Maximus’s bad day [Part 2] (fanfic written by sidekickjoey)
Max is tired.
How can one horse possibly be as quick, agile, and all-around better than him as Axel? He is the top of his class! He is the best war-horse around! Ask any of the guards! Even Eugene would agree. Well, maybe. Max would hope so, at least.
But, that is beside the point! Axel is not that great! He is all show and no real reward, if you ask Maximus. An untrustworthy, unfaithful wolf in sheep’s clothing. No good. He knows it to be so. Sure, no one else does, but he does, and with a little hard work, he is sure he can get the others to believe so as well.
So, he plots.
When the time finally comes to enact his plot, he finds himself in town. It is not exactly the easiest of places to snoop through, as people love to clump together and make it hard for a horse like himself to keep a close enough distance behind Axel, but he manages. Anything for my duty, he thinks. He repeats that mantra as he has to rudely shove past a few people with large boxes, knocking them over and leaving a wake of unhappy townsfolk in his wake. If he could speak, he would say sorry. But, he cannot, and he has bigger fish to fry, such as Axel galloping away.
Wait.
Axel is galloping away?!
Max has no time to think. He simply darts through the crowds, knocking more people over with high whinnies. Oops. He even knocks into three street vendor carts – a fact he regrets, especially upon hearing their wails of dismay at tons of lost jewels and fabrics. He makes a mental note to try and help them eventually before continuing his chase. Sure enough, as he picks up speed, Axel grows closer and closer in his sight. He’s as good as got, a mere few feet away, when suddenly he takes a hard right and goes right across an intersection. A busy intersection! Max is aghast. He is even more aghast that Axel managed to do so right as a whole crowd of people are allowed to cross, thus forcing him to screech to a halt and watch helplessly as he galloped down an alley, out of sight. The nerve of some horses.
He would make him pay…
…after he figures out what he just saw on himself in a passing mirror.
Was that a bonnet he saw? No, that is ridiculous! He did not wear anything today! Just his standard guard saddle and crest. But, wait! There is a bonnet! A big, blue one. And a dress! A pink one! With heels! How on Earth did he end up wearing all of that? That is when Max realizes. The vendor carts. The heat of the pursuit. The lack of realization.
Max pales.
He really needs to offer his help to them later.
Now, he just needs to really leave where he is, because two girls with their mother are pointing and laughing at him and he really does not want to be all Corona talks about for the next month. Red and struggling in the heels, he stumbles his way across the intersection and down the same alley Axel had gone down moments before, out of sight.
What he sees there makes him snicker.
A-ha! He should have guessed it! Axel is up to something sinister! The horse is peering into the back of a shop and entering. It’s a clothing store, if he remembers correctly. Obviously, there is no good reason for him to be going into one of those. He is a horse, after all, and horses do not wear clothes. At least, not by choice. He has to be looking to steal something. Careful to keep quiet, Max slowly makes his way down the alley. Hoof after hoof, he gets closer. Closer. Closer. He puffs out his chest, stares down the door, and then–
BANG!
With a triumphant whinny resembling an A-HA!, Max slams open the door to the shop. He expects to see Axel there, hoof-deep in trouble. Just where he wants him. However, what he finds in reality is much less…satisfying. It actually is much less in general. The room is empty. No Axel, no clothes. Maybe a few barrels, but nothing more. No clothes, no patrons. Emptiness. Had he really been that off? Maybe Max really was losing his style…maybe Axel really was the better horse, and he was going off the deep end…
…or maybe, he is jumping to conclusions, prohibiting him from seeing that he’s in the back of the store and there are not one, but two other doors Axel could have gone into.
Max grumbles to himself and chooses the door heading upstairs to go through.
The staircase just past the door is rickety, and he really hates how cramped he feels going up it. It is creaking every two seconds, riddled with abandoned webs, and has about six different holes. Honestly, he should win a medal for just being able to climb those things and come out in one piece. Axel will be that medal, he decides. However, when he jumps out to the second floor with the same excited whinny, he once again denied such a medal. It, too, is empty.
A chorus of blank mannequins stare him down, mocking him. Max has half a mind to barge through them and ruin the shop altogether. But, if it’s the shop he thinks it is, the old seamstress who owns it is too kind to have to deal with that. That hate is better spent on Axel.
Speaking of Axel, where is he???
Thud, thud, thud.
