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Hayseed Turnip Truck: Re-Animator
*Snip*
She was the client he had to plan the rest around.
*Snip*
Her smile, crisp and vivid, shone beneath two endless pools of frozen blue that held his gaze, unwavering, no matter how far down the hedge he trimmed.
*Snip*
His pulse quickened in time with a rhythmic pulsing of her hornglow. He didn’t know why she lit her horn sometimes, only that—
*Schlorp!*
Hayseed Turnip Truck jerked to a halt. He dragged his eyes from the lodestone that was Minuette’s smile, and considered the slick red sheen upon his trimmers. Which, he realized, had been stuck out a bit farther than where the hedge ended and the sidewalk began…
“Why’s this hedge all red, too?” he asked, leaning over it, expecting to see just the clean, polished white of a Canterlot sidewalk.
He did not, in fact, see a clean sidewalk.
Hayseed screamed, dropped the trimmers, and tumbled backwards, scrabbling hoof-over-hoof through the pristine lawn he’d just mowed. “Oh I’m done for! I’m done for! It’s gon’ be like Cousin Double-Wide all over again!”
“Hey, heyyyy, it’s okay,” said the warm, insistent mass he’d blundered into. Hayseed whirled around, and found himself nestled in Minuette’s embrace. Heat suffused his barrel as she rocked him, ran her forehooves through his tousled brown mane, and made even cuter little “shush”ing sounds that he’d imagined anytime this moment had played out in his fantasies.
“L—Lovel—lace,” he stammered, because accidentally decapitating one of Minuette’s neighbors—and another of his clients—hadn’t been part of his fantasies, either.
Minuette’s muzzle screwed up with the cutest look of determination. Her horn lit for a second, too. Then her smile returned, and his heart hammered with the sheer desire to plant his bucktoothed muzzle right in the middle of it.
“It’s okay,” she said, somehow smiling deeper.
“But it can’t be! I just—”
“I just used my talent,” she said, drawing his attention down to her flank with a slow, dare he say even teasing, gesture. “Short-term temporal stasis… y’know, freezing! Even works on ponies… or in this case, parts of them!”
Her giggle seemed genuine. Yet Hayseed furrowed his heavy brow. “Y’all froze Lovelace?”
“Of course! We can’t have her bleeding out before we find a way to bring her back, can we?”
“B—But we all can’t bring back a dead pony! My cousin tried that with my grandpa, and grandma’s velvet paintings still stink!”
“Oh, you say that now, but I have something special: friendship!” Minuette’s smile took on a harder edge; her eyes, though dark and deep, showed a glimmer that doused the heat in Hayseed’s barrel surer than a burst sprinkler line. “Moondancer’s the second-smartest pony that I know, and not as connected to law enforcement as the first!”
As introductions went, Hayseed felt that dumping a decapitated body on a pony’s kitchen table lacked a certain something.
Sure enough, Moondancer screamed, flailed, and tried to wrench herself away from Minuette’s iron grasp. Hayseed felt a little jealous at seeing that turned on somepony else, and a little turned on at seeing Minuette hugging another mare who was, in fact, quite cute as well. Where Minuette was a vision in periwinkle perfection, Moondancer’s worn black sweater, up-done red mane, and thick-rimmed glasses, seemed… comfortable. Approachable. There was something about her that he instantly liked, and it wasn’t just her completely relatable response to having a dead body dragged into her home.
“Hush now, it’s okay,” Minuette cooed, stroking Moondancer’s mane. “You’ve just gotta help us put Lovelace back together, that’s all.”
Moondancer’s screaming abated. She drew back and stared straight at Minuette. “What do you mean ‘put her back together?!’ She’s dead!”
“Buuuut Twilight shared oodles of high-level spells with you since you reconnected, didn’t she?”
The glint in Minuette’s eye continued to worry Hayseed. But strangely, the horror writ upon Moondancer’s muzzle didn’t quite blot out her comfy charm. “N—Necromancy? That’s… forbidden!”
“But-it’s-the-only-way,” Minuette singsonged.
