“You’re a great guy, Hitch.” The last trolly of soda cans were loaded onto the bed of the truck. Lime Time with a salty twist, it claimed. “Zesty, and you get a whole box of 'em!” Artificial lemon extract with ingredients hard to pronounce, but he could read colorful natural flavoring without having to sound it out. “Free of charge.”
Two velcro straps were slipped beneath the top box. It was pulled taut to keep it sturdy. With a flex of the jaw, the stallion used the rope to carry the package between his teeth. He had a thick neck, muscular and ripe with protruding veins. You could tell he took his time in the gym; maybe he favored the weights, maybe he favored those sci-fi machines with nibs and nobs and a degree in alienology to understand how to operate them. Maybe he never bothered with working out, but had the bulky form that came natural with being a stevedore. Doesn’t matter, though, because with a box that surely weighed over 20 pounds, Hitch took it from him without a, well, hitch. Hitch sure didn’t have a ripped neck with pulsating veins. Hitch was just Hitch.
“You don’t gotta do that, Docker.” A large cheeky grin spread across his perfect furry face like cold jam on warm toast. It took nothing for Hitch to radiate charm, charisma, and that sort of magnetism that shouldn’t be granted to a mere mortal. When he smiled, gosh, the world just lit up. You’d look at him and weep, surely. He’s sexy, or so his mother claimed. Hitch the Hunk.
Stupid.
Sprout could see it in Docker’s mug; the admiration. He was a latte stallion, spotted wild Appaloosa, who just got served a drizzle of creamer. His face was a shade brighter. Happy little light now that Hitch Trailblazer dared to look him in the eyes with that smile. You know the smile. The one that curved ever so slightly at the edges, it showed the top row of straight white teeth, it pushed his cheeks up just slightly to highlight deep dimples. “Look, I’d say you’re damn near the best sheriff Maretime Bay has had in a long while. You sure didn’t have to help me load this truck before I hit my deadline, and yet you did.” With a hoof, he tipped his ball cap at Hitch. It read Rainbow Factory, yet no company in town held that name. “So take it and enjoy those drinks, and hey, if there’s anything else I could do for ya just give me a call.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that.” Hitch gave him a playful wink, a generous gift of his. White teeth glared, bright, blinding. God looked down from heaven, fanned his face, then shined a holy spotlight on the sheriff. God looked down from heaven and swore, “That’s a damn good looking horse.” He doesn’t make steeds as handsome anymore. Maybe in times of old when wizards roamed the lands with dragons on enchanted broomsticks.
Stupid.
Docker giggled like a schoolfilly. “I’m a stallion of my word. Just ask my wife.” You’d think that wife didn’t exist by all the fawning going on. “Take me, Hitch!” Sprout swore he heard somepony whisper. “T-take me and make me your mareeeee!” Oh yeah, it was totally Docker’s gay thoughts because there was no way a pony with a wife would be sucking another guy’s butt so hard.
Sprout cleared his throat. With shoulders held high, he made sure his cherry face was all on display, like the big screen in the town’s theater, hard to miss, just look over here dammit. Look at him, he’d yell. Just look at him.
Docker pulled a pen from the chest pocket of his overalls, they too read Rainbow Factory, and around the base of his barrel was oddly plump. Not plump in a natural pony way, you know, gravity pulling the weight down towards the underbelly, but he expanded sideways just a little. Fit in the face, fat in the body? He could be assembled wrong, this Docker stranger, faulty manufacturing from the warehouse in the sky? But then something flexed beneath his overalls, and nopony’s anatomy worked that way. Nopony Sprout’s seen. Docker used the truck’s bed as a steady surface to write on. He quickly jotted down a few lines on his clipboard, yet it read like chicken scratch as if this adult stallion had never once used his teeth to inscribe before.
Sprout cleared his throat again, louder this time, so loud that a deaf pony on the other side of town could hear him. He was awaiting some sort of acknowledgment, a thank you, a comment about his hard work because he helped too. It wasn’t just Hitch standing there watching this great pretender struggle with the alphabet. The guy had to at least make note of that.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
With a click, Docker spat out the pen and shut the hatch. “I’ll catch you later, sheriff.” And he turned tails to climb into the cabin of the truck. No words given to Sprout. He didn’t even look at him. The vehicle rumbled to a start, in the rear view mirror was another hat tip—gay smile, and with dust beneath its wheels the truck took off down the road. On the side of it read Rainbow Factory, along with small print too hard to read from the expanding distance.
