Sweeney Trot

AN: OH MY GOD me when did I ever make fics?! Enjoy if you can I'm sorry

Pinkie Pie sighed as she walked over to Sweeney, taking the dish from him.

“Spit it out, mister.” She advised him, noticing his grimace and tearing eyes. Sweeney looked to both of his sides, looking for something to spit it in. Pinkie shook her head at this. “Go on, on the floor. There’s worse things than that down there, that’s for sure!” Not wanting to question the opportunity to get what was left in his mouth out, Sweeney turned around on the stool he seated on, spitting a spray of crust and ale out of his mouth. Pinkie retired behind her counter, tossing the bitten pie at a nearby wall, not bothering to watch it splatter and stick to the wooden surface.

“Wasn’t that a room up there, above your shop?” Sweeney finally spoke in his raspy tone, referring to the upper half of the building. Out on the street, he had seen that the building was easily high enough to support 2 floors. There was even a single window, black as night, showing a glimpse of something up there. “If times are so hard, why not rent that out?” He questioned, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. Many young ponies looking to start a profession would simply rent out rooms to set up shop in, so to speak. “Should bring in something.”

“Up there?!” Pinkie asked incredulously, craning her neck up to eye the ceiling as well. She laughed at the thought. “No one will go near it, silly! Ponies think it’s haunted.” She dropped her gaze down back to Sweeney. “Ya’ see, years ago something happened up there.” She looked to her left and right warily, looking for nobody who could possibly be listening in on her story. She approached him, lowering her voice. “Something not, very, nice...”

Sweeney narrowed his eyes in confusion as the pink mare took a seat next to him.

“There was a barber and his wife,

“And he was beautiful.”

“A proper artist with a knife,”

“But they transported him for life,”

“And he was beautiful...”

Pinkie trailed off for a moment before nodding slightly, giggling. “Apple his name was. Macintosh Apple. With his old wife, Cherilee.”

“What was his crime?” Sweeney asked aloud, eyes furrowed in confusion. Pinkie leaned back a bit, inhaling before answering.

“Foolishness.”

“He had this wife you see,”

“Pretty little thing,”

“Silly little nit had her chance for the moon on a string!”

Her eyelids lowered in a depressed glance, tracing along the rotting wooden floor.

“Poor thing,”

“Poor thing.”

Pinkie looked out the closest window, recalling the details of the barber’s wife, Cheerilee, and her fate after the deportation of that handsome barber from nearly a decade and a half ago.

“There were these two ya’ see,”

“Wanted her like mad.”

“One of ‘em a prince, t’other one his beadle!”

“Every day they’d nudge and they’d wheedle!”

“Still she wouldn’t budge from her needle!”

She shook her head, eyes closed. Cheerilee was nothing if not faithful to her husband, the father of her only foal. She didn’t once succomb to the suductions Blueblood had tried to entice her with. Not even bouquets of flowers got her attention in the slightest.

“Too bad,”

“Pure thing.”

It was then that the prince took matters into his own hands, and had Big Macintosh arrested, before sending him off to Australia nearly immediately afterwards.

“So they merely shipped the poor blighter off south they did,”

“Leaving her with nothing but grief and a year old kid!”

“Did she use her head, even then?”

“Oh no, god forbid!”

“Poor fool!”

“Ah, but there was worse yet to come, poor thing...”

Pinkie Pie stopped the story for a moment, raising a hoof to her chin in a moment of consideration, pondering something. Sweeney almost considered speaking before she reared up with a dramatic gesture upwards and a shout.

“Fluttershy!” She proclaimed victoriously. “That was the foal’s name, pretty little Fluttershy!” After recalling this, Pinkie began to bounce back behind the counter, seemingly willing to leave the story there.

“Well?!” Sweeney raised his voice as he stood, catching her attention and approaching her briskly. “Go on!”

“Wow, you do like a good story don’t you?” Pinkie giggled as she turned to face Sweeney again and seating herself, returning to the story at hand.

“Well the beadle calls on her all polite,”

“Poor thing, poor thing.”

“The prince, he tells her, is all contrite,”

“He blames himself for her dreadful plight,”

“She must come straight to his house tonight,”

“Poor thing, poor thing.”

True to his word, the prince was very insistent on having his beadle bring Cheerilee straight to his lavish estate, and making certain she came in without a fuss.

“But of course when she goes there,”

“Poor thing, poor thing,”

“They’re having this party all in masks!”

“There’s no one she knows there,”

“Poor dear, poor thing,”

“She wanders, tormented, and drinks, poor thing!”

“The prince has repented she thinks, poor thing!”

“Oh where is Prince Blueblood she asks!”

As the night went on, finding herself forced to stick it through the overblown celebration, Cheerilee took to drinking more and more, not able to make any conversation or do much of anything without seeing Blueblood. She hardly noticed as she got more and more tipsy.

