//------------------------------// // A Tricky Case // Story: Love's Sunrise // by SilverHoof1 //------------------------------// Is love real, or is it just an illusion of happiness we hold onto to stay sane Love was never a thing to me, it was just a word without meaning. I had never experienced this “falling” for someone, and I highly doubted anyone would ever “fall” for me either. With a sigh, I looked up at myself in the bathroom mirror, the light from the ceiling glinting off it and into my eyes. I had a cherry colored mane, and cyan blue fur. I looked away from the mirror, turning my head to close my teeth around the brush next to my sink. When i felt my teeth squish satisfyingly into the grip, I turned my head again to begin brushing my coat smooth after a night of tossing and turning. As soon as I finished, I shot one last look at the me in the mirror before retreating back into my bedroom, heading for the closet. As I neared it, something seemed… off.. But i didn’t know what gave me that vibe. Stopping, I looked around the room slowly, and noticed that it was deafly silent, the usual humming of the heater turned off, making the whole room eerily quiet. A pony in my head began screaming at the top of her lungs that it was a trap. Crap, that was enough watching space wars for me. Shaking my head to get the pony to stop screaming, I continued to walk forward, but now a bit more cautious, my eyes darting around. “Why does this feel like the start of a horror movie?” I whispered quietly to myself, and moved forward a bit faster. Either a filly or an adult, that doesn’t banish the fear of a creature like Jason pouncing on you from the shadows. Reaching my closet after what felt like hours, even though I knew I only took 10 seconds flat, I slowly stretched a hoof forward, suddenly wishing I was a unicorn and not an earthpony and could use magic to open it. I opened it slowly, flinching as the door to my closet squeaked loudly. “EEP!” I jumped backwards and cowered behind the couch, before slowly peaking over the side of the couch. Nothing was there. I just got scared by nothing. I groaned, both internally and externally and got out from behind the couch, walking over to the closet and grabbing the thing I had come back in for, my suit. That’s about when the pony in my head had a heart attack. A jack-in-the-box, hidden behind my suit till now, sprang out at me, laughing maniacally as it did so. Startled, I let out a scream and backpedaled, dropping my suit out of surprise. Then i felt my back leg hit the leg of the couch, and I stumbled backwards. “Oooohhh, this is gonna hurt,” I moaned, just before my back slammed against the floor, knocking the wind from me as well as an “oomph”. I layed there for a bit, stunned, before the pony in my brain recovered and told me to get back up. Groaning, I holstered myself up on a hoof, looking at the jack-in-the-box with a look that would kill Medusa. I got all the way back onto my hoofs, and limped back to where I had dropped my suit, and picked it back up. Before sliding it on though, I knocked the jack-in-the-box onto the floor and jumped on it a few times. Okay maybe a couple more than a few. Maybe a lot of times. I finished panting, and smiled nastily before singing “revenge can be sweet~,” and beginning to slip my suit on. An hour later I was being chased by police ponies. While the pony in my head scolded me for how sloppy I had been, I darted into alleys, down narrow passageways and other places making it hard for me to be followed. Hearing the sirens fading away, I sighed and slowed down. I trotted down the alleys and passageways now, taking a shortcut home and enjoying the sights a bit. True there wasn’t much to look at besides trash bins and stray animals, but seeing the animals were enough to make the trip interesting.. and also pull a couple strings in my heart. I wanted to take one of them home so bad, but I was barely supporting myself and that was with minor theft helping, I wouldn’t be able to sustain myself and one of the strays. While passing a mildly lit alley, I saw something that pulled more than just a few of my heartstrings. My whole heart wrenched at the sight, and I dropped the purse i had been carrying, slackjawed. It was a stray kitten, seeming barely old enough to have its eyes open, covered in grey and white kitten fluff. Its pink mouth was wide open as it squeaked and mewled pitifully, and I was trapped, starring at its skinny body and green eyes. My whole heart told me to take it, to keep it with me and forget the money and just take care of it. But my head said too leave it, that I couldn’t support a cat in the household. I was torn, and I didn’t know what to do. That's when the kitten spotted me, and began mewling louder and more desperately, trying to walk towards me on its short stubby legs. It was way