Nine to Five

Chapter 1

Prostitution is a calling with many hazards, sadness and tragedy, but it accepts Equine nature. It knows what some ponies need, and perhaps that is why every society has found a way to accommodate it.

-Floor Stomper, Cinematograph Critic (56 Years Post-NR)

Silky Smooth eyed the new machine warily.

It was one of those new automatic sewing machines, needing only to be wound once in the morning before it would run the entire work-day. It was imported from Saddle Arabia, probably at the request of Mr. Needlepoint himself, and it was not alone. All around this level of the Textile Mill, various work-stations had been replaced with these machines, and that was what was most disturbing about this one’s presence:

It was next to her own station, where Cheesecloth had been sitting just the day before.

On the other side of her station, Creased Seam had already clocked in, and was hard at work turning a bolt of purple cotton into bathroom towels. Silky’s own station already had a pile of scraps sitting atop it, waiting to be turned into ties. She’d clocked in on her way up, and spun up her own manual sewing machine, dropping her saddle-bags by her desk.She began working, and when everypony’s else’s eyes had turned back to their work a moment later, she leaned over to Creased Seam.

“Psst. Crease. What happened? Where’s Cheesecloth?” She already knew the answer, but she had to make sure.

“Shh!” The middle-aged mare hissed at her. “Mr. Needlepoint fired her after her shift yesterday. He said she wasn’t being productive enough, so for sun’s sake, keep working!”

Silky shrunk back, letting her hooves settle into the rhythm of sewing the scraps together into ‘patterned’ ties as she mulled it over. Cheesecloth hadn’t been much more than a coworker, but they had been friendly, at least. Somewhere between the older mare sitting next to Silky, and Silky’s own mousey appearance, Cheesecloth at least had her looks and experience on a dairy farm to help her find some other work. But this meant, as well, that Mr. Needlepoint made no exceptions for beauty in his textile workers.

She shook her head. Nothing to be done for it but to work, as always. Adjusting her sage green mane one last time to keep it and the morning sun playing through the window out of her eyes, Silky focused fully on the machine, and the time began to pass like the cloth under her magenta hooves.

The needle stabbed in, slid out. Stabbed in, slid out. Stabbed in, slid out. Grab another scrap to attach to it. Rinse and repeat. Ties were finished, more scraps took their place, and a few hours later of mind-numbing work, the box of scraps had been exhausted.

Silky stood, stretching, and picked up the wooden bin of completed ties, starting towards the stairs at the back of the building leading up to the folding-floor. She paused at the foot of the stairs, pushing her wide-rimmed glasses up her muzzle as far as she could.

She hated stairs. Hated them with a passion, especially when she was carrying other things she had to watch. With her astigmatism, she had next to no peripheral vision outside the rim of the spectacles, and this meant she was constantly looking down, watching where she put her hooves to make sure she didn’t trip. The problem was only magnified (ha ha) when she needed to traverse stairs.

Thankfully, she didn’t trip on the way up. Instead, she ran into another problem.

The name of the problem was Mr. Needlepoint.

Her box jerked in her grip as she heard a yelp from in front of her, and it suddenly bounced back, smacking into her muzzle and knocking her glasses off. The world became a blur as she tilted, off-balance, and flopped down the stairs with a scream of her own, showered with ties that had escaped their wooden prison. Whether by some miracle, or just sheer luck, the worst injury she got from the fall was a cricked neck, and a few bruises as she smacked back onto the sewing-floor, dazed.

Her eyes spun in her head, and she watched the colours of the other workers spin lazily in her vision, their blurs all she could see without her glasses. Until a bone-white hoof stepped so close to her face that even she could see it clearly.

“Ms. Smooth, is it? You have no idea how close you just came to legal action. Count yourself lucky I was not more injured. Get up, and get back to work.”

Silky struggled to her hooves, her vision focusing on Mr. Needlepoint. In happier times, before the machines had begun coming in and replacing seam-ponies, they had often joked about their boss. A popular one had been about how, if his hooves were any thinner, he could have easily used them as sewing needles by themselves. He was borderline anemic, barely much more than bones, fur, and spite. Glaring at her from underneath his ratty stovepipe hat, his lip curled. “Well? Clean this mess up, Ms. Smooth.”

Jumping, Silky started trying to grab at the scattered ties with her magic, but all she could see was scattered splashes of colour, and her magic grabbed at them as if greased. “My- My glasses, I need my glasses-”

Mr. Needlepoint didn’t even bother to help her look, instead opting simply to scowl at her. “If they are so vital, why are they not strapped securely around your head? Better yet, why haven’t you had your eyes corrected entirely?”

Crawling along the carpet, Silky whimpered, “I can’t afford it… And my Grandmother thinks I look cute…”

“Is looking ‘cute’ worth your job, Ms. Smooth?” He barked.

“No!” She yelped, frantically searching as fast as she could for that brief gleam of glass, where was it, where was it… “Please, I can find them!”

“See that you do, Ms. Smooth. Time is money, and I gain little from you scrabbling across the floor like a rat.” He turned, making his way back to his office on the sewing-floor, but his first step was interrupted by a crack underneath his hoof.

All noise on the sewing-floor stopped. The seam-ponies paused, and with them, their machines. Even the automatic ones seemed to have been silenced.

Slowly, Mr. Needlepoint lifted his hoof, and a sadistic grin spread split his muzzle as his horn lit, holding the only thing in the world that could have made that noise. He held them up to his own muzzle to examine them. “Perhaps we should not leave such valuable things on the floor, Ms. Smooth.” He tossed them at her, so casually she nearly missed them, but she managed to form a magical bowl to catch her glasses.

Her cracked glasses.

With shaky magic, she held them up to her eyes, inspecting them herself. She’d had these wide-rimmed spectacles since she was fifteen, after outgrowing her last pair. Her grandmother had put them on Silky herself, and she’d only taken them off to sleep or clean them ever since.

The left lense had cracked into three parts, but stayed in the metal frame. Putting them back on, the images in that eye were just slightly off-centre from each other, splitting Mr. Needlepoint’s smirk into three images. His visage only got blurrier as she started to cry, just a little bit.

“I trust this won’t be a problem, Ms. Smooth?” Buck him! He was fishing for excuses, any sorry justification to fire her, replace her with one of those damn machines! He probably already had one set up, and was waiting to tell her to leave so he could sell her station, and put the machine there.

She wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction. Choking back the tears, she managed, “No, Sir. It won’t be a pr-problem.”

His eyes narrowed, and his grin fell, mirrored by his ears. “See that it isn’t.” He turned back around, resuming his trip to his office, and only paused to look over the rest of the floor, and all of the seam-ponies watching them both. “What are you all staring at? Get back to work!”

Sound returned as they looked back down as one, and the machines spun back to life. Silky wiped her eyes, still sniffling, and began to pick up the ties in earnest. Once they had been returned to the bin, she trotted upstairs—nopony bumped into her this time, thankfully—and made her way to Gift Wrap.

“Hey… Hey, Gift.”

The glossy red-and-green stallion looked up, and his face immediately became one of concern. “Woah, Silky? Are you alright? What happen- Oh, hang on, were you the one Mr. Needlepoint was shouting at?”

Silky nodded, and dropped the bin next to Gift. “He… Stepped on my glasses…” She whispered, looking at the dull carpet between her hooves.

“Oh, you poor dear… Come here. Hug." She eagerly accepted the gesture, and her vision disappeared into his green shoulder. Gift Wrap was a very good friend. If he hadn't been gay, they very definitely would have been more than that.

"I just... I don't know if I can keep this up... We're working so hard for a pony with a hair trigger..."

"I know, Silky. I know. We've seen it up here too." He rubbed her head, and pointed across the room. Following his hoof, Silky saw a black-furred mare sobbing quietly at her station. "He just fired her 'cause she mixed up her bins."

With another sob, Silky reburied her head in Gift's shoulder, and he patted her head again. "Shh. Look, it's Friday. We're almost done for the week. You know what you should do, to relax a little? You should visit the Golden Cat."

Silky pulled her head back, caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "The Golden- Gift, I don't wanna just rent a stud! If I'm going to be by a stallion I trust, a stallion I love!"

"And you," he replied, booping her nose with a hoof, "are one of the most high-strung mares I know. It'll be good for you, trust me. Should blow off some steam."

He reached down, pulling his own bit-pouch from a satchel by his station. "Look, I've got some bits saved up here, I'll pay for you. Two hundred bits in here, that's enough for the new Changeling they hired. She—or he, dunno which—can be anypony you like, even the Princess herself."

"Gift Wrap, I'm telling you-" Heavy hoofsteps on the stairs behind her silenced Silky, and Gift Wrap hissed at her, "That's Brick Wall! Look busy, Boss-pony's right behind him!"

Where Mr. Needlepoint had the stature of a stick insect, Brick Wall was the complete opposite. An Earth Pony with muscles atop muscles, rumours abounded that he had Minotaur blood—not because he'd one in his family, but because he had eaten one and taken his strength. His dusty, clay grey fur gave him his name, while his mane had been neatly shaved off. Nopony knew why he worked for Mr. Needlepoint, but everypony knew who he was: Mr. Needlepoint's security.

The goliath of a stallion rumbled right past Silky and Gift, who both looked as busy as they could, avoiding eye contact. Behind him, Mr. Needlepoint trailed in his wake, like a leaf being sucked along by a train. He saw Silky as he passed, glaring at her as she spontaneously found something utterly fascinating at the bottom of the bin of ties.

As the mountain of stallion rumbled to a stop at the other side of the room, Silky could've sworn she felt the floor shake. "Mizzus Weave," he said, with a voice like rolling thunder. "Boss tells me ya need some... Incentivizin', ta leave."

