chapter 1
Slimy was a simple mare with simple needs. She lived in a small hut that had been built in the middle of the Everfree, and grew a mixture of potatoes and other vegetables in her garden for most of her food, very rarely going down to the market to get the supplies for the other things she needed.
This had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she was a slime pony, and therefore tended to freak others out when they saw her. Sure, her skin was more of a membrane and she was made out of fluid that could adapt to any container and change shape, but she had chosen a pony as her shape, and so that was who she was.
Other slimes might have been creatures that chose to attack other creatures and never picked a permanent shape, but that was not her. She had watched ponies move their way through the forest, great explores and fighters… But she had also watched them mill about in the small town just outside the forest.
They started families, they had children… Everything about them fascinated her. Sure, she could have children too, but she would need to find a partner for that, splitting into two copies of yourself was just not the same as having a family.
She had been busy using a hoe to till the ground ready to plant more seed potatoes when her wish finally got granted, in the strangest way possible…
Halfway through finishing the job, she heard a noise from behind her, a slight rustling. Expecting to be attacked by a monster, she turned and… There was a gray stallion in a tattered red jacket and an almost as battered top hat stood in front of her.
She stepped back in shock, almost turning into a puddle to avoid the pony. But, he did not seem intent on hurting her. In fact, he did not seem like the other ponies she had met. He did not have a bright smile on his face, and as she watched he moved over to the mound of potatoes she had harvested, before noticing that she was watching him.
His eyes flew wide as he stared up at her, then down to the mound of raw potatoes. Neither of them said anything and then the stallion slowly lifted a potato from the pile with a glow of apple green magic, quickly stuffing it into his mouth before she could do anything.
She really did not think this stallion was a threat any more, and he only further proved it when he almost choked on the potato, spitting out the half mangled tuba as he stick his tongue out, trying to scrape the dirt and the filthy taste out with his dirty hooves, which only seemed to make the taste worse, his face screwing up like he had been sucking a lemon.
Slimy laughed, she laughed for the first time in forever. The gray stallion in the tattered jacket frowned at her laughter, and she laughed even harder, which seemed to only make her laugh harder.
After she was done laughing, the strange stallion was still there, staring at her as he tilted his head one way, and then the next. Almost like he was trying to examine her, but did not know quite how to do it. She finished tending to the garden, and throughout all of it, the stallion studied her work in a confused fashion, his eyes glassy, but somehow still focused.
She walked towards her house with the potatoes on her back in several large sacks. After she placed them down by her table, she went to stand at the open door once again. The stallion was still there, watching her.
It was likely the worst idea Slimy had ever had in her life, but she gave the stallion another smile, “Come on. It’s cold out, and I need someone to help make soup.”
Of course, the stallion tilted his head, seeming to not fully understand her.
She was about to give up and close the door, but the stallion trotted over, looking around in a nervous fashion before trotting into her home. He then sat down by her dining table, and once again watched her go about her business.
Slimy was not dumb, and kept an eye on him while she worked, using a peeler to remove the skin from the potatoes before chopping them into cubes.
The strange pony seemed most interested in this, and he floated a potato over to himself before pulling out a straight razor, using the blade to skilfully remove the skin like it was the most casual thing in the world.
It was her turn to be shocked. The way he handled the razor suggested that he was an expect in its use, but his eyes held no hint of the intelligence needed to practice using such a tool.
Once he was done, he slowly floated the potato to her, having removed the skin better then she had with the peeler. She stared at the floating potato for several moments, then took it from the magical grasp and divided it up, putting it in the soup pot.
“Thank you.” She said, not expecting a response from the strange creature that was now inside her house. He made her somewhat uncomfortable, with the fact that he had just come out of the forest and was now here in her dining room.
While the soup was cooking, she moved closer to him, examining him closer. He was skinny, like he had not eaten correctly in several weeks. He was also covered in dirt, and as she stepped closer she realized that he stank of musk and filth.
She almost found herself vomiting, before she remembered that she did not have the ability to do so.
