie," Rainbow Dash reassured her. "it's cool."

"Okay. Well, at least grab a cider to take home before you go, even if you don't wanna drink one here." Pinkie Pie said. "I know you love it. It's why I made extra sure to have plenty."

"Uhhh... Hey, look..." Rainbow Dash began. She looked around, just a little, checking around herself. No other ponies were close enough to be within easy overhearing distance, for the moment. "Can I..."

Can I tell you something?

It's what Dash wanted to ask. After that first third of the way through, she'd stifled it, unable to believe that even that much had made it out. Yes, there was something she wanted to say... But... There was no way could bring herself to say it. She knew that. No way at all. There was no escaping the vulnerability in what that question really meant, if she followed through on its implications and actually told Pinkie Pie all it referred to.

Can I tell you some stuff that's going to completely change the way you see me? Can I tell you things that are going to upset you, disillusion you, make you sick, make you surprised at me, make you hate me for shocking you and destroying a little more of your innocence? Can I start telling you something, and then maybe that'll turn into something else, because I don't know if I can stop that torrent of telling once I let it start, and I'll probably be a sobbing mess of disjointed confessions and miserable regrets by the end? Can I just go ahead and unload on you and make myself look like a total basketcase without warning?

No. She couldn't tell her something. She couldn't talk about the reason she wanted to drink so badly, or the reason she didn't want to and wasn't going to. There was no easy or comfortable way to explain why she would not, in fact, be taking any cider or anything alcoholic home with her.

She couldn't tell Pinkie anything. Not her, not anypony. Nothing from out there. Nothing from those three years. Not yet.

But that slipup of wanting to, even when she couldn't, was there. That fragment of a question started but not finished was still hanging out there in the air.

"Yeah? What?" Pinkie Pie asked, looking at Rainbow Dash intently.

"Nothing. It's just been exhausting, Pinkie," Rainbow Dash covered, "that's all."

What a great party this was turning out to be. Buckin' awesome.

I gotta get out of here.

The thought suddenly ran through Rainbow Dash's mind, as soon as Pinkie Pie had wandered off to talk to some other partygoers and she was alone again. It was clear and lucid and imperative, more rational and more urgent seeming than anything else so far that day. The vague "kinda sooner rather than later" she'd mentioned to Pinkie Pie wasn't quick enough. Too open-ended, too indistinct. It could still mean a while. She needed to be gone before she could even think of slipping up like that again.

Nothing good is happening, this wasn't fun from the start and it's only getting worse. I gotta go. Soon. Real soon. Now.

How, though, without rousing any more unwanted curiosity? Maybe with some luck she'd be able to sneak away without being seen and manage to get home and hide in the sanctuary of her house behind a locked door and closed windows with the curtains drawn before anypony really noticed she was gone. She sort of doubted it, the rainbow hair was easy to pick out in a crowd, and conversely, easy to realize when it wasn't there anymore. But on the other hoof, how much longer did she want to deal with staying here, being the rainbow-maned question magnet?

Sometimes running away is the best a pony can do. She was glad she was by far the fastest pony in town.