Chapter 1: The Escape

(Z: I apologize for the the few images in this post. Hard to take pictures in a neighborhood that doesn't actually exist in S3. Consider this...backstory.)

It had been a long year for Altin Snickerson. He thought the Celestial Pink Diamond job had gone smoothly, but the police had been on him almost as soon as he had stowed the rock in the spot his contract had told him it would be picked up.

He was saved by a matter of seconds. If they had arrived a minute earlier...he didn't like to think about it. They would have caught him with the evidence in his hands, and he would have been lucky to see the light of day again before he was an Elder. Veronaville took its theft of magical artifacts very seriously. As it was, they had enough on him anyway to send him away for an intimidatingly long time, and after a depressingly speedy and efficient trial, Altin started his years of confinement at Verona County Prison. 

He had no intention of finishing them, though. You see, Altin had a plan. His cell faced the prison's neighbor, a small, privately owned zoo. Specifically, the zebra pen. They only had one, a massive mare that would do her best to take off the hand of anyone who came near her. Altin had named her Spot; it was a personal little joke with himself that kept up his spirits when he spent his nights dreaming about breaking Spot out and making their mad dash to freedom together.

And then one day it happened, almost exactly twelve months after his sentence had begun. Altin had always been luckier than the average sim, and one day a fight broke out in the hallway while he was on the way to lunch. Guards ran in from outside to break it up, and during the commotion he put his sneaking skills to the ultimate test and slipped out the door, expecting a tackle from behind at any second. After that was a blur of adrenaline, but the next thing he knew he was cutting the fence of the zebra enclosure, swinging up on Spot's back, and clinging on for dear life as she bolted for the hills.

He hoped the next town over was enough distance to save them, because that's as far as they got before she threw him off just before sunrise. He had a contact in Appaloosa Plains, the same one that had let him know about the Diamond job. Maybe he could get his cash for the job and lay low for a while. They had wound up near an old warehouse that looked abandoned. That would be good enough for shelter for now. And this being Appaloosa Plains, it came already outfitted with horsefeed and a water tank. Because that's just how they do it in Appaloosa.

Yes, this would do nicely. It was on the outskirts of town, far enough away to avoid suspicion when he started up his...alternative career choice again and had to bring home all sorts of odd goods at odd hours. And Spot seemed content to linger around. Altin thought maybe she was starting to like him a bit...

...maybe not. He'd deal with that later. But first, he had work to do.

(Z: Woohoo. Let's see, I've got a vague outline of Altin's story already, so updates should come fairly regularly. Also, Spot is a slightly edited version of Blaggiii's "Little Stripe," available here on MTS.)