Desperate Measures

As the door swung open, the quartet walked into the silent house. Immediately, one of them broke off from the group, a chestnut donkey colt almost fourteen years of age. He moved swiftly and silently across the room and into the adjacent hallway, from which a door slammed moments later.

This drew the ire of another Donkey, who scowled at the archway leading into the hall. He was clearly the oldest, being the biggest by far, and the only adult in the building. He was mostly black, with a hoofful of grey blotches all over his body, particularly in his short mane. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it when he remembered his company.

He moved his hoof and allowed his daughter to pass. She was mostly white with red freckles across her face and back. She walked across the room and hopped up into an armchair, curling up any lying down. She'd had a long day; they all had, but being only twelve, she could be forgiven for finding it exhausting.

Last, but certainly not least, the youngest entered, a gryphon just a few months younger than the donkey filly. She was black from the chest forward and white going back, with the exception of her face, which had a few slate grey feathers around her dark brown eyes. She carried with her a large carboard box full of stuff.

"Just set your stuff down in the living room, sweetie," the donkey stallion said, hoisting up two larger boxes. "We can start unpacking and going over everything tomorrow when you come home from school, okay?"

The gryphon nodded, then set down her box on the coffee table. She pulled out a photograph, then curled up with it on the couch, holding it close to her chest.

"Do you want to sleep out here tonight, or would you rather go to Jenny's room?"

"She can stay in my room?" asked the filly in the armchair.

"If it would make her more comfortable, sure."

The gryphon just mumbled something softly into the throw pillow.

"What's that, dear?" asked the older donkey, placing a hoof on her shoulder. "Speak up, honey."

"I don't want to move... can I just stay here, Mr. A?"

"Of course, dear," he smiled, wiping a tear from her cheek. "And you can just call me Jack, now..."

With a soft pat on her shoulder, he turned and moved into the kitchen, setting down the boxes and fumbling about with everything he'd carried in.

Jenny moved over from the armchair to the couch, placing her ivory hoof on the gryphon's black claw and gripping it tightly. "Guinevere, are you going to be okay?"

Guin shook her head. "It's never going to be okay," she sobbed. "Never again! There's nothing we can do!"

"We can do something," suggested Jenny. "There's always something we can do. Look on the bright side."

"What bright side?!" shouted Guin through a faceful of tears. "My gran is dead! They took my house, they took half of my stuff, and no one else in my family even bothered to show up for the funeral!" She slammed her face into the pillow, crying out all the tears she'd been holding back through this whole ordeal.

"You have us," offered Jenny. "My dad cared enough to lie to all of those guards just so you didn't have to go to an orphanage. And now, my best friend is part of my family! That's a good thing, right? Isn't it nice that you're now living with your best friend?"

Guin sniffed and shrugged. That certainly was a good thing, especially considering the alternatives. If given the choice between living in a state-run orphanage, jumping from foster care to foster care every few months just hoping to end up being adopted, going back to live with her abusive drug addict of a mother or living three blocks away with her best friend's family, this was the best she could have asked for.

Still, it wouldn't solve all of her problems. her grandmother was still dead. She'd still gone home last week, right after school to see the only member of her family with enough kindness to take her in lying on the floor, cold and unmoving. There was nothing that could change that. The bank had already claimed the house, and was about to take it and everything in it, had Jack not come in and demanded that they release his fiancé.

And therein lay the problem. In order to keep any of her belongings, she had to have an adult caretaker, and with the paperwork required to adopt her, it was just a lot easier and faster to claim that they were considering marriage, and to "expedite" the ceremony.

She really didn't like that she was married now. Jack was a good stallion, especially since he really didn't have any obligation to help her out, but she'd never thought of him romantically. She'd not really thought of any stallion romantically. She'd had a crush on a zebra colt in her class, but he'd burned that bridge when he'd made fun of Jenny's name.

With two clacks, Jack placed two plates on the coffee table, then retreated back to the kitchen. Each plate had an egg salad sandwich, sliced in half diagonally, spread open and filled with a stack of barbecue-flavoured potato chips. A moment later, he returned with two tall glasses of pink lemonade.

"Thank you, sir," sniffled Guin, not reaching for her plate. Her stomach was turning and reeling as she considered the situation, so having anything inside of it seemed a bad idea.

"Don't worry about it, sweetie. And you don't have to call me "sir.""

As Jenny started in on her sandwich, Jack left the room with another plate and glass, taking it to the colt that had rushed off to his own room earlier.

"You really should eat something," suggested Jenny. "You haven't had anything all day, have you?"

Guin looked at the sandwich. She hadn't eaten anything since lunch, yesterday. She'd just been in too bad of a mood. "I don't feel like eating. My tummy hurts..."

"Come on... Half a sandwich?"

Guin groaned and curled up even tighter.

"Half of half a sandwich?"

"I don't know..."

Jenny grabbed the sandwich. "Just one bite. Just one."

Guin tentatively took the sandwich and bit into it. As she chewed it up, she placed the sandwich back on the plate, and as she swallowed it, she did feel a little better. She didn't want to admit it, though...