“Docker sure is a great guy.” Hitch stretched his hind legs. His voice strained when he got that good spot, you know the spot, that spot that plummets you into a trippy pool of swimming stars. In those moments it’s like you are the universe, or a mini universe lives inside of you, right in your cerebellum. Life’s a cycle. We are everything but nothing all at once—and other poetic mumbo jumbo that came with hitting the good spot. So Hitch sighed, but it sounded more like a deep moan. Heavy on his vocal cords, but the type of vibrations a mare wanted above her as they made slow passionate love. It’d have the nearest creature hot and bothered if they heard him.
Luckily, Sprout didn’t find Trailblazer so sexy. “Is he?” That was grumbled. His brows furrowed, knitted together by invisible spiders, as his head hung in frustration.
Hitch stood upright. He was a good few inches taller than Sprout, and that did not include when he slouched because Sprout stopped doing that just to prove to himself that he wasn’t a shorty. He was a shorty.
“I mean, he just gave us a 12 pack of soda,” as Hitch turned to face him, the box that dangled from the ropes in his jaws swung like a slingshot. “For free. I’d say that’s pretty great.” The box nearly hit Sprout on the jaw.
He pulled away an inch before it could scrap more than a few blond chin hairs. Spout had been growing out his beard—he’s been growing it out since middle school, and so far he could count a total of 12 individual strands. Impressive. Hitch shaved everyday to slay the beast of a bearish beard, and he was so masterful at it that somehow he avoided the ghost of the 5 o’clock shadow. “It was like I wasn’t even here, and when he did address me he called me Sprite.”
“Honest mistake I’m sure.” Hitch barely gave his words any thought. He had this air of nonchalance as he adjusted his stance: shoulders even, head high, box swinging like the balls of a bull. Across the street a group of fillies stared. They were too young to know the difference between a bird and a frisbee, and yet they blushed and huddled when Hitch waved at them. “Morning, girls!”
“He’s not the first pony to do that this week.” Sprout was grinding his teeth so hard he filed down a millimeter or two off the top of his molars.
The sodas swung along with the stallion’s body when Hitch cantered for the door. “You can’t let others' perception of you affect you, Sprout.” This might not be common knowledge, but ponies weren’t griffons, they didn’t have opposable limbs. There was a video Sprout came across in high school. It was filmed in some slum in Saddle Arabia, that place where they forced all their mares to wear full body cloaks—that was beyond the point. In this video ponies held all sorts of weapons; curved swords, spears, daggers, and guns. It wasn’t like Equestria, they lived with all sorts of creatures, and the guns were used with a thing called thumbs. They also had rounded door knobs without magnets, and they managed to peel bananas in under a minute. They’d just grab it with their fingers and thumbs like it was—
“Don’t be so insecure, okay?” Hitch stepped on the door latch to the right of the welcome mat. It slowly swung open like the petals of a hibiscus at noon. His horseshoes clopped over the cold tile. It clicked like a mare in high heels. The box of soda was dropped on top of his metal desk. Paper scattered like the dust beneath the truck. His eyes drifted over to his calendar as Hitch struck a pose, flexed his biceps, and mirrored the photograph of himself. “I like you so who cares what everypony else thinks.” Picture Hitch in a construction vest, hard helmet, and wrench between his lips like a slutty dog with a bone. That was the image for November. He had the body of an Olympian employed as a male stripper with a love affair for bodybuilding—that’s an exaggeration. No bodybuilder worth their damn would be as lean as Hitch.
Sprout shut the door with his hind leg. “Oh yes, because that’s all that matters.” The sarcasm was obvious, it oozed out of each syllable, yet it went over Hitch’s head.
“Exactly!” The sheriff took a seat and kicked his legs up on his desk. His chair squeaked beneath his weight. It was an old chair, but maybe this chair was like everypony else, and those earbleeding sounds were its prayers of gratitude to once again be blessed with Hitch’s asscheeks on its face. He put a dart in his mouth. There was a poster of a small eyed, horned, tentacle monster with a twisted grimace. In layman's terms; a unicorn. They didn’t look like that in person, videos from Saddle Arabia taught Sprout that, but it was funny to make fun of the spear-heads. That was one thing they both could agree on. Hitch shut one eye, lined up his target, aimed, then fired away. The dart went rocketing through the air like the bullets in that dusty slum. It zipped past Sprout’s shoulder taking a small patch of fur with it, before it pierced the forehead of the fiendish horned beast. “Woo, baby! Bullseye!” Hitch tapped his hooves on the desk in celebration, then he did a gay little spin in his office chair, and admittedly, it wasn’t so gay. It was kind of cool.