If he was going to stay here, he needed a bath. She filled in her nose holes with slime and picked the stallion up, hefting him over her shoulder like he was another of the sacks of potatoes she had brought in. Getting him into the bathroom by leading him there would take too long, and with how bad he smelt she wanted him stinking up her house as little as possible.
He did not seem to mind being picked up. For several moments he gazed about in a confused fashion and clung to her tightly, but then he seemed to relax and Slimy gave a smile, making it into the bathroom.
“There, that was not so bad, wa-” She was cut off when she felt something warm splash against her, and looked down just in time to see…
“No! Bad stallion!” She dropped him, and he fell to the floor and looked confused as she raised a hoof to give him a smack. At this point, the first emotion he had shown spread across his face as he shambled over to the corner of the bathroom and curled up fearfully, wedged next to the place where the toilet would go if she ever needed one.
The rage quickly boiled out of her, and she gave a sigh, using a towel to mop up the puddle the stallion had made. The stuff that had landed on her body had thankfully already rolled off, and hopefully non of it had soaked into her.
After placing the towel in the sink, she turned to the fearful stallion and offered him a hoof.
“Come on. I’m sorry, you just surprised me is all.”
She made several clicking noises, the stallion shaking in fear as he watched, not comforted in the slightest. She now felt absolutely horrible inside for yelling at him.
1. In the end, all it took to brighten him back up was a carrot that she placed in the bathtub. Apparently he really liked food as he climbed into the bath without the slightest problem.
Slimy did not use the bath much, and when she did it was mainly to relax. She had to add a lot of bath salts to the tub so that she could relax without taking in two much water. She had spent nearly a week as a puddle before and did not fancy doing it again.
Of course, this presented a problem as she did not have the proper tools to clean the stallion. Thankfully, Hatter seemed more then distracted with her bathroom mirror while she went to look for supplies. He titled his head at it, and the pony in it did the same, so then he tilted his head the other way, before freaking out and growling in an aggressive fashion, his straight razor unfolding and floating from his jacket.
When Slimy came back into the room, he was still having a full on stand off with the mirror that only ended when Slimy draped a spare towel over it and took his razor from him.
He did not seem happy with this, and he growled at her as she took his jacket and hat off, before making frantic grabby hooves at them. Slimy sighed and put the plug in the sink, emptying some borax into it as she filled it with water.
Hatter did not seem happy about her touching his jacket, but he was quickly distracted with his own problems when she turned the water for the bathtub on. He really, really did not seem to like water, and Slimy had to get into the tub with him just to make him stay.
She softly stroked at his mane and cooed comfortingly as the water slowly climbed, stopping it at chest height. Hatter seemed really frightened still, but was quickly distracted by the thick bubbles that had built up thanks to the lavender bubble bath she had managed to find.
That, and he seemed to love the rubber duck she placed in the tub. He tilted his head at it one way, then the other, before bumping it with his nose and splashing excitedly as it bobbed about. Slimy now had a hard time calming him down, but when she finally managed it, bath time seemed to go a lot more smoothly.
Honestly, she was clueless as to how this whole thing had happened, one moment she had been growing potatoes, and the next there was a strange stallion in her bathtub.
Slowly, she pulled out the washing up sponge she had managed to find and begin to rub at the stallion’s back. The dirt came away easily and turned the bathwater a dark gray with how filthy he had been. It was only now that she begin to notice the many scars that covered his body and just how skinny he was.
She had no idea why, but she really liked him. He was the first pony that she had chance to get this close to for this long, and he really seemed to like her, well, if everything up to this point was anything to go by.
She pulled out a comb and begin to brush at his coat, untangling it slowly while hugging the clueless stallion to her chest. Beneath his hat, his mane was black and it was a tangled, almost unrecognisable mess. She painstakingly hunted down every knot over the course of the next half an hour, quickly discovering that it was really long, and went down past the poor ponie’s chin.
In its current state, the limp black hair made the pony look like something out of a horror movie, and with a sigh Slimy excepted that she would need to cut it.