The eponymous Mrs. Weave jumped, babbling in fear, "No, no, please, I was just on my way out, I swear!"

That smug snake, Mr. Needlepoint, grinned at her. "Then it would be Mr. Wall's greatest pleasure to help you find your way to the door." He turned and left as Brick hauled her onto his back, shrieking and caterwauling. As they both passed by Silky and Gift again, he paused. "Are you two... Socialising, on company time?"

They shook their heads vigorously.

"Good. Ms. Smooth, there is a bolt of cloth in the storeroom, very nearly the same colour as your cutie mark. I expect it to be curtains or scrap by the end of the workday."

Silky nodded. "Yes, sir." She ducked downstairs before he could say anything else, skittering into the relative safety of the dark basement.

She found the cloth quickly enough, but decided to wait, and allow that horrid pony to return to his office so she hopefully wouldn't encounter him again. She realized, finding it still on her person, that she had never returned Gift's bit-bag. She opened it up, and began counting the coin inside.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ten, eleven..."

It took a few minutes, but Gift was right; he'd given her two hundred coin just to hire a stud. For the first time, Silky found herself actually contemplating the idea. Would she want to? Was she that desperate?

With a sigh, she swept the bits back into the bag. No. No, she wasn't, and she'd promised her Grandmother. She'd just have to give the bag back when she passed the new load of curtains to Gift. She picked up the blue bolt of cloth, and began lugging it upstairs, with some difficulty.

She set up the cloth in her machine, and began cutting it to size, but found herself spacing out, looking out the window at the Golden Cat, across the street.

The building had always struck her as strange. Why would Somepony build a brothel on one of Canterlot's industrial platforms? And yet, they had been doing something right; it had been here Silky's entire life, even before her Grandmother had moved to Canterlot. It had been changing hooves the whole time, from noble to noble, always some new madam running the place, until she'd heard a few years ago that a Gryphon had moved in and taken over, after a raid from the royal guards had taken it from the previous madam.

She'd heard even more rumours since. A Minotaur, a Seapony, the Gryphon herself, now a Changeling... Even a Zebra! She’d heard they only spoke in rhyme… She'd never even seen a Zebra before. Well, she'd never seen any of those before, but...

She shook her head, pulling her gaze away from the window. Damn Gift Wrap for making her so focused on that place! She tried to focus on the cloth, which had all been cut to size, and now needed to be rounded out.

And yet her gaze shifted back outside. A neon-yellow stallion hung, upside-down, from a harness suspended from the Golden Cat's roof. He was utterly engrossed with wiping all of the windows down, and Silky found herself wondering if he was a stud there as well as the janitor. She couldn't quite make out the size of his sheathe from here...

Silky yelped as she lost track of the sewing machine, the needle coming down on the side of her hoof and taking a tiny bite from the wall. With a ping, the needle snapped off, bouncing across the floor away from her station. Silky clutched her hoof to her breast, cursing under her breath as Crease looked at her with concern in her eyes.

"Silky? Dear? Are you alright?"

The mousey mare looked at her hoof. It stung, and there was a nick in it, but that was the worst of the damage. She nodded. "I'm... I'm alright."

Crease glanced behind them, at Mr. Needlepoint's office in the back of the room, where the closed shutters had not been disturbed. "I don't think the old bastard noticed. Are you finished with your load?"

Silky flipped through the rest of the cloth. "Not yet. Six more, then I'll take 'em up to Gift Wrap."

"All right, then I'll take my load up myself. Be right back." Crease hauled her bin onto her back, and trotted upstairs. Silky turned back around, looking over the rest, and sighed. A quick search of the carpet, now that she had her glasses, turned up the broken needle, and she simply began using her magic to sew manually as Celestia's sunlight turned red at sunset outside.

This job was soul-sucking. She was a natural-born seampony, but assembly-line work felt like it was boring her to death. Outside, the sun was playing through the branches of the Cherry Blossoms in the front yard of the Golden Cat. They were in bloom, and Silky loved when they were. They looked so pretty, scattering their petals across the industrial platform, sending splashes of colour down the street all the way to the canal...

"Something interesting outside, Ms. Smooth?"

"Gah!" Silky yelped as she spun around—he'd been right behind her! For how long? Had he seen-

She tried to hide the broken needle under a fold in the cloth she was sewing, but it didn't fool Mr. Needlepoint for a second. He simply pulled it back out, holding it close for inspection. "Hm. How did this happen, Ms. Smooth?"

"I- my hoof slipped under the machine, it was an accident-"

"Was it, now? I see. Why don't you come with me, into my office."

Silky's blood ran cold. This was it: she was going to be fired. At least it was the end of the workday, so she'd get this week's pay. She stood up, following her boss (or what was likely going to be ex-boss) into his office, where he shut the door behind her with a slam.

Mr. Needlepoint's office was perpetually dark. He invariably kept his shutters closed tight, his door locked out of paranoia, which never let in any natural light. He was too cheap to pay the electricity for the lights anywhere in the building, including this room, and the only source of light was a candle sitting on his desk, atop an old wooden box marked with the insignia of the Equestrian Aerial Navy.

Silky suddenly felt immensely claustrophobic.

"Sit." Commanded the reprehensible stallion, and she followed his order, sitting in an uncomfortable metal folding chair, while he sat in his own well-worn metal bucket chair, which seemed salvaged from a scrapyard. "Remind me, Silky Smooth, what your day has been like. In exquisite detail."

"I..." She gulped. Her throat was dry, but she knew she wouldn't get a drop to drink. “I, er, had an accident while going upstairs-”

“‘You very much did. Continue.”

“-to drop off my load of ties, and then you told me to turn a bolt of cloth into curtains, and I did-”

“And?”

“...And had another accident, sir.”

“Mm-hm.” He was still holding the sewing needle, and it floated lazily across his desk, like an airship crossing a mountain range. “It seems to me that you have quite a lot of accidents, Ms. Smooth.”

Silky cringed, shutting her eyes. “I’m… I’m sorry, sir, I just… It hasn’t been a good day for me, I promise it won’t be a problem next week-”

“Oh, I can assure you of that. I assume you’ve seen the new machines out on the sewing floor?”

Silky gulped, her eyes still closed. “I… I did, yes.”

“Would you like to know something fantastic about machines, Ms. Smooth?” She opened her eyes to find the broken needle drifting lazily across the top of her muzzle, dangerously close to them. “Machines don’t have ‘bad days’. At their worst, machines break…”

The needle suddenly took a sharp dive downward, into a pile of papers on his desk with a whispery thup noise. “...And they are replaced.”

Silky’s eyes were locked on that needle, watching as it was slowly drawn back out of the papers. “I’m being fired, aren’t I?”

“You tell me, Ms. Smooth. If you were in my position, what would you do?”

It was almost like she couldn’t control her own tongue. “I’m not in your position, sir. I’m not sure I ever want to be in your position. I just want to know whether I’m fired or not.”

The needle twitched in midair as Mr. Needlepoint tilted his head at her. If one looked at it closely, they could see two auras of the same colour bending the ends of the needle. “You are.”

“Can I at least get my pay for this week, before I go?”

The needle snapped. One end pinged off the desk; the other off the wall.

“No.”

Silky’s gut twisted. “But-”

“I will not pay for a full week’s work, Ms. Smooth, when you are several minutes short.”

“You- You called me in here!” Silky sat up, leaning towards the contemptible stallion, only to have him slam his own hoof down on the desk before him.

"I have already signed the appropriate papers, Ms. Smooth! You are fired! Now, you have two minutes to collect your belongings, or I shall fetch Mr. Wall once more today. Is that understood?”

“I… I…” Silky’s vision started to blur, as tears dripped onto her spectacles, traced the cracks in the left lense, and moved down her muzzle. “Y-yes…”

“Excellent.” He checked a pocket-watch sitting on his desk. “Two minutes, Ms. Smooth. And starting thirty seconds ago.”

The next minute-thirty was a blur for Silky. Events happened in front of her she just didn’t remember, all through a blurry filter. She could vaguely recall the sewing-room, her purse, a brief flash of Crease’s concerned face, and stairs. So many damned stairs. Then only the loading-dock, and she was sitting outside on the street, crying into her forehooves.

She couldn’t even get this week’s pay, this week’s rent, this week’s food. She still had so many bills to pay, so many of her old father’s gambling debts to finish paying off… She’d never be able to find a job that paid well enough in a short enough time.

What would her Grandmother think?

And then Gift Wrap was there, hugging her on the street. “Silky! Celestia’s Sun, I didn’t realize… Are you alright? He didn’t touch you, did he? He didn’t get Brick Wall to haul you out, right?”

“F-fired…” Silky sobbed, and she didn’t really need to say anything else. Gift Wrap nodded. “I know. I wish I could do something about it… Hang on, you’ve still got my bit-bag, haven’t you?”

With shaky hooves, Silky reached into her purse, pulling out the bag. When had she put that in there?

“Well… Keep it. I was just gonna use it myself, anyway, and I can go a week. You probably need it more than I do.” Silky nodded, still holding the bag in her hooves, and Gift patted her on the shoulder. “Look, everything’ll be alright. You and me, we’ll figure out something this weekend. Don’t do anything drastic until then, alright?”

Silky nodded again, and Gift Wrap gently pulled away. “You take as long as you need. I’ve gotta pick up my little brother from primary, but I promise, first thing tomorrow, I’ll meet you at your apartment. We’ll figure something out, I promise.”

And then he was gone.

Silky didn’t even see him leave. She wasn’t entirely sure how long she was left sitting there, holding the bit-bag between her hooves, and her own tears soaking her fur. Celestia’s sun didn’t move too much in the interim, but all of the other employees, even the monstrous Brick Wall, had walked past her a while ago.

