Escape From the Slave Market

by Apple Bottoms

Chapter 3

Blue cat looked her over - the pale green coat, the magenta mane, bright green eyes, probably freckled in the sun - and gave a small nod. “Alright, Watermelon Seed. That’s a nice name. Where do you live?”

“I-In the b-basement?” Watermelon Seed quailed, turning her wide, teary gaze towards him, hesitant and trembly.

“No, I mean - before the basement.” Blue spoke, softly and slowly, with great effort. “With - your family?”

“M-Mommy and Daddy?” Watermelon Seed hiccuped, tears filling her eyes anew. Oh, her family! She missed them so deeply it hurt, hurt like the sharp rope that cut into her neck even now, rubbed raw by days of trying to get loose.

“Yeah - no, it’s okay, no crying, it’s okay.” Blue Cat fumbled, ears slamming flat against his mane, clearly at a loss as to how to deal with a crying child. “Where did you live before - this?”

“Before the b-bad gryphon?” That seemed to pull her back to herself a little bit, fear making her quieter than before. “I … I lived in …”

It seemed so far away, but she remembered the schoolhouse, and Miss Cheerilee, smiling down at them as they sang songs about counting and the alphabet, and learned to share, and snacktime. She remembered the bakery where her Mommy took her to get fresh bread, carrying her on her hip so she could look into the case of sweets, sometimes she even got one for her! Oh, how she missed cupcakes, she hadn’t had anything sweet in so long, she’d only been given gruel and old stale grass to eat, it was the worst, not like Mommy’s dandelion sandwiches with the crusts cut off, just like she liked! Her stomach rumbled in protest, remembering suddenly how hungry she was, cutting through the fear, wishing her mommy was here to give her something nice to eat, and to wrap her up in her forelegs like she did whenever she was scared!

Blue Cat was trying to give her all the time she needed to answer, but when she started whimpering, he figured it was time to cut in. “Hey, kiddo, c’mon; Watermelon, you’re safe now. C’mon, just need to remember where your family is. Are they near - a mountain? A lake? How about a castle? What do you remember about your town?”

“Th - The Everfree Forest, we’re not supposed to go there.” Watermelon Seed piped up, her small voice throaty with tears, and she cleared it softly, swallowing back as many tears as she could. “It’s … near. And th’ - I go to school, too, with Miss Cheerilee. And ... and there’s a b-bakery. Sugarcube Corner.”

“That’s, uh, not really helpful - no, it’s okay, it’s okay!” Blue Cat started in soft annoyance, quickly backtracking when Watermelon Seed looked ready to burst into a fresh round of tears. “Do you remember - nearby towns? Big landmarks? Maybe you - went somewhere on vacation?”

Watermelon Seed thought to herself for a few moments, idly rubbing her wet eyes with small hooves; too small, Blue Cat thought, much too small to be out here on her own like this, with gryphons showing her to strange stallions like him.

“We … we went to the Crystal Empire, on the train.”

Blue Cat’s ears perked up at that, the name finally ringing a bell. “Crystal Empire? I heard about - alright, on the train? Where’s near there - uh, Canterlot? Are you near a big city? A castle?” Fuck him, if she’s from the fuckin’ capital of Equestria, there’s no chance in hell he’s getting her back without being arrested.

“No, Canterlot’s far away. Twilight - Princess Twilight, she’s from there, but she lives with us, in town.”

Blue Cat’s hopes, which had already sunk low enough to ‘arrest’, now sunk even lower to ‘vaporized on sight by a magical princess’. “Ponyville?” he asked, clearly hopeful that he was wrong.

“Yeah!” Watermelon Seed gasped, half rising to her feet, but they were shaky, so she soon landed back on her rear. “Tha’s - tha’s where I’m from!”

“Great.” Blue Cat sighed, scrubbing the sudden painful line between his eyebrows with the edge of one dish-sized hoof. “Well, fuck me, kid. You’re a long fucking way from home.”