“Oh, but he was there alright,”

“Only not so contrite!”

It was anything but a relief when the drunken mare finally saw Blueblood eyeing her from behind one of the white masks. Attempting a smile and wandering over to him as best she could whilst so dizzy, she didn’t see the heavy hoof that hit her across the face, sending her sprawling to the floor, Blueblood landing on her a moment later.

“She wasn’t no match for such craft ya’ see,”

“And everyone thought it so droll,”

“They figured she had to be daft, ya’ see,”

“So all of ‘em stood there and laughed, ya’ see!”

“Poor soul!”

“Pooooor thing!”

“Noooo!” Sweeney’s screech echoed through the empty shop, frightening Pinkie enough to cause her to jump. He stood there, breathing heavily with a hateful glare plastered on his face. “Would no one show her any mercy?” Pinkie’s face broke out into a beaming smile.

“So it is you!” She squealed, bouncing up and down. “Macintosh Apple!”

“No! Not Apple!” He recoiled at the sound of his former name, approaching Pinkie treacherously, leaning in closer. “Trot now. Sweeney Trot.” His face softened as he asked of her, “Where is she?”

“Oh wow, you’ve changed!” Pinkie’s eyes widened as she circled around him, noting just how much a difference 15 years had made in the stallion. His formerly bright red coat has dulled considerably, as if the bleakness in the world around them had manifested itself inside of him. Even his once bright green eyes seemed to have paled to a lifeless shade. “What did they do to you down in Australia or whatever?”

“Where is my wife?” Sweeney repeated as he spun to face Pinkie, staring her directly in the eyes, pleading with her. “Where’s Cheerilee?”

“Oh...” Pinkie stepped back at the memory, her voice wavering slightly. She sighed, shaking her head, trying to find the words. “She poisoned herself. Arsenic, from the apothecary down the corner.”

“What?” Sweeney asked under his breath, nearly illegibly.

“I tried to help her,” Pinkie hastily assured him, disappointment crossing over her features. “But, she just wouldn’t listen to me!” Sweeney shuddered, eyes clenched shut as he shook for a moment before looking up.

“And my daughter?” He queried, desperately.

“Fluttershy?” Pinkie asked, head quirking to the side. Sweeney nodded. “Oh, he’s got her!”

“He?!” Sweeney asked incredulously, stepping back, instantly knowing what she had meant. “Prince Blueblood?”

“Even he had a conscious, packed away somewhere I guess!” Pinkie mused as she nodded vigorously. “He adopted her like his very own!” The pie maker giggled despite to mood. “You could almost say it was good luck for her!”

This notion was met with a pained wail from Sweeney, startling Pinkie slightly.

“Almost.” She squeaked in reply.

“15 years of sweating in a living hell on a trump-dump charge,” Sweeney began in a trembling shout as he crossed the floor to a window, laying his forehead against the cool glass. “15 years of dreaming that perhaps I might come home to a loving wife and child!” His voice rose dramatically as the stallion whirled around violently, bashing a hoof into the shop’s wall, leaving a sizable dent. “Let them quake in their boots, Prince Blueblood and his beadle, for their hour has come!”

“You’re gonna’ try and get ‘em?!” Pinkie threw her head back in uproarious laughter, smiling widely. “You old nobody, a runaway convict? Noooo, don’t make me laugh!” She wiped a tear from her eye as she coughed out a few more chuckles. “You’ll never get a chance at either him, or the beadle, not in a million, zillion years!”

Without a response from the stallion at the other side of the room, Pinkie approached, tapping him on the shoulder. “Have you got any bits?” Not receiving a reply, she urged further. “Hey, listen to me, do you have any bits?”

“No bits.” Sweeney shrugged her off as he glared out the window, pondering his situation.

“Well that how are you even gonna’ live?” Pinkie’s eyelids lowered in frustration.

“I’ll live.” He assured her in a low growl. “If I have to sweat in the sewers, or in the plague hospital, I’ll live!” He shook with anger, clenching his teeth. “And I’ll have them!”

This notion was met with a bout of cackling from Pinkie Pie.

“You poor thing!” She managed in the midst of side-splitting laughter. “Ya’ poor thing!”

She ceased her swaying and giggling nearly instantly as she stopped, gasping, eyes wide.

“Wait!” She proclaimed as she dashed off behind a nearby door, the sounds of popping balloons and party blowers muffled behind the creaking door. Not sure how long she would be back there, Sweeney took a moment to get acquainted with the alligator that was still on the counter, unmoving even then.

The stallion laid a hoof on the green beast’s head. It was cold, lifeless. A taxidermy. Presumably a home job done by Pinkie herself. The thing was practically hollow even. It had to have been dead for years.

Another creak of the door alerted Sweeney that Pinkie Pie had re-entered the room.

I'm gonna update I promise but until then cliffhanger