A pink blossom fluttered into her vision, and Silky focused on it. It was such a beautiful thing, so delicate, yet discarded. Just like her. She watched it flutter away again, down the street, and felt her gaze drawn to the building across the street once more. She focused on the Golden Cat.

A moment later, she looked back down at the bit-bag in her hooves, and she contemplated her decision. Two hundred bits… That was actually a little more than what Mr…. That old bastard, had been paying her. She could live long enough to find another job with this much. It wouldn’t pay off any of those debts, but it would satisfy the collectors for another week.

Or…

Or she could do it.

The Golden Cat looked very pretty, with the light from Celestia’s setting sun playing across the marble masonry of the front. The verdigris on the metal furnishings only added to it’s appearance, and the wood of the Gazebo in the front yard, under the floating storm of pink petals, seemed to glow a comforting dark… woody, brown.

She wouldn’t have any money left, if she did do it. Probably even if she got the cheapest stud in there. Prostitutes were expensive, no matter how she thought about it.

But… Gift Wrap had said she needed it.

Gift Wrap wasn’t usually wrong.

The bag dropped back into her purse, and Silky struggled to her hooves, trotting drunkenly to the short stairway leading up into the yard, feeling tiny petals crush under her hooves, staggering to the front door. The double-doors were solid oak, with hearts carved in them. Pink paint had once outlined them, but this had worn off a very long time ago.

She could still turn back. Nopony could ever know how close she came.

Or she could be happy.

Silky Smooth pushed the doors open with a creak, making her decision.

The inside, the front lobby, was closer to a lounge than anything. Couches lined several walls, and a table in the centre of the room held a plate with an apple, crackers, and several different types of slices of cheese on top of it. A gem next to the plate kept it fresh without drawing attention. In the back of the room, a large semi-circular desk sat in front of a massive spiral staircase, leading upwards to the rest of the brothel. At the desk sat that same neon-yellow Unicorn she’d seen earlier cleaning the windows, who straightened up as she entered.

“Oh! Customer! Hello, Customer! What’s your name, ‘cause I don’t wanna keep calling you that.”

Silky haltingly approached the desk, as nervous as a filly… Well, entering a brothel. “Sil...Silky…”

The neon-yellow Unicorn leaned over the desk towards her, and she leaned back in response. She took note of the stallion’s cutie mark: A mop, surrounded by stars. “Hello Silky, I’m Squeegee! Is this your first time here?”

Silky nodded, and the stallion grinned before ducking back behind the desk. “Well! Then I’d better get out the list, give me a second-”

“How much-” A lump caught in Silky’s throat, and she swallowed before continuing. “How much for a stud?”

Squeegee’s head poked back over the top of the desk, frowning. “We prefer ‘Companion’ or ‘Partner’, if you don’t mind. And we all have different amounts.”

That was one question answered, then. The other was meant to be when he dropped a large pleather-bound book onto the desk between them, flipping to the more recent pages. “Well, I’m one of the least expensive, actually. Just forty bits to rent my services for an hour, and-”

Silky interrupted him again as a daguerreotype caught her eye on the page opposite, and she slapped her hoof down on the page. “How much for the Zebra?”

“Amani? Two hundred forty an hour, but he might be asleep. I’ll check.” He turned to a series of pigeon-holes under the stairs, and scribbled something on a nearby sheet of paper before sliding it into one of them, which then erupted into a gout of green flame, which disappeared upstairs. He turned back around to find Silky had placed Gift’s bit-bag on the desk, supplemented by forty bits from her own. He was mid-way through counting it all out when a response returned, forming into the same note he’d written.

Reading the back, he nodded. “Well, woke him up, but he doesn’t mind. He’s getting set up now.” With a smile, he pointed upstairs. “Just up there, follow the signs to the smoking room. If you get lost, try to find one of us; I think Snowy’s up there, reading.”

“Smoking room?”

“You’ll see why. Freaks Mamma out every once in a while, whenever she forgets.”

Silky nodded, and started up the stairs. As she ascended, she looked at the wall on her left, which was covered in what must have been hundreds of daguerreotypes, etchings, and small portraits of all of the Golden Cat’s previous Madams and… Companions, she mentally amended. There were quite a lot of them. All of them had notes beside them labeling who was in them, and from when to when they worked there, in roughly chronological order.

It was probably to be expected that quite a few gaps were present in the timeline.

She reached the top, finding herself in another lounge, and continued to follow the signs. It was a good thing she did: the place was practically a maze, and it was only through them that she passed through several other large lounges, up another flight of stairs, and to a door labeled, “The Smoking Room.” The lanterns on the sides of the double doors were lit, so Silky gently rapped on the door three times with her hoof.

A moment later, the door creaked open, and a cloud of pale smoke washed outward. A Zebra was framed in the doorway by the slowly-dispersing cloud that had filled the room behind him, and the light of the sunset dancing through it. The smell hit her next, somewhere between the heady odor of opium and burning grass, and all of it made her head spin, and numbing her mind slightly.

The Zebra dipped his head to eye level with her. “You are my client, miss? It is rare I have one so beautiful.” He was well-built, but it was more sinew than sheer muscle, more athletic than anything else. He wasn’t particularly tall, compared to a normal pony, but that was still taller than her by a head. His mane stood up in a horizontally-striped mohawk, perfectly flush with his silky fur, only patted down on the right side of his muzzle, which he had presumably been lying on. His cutie mark blended with his stripes, warping into the image of a flowing river, or perhaps a smoke trail, before swirling back into the pattern.

Silky blushed. “Thank you… And yes. I’m Silky Smooth.”

“And I Amani. Please, step inside: The vapours are escaping.”

She nodded as he stepped back, and she followed him inside, looking around the room as the smoke faded. The circular apartment was dominated by a round bed in the centre, with satin sheets coloured a royal green. More sheets, seemingly extraneous, had been pinned up against the windows as makeshift curtains, preventing light from entering anywhere but at the very top, where some of the smoke was allowed to escape. This allowed the room to be lit as Amani pleased by candles and incense scattered across the room, atop tables, dressers, a couple of chairs, and some shelving. The ceiling was domed, and a large cloud of smoke still hung above, fueled by the smoke of the incense. On the side of the bed opposite the entry-way, a closed glass door led out to a balcony, built of built of marble, shining in the sunset. Another table sat there, with a Neighponese tea set sat, unused for the moment.

Amani had retreated to the bed, having pulled a large, ornate hookah pipe up alongside him, carefully checking something inside and relighting a gas burner on top. Clicking a lid on top of the pipe shut, he puffed into the hose, and thin wisps of smoke trailed out of a release valve on the side. Apparently satisfied, he set the hookah down onto the floor beside the bed, which he patted with his other hoof. “The shisha shall need a moment or two before it is ready. My friend has yet to counteract the soporific effects of the Opium in the mix, and I tend to drift off without extinguishing it.”

Silky nodded, though the explanation went right over her head. Rubbing her right foreleg with her left, she awkwardly asked, "So... Um... How are we going to....?"

"That is entirely up to you, Silky. Would you simply prefer to talk, we can do that. I have been told I am an excellent cuddler." He smirked at her. "Or, we could make love. It is your preference, as the hour is yours."

Silky blinked. "I don't... It's not just... You know, the last one?" She looked at the carpet between her hooves. She didn't have to go all the way?

Of course, she had already paid Squeegee. And the price would be the same either way. So... Shouldn't she at least get her full moneys' worth out of the hour? Silky looked back up to see Amani puff into the Hookah again, and more smoke than before exit the valve. "Yes. I'm... I'm sure. I'd like to... Er..."

"Make love?" Amani finished for her, smiling.

"...Yes." She paused, before hastily adding: "But this is my first time, so... Please be gentle."

Amani passed the stem of the hookah to her. "Here, then. The shisha is mixed with opium and moonflower, to dull pain and as an aphrodisiac. It will do you well, today."

She took it in her magic, and moved it to her mouth, wrapping her lips around the tip. She gave it an experimental suck, and suddenly her lungs were flooded with smoke, sending her into a coughing fit. "Careful," said Amani, clapping a hoof on her back. "It's alright. Try again, slowly. As if you were sipping water from a straw."

Amani took a draw from it himself, as an example. Following his lead, Silky replaced the tip between her lips, and drew in the smoke slowly. It flowed over her tongue, tasting faintly of strawberries, and she drew it into her lungs more carefully.

The effects were immediate, perhaps because she had been in a room filled with with the same smoke for a few minutes now. A calm serenity washed over her, not unlike the laudanum she'd been given a while back for a sprained ankle. Around her, all the lights from the candles seemed to flare a little brighter, and the pipe slid out of her mouth with a languid ‘pop’.

Amani chuckled. “My friend is very good at her craft, no?” He patted her back, motioning to the bed. “Please, allow me to get you… Warmed up, as it were.”

She nodded, and hopped onto the edge, only to land off-balance. “Woah!” Amani caught her in an instant, helping her safely atop as she giggled a little. “Heh, sorry… Your bed is really, really soft…”

“A cloud-bed,” he returned. “With the aide of Snow Bank. You like?”

She nodded as Amani joined her atop the sheets, and sat in front of her.

“Good. If you could lay back?” He gently reached around her, and ended up between Silky’s legs as he helped her slowly lie down. Lethargically, Silky lifted her head back up, and Amani moved a pillow underneath it so she could look down her body at what he was doing.

He started slowly, simply massaging both her flanks with his hooves. Even just this little contact helped her relax immensely, and made her cutie marks tingle. A moment later, he moved up to her sides, tracing the shape of her body to her barrel. She jumped a little as he gently ran his hooves over her teats, shivering as he gave them a lick, then an experimental suck.

“Ah!” Amani’s eyes flicked upward as his lips popped off the teat.

“Like that?”

