Pickle had been a feral for only a week so far, and he had hated every second of it.
Gone was his cosy bed, gone were his toys, gone were regular meals every… uh… every three-times-a-day. Gone was mama and her friendly smile, gone was tickles and cuddles and ‘love you’, gone was the TV…
Pickle sighed.
He’d run away because he hadn’t been allowed to have special-huggies with anyone, but then a pretty feral mare had poked her head in the hole in the backyard fence one day, and Pickle had been determined to follow her, the potential result of special-huggies being all too tantalising to resist!
Unfortunately, by the time Pickle had managed to widen the gap between the fence boards enough for him to squeeze through (but not without some pain from doing so, mind you), the pretty mare had vanished intno the ether, leaving Pickle all alone. He set off to try and find her, but he didn’t know where she had gone, or even where he was anymore. All he knew was that it wasn’t mama’s backyard anymore… but was that really so bad?
One week later, Pickle was certain that it was so bad, and that he was an idiot for ever thinking otherwise.
Pickle had the misfortune of being born with a coat in a particularly nasty shade of vomit green. His own mama had called him a ‘poopie’, and he’d spent a long time in the pet-store never being adopted, until finally mama came along. She seemed so sweet, and smiled so much at hime, she took him home that very day and Pickle never wanted for anything.
Well… except for special-huggies.
But after a week of rain, wind, scary booming ‘thunder’ noises, big roary ‘cars’ screaming by him, and an overall lack of food, Pickle was prepared to sacrifice his no-nos right then and there if it meant getting back to mama.
Pickle crawled out of the bush he’d spent the night sleeping in, and sighed miserably.
The one upside to his vomit-green coat was that it was very easy for him to hide among the foliage and shrubbery of the suburban neighborhood. All he had to do was lie still and not make a sound, and he was practically invisible. It was the only reason he’d been able to survive so long, as even humans would have a hard time spotting Pickle, if he managed to find a good spot to hide in. And of course, Pickle had been hiding from every human around, since if fluffies treated him badly based on his color, who knew what humans might do to him?!
Pickle waddled out from his temporary home and trudged aimlessly around for a while, hoping to find his way home but knowing for sure it’d never happen. So instead he just continued to roam, taking stock of the expanse of nature around him, the various colors and sizes of fences on one side, if any of them had any gaps he could try and fit himself through…
Sure enough, after a few mintues of walking, Pickle found exactly that.
A plain white fence, but with a broken board in one spot. On the other side, Pickle could hear some kind of strange noise, but could only see a dense green bush blocking the way…
…which would make perfect camouflage for him.
Pickle plodded forwards and pushed his way under the fence, squeezing and squirming until he was through the gap and safely concealed among the foliage. He peeked his head out, and stifled a gasp at the strange sight he saw.
There was a human standing in the yard, wearing some kind of big white suit with a strange mask over his head. He was leaning over a big white box, and there was a lot of weird buzzing noises coming from inside it.
The man was doing something… weird. He was pulling out big bits of something, doing something to it, then putting them back in. Pickle couldn’t make sense of it, but kept quietly watching anyway, wondering what would happen next.
After a few minutes, the man stopped what he was doing and closed up the big white box again. The buzzing got quieter, but Pickle could still hear it. It made him nervous, but he wasn’t sure why.
He saw the man carrying a large metal bowl over to a wooden table, which was sitting on a stone patio. The table was stacked with open glass jars, a heap of metal lids next to them, and the man began spooning some kind of gleaming golden liquid from the metal bowl into one of the glass jars. Soon enough the jar was full, so the man put a lid on it, then began filling another jar.
He continued like this for a few minutes, until something happened.
As the man moved to grab another lid, his elbow bumped a still open, nearly full jar. It wobbled, tipped… and fell from the table, hitting the ground and shattering, spilling the gooey golden honey across the stone floor.
“Ah, shit.” The man said. Pickle resisted the urge to squeak about the man using bad words, and instead continued to watch silently.
The man looked down at the mess on the ground and huffed.
“Fuck it.” He said to himself. “Eh, I’ll clean it later. Better get the rest indoors.”
And with that, the man walked indoors, carrying the metal bowl in one arm and the full jars in the other.
Pickle waited until the man’s door had fully closed before creeping out of the bush. He nervously made his way past the buzzy white box, and headed over to the sticky mess lying on the patio slabs. The golden honey was almost sparkling in the midday sunlight, and Pickle couldn’t resist the temptation to lick his lips as he stared at it, transfixed.
He reached forwards, and poked a hoof into the gooey, sticky mixture, checking to see if it was safe. He withdrew his hoof, but found it was covered in the sticky gold liquid. He fought the urge to panic as the honey dripped and trickled across his hoof, seemingly not wanting to come off.
Finally, Pickle had had enough. He was too hungry to worry anymore ,and placed his hoof on the ground to steady himself as he leaned forwrds, tongue desperately protruding out in search of food.
