8. Doughnuts
"To conquer frustration, one must remain intensely focus on the outcome, not the obstacles."
-T.F. Hodge
Sketch reached for Trust, once again laying in his bed. He had half a mind getting in there with her but... no no, bad idea. As his hoof approached, he began to sigh. “There’s a lot-”
“SHHHHHHH!” A voice resonated behind him, making Sketch jump out of his skin, nearly causing him to tip over as he stiffened. “Don’t wake him up!” she whispered, her hushed tone a few octaves above what Sketch’s used to. This voice was Trust. Then who was on the bed...?
Suddenly, the body on the bed turned and faced Sketch... and...
“Hello.”
A stallion. Male. A guy.
“HAAAAAAAAAA-” Sketch’s scream was cut short with a hoof in his mouth, Trust having moved quick from behind.
“Shut up! Do you want the world to know you have not one, but two, extremely attractive batponies in your bedroom?”
Sketch’s eyes shot between Trust’s wide, ephemeral, dinner-plate eyes that lit up the night, that was the fuel that got Sketch up in the morning... and this new stranger that was... lying in his- why is this stallion in my bed?
As new questions entered Sketch’s mind, Trust removed her hoof, now covered with Sketch’s saliva.
Sketch looked at Trust’s eyes again, his heart rate slowing, his breathing becoming regular. He looked her up and down, before deciding that was probably weird and looking back at the stallion in his bed. The sheets began to drape off of him, revealing only key parts of his torso. His forelegs supported himself behind him, and his back arched as he did so. He stared at Sketch with half mast eyes, like he was expecting something. He was firm, fit, yet still slender, almost exactly like Trust only masculine. Not as masculine as Sketch would have been comfortable with. He kind of wanted... to draw the stallion.
“I think,” Sketch started, trying to tear himself away from the stallion... come on.... shouldn't be that hard... stop looking at his chest... there we go! “I think people would be impressed, mostly, if they saw you two in my room.”
Trust looked surprised for a moment, than gave Sketch a knowing smile. She still had her ‘Sketch juice’ hoof in the air. She looked at it for a moment as if pondering something, but after shaking her head, she wiped her hoof on her chest.
“So who's tall dark and handsome?” Sketch tried to remain casual as he leaned on a very unstable broom (why the hell was a broom even here dammit) and as that failed, his voice cracked on the word ‘hand’. Sketch didn't bother to try and save it. He just closed his eyes in disgust. Trust giggled. The stallion-
“WOAH!” The stallion was right in Sketch’s face now. Okay. Alright. He was so fast, Sketch didn't even notice.
“This is your mate? He's a bit scrawny,” he finally spoke. His voice was like silky gravel, flowing through a vanilla ocean. Mate? Sketch thought.
“We're not-”
“Okay, yes this is my mate, say hello mate,” Trust quickly shouted as she once again shoved her hoof into Sketch’s mouth. Aside, she whispered “Play along,” in Sketch’s ear. This time, Trust wiped her b’drooled hoof on Sketch’s chest instead of her own.
“I... hah yes, I'm... her... her...?” It was then Sketch first noticed something, something that should have been ridiculously obvious. “You're a batpony?” Sure enough, the dull indigo fur, fangs, and bat wings were as loud as could be.
He backed up at this, like a scared animal. There was a small pause again, like he had to remember how to speak. “If that's what you call it.”
His wings were slightly larger than Trust’s, but probably just due to his general size.
“How did...”
“I'll tell you later... mate.” Trust gave Sketch this weird look, like they were about to be caught in a trap. Sketch was tired though, like he always was. He had to do this.
“No I... we... what's your name?”
The stallion looked confused, lost. He reared his head as he answered. “Royal,” he finally said slowly, as if he was just testing the waters.
“Royal? Why did you name yourself that?”
Again, he looked defensive. He couldn't look Sketch in the eye. “I-it it was just the first word I understood... what it meant.”
Everyone stood in silence after that. Everyone just... stared at each other. Awkwardness notwithstanding, Sketch was starting to get more and more excited at the prospect of a new pony like Trust.
“Royal,” Sketch finally began, taking a full step forward. “I want to draw you,” he blurted out, face reddening from his own forwardness. Something about having to go through an introduction like this already gave him a little more ground to stand on.
“What?” Trust asked in utter confusion.
“I'm tired, I'm confused, and I'm just plain frustrated. And I wanna draw. C’mon.” Sketch started towards his window, magically grabbing his drawing pad, a book, and a couple pencils. “Let's get the hell outta here.”
Trust’s eyes shot open as she zoomed past Sketch and to the window. She blocked the window with her whole body. “Uhuh, no no no. Sketch, c’mon this was our night, not Syntax’s, not Royal’s, ours. Where are you even planning on going?”
