Snow Flurry - 6 - Home Alone

Part VI – Now We Play the Waiting Game

You're not really sure how long its been since you climbed into your bed.  You can't even know for sure whether or not you've fallen asleep at any point, although if you did you certainly don't feel any more rested.  You shift your head slightly to get comfortable, moving it to a slightly drier spot on the cushion.  It's only then that you can see the morning light beginning to creep through the window of Master's room.

“Morning … already?” you mumble to nobody in particular.  You must have been more exhausted than you'd thought.

You pull yourself upright and take stock of the room.  Everything still exactly where it was left last night.  You suppress another bout of tears at the realization that Master hasn't yet returned.  Your hooves meet the wood floor with a sound you'd hardly ever noticed in the usual commotion at Dan's place.  Still groggy, you stumble out into the living room and confirm your fears.  Indeed, nothing has been disturbed since the night before.

It's only then that the hunger hits you.  You'd been so spoiled by Master and Dan that you'd nearly forgotten what it was like to actually be hungry enough to go look for food.  Deciding that the kitchen won't have anything within reach, you slowly push open the front door and step outside.  You trot around to the back of the house to find Dan's garden.  You really hope he won't mind you having dug around in it once he comes back.  If he comes back.  You shove the latter thought out of your mind, unable to bear it.

You head over to what you're fairly certain are carrots and begin to prod at the ground with your hoof.  This is going to be more difficult than you thought.  With considerable effort you finally manage to clear most of the dirt away, although most of it somehow managed to end up on you.  You grab the top of the carrot in your mouth and pull, dislodging it from the soil.

You can't exactly say it looks appetizing, but you're hungry enough not to care.  You nibble on the end of the vegetable, spitting out bits of dirt as you go.  You really wish that Master was here to wash it off for you, as you can barely taste what you're certain would be a delicious treat underneath layers of sediment.  After having eaten enough to satisfy your immediate hunger, you head back into the house, carrying the upper half of the carrot between your teeth.  You head to the back room and set it down in your bed before returning to pull the front door back close enough to shut to give the illusion of being so from the road.  It still does nothing to make you feel safe, but you feel an urge to do it anyway just to maintain appearances.

Still at a loss of what to do, you head back into Master's room.  The sun is now streaming through the window, illuminating the opposite wall.  You look up to see the shelf on the wall and get an idea.  You're not going to just let Master abandon you like that.  You're going to make sure he understands exactly how much you care about him and how much he's done for you.  If he still won't take you after that, at least you'll know you tried.

You have to convince Master to take you back; to do that, you have to convince him that he's doing the right thing if he does.  What better way to do it than to collar yourself, willingly?  If you were to do that, surely you can make him see how much good he's done for you.

Your gaze travels along the wall up to the shelf.  You judge the shelf to be just short of two meters off the ground.  Suddenly it hits you just how tiny you really are now.  That distance certainly never looked as impossibly high as it does now.  You pace around the room in circles trying to invent a cohesive plan to reach your goal but fail on every attempt.  As you walk past the tall mirror propped up against a wall in the corner you take a moment to look yourself over.  You never really took the time to admire your pony body; the last time you'd really looked at yourself was that first night at the warehouse.  You shudder.  This time around you're not nearly as disturbed by it, although perhaps you should be disturbed by that very fact.  Despite your searching you can't find anything but the image of a pet pony staring back at you, and you're perfectly comfortable with it.

This is it, then.  You knew it was coming all along in some part of your mind, but the realization hits you like a ton of bricks regardless.  You flutter your wings and hold them outwards, admiring your pastel blue flank.  You can't imagine looking any different anymore; your human form is just a fleeting memory.  You're a pony, and not just a pony but a cute little pet pony with a loving Master.  You wouldn't have it any other way.

Your mind absolved of all doubt by your conscious choice to embrace your new life, you go back to planning.  You have to win back Master.  You can't go on without him.  It simply isn't possible.

