A Filly's New Hope

by Mocha Star

Chapter 8

Tree groaned in increasing volume as he looked at the filly standing on top of a hutch that was lying facedown.

“Dang it, Nova! That was my mom’s!” He shouted at the ceiling. Nova’s ears fell to her head and she crouched with a nervous smile. “Glass is expensive and it took her three years to buy this hutch! It’s an heirloom I was gonna give to my children and you broke it?!”

Nova flinched and whimpered as he yelled at her, curling her tail under herself.

“How’d… Why’d… UGH!” He turned and stomped from the room grumbling, leaving her alone in the room, curled on the back of the hutch as a tear streaked from her eye and down her cheek fur.

…

Tree climbed into his hammock with a huff and lay on his back seething as he stared at the wooden ceiling. Grumbling to himself he wondered what to do next with her. He couldn’t send her away until she was healed. He couldn’t lock her away, that’d be worse than her breaking the hutch.

“...” he clenched his eyes and curled his legs to his body tightly. “It’s just a piece of wood…” he laid in the silence and listened as a tiny set of hooves approached slowly.

“M-Mister Tree, sir?” She asked meekly, “I’m so sorry I broke your hunch. Should I go to the chokie?”

He sighed and rolled to the side, landing on his hooves and walked to her. “No, you’re not in trouble… Much trouble,” he said as her ears drooped.

She sniffled and poked the floor with her left hoof.

“You don’t get dessert tomorrow,” he said as he walked past her, “and what’s a chokie?”

She turned and followed him, ears and tail sagging. “Punish room in the back yard, it’s dark and scary.”

He continued ahead and turned to the living room. “Did you get hurt in there?”

“Huh? N-no. That’d be mean, like, guard mean. When we was bad,” she sniffled and looked up to him, gazing at his bouncing tail, “we’d be in there for a while until we said sorry and meaned it.”

A smile crossed his face, partly from relief, partly from the humor of it. “So, a timeout?”

“That’s what the elders called it, but,” she sighed and looked to his rear hooves as he led her, “I didn’t get it. We never ran out of time in there.”

Tree snorted and chuckled. “That’s good to know, Nova. Now, let’s clean this up,” he said pointing to the mess, “ya have any… oh, sorry,” he said looking to her shaved horn, “I’ll get a sweeper, don’t help until I clean up the glass.”

“Okay,” she said sitting on her flank and waiting. She watched as he swept, piled, and cleaned the broken glass he could reach.

“Did you know Three Nights once spent like, a whole dinner in the chokie?”

“Huh, interesting name and no, I didn’t.”

“Yeah, he,” she looked around for other listeners before she leaned closer to him as he walked past, “went potty under the table,” she giggled and covered her muzzle with her hooves.

“Oh my,” Tree replied as he walked past into the kitchen and returned quickly with a small garbage pail, “that was naughty of him,” he replied distractedly as he began to scoop the debris into the pail.

“Yeah,” she giggled loudly and fell to her side in a fit, “Miss Nights sitted in it when she was getting ready to eat night meal,” she said between breaths.

“Heh, okay, that was kinda funny,” he smirked as he finished cleaning the mess. “Just, wait there until I get back, I’m going to dump this in the bin.”

“...The bin?” She asked sitting up quickly.

“Garbage bin. Where we put our garbage,” he sneer condescendingly, “right?”

“Oh, you mean trash. You got weird words sometimes.”

He exhaled heavily as he crossed the kitchen. “This’ gonna be a long couple days.”

.