too much. I grabbed the bag and threw it in the direction of my house, before rushing to the kitten, gently taking it into my hoofs as it continued to squeak, its eyes going half lidded as it looked up at me. It wasn’t just skinny, it was starving. I couldn’t support a starving kitten. But if I didn’t it would probably die by tomorrow. But if I took it with me then we would both starve unless I did more dangerous heists. But then at least if I pulled off just 1 big heist we would be set for a while, right? I stared at it, my eyes brimming with tears as I realized the cold hard truth. I couldn’t take care of this kitten, and it would die tomorrow. I stared, the tears beginning to roll down my cheeks as the kittens mewling died down, and its eyes closed. I knew it was just falling asleep do to the fast rise and fall of its chest, but even so this seemed a horrible way to leave it, to let it wake up with a glimmer of hope to be dashed because the pony who could have helped was gone. I lowered my hoofs to the ground, the kitten sleeping on them, ready to put him back on the cold stone of the pavement. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Immediately my hoofs changed course and I hugged the kitten to me, still crying but now a slight smile teasing the corners of my mouth. I wasn’t going to leave this poor thing to die. I just couldn’t, and I would take care of it even if it killed me. And then I felt someone tap me from behind. I spun around, looking up wide eyed at a stallion, covered in a black cloak with an S symbol on the front, and I could see a mask discarded near where I had thrown the purse. I could tell it was a hero, or at least a hero wanna-be, standing in front of me, and I hugged the kitten tighter to my chest, casting my eyes down. “What exactly are you holding, thief?” He said stonily, and I flinched at the word “thief”. “It’s a stray kitten I just found, I was going to take it home and try to take care of it,” I responded quietly. “Oh really? Then why were you about to set it down again, right back down in this alley?” he said coldly, and with that I looked up at him, and caught sight of his blue eyes, glimmering in the alley despite the dark lighting. His hair was brushed back in a wave, and although most of his body was covered by the cloak, I could tell he had sea-green fur from the fur on his head. I stared at him for a couple seconds, then responded “I don’t have a cutiemark so I was never able to get a job, who wants a pony who doesn’t know what her talent is, right? I can barely feed myself, and thats off the petty theft I do, because I don’t want to steal but have too to live and keep my house. I know if I take this cat I will probably kill myself, but my life is already heading for a dead end right? Why take a kitten down with me and have that hanging over my head too?” He seemed to take in what I said, and his eyes softened, traveling to where my cutiemark would be under the suit, then looked back to me, asking softly “What is your name, miss?”. Although it was the simplest question he could have asked me, my heartbeat sped up, and I could feel the blood rushing to my face, but not out of fear for how he would react to the answer. Why was my body doing this? “M-my name is Misty Sunrise, after my blue coat and my pink mane like the sun rising,” I stuttered, and I could feel myself blushing as my heart sped up even more. Well at the very least the kitten seemed to be enjoying my warmth, snuggling against me as if trying to hear my heartbeat as it sped up. Little traitor, he was enjoying my… not quite discomfort, but something else I didn’t know the word for. He offered me a hoof, and I took it, a bit startled with how suddenly he had went from hero to kind. “I’m Riptide, and no thats not just a hero name,” he smiled, and… was that a bit of pink on his cheeks? What was happening to us?! Was it a disease that the kitten was transferring to us!? “N-nice to meet you I guess, although it could have been under better circumstances,” I said, giggling a bit “You can take the purse back to the pony I took it from, last time I saw she was about to go into a bar,” the smile that had been building faltered at those words, and I knew that without the purse I would only be able to feed the kitten now in my hoofs. “Okay, but not before -” I knew what was coming, and I hung my head, before it shot back up at the words “come over to my place for a while and eat, i’ll show you the way,” he finished, smiling “You obviously did have a need for what you took, even if it was wrong, so let me help you along for a while.” I was speechless, and all I could do was nod, hobbling after him on three legs, the third carrying the kitten. What was this strange feeling I felt towards him? I didn’t get it, but I had the feeling I would find the word for this feeling… eventually.