Of Luck and Booze (FINISHED)

Atriark noted the white earth pony mare blush and smiled. "That's good, maybe some day you can learn to be a doctor. Me, I can't do any open surgeries. Taking a bullet out and sewing wounds is the limit of my knowledge." Atrairk winked at her. "And don't get me started on mental illnesses."

"Actually, mental illnesses interest me, but I'd be rather frightened to meet someone with actual mental illness. My favorite parts have a lot to do with wing structures. It's really interesting how wings work; their muscular structure, their bone alignment.... oh! Sorry, I'm getting carried away."

Gently quieted herself as she checked his small body for other injuries.

Atriark chuckled as the mare rambled on. "It's fine. But you are stuck with plain old zebra stripes for now." Atrairk paused as the mare started to check for more wounds. "Gentle, I'm fairly certain that I'm not injured anywhere else. Well, maybe not anywhere physically. I do have a small drinking addiction though. Been meaning to get that squashed."

Gentle smiled, but continued to check him over. "I just want to be sure," she told him sternly. "If you didn't notice that cut, there's a chance you didn't notice another."

She found a small cut on his back. "Here's the forewarning," she told him, heeding what he had said. "It's cold and will sting; it's on your back." She began dabbing the small cut with the disinfectant, and then placed an adhesive bandage over it.

"So," she smiled, throwing away the cotton ball. "How have your travels gone? You seemed pretty excited to leave when you did."

"Aie!" Atriark jerked a bit at the sting of the disinfectant. "I went far, got a job in a caravan, got addicted to scotch, drank myself under the table a lot, found myself a teddy bear, cried myself to sleep a lot....And if you breathe a word of this to anypony, there will be consequences. See, I was just eager to leave behind memories. There was little for me there. My family was dead and I was a wreck. I left because everything led me, in one way or another, to remembering my mother dying. I couldn't live with that at that point. Most days I still can't."

Gentle's smile faded. She put a hoof around his shoulders, giving him a half side-hug. "My lips are sealed," she whispered. "And friends are family. I'm here for you if you need someone, Atriark. You know I can keep secrets, and you know I'll always want to help. If you need anything, and I mean anything, I will be happy to serve. I'm your friend, and I forever will be, no matter what you do."

The assorted rabble began cleaning up the bar to an extent, righting the tables and chairs that hadn't been broken in the brawl. Soon, everything returned to it's standard semblance of normalcy, and the gryphon with the guitar returned to the stage.

Cocktail looked at the wound in Mona's shoulder and whistled. In a grateful voice he said, "Looks like the bullet went clean through. Means I don't have to dig it out, which makes this a whole lot easier." He tied the rag above the wound to stop the bleeding, and it soon did. He then said, "This is gonna hurt like a bitch, so..."

He had no sooner finished his sentence as he poured whiskey directly onto the wound, flushing out the lead dust and dried blood. He reached behind the bar and produced a health potion.

"Sorry about the booze," he said apologetically. "These potions work better if the wound's clean though."

He turned to face The dark pony who had fired the gun in the first place, who was being held telekinetically by Cross. He heard what Cross told the buck, and waited impatiently for him to apologize.

Back on the bar, Lucky had retrieved his bottle of moonshine from earlier, and had already drunk over half of what was left in the bottle. Over the course of the hour and a half he had spent home, he had managed to get nearly to his alcoholic limit, and was as close to falling unconscious as he could get. As it was, he could barely stand, which made the fact that he had clambered up onto the stage with the gryphon even more baffling. Lucky was standing on the stage, swaying back and forth as he slurred through his rendition of "El Saddle".

The sound coming forth from his lips was an abomination of a song, yet the gryphon on the stage continued playing the correct tune. In fact, the look on the gryphon's face suggested that he wanted some stranger from the crowd to kill him, or Lucky, for creating such heresy against good music. The patrons however, had no intention of doing so; Instead, they just watched in amusement, having known of Lucky's drunken exploits as something near legend.

[here's a link to the song I'm parodying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgI5DMVegIk]

Atriark leaned in close, accepting the hug. She was warm and her coat was soft, well taken care of and had a nice sheen to it.

"I'm..I'm glad to hear it Breeze, sometimes I forget that I still have friends." Atriark rested his head on her's. "I forgot what it's like to have somepony else who cares for you and looks after you. I'm sorry for leaving you and going off on my own."

Breeze's smile returned, and she held him close. "It's alright. Hey, did you know that I started talking just as you were leaving? Remember, I started crying when you left? I kept telling myself that I could've talked to you. That I should've. You were my only friend, then, and it was hard and awkward for me to try to meet anypony-- or anyzebra-- else. I had to get used to other ponies and talking to them. It was a hard thing to do."

Atriark closed his eyes as the memory came back to him. He hated seeing the mare cry, but being there brought the zebra pain. Seeing the mare cry tore him up, but he had to go.

"I'm sorry about making you cry then. It hurt me so much seeing you like that, but I couldn't stay. It hurt me more to remember. But I'm glad that you broke out of your shell. You seem like you can talk quite well now."

"I can. It's alright, now. I got to see you again."

As he slowly sipped his drink, Arc watched Atriark and Breeze find each other after such a long time. This was not entirely unusual occurence, especially shortly after the evacuation of Stable 113. Nopony was entirely sure who made it out, and if so, where precisely he was. The ledgers with casuality lists were eventualy ignored, as nopony wanted to look into them and find another familiar name, just to know he was gone, and then another, and another...

This reminded Arc of the night shift, only friends his nature and occupation were able to make for him. None of them made it out alive, as far as he knew. As for family, both parents passed away into the everafter long before the incident, being mercifully spared of witnessing the horrors of the future.

No, enough sad things happened today already. He finished what was left in his glass and trotted to Atriark and Gentle Breeze.