“You don’t think you could start introducing me with a more flattering title, Y’know, something other than assistant?” Sprout blew blonde mane out of his eyes when he inspected his shoulder. There was now a small bald spot exposing the pink skin beneath his coat. A line of blood beaded from a slit. It looked like dewdrops on a spider web, a hair strand and no thicker. It didn’t feel bad. It stung in a pleasant way. He used a hoof to ruffle up his fur, his mind, and cover it up the best he could. When Sprout raised his head he was greeted with the image of Hitch scrolling on his phone. He made the chair sing Glory Hallelujah when he rocked back and forth. “Sheriff?”
“You want a soda?” Hitch didn’t take his eyes off his phone when he dug into the box and pulled out two cans. They came out freezing cold like two alien eggs submerged in dry ice. Hitch didn’t wait for Sprout to respond before he cracked open both cans. He only needed to assume Sprout would agree, and he would be right. If there was one thing anypony remembered about Sprout, it was his dashing henchmen skills. Maybe he’d earn a trophy in that and his mother would finally cease her complaining.
Stupid.
“Sure.”
“I’ll handle it, mother.” Sprout learned a long time ago to never place the phone directly to the ear when dealing with Phyllis Cloverleaf. Think of a megaphone attached to a speakerphone. Think of a P.E. Teacher at the height of track practice. Loud, isn’t it? And she could talk, and talk, and talk. She could talk until she was blue in the face and she would still keep going. Hag of a nag; that was his mother, and when she had a grievance about something he wouldn’t hear the end of it. It just so happened that she had a lot of grievances.
Especially towards him.
“I need you home.” Her voice leaked with need. Leaky, leaky like the busted faucet in the basement. Leaky, leaky. “I thought when you wanted to follow Trailblazer around you would get some ambition about yourself, but your room is still a mess and you haven’t given me your share of the phone bill. You’re twenty-t…” Sprout put her on mute. Those were excuses. He knew what she was doing and he knew she didn’t trust him, and he didn’t trust himself either, but this was different. This situation with Hitch was a whole other beast, but he promised he had it by the horns.
Sprout promised.
Once he felt like somepony—once he made Hitch feel like a nopony, everything would be right in the world. So Sprout sighed as he placed the binoculars to his eyes. When he was 12 his mother bought him a tablet. You’d think it would be a birthday gift or a reward for good grades, but it was her incentive to keep him quiet when she had company over. He was old enough to realize all the mean-looking ponies with strange briefcases were probably not there for a fun little slumber party. A pair of headphones and a movie would block out the hum of business negotiations, screams of agony, and hard body kicks. Whether or not he learned from those moments or from the videos he’d watch on his tablet was still one of life’s greatest mysteries.
The past two weeks Sprout spent every waking hour following a very special somepony, and no this wasn’t part of his overtime, but he was dead set on finding some dirt on the holy sheriff. Everypony has a secret. Every. Single. Pony—except Hitch Trailblazer. On the weekends he’d volunteer at Maretime Bay’s animal shelter. A flock of geese came from up North two years ago and they refuse to migrate back. They set up shop on the shelter’s roof, eagerly awaiting the return of their lord and savior; Pony Bread Guy. They probably didn’t call him that, but Hitch would bring a loaf of sourdough on Saturdays to feed the flying shitbombs, and birds were stupid so the title made perfect sense.
Every evening at 5pm Hitch does standup for his aging grandmother and her girlfriends. It’s been this way since she was placed in the old folk’s home after her hip surgery. In the wild past, a horse with a broken leg was as good as dead. You can’t run, you can’t kick, you can barely move? Off to the closest predator’s dinner plate. Then some sky wizard came along with a magic wand and batted a few ponies in the head, and tada! They can read and write—according to a PoneTube video he watched of course. Anyway, ponies don’t die anymore when they break a bone. They just get sent to a special home with stale pudding and a sexy stallion occasionally winking at you on stage so you still have a reason not to croak. And maybe Hitch devoted that time because he felt guilty that his grandmother was there and not home and cared for by family.
That wasn’t an entirely selfless reason then.
Neither were the geese. Ponies feed them all the time, you know this, so what if Hitch buys a good loaf of bread just to do it. It was all an ego stroke.
