Vincent Harkness stepped back and admired his handy work, his new kitchen cabinet was finally finished and was set into place. Admittedly it took a little longer than he planned having to deal with that fucking Smarty herd in his garden, but that was over and done with now.
In the other room he could still hear the beaten and bruised whining of former Smarty Coal, complaining about his herd, his mate and his brother all abandoning him.
But that was a problem to deal with later, right now all Vincent wanted to do was grab a bear, light a cigarette and lounge about in his garden untilâŚ
Thump thump thump
Vincent felt his spine tense up at the light but forceful knocking at his front door, like it was being tapped at by a teddy bear. Or a marshmallow.
Already knowing what was on the other side, and cursing his dumb fucking luck to be set upon by Fluffies twice on his day off, Vincent made for the living room window, set right next to his front door.
Sure enough, there was a herd of Fluffies outside, fairly small by herd standards, only two males and two females with a handful of foals between them. But they were still a group of Fluffies and the one knocking on the door, a red earthie stallion with a lime green mane, looked either angry or constipated.
Probably both.
The red stallion knocked again. âDummeh hoomin, wet Fwuffies inside nyo.â
Vincent opened his window and leaned out. âWhy?â
All fours adults and several of the children yelped and shat themselves, the Smarty quickly recovered and puffed his cheeks towards Vincent.
âMeanie hoomin, yu gib fwiends an babbehs wowstesh scawdies. Wet Fwuffies in nyo, wan wawm homesie and gud nummies.â
âSketti nummie.â One of the mares, a lilac unicorn with a dark purple mane, spoke up. Vincent could tell by the way she rubbed herself against the red smarty that she was his mate.
âAnd if I donât let you in?â He asked the tiny herd.
âDen Cah-mine gib yu wowstesh huwties an foweba sweepies.â
To prove his point, the red smarty, Carmine apparently his name was, lowered his head and puffed his cheeks harder, trying to put on a show of force to scare Vincent.
Naturally it did nothing of the sort, and Vincent took his sweet time lighting up a cigarette as he watched Carmineâs followers slowly getting more and more worried at how unfazed he was by their leaderâs scare tactics.
After a long drag, Vincent stared Carmine in the eye and smirked.
âNo.â
Carmine fumed. âBiggesh dummeh, yu wet Fwuffies in homesie nyo ow Cah-mine gib yu foweba sweepies.â
âHow?â
âWha?â
âHow are you going to give me âforever sleepiesâ?â
Carmine looked about at his followers, confused like Vincent had just asked the dumbest question ever.
âWiv sowwy-hoofies dummeh.â
Vincent rolled his eyes. âYes but HOW are you going to give me sorry hoofies when the doorâs shut?â
Carmine turned to the front door, the imposing wooden structure stood tall and menacing over him and his friends. For a brief moment he considered breaking it down, but even just knocking it had stunk his hoof more than he expected.
âDummeh hoomin open doow, den Cah-mine gib sowwy-hoofies.â
âBut then I wouldâve let you in, and you said my choices were let you in, OR youâd kill me.â
âYeh butâŚâ
âBoth those choices require me to open the door, but if I do nothing then you canât do anything. Youâre entire argument is based on the threat of death but you canât even administer said death without my intervention, so why would I assist you in killing myself, when in doing so I would nullify said threat by agreeing to the terms of your invasion? You can only kill me with my help, and my help would mean you canât kill me, itâs almost paradoxical in itâs own broken way.â
There was a long silence, followed by an even longer silence, suddenly Vincent realised Carmine wasnât even looking at him, he was looking through him, his eyes glazed over and unfocussed from this reality as his tubby body stood in almost complete stillness except for a light vibrating.
After a moment, blood starting leaking out of Carmineâs nose and he fell onto his side, his eyes wide and the smell of burning seeping from his body. Vincent could only guess but he figured Carmine was dead.
The three remaining Fluffies stared at their former leaderâs body, then up at Vincent, all of them too scared to be confused. Vincent took a final drag of his cigarette, flicked the butt at Carmineâs corpse and shrugged his shoulders.
âDonât think on it too much.â
And he promptly shut the window.