“Fuck me?” Watermelon murmured, sniffling softly as she turned towards him a little, no longer quite so tightly pressed into the scratchy grass.

“No - no, don’t say that, it’s, uh, - grownup words.” Blue Cat amended quickly, ears flattening further as Watermelon Seed stared up at him.

“I’m hungry.” Watermelon Seed whimpered, small brows furrowing, mirroring Blue Cat’s unhappy expression.

“We’ll eat in the morning.” Blue Cat whuffed, clearly already thinking about the long journey ahead of him as he pulled the heavy pack from his shoulders.

“My stomach hurts.” Watermelon Seed added, but it was quieter, a little afraid to make him yell at her again. She looked down at her stomach and gave it a little rub, hoping that it might make the pain go away. (It didn’t.)

Blue Cat watched her, curled into the wheat bales like he might bite her, and with a great sigh, made yet another dumb decision. He pulled open his satchel, moved the bags of coins aside, and pulled out a mouthful of greens. “Here, k- Watermelon. This should hold you til morning. It’s dandelion greens.”

“Dandelions?” Watermelon Seed gasped, and eagerly twisted to take the food from him - but what he dropped into her eager hooves was only a loose clump of green things. Still, even if there was no delicious bread from the Sugarcube Corner, or plump dandelion flowers in it, it was still food, and it wasn’t gruel! So she eagerly gulped it down, faster and faster with each bite, until there was nothing else left. She snuffled over her hooves hopefully, wishing there was just one more mouthful, before she gave up and looked back at Blue.

Blue had closed his bag and put his head on it, lying down so that he was between her and the big, dark, yawning darkness outside. The sight of it, which should have been comforting after so many nights locked inside, still made her shiver with fear, and she slid a little lower, trying to hide behind Blue’s bulk from the darkness. Tilik was already quite comfortably snuggled into Blue’s side, eyes closed and already falling fast asleep, his head resting in the crook of Blue’s hip. Blue’s eyes were open, though, and they made her shiver almost as much as the darkness did.

“You should get some sleep. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.” he murmured, and his voice was soft again, and he reminded her of her daddy. Not hardly at all - Daddy was soft, and gentle, and never yelled at her, ever - but his voice was like his, when it was soft. It was deep, and rumbly, like when he spoke to her quietly after Mommy was asleep. Not scary like when Blue talked to the bad gryphon.

“‘M scared.” Watermelon Seed said, softly, as she looked down at Blue’s hooves. They were all splayed out, two on either side of her, so big and hairy. Her dad had big hooves, too, but not this big. His hooves were big like Big Mac’s, with the fuzzy part on the outside, too. Before she quite realized it, she had reached out, touching her much smaller hoof to the hair on his leg. She hadn’t expected it to be so soft, and so swishy. It was like her hair, only it wasn’t growing where hair was supposed to grow. Blue’s mane was cut so short, it seemed like he must have more hair on his legs than on his head!

“I won’t hurt you.” Blue Cat responded, equally softly, as he watched her play with his hoof feathers from under his half-lidded gaze. He tensed, a little bit, unused to having someone so small touching him like that; but she was gentle, so small she could hardly be anything but, too curious to remember she was afraid of him. “I’m gonna get you home to your mom and dad.”

That got Watermelon’s attention, and she turned to look at him, eyes wide and red-rimmed from her tears. “Really? Back to Mommy and Daddy?”

“Yep. Gonna do my best.” Blue Cat nodded, doing his best to hold still and keep from spooking her again.

Watermelon Seed stared at him, intense hope warring with distrust, and she finally gave a small, hopeful nod. “I wanna go home.” she whispered, her throat tight.

“Then you should get some sleep, so you’ll be ready to travel tomorrow.”

Watermelon Seed nodded, slowly, and began to lie down. But she quickly had to pause, whimpering when her neck got jostled, and the sharp edges of the rope cut into her neck. “The rope hurts.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that. We’ll take it off in a few days. Can’t have you running off where they can still find you.” Blue Cat replied agreeably, and as if she’d reminded him, he shifted his hooves, knotting the other end of the rope around his foreleg. “We gotta stick together.”

