Pretty, Pretty Pony [Ended]

[The Jenn]

Ever since she found her "pretty pony" a few months ago, Tabby had been nigh-on obsessed with teaching the best commands. She had informed her family with a haughty air that Queenie was a girl pony, that she was magical (duh), and that she had been cursed a long time ago by an evil Torquehelm who bound her in lots of rings and turned the rest of her into visible invisible lightning.

Jak thought his little girl was just the cutest thing ever. He also took a good long while to investigate the creature after Tabby literally walked it home and brought it in the house. His baby was following in Mommy's footsteps.

The thing was huge, though! He could see why she called it a "pretty pony" - it was the size of a smaller horse, but probably bigger than an actual pony. The rings were a pretty, shiny metal, too. And the lightning didn't hurt him, so he didn't feel at all weird about letting her ride it. They spent a week teaching it simple commands like "stay", "down", "back", that sort of thing. Also "run".

As soon as his brother pointed out that the creature could be a useful guard-pet-horse-thing for her? He was sold. Queenie was staying. Really, it seemed to like them, and it didn't even need to eat or poop!

Tabby was out on her first parent-sanctioned trot around the neighborhood with her new "pony". They'd covered it with a sheet for the sake of simplicity, but it didn't look like that would work for very long. The sheet was already starting to tear in certain spots. It would be gone in an instant if they had to run. Nevertheless, the girl seemed delightedly oblivious to any and all looks, just enjoying the day. Mommy was around somewhere. He would come really fast if she screamed, and Queenie would be gone even faster.

[Chou]

The heron jolted upright in his seat. He was awoken by the warm touch of a waitress, a cute little thing; she was always advised by her boss to not allow any patrons to sleep inside - it was bad for business. He motioned to the young girl to bring him just one more. Just one more and he’d be on his way. He scrambled up the papers in front of him - carefree of their order. He had been working all night on new recipes for his poisons. He needed something new. He’d tried all different kinds of venoms: spider, snake, ant, assassin bug, and bee. He wanted to begin studying venomous sea creatures but didn’t have the means to do so. His poisons were mild intoxicants to say the very least. If he wanted the funding to make stronger concoctions…well, he’d have to make stronger concoctions.

The waitress placed a napkin down, followed by the drink and smiled kindly at the bird. Ercole flashed his off-kilter smile and handed her some change. He raised his glass to her, “I-it’s mid-midday somewhere, right?” She politely smiled at him and walked back behind the counter. He retrieved his vial of self-made poison and dropped some into his glass of ale. He watched as the blue properties mixed in with the yellow-ish tint of his drink and scribbled a short note on the top-most piece of paper on his stack. He finished the doubly potent drink and headed towards the door with his untidy stack of paper. He waved goodbye to the woman that served him and pushed open the door. The dim pub was immediately flooded with an intense beam of sunlight. Ercole quickly closed his eyes but was promptly greeted with the hard, wooden threshold against his face. Grace was not one of his strong suits. Embarrassed, he quickly hopped out of the building. Ercole had underestimated the impact to his head and the amount of drink he had consumed as he started back to his apartment. The world began to grow hazy, and everyone on the streets seemed to be moving erratically to and fro. “N-n-not again…” The Corvie fell face first into the street; his notes and reports following suit right behind him.

[The Jenn]

Wrapped up in the bliss of a trot through the city, Tabby probably wouldn't have noticed much of anything about the other people on the street if a flurry of papers in the wind hadn't caught her eye.

"Whoa, girl," she said automatically, because that was what people said to get horses to stop. She'd heard the cabbies use it all the time. The magical beast stopped obligingly, standing off to one side of the street. "Umm... a little more to the side, please? Uh, this way? Traffic, Queenie. Traffic's bad. C'mon - there! Towards the paper a little." Eventually the child had to point, at which time her covered steet seemed to understand. They moved towards the papers.

And the body? Oh. The papers belonged to somebody, then. That made sense. He didn't look all that good, though. "Oh, hey! Hey Mister! Laying down in the street gets you mugged. You might wanna get up. I mean, this is a nicer part of the city and all, but it's still kinda dangerous. Oh, hey, can you get up? Or are you... y'know. Are you hurt? Hey Mister, are you okay?" Curious to a fault, Tabby remembered her Mommy's warning in time and didn't dismount her pet. She did lean over as far as she could while keeping her balance to peer down at the heron.

