//------------------------------// // 192 Bathtime with Biscuit // Story: Tales from a Con // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// Bathtime with Biscuit Having a unicorn for a housemate is weird, and not at all what you’d expected.  First off, her name—it wasn’t mysterious or mystical, it was Sweet Biscuit.  And then there was everything else: you’d anticipated rainbows and sunshine and amazing magical abilities, but that’s not what you got. Sure, she enjoyed rainbows and sunshine.  Some days she’d be stretched out on the floor like a cat, catching a sunbeam.  She’d move her giant pillow—which was NOT a dog bed, despite what the tag said—to follow it along until she bumped up against the wall and could go no further. Some days she’d sit out in the backyard. And she’d dragged you out into the front yard the first time there was a rainbow in the sky. As for the magic, well . . . it was a lot more utilitarian than you’d anticipated.  Sometimes it acted as an extra hand, holding a mane brush or a cup of coffee or a hot baking sheet; sometimes it acted as a flashlight.  You’d never seen her do anything really magical with it—a couple of weeks back, she’d scraped her side on a branch, and when her horn lit, you were expecting her flesh to suddenly knit back together in front of your eyes. Instead, she summoned a Band-Aid, peeled it, and stuck it to herself. ••• “Hey, you wanna give me a hoof—hand here?” There were some materials her magic couldn’t interact with.  Such as the kitchen faucet handle, which she was bumping with a baking tray in an attempt to turn the water on. You hate to see her struggle, so you get up and walk over to the sink.  “Careful of the tray, it’s still hot.” And that is an advantage to her magic; she can pick up hot things without getting burned. The baking sheet hisses as the water hits it.  You seem to remember it’s bad to put hot pans and stuff in cold water because they could warp, but then you’re not exactly a professional chef, and she is. Maybe, you’re not sure how cutie marks work.  She’s good at cooking and she’s got cookies as a cutie mark and she bakes fantastic cookies. It’s not what you expected, but it’s nice. ••• She’s neater than some roommates you’ve had, but less tidy than others.  While Sweet Biscuit’s not OCD about dusting and vacuuming—in fact, she’s nervous around the vacuum—she always washes all her dishes after she’s done baking, and she doesn’t leave her clothes around in piles here and there. Granted, she hardly has any.  A hoodie for chilly mornings, a green vest with cream trim that’s her Buckball uniform, and a fancy dress for fancy occasions. She also has a set of boots she wears sometimes.  They’re the strangest things—shaped for hooves, obviously, but Nike branded.  ‘Air Secretariats,’ available online or by mail order.  Some ponies don’t trust the internet, and you can hardly blame them for that. ••• Ponies do weird things, or maybe it’s just Sweet Biscuit.  You’ve got a sample size of one, and that’s not enough to draw any firm conclusions. She likes being outdoors during the day, visiting parks or walking the trails around town.  Like many cities, yours has been adding opportunities for easily-accessible outdoor recreation.  You’d gone with her a couple of times, but nature really isn’t your thing. There’s one not too far from your house that’s got a couple trails, the obligatory grassy pitch, and a pond.  It’s one of her favorites for quick nature rejuvenation. Sometimes she trots around, or gallops around and returns lathered.  Today— Sweet Biscuit has a key.  She doesn't have to carry it with her.  Unicorns aren’t limited by hiding it under a mat or a rock.  She did have to get a keychain she could interact with, since the key itself was immune to her magic. Usually, she’d come in through the front door, drink a glass of water, and sometimes she’d take a shower upon her return.  This time she opened the back door and poked her muzzle in.  “Hey, can you give me a hoof . . . hand?” You pause the video you were watching and go to the back door.  “What’s—oh.” She’s covered in mud.  Some of it has dried, and some hasn’t.  “What happened, did you fall into the pond?” “No, and yes.”  She stuck out her tongue.  “Can’t get a proper mud bath at any spa here, and I thought I’d improvise.  And it turns out that I can’t work your hose.”  