Silky tried to rub her hinds together as her… her place started feeling warm, and tingly, but Amani was in the way. “Yes… That felt really nice…”

He smiled. “Good. Ready?”

“Ready? For wha- Ah!” Amani’s tongue had just touched her for a moment there, but it felt as if it had lit on fire for a single, glorious second. He’d licked her… her… crotch, and it felt absolutely wonderful, and-

And then he did it again.

Silky bit her lip as she tensed up again. “M- more…”

He started licking in rhythm now, slowly starting to go faster and faster, until he was just swirling his tongue up and down her slit. She felt herself wink, and Amani practically leapt on it, suckling on her clit. With a squeak, she clenched her legs together anyway around his head, holding him against herself as his tongue starting pushing inside. She started leaking juices down the inside of her flanks and onto the sheets, and Amani began licking those up as well, as if he were addicted to the stuff.

Inside of five minutes since she’d laid down on the bed, Silky felt the heat between her legs getting warmer and warmer, building up to something… And with an ascending series of squeaks, it released. Her legs fully clamped around Amani’s muzzle as she started outright squirting against it, and he kept licking the whole time as fire flew through her-

And then it was gone, and Silky was panting. She suddenly felt very tired, and her legs slumped, landing gently onto Amani’s shoulders as her head fell back onto the pillow. Her crotch was still tingling, almost over-sensitive, and she yelped when Amani gave it an experimental lick. “Eep! Ah, one… one second…”

Amani nodded, gingerly sliding her legs off him and sliding up the bed beside her. “I understand. How was it?”

Silky gulped, and tilted her head towards him with a smile. “That… That was good. Better than good… That was the best thing I’ve felt… ever, I think.”

“The first is always the best, until one feels the rest.” Silky nodded, still shaky. A moment later, a question formed itself through the haze her mind was in.

“Why… Why don’t you rhyme?”

If anything, the question seemed to catch Amani off-guard. “Pardon?”

Silky gulped again. “I… I always heard Zebras rhymed all the time, but that’s the first time you’ve done so…”

“Ah, I see.” Amani motioned slightly with his hoof as he explained. “It’s a trick the Equestrian Embassy in Zebrica teaches immigrants when learning your language. When we are so comfortable speaking it that we can freely do so in rhyme, we are linguistically prepared.” He chuckled. “I never became very good at it, but well enough to emigrate from home.”

Silky nodded, snuggling closer to Amani. “What does Zebrican sound like? Can you say something?”

Amani smiled. “Chochote kwa ajili ya mwanamke nzuri.” His equestrian before hadn’t been as fast as hers, as if he had been considering every word, but in his native tongue, the words flowed like milk, smooth and unblemished, quick with confidence. To her ears, it was like beautiful, exotic music.

“Wow…” Silky smiled at him. “That was… wow…”

“Would you like to know your name in Zebrican, Silky?”

Silky’s eyes widened. “Yes, please.”

“Laini.” It was a simple pair of syllables, but Silky tried it herself, repeating the name.

Amani rubbed her head, and ran a hoof through her mane. “My own translates to Equestrian as ‘Peace’. Beautiful in both languages, are our names not?”

She nodded, reaching out a hoof to him, before pausing. “Do you… Do you mind if we.. cuddle?”

With a chuckle, he answered, “I enjoy cuddling. You never again need to ask, Silky.” He wrapped a hoof around her, pulling her in close, and she snuggled into him. He was larger than her, but so soft, like a giant stuffed animal… Save something poking against her leg.

She was only confused for a moment, before she glanced between them and blushed. “Uh… Wow.”

Amani tilted his head.

Silky looked back at him, eyes wide. “I’ve never seen… Is it really that big? Are they all?”

Confusion blinked across his face, before he chuckled again. He chuckled a lot. She liked that. “Perhaps. I care not to compare against others, particularly when they are clients, unless they ask me to.”

Silky looked at it again. It was a dark grey, splotched with lighter grey, like a pinto. For some reason, she expected it to be striped as well. And it looked hard as stone. “Can we… you know?”

“You are ready?” Asked Amani. Silky nodded, and he pulled away, retrieving the Hookah from the floor. “Best to take another draw of the Shisha then, in case.”

Silky took the pipe, sucking at the end like before, hiccupping a small cloud of smoke as she finished. Amani returned it to the floor, and asked, “Do you have any position you would prefer?”

“P...Position?” Amani looked a little hazy. “I don’t… I’m not sure…”

“In that case, stay as you are; You are beautiful, and we should look at each other we we make love.” He moved back to where he had been before, between her legs, but this time he lifted them up, and slid into his own position. From there, his shaft was on full display, towering above her. From here, it looked as thick as her foreleg, even though she knew that was impossible. And she knew, in an instant, she wanted it anyway. “Ready?” he asked, one final time.

She nodded, and grit her teeth as he pulled back, pressing the flat tip into her still-sticky slit. It felt almost too large… Almost. With a nearly-inaudible squish, it slid in, and was accompanied by another squeak from Silky. Amani pushed in no further, letting her get used to it, and listening to her squeak and pant. Instead, he leaned forward, and kissed her, allowing her to wrap her forehooves around him, holding him close.

He moved his muzzle to her ear, and whispered, “I will not move forward unless you’re ready… But I could easily stay right here for the rest of the hour. This is my favorite part.”

Silky panted, her hinds twitching again. The feeling of his shaft inside her… It filled her so utterly, she boggled at how she could have ever wanted to wait for this. It was warm and solid, and she could feel herself winking and clenching around it, leaking into a puddle slowly but steadily growing underneath her flanks. “Ah… Okay… You can.... Please, deeper…”

He pushed forward, slowly and gradually, sliding deeper and absolutely blowing Silky’s mind with pleasure. When he had pushed about half his length inside, he paused. “I fear going any further, or else it will injure you.”

Silky looked between them, at their barrels only centimetres away from each other, and nodded. “Okay, that’s… That’s okay.” She squeaked again as Amani slid himself almost all the way out, and back in, setting the pace like before. Each time he slid in to the limit he’d set, more of her juices, both the new and what she’d squirted before, sprayed out onto his sheets, leaking down her flanks.

His voice filtered through the haze that had begun to creep over her, whispering into her ears again: “Silky? Are you in heat?”

She shook her head, looking into his eyes. “Last cycle… was a couple… months ago, I- mmm… I think…”

He smiled. His voice was still steady and bassy and perfect, even as he fucked her, saying, “Good. Then Silky, would you like me to finish inside?”

Silky was bright red under her fur now, blushing harder than she ever had in her life, as she was getting close just from the thought. “Y- yes! Please! Do it in me!”

Amani started speeding up, thrusting inside, faster and faster, and in a single second, it felt like he was filling her with lava, all the way to the brim. Silky came only a second later, squealing and squeaking as she was filled with his warm cum. which leaked out with her own juices as well, as she pulled their muzzles together, kissing as they both were engulfed by the bliss, and stayed like that as it started falling away. Visibly exhausted, Amani slumped, and used a hoof around her back to turn her so he could lie beside her without pulling out.

Silky just laid there, happy as she looked at him, hugging him close. Amani kept his hoof around her, doing the same, and they laid there in the cloud-bed, savouring the afterglow, and feeling his cum dripping off her flanks. Shaky again, Silky felt her eyes growing heavy. “Ah- Amani… I’m tired… Gonna… hah… Gonna sleep now, alright? Just… Just wake me up, when… when…”

He smiled, and let her snuggle against his barrel. “I will. Sleep, Silky. You will have made good use of the hour.” Silky nodded, her eyes already closed, and the world faded from around her.

24/7

View Online

Chapter 2

“Until you understand your customers - deeply and genuinely - you cannot truly serve them.“

-Rasheed Ogunlaru, Motivational Speaker

Silky was dreaming about teddy bears. Giant teddy bears she could cuddle. She’d had a teddy bear a long time ago, but it had been lost at some point, left in a box when they moved to Platform five with her mother and grandmother. She kind of missed Bingo. Even though she had a giant Bingo now. Nice, warm, cuddly Bingo…

She didn’t ever recall Bingo moving, however. Or rubbing her head.

“Silky?”

“Mmmph…” She grunted, nuzzling into Bingo’s fur. She didn’t want to face the world. not yet.

“Silky, I am supposed to tell you when you’ve ten minutes left. If you really wish to spend it sleeping, that is your choice, but…” Bingo trailed off, in his wonderful Baritone rumble against her cheek. She didn’t remember him talking before either…

Consciousness gradually returned, and the day began flooding in, and memories presented themselves, despite her best efforts to ignore them. Gift Wrap was going to be… well, disappointed, and so would her grandmother… and... and…

“Silky?” Bingo’s voice massaged her once more. “What-? Silky, are you crying? Are you okay?”

Except it wasn’t Bingo, was it? it was the stud she’d hired. To… to ru…

To rut her.

She sniffled again into Amani’s chest as he ran a hoof through her mane, and used the other to rub her back, still embracing her. In the bed they r-rutted in. That word kept going through her mind, but there wasn’t a whole lot else she wanted to think about. Everything else about her day sucked.

She’d started to get his fur wet, but if Amani cared, he never complained. “It is alright, Silky. Let it all out. In this room, you are safe, with a friend.”

“A friend I b-bought…”

Amani nodded. “That is true. But I always treat my clients well, and you are no exception.” His hoof lifted off her back, and came back with a pad of paper, as well as a quill. Scribbling a quick note on it, he shifted closer to the door, and a small mailbox next to it on the wall. A puff of wind carried the rolled-up note into the box, where it erupted into green flame.

Silky rubbed her eyes with a hoof as she watched this. “I just… I needed to be happy…”

Amani’s hoof rubbed her back again. “Are you happy here, Silky Smooth?”