"Guys, i know that this is inappropriate as heck, but can i buy you two a drink? You reminded me of those whom i lost, and they deserve a toast to their memory. For old friends' sake."

Atriark looked at the new pony and back to Gentle. He knew this pony, back in 113. What was his name? Arc, Atriark believed. He tried to recall the rest of his name, but he just couldn't remember.

"I would love to drink to the dead. But eh um...we remind you of them?" Atriark wasn't sure if he should apologize. He knew what it was like to remember a lost loved one. And that's why he drank himself out cold on more than a dozen occasions.

Dash heard Cross talk about how he would be apologizing and giving recompense to 'Mona' as the unicorn mare who had shot was apparently named. He then winced as he was dragged along the floor toward her on his belly, nary given a chance to even attempt comply with Cross' order to get to his hooves. While he was being dragged, however, he managed to get some proper hoofing down on the floor and brought himself up to a more respectable stature. As he was finally set before Mona Tones, Dash gritted his teeth sheepishly, "I...uhh..." he began, tripping over his words, as he thought about the situation some more, he realized that letting fear take him over had incriminated him in the situation, he sighed, "I'm sorry. I was scared, not just for myself and anypony else in this bar, I was scared for my brother too. He was captured by slavers... you see... And I knew that I couldn't afford letting myself get hurt for his sake. It clouded my judgement and I let the fear control me rather than my brain."

Mona's emotionless shell cracked a bit, as she let out a slight hiss from the pain as the alcohol cleaned the wound, face showing the slightest grimace, before it settled back to normal. She didn't waste any time once the wound was ready, downing the potion in a single gulp, and letting it work it's magic.
Quickly however, her attention was pulled away from watching her injury heal, as the familiar pony (She was pretty sure she knew exactly who he was, considering he knew her name...) dragged her attacker over for an apology. Mona looked at the pegasus as he explained himself, letting him finish before she spoke.

"You're lucky I think before I fire." She said, before gesturing over to the bartender.
"If you want to actually apologize, it would be best if you paid for the alcohol and potion that the bartender just had to use due to your carelessness."

Once she had spoken, she turned towards the unicorn who had dragged the pegasus over. She would have to have been blind to not recognize them at this range, especailly with the hood. "Hello Cross. Still around, I see."

"Why isn't it just delightful to see you too, Mona" Cross purposely threw off his voice, so nopony could tell if he was serious or being a bit sarcastic, either way he did it just for the effect, he was still in control of the situation.

"I guess you can take care of this buck however you want, it's either pay his debt, or the hangmare's noose." Cross then turned back around and started walking away while ponies watched the exchange between Mona and Dash. Still he couldn't help the feeling he nearly messed up, usually he'd just rely on magic in a situation like this....but this time he just had a bad feeling about it.

As he trotted next to Winter, he smiled

"I think that went quite well don't you think?

Arc turned to Atriark and smiled at him.

"I'm sorry that i confused you. Nah, you remind of that we have not lost, even against all the hardships wasteland has decided to send our way, and that we had the strength to persevere."

And you remind me that i'm clearly drunk as hell, went through Arc's head in a sudden moment of clarity.

"So, what can i get you?"

Gently gave a blank look, paling some, feeling shied by the suddenness of being talked to by more than one pony at a time. Well, a pony and a zebra. More than one body.

"U-um...." she stuttered quietly. "I-I've never.... drank alcohol before..."

Atrairk turned and addressed the white earth pony mare. "Hey," He wrapped an arm around her. "you don't have to drink alcohol if you don't want to. They have plenty of water." With his arm still wrapped around Gentle Breeze, he addressed Arc. "I'll have a glass of half scotch half water. Still drunk and I don't need it worse."

"W-well, I don't know i-if I wanna try it..." she whispered shyly. She shuffled her hooves some and looked down at them, realizing suddenly that there were several ponies in the room.

Winter smirked at the unicorn buck as he commented on how he resolved the situation. "Well It's better then ponies getting turned into swiss cheese so I'll have to agree" she said with a small chuckle. She had to admit the situation as resolved better then she could have imagined. At one point she had been sure that some pony was going to get shot.. or worse. She looked to the unicorn buck and realised a detail that she'd overlooked during their conversation, "You know I never did get your full name ?" she asked with a soft smile.

"The last thing i would like to do is to force it on you, so how about some aged cider? It's slightly alcoholic, but nothing strong, and if you never drank before, it's good to start slowly, else you'll end in a duet with bucket like certain somepony."

Atriark chuckled and glanced at the drunken Lucky up on stage butchering a song that the zebra had only heard once or twice before. It was quite an amusing sight.

"I'd recommend what Arc said. That's if you are gonna drink alcohol. Personally, I'd suggest drinking it when you are at home so you don't do something you'll regret, like hit on another mare."

"Hmm thats right, Well sometimes I'm just known as the stallion with no name....Cross Roads at your service" Cross let out with a slight chuckle, just then Cross remembered another reason he decided to stop by that day...For a split moment he thought about and he looked to Winter and embarrassingly shifted his hoof behind his head.

"Um you know Miss Winter, there was another reason I came to Stableton today...A friend of mine managed to salvage amusement ride and there's a a make-shift carnival in town, ....I mean....if you aren't doing anything, would you ....like to go with me?" Cross blushed and let out a sheepish smile, hoping she didn't see how nervous he was in reality

'please Luna.... He tried silently praying in his mind, he really hoped she said yes, his heart was racing since rarely, if ever, did he feel this vulnerable with anypony

"I... I suppose that'll be fine..." she smiled, relaxing herself some. "But I don't really have a home, I just got here a few hours ago...."

She shuffled her hooves shyly again, still feeling slightly overwhelmed by meeting this new pony so suddenly.