To Where You Can Only Go Up
‘Not again…’ Moonshine thought, the darkness of the moonless night – there was a moon, of course, but it was hidden by thick clouds – doing nothing to impair the old bat pony stallion’s vision as he entered the Canterlot Residential District cemetery.
‘Please, by the Goddess’s sainted mane, not again…’ Moonshine offered up the silent prayer, but already by the time it left his mind he could tell it was pointless. He didn’t need a bat pony’s night vision, he could hear his target, even at this extreme distance.
It wasn’t like the prey he was hunting that night was being quiet. Far from it. Judging from the sounds of singing, cheers and merriment, one might assume there was a party in progress in the cemetery in the pitch black of night. Sighing deeply, for this was the fourth time this week he had found whom he was looking for drunk, and it was Thursday, the retired Lunar Guardspony picked his way through the gravestones.
Thanks to his excellent night vision, that all bat ponies were blessed with, as well as his hearing, Moonshine made his way through the hundreds of graves as easily as if it were midday. Not that he had to look very hard, for he intuitively knew where his quarry would be. Closing in upon him like a hunter stalking his next kill, Moonshine’s heart very nearly almost broke at the sight that greeted him.
“Oh…by the Goddess…” Moonshine swore when he saw him. He had not wanted to believe it. Some part of him had hoped it was a cruel trick, some practical joke, but no. There was no denying what he saw before him.
“Dusk…”
Dusk Midnight Melody was sat by the all too familiar gravestone, not more than twenty or so feet away from him, and by the looks of his son, he was in a bad way. The midnight blue pegasus, who looked very girly for a stallion, was slumped, semi-passed out, with a beer bottle held in his hoof. Moonshine wanted to weep for his colt as he watched him offer up a toast to ponies who clearly weren't there.
It was then he caught the smell of the alcohol. It was so thick in the air it was like a physical presence all in itself, like another being, surrounding the immediate area in its sickly aroma. He watched as Dusk took a drunken swig from the bottle he could barely hold, he saw h was surrounded by many, many empty bottles. Moonshine guessed he had been drinking for hours. Again. “Happy -hic- birthday dear Silvy!” Dusk sang drunkenly, “HaaAAaaappy birthdaaaaaaaay tooooOOOOOooo yooou!”
Moonshine decided he’d had enough of this nonsense. He had heard enough, seen enough and put up with more than enough of his son’s horseapples. Talking to him gently with Octavia hadn’t worked, obviously, so now the elderly stallion decided to deal with it himself. He walked up, closing the distance between them to just a few feet away, behind his son, waiting to see if he was noticed.
He wasn’t.
Dusk sloppily drank what was left in the bottle he was holding in his hoof and he tried to sing again, this time he slumped heavily against Silverbolt’s headstone lest he should fall over. “I'll fin' her y'know, Silvy.” The young drunken Prince slurred to the unflinching, unresponsive stone. “I will. Aaaah'll fin' her, fer you.” Moments later, by some kind of sense, he turned and he saw Moonshine stood watching him. In his drunken haze though, he didn’t recognise his own father. “Who you? You has an invite t' th' party?”
“A party?” Moonshine asked, talking a step closer and making up his mind on the ‘tough love’ approach. “This is bad comedy, Dusk. You mean to say you found the one pony that won't leave you?”
“YES!” Dusk declared, “I'mma 'ere wiv all my friends!” he pointed a wingtip to the headstone. “That's Silvy. There's Darkie...Bright...Raid...Cy...Shot...” Dusk slowly pointed a hoof to his several imaginary party guests one after the other. They were all with him, all his friends, sharing the party.
All except one. One friend wasn’t there.
“Where's Vocal?” Moonshine asked of his son.
Dusk wasn’t aware of what the strange pony had asked him at first. The royal pegasus had to really force his drink-addled brain to work. “He...he's...not here,” he made a drunken squint around at the guests who only existed in his mind. “No...no he's doing a singing thing, somewhere. Somewhere not here.”
“And you're not there.”
