theattic | PSL: YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER...

There's something in the little, weed-choked pond by the park playground. Something that wasn't there the day before, and is trying to keep out of sight.

Envy doesn't know what town he's in, only that he's finally made it to one. He's not sure he would have made it there if it hadn't been for all the rain keeping him wet in the absence of most any kind of standing water other than cow ponds. That same rain gave him plenty of cover during the night, too, when he'd snuck into town and settled into the little pond.

The pond now has a few less ducks, and he's got a little more strength. Maybe he could even manage to catch a human, if he really got lucky with an opportunity. Only the very top of his head is sticking out of the water, like an alligator, hidden among the tall weeds.

The kelpie watches the park, waiting.

Creak creak creak.

A lonely, eerie sound echoed throughout the playground, but its source was not so grim as one would imagine. There between a half-rotted wooden castle structure and a slide, Maurice Zachary Hutch who was thirty one goddamn years old and almost three hundred pounds was rocking back and forth on a plastic horse supported by nothing but a rusty spring.

"Can't catch me coppeeeeeer! Fuck youuuuuu!"

"You're so fucking immature."

This second, chastising voice came from a smaller, skinnier figure that was currently standing on top of the monkey bars with what seemed to be a balloon dachshund systematically dismantled until it resembled a dick. It had a paperweight on one end and its holder was swinging it over her head like a lasso.

"Eat my helium dong!"

She flung the makeshift balloon weiner at the man on the plastic horse.

It missed and went sailing into the pond instead.

The kelpie's ears flick at the first creak, and then go back as he tries to work out just...what these possibly grown-ass adult humans were doing. Why were they on a playground? They were basically yelling nonsense at each other, what--

He's too distracted watching them to notice the arc of the sailing paperweighted balloon dick, and it lands with a splash in the thick reeds. Right next to his ear. Envy normally doesn't spook as easily as your average horse, but in his current half-disoriented state, that's plenty to send him surging up out of the water with a whinny, and out onto the muddy grass on the bank.

He's a pretty sorry sight, even aside from being draped in reeds and dripping with pond water. He's clearly underfed: his ribs are visible, and scrapes and scratches both older and newer stand out against his black coat. A well-made, but stained leather bridle is ripped and hanging half off his face. Envy stares at the two. They're really too big for him to drag effectively, but he can't go back in the water to hide now. He sloowly straightens himself up.

Look what a pretty horse I am. Come over here and pet me it's a great idea.

When the weight sailed by, Maurice whipped his head around to shout at Heather.

"Wooooow! I'm so impressed! You're so mature we should stop by my mom's house and she can give you some of her old lady clo-OOWWTHS!"

Something exploded out of the pond and startled Maurice so badly that he let go of the handlebars of his own steed. He went sprawling backward onto the gravel and the spring horsie, finally free of its load, swung wildly back and forth, creating a deep groove where its face met the ground. Maurice struggled to sit up.

"Did you hear that!?"

That splash was too big for a dong.

Unlike Maurice, Heather had a front-row seat to the emergence of Meth Horse from the disgusting duck-pond.

Fortunately for her, she was very good at keeping her balance when startled, and avoided taking a nosedive off of the monkey-bars when the kelpie surged onto solid ground, dripping and trailing weeds everywhere.

She did, however, stand there and gape, jaw open, for a solid minute before POINTING.

"Holy SHIT, Zilla, LOOK! An ENTIRE FUCKING HORSE just came out of that puddle!"

Envy is beginning to second guess his decision to be a Pretty Horse for these people.

Ears swiveled back, one front hoof lifts unsurely off the ground, as though he'd like to start stepping backwards back into the pond anyway but can't decide if he wants to or not.

Once Maurice's ears stopped ringing from hitting the rocks, he managed to sit all the way up and follow the alarmcall of his bird friend. He looked upon Meth Horse and was afraid.

Maurice was real tired of things suddenly rising up out of the water. He was on his feet in an instant. He couldn't bolt without Heather and she wasn't on ground level so he couldn't pick her up and run away with her.

"Shit....shit...Heather, I think it's a zombie. I think maybe we should get outta here."

"--I don't-- I don't THINK it's a zombie?"