Moondancer froze, then looked at Hayseed with desperation. “W—We have to go to the authorities. They’ll understand it was an accident. Stallionslaughter gets lighter sentencing than—”
“Conspiracy?” Minuette’s grin made Hayseed’s coat bristle. “Oh, we’re all accessories to Lovelace’s fate now, aren’t we?” She gestured at the body, and plunked down the duffel bag with the head.
Moondancer kneaded her forehead. “The palace library has a forbidden wing. If we could get in, we might—”
Minuette squeed, and pressed her muzzle close to Hayseed’s. “Ooo! You have a contract with the library, yes?”
“Y—Yes, ma’am—”
“Then it’s settled!” Minuette clopped her forehooves together, then lit her horn and refreshed the preservation spell on Lovelace. “Let’s go take a little off the top!” She flicked her eyes down to the body. “Of the library hedges, of course!”
“Ah’m too pretty fer jail,” Hayseed moaned.
Hayseed had never broken and entered before. Not even the time his third cousin Turd Burglar tricked him into smashing a feedlot’s office window as a kid, and left him holding the bag in more ways than one.
Then again, Turd Burglar hadn’t had Minuette’s smile, or a dead body, or books full of ancient lore that could help make everything right again. This time, when Hayseed smashed the window, it wasn’t by accident; it wasn’t on the ground floor; and he climbed right up the library’s brick edifice alongside one mare holding an invisibility spell on them, and another levitating the dead body.
The trio landed in a chamber that seemed straight out of the tracts warning about Ogres & Oubliettes that Hayseed’s Aunt Chick carried around. Black tapestries with crimson symbols hung above dusty shelves festooned with cauldrons, bones, and other unnerving objects.
“There,” Moondancer said, dropping their invisibility spell and walking to a hidebound tome set on a pedestal. “Twilight only let me in here once, but this thing… has some serious horseapples.”
A rapping at the chamber’s door drew all their eyes. The rap-rap-rapping turned into a pound-pound-pounding, accompanied by calls of: “Stop right there, criminal scum!”
“Horseapples!” Moondancer repeated, flipping through pages. “Brace the door—I’ll find a resurrection spell!”
Hayseed charged the door, and slammed into it just as a potent buck impacted on the other side. He turned desperate eyes on Minuette—
His blood ran cold at the sight of her perfect white teeth shining like daggers in the room’s fading sunlight.
Another buck jerked him out of his reverie. “Moondancer?!”
“I’ve found one, but it needs a sacrifice! Like a part of one’s soul!”
Hayseed’s side lit up with pain as another hit came at the door. “M—Minuette?!”
She was laughing.
The next hit burst the door asunder, bowling Hayseed over in a tangle of guards. His muzzle smacked the ground hard, his face blossoming with agony.
Minuette screamed.
Its shrillness wrenched Hayseed out of gauzy unconsciousness, and left the guards writhing. “Your teeth!” she bellowed. “Your ugly, ugly teeth!”
“Whut,” Hayseed managed.
“Oh, how I’ve stared at them for hours, dreaming of the day I’d fix them!” Minuette devolved into blubbering. “I… I froze time for them! I would’ve frozen it… forever!”
Hayseed blinked.
Horror dawned upon him.
“Y’all… played with time,” he said beneath the pile of guards. “Y’all made me kill Lovelace!”
“Hayseed!” screamed Moondancer.
“A piece of my soul… I know! Take my love for Minuette—she cray-cray!”
“Here goes…”
A blinding burst of light overtook the room.
In the days that followed, Hayseed learned firsthand why one of his family’s favorite phrases was: “...And they didn’t press charges!”
She was the client he had to plan the rest around.
*Snip*
Her smile, crisp and vivid, shone beneath two endless pools of frozen blue that held his gaze, unwavering, no matter how far down the hedge he trimmed.