“No…” She shook her head. ‘’Cause I still hafta go back out there…”

The response from the front desk came swiftly, materialising inside the box almost as if in a panic. Amani flatly ignored it, and focused solely on Silky. He’d noticed a chip in her hoof while she was sleeping, and her cracked glasses had been obvious from the moment he opened the door. But he didn’t know from whence they came, he didn’t know what the cause of these injuries had been. He’d never forgive himself if he let her go back home to a husband who’d do much worse.

Another note appeared in the box. It also went ignored.

Silky drew her legs up, curling against Amani as closely as possible. “What will I tell my Grandmother? What will I tell her when we haven’t got food, or running water? Or heat?”

Amani tried to look at her, but she was still snuggled into his fur. His eyes wandered to the box, where yet another letter had appeared. This one wasn’t even rolled up. “Would you like to talk about it, Silky? We have time.”

“Are- are you sure? You said I only had-”

Amani rubbed her head again, cutting her off. “If I could, I would devote every second of my life to my clients. I live for this, Silky, for making the the river flow smoothly, as my sister put it. I have all the time in the world for any client that needs it, though Squeegee may take issue with that.”

A lump was in Silky’s throat. Swallowing did nothing to remove it. “I lost my job…”

“A common issue, in this city. What for?”

Even when she was choked up, Silky could still muster hatred for the old bastard. “My boss… He… Have you ever heard of Needlepoint?”

“Runs the textiles mill across the street, I believe. I have never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I have heard much of him.” His gaze wandered to the window. He couldn’t see the building in question, and after a moment, was absolutely sure he did not want to.

“He f-fired me… Spiteful old rat-bastard… f-fired me, just so he could replace me with his damned Saddle Arabian machinery…”

“And you came straight to me? My services are not cheap, did you have some saved up?”

“No… My friend… He gave it to me so I could buy food…”

Amani glanced back down at her. “That… that was a silly idea, Silky.”

She finally pulled away from his chest, looking up at him with eyes red and puffy from tears. “I know! I know, dammit!” Her squeaky outburst took all of her energy out her in an instant, and she slumped back into his barrel, hiding again. “I just… I didn’t wanna waste away, like my mom…”

The rhythmic thumping of hoofsteps stopped outside the door, and was replaced in short order by a rapping on the door. With a sigh, Amani swept a hoof through the smoke in the air, and the door-handle clicked upward, opening the door. The neon-yellow head of Squeegee poked it’s way in, but whatever he was going to say died on his lips as he saw the mare sobbing into Amani’s barrel.

“Amani!” He hissed quietly. “You can’t do this! It’s Friday! Rush hour for us, you know that! I’ve already got one of your regulars in the lobby, and another pony was asking for you!”

“So get 291 on it! She’s good at that!” He hissed back.

“That’s not gonna fool your regular!”

Amani growled, like an annoyed tiger in the Cinematographs Silky had seen of Zebrica. Then he paused, and glanced back at her. She blinked, tears still crowding her eyes.

Amani rubbed the back of her neck along her her mane, and looked back at Squeegee. “Which regular?”

“Archduke Fancy Pants! We can’t keep him waiting, and what do you think he’ll do if we tell him you’re busy?”

“He will understand, chortle a bit, and be back in an hour. But that doesn’t matter. Send him up anyway, I have an idea.”

Squeegee glanced at Silky again. “...Can I hear the idea?”

“Squeegee…”

The stallion in the door sighed. “Fine, but remember, you’re explaining this to Momma.”

“I know. And can you bring me a bit-bag with my profits from yesterday?”

Squeegee squeezed his eyes shut. “Celestia’s suns, I hope the idea’s a good one…” he ducked back out, and the door shut behind him. As he did, Amani’s gaze turned back to Silky. Her eyes were still red from the tears, but the tears themselves had dried on her muzzle, and Amani’s barrel. “Amani? What’s going on?”

Amani nuzzled her forehead. “You are not in a hurry to go somewhere, I hope?”

“I… I guess not…”

“Good. Silky, what are you willing to do for bits?”

Silky blinked again, not quite hearing the question. Then it processed, and her ears flattened against her head as she pulled away from Amani. “You want me to… to become a st-”

“Companion, yes.” Amani held out a hoof as Silky found the edge of the bed, nearly falling off. “Silky…” Amani paused again, mulling it over in his head. “This… This job, it’s more like a way of life. I’ve done it ever since I found out my talent in Zebrica, and Momma paid for my emigration here. and the thing about this job?”

He smiled, and Silky remembered not less than an hour earlier, when he had told her that he could be as little as a listening ear, if need be. He continued, “The thing about the job this is, is that it is not a job that can be replaced. No machine can do this job, can live my life. I am not a machine to be replaced when I break; I am a pony, like any other, and my job is to make other ponies happy. I only have a price because Momma Gjinka insists.”

He held out his hoof again. “Try once, Silky. At least try once.”

She looked at his hoof tentatively. “I… I don’t know...”

“If it helps,” he added, “It’ll be with one of my best clients. Very open-minded. Probably won’t mind in the slightest.”

Silky’s mind reeled. Could she be… Should she turn this down? Could she turn this down? And it was just once, and she might never need to again… She sniffled again, and looked at her hoof. Shakily, she reached down to her slit, and rubbed along it’s length. The action made her nethers twitch a little, with a spark of unintended pleasure. The remnants of their earlier activities had mostly dried by now, leaving her hoof slightly greasy, with a faint off-white sheen on the wall.

With another sniffle, she wiped her hoof on the side of her barrel, mostly cleaning it before she took Amani’s hoof. “Just once. I think… I think I can only do this once.”

Amani smiled again, pulling her into another hug. “I understand. It is all I ask.”

As if on cue, there was another rapping at the door, this time slow and relaxed. Amani pulled away from Silky hesitantly, sliding off the bed and trotting to answer the knocking. opening it revealed a white-furred stallion, with a nautical blue mane and moustache. He was a full head taller than Amani, maybe just a little more, and wore a black dinner jacket, with a magenta bow tie. A chain led upwards to a monocle on his eye, which lit with an aura the same colour as his mane before dropping into an inner pocket of his dinner jacket.

The stallion raised an eyebrow as he saw Silky sitting on the bed, before smiling at Amani. “My goodness, who is this little surprise? Ah, and I was instructed to pass this to you, my good friend.” A full-looking bit-bag was passed to Amani, who placed it on a table nearby, before he indicated Silky with the same hoof.

“It is good to see you as well, my fancy friend. Before you is Silky, who is in a… unique situation. Would you mind if we tried something this time? Something new?”

“I don’t mind at all. With you, my hour is always well-spent.” Fancy trotted next to the bed, and held out a hoof to shake, which Silky tentatively did, trying not to muss his fetlocks. “Silky, is it? It’s a pleasure.”

She’d never met the Archduke of Canterlot before. She’d never even dreamed she’d be able to. His hoofshake was strong, but loosened to match hers, and he looked directly into her eyes, though she looked away. Meeting him like this felt like she was presenting herself to Celestia. “Y-yeah… I, um… Likewise?”

Amani coughed, and began smoothing out the sheets Silky was sitting on as he explained, “Silky is a new companion, but it is her first day, and she is understandably nervous. I thought it best if she were trained on-the-job.”

Fancy Pants nodded. “I’m happy to help, my dear fellow. Though she’d be hard-pressed to replace you.”

“Good. If you could hop onto the bed? Silky, could you come here for a second?”

They swapped places, and Silky stumbled as her hooves hit the carpet. Amani helped her up, whispering into her ear the whole time. “Sit behind him. Take his coat, then rub his shoulders, he likes that. Nothing complex, unless you are a masseuse in your spare time. I shall get him warmed up.”

She nodded, and trotted around the bed. Fancy Pants had sat up, sitting on his rear, and began taking off his coat. In front, Amani gently spread the Archduke’s hinds, and found him already poking slightly out of his sheath. He rubbed his hooves gently around it, massaging his sack, and when it started getting Fancy Pants hard, he sucked the tip into his mouth, replacing the hooves with lips.

Behind the Archduke, Silky had taken his coat and folded it, placing it on a nearby stool. Her still-shaking hooves were placed on his shoulders, and she froze up. How was she supposed to do this? She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t do this, especially not for the Archduke-

Fancy’s right hoof met hers again, and he gently guided it in a circle around his left shoulder. “It’s alright. Just like that, for both shoulders. Here, I’m just another client.”

Silky nodded, continuing the circle, the shakes fading just a tad.

Amani had gotten the Archduke to full size by then, and was gently bobbing his head down with a breathy ‘gluk-gluk’ noise. From Fancy Pant’s panting, it was working, and he shifted slightly to spread his hinds a bit better. In shifting, he leaned back, and Silky shifted as well to let him put his head in her lap.

His eyes met hers again. “You’re doing well, now. Have you had much training?”

“N-no… In fact, I was a v-virgin this morning…”

Fancy Pants chortled, looking at Amani, who was halfway down his length by now. “Hah! Amani does that well, from what I’ve heard. I’m guessing it went well?”

Silky smiled, closing her eyes. “It was wonderful. I’m glad I picked him.”

Amani bobbed his head again, and Fancy’s hips twitched upwards. “Mmph. Sorry old chap, getting close already. It’s been a while.”

Getting adventurous with her rubbing, Silky began widening her circles down Fancy’s forelegs, and across his back. Scant seconds later, she felt his muscles twitch under her hooves, and Fancy’s hoof leaped to Amani’s head, pulling him down with a grunt. Amani’s muzzle was pushed straight into the latter’s crotch, taking a deep whiff of his musk as the Archduke’s length was forced deep into his throat. A glob of cum escaped into his mouth, while the bulk of it was instantly swallowed. Even that only helped, as the sensation of the swallowing against his rod got another grunt out of Fancy.