She's not sure, though.

Hence the audible question mark.

Dropping to a crouch (but not quite willing to climb down yet), she squints to get a better look at the scraggly equine disaster at the water's edge.

"It is in baaaad shape, though, holy shit."

Maurice looks between Heather and the creature that has decided to join them. He's buzzed as fuck all and is not great at making decisions in general but man this one is a doozy. Without any better ideas, Maurice takes a few wary steps forward and draws in a deep sniff.

It didn't smell like a zombie...and after spending so much time with Deuteronomy he knew that smell.

"Look, it's got a halter on..."

So maybe it wasn't a zombie horse. Maurice had never heard of a kelpie in all his life so he had no way to connect puddle plus sudden horse in his head.

"Well shit...it coulda gotten loose from any of these farms. We got like...feral cows and shit in some of the backwoods around here."

"Well, if it does belong to somebody, either its owner belongs on an episode of Animal Cops or it's been escaped for a long time."

She watches Maurice step a little closer before slowly starting to get down from the bars. She doesn't want to spook the thing by just leaping off like she'd normally do.

Envy shifts in place, pricking his ears forwards as though he's curious about the humans approaching him. Although the man walking towards him does seem...off, the more he watches him. But he is approaching, and maybe he'll be able to drag him back to the water before the much smaller girl can stop him.

Impatient and wanting to get the man to try grabbing him before the girl gets too close, he decides to take a few cautious steps forward, extending his neck out slightly and whickering. Yes, look at him, he's a nice tame horse who's just escaped and can definitely be petted.

"No kiddin'..."

The dead man takes it upon himself to stay in front and when the poor animal looks like it's desperate for ANY kind of friendly human interaction, he feels more confident. He clucks to the horse and outstretches a flat hand.

"Heeeeey, boy. Where'd you come from, huh? You look like shit, huh? C'mere. I know what to do with lost dogs but I'm not sure who to call about a lost horse...maybe Mr. Foss would keep him a while until the vet can come."

Heather is perfectly fine with letting Maurice stay in front. He's the country boy here, after all. His parents own horses. She's seen them.

Not to mention she has her own reasons aside from lack of experience for avoiding all things equine.

She does, however, draw up behind the vampire, peering at the scraggly hooved mess.

"What was he doing in that pond? Is that... like... normal horse behavior? I mean-- this thing is definitely sick, but..."

The closer Maurice gets, the more Envy can tell that there is something Not Right about him. He doesn't smell right, he doesn't really look right...

Maybe he shouldn't go for these two after all. He's not sure he can successfully get that guy. The girl is small enough to drag easily, but she seems too cautious of him. On the other hand...if he doesn't attack but sticks around, it sounds like he might get some of the medical attention that he desperately needs.

That might also mean getting a bridle put back on him by someone else...but they don't know what he is. They wouldn't know to leave it on.

While he tries to decide, he tamely snuffles at the air above Maurice's outstretched hand. He can't lean down and put his nose on it; it's against unbreakable magical rules for him to make first contact with someone.

Envy is super right. However, Maurice continues to be unable to pick up anything weird about this poor banged up pony.

"Maybe he tried to take a drink and fell. Look at his knees, they're awful. Heeeeey, buddy. Oh--oh. There." He gently patted the creature's nose. "See, nobody's gonna hurtcha."

It takes a whole lot of self control for Envy not to just stick Maurice's hand on and bolt for the water in spite of having already decided not to.

He's just so hungry.

But no, he stands there like a very good horse, ears swiveling forward. And...eesh, this guy really isn't normal, his hand is COLD.

For a while Maurice just concentrates on saying soothing things while patting the horse's nose and head and slowly leaning down to look under his chin to see if the bridle has cut him. All the while he's giving good scratches with those deadly claws.

"Well, we don't have anything to lead him with or tie him up...I'm not even sure he can walk. I guess I could just carry him until we find something."

"Carry him?"

Heather's voice is tinged with disbelief.

"How exactly are you doing to do that?"

She steps out from behind Maurice just slightly, eyeing the soggy horse up and down.

"Horses aren't exactly built to be carried. You can't just throw it over your shoulder like a person."

Envy may note that she says nothing about Maurice's ability to actually lift a horse's weight.