But he’d ask you this; does secretly sacrificing a quarter of your monthly income also count as an ego stroke? Imagine this, a mare and her foal. Names aren’t important—but if you must know it’s Candy Kisses, age 24, currently employed at Multi Mart Mega Store near the four story orthopedic center with that ugly giant tooth on the roof—because to Hitch he’d do this for anyone. He pays this mare’s bills only because she cannot. He gets her a job—Multi Mart hires anypony, but that’s beyond the point—he manages to find an excellent daycare center for her foal—he’s drawing a blank on that name. Something about Snow. Snow White, Snow Blush, Snow Jizz—and Hitch does it all for absolutely no reason. Sprout initially assumed this foal was his, and Hitch had enough decency about himself to take care of a mistake he made. This theory made the most sense, so Sprout helped out at her—Snow Globe. Her name was Snow Globe—daycare for an evening and managed to nab a snotty tissue the foal blew into. What he found when Hitch’s and the filly’s DNA was tested was an earth shattering miracle; no relation.
They were so unrelated that they shared less than 10 percent of the same DNA. Translation? Hitch was not the father, and he was not a relative of the mare’s either. So why does he do it?
In his free time Hitch returns home, he cooks dinner, and he goes to sleep. That was it. There was no deviant fling, no illegal side business, no skeletons in his closet. Hitch was egotistical, arrogant, and smug, but beyond that Hitch was good. He didn’t need a reason to help ponies. He did it because it was the right thing to do. Sprout could keep digging, but he turned Hitch’s apartment inside out last Saturday and found nothing, nada, squat. Not even an overdue phone bill.
Phyllis would be proud.
So now Sprout was onto plan B; creating the Big Bad Wolf. During one of the nights he’d lay in bed with the covers over his head staring at a tablet screen, there was a video he came across from a studio called Frolicking Fillies. He wouldn’t lie to you, it was an adult company—or so it claimed. Sprout now knew the “actors” weren’t willing participants at all, and there was an age limit on who could legally perform that sort of work. Most of the girls were far below said limit, but in these videos was a cast of six each named after a color, and the character Mr. Lupus. He was a stallion in a three piece suit who hid behind a mask that hung from his horn. Despite that he never used a voice modifier, and Sprout could understand because his raw vocals alone were both alluring yet terrifying. Mr. Lupus was a cunning pony—at least he appeared so. The fillies of Starry Stable, the set they called home, were made to play a game, a guessing game. “Guess Blue’s favorite movie and you won’t have to drink the milk.” Stupid guesses, things nopony would get, but also easy enough to beat by lying. The fillies of Starry Stable never could beat it and that was because the game was rigged and they were mentally stunted foals sold into sex trafficking.
Sprout felt like Mr. Lupus. No, he did not have that deep baritone capable of putting the most restless of minds to sleep, but he had a better game to play that would actually mean something. No, he would not be granted the chance to see six little foals cry over a bowl of milk, but he would see Hitch Trailblazer in hoof cuffs, and that was even better.
Sprout took a sip of his soda. Admittedly it was as good as the packaging claimed—so good he questioned if one of the key ingredients was cocaine, but who adds coke to soda? He downed more, his throat too willing to swallow, when finally there was movement in the lower left window of the lighthouse. A shadow passed by the lace curtain. The form of a pony was obscured by the breeze distorting the sheet of fabric, but it was easy to tell who wandered about the house. Sprout nearly choked on his drink as he struggled to get the binoculars back up. Soda rushed down his nostrils and stung worse than a hornet on acid. He coughed, shook his mane, and blew his nose as if up against a foe. With all his stumbling, Sprout accidentally unmuted his mother and simultaneously put her on FaceTime.
“Sprout? Are you crying?” How would she know? There was just the wide blue sky on the same Hitch-loving geese swarming above.
“No, mother, I’m just—“
“And where are you?” She sounded worried. Fine, well, and dandy. Typical for a mother, but her concern was not directed towards him. The two were still attached by an umbilical cord because Phyllis could read the trouble smeared on his face. “I told you I want you home. Right now, Sprout…” she kept going. He kept rubbing at his nose to get the zesty flavor out.
The front door swung open. It often made this clank sound like a pea hitting a tin can. The lighthouse was composed of hollow metal with insulation inside to prevent it from getting too hot in the dead of summer, and freezing over when Hearth Warming Eve rolled around. Sunny Starscout, village wacko and certified hermit, came out with a rollerblade in her mouth. Luckily, Sprout was far enough to be out of earshot, but close enough to see her even with pained tears in his eyes. He shook his head to regain focus.