*Snip*
His pulse quickened in time with a rhythmic pulsing of her hornglow. He didn’t know why she lit her horn sometimes, only that—
*Schlorp!*
Hayseed Turnip Truck jerked to a halt. He dragged his eyes from the lodestone that was Minuette’s smile, and considered the slick red sheen upon his trimmers. Which, he realized, had been stuck out a bit farther than where the hedge ended and the sidewalk began…
“Why’s this hedge all red, too?” he asked, leaning over it, expecting to see just the clean, polished white of a Canterlot sidewalk.
He did not, in fact, see a clean sidewalk.
Hayseed screamed, dropped the trimmers, and tumbled backwards, scrabbling hoof-over-hoof through the pristine lawn he’d just mowed. “Oh I’m done for! I’m done for! It’s gon’ be like Cousin Double-Wide all over again!”
“Hey, heyyyy, it’s okay,” said the warm, insistent mass he’d blundered into. Hayseed whirled around, and found himself nestled in Minuette’s embrace. Heat suffused his barrel as she rocked him, ran her forehooves through his tousled brown mane, and made even cuter little “shush”ing sounds that he’d imagined anytime this moment had played out in his fantasies.
“L—Lovel—lace,” he stammered, because accidentally decapitating one of Minuette’s neighbors—and another of his clients—hadn’t been part of his fantasies, either.
Minuette’s muzzle screwed up with the cutest look of determination. Her horn lit for a second, too. Then her smile returned, and his heart hammered with the sheer desire to plant his bucktoothed muzzle right in the middle of it.
“It’s okay,” she said, somehow smiling deeper.
“But it can’t be! I just—”
“I just used my talent,” she said, drawing his attention down to her flank with a slow, dare he say even teasing, gesture. “Short-term temporal stasis… y’know, freezing! Even works on ponies… or in this case, parts of them!”
Her giggle seemed genuine. Yet Hayseed furrowed his heavy brow. “Y’all froze Lovelace?”
“Of course! We can’t have her bleeding out before we find a way to bring her back, can we?”
“B—But we all can’t bring back a dead pony! My cousin tried that with my grandpa, and grandma’s velvet paintings still stink!”
“Oh, you say that now, but I have something special: friendship!” Minuette’s smile took on a harder edge; her eyes, though dark and deep, showed a glimmer that doused the heat in Hayseed’s barrel surer than a burst sprinkler line. “Moondancer’s the second-smartest pony that I know, and not as connected to law enforcement as the first!”
As introductions went, Hayseed felt that dumping a decapitated body on a pony’s kitchen table lacked a certain something.
Sure enough, Moondancer screamed, flailed, and tried to wrench herself away from Minuette’s iron grasp. Hayseed felt a little jealous at seeing that turned on somepony else, and a little turned on at seeing Minuette hugging another mare who was, in fact, quite cute as well. Where Minuette was a vision in periwinkle perfection, Moondancer’s worn black sweater, up-done red mane, and thick-rimmed glasses, seemed… comfortable. Approachable. There was something about her that he instantly liked, and it wasn’t just her completely relatable response to having a dead body dragged into her home.
“Hush now, it’s okay,” Minuette cooed, stroking Moondancer’s mane. “You’ve just gotta help us put Lovelace back together, that’s all.”
Moondancer’s screaming abated. She drew back and stared straight at Minuette. “What do you mean ‘put her back together?!’ She’s dead!”
“Buuuut Twilight shared oodles of high-level spells with you since you reconnected, didn’t she?”
The glint in Minuette’s eye continued to worry Hayseed. But strangely, the horror writ upon Moondancer’s muzzle didn’t quite blot out her comfy charm. “N—Necromancy? That’s… forbidden!”
“But-it’s-the-only-way,” Minuette singsonged.
Moondancer froze, then looked at Hayseed with desperation. “W—We have to go to the authorities. They’ll understand it was an accident. Stallionslaughter gets lighter sentencing than—”
“Conspiracy?” Minuette’s grin made Hayseed’s coat bristle. “Oh, we’re all accessories to Lovelace’s fate now, aren’t we?” She gestured at the body, and plunked down the duffel bag with the head.