Envy just continues to stand there, internally nodding along, until Maurice's words catch up with his brain. Carry--??

He must have been joking.

But then the girl acts like he was serious. Envy's ears slooowly start to go back.

Maybe he should...back up....

"Well I've carried baby cows...they're not very bendy. Um."

He looked back to the dark horse, hand still on his nose. Then it trailed along his jaw and down his neck to his shoulder where Maurice planted it and hoped to give the animal some sense of feeling secure.

"Upsadaisy."

Then he just fucking hoisted the beast up on one shoulder as though he were carrying an overlarge sack of grain.

For a second, Envy is too surprised to actually struggle or make any noise besides a little whuff of air as he's scooped off the ground like a baby goat.

That doesn't last long.

He kicks with one leg and lets out a shriek of a whinny that sounds a little bit more human than one would expect.

Maurice foresaw the kick and managed to shift Envy on his shoulder so that he didn't get cut with a flailing hoof but the noise the animal made nearly made him drop him.

"Aaaahh! He doesn't like it!"

"Holy shit!"

MAURICE IT'S SCREAMING!

"Holy shit!"

She backs WAY UP, because this is NOT the sort of problem she knows how to help with, and she doesn't want to get kicked in the skull.

"Put it down!"

"Aaaaaaah!"

Maurice continued to yell as the kelpie's horrible human yelp finally sharpened into the familiar shrieks he was used to.

"IF I DROP HIM HE'LL RUN AWAY!"

The vampire started stumbling toward the road, teetering left and right as he struggled to hold onto this wailing animal. He needed to get it on its back. Then it would be all over.

"I"m sorry, horsie!"

In a clearly inhuman display of strength (and stupidity) Maurice ducked down and rolled the beast onto the ground before swiftly slipping his arms under him and hefting him like an enormous hoofed baby.

"I can't see over him! Heather, make sounds!"

Not entirely sure what to do, she kind of dances in a wide circle around the vampire and his reluctant equine cargo, wringing her hands.

"What do you mean, make sounds?! Horse sounds?? Maurice, I'm a bird, not a pony!"

Envy lets out a loud, sharp squeal when Maurice flips him over onto his back, uselessly kicking his feet in the air and trying to toss his head. His eyes are rolling in his head.

THIS WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN.

THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN.

"No, you birdbrain! Make sounds so I can FOLLOW you!"

Maurice's yell isn't nearly as sharp as it could have been, seeing as his face was muffled by an entire horse.

"I'm making noise! I'm making noise!!"

She walks backwards, still watching Maurice in dismayed disbelief. She can't fucking believe this is happening.

"Where should I be going?!"

"The road! Back toward that old church it had a kinda...fence deal behind it. I think. Woah boy! Calm down!"

There were a lot of churches out in the residential part of Dogtrot and it wasn't uncommon for folks to wind up going to the wrong one on accident multiple Sundays in a row.

Lucky for the two of them, Envy still isn't in very good shape, and just straight up doesn't have the energy to keep up that amount of kicking and screaming.

Not only that, but...he's not so sure he wants to attract a lot of attention. A guy carrying a horse down the street is the kind of thing that gets on the news.

So he finally starts quieting down, sides heaving as he tries to hold his head up and keep an eye on where they're going. The whites of his eyes are showing a whole lot.

Heather keeps walking backwards, trying to ignore the uncomfortable twinges in her gut that seeing the horse's terrified, rolling eyes brings on.

Their eyes had all been covered in blinkers, but they'd probably been doing the same thing.

"Just-- keep following my voice. And try not to DROP the poor thing!"

"Got it! You're doin' great, 'Thur! And don't you worry. I aint gonna drop 'em! I've got supernatural--"

His boot hit a washed out spot. He stumbled forward and nearly pitched the poor frightened Kelpie all over the road. Luckily he saved himself at the last second.

"Okay this isn't working. Hang on, fellah!"

Maurice shifted Envy once again and with a loud groan, managed to heft the watery beast above his head as through he were a construction worker carrying a heavy beam.

"Holy shit that's better. Okay. Once we find somewhere to put 'em we can get somethin' to eat...oh no! Your dick! We forgot your dick back at the playground."