“No, I was going there but I like it here, wherever it is!” Dusk giggled drunkenly and once more he slumped against the cold hard gravestone. All the other party guests, his friends dressed in bright party clothes and gaudy hats, thought that was hilarious. “See I have duties! I'mma prince! Can' jus' up an go, can I?” Although, if he was honest, he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen or hugged Vocal Chord. Was it a week? A month? More? How long had he been on tour, anyway?
“Because here, your friends will listen to you?” Moonshine asked, the elderly bat pony as unflinching as Silverbolt’s grave marker when his son dragged himself forwards and he slumped head first into his chest. The sheer smell was by now overpowering, and he wanted to retch. By force of will however, he did not.
He had to be strong, for his colt.
“YES!” Dusk slurred, prodding Moonshine’s chest with his hoof – he may as well have been prodding iron – and he slumped against his body. “Presisicely. You don' argue wiv a prince! Now...you, cutie you, 'ave you bought anything wiv you?”
Moonshine had to fight to hide the utter disgust he felt at his son’s condition. Drunk as a skunk and barely able to stand up, he was still trying to find more to drink. “I would think my presence is enough for Silverbolt. Not sure how happy she'll be when you puke on her stone. Again.”
“Huh...you aren't much fun are you?” Dusk scoffed, still completely unaware to whom he was speaking. He glanced around at all the empty bottles that littered the gravesite. “Well, we drunk everythin'. Hang on. I'll get more.” He spread his powerful midnight blue wings and he attempted to take off. He got a few feet into the air before crashing face first into the grass. “Ow...who put the ground there?”
“Making your mum proud, I see.”
“Like you'd know!” Dusk rounded on the strangely familiar bat pony stallion, bits of grass and dirt smeared all over the side of his face and clinging to his feathers, feathers that hadn’t seen a decent preen in many days. “Who the hay're you supposed to be, anyway?” he tried to stand and, on wobbly legs, he crashed face first into the grass again, feathers and limbs everywhere.
Moonshine shook his head. Any other time, the sight would be funny. But this was his son. His son, the youngest pony ever to play the Canterlot Royal Theatre. His son, Prince of the realm. Reduced to a drunken wreck before his eyes. All over a friend and a mistake. No, he wouldn’t stand for it any longer! “I'm your ride home. Before you face plant into something less forgiving than grass.”
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Dusk began crying into the grass. Something inside him snapped, a hitherto suppressed well of emotion that he had kept locked away. Now, with an excess of beer, moonshine and wine in his system, it poured out. “I can't find her!” Dusk cried into the grass like a foal, “I tried, I have! I tried and looked...I can't find her. I promisd Silvy I'd find her, but I can't!”
However, despite his son’s anguish, Moonshine had little sympathy. Not in this condition, anyway. “You won't be able to find your own ass in the condition you're in, Dusk.”
Dusk staggered up to his hooves. This strange pony seemed like he could help. Something in his mind told him this pony would help. “Can...can you help me find her? Do you know where she is?”
“No, I cannot.” Moonshine replied somewhat coldly, pulling his son up front and centre to stare deeply into his bloodshot pink eyes. Eyes that hadn’t seen clearly since he had devolved into the drink months ago. “Wildfire left no trail after she kicked you out of the hospital. After that stunt you pulled in the university.”
Staring into those old, strong eyes, Dusk blinked a few times, the younger pony quailing under the hard, uncompromising stare he was getting. He knew that stare. The more he looked into those eyes, the more he knew the pony who was stood impassively before him. “Daddy?” he giggled stupidly, “I can fix it. I know how to fix it. All I need to do is break into the Black Archives.”
Now, for the first time since he had entered the pitch black cemetery, Moonshine smiled. “I guess you're not blind drunk after all. For once.” He helped steady his colt on his hooves. He couldn’t help but smile, his grin splitting his old bearded face. “Brilliant plan you have there, son. Let me escort you there.”