Moondancer kneaded her forehead. “The palace library has a forbidden wing. If we could get in, we might—”
Minuette squeed, and pressed her muzzle close to Hayseed’s. “Ooo! You have a contract with the library, yes?”
“Y—Yes, ma’am—”
“Then it’s settled!” Minuette clopped her forehooves together, then lit her horn and refreshed the preservation spell on Lovelace. “Let’s go take a little off the top!” She flicked her eyes down to the body. “Of the library hedges, of course!”
“Ah’m too pretty fer jail,” Hayseed moaned.
Hayseed had never broken and entered before. Not even the time his third cousin Turd Burglar tricked him into smashing a feedlot’s office window as a kid, and left him holding the bag in more ways than one.
Then again, Turd Burglar hadn’t had Minuette’s smile, or a dead body, or books full of ancient lore that could help make everything right again. This time, when Hayseed smashed the window, it wasn’t by accident; it wasn’t on the ground floor; and he climbed right up the library’s brick edifice alongside one mare holding an invisibility spell on them, and another levitating the dead body.
The trio landed in a chamber that seemed straight out of the tracts warning about Ogres & Oubliettes that Hayseed’s Aunt Chick carried around. Black tapestries with crimson symbols hung above dusty shelves festooned with cauldrons, bones, and other unnerving objects.
“There,” Moondancer said, dropping their invisibility spell and walking to a hidebound tome set on a pedestal. “Twilight only let me in here once, but this thing… has some serious horseapples.”
A rapping at the chamber’s door drew all their eyes. The rap-rap-rapping turned into a pound-pound-pounding, accompanied by calls of: “Stop right there, criminal scum!”
“Horseapples!” Moondancer repeated, flipping through pages. “Brace the door—I’ll find a resurrection spell!”
Hayseed charged the door, and slammed into it just as a potent buck impacted on the other side. He turned desperate eyes on Minuette—
His blood ran cold at the sight of her perfect white teeth shining like daggers in the room’s fading sunlight.
Another buck jerked him out of his reverie. “Moondancer?!”
“I’ve found one, but it needs a sacrifice! Like a part of one’s soul!”
Hayseed’s side lit up with pain as another hit came at the door. “M—Minuette?!”
She was laughing.
The next hit burst the door asunder, bowling Hayseed over in a tangle of guards. His muzzle smacked the ground hard, his face blossoming with agony.
Minuette screamed.
Its shrillness wrenched Hayseed out of gauzy unconsciousness, and left the guards writhing. “Your teeth!” she bellowed. “Your ugly, ugly teeth!”
“Whut,” Hayseed managed.
“Oh, how I’ve stared at them for hours, dreaming of the day I’d fix them!” Minuette devolved into blubbering. “I… I froze time for them! I would’ve frozen it… forever!”
Hayseed blinked.
Horror dawned upon him.
“Y’all… played with time,” he said beneath the pile of guards. “Y’all made me kill Lovelace!”
“Hayseed!” screamed Moondancer.
“A piece of my soul… I know! Take my love for Minuette—she cray-cray!”
“Here goes…”
A blinding burst of light overtook the room.
In the days that followed, Hayseed learned firsthand why one of his family’s favorite phrases was: “...And they didn’t press charges!”
So... that happened. Distracted by the sexy, then yeet(?) that distraction as a sacrifice to fix all the things, I guess?
I would be surprised if this was deliberate, but the crude, stumbling storytelling here meshes all too well with the events of the story itself.
There really isn't much specific I want to add about this one, except to point out this one little gem:
I would be surprised if this was deliberate, but the crude, stumbling storytelling here meshes all too well with the events of the story itself.
There really isn't much specific I want to add about this one, except to point out this one little gem:
Moondancer’s the second-smartest pony that I know, and not as connected to law enforcement as the first!
Genre: INCOMPLETE!!
Thoughts: Author, you wound me. First you get me all invested in things, then you slap me with that ending? No. Just no. That is, as the kids say, a party foul. Flag on the play, fifteen yard penalty, third down.