"--it's okay, Maurice. I can get a new dick somewhere else. That sounded awful but I'm rolling with it."

Her tone of forced calm is largely to make up for the fact that she let out a small shriek when Maurice pitched forward like that. If she hadn't been busy internalizing all her freaking out, she probably would have hollered HAHA U WANNA EAT MY DICK?? GROSS DUDE or something else along those lines.

Whoever these two idiots Envy stumbled into are, he's clearly in the best of company.

~LATER~

Footsteps and a rustling of paper bags announce Heather's return to the vacant lot that they'd temporarily stopped in while they figured out what the heck to do with their find. The miserable horse's reins are tied to the pole of what was probably a street sign at some point, and the smaller of the two kelpie wranglers had gone off to find food while the Muscle of the Group (tm) fought through shitty cell phone reception to get in touch with somebody.

"Did you get hold of your mom yet?" Heather asks as she steps into the lot with her arms full of multiple fast food bags, all of them radiating mouth-watering aromas of grease and salt.

If Envy had been in any shape to run when his feet were finally back on the ground, he'd have taken off like a shot, and damn the chance of medical attention. But he's not, and he's not sure he could outrun Maurice anyway...and there's the matter of the bridle. Even ripped and partway hanging off, he can't get it off the rest of the way, or pull the reins free from the pole.

He's stuck with these two extremely questionable individuals, whether he likes it or not.

(He doesn't.)

His head lifts right up when Heather comes back and he smells the meat inside those bags. He's never even seen fast food before, but even cooked meat smells so good right now. He extends his neck towards her as she gets closer, snuffling.

Maurice had been hanging by the post, leaning against it and feeling like a right and proper cowpoke if he should say so himself. He looked up when Heather reappeared and shook his head.

"Naw, reception out here is shit. We might end up havin' to use the house phone. If I can't get through here in a while, I'll fly out to the trailer. I thought for sure they'd put up a new cell tower by now."

Maurice, too, was a bloodthirsty monster and reacted similarly to the presence of the Bumpers bags. He reached out to take the one nearest him and reached inside to pull out a fistful of piping hot french fries. They went RIGHT INTO HIS MOUTH, searing grease and all because he was a badass.

After a few moments of contemplative chewing, he pulled out a single fry and offered it to Envy--by way of accidentally poking it into one of his nostrils.

"Here y'go, buddy. You could use a pick-me-up."

Horses could eat potatoes, right? He knew they liked salt.

The girl plonks down on an abandoned stoop, plopping the bags down next to her. She wastes no time in grabbing a burger out of one of them and unwrapping it-- unleashing an explosion of smells.

Hot grilled beef, salty bacon, onions and pickles, that magic mixture of ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise...

It's enough to set anyone's mouth watering, even if you aren't a meat-eating swamp horse on the verge of starvation.

Heather chomps down with relish, not bothering to swallow more than half a mouthful before speaking up. Table manners with this pair are seemingly nonexistent.

"Man, no offense're anything, but Texas sucks."

Envy snorts and pulls his head back, offended, but...then he goes ahead and plucks the fry out of Maurice's fingers anyway, devouring it in an instant. Even if it's barely anything at all to a horse, and even if to a kelpie in particular it's no more nutritious than a jellybean, he is a horse. And horses do love salt. But that's when the girl opens that hamburger wrapper.

Oh.

Oh.

He needs whatever the hell that is and he needs it right this very second. But he's slow and cautious as he swings his head around as though he's only doing a normal horse thing and not steadily moving his face towards the bags. And then he strikes, shoving his nose into one and biting into a hamburger, wrapper and all. Fuck yes this is the best thing he's tasted in a long time.

Good luck getting him out of the bag before everything in it is gone.

"Yeeeeeeah. A little bit," Maurice admitted. Oh, well, they'd get this sorted eventually. He felt he'd miss the big critter once they'd sent him on his way. When Envy takes the fry, Maurice bursts into giddy laughter. "Check this horse, man! He knows what's good!"

And no sooner had those words left his mouth did Envy shove his nose right into the bag.

The vampire stares at this with steadily widening eyes. Neither of his mom's horses did that! This horse was metal as fuck.