“Oh,” Sketch said, a smile creeping on his face. “You mean you don't want to go to the lake?”
“I mean I-” Her expression blanked. “The lake?”
“It's getting warmer, it isn't winter anymore, I can finally stand outside without literally dying...”
“From the hypochondria?” Trust offered.
“Hypothermia,” Sketch clarified.
“Gesundheit,” Royal added.
Sketch chuckled. “He's got jokes! Hahaha!” He faced Royal and rose his hoof for a hoofbump. Royal stared at him with a cold, dead look. There was a pause before Sketch just decided to clop his own hoof. Trust sighed and placed her hoof on Sketch’s shoulder.
“Just let me fly you down there so you don't kill yourself like last time.”
“Oh I was unaware I was dead,” Sketch replied dryly.
“Har har,” Trust sing-songed, lifting Sketch almost effortlessly. “You know what I mean.”
“You know, I could get used to this,” he quipped as Trust's body became his crutch. "Being carried."
“I wouldn't mind so much if ya did. Y’know...” Trust winked at the sprawled out Sketch on her back, him appearing as a soft pile of spaghetti draped over the batmare. “Just say the word and I'll... whisk you off your hooves.”
“Well I just uhh...” Sketch began to sweat. At what point was this a joke or... just straight flirting. At this point, Sketch began to stop caring. Or maybe he had just started to care. “I always figured you as a top.”
“Please, you wouldn't be able to handle me up top.” Even Trust was beginning to become bashful from the double entendre, nearly losing her grip on Sketch in order to cover her blush.
“I get it.” Royal suddenly boomed in a loud but even tone. He pushed past Sketch and Trust, practically racing towards the window. He gracefully leaped out and glid to the ground.
The room was still as Royal left, the remaining occupants jarred at the sudden outburst.
“What's this guy's problem?” Sketch asked, fixing an invisible tie.
“I'll tell you the story on the way.”
Trust slid the next few sketches along the floor, taking a look at the next few drawings under those. She was running out of new art that her friend had made. Small twangs of sadness resonated through her heart when she approached the last few. Most of her. One more of that strange black mare, this one with a devious smile as she lounged on a crescent moon. Trust felt that same pull from before. A force that pulled everything but her physical body. Maybe Sketch’s art really was that magical. Or maybe there was something about the subject.
A drop of water hit the paper she was staring at. It startled her at first, until she realized the liquid came from her own eye. She quickly wiped her eyes, subconsciously afraid that someone was watching.
Why was she sad? She used to have so many reasons to be sad, but she hadn't cried for years. Now she didn't have any reason to be sad; she had amazing friends with amazing talents, so why is she crying?
Despite everything she had, she still wanted more? Sketch had already sacrificed so much... wanting more was selfish. And yet, she once again yearned for his embrace. She wrapped her own legs around herself in a vain and embarrassing attempt to emulate his touch. I'm so pathetic...
“Are you alright?” a stallion asked.
She immediately hid herself out of reflex, cringing and becoming smaller. She cleared her throat lest her voice crack, and she reflexively looked away from the voice.
“Oh yeah, yeah, I'm fine, I wasn't just crying, I'm not lonely shut up, I-” Trust’s eyes shot open as she peered at the mirror before her, the large closet door mirror. Now for some reason, although she knew from the beginning it wasn't Sketch, she never once considered it would be anyone that didn't belong in his room, or anyone that she didn't know. But the stallion behind her was just that, a nameless stranger. “OH MY GOD WHAT- WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU.”
The stallion didn't answer, he only stepped closer to her, slowly. He approached her as one would an animal. A scared animal. Trust backed up against the frame of the bed, squeezing against it as the strange stallion grew close. It continued until he was close enough for her to feel his breath on her cheeks. Trust tried, but couldn't look away from his eyes. Big yellow, glowing eyes. They looked familiar... almost like her’s...
And then she saw what she should've seen from the beginning. Bat wings.
“You have-”
“You're female. Aren't you?” he asked, cutting her off.
Trust shuffled a bit, still uncomfortable from the proximity. “Uhh, I think. I mean the last time I checked, I...”
He sniffed a few times, and looked away as if deep in thought. “You smell good. Like glazed pastries.”
“Oh.” Trust tried to say something clever in return, but the cold sweat she was managing started to freeze her up. Was this how she died?
Thinking on the compliment would have made her blush any other day or any other situation, but the duress prevented any charm from blowing through. However, she quickly, guiltily, pictured the same line coming from Sketch, and her brain nearly exploded on impact.
“You should be my mate.”