...I could be being harsh here. Maybe I'm wrong, and this is the complete story. If so, then, I have to ask what it was all about? The prose is solid, don't get me wrong! Honestly, it's funny! But this needs more fleshing-out IMO to make the meaning stick. The single line tacked onto the end doesn't bring this to a true resolution, in the sense of showing how the characters grew and/or changed after this. We're left to infer that the resurrection spell must have worked, and everyone got to go about their daily lives... but I would much much much rather be shown that than be told it. This is also fairly rushed, moving to and through especially scenes 2 & 3 at a breakneck pace. The chalk outlines of more are there, and I believe this can be tweaked to deliver the goods, but right now I'm just not seeing it.
Dagnabbit Author, this could've been in my top spot. Honestly. The prose is clean. It manages to decapitate someone without going over-the-top with it, and then use the body as effective humor. But right now I can't escape the thought that this had a little bit too much cut off to make it fit the word count.
After this contest, though? Hit me up. Seriously. Let's get this banger tuned up for FimFiction.
Tier: Keep Developing
Thoughts: Author, you wound me. First you get me all invested in things, then you slap me with that ending? No. Just no. That is, as the kids say, a party foul. Flag on the play, fifteen yard penalty, third down.
...I could be being harsh here. Maybe I'm wrong, and this is the complete story. If so, then, I have to ask what it was all about? The prose is solid, don't get me wrong! Honestly, it's funny! But this needs more fleshing-out IMO to make the meaning stick. The single line tacked onto the end doesn't bring this to a true resolution, in the sense of showing how the characters grew and/or changed after this. We're left to infer that the resurrection spell must have worked, and everyone got to go about their daily lives... but I would much much much rather be shown that than be told it. This is also fairly rushed, moving to and through especially scenes 2 & 3 at a breakneck pace. The chalk outlines of more are there, and I believe this can be tweaked to deliver the goods, but right now I'm just not seeing it.
Dagnabbit Author, this could've been in my top spot. Honestly. The prose is clean. It manages to decapitate someone without going over-the-top with it, and then use the body as effective humor. But right now I can't escape the thought that this had a little bit too much cut off to make it fit the word count.
After this contest, though? Hit me up. Seriously. Let's get this banger tuned up for FimFiction.
Tier: Keep Developing
Very Skirtsian!
This story reminds me of a moment I had while playing a show with my band at a dive bar in Indianapolis. It was close to 2am, and we were playing what was supposed to be our last song. The stage was tiny, so I had to set my drum set on the very edge of the stage. It was also raised only three or four inches off the ground, and it was directly next to the bar's main entrance/exit. So I was right in the thick of things.
So we were playing, and I was trying to summon the energy to make good music, and I closed my eyes for a minute. And as I did I heard this crowd walk past me, right next to me. And then a moment later, I felt something his my shoulder, and I felt my drum set shift. I opened my eyes just in time to see a man from that group, drunk off his ass, trip on the ledge of the stage and fall all over me, then fling himself over my drumset, which proceeded to collapse.
That's how this story made me felt. I felt a great disturbance, opened my eyes, and there was a corpse-looking thing right in front of me.
This story was shocking, provocking, and rocking. Thanks for sharing!
This story reminds me of a moment I had while playing a show with my band at a dive bar in Indianapolis. It was close to 2am, and we were playing what was supposed to be our last song. The stage was tiny, so I had to set my drum set on the very edge of the stage. It was also raised only three or four inches off the ground, and it was directly next to the bar's main entrance/exit. So I was right in the thick of things.
So we were playing, and I was trying to summon the energy to make good music, and I closed my eyes for a minute. And as I did I heard this crowd walk past me, right next to me. And then a moment later, I felt something his my shoulder, and I felt my drum set shift. I opened my eyes just in time to see a man from that group, drunk off his ass, trip on the ledge of the stage and fall all over me, then fling himself over my drumset, which proceeded to collapse.
That's how this story made me felt. I felt a great disturbance, opened my eyes, and there was a corpse-looking thing right in front of me.
This story was shocking, provocking, and rocking. Thanks for sharing!