Sock was your name. You were a teal mare with a messy mane of dirty blonde. Your existence was something of an anomaly in this rather relaxed herd: a herd where everyone seemed to just so naturally fall into their roles. You never took a dedicated job, because why would you? You were strong for a mare, so you’d help the toughies fight the bad fluffies off when they stepped into your land; you had an eye for good nummies, so you helped the nummie finders when the pile got too small; and you loved foals, so you kept the overwhelmed mummahs company in the wee waning hours of the night. You enjoyed variety. You were, to your chagrin, easily bored.
Your herd was a mixed lot, an eclectic gathering of oddities, runaways, ferals, and dumped lab rats. All and all, about a touch more than three lots of five made your number.
Your leader was named Mickey, and apparently it was because of his big and round ears that so made him look like a mouse off of his old owner’s “tee-vee”, whatever that is.
By all rights, he was an alright leader, patient, nice, supportive of his herd, but it was clear to see just how much he quivered away from the other herds as they continued to invade his land. He conceded too much ground for your liking, laughed fearfully as the other smarties threatened him. It was plain as the muzzle on your face that he was slowly coming to despise his fellow smarties, and the notion of leadership in general. A shame, you thought he fit the role rather well with his Laissez-faire approach to governance.
You wondered your herd’s territory, you were on patrol for the morning.
Your home was a beautiful spot: an abandoned hospital in the heart of a bustling seaside town. You remembered one of the ‘squating’ humans in the upper floor of the derelict telling you that a ‘hospital’ was what this building was called, before she went to sleep forever, a few days later.
She always joked that the foul smelling water she drank from those green bottles would one day be the end of her.
You snuck out through a hole in the brickwork and sniffed around the empty parking lot. Nothing, nothing but rubbish, and not the edible kind.
You knew better than to patrol alone, but your patrol partner was busy, always so.
He was a yellow stallion with a pretty orange mane. His name was Squeak. You felt good when he was around-, no, you felt fantastic, alive. He was the one thing that you never grew bored of in this herd.
He was a story teller, a nest builder, and gatherer of shiny objects for his plentiful collection. He wasn’t exactly built for combat, being that his frame was so petite, but he still walked with you on patrols on most days. You loved those days like no other, because those were the days that he’d tell you his stories.
You wondered and sniffed about. You picked and prodded as you dug through the trash.
“Oi!” A hobo called out from the big bin as you probed around, jumping you from your skin.
“Hey! Fuck off!” A great big bearded behemoth of a man barked as he stood himself from his putrid abode in the skip.
“Wy yew un Mickey wand?” you inquired with a cocking of your teal head.
“Who the fuck is Mickey?” the homeless human asked as he climbed out with a box of expired, pre-cooked chicken tenders in hand.
“This is my home, I’ve been here since Tuesday, so suck my cock. I’ve got my claim here, hobo’s code and all that.” the messy vagabond replied with a grunt and a sneer. He didn’t sound like the other dirty humans like him, not like your dead squatter friend. He sounded fancy, like the men and women in pretty clothes that you heard on the street sometimes.
“Weww, Hewd wus hewe fow wots ob moons!” you barked at the man with puffed cheeks.
“A few months? Well damn. I guess that makes you the smartest fluffies going.” he chuckled, “This spot is prime real estate.”.
“Su wat yew wan? Yew jus gun stay in da big twashie boxie?” you asked with a scrunching of your nose at his rancid stink.
“I don’t fucking know…” he said as he threw the greasy cardboard box over his shoulder and scratched the tangled brown mane atop his head.
“I didn’t think my career would fall through, and now I’m eating second hand KFC from a fucking trash bin.” he lamented.
“Wat habin? Did yew smawty wand git taken tuu?” you tried to sympathise with the big human.
“Ha! Something like that. I’m not going to explain what a market crash is or the concept of mass redundancy to a fluffy, but let’s just say that everything can go to shit when you’ve got a slithering cunt of a ‘smarty’ leading your ‘herd’.” he said with a defeated shrug and hollow smile.
“Bunch ob dummeh hoomin wowdsies.” you said with a rolling of your turquoise eyes.
“It sure fucking is.” the vagabond agreed whole heartedly, “Turns out that you dirty little street pigs had the right of it all along! WHO’D OF THUNK IT?!” he laughed. “Eat garbage, fuck in the alleys, be free!” he howled on in pained laughter.
“Mistah sound cwazies!” you cringed.
“Maybe I am, but hey, I have the same standing in society as you now. If that isn’t some form of fucked cosmic irony, I don’t know what is.” you heard him prattle.
“weww, wat-ebah. Nu am dat bad.” you shrugged at the tramp.
“Oh, so you lot really are in some state of retard-nirvana? So ignorant that bliss washes through you like a fine cognac?” the man chuckled at you in a way that offended.
“Nu! Hewd wowk hawd tu stay sayf! Yew nu kno wat wike, bein fwuffy!” you stomped.
“Okay then, tell me, little mare. What do you want for? Do you want for more food, warmer nests, a litter of foals, a nicer smarty?” he asked with a shift in his tone that shivered you.
“…Wat Sock wan am nun ob yew biz-ee-ness…” you grumbled back.
“So it’s over a man, then? Well, a stallion… God above, I hope it’s not over a man. I still get queezy at the thought of what that Billionaire’s boy did to that mare.” he mumbled.
“Nu bout stawwi-.” you tried to retort as your eyes looked away.
“Bollocks!” he snapped, “You’re a mare, it’s usually over a stallion. So, you tell me, miss Sock. Why don’t you just hop on the good hoof and do the bad thing with him?” he inquired.
“Umm, wat?” you blinked. You weren’t entirely sure as to what he meant, but for some reason you felt a heat begin to emanate from your puffed cheeks at the stating of it.
“You know? Dip his wick in your honeypot, skin his sausage, flog his eel, tickle his tulip, make the bald man cry -as it were?” he tried to explain.
“Am yew thinkie pwace bwoken. Yew makin sum weiwd wowdsies.” you said, trying to change the subject.
“I mean: why not just fuck him?” he said, and suddenly, a blast of red warmth danced across your face at the suggestion, paired equally by the tingling in your belly.
“W-w-wat?! Nu!” you bleeted.
The Vagabond stared deeply into you for a while, reading you, drinking in your expression, and slowly, a tiny smile crept over his face.
“I see…” he smirked, “He’s already got someone, doesn’t he?” he probed. And the statement stung you cold as ice, like the smarting of a frosted whip.
“…Yus.” you said, as you lowered yourself to the floor, belly to the concrete as you rested your head mournfully upon your front legs.
“And you don’t think he could ever love you, like you do for him?” the tramp said with a tone rich in sympathy.
“Here…” he added as he reached into his stained and vile smelling trench coat, pulling forth a silver flask and a small, empty gravy pot the he appeared to have already licked clean. He poured the foul smelling liquid from the flask, a liquid not dissimilar from what your old human friend drank, and slid it towards you.
“From one loser to another.” he smiled weakly.
You curled up beside the reeking gentleman and buried your muzzle in the plastic container. Maybe you’d find the answer at the bottom of it? It was worth a try.
-To Be Continued-