It lapped up the honey, and very quickly Pickle realised just how sweet it was, and soon began devouring the mess that had been left on the hot stones for him. As long as he took some care in avoiding the shards of broken glass, he had nothing to worry about… until he felt his tongue scraping against the patio slabs, and realised the honey was practically gone.
He opened his eyes and looked sadly at the ground, seeing that barely any honey was left. Most of it had been eaten, all that remaind was a few drops and stains still soaking into the ground.
But Pickle was still hungry. He’d liked how the nummies tasted, and he wanted more!
But where could he get more…?
Pickle looked at the broken jar on the ground, and thought for a moment. Then he looked at the big white boxy thing, and thought for another moment. It was hard work, doing all that thinking, but slowly he began to put the pieces of this vastly complex jigsaw together.
The man had used the white box to get the sweet nummies… that meant the sweet nummies were inside the box!
So, that meant, if Pickle’s hypothesis was indeed correct… that meant that all Pickle had to do to get more sweety tasty nummies was open the box!
Pickle beamed with pride at how smart he was, and attempted to take a step, only to feel his hoof tugging at him as he did. He looked, and saw that the honey had stuck it to the ground. He jerked and yanked and pulled at his hoof, but it wouldn’t come away from the slab.
Pickle was so caught up in trying to free his hoof, he didn’t notice his other hooves stumbling messily into the remains of the spilled honey. One by one, his hooves began sticking to the slabs, making it harder and harder for him to move, and only making Pickle panic worse and worse.
He still resisted the urge to say anything, just in case any monsters happened to hear him.
Pickle finally got his hoof free, but not without some pain and difficulty, as he found himself bowling over in the process, rolling through the remains of the honey, coating most of his back and sides with it too.
He finalyl picked himself up and, with hooves sticky to the slabs with every step, he made his way towards the buzzy box.
The honey had given Pickle a little more energy, but still not much, as he felt his hunger gnawing at him. Whatever the honey was, it was tasty, and he needed more of it, immediately!
Pickle came to a halt at the side of the buzzy box, and gave it a swift bonk with a hoof… but nothing happened. He tried two hooves, but there was still no change. Pickle was starting to get mad, and so began drumming his hooves on the side of the box, randomly beating them against the wooden surface while he heard the buzzy noises frmo inside getting louder and more aggressive. He didn’t know what that meant… but he hoped it meant nummies were on the way.
Pickle continued to thump on the box for several minutes, getting more and more irate as time went on. It just wasn’t fair! He wanted nummies, so why wasn’t the box giving him any nummies?! Stupid box!
Pickle had just about had enough, and with one almighty swing, he brought his hoof down on the side of the box one more time…
And that’s when all hell broke loose.
The box had been constructed out of lightweight wood to make it easier to move… which meant that the wood was thin and relatively soft. While fluffy ponies didn’t possess anything in the way of ‘strength’, they certainly had enough to break a piece of flimsy wood if they applied enough force to it.
And that was how Pickle put a hoof straight through the wall of a bee-hive.
Almost instantly, a torrent of buzzy yellow-black things poured out of the hole like a furious liquid, their tiny bodies battering against Pickle as they flew out to assess the situation.
What they saw was an ugly little monster attacking their hive.
And they weren’t going to let it get away with that.
One after another, the bees flew towards Pickle, who had no time to even register what was happening before the pain began.
The bees landed their stingers all over Pickle’s body. His cheeks, his back, his lips, his no-nos, his legs, his ears… all over Pickle’s body, bees were merrily stinging away.
Pickle, his hunger replaced with pain, attempted to escape, but the honey coating his hooves made it difficult for him to take a single step. Even when he did manage to, the grass clung to his honey-soaked sides, effectively fixing him to the spot as the bees continued their merciless assault.
And so, after remaining silent for so long, Pickle finally couldn’t take it any longer.
So he screamed.
Victor stepped out once more into the bright sunlight about an hour later, having only just remembered he’d left a bunch of empty jars and lids out by mistake.
He had intended to just scoop them up and head back in, until he saw something was wrong with the bee-hive.
There was a hole in one side of it, the bees were furiously buzzing all around it (having evidently escaped from the hole), and there was some… thing lying on the grass.
It looked to be about the size of a small dog or cat, but it looked nothing like either. It’s body was bloated with fat pink blisters from the bee’s stingers, and while it still seemed to be alive, it certailny didn’t look like it wanted to be anymore. It’s swollen lips were parting and closing repeatedly as it gasped for breath, it’s eyes could barely open. It couldn’t even move, it seemed to lack the strength anymore to lift even a single leg.
Victor looked down at the ugly thing, not even sure of what it was, and made a decision.
If this thing was going to die, it wouldn’t be next to his beloved bees.
Victor swung his leg back and launched it forwards, punting the blister-riddled beast through the air, sending it hurtling over his fence and into the trees beyond. He had more important things to worry about than… whatever the fuck that thing was.
For example, his neighbor had been over that morning to ask about her stray fluffy-pony, Pickle. Victor had promised he’d help her look for him later, and he had no intention of changing that.