YEAH ALRIGHT. THIS IS NOT HOW I DIE, THANK YOU.
Trust tucked herself in and slipped away, off to the batstallion’s side. She began to chuckle nervously. “Hahaha, okay creep. It's time for you to go before I, uhh, I kick your ass, alright?” She grabbed the weird stick with frills at the end that she brought in to ask Sketch about as a weapon.
The stallion looked mildly shocked at her reaction, but not overly so, as if he didn't have any idea at all how she would react when he asked. Still, he retained his composure, unlike his female friend, as he stood his ground. “I... didn't mean to... offend you,” he began, using an odd inflection with the word offend. “I just thought that...”
“Just because you're hot doesn't mean I'm gonna just... jump on ya when you ask you weirdo!”
“Hot?” he asked, looking inquisitive.
“No shut up, you're not hot!” Trust may have well just told him that bread was a article of clothing because the look of confusion on his face had no contest.
“Thats not- I meant that...”
“What did you mean then, huh? You were about to force-”
“I would not have forced you!” He quickly said, a look of hurt on his face. It was a strange look for him, in fact it was probably the first time his eyebrows had moved upward since they met. Trust was a bit taken aback, and, after a time, she placed the stick back in its place. “You're the only Royal I've ever met...”
“Royal? Is that what we're called?” Trust asked, her heartbeat becoming faster. Maybe she'll actually learn something about herself.
Alas, the stallion shook his head. “No, no.... at least I don't think so. Royal is what I call myself. I thought I was the only one of my kind so I just...” He looked Trust up and down. “I guess that's no longer a problem.”
“Royal, huh? How'd you come up with that name?” Trust asked, thinking her own name was odd enough.
“Oh I uhh... It was the first word I heard... well understood, really. Some ponies in a far off land were visiting this city, and I kept hearing this word uttered in the streets. That was before I ran off.”
“Ran off?”
“The first thing I remember was looking for people who looked like me: ponies.” He began staring at the wall. “But I figured out very quickly that even though we looked alike, ponies and I were... very different. I tried to make a life for myself amongst compatriots. But in the end I decided to become what they saw... An animal.”
“Wow. That's super hot.”
“I thought I wasn't hot?” Once again Royal became confused and cocked his head.
“Yes. No. It doesn't matter.” Trust waved off the question, literally, with her hoof. “It looks like you became a hunter when I became a scavenger. A theif.”
“You're a hunter of your own sorts.”
“Yeah, haha, I guess...” Trust rubbed her knee subconsciously. Royal mimicked her like a little kid.
“Soo...” He began.
“No, we're not mating. Why are you so hellbent on this?”
“I just thought...” He rolled his eyes and shuffled his hooves. “Animals... you know...”
“I am aware animals bone, yes.”
“Look, mating produces offspring, right?” he offered.
“You make it sound a lot easier than it is, but yes.”
“And we're the only two Roy- uhh bat winged ponies in existence.”
“Yes...” Trust confirmed, talking a bit more slowly. If this was going where she thought it was going all of this was a lot more reasonable than she originally thought. “As far as we know.”
“Don't you want companions? Don't you want friends. If we had children, there could be more like us! We could have what these ponies have. What every animal in the kingdom has. Company...”
“Yes... that sounds nice, but-”
“But what? This could be the only chance we have!”
“Stop yelling, there are ponies here, it's not my house!” Trust whispered, bouncing her forehooves up and down as a signal to lower the volume.
“I don't understand why you wouldn't want this. More of us, Trust. Think of it.”
“I already have a mate, okay?!” Trust gasped and covered her own mouth with her hooves. She hadn't meant to lie. Maybe just for a moment, she didn't know it was a lie. Regardless...
“You have a... another one of us?” He looked somewhat hopeful. His intentions truly were wholesome, since it appeared he didn't simply want to get his rocks off.
“No... no hon, it's... it's just a normal unicorn...” Trust answered. Royal put his normal cold back on. “But we don't know if that wouldn't still result in more of us. And, and, this thing is mutually exclusive, honey.” Trust didn't know why the stallion was suddenly ‘honey’ to her but it simply seemed apt.
“Mating isn't... exclusive?” He sounded very unsure, like he was told that chickens don't cluck.
“Well not for animals, or... certain ponies, but it is for me and Sketch.” Trust pounder her hoof into the ground for punctuation. Sketch could always see straight through her lies, but Royal seemed quite gullible. It was kind of refreshing.
“Sketch...” Royal closed his eyes, deep in thought. “Sketch. Huh. I want to meet him.”
“What?! Why?”
“To make sure he's good enough.”
“Good enough? Dad? Is that you? You sure you didn't mate with somebody already eighteen years ago?”