You begin dragging anything you can lift into the back room to take inventory of your tools.  You work as fast as possible with hooves and teeth, attaching objects together with some twine that was laying in the corner of the living room in an attempt to find something sturdy enough to survive the trip upwards.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention.  While you wouldn't exactly call what you've created an invention, you would most certainly say that this situation qualifies as the closest thing to necessity a pet pony can experience.  You stand back and admire your handiwork, which takes the form of a ruler tied to the end of a broomstick.  It's not elegant, but you decide it will have to do.

Gripping your makeshift device with your forehooves, you swing it awkwardly at the wall and miss the shelf by a considerable margin.  You couldn't have imagined just how hard it would be to maneuver this thing with it throwing you off balance.  After several more attempts and a handful of embarrassing stumbles, you make contact with the wall above the shelf.  You carefully lower your device downwards, sliding it gingerly across the wooden surface above your head.

You hear the sound of an object hitting the ground beside you.  It may well be the best thing you've ever heard.


In a brief moment of ecstasy, you begin to jump around in circles, forgetting briefly that you were still holding a broom in your mouth until its weight brings you unceremoniously to the ground.  As soon as you regain your senses you lean over and pick up your collar between your teeth before dropping it into your hooves.  You fumble around with it for a brief moment.  You hadn't really taken the time to consider that this might be the hard part of your plan.  Even after your moment of realization just minutes ago, you still must admit that hands have their advantages.

You set your collar down in your bed, deciding that it can wait a bit longer; at least, until you clean up the mess you made trying to get it.  You get to work dragging objects back to their respective resting places.  You make slow progress, the enthusiasm that motivated you initially now absent during the return trip.  Even so, you can't have Master coming home to a house that's been torn apart by his pet.  After having dismantled your device and returned the broom to its proper resting spot, you take another look at the once again empty back room, pleased with your work.  You're fairly certain Master will never notice anything, unless he happens to obsessively track how much twine he has on hand.

You take a moment to look around the room, confirming that nothing out of place remains.  You trot back over to your bed and pick the collar up once again.  You drop it awkwardly around the back of your neck, leaving the buckle hanging down in front.  This can't be all that hard.  You did it a thousand times with hands, surely you can do it once with hooves.  You prod the buckle with your hoof, trying to maneuver it into position.  You manage that feat several times but can't quite handle the device in front of you well enough to properly close it.

You hang your head shamefully, the collar sliding off and back into your bed.  You can't even be a pet properly and you expect Master to take you back.  Master's off trying to figure out what happened to you, potentially in danger, and you're sitting here failing at handling a buckle.  You rest your head on the edge of the bed, fighting back tears.  You wish that Master was here.  He'd know exactly what to do.  He'd take care of all your petty little worries like they were nothing and just hold you until all your stress melted away.

You're alone, though.  All you have for comfort are memories and dreams, neither of which is doing you any amount of good currently.  You step out onto the floor and lie down next to the mattress, laying your head across it.  At least you can pretend that everything is fine.  You close your eyes tightly and try to imagine that he's right there next to you.  It doesn't help much.

You certainly never realized just how dependent you were on Master.  Not just for your basic necessities, although you know that to be true as well, but for everything else.  You can't say that you ever really knew love in your human life; you had a couple good flings like everyone else but nothing that ever convinced you that it was genuinely possible to care about someone else more than yourself.  Love?  You catch yourself, thinking back over what you just said.  You suppose that's the only word up to the task of describing your relationship with Master, even though you'd never really thought about it in those terms.  You wouldn't have believed it was possible just a few short months ago, but you can't deny it now.  You do love him.  Strange as it is to you, your emotional well-being has come to depend on his affections.  You begin to sob forcefully into the mattress.

That's it.  That's the simple fact of the matter.  You need Master and you have no qualms about admitting it.  You lift yourself off the ground in a haze, dragging your bed out towards the living room, your collar still resting against one of the cushions.  You have to make Master see what you see.  You have to convince him that regardless of how you got here, he's the only thing you care about anymore.  You pick up the collar again, leaving it resting on the back of your neck as you lie down.  Even if it takes an eternity, you'll wait for him right here.  That's all that you can do.