“Sprout—“
“I gotta go.” Before his mother could object, he hung up and pulled her black pantyhose over his head. Phyllis had a few clean pairs in the top drawer of her dresser, but she picked today of all days to sleep in, and Sprout wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t going to sneak into his mother’s room and rummage through her lingerie while she was snoozing a few feet away. The laundry room had plenty of dirty pairs especially after the first week of the month when she had her back to back meetings and dressed up more than usual. He couldn’t find a ski mask so this was the next best thing. Sprout saw it in a video once. Two goofball colts would wear black ski masks while they filmed themselves breaking into mansions, stealing valuables, drinking all the fine wine, and humping pillows because it was a funny thing to do. It was actually pretty funny.
Sunny took off down the road heading straight for him. Sprout ducked out of view, held his breath, and listened for the roll of her skates. They pass by his hidie-hole. It happened just like that without fail. Sunny didn’t see him as she zipped towards town. He waited another minute to ensure she was gone.
Silence followed, not pure silence as those geese squawked above head, but there was no rumble of thunder from well oiled rollerblades. No clop from approaching horseshoes, or a stranger humming a tune, so this silence was the right silence.
Perfect.
Like a Jack-in-the-Box, Sprout jumped to his feet. He grabbed his duffel bag and broke into a mad gallop towards the lighthouse. The plan was simple; break in, mess some stuff up, steal one of Sunny’s weird collectibles, and then leave behind a few strands of Hitch’s mane as evidence. Sunny lived on the outskirts of Maretime Bay which meant he didn't have to worry about a neighbor overhearing the commotion, calling Hitch, and well, messing up everything. Sprout just had to be quick, do everything while Sunny was out, and leave before his mother could call him back for daring to hang up on her. He might not be as fast as a bloodthirsty pegasus, but he was fast enough.
Sprout scooted to a stop, his hooves hitting her welcome mat, as he shoved a cloth in his mouth so as not to leave any DNA on her doorknob. Sunny was the trusting type, she never locked her door, and neither did her father if he was remembering their few play dates correctly. What an idiot. Didn’t he know the world was a scary place? If he was worth his salt he would’ve taught his daughter better.
Stupid.
The door clicked open almost too willingly. Sprout slipped his body through very slowly and very quietly trapped himself inside. He took a deep breath. For some reason he felt jittery, shaky like a flag in a twister. You’d think Sunny had cameras at all corners of the house by the fear on his muzzle. He knew better. He’s been here before, so as he turned around he found a very normal living room. No eyeballs in jars, mythical beasts in cages, or lifesize replicas of magical unicorns. Just a living room with living room things, though her television was definitely a decade old, and she had absolutely no taste with those gaudy crochet pillows.
Sprout scoffed as he dropped the bag near the kitchen island before he went around inspecting all the oddball items he could find. There were photos on the wall of Sunny with her father in what looked like every single year of her life—well it didn’t look like she had one for their current year. The latest one showed a brace face teenage filly, and who knows the last time she had braces? Sprout surely didn’t. Sprout for sure didn’t know it was approximately 4 years, 5 months, and 11 days ago because that would be weird.
Why did he know this?
He knew why—
Sprout shoved his hoof in the duffel bag to retrieve the baggy of lushish blue mane. Work had to be done. Time was ticking. Sprout knew where to go, the bathroom on the left, the kitchen with the squeaky cabinet was just in front of the living room, and Sunny had a busted air conditioning unit that she couldn’t afford to fix in the coat closet. She also didn’t like to ask for handouts, so during the last summer she stocked up on box fans, bags of ice, and took to opening the windows more than usual. She’d sleep without her sheets, sometimes on the floor like an animal, and her fur would be drenched in warm sweat. Her legs spread out and she’d be so fragile down there, unaware that she isn’t home alone, but in her dreams she’d call on her father, and in those moments it was too tempting to pretend. He could pretend just to have the chance to cozy up next to—
Sprout nearly knocked a fruit bowl off an end table when his flank bumped it.
Sunny Starscout was just a weirdo—a lot like him. Nopony liked her. She was a nutty dreamer spending her free time advocating for criminals and pillagers, and yet he felt this connection to her as if they were one and the same. Perhaps two sides of the same coin where she was always sunny, and he was nothing but a pessimist, yet still social outcasts. Yet still the same stinking coin. It could be the reason why he’s been in her home, in the dark, once, twice, 15 times.
And maybe, just maybe, Sprout Cloverleaf had a crush on the village wacko. Everypony has their secrets. Every. Single. Pony.
Turning over furniture and swiping small, yet valuable, items from any surface he could reach, Sprout made sure to sprinkle Hitch’s DNA anywhere it made sense. He had to make this scene look natural after all.
The door slammed shut.
A gasp left him as a gasp left the pony staring at him. Sunny had a pair of broken rollerblades in her mouth and Sprout had a duffel bag full of loot in his.