The hoof fell away, and Amani pulled off of the shaft, coughing as some of the cum went down the wrong way. Wiping his eyes, he smiled at Fancy. “Apologies, I do not get much practice doing that. How was that for a warmup?”

Fancy Pants grinned. “Exemplary, as always, though sorry for grabbing you at the end there. You’re alright?”

“I am still well. I’ll need to have a glass of water before I go again, however.”

Fancy Pants motioned with a hoof towards Silky. “Surely you’re not going to leave out your trainee here?”

Amani paused, then nodded. “Ah, I almost did! Silky, be you moving to take my place? I shall instruct you.” He slid back off the bed as Silky moved around Fancy Pants again, pulling a glass and a bottle of soda water out from beneath the bed.

“Er…” Silky began, but trailed off as she looked at Fancy Pant’s still-hard shaft. “I… I’m not sure how to start…”

“You don’t need to follow his example, if that’s what you’re worried about. Would you just like to rut as normally as possible?”

Gently, Silky reached out, her hooves shaky again as she touched the bobbing shaft. It wasn’t as large as Amani’s, but it wasn’t wildly different. “I… Think so? This is all so new to me…”

Fancy Pants took her hoof in his own again, and used them to gently pull her up onto his lap, resting his shaft against her flank. “I’ve got you. Just position yourself right, and lean back. I’ll handle positioning.” He used his other hoof to adjust his length, and she gently felt it bob against her slit. “Do you mind if I finish inside? Fleur never lets me, some old wive’s tale about secret estrus or somesuch-”

Silky’s eyes widened, and she put a hoof on Fancy’s chest. “Wait! I still-” She glanced back at her rear. “I haven’t had a shower since Amani finished inside me earlier, so it’s still in there.”

Fancy Pants chortled again, and turned to Amani. “Tut tut, not even teaching her the cleanup spell?”

The Zebra swished the soda water around his mouth, and swallowed it, before looking back at them. “I’ve never been good at teaching that. I was going to have Squeegee tell her after.”

Shaking his head, Fancy turned back to Silky. “Well, I’d better teach you then. I use it myself every once in a while, so… Hm. Close your eyes, and focus on your privates.”

“O...kay…?” Now that she was doing so, Silky could feel a faint trickle of gooey liquid inside, and gently seeping out into the fur surrounding it.

“Focus on the walls, and carefully put some power into them. It’ll make them work a damn sight faster at absorbing the fluids. Makes cleanup a breeze, but it also gets rid of any natural lubricant.” Amani set the glass down, and pulled out a small glass bottle, which Fancy Pants took. Uncorking it, he dripped no small amount onto his shaft, which twitched from the cold contact.

An ‘eep!’ from Silky indicated she’d figured it out, and her hoof went to her slit again, wiping and prodding to make sure everything still worked right. “That… That’s amazing,” she said, gritting her teeth. The process left her a little sensitive. She looked back at Fancy , who had finished coating his shaft in the clear liquid using his hoof. He held that hoof out for her, and she took it, guiding it to her slit so she could prepare it as well.

Fancy took the opportunity to rub her a little bit more than was strictly necessary, though Silky certainly wasn’t complaining. The edge of his manicured hoof spread her still-sensitive lower lips, and the motion got a pleasured huff out of the mare.

Amani replaced both bottles beneath the bed, and joined the two ponies on top of it, taking position behind Silky. His hooves lifted Fancy’s shaft, and he helped line it up with Silky’s prepared slit, to the happiness of both. “Ready, Silky?”

Her hooves found Fancy’s barrel, and she made sure she had her balance, before she nodded and started leaning back. Letting another pony’s shaft in her felt just as good the second time, if not better, as this time she had a little more control. She could pick any speed, any depth, whatever she wanted, but for the moment, she simply let gravity pull her down onto the pale rod.

In moments, she had reached the base, and Fancy Pants, Archduke of Canterlot, was balls-deep in her… And she loved it. Hind legs shaking, she leaned forward, sliding only a few scant centimetres back upward, before letting herself fall back with the faintest ‘pap’ sound. Silky liked that sound, that sound of flesh meeting flesh, of Fancy’s balls slapping against her, and she wanted to hear it again, and again. Lifting up, pushing down…

Not unlike her sewing needle pushing into fabric.

She started speeding up, and Fancy didn’t complain in the slightest, breathing heavily as he started thrusting upward against her. The sound started getting louder, and the bed creaked beneath them with each thrust. And with each thrust, Silky felt wonderful pleasure arcing up through her into her core, warm and tingly.

Amani had moved around again, taking Silky’s position from before behind Fancy’s head, his own hooves rubbing the stallion’s shoulders, which prompted him to begin moving his own up Silky’s body. He traced the line of her thighs up to her hips, amplifying the pleasure as he used every bit of leverage he could get to press her down onto his shaft with even more power. The sound had scaled up to outright slapping now, and Silky closed her eyes, focusing on the sound, the feeling from between her legs…

Fancy had already come once, down Amani’s throat, so he was lagging behind just a tad when Silky felt herself start getting close. Her squeaking had returned at some point, drowned out by the slapping, but Fancy had noticed, and sped up his thrusting to match. Silky felt her forelegs give, but she used the opportunity to hug Fancy’s barrel, and just use her hinds to rut him.

She felt it again; that familiar flash of happiness, of sheer electric pleasure as she clenched around his rod. Her squeaking matched, and then surpassed, that of the bed she was rutting Fancy on, and then it was finished, and Fancy was still thrusting into her.

In fact, after Amani, and now Fancy in the same hour, Silky was feeling sort of numb. Her legs were tired, her head felt fuzzy, and her barrel just felt heavy, but her crotch felt numb—and still Fancy kept thrusting, hard and fast, and it began to grow into discomfort.

“F-Fancy…”

“Almost done, just need one-one sec-”

“Fancy, I- it’s kind of sore-”

The thrusting hit a certain speed, and stayed there, as Fancy finally reached his own finish. He kept thrusting into her like a pneumatic piston as he started squirting into her, but it made it worse, it was too hot, it was too much for Silky-

The edges of her vision blurred, and started going dark, as the day caught up with her for the second time. Her short nap after the first, with Amani, hadn’t been nearly enough rest for the sewing she’d already done earlier that day. Her hooves fell away from Fancy’s barrel, and her head dropped onto it instead. Unconsciousness took her with the barest warning, and the last thing she heard was Amani’s concerned voice.

“Silky? Silky!”

* * *

“What is this, Rubber?”

“What’s what- Oh. Sod. It’s a, uh-”

“Alright, I know what it is. Why do you have it, and why is it recently dated?”

“Well, you know, what with the whole mess brewing in Zebrica and all, Colonel Mustard Gas has been sending all of us those-”

Silky lay in her bed, hugging Bingo close as she overheard the conversation from down the hall. Only a single blue ray of light from a biolamp in the hallway illuminated her otherwise pitch-black bedroom, and the light from the glowing micro-organisms fell across her sheets.

Mommy and Daddy were arguing again. They argued a lot.

“This isn’t a recruitment letter, Rubber. It’s a medical letter. And according to it, you’re still cleared for combat. When did you go for a checkup?”

“A few weeks ago. Look, Rifle Butt came by, asked me to-”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about Rifle, what about Silky?”

“What about Silky?”

The voices changed.

“Well? I asked, what about her? Are you gonna keep her on?”

“Ja, ja. De numbers annoy me und de front desk iz runnink hyu ragged, Sqveegee. She already has de cote secretary look, might as vell pot it to goot use.”

“Alright. And Amani?”

“Dot Zebra drives me mad sometimes, bot Hy shtill love him, und he iz demed goot at vot he doz. As long as he dozn't make a habit uf it, Hy let diz vun slide.”

“Thank Celestia. 291, is she okay?”

A third voice joined the conversation, the words accented by a strange buzzing. “She’s fine, just exhausted. Let her sleep. I’ll get you, Gjinka, as soon as she wakes up.”

The voices were her parents again.

“For star’s sake, Shutter, if you keep caterwauling like that, you are going to wake her up, and the whole neighbourhood with her. It’s a risk of the job, you know that. You’ve known that since you met me. And we need the money. Colonel Mustard always pays his troops well.”

“We don’t get any money if you die. What happens to the debts then?”

“I won’t die, relax. It’s just a little rebellion, we put down the noisy ones and play peacekeeper while the rest sort out their issues civilly, and then we come back. Nothing to it.”

“Fine. I don’t like it, but fine. When do you go?”

“Tomorrow morning. Silky won’t even be up yet.”

“You were planning on leaving without telling us?”

“I was gonna leave you a note-”

“Sure you were. Just like how you were gonna pay Full House.”

“...And how you were gonna pay for your medicine, right?”

There was a rustling of wings, her mother’s. “Shut up. Just shut up. Have fun in Zebrica.”

“I will.”

* * *

Silky groaned, her eyes cracking open and letting in entirely too much sunlight.

“Oh! You’re awake!” It was that buzzing voice again, one of the few she’d heard in her sleep. Blearily, she turned her eyes away from the shuttered window, and they fell instead on a black, blurry shape sitting beside her. An emaciated foreleg approached her muzzle, holding a wet cloth, and Silky tried to blink her rheumy eyes clear.

The wet cloth, when it touched her forehead, felt relaxing. As it gently rubbed, soaked with warm water, she yawned, and her vision finally sharpened, as much as it could without her glasses on.

There was a pony-shaped bug sitting next to her.

