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Hecate and the Legend of the Mango King


>You decide not to press her too much on the homelessness thing, even if the orphanage does have her believing some nonsense about mangos.
>Once, in your youth on a planet dimensions removed from this little ball of ponies, you spent a year sofa surfing or otherwise living rough on the streets of Glasgow.
>It's a sad thing indeed, and you're frankly surprised it even exists here.
>Everything else seems so idyllic, so Elysian.
>You wonder to yourself how endemic the problem might be as Hecate finishes the last juicy morsel of steak.
>She doesn't stop there, though, and keeps going, lapping up the cool blood that's pooled on the plate.
>As is usual with pony house guests, the various items of cutlery you've arrayed on the table have mostly gone ignored.
>Little red specks coat her muzzle, but not for long, as she begins to lick her chops appreciatively, smiling merrily.
“You don't happen to want to stay here tonight, would you?”
>”Oh mister, that'd be great! It's almost winter, and it gets cold out there.”
“Don't worry about it, and please, call me Anon,” you say, standing up and wandering through to the living room, beer in hand. “I know what it's like to be on the streets.”
>Much like your kitchen cum dining room, your living room has seen better days, though when quite those days were exactly remains a matter for the geological record to attest to.
>You found the two sofas that line the sides of the room behind a massage parlour on Backward's Fang Street hidden under a mound of rubbish and other junk, and they're the most beaten up and tired looking representatives of their furniture species you've ever seen.
>Damn comfortable though.
>You often wonder why any one ever threw them out.
>Probably something to do with all the mysterious stains that can only be seen under a black light.
>The little coffee table parked between the sofas is in better shape, which is understandable, considering it's just a big chunk of rock you found on the side of the road.
>It had a nice smooth top, though, and little crystal inclusions that glitter in a way you find aesthetically pleasing.
“Here, you can have one of the sofas.”
>Hecate glides soundlessly in, a nervously curious look on her waif-like features.
>You check out her ass.
>In the society you left behind on earth, this was something of a faux pas, to be conducted discreetly.
>Here, however, it's a common way of greeting someone, and often the only way to tell apart the many shades of grey, black and more grey.
>Three yellow keys arranged in triangle adorn both flanks, with a tiny waning gibbous moon at the centre.
>Moons are a common conceit of the bat pony cutie mark; but the keys are new.
“How did you get that?”
>”My cutie mark?” she says, glancing at it as she alights on the larger of the two sofas, folding her slate grey legs carefully beneath her. “Oh, I got trapped in a bakery.”
“You got trapped in a bakery and that gave you keys?”
>”No, it was when I figured out I could make some locked doors open. That's how I got in here.”
“How did you get wind up stuck?”
>”The owner caught us kids stealing. He locked us in his cellar while he waited for the police stallions to get there. I got us out.”
“Neat trick.”
>”Not really, mister Anon. Everyone just thinks I'm a thief. Every time anything went missing in the orphanage, I'd get the blame. Every time the police just needed somepony to blame, it was on me, because that's what I do, I open doors that ain't supposed to be opened.”
“Oh,” you say, rather uselessly. “That's pretty bad, isn't it? Hey, want a beer?”
>”I'm allergic to mangos,” she says, peering at the bottle. “Anyway, I'm not old enough to drink yet.”
“What's the bat pony age of minority, anyway?”
>”Don't you know?”
“It might be pretty obvious, but I'm not a pony.”
>”I know, but I won't hold that against you, you seem like a nice kinda thing.”
>You sit down on the sofa next to her, a little dumbfounded by that comment.
>You've never been called a thing before.
>That said, you've never been called 'nice' before, either.
>The reaction of most ponies to your comparatively large form was typical of herd animals; run and hide, return later with pitchforks.
>You only managed to get a spot down here in Hollow Shades because they're far more tolerate of weird outsiders than normal ponies, on account of being weird outsiders themselves.
>Still, you're living in the foreigner's ghetto, and you get strange looks all the time, even from the minotaurs and other bizarre chimeras.
>You fight the urge to pet Hecate's ears, like you might do to a Labrador or something.
>Instead, you pull one of the blankets off the sofa and lay it over her.
>She snuggles it around herself appreciatively, backing further into the cushions in search of extra warmth.
>”Thanks mister Anon.” she yawns, closing her baleful beige eyes.
“Don't mention it.”
>Hecate falls asleep almost immediately, the rise and fall of her chest beneath the covers getting slower and more content.