The Voices Told Me to Hug You

by Aquaman

OC Slamjam Entry (May 2015) [E-Rated] [OC] [Slice of Life]

Author's Note:

Hey, guess who's absolutely not still salty at all in the slightest four years after getting bodied in the first round of a contest that seemed like a perfect fit for him and for which he was desperately excited to write several rounds worth of fics?

Not this guy! Not one bit.

Anyway, here's my Round One entry which lost by the narrowest of margins and which I still really love to this day. OCs were my Bristle (my own) and Luster Lock (my eternal nemesis a solid contestant who made it at least a couple more rounds, IIRC).

It was five minutes to midnight by her best guess, but in all honesty it could’ve been four. She couldn’t stop thinking about pastries, and it was messing up her count.

The mask’s fabric itched as it brushed over her feathers, and stretching it out between her wingtips only made the amulet knock up against her collarbone. Ratty old thing--the mask was, at least. The amulet was new, its charm so fresh she could feel the rumble of dozing magic vibrating through her ribs. Miss Radium of Trottingham had bought it that morning, from a stallion who’d never asked for her name nor given his own. It would be worth the expense come night’s end. All of this would be worth it once the count in her head ran down.

Two hundred and seventy. Four and a half minutes. She thought about taking flight, but the mask dug into her pinions before her wings could spread far enough. Why had she even brought the stupid thing along? Nobody was awake to see her. No wandering eyes wondered who’d be out at this hour. The night guard wouldn’t start his shift for another two hundred and sixty seconds, and the only things he’d find after she’d gone were an open door, an empty safe, and a perfect, intricate, exquisite silver lock swinging from its latch.

Two-forty-five. Keep the count. Focus. The lock was her father’s design, but he wasn’t here to see it guarding gaudy jewelry that’d be out of season before any real ones had passed. She knew all its thumbturns and tumblers like the hairs in her fetlocks, but she wasn’t here to let some pension-fund prick leave it to rust and rot away. She had the master keys strung on a ring inside her soon-to-be-filled saddlebags, and that was why the owner of 342 Millennium Avenue was going to regret deeming her pride and joy unworthy of the price he’d been contracted to pay for it. The Hoofington constable refused to come to Canterlot and chase after her client himself, and the guards here would’ve gone on about lawyers and civil suits and six months in court for a settlement outside of it. They would’ve taken his side and blown her off. They would’ve just wasted her time.

She wasn’t wasting time. She was doing something about it. She was making things fair.

Two-hundred-ten. Thirty seconds until the switch. Beyond the cast-iron fence ringing the estate, she could see the stallion on duty rolling his shoulders and scratching behind his ears. In moments, he’d leave his post and go home for the night, and three minutes after that his replacement would take it up himself. Both guards enjoyed a few minutes between shifts to talk in private, and neither cared much for their employer’s insistence on constant vigilance. She’d heard the household’s head groundskeeper complain about them two days ago, when she’d trimmed the back hedges in Tiptop’s clothes while Tiptop herself thought she had the day off.

One-ninety-nine. The guard’s sigh carried all the way to the fence. It had taken her half an hour to convince Tiptop she worked for the maintenance crew too. Somepony had surely seen her fumble with her clippers, or spend too much time staring at the building’s back door. That Lower Quarter warlock probably had friends all over the city, cursing amulets with security countercharms and stalking anypony fool enough to buy one. She didn’t know anything about the house’s interior. She didn’t even know where to find the safe once she got inside it.

One-ninety-one, and they didn’t know her either, nor would she give them any way of finding her out. She’d dyed her mane, changed her name, used every trick of subtlety and subterfuge Trixie’s magic shows had taught her. She’d leave no hoofprints behind tonight, no calling card, no message to even explain why she had to do this. There would be no trail of crumbs leading out of the city, snaking into a one-room locksmith shop in Hoofington, showering onto the floors and lingering in the cracks between the boards. This would be easy. This was the right thing to do.

One-eighty flat. The guard was leaving. The count hadn’t stopped, and she was thinking about pastries again.

Time to go.