She screeched, leaping backwards and scrabbling across the bed against the wall. She was trapped, trapped by the bug, she had to get out, it was gonna eat her-

“Whoa! Hey, it’s alright! It’s alright!” It yelped, it’s mandibles flicking to imitate Equuish, as if she wouldn’t notice! Glancing around the room, Silky spotted two cocoons made of bright green webbing, one on a bed, and the other hanging just above it from the ceiling. The former was empty, but the latter… There was the silhouette of a pony inside the latter!

“What- what are you?” Silky asked, eyes flicking from the cocoon to the bug, and back again.

“Changeling,” it buzzed. “It’s alright, honest. I know I look kind of freaky to you, but I just want to help.”

“And the pony in there?” She motioned towards the cocoon with her hoof.

The Changeling’s compound eyes blinked, and it turned around to see what she was pointing at. “Oh, him. That’s one of my clients, he wanted to- that’s his thing, he’s into that. He’s perfectly fine.”

As Silky watched, the silhouette twitched, turning slightly inside whatever liquid filled the cocoon. Shivering, her gaze settled back on the Changeling sitting in front of her, who hadn’t moved since the initial screech. It didn’t look like the Changelings she’d seen in The Equestria Daily. Its forelegs were thin, instead of being filled with holes, and it had no horn to speak of—but it did have a single, thick antenna above it’s forehead, extending back over it’s head between its leathery not-ears. “I thought Changelings had holes in their hooves…”

“You’re thinking of Worker Caste. I’m Infiltrator Caste, which means I can’t build anything but those cocoons.” It tilted it’s head. “If it helps, I can shift into something more pony-like.”

Silky shook her head. “No. Just… Just stay like that. So I know where you are.”

The Bug nodded. “That’s reasonable.” Motioning with a hoof at the bed, it continued, “You should lie down, you were exhausted yesterday.”

Silky’s eyes were drawn to that hoof as she slid back down into the sheets. There was something wrong with the frog… She swore she could see claws wrapped against each other inside…

The Bug followed her eyes, and yanked her hoof away. “Don’t- Don’t worry about that. You’re already freaked out enough.” Glancing around the room again, she picked up a pitcher of water with the glow of levitation, and poured it into a nearby glass before passing it to her. “Here, you should drink this. Your throat must be parched.”

Silky’s horn lit with it’s own colour of magic, and took the glass, however much the aura flickered and the glass bobbed correspondingly. Bringing it to her mouth, she took a sip. It tasted fine, and so she started drinking it greedily, the bottom of the glass distorting the Changeling’s image as it shifted uncomfortably.

“So, uh… How are you feeling?” It asked, as Silky gulped the last of the water.

Setting the glass down on a bedside table, next to a small stack of books, and her glasses, folded up on a hoofkerchief. Silky gently prodded her shoulder, and it ached just a little. “Sore. Kinda groggy.”

The Bug nodded. “Okay. That should pass.”

Silky let her eyes wander again. The Golden Cat’s outside may have been brightly decorated, the inside may have been lush and cushioned, but whatever room she was in now exuded nothing else but “living space”. The walls were drab, though somepony had thought to put up wallpaper maybe twenty years ago. Despite that, it was at least well-maintained—there were no rips or tears exposing the wall behind, and the room had been dusted recently.

The bed she lay on, and the blanket that lay atop her, weren’t particularly well stitched, but they were functional. She could spot several tricks in the stitching to conserve materials, such as skipping every few stitches, and widening the spaces between the ones that were there. The edges were fraying, and some of it had loosened, but it was still comfortable. The mattress beneath her had been bleached, seemingly several times over, and if it had any original colour, it had long been lost to time.

Much of the furniture in the room shared the same feel. A lonely chair by a mirror had more bleach stains on the legs where an over-zealous pony had spilled some while cleaning the cushion. The floor was oak, worn flat by years upon years of ponies walking across it, hundreds upon hundreds of hooves going out to the opulent Golden Cat in the morning, and coming back late that night. An oak cabinet by the bed opposite Silky’s was worn, with nicks across a surface originally lacquered maybe a hundred years ago.

And then, there was the most recent addition.

She’d been trying to look at anything else in the room, but found her eyes inexorably drawn to it anyway. The pony in the cocoon twitched again, and she felt her lips curl in disgust as it rotated slightly, tethered to the ceiling with the same green muscled strands that formed the cocoon itself. Where it was tethered, the plaster of the ceiling warped, shrinking and drying on contact with the alien substance. The bed the second, empty cocoon lay on was stained with liquid coloured the same organic off-green, and there was no evidence of any attempts to bleach it out.

Silky smacked her lips to wet them again, before looking at the Changeling. “He asked for that?”

“Oh yes. I can sympathize, it reminds me of when I was a little nymph. It’s just one of those triggers, I think. With the symbiote in there giving him air and nutrition, it’s probably not unlike your pony wombs.”

With a shiver, Silky shook her head. “Not… Not my thing. I guess.” Her horn fizzled as she tried to pick up her glasses, and they didn’t get far before clattering to the floor. Silky sighed, and tried to get up, only for the Changeling to put its hoof on her chest. It made her sit back, admittedly, though it was more out of revulsion than anything else.

“Hey, wait. I’ll get that for you, just rest, alright?”

“Be careful with them…” Muttered Silky, as the Changeling looked under the bed. It came back up, holding the spectacles in that sickly green glow, and examining them, to Silky’s discomfort.

The Changeling turned them over, looking through the lenses before yanking them away. “Wow. That… that looks wrong.” Passing them back to her, she asked, “Why do you wear those? That can’t look right to you.”

“They’re correctional.” Explained Silky, as she wiped them off on the blanket. “I need them to see, because I’m near-sighted.”

The Changeling mulled that over in her head as Silky finished cleaning them, and the world came back into proper focus. Except for the large cracks still running through the left lense.

“So… your eyes are damaged?”

Silky blinked, looking at the Changeling again. Still creepy. “Not damaged, as such, just… They didn’t form right. It’s been like that since I was born.”

The Changeling’s blue eyes, with no discernable pupils, widened. “Oh! Oh. I know what you mean. There’s Changelings like that in the Swarm. Mother makes them look after the Eggs and the Nymphs, though. She doesn’t want them to get hurt doing much else.”

“Is that… common, among Changelings?”

The bug shook her head. “Not really. And whenever it does, Mother tries her best to figure out why. Usually it’s because a Broodmother acquired some bad Essence.”

“Essence?” Silky asked. “Sorry, just… I don’t really know anything about Changelings.”

“It’s alright,” The Changeling was smiling now. Silky had to give it some credit, it was at least trying to be friendly. That was good. “I don’t think Ponies have a word for that yet. It’s… It’s kind of what everything is made out of. Ponies, Changelings, Cats, Dogs… Everything is built out of Essence. Mother can see the Essence, manipulate it, infuse it into our own.” She paused.

“That’s… One of the reasons I’m here, actually. Acquiring Essence, because one of the best places to get Essence is from… uh... Stallions.” The Changeling was blushing. Through her Chitin. Or her chitin was blushing, somehow.

“So… Essence is cum?”

The Changeling shook her head. “No no, it’s a source. It’s… Agh, Mother would be able to explain this so much better… Anyway, sometimes we get Essence that makes us stronger, when Mother infuses us with part of it, but sometimes there are side effects with the new Hatchlings. Brittle bones, or bad colouration, or distorted vision. Like yours.”

“...I feel kind of insulted.” Silky stared at the Changeling.

“Don’t be!” it practically yelped. “Look, it’s just… Look, we got off on the wrong hoof, alright? My name’s 291. What’s yours?” She held out her hoof again, for a shake.

“Silky Smooth.” Cringing, Silky held out her own, meeting the chitinous foreleg.

With a grin, 291 sat back on her chair. “Good! Step in the right direction. Now, Gjinka will want to meet you, since you’re conscious. Give me one moment here…” She stood, and went to her own message-box, starting to scribble a note.

“Gjinka?” Asked Silky, struggling to pour herself another glass of water.

“Momma, or so the other Companions here call her. It’s not hard to see why, she’s really not so different from our own Mother. Very protective.” She sent the message, and caught the jug just before Silky’s magic cut out again.

“Thanks.” Silky sighed, begrudgingly, before gulping down the glass. “So… She’s a very protective mare?”

291 chuckled. “Nope. Biggest damn Gryphon I’ve ever seen. Granted, I haven’t seen any others, but considering how everypony else talks about Gryphons, I think she’s irregular. She is very protective, though, that’s correct.”

The sheets were getting sweaty. Silky shifted, trying to get comfortable under the sheets again. “Guess the rumours were true then… I’ve met some Gryphons before, when I was little. They were soldiers, just like my...” She trailed off, and swallowed. Her throat was dry again.

“Family issues?” The Changeling ventured.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” And Silky stayed true to that, clamming up until there was a knock on the door.

As 291 opened it, Silky’s jaw dropped. It had not been exaggerating about Momma Gjinka. While the ceiling was comfortably low for ponies and gryphons alike, Gjinka’s crest had to be constantly brushing against it. Silky was shocked when she managed to fit through the door that must’ve been half her width, following 291 in and looking at her. She didn’t wear anything, but neither did she need to. Her fur was the sort of thing they made Couriers to the Far North wear for long deliveries.

Silky knew she was gawking now, but Gjinka was simply massive, even bigger than Brick Wall had been. Her fur was mostly whitish-brown, speckled with black. Her crest and wing-tips were coloured a dark green, and held no tell-tale signs of being dyed—either she was very good at it, or the colouration was natural. Her beak was short, but curved, like a hawk, and her eyes, predatory but focused on her, were easily both larger than her hoof.

In moments, the eyes brightened. “Hello, leedle vun. Relax, hyu iz safe here. How hyu feelink?”

Her accent was so thick Silky almost couldn’t understand it at first. She had to repeat the words quietly to herself to grasp the words themselves. “I’m… I’m okay, I guess. You’re Gjinka?”