She lifted the stallion from the tub and begin to dry him off with a towel, before pulling the plug from the bathtub. Hatter seemed most interested with this, intently watching the bathwater drain from the tub.
The slime pony took this time to dig through his jacket. Inside she found very battered kitchen knife, a jar of needles, and several small rolls of nearly ruined fabric that she had got soaking wet, along with other supplies that looked like they were for clothing.
The most interesting thing she found however, was a faded name tag. Apparently, his name was Hatter. It was a very strange name, normally Slimy found that ponies had two names. She had started out calling herself Slimy the Pony, but quickly realized that it did not quite suit her.
Inside the stallion’s hat she also found several more needles and a very old photograph that had been torn in half. It had a smiling albino filly next to an older pegasus mare with a brown mane and coat. Somehow, she knew that this photo must have been very precious to the stallion, perhaps his family?
Regardless, she respectfully placed it back inside the hat, then placed the hat somewhere safe while she finished washing his jacket. The skinny stallion did not look quite right without his jacket, and she quickly realized that separating him from, the battered and torn garment was going to be impossible.
She attempted placing it in the bathroom to dry, but the stallion refused to leave it for dinner. Slimy was glad that her house was open plan, because the only radiator was in the kitchen. Hatter did not seem happy about leaving it even then, but she at least managed to get him to sit at the dining table.
Placing down two big bowls of soup and a spoon for the both of them, she sat herself across from Hatter and watched him intently. He was such a strange creature, and she found herself wondering what was going on in his head as he stared at his jacket from the dining room chair.
He stopped to glance at the soup every few minutes, and when he finally deemed it cool enough to devour, he smashed his face right into the middle of the bowl and splattered it in every direction, ignoring the spoon that he had been given in favour of wolfing it down.
The slime pony let out a sigh, now regretting let him eat at the table. By the time he finished eating, his mane and muzzle were both covered in soup, and she had to wash the both of them again.
At this point, she realized it was just going to cause problems. Cutting it presented an even larger problem, because the moment she went near him with any kind of sharp object, the stallion freaked out.
In the end, she had to trick him by placing down a carrot and quickly rushing the job while he was busy eating it. It was by no means a neat cut, and somehow served to make him even more savage, but at least it was no longer in his eyes.
For Slimy, it had been a long tiring day, and she decided to relax by sitting down to listen to some books. She trotted her way towards the living room, pushing the door open and waving Hatter inside.
The living room was a large room with beanbags scattered about it, a phonograph and a book case full of records, and three more bookcases filled with books. Slimy had spent many years collecting all these books and dusty records in one place, and it was where she had harvested most of the information she now knew about ponies.
She sat down by the phonograph and waved Hatter in behind her, the poor stallion looking around in a confused fashion at all the brightly coloured books around him. Slimy had no idea what books Hatter would like, or even if he liked books to begin with.
Hopefully he did like books however, as she had all this knowledge and nobody to share it with. She scanned through the dusty records that lined the wall, trying to pick out one that the stallion would like.
Her eyes settled on one of the records, her most loved record out of all of them. It was a tale about how spells had been used to destroy the world, and a hero had united all the ponies and rebuilt the nation of Equestria.
She put the first chapter in the record player, then waved Hatter over and cuddled into him, the two of them listening to the record as it slowly played.
Hatter did indeed seem to enjoy the story, and he was soon fast asleep in her hooves. She smiled down at the gray stallion that was curled up lovingly in her hooves and gave him a soft smile and a kiss on the forehead.
Slimy had no idea where he had come from, or if Hatter was even his real name. She did know one thing however, and that was the fact that she had developed feelings for the stallion.
Of course, they were not sexual feelings, they were more the feelings someone would develop towards a puppy or other animal. She smiled softly and begin to carry the stallion up to her bedroom.
Her bed was like any other ponies, but with a thick plastic mattress protector over it. She placed the stallion down in the bed, then slowly climbed in next to him and cuddled tightly into his back.
Tomorrow, they were off to the vet.