“Look I’ll talk to him, and then I'll leave you alone, alright. I just...” He looked away and rubbed his hoof.
Trust was about to let him have it, but as she saw him sitting with so little hope left... she almost saw herself. “...okay fine. Fine you can meet him. Just... it'll be a while before he gets back.”
“What's he doing?”
Eating dinner with another mare. ”With his friends.”
“What's he doing with his friends?
“I don't know, shooting the shit, eating dinner, he's just out, okay,” Trust snapped, collapsing on the floor. “I wish he was here.” With the way Trust was speaking it'd be hard to tell she was lying about Sketch.
There was a long silence. Trust realized that Royal was yet again staring at her. “You mind?”
“I'm sorry if my presence is stressful for you.”
Trust opened her mouth, but thought better of it and just rolled her eyes as she turned over. “No its not your fault... I'm just... frustrated. And no sex jokes!”
“Wouldn't dream of it.”
Trust felt a dark feeling in her stomach. Almost nausea, but not really. Sketch would've known what to say. He wouldn't have lied. Sketch doesn't lie.
Suddenly an idea lit up in her head. “You ever slept in a bed before?” she asked, quickly turning around to face him.
Royal had already begun leaning on a wall. He got up and shrugged. “Not for years.”
“Go ahead and take a nap. Trust me its... wait.” Trust folded her legs incredulously. “How did you know my name?”
“Wait, how did he know your name?” Sketch asked, flicking a potato chip into his mouth. It's a good thing he hadn't eaten his lunch yet and he could bring it for a small pathetic picnic.
“He followed me and watched me from dark alleys for a couple of days, it's not important.”
Sketch then choked on said potato chip. “ECH, CUHH, that's super-ACK- important!”
“Listen, Sketch, the guy's super lonely. Imagine you were in this sea of unknown, and every torrent tore you apart. And after a decade of torture, you saw another pony floating on the other side, swimming somewhere like they know where they're going. You're gonna chase it hard. And, and, considering how shitty that sounds, it's pretty great how respectful he's been.”
After her spiel, Trust slowly turned towards Sketch ready to ask something. She stopped dead in her tracks after discovering that Sketch had lost all motor function and was simply stating at Trust with an agape mouth and a floating potato chip. “What?” Trust asked, nervously chuckling and playing with her hair.
“I'm sorry, that was the most poetically tragic thing I've ever heard.”
“Whatever dude,” she laughed, punching him in the shoulder.
Sketch laughed and shook his head, attempting to pop in the potato chip. He missed his mouth by a pretty large margin and it limply fell to the floor. He kicked it to the side in a sad attempt to hide it from Trust, but she had already seen the whole thing. Sketch laughed again and cleared his throat. “So uhh, heh, you know where you going, huh?”
Trust smiled, putting her forelegs over his back and around his neck in a heavy embrace. Sketch... didn't tense up this time. “More like I know where I'm headed. I don't know the water I'm in, I don't even really know how to swim, but I know where I'm headed.”
“And... where are... are you headed?” Trust couldn't see his eyes from where she was hanging, and he was glad. He was pretty sure she would be able to see the yearning in his eyes.
“For land.”
They stayed.
They embraced.
...
“Is he still around?”
“Yeah, he's on the rooftops. I'm gonna have to separate once you hit the streets.”
“I fucking hate this. Sneaking around.” Sketch made Trust disconnect from him. He held onto her hoof as he did, and looked her straight in the eye. “You deserve better.”
“No, I really don't.” Trust put her hoof to his mouth as he moved to object. “Hey you know what you can do for me?”
“What?”
“Tell me I smell like glazed pastries.”
“...what?”
“Do it, c’mon. You can't ask me why.”
“Hehe okay,” Sketch replied, pushing her away and holding her at arm's length. “You smell like doughnuts.”
Trust snorted, bring her hoof to her mouth and chortling until there were tears in her eyes. After a good few moments, she gave one long sigh. “And that's why I love you, Sketch.”
They both froze. “That's why you what?”
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It updated again ! I am happy.
Oh joyous day.
Another round of thanks for your work.
You have a talent for drawing a reader deep into your words and allowing them to wander.
It is most enjoyable.
8064409 oh wow, that's... very kind. I honestly don't think I'm that good.
But this story has been a blast to write. Learning more about myself has been a boon in making Sketch and his friends even more relatable. It comes naturally now. There should be a new chapter out every other day until it's done, now.
The story is good and I like it a lot but...the way the characters talk sometimes just seems...really strange to me. Like...I can't describe it. There's something about what they say to one another that I find hard to understand or follow at times. It just seems like gibberish to me at some moments in this story. Maybe I'm just thick in the head, though...