“Yes! c'mon...take me home daddy.” Dusk chuckled madly, the crazy plan forming in his soaked brain. All he had to do was get into the Black Archives. Once he was inside, he could get access to the Time Scrolls. Once he had the Time Scrolls, he could put all this right. Things would be as they were supposed to be, not like the nightmare they were now. “I know where aunt Tia keeps the codes to get in. We can be out before she knows anything!”
For what felt like the millionth time that night, Moonshine shook his head. He couldn’t seriously believe his son wanted to break into the second most secure place in the country. The Black Archives were where Celestia and Luna kept all the things deemed a threat to the security of Equestria. That included Time Scrolls, now. “Of course, would you like a pony back ride, son?”
Dusk tried, unsuccessfully, to take off. “Uuuuh, ah, y-yes please...” he folded away his battered wings and bent feathers. “Th-There's some gravity spell affectin' my wings, I can’t fly too good right now…” he tried very clumsily to get on his father’s broad, powerful back. Even after all these years, his dad was still a strong pony.
“You do know if you leave all those bottles there,” Moonshine stated coldly, holding up a hoof to stop his son, “I'll have to drop you off at the constable for littering.”
“Aww dad, really?” Dusk grumbled, though he did take a few minutes to scoop all the empty bottles back up in his saddlebags. “There, now they’re picked up. You happy now?”
“Son, I couldn’t be happier.” Moonshine said dryly once his colt was laid across his back. Turning back towards the ornate wrought iron gates to the cemetery, the old bat pony trotted along the dirt path. Conspicuously, he did NOT move with a very smooth gait.
“Uuuh…UUUGH....Uuuugh...dad, you drunk or somethin'?” Dusk moaned, hung over the side as he was, he felt like he was riding a rodeo bull rather than a pony. Naturally, after several torturous minutes of being bucked along with every step, those twenty bottles of assorted alcohol were not going to stay down.
Another minute, just when they passed through the cemetery gates, the inevitable happened. While Moonshine was dumping the bottles in the trash, Dusk slumped off his back and proceeded to throw up, decorating the grass outside the cemetery with his never-ending stream of foul vomit.
“Who would have thought that,” Moonshine said casually, rubbing his son’s back, holding his charcoal grey mane out of the way as he continued to empty his guts all over the floor, “Is there a limit to that or are you going to carry on for a bit longer?”
“Wa-Walk better then…” Dusk gasped as he tried to stand up. This however proved to be a mistake and, “EEUUuuuuuUURGH!” he hurled once more, coughing up chunks as he fell to his knees, clutching his heaving belly. Many long minutes later he coughed but he didn’t hurl anymore.
Once Moonshine was happy that his son was ‘empty’, he reached out and pulled the poorly pegasus back onto his back, where his gait smoothed out considerably. Almost like it was his plan. “Oh look!” he exclaimed, a rather mischievous glint in his eye. “Donut Joe's is still open. I could use a coffee. How about you? My treat.”
By now, Dusk was very empty indeed, what with most of his insides now on the outside. He felt rougher than a two bit lump of salt lick, but strangely sober (ish). He glanced at the store and nodded limply over his father’s back. He found he didn’t want a treat as much as he wanted the older pony’s company and counsel. Something he should’ve sought a long time ago. “Uuuh...yeah, sure, tea is good.”
Snickering like an overgrown colt, Moonshine took him inside the thankfully otherwise empty store and he poured him carefully into a booth. “I'll have a coffee, black and some Grey Earl tea for this one.” He requested of Donut Joe who had come to take the ex-guard’s order. “Oh, and that rhubarb pie sounds good.” He turned to a more alive-looking Dusk, “You hungry, son?”
Dusk, struggling to see under the sudden bright lights, blinked furiously before rubbing his bleary pink eyes. “Um, yeah, tea, Earl Grey, hot...nice. Rhubarb pie is good. I empty…”
Moonshine snickered to Joe, who went on his way to fill their orders. He couldn’t resist a tease. Luna wouldn’t forgive him, otherwise. “Too bad they don't have Durian pie here. Well, one can't have everything, can they?”