With her gloved hoof inside it, the mask looked more like a fungus growing out of her sole. Splotches of green and silver shone through the pitch she’d smeared over it, enough to gleam in the full moonlight that forced her to hide behind one of the fence’s stone pillars. When she grabbed the mask’s fringe in her teeth, the stretched-out eye sockets almost looked sad, like they wished they could see what she used to see through them. She’d been sentimental bringing it, that was all. Thieves were supposed to have masks, and the Radium Maiden had only ever worn the one. She didn’t have to bother with it this late at night. She’d probably just throw it away once she finished.

One-seventy.

There was room in her saddlebag, though.

One-sixty-eight.

She couldn’t just leave it out here.

One-sixty-six.

Somepony would find it.

One-sixty-four.

Somepony would follow the crumbs.

At one-sixty-flat and with the mask halfway back in her bag, Luster Lock heard somepony clear their throat. She bit her tongue so she wouldn’t scream, and stuck out a hoof so she could catch the mask again. When the stallion standing in the street made no motion towards her, she narrowed her eyes and did her best to make them look darker than her mask.

“You didn’t see anything,” she told him. One-fifty-two. “Just walk away. This isn’t your business.”

The stallion shrugged, and as he shifted she saw a bit more of him: dark coat and mane, but both brown instead of pure black, she thought. Bulky plastic canisters hung on either side of his withers, and each of his forehooves bore some kind of tool: a flat-headed broom curled into the crook of his right hoof, and what looked like a dustpan strapped to his left.

“Can’t argue with that,” he said. “What didn’t I see, though?”

“Are you deaf?” she growled. One-forty-four. She didn’t have time for this. “I said go.”

“Because the way I see it,” he went on anyway, “320 scoops up every technomagical gadget he can find, and 353’s over there a veritable diamond mine.” The stallion tilted his chin first to the left and then to the right as he spoke, and once his gaze settled back on the house behind the fence, he shrugged again. “Not much to 342 here but the garden, and even that’s seen better days. That’s just what I see, though. Snobby rich folks with their snobby rich stuff.”

“I don’t remember asking you what you think you see,” she informed him. “And for your information, this is personal.”

He cocked his head again. “I thought it wasn’t my business.”

“I thought I told you to go away!”

Luster cringed as the shuttered windows of 342 repeated her shout back at her. One-twenty-nine. Not that it mattered much now. “You work for Lord Zirconio, don’t you?” she asked the stallion, only for the sake of hearing him say it. “He must have kno… did he send you to stop me?”

The moonlight caught the stallion’s eyes as he glanced towards 342 again: hazel streaked with dappled beige, like cedarwood bark caught between sundown and dusk. “Is that who lives there?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “Hmm. He always struck me as more of a duke.” His lips twitched, and for a moment the shadows almost made it look like a smile. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m no guardspony, for him or anyone else.”

One-eighteen. She wasn’t convinced. “Then who are you?”

Now he was smiling. “Call me curious.”

And now she was gritting her teeth. “You ever hear what they say about curiosity?”

“No, but I’ve heard what they say about cats with nine lives.” He sounded pretty proud of that little quip, apparently enough to prop his broom under his shoulder and stick out a hoof in greeting. His mane was definitely brown, now that she could see it properly, but grown out enough to look a bit unkempt. If he’d bothered to style it, it might have looked handsome. “My name’s Bristle. I’m a street sweeper.”

“You don’t look much like a street sweeper,” she muttered.

One-oh-eight. “You don’t look much like a thief.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she snapped, stalking forward a few steps before her mind could catch up with her body or her tongue. “You don’t know who or what I am.”

Bristle gestured with his hoof before letting it drop. “You did say I didn’t see anything.”

One hundred flat. “Why are you even still here?” At least she’d managed to stop herself before she got within hoof’s reach of him. “You’re not a guard, you’re not gonna do anything, so just shut up and leave me alone!”

“Are you a thief when you’re alone?”

“I am not a thief,” she said through her teeth.

Instead of arguing, Bristle nodded as if in agreement. “Exactly. You don’t look like one.”

Ninety-five. If this was what going mad felt like, Luster felt a powerful sympathy for the mentally disturbed. “What are you even talking about? What d’you mean, I don’t look like a thief?”

“You look bored,” Bristle said.

“I… what?”

“That’s why I was curious.” With a sigh, Bristle braced his forehoof against the base of his broom and leaned into it. “You look bored. Young mare, good-looking, out in the dead of night with her wings out and her hooves tapping every time she talks. The way I don’t see it, you’re looking for something new.”