[Chou]

Ercole awoke to a high-pitched, almost chant like string of words. “U-uhh…huh?” He lifted his neck just an inch and managed to open his heavy eyelids just enough to spot…SOMEthing with metal toes underneath a sheet. “W-what in the wor-,” He poked the metal foot that was closest to him. The surface was cold and mechanical.

A wave of emotion flowed through his body - it must have been the booze. “I-I’m s-sorry officer…I-I m-must have tripped,” he said sheepishly. He wasn’t able to see the rider with the sun still glaring in his eyes. The bird slowly sat up, his neck still drooping towards the cobblestone street. “I-I’ll j-just be on my w-way then.” Ercole leaned over slowly and began to collect the many stray pieces of paper. It wouldn’t have been an uncommon sight for the bird to have shed a tear or two right there in that busy street. The tear would have been easily hidden beneath the hustle and bustle of the city-folk and would have traveled down the contour of his beak with little notice. Depression seemed to run hand in hand with the madness that was spread through his (now deceased) family. It was an emotion that was very much a part of the bird, but one that he didn’t outwardly or publicly express all too often.

[The Jenn]

Oh dear, the bird kind of reminded Tabby of some of the people she saw in the alley in the morning before school. Usually they didn't mean to be there, Mommy said, they just ended up there after having too much to drink. And then they got up and stumbled out of the alley and she usually never saw them again.

She really loved the window in the kids' bedroom. She really, really did. All sorts of things to see in an alley.

"Officer? I'm not an Officer. I'm Tabby. This is Queenie. I'm sorry you tripped. That usually hurts. Are you hurt? You look kind of hurt. Did you have too much to drink? At least you're not in an alley. They usually smell worse. Do you need me to go and get somebody for you?" Did he really think she was a member of the police?! She felt so proud just then. Queenie made everything better!

Mommy had been right to let her out for a ride. She needed to get her pony some pony-clothes so she wouldn't have to wear a sheet and everyone would think she was an official police pony or something like that. Mommy could probably find somebody to do that, couldn't he?

[Chou]

Delighted with the realization that whomever was standing in front of him was indeed not a police officer, Ercole squawked, “W-well…you don’t say? N-not an off-officer? That’s delightful! I-I‘d buy you a round or e-even dip into my personal collection if it weren‘t for your overly y-young disposition and l-look about you.” Ercole stretched his neck closer to the girl and looked around the street way cautiously. “B-but to tell you the truth…I’ve been sipping the poison since I was around your age.” He smirked, “I-I’m Er-Ercole, and yes…yes, I am as r-right as one could hope I could be”.

The heron looked down to the sheet the girl pointed to when she introduced the name Queenie and slowly lifted the cloth. A collection of rings were hidden underneath. “H-how…curious,” he let the sheet fall back into place and took a sip from a nearby vial that he had dropped earlier. “I’ve seen m-many a contraption before…but w-what exactly is this?” The thought of lab assistants (other than those pesky momes) flashed like a slide show through his brain, the Corvie began bobbing his neck up and down erratically. Ercole was easily excitable when presented with something he was unfamiliar with, especially if it involved something that could possibly progress his tiny, yet functional lab.

[The Jenn]

Tabby didn't entirely understand what the bird meant by most of what he said at first. He was glad she wasn't Police. She got that much. Which meant that he was probably being Disorderly, since she knew that was one of the words thrown around in official situations. She took great dare not to be Disorderly in public. There was a fine line to toe.

His name was Ercole and he drank poison. That had to be one wicked ability, then! Mommy always had to be careful about things that might be poisoned whenever he picked around the dumpsters - not so much for food anymore as for interesting things. But people liked to put poison down for rats, the tiny vermin kind, and that could be very bad for people to eat. The dead kind of bad.

"It's not nice to peek under a lady's clothes," Tabby told him plaintively, a small frown flitting across her muzzle before it disappeared into a more thoughful expression. "Buuuut she's a lady-pony, so it's probably different. She's my pretty pony. I found her one day and brought her home. Mommy let me keep her. She's my pet! I can ride her. She runs really fast."