The Gryphoness was beaming now, and SIlky couldn’t shake the feeling that if she could with a beak, she’d have a giant grin. "Hy em! Bot hyu leedle vun, may call me Momma Gjinka, or jusht Momma if feel like it. Hyu iz vun uf us now!" Moving closer, Gjinka sat on the wooden floor, practically enveloping it in her fur. A giant talon-tipped claw landed atop her, and ruffled her mane.

Silky shrunk into the blankets, swallowed by Gjinka’s claw alone. “I’m… I’m one of you? A Companion?”

"Vell, only if hyu vant. Bot Emani speaks vell uf hyu, und told me uf you day." The Gryphon pulled back, and turned to a closed window nearby, opening it up. Behind her, the pony is his cocoon twisted slightly, the resin shimmering strangely under direct sunlight. "Hyu had de scat keecked out uf hyu yashterday, bot shtill gave de Archduke de besht rutting he's had in veeks."

Silky’s eyes widened. “He… he said that? But… That was my second time, ever… I passed out on top of him, there’s no way-” She trailed off as Gjinka tilted her head at her, still hawk-like. “Look… Maybe he’s just being nice, is all. I… I can’t do that again… I just… I just can’t.”

The continent’s-worth of Gryphoness sighed, her shoulders slumping. “If hyu say so. Shtill, Emani vanted me to give hyu diz, for helpink him." Reaching into her feathers, she pulled out a corduroy bit-bag, heavy with coin, and tossed it onto Silky’s lap. With trembling hooves, she opened the top, and started counting.

“There’s… There’s a thousand bits in here.” Disbelieving, she looked at Gjinka. The Gryphonesses’ eyes were practically sparkling.

"Dot's vot Hy say, bot no, he insishts. Hy tell him he iz crazy zebra, bot no, he tells me to give it to hyu anyvay." Turning to 291, she asked, "Tvo-nine-vun, vould hyu say diz iz enough for havink sated de Archduke uf Canterlot?"

The Changeling smirked. “Since it wasn’t Amani, yes. Usually he’ll hire no other.”

Silky was still staring at the gold coin in her frog. “I… I can’t, this is too much-”

She was enveloped in feathers as Gjinka leaned in close, wrapping one claw around her and using the other to push the bit-bag into her barrel. In an instant, she felt felt almost at ease, feeling the feathers around her. "Leedle vun, take it. Ve are not shtrapped for bits; after all, dot vas Emani's profit for jusht a veek. He vould be rich, bot he insishts Hy keep it."

Nuzzling into the feathers, Silky finally nodded. “Even though I probably won’t be coming back?”

"Even den, leedle vun. Call it votever hyu like—payment, a gift, charity—jusht keep it. Hyu hef far greater need uf it."

Something in Silky’s heart unclenched. “Thank you.” She whispered. “Thank you so much, Momma...”

She started crying again, as Gjinka rocked her from side-to-side. Her eyes flicked again to the Changeling, who was checking the cocoon. "Tvo-nine-vun. Go gets Emani. Nopony vants a Companion firsht ting in de mornink, zo he should not be busy. He vill valk her home."

291 nodded, giving it a final glance before ducking out of the room.

Silky didn’t cry for long (Celestia’s suns, she’d been crying a lot…) but it made her feel better, especially with Momma there. Before long, she wiped her eyes one last time. “T-thanks. Have you seen…” She trailed off.

“Momma? You said… You said ‘nopony wants a companion in the morning’, right?”

Momma nodded, patting her head. Ho, yas. Hyu slept de night here. Hyu veren't vorried about rent, vere hyu?"

Silky immediately squirmed out of Momma’s hug, and stumbled onto the hardwood floor. “No no, but if I didn’t come home last night my Grandmother will be so worried-” She stumbled again, as the room spun. “Whoah… Got up too fast…”

"In dot case, yas, hyu're right, hyu'd besht gets movink. Here hyu bags, und keep those bits safe, Ja?” Her saddlebags were placed on her back, and Silky hid the bit-bag inside as Momma Gjinka stood, leading her out of the room. They exited into a hallway, and then down a flight of stairs.

Amani and 291 met them at the bottom. “Oh! Silky! What is the rush?”

She finished tightening the barrel-strap just in time to respond. “My grandmother… I’m always back in time for dinner, she’s going to be worried.”

With a smile, Amani nodded. “Then we had best be off. Which platform do you live on?”

“Number five.”

Momma Gjinka and 291 both paused in their conversation about the cocoon upstairs as Silky admitted this, but Amani just took it in stride. “Alright. You lead, I follow.”

With one last wave to Momma Gjinka and 291, they opened one last door into the lobby. Squeegee was back behind the desk. “Oh! She’s awake!” With a warm smile to Silky, he added, “Are you feeling better?”

She bit her lips. “Yes. Thank you. Um… we’re kind of in a hurry-”

Squeegee nodded, “Well, don’t let me delay you then! Watch out out there, both of you, alright?”

She gave him a wave as well, before pushing the doors open. Outside, it was nearly midmorning, and the front of the Golden Cat was still in shadow from Celestia’s sun, though it was peeking over the edge of the roof and playing through the leaves of the Cherry Blossoms out front. They started moving towards the corner, and Amani quietly coughed. “So… Will you be joining the Golden Cat?”

Silky looked back at him, before looking away. They’d need to take the staircase up to the next platform, as the intracity locomotive wasn’t allowed to stop at platform five any more… “I’m sorry, Amani… I just… I’m not sure I can do that, day in, day out… I don’t know what to tell my Grandmother, either…”

“I understand.” His hoof patted her on the back. “But you gave it a chance. That is all I asked, no more. And… You can always come back, even if you don’t work there.”

She turned to see him smiling at her serenely. “Like Fancy Pants, I will never be too busy for you, Silky.”

The mousey mare blushed. “Thanks.” The staircase, next to the water-lock elevator, came into view as they turned another corner, and Amani looked at it with disdain. “This is still the only way up to the fifth platform?”

“Yeah.” Silky nodded. As she started upwards, nearly every footfall knocked a clump of rust loose. “It’s holding together for now. Don’t worry, it’s stable enough. I take this staircase down and back up every day.”

She paused. “Well… I used to, anyway. I’m not sure if I still will.”

It was a long climb. The distance between platforms was somewhere around six stories, and even though the staircase was anchored to both, around three stories high their hoof-steps alone were enough to shake it. Amani peered back. He was about level with the rooftop of the Golden Cat now. “Never before have I been afraid of heights, Silky.”

She chuckled. “You get used to it.”

As they started to get closer to the top, they could make out a conversation over the wind, from the top of the stairs, though the actual words were lost. Silky turned a final time and reached the top, where three gruff-looking stallions were sitting on or around a concrete bench covered in graffiti. “Hey, it’s that seamstress again.”

“Leave her be, no point.” Growled the blue one sitting on the bench, shuffling a deck of cards with his magic.

The first one nodded, but his ears perked up as Amani came into view. “Whoah, who are you?”

“I am Silky’s Escort.”

“Yeah, I bet you are!” Laughed the last one, flicking a break-barrel pistol around by its trigger guard in his own aura. “Whaddya think, Girder?”

The blue stallion looked up from the cards. “Escort? Who’s your boss?”

“Momma Gjinka.” The name gave them all pause, and especially the first stallion. “Oh, rut that. I already pissed off that bird, I’m not doing it twice.”

To Silky’s amazement, the blue Stallion waved them past. “Fine. Don’t start any scat, and we won’t bug you either.”

With a last nod, they passed by without incident, and Silky continued leading him down a main street. When they were out of shouting distance, Silky turned to Amani. “Wow… They’re afraid of Momma?”

Amani smirked, glancing behind them. “I believe the last Madam had some sort of deal with one of the gangs up here. When Momma took over, they came in and started trying to demand their ‘usual’ from Snowy. Apparently freebies.”

“And Momma…?”

“If any of them had touched Snowy, she broke the forelegs they had used to do it.” Silky’s eyes widened in shock. “Of course, one of the bosses, Rex caught wind of it. He came alone, and they worked out some kind of deal. I think Momma set the terms.”

“Wow…” Silky turned down a side street, avoiding a stain of Prismapetrol on the street. “But... She’s so nice…”

“Not to gangs. They are lucky she had not unpacked nor loaded the Mare’s Leg.” A newspaper blew by, and Amani watched it. “She protects her little ponies. I have heard Celestia is very much the same, but I have my own doubts…”

Silky was quick to come to her defence. “She tries. Her heart’s in the right place, she just… She looks at the bigger picture.”

As Silky finally approached a small, three-story apartment building, Amani responded thoughtfully, “Somepony in charge of so many has to choose whether to make a few ponies very happy, and damn the rest, or try and please everypony a little bit.”

Silky paused on the sidewalk outside. “Well… She tries. Not many try at all.”

With a chuckle, Amani gave her a hug. “If everypony tried to make every other pony around them happy all the time, nothing would get done.”

“I guess not,” sighed Silky. “Well… This is it. It’s not much to look at, but…”

“It is where you live,” interrupted Amani. “I will say nothing bad of it for you.”

“Thanks.” She turned, stepping onto the stoop, but stopped. Turning back to Amani, she swallowed.

“Is there something wrong, Silky-” He was interrupted by Silky moving closer and kissing him passionately. Surprised by the suddenness, Amani smiled a moment later, and returned it.

As the kiss ended, Silky stepped back. “I- I really mean it. Thanks. I think… I think I’m gonna be okay now.”

“Of course, Laini.” With a final smile, they turned away from each other, and Silky pulled her key out of her saddlebag, slotting it into the door. With one glance over her shoulder at the Zebra, she slipped inside.

On the Clock

by Type_Writer

Nine to Five

24/7