//------------------------------// // Squeeky // Story: Lost of thoughts // by CraftAids //------------------------------// He hummed, and someone else did. He just froze up when he heard it. It was coming from the right. At a glance he found a horse with wings. She was red and still and pleased. And that's how they sat, without trying to hum or to speak or make sounds. Was fault with him, or was fault with her? He had tried not to be loud. He heard and remembered an old song in his brain, but produced melody in a soup. It was one thing to hum some notes out of place while there wasn’t anyone who knew his face or name. Not so, while under the stranger’s gaze, not then. Shut down, his display was kept in, quirk hidden. Standing outside, in the midday rays, her smirk suffered a slow death. After some time, with a sharper gaze, she was leaving with a shaking head. As he watched her go, with her head hanging low, he was glad that nothing was said. And, then, he went about his walking with his soft song again. The sound grew, as the crowd did the same. He ignored it, till the tipping point came, then he said “hi”, and incoherency reigned. “Hi! I’m - My - What? Wait - Hi! Why? Who is tha- same song?” “Hey, guy, soooo, what is the next line?” He surveyed the group. “I don't know the words to this.” Some cringed at this news and some grumbled and groaned. They slowly turned and left, mumbling to each other. “...Guess they just like music.” Some measured bit short of a running pace, he shuffled off after the same landmark hill he had been going for. At his asking, a stranger had pointed him off towards it, and he moved for the edge of town. The homes thinned as the altitude rose. From the top, he could spot his goal, and he moved down to the lake. A horse was tanning while some others were splashing and playing. As he stood, with his hooves in the sand, he felt nervous dread. He wouldn't be bathing alone and he didn't know how to swim. He only knew how to float by breathing in and holding it. He dropped his plastic wrapped soap and approach the shore. He slowly dipped his forehoof in and then slowly dipped his other forehoof in before slowly dragging his hooves forward while breathing in little, hissy bursts from the cold. The water climbed. Soon, his stomach was just above the water, being licked with chills by the waves. He bent his legs, plunging himself the rest of the way in, and held his breath. His hooves lifted off from their footing and he felt like he was falling. His legs begin kicking, dragging him deeper as his back hooves drug along the mud. His head surfaced and he tried holding it up as his backside slowly sank. His mouth went under for a moment, and he stood up on two hooves for one last breath to float with. His forehooves stopped kicking. He didn't feel like he was falling. His hind legs were supporting him. He stood for a moment, chin deep in the water. His eyes glanced down before looking forward again. “Okay, then.” He turned and pushed off the ground he slowly drifted to the shore. His neck rose out of the water. His barrel rose into the air. His legs left the lake. His back hooves, or lower hooves, rested on the sand. His forehooves hung at his sides. It slowly set in that he could have been walking on two legs the whole time. He made a constipated face. He found his soap in the sand and bent all the way down to just barely grasp it with his teeth. Standing back up, he wedged the package between his forehooves and tore open one end of the plastic. The bar popped out of the package from the pressure of the hooves. He crouched down on his haunches and pressed his sand covered soap between his forehooves, dropping the wrapper. A breeze lifted the wrapper off. He sprang up and wobbled off after the rolling plastic with his forehooves firmly clamped together and moving from side to side in time with his steps. He stepped on the wrapper and kicked some sand onto it. “Show off,” the sunbather commented. He was still soaked. No one seemed to be watching as he looked around. He jammed the end of the soap sticking out from the backs of his hooves onto his stomach and began grinding it into his fur. He continued until there was a caked on layer. No one was watching; he checked. He rubbed the soap in as far up each side as he could manage, rocking his shoulders on his spine. He rubbed back and forth up his neck. He held the soap high and rubbed his head against it. He couldn’t get to his back or most of his legs like this. He pressed his hooves together harder, jamming the soap into the curve of a hoof. Like this, he held the soap against his body and rubbed circles. He did the same with his other hoof. After putting the soap down, he pressed his bare hooves into every part of his body, rubbing in and spreading the soap until his whole body was a bit sudsy. He walked into the water and then tried to jump. He got most of the way out of the water before curling into the “cannonball” position and sinking back down. He stood in the shallows and rubbed and the soap spread around him in a slightly discolored circle. It just kept coming off him as he rubbed. Eventually, most of it seemed to be gone. He stopped rubbing and looked around for a moment. He sighed and then leaned forward and floated, resisting the urge to kick. After a while, he was comfortable, and the feeling of falling down a river, into a canyon, went away. He paddled to the shore. He had been tired since he woke up. He was hungry. He was cold and ignorant, but, for the first time since gaining his body, he was clean. He smelled like a wet horse, but he was clean. He even had a possession. It occurred to him that he didn't have a place to keep his possessions, since he didn’t know anyone, and he would have to faintly taste soap to keep his soap with him. He bit the soap and retrieved the plastic with his hooves. He carefully slid the soap inside. He decided to stash the soap. The lake was the only place with water that he knew he could use. So he decided that he should leave it nearby. A large tree was nearby. He trotted up to it and popped up onto two legs. He stretched and stood on one leg on his tippy-hooves and balanced the soap-pack on one forehoof. He reached just a little bit past a large branch which formed a convenient crevice. He wedged the soap in with the hole on the bottom so that any water would run out as it collected. He had only eaten from one place and he had only slept in one place. He knew he was always welcome there. He headed for the forest.