Watermelon Seed’s brows furrowed, and she rubbed at the itchy rope until she got it into a position where she thought it hurt less, even if just a little bit. Once that was settled, she curled up into the bales of grain, her skin twitchy all over where the broken blades dug into her coat, and pulled her legs tight to herself.

Blue Cat remained where he was, considering her with a few slow blinks, and slowly let his eyes close. He gave a great, deep sigh, and Watermelon watched as his side moved, lifting Tilik’s head with it. “Good night, Watermelon Seed. Keep warm.”

“Good night …” Watermelon Seed frowned, realizing she still didn’t know the big, scary stallion’s name. She knew Velvet’s name, the bad gryphon, but only because other people called him that; Velvet hadn’t called the big stallion anything that she’d heard.

Blue’s eyes opened again, and Watermelon Seed cringed instinctively, afraid to anger him with too many questions. Velvet had hated questions; he slapped her when she asked too many right after she got there, so she’d stopped asking.

“My name’s Blue Cat.” he spoke softly, in that same quiet, rumbly voice that made her miss her father. “T’most folks, just Blue.”

“Good night … Blue.” Watermelon said softly, and shivered, watching how closely Tilik snuggled up to Blue’s side. It felt like her sensations were coming back to her in pieces; once she was out of the basement, it took her awhile to realize that she could smell new things, all kinds of things, different than the humid, close smell of too many bodies pushed together in the underground. She’d remembered she was hungry, when she stopped being too afraid to feel it. She was so used to feeling fear, above all, that it took her a little while to remember she could feel other things, too.

Right now, she was feeling cold. She didn’t have thick, hairy legs like Blue, and soon, she was shivering into the bales of grain, eyes closed tightly as she tried to concentrate on sleep. But sleep was hard to concentrate on, especially with the scratchy feeling on her neck, and the cold that made her shiver all over, except for the tiny bead of heat that reflected back from the grain. She shifted, several times, trying to find positions that were more comfortable. Folding her legs under herself helped, but it left her neck and head exposed; curling her forelegs around her head kept that warm, but the rest of her caught a chill. She flopped over, again and again, whimpering unhappily as the chill managed to find her each time, a new part exposed to the cold. She missed her bed at home, with its thick, downy blankets, and some part of her even missed her miserable little straw pile back in the basement. In the underground with many other bodies, it never got cold like this.

Suddenly, a strong mouth caught hold of the scruff of her neck, and she yelped softly in surprise, small legs scrabbling fruitlessly against the planked floor of the train car as she was dragged backwards. As the teeth released her scruff, a long, powerful leg closed over her, effectively trapping her - but bathing her in wonderful, blissful heat. A twist of her neck revealed Blue as he laid his head back down against his satchel, sighing softly - a sigh she felt all around her, pressed up against his massive, warm chest. A look in the other direction showed Tilik, still snoozing on Blue’s hip, his tail flicking in some unknown dream.

Watermelon Seed looked up at Blue, who was apparently too tired to keep his eyes open any longer, and then down at the strong, massive forelegs she was sandwiched between. She considered her options for a moment, then began carefully rolling herself around, so that she could bury her face at the base of Blue’s neck. He was warm, so wonderfully warm it sent shivers all the way down to the tip of her tail, and within a few short moments she felt her consciousness begin to eagerly slip away. It had been hard to sleep, ever since she’d been taken off the ship - but here, even if he was kind of scary, she felt better. Safer, she supposed, although she wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he reminded her of Daddy.

Before Watermelon Seed could give that any deeper thought, she was out like a light, her tiny body almost vanishing in the protective grip of Blue Cat’s massive forelegs.

Comments

[Speedy Silverstreak]

You know.......if you want another badass OC in your story who just happens to have a brother with a prosthetic foreleg that is also a weapon and a sister who just so happens to be Princess Lunas guard captain........PM me.

[Cloud dawn]

This isn't bad. I'm looking forward to more! Keep it up!