Eighty-three. Luster fluttered her wings, and forced herself to keep still as she answered him. “I… it’s personal, all right? This is between me and Zirconio, and I don’t particularly care what you have to say about it.”

“Is he the one you’re bored with?” Bristle asked, because of course that wasn’t enough for him.

“No, I…”

It was never enough for anybody, was it?

“You know what? Yes. I am bored with him. In fact, I’m tired of him.” She was inches from his nose now, and couldn’t remember when she’d gotten that close. “I’m tired of ponies like him who think they own everything they can get their greedy hooves on, I’m tired of letting ponies like him walk all over me while no one does anything to stop them, and I’m tired of sitting around yesterday and tomorrow and every day after that waiting for the same thing to happen the same way again and again and again. And most of all, I’m tired of you acting all high and mighty and trying to tell me what I should think about it!”

Bristle shrugged again, and a terrifying urge to slap him shuddered through her forelegs. “I don’t have anything to think about it.”

“Oh, for Celestia’s sake, don’t patronize me,” she snarled. “The only reason you even looked at me tonight is because you want to play the hero for some poor little girl who can’t possibly know what she’s getting herself into. So don’t stand there smirking at me like you know the last thing about why I’m doing this, when I’m the one who’s out fifteen thousand bits and you’re a moondamned street sweeper who won’t see that much money for the rest of his moondamned life!”

Her breath returned a moment after she fell silent, then left her again just as quickly. Her face burned, and ducking out of the moonlight did little to hide it. “Stars, I-I…” she mumbled. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said… that was out of line.”

Once again, though, Bristle surprised her. “I’ve heard worse,” he said through a rough chuckle. He sounded ten years older than he looked, but not the slightest bit weary or depressed about it. “And you got me half-right. Odds are, I won’t have that much money saved up for a good long while. But I did have it once. And I do know why you’re doing this.”

Another shock followed the first: Luster’s eyes stung as she squeezed them shut, and all of a sudden Bristle knew better than to speak over her. “It’s not fair,” she murmured. “He just robbed me, after four months slaving over his stupid commission. Just up and walked off with it because he knew it’d cost me more to sue him than it would him to pay me what I’m owed. He had the gall to say I should be honored to even work for him, right there in my shop, with his pig-faced brat of a kid standing right by his side and spraying donut crumbs all over the…”

When she looked up, she couldn’t understand why the street sweeper hadn’t left. She’d lost her count again. Pastries were all she could think about. “How do you live like this? How do you do the same thing day after day, and never get any respect for it? How do you not just… snap?”

“You mean, how am I not bored?” They both nodded; her first, and him more slowly in response. “Way I see it, the sun doesn’t get bored rising. And I doubt it gets tired of setting.”

In the spare moment Bristle left between sentences, Luster straightened up and wiped her eyes. “You can’t possibly like street-sweeping that much.”

She expected a shrug, so much so that she almost didn’t noticed when one didn’t come. “I don’t get tired of it,” Bristle said. “I keep the city clean. I get to work with my hooves. I can look back when the sun gets up and see everything I accomplished while it was asleep. And when I can, I make sure the sun rises on me too.”

For the first time, Luster really looked at the mark on Bristle’s flank. At a glance, she’d seen a broom to match the one in his hoof, but the hairs in his mark’s brush looked too soft, and the handle suited for more delicate work.

“There’s a big difference between being tired and being bored. And like I said, you look bored.” With a grunt, Bristle wedged his broom between his shoulders and the dustbins on his back, and lifted a hoof in salute as he backed away. “But like I also said, I didn’t see anything. You have a good night now.”

Luster watched him go, and didn’t look back at the fence until the streetlamps in the distance grew too dim to see him by. The other night guard hadn’t appeared yet. The count was still going. She could find it again.

And once she did, she’d never lose it again. Once she did, she’d follow it for the rest of her life.

By the time the count ended, she’d reached the next block in search of a trash can. She could at least make Bristle’s job easier and get rid of the amulet herself. As for the mask, she figured she’d kept it. It itched too much to throw away, and now that she looked at it, the paint was wearing off.

Comments

[PresentPerfect]

Oof, same. :B