"DUDE!"

"Wh-- HEY!"

Heather's first instinct is to grab the bag and yank it away, but man Envy's really got his face in there good, and the paper tears almost immediately, scattering wrapped burgers and a small waterfall of fries all over the asphalt.

Still with her own bitten-into burger in the other hand, Heather just kind of... stares at the remains of the one Envy managed to tear into. That's. Definitely not what she would expect a horse to do.

Slowly, she leans down to one-handedly unwrap another burger, and then holds it out to the scrawny horse experimentally.

Envy doesn't pay the other two any attention, he is entirely too focused on how fucking delicious this burger is. It only takes him a few bites to polish it off, along with another mouthful of the fries that spilled all over the ground.

He hears that wrapper crinkling though, and his ears swivel right towards it before his head follows. He can't even really be bothered that this is...the opposite of normal horse behavior. He's so hungry and this is so good.

He stretches his neck right out to take a bite out of the offered burger. HELL YES.

Maurice blinks rapidly as the scene unfolds in front of him. Slowly the corners of his mouth creep upwards until he's beaming a steak-knife grin. He starts to laugh again.

"Wo-hoah! Heather! Heather, check out this horse!" He squatted down and scooped up a handful of fries, patting them into a neat bundle before holding them out for Envy the way he used to feed his parents' horses clumps of hay through the fence. "Here, boy! Shit. We gotta--we gotta name this dude Hannibal or something! Look at 'em go!"

"Holy shit. He LOVES it!"

She lets the very hungry horse have the rest of it out of her hand and immediately reaches for another. Before Envy knows it, he's got TWO people offering him big handfuls of food.

"Do you still have your phone out? Take some pictures!"

"Yeah! Yeah, just a sec!"

Once Envy had taken the fistful of fries, Maurice wiped his hands off on his jeans and fumbled his phone out to snap a few pictures of the obsidian grazing entity that they'd literally dragged from the gutters.

"I'm sending one to Meranda!"

Heather's already unwrapping a third burger, all hunger forgotten in the face of this new discovery. This hamburger-eating horse is too exciting, satiating their own monstrous appetites can wait.

"Get a picture with me in it!"

"Okay! Get close to 'em!"

Maurice backed up several paces so that the two of them were backlit by the street lights.

"Got it! Oh....oh, hey, Meranda's awake. She texted me back." He thumbed over to the app to read it. "She says not to bring it home. She can't tell me what to do."

Technically she was his landlord so she could but. Still.

Edited 2016-05-12 20:27 (UTC)

Envy is having the best time he's had in a long time, just devouring everything that's put even remotely close to his face. Not only is the food delicious, but he's getting it handed to him! No effort required at all!

He's just whickering happily to himself as he chews on the latest mouthful, and except for flicking his ears at Heather when she stands next to him for the picture, he doesn't even mind. He does turn his head to nose at her hands to ask for more, though. His nose is...weirdly wet and slightly sticky, but that's an automatic response to the idea of eating. No way is he going to try and drag either of these two off now.

"Well, she might have a point. Where would you guys even keep a horse?"

She responds to the nosing by automatically reaching for another burger (they're running low at this point, it's the second-to-last one) and starting to unwrap it even as she looks over at Maurice.

"I mean, you could tie him up in the yard I guess, but that freaky rooster of yours would probably come out and peck his ankles open. ... Do horses even have ankles? ... You know what I mean."

The wet stickiness of Envy's nose goes un-noted. For all her weird hangups, Heather hasn't ever really had much interaction with real bona fide horses before. Maybe their noses are SUPPOSED to be wet.

"Bloodspur's is my good baby boy! He'd leave 'em alone if I told 'em to." Maurice retorted with a huff and reached out to pat Envy's neck again. "I don't need a horse, I just wanna give Meranda a hard time. She started leavin' those passive-agressive stickynotes on the milk carton again."

Maurice crouched down so that he could be closer to the horse's head. "You wanna live at our house, buddy? Huh? You could have Meranda's room and she can live in the carport with Bloodspur!"

PSL: YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER...

ACTUALLY NO. HE LEADS YOU TO WATER. AND THEN DROWNS YOU.

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