She lifts it with her magic and you see her field sort of wavering around the nozzle.  “Don’t want to track mud through the house.” [CHOICE] >help her rinse off (hero) >”That sounds like a you problem.” (villain) >the nozzle has both a spray and a stream function. . . (chaos) [CHOICE A: Hero] “Oh, yeah. Hold on a moment.”  You pat your pocket, where your cell phone lives.  It’s been a while since you’d sprayed anyone with a hose, but you remember there being splashback.  Your phone claims to be waterproof, but maybe it isn’t, and there’s no point in risking it. You set it aside, and then step out in the backyard and twist the faucet on.  “The water’s going to be cold.” “I know.”  She looks down at the ground, making sure she’s standing on a grassy spot.  “Okay, I’m ready.” You check the nozzle and make sure that the dial’s turned to spray—wouldn’t want to blast her with a jet of water by mistake.  And you also aim at the ground as you squeeze the trigger, as a final check. Having a unicorn for a housemate was weird.  Never in a million years had you anticipated giving your roommate a bath in the backyard, and yet here you were, playing the hose over her, watching as the mud dropped off and left her coat wet and glossy. At first, the two of you were working at cross purposes; you were moving the nozzle and she was moving to get the spray where she wanted it, and then it clicks for both of you.  She lets you rinse down one side, then turns so you can get the other. Sweet Biscuit even holds up her hooves, one at a time, so you can blast the mud off the bottoms. Once you’re done, she shakes off and then walks into the house, as you follow behind.  “I’m gonna take a proper shower and then bake cookies.” [CHOICE B: Villain] You turn back to the screen, then back to her.  “That sounds like a you problem.  You got yourself dirty, you can get yourself clean.  I’m not your maid.” “Ugh, fine.” She can work the faucet with her mouth or hoof—you’ve seen her use the sink faucet that way.  You’d heard people saying how stuck up unicorns were, how they sometimes acted like royalty.  Sweet Biscuit normally didn’t, but asking you to wash her off?  How entitled was that? If she knew she couldn’t do it herself, why would she get herself dirty? You heard the water start running, and then what sounded a lot like a curse.  It wasn’t in English, so you couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like the kind of thing a pony might say if the hose got away from them. You look back at the screen as second thoughts start coming to the fore.  Why were you wasting time watching a screen while you could be recording her struggles to later upload to TikTok or YouTube or whatever? You had a potential viral hit on your hands, and now was the time to capitalize on it—you make it to the kitchen window and get your camera up just in time to catch the hose escaping her, spraying her right in the face.  She steps back, trips over a coil of hose, and then falls to her rump as the hose goes wild.   That’s comedy gold right there. [CHOICE C: Chaos] Sometimes a plan comes to you after the fact, and sometimes it falls into place in an instant.  “Sure,” you say.  “Glad to help.”  You pull your phone out of your pocket and set it on the desk—it claims to be waterproof, but there’s no sense in taking a chance. The hose nozzle is one of those fancy ones that has a plastic ring to put different sprayers in front ot the water.  Everything from a gentle mist to a stream. You turn on the faucet and feel the hose flex under your hand. Sweet Biscuit has picked a prime spot of lawn, and at the instant she’s looking down at the ground underhoof you make your move, twisting the dial.  “Ready?” She nods, and you squeeze the trigger. ••• Once, when you were a kid, you were having a friendly squirt gun fight with some friends and had used the hose—that both ended the fight and one friendship.  Sweet Biscuit apparently didn’t know that the nozzle could shoot multiple patterns and was totally unprepared as the merciless blast catches her in the side.  You see chunks of mud flying off as she jerks back. You keep your hand on the trigger as she turns in surprise, her instincts failing her; she faces the spray and gets a blast of cold hose-water right on her muzzle.  Her horn lights uselessly, and then she holds a hoof up to block the water. “What the—”