>"P-paddling'"?
"Being a bat. That's a paddlin'."
>"M-mister pl-please I didn't mean to cause any trouble! I was just hungry and your steak smelled so good I thought it was tu-"
"Being homeless. That's a paddlin'."
>"Mister! Please! I'm sorry!"
"Being adorable. That's a definite paddlin'."
>"A-adorable? You think I'm adorable?"
"I just advocated in favour of a paddlin' on that count. Are you saying Anon ain't a man of his word? Cause that's a double paddlin'!"
>"No mister, it's just that nopony ever called be adorable before..."
"Well, shit."
>"W-what, mister? Is that a paddlin' too?"
"Nope. I reckon that deserves some steak."
>the tiny bat pony sits her frail form down at your grubby little table.
>it's not like you were expecting company, but still, it's a real pig sty.
>ever since you got drunk and told Speck and Echo you wanted to put mangoes up Sirocca's vagina your little circle of pony friends have been avoiding you.
>this one is probably not much older than Sirocca, but you're terrible at telling pony ages, so she might well be twenty or something.
>unkempt midnight blue bangs hang over a slate grey face, made gaunt by what you presume to be malnutrition.
"So what's your name, kiddo?"
>"Hecate," she grins, like her name is her only possession, one she treasures and guards with equal ferocity. "But everypony just calls me Hek. It's easier."
>her tiny fangs act as forward guards for rows of little canines, arranged by order of size and sharpness.
>they glint alarmingly, even in the dingy confines of Chez Anon, which have seen the light of day less often than the bottom of the marianas trench.
>enough gawping.
"So, how do you like your steak?"
>"Rare, please."
>attagirl.
>as soon as you slip the rare steak onto her plate, Hecate lays into it with a fervour not usually seen amongst her happy little race.
>whenever you've witnessed bat ponies eating fruit or even the fish some of them prefer, it's been in a sedentary and laid back kind of way.
>they rarely bother using the wicked equipment nature has granted them with any sort of malice.
>as you watch the little filly tear great chunks out of the sirloin, you actually start to feel a little uneasy.
>strange primal instincts in the back of your head, born in a time when your ancestors were hiding in trees from things with fangs not unlike those this creature owns, begin to niggle at you, whispering, pointing out potential escape routes.
>for the first time, you feel afraid of a pony.
>"Whatcha starin' at, mister?"
"N-nothing. Nothing at all."
>you swallow your fears and chase them down with a sip of the local mango beer.
"Enjoying your steak?"
>"Yes, mister! It's the best thing I've ever eaten!"
"Did your parents never give you anything as nice?"
>"Nope," she sighs, perhaps knowing that the question was coming, steeling herself for it, and feeling sad nonetheless at the forced recollection. "The Mango King took 'em away before I really knew 'em that well."
>the Mango King?
>you scramble through your knowledge of pony royalty
>there's that one with the sun on her ass, and her weird sister who only comes out at night, then there's that one who's thing is making ponies kiss for her amusement, and cripes, that purple one they put a crown on recently.
>nope, no Mango King. No male royalty at all, for that matter.
"Who's he?"
>"Oh, well, he lives under the mango trees in a deep, dark burrow, and when little fillies don't love their parents enough, if they don't really treat 'em right, the Mango King takes them away and makes them work underground, where they'll be useful."
"Yikes."
>"That's what they told me at the orphanage, anyway," she says, sagely, biting into the 
steak again. "One day, I'm gonna get them back."
"I see," you nod, taking another swig of the beer. "So you live at the orphanage? Don't they feed you there?"
>"Nah, I don't live there any more. They don't let you stay after your fifteenth birthday."
>jesus.
>poor kid.
>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. 