Max freezes, cold in place. Footsteps??? That is the last thing he needs to hear! What would someone say if they see him, the Royal Guard’s most prized horse, snooping up in an old seamstress’ attic? They would probably think of him what he thinks of Axel! He would never be able to live it down! But what could he do to get out? There always is the window, but he does not like the odds of that fall. He has jumped out and off of worse, but still. Not in his heels, anyway. No, Max has to do something else, something more sneaky. Spotting the mannequins again, he gets an idea.
Posed like a war horse one would see outside of Corona’s castle, Max holds a dramatic hoof in the air, holds his breath, and does his best mannequin impression. It is hardly believable, but what other choice does he have? He sits and watches the door, almost relieved to see it is the old seamstress herself. At least her sight isn’t that good, or her movement, if her withered legs and cane have anything to say about it. He might get away with this if he holds his pose.
It is in this moment, frozen and slowly realizing his error of posing with a limb raised, that he notices the seamstress came up there for a reason. In her hands is a lavender apron, torn slightly up the middle. She is grumbling about it as she sits down very close to Max, her desk mere inches away from his rear. He would be more interested in her words, or her proximity, if it were not for the ache now beginning in his leg. Would she notice if he moved it? Or, would he be caught and plunged into regret? Max does not know. He just know it hurts, and wow, is it getting stuffy in here or is it just how tight his dress is? A small whine leaves his lips as the lady pulls out a lavender ball of thread and five sewing needles. Little does he know, a cramped hoof is about to be the least of his worries.
The very lack of sight of the lady is what brings Max to his undoing. See, she needs a cushion to put the little pins in while she works to fix the apron, and that cushion is nowhere to be found. Or, rather, too out of her sight for her to really see. So, she goes for whatever is the next best thing in her sight. What better alternative was there besides the big, white, fluffy-looking mass right nearby her hand? Nothing! Grabbing the pins, she began plucking them, one by one, into it to begin her work.
One by one, she made Max wish he had never even seen a horse named Axel.
He cannot scream, but oh does he want to. Each little pin hurts more than the next. The things he does for duty! Axel surely would not be so kind as to keep playing along with his ruse in this moment. But, he soldiers on. Calm. Cool. Semi-collected.
Minutes pass, and finally, thankfully, the seamstress gets to a point where the apron is fixed and her pins can be collected back into her box of seamstress tools from Maximus’ rear. He lets out a breath of relief when the box is safely away. Sure, he is still in pain, but at least his troubles are over. The lady is leaving. He can move soon. He will be free!
Or, so he thinks.
For, as soon as he lets go of his pose, spreading out and scooting across the floor like a dog to get ride of the sting of the needles, he puts himself into the middle of another calamity. A large can of floor polish gets whacked down by his hoof, spilling out on not just the floor, but also himself. Not even his best attempts to stand and leave the mess he is making save Max from the embarrassment and the trap he has created. He is coated, and he is slippery enough that he won’t not be for a while.
He huffs and lets his legs give out, a sad sigh escaping.
Oh, how he shouldn’t have done that.
As soon as he pushes the ground at all with his legs, he is sent flying. There is no control to how he slides across the room or where he ends up. There is only fear and regret as he goes cascading out the window, especially when he realizes where he comes down in a crash.
He would end up in a dumpster.
On his back, surrounded by gunk and everything else that could possibly reek, Max whimpers and begins the slow process and making his way out. How much more humiliated could he get? Was it not bad enough he was dressed up like he was? Now, he has to be coated in oil and sticking to trash? Does the universe hate him?
The answer is yes, because a few feet away, Maximus hears the familiar snicker of the horse he loathes above all.
Prying himself out of the dumpster, he comes face-to-face with Axel, looking smug as ever. To make matters worse, the horse is not empty-handed. He has the very same apron the seamstress had been working on in his mouth, and it has a bright Corona royal symbol on it that he had not noticed before. In that moment, it all makes sense. He remembered hearing something about Rapunzel’s apron being messed up. He remembered her saying something about needing it to get fixed but not having time to go into town.
He remembered how well-liked Axel was, and just how willing to help people and animals the seamstress was.
Axel had been doing Rapunzel a favor.
He had entered in the back way to the front to get the seamstress to fix her apron.
He had been doing a good thing for the princess.
There is a snicker in Axel, and Max glares at it with as much venom as he can as the horse trots away.
Sadly, he shakes off some of the oil and trails his path with thoughts of a long bath floating through his mind. He would have to figure out a way to get past the guards and Eugene to spare himself the annoying laughter and jeers, but that can be thought of later when he is closer to the castle. Now, he has better, more soothing things to think of to cheer himself up and get his mind off of Axel.
Things like how happy he is he will never have to wear a dress like this again.