All of a sudden, at the mention of ‘that’ fruit, Dusk felt like being sick all over again. “Ewwww dad!” he exclaimed, disgusted, “Really?”
“Really, so what's up with you?”
Dusk felt like he was thirteen years old, being chastised for not turning in his homework assignment for school on time. Thankfully, when Joe set down their orders, he didn’t say anything about the Prince’s awful condition. “Um, nuthin', I was just having a drink with Silvy. It is her birthday, it's an occasion, y’know.”
“Hmhmm.” Moonshine wasn’t content to leave it at that. He knew what was wrong with his colt, but now he finally had him talking, he wanted to hear it from him. He sipped his coffee and looked Dusk in the eyes. “Who were you having a drink with yesterday?”
“Um...some...somepony?” Dusk struggled to remember. There had been ponies, he was sure. Ponies and drink. Lots of drink.
Moonshine nodded as they both sipped their respective drinks. “Yes, somepony, everypony and anypony, in the end it is usually nopony. Am I right?”
Again, as he swirled the Earl Grey around his mouth, the tea washing away the taste of what he had left in the bushes, Dusk couldn’t help feel like a colt under scrutiny. “Well, you see sir, there was a thing on at Trixie's Place, and the other day before that, Nightflyer invited me to his place and we had a few, I think.”
Moonshine snorted at that, before taking a bite out of his pie. “You mean you think Nightflyer was there, or that you think you only had a few to drink?”
“I’m pretty sure he was there, dad.” Dusk tried his best to be sarcastic with his father, but the older pony didn’t seem impressed. “I mean I had a few...of everything he had!” he giggled, “D'you know he has this green stuff? It tasted awful. He called it 'green'.” All while Dusk was talking, Moonshine remained quiet, but he did quickly finish his pie and coffee.
Dusk, on the other hoof, took his sweet time with the tea. It was doing wonders to clear his fuggy head. “So what...I have a drink, it’s no big deal, dad, I can take it, okay?”
“True,” Moonshine said presently, though he knew ninety percent of what his son had just said was utter horseapples. “A drink is no big deal.” He placed heavy emphasis on the ‘A’, “Tell me, which one is your 'a' drink?”
“I dunno, I kinda lose count after the first six…teen,” Dusk giggled immaturely, but when he saw the very disapproving 'look' on his father’s face he stopped quickly and studied the table top between them. “I'm sorry sir,” he said in a very small voice as he finished his tea.
“You're sorry, yes, but not for the right reasons.” Moonshine reached over the table and held his colt’s hoof, just like he did all those years ago when he had walked him on his first day of middle school because it wasn’t ‘cool’ for his mum to do it. “Ready to go raid the Black Archive now?”
Dusk was so very grateful of his father’s hooves holding his own. Just like he had on the first day of middle school. He remembered that day so well. He looked down at the table and he sniffed back a tear. He didn’t want to raid the Black Archives, he just wanted his best friend back. “No, I just wanna go home. Aunt Tia'll only get mad again, and she'll fight with mum, then mom'll get involved...just, please, take me home.”
“Okay son,” Moonshine got up and affectionately he nuzzled his colt’s cheek. “Let’s get you home. No muss, no fuss, no judgements.”
Dusk tried to stand up and he almost fell over, reminding him that he was still seven sheets to the wind. “Um…can I still have a ride?”
With his son on his back for a third time, Moonshine determined to smuggle Dusk back home to the palace so that his mom and mum wouldn’t notice. He owed him that much. A nod to the guards, who knew the bat pony stallion well, was all it took to get the Prince back inside.
Once he was in Dusk’s suite, Moonshine gently put his colt to bed, at once reminded of the times in the past that he had set his sleeping colt down in his crib as a foal. That done, and his comforter pulled up around him, the old stallion left a few things on his breakfast table for him to find in the morning.
These were the number to Alcoholics Anonymous with a note, 'A mother's love should not outlast the one she loves.' and to Get Clean with a note, 'You must face your fears without hiding behind a shield.' Moonshine also left his son a letter, promising that when he went to the AA meetings, he would be there with him to hold his hoof.