The bath, if you can call it that, was unique. Yeah, I was naked again, but at that point I had only seen the minotaur wearing clothes, a pair of hand stitched leather pants and a necklace. Most of the, no wait, every other creature had been nude and I just gave up on shame.
At the time.
Standing in the tub Una cast a spell and I felt a tingle starting at the top of my head and it worked its way down my body, stopping over my personal area for a second longer than I’d have liked, before it lowered to my feet to clean my whole body.
“What is it with everyone checking out my junk?” I asked Una, who was, again, trying to be avertant with her eyes, but using her peripheral vision in an obvious way.
“W-well,” she started, “we, those who walk on four legs, we keep ours away. Uh, the males that is. And to see them, well, implies attraction or readiness for,” she was blushing. Her head was a shade of light pink and it traveled down to her back.
“Sex?” She looked to my face suddenly, hiccupped, and nodded once, looking away again, taking a step back, hesitantly like she about to teleport, even though it wasn’t invented yet.
“What’s it like? You’re, like, a nurse at least. Is it good? Does it feel great or is it just something that has to be done for population?”
I put my hands on my hips, standing tall in a couple ways, just to mess with her.
She shuddered slightly. “Y-yes. I-it is enjoyable, I hear. I-I’ve taken a vow of celibacy, until I find my mate, that is.”
“Well, good for you. I couldn’t wait that long. It’d be so hard to hold out. I might get a throbbing ache in my loins that I’d have to massage out,” I said arching my back slightly and placing my hands above my hips, “with your help as my healer, and all.”
Her coat was now a shade of pink with her head red as… something that’s really red. She looked to me and saw my… erhm, yeah that, aimed at her. I had to laugh at the sound she made and the look of surprise on her face as she scrambled back into the door. She was looking all around the room trying to not look at this bipedal creature breaking several unspoken societal norms aimed at her.
In more ways than one, wink wink. Heh, yeah, I was just teasing her though. I wasn’t expecting her to be all into it. She stammered, a lot, trying to find the words to excuse herself before she turned quickly and opened, more like flung, the door open with her magic, and bolted around the corner to the right then down the hall.
I heard a heavy thud and a word in a language I didn’t understand, which turned out to be Umni, the unicorn language. It’s a dead language now, but the word was quite uncouth, for such a lady.
I restrained my laughs as best I could before stepping out of the tub. A light puff of dust was left as I looked to my left foot as it lifted out. I was messy, really gross. I felt so clean, and thankfully I had started to recede, so to say, so I pulled the sheet up and over me in that toga way I mentioned earlier.
I left the room and looked to the way Una ran and smirked before I turned the other way, only to bump into Lom. Her muzzle, right in my private area. I grabbed myself with my one good hand, and winced with massive pain as my broken arm stretched in a way that hurt, badly.
Falling to my knees I looked to Lom why was wiggling her nose, eyes crossed looking at it.
“Ohch, you poke my nose, why?”
“Wha-? I-? I poked your nos- You walked into me!”
“No,” she said focusing on my wilting form, “Lom stand here to wait. Mocha walked into Lom nose,” she said with a confused tone. “Lom wants to go out, likes outside more.”
I nodded and she giggled, turning and galloping away, down a right turn, and I heard a door open quickly and Retalia shout, giving chase to the happy little mare who had permission to be free of the tight confines of the home.
“That mare’ll be the death of… Doesn’t count! I didn’t finish that sentence,” I said sternly to no pony as I rocked up to my feet again. I adjusted my sheet and rubbed the break in my arm. It’s funny when you think about it, not that it happens often, but when a bone breaks, you rub it. Something about helping it heal, I heard from a doctor once.
I stumbled for a step while the pain began to ebb away from where I was struck by that snout. And it wasn’t funny, she was a filly. It’s not cool to joke in that manner. I made it to the bedroom I was in and the stench of the week I was there hit me. A mix of unpleasantness I won’t divulge, except to say that I turned right back out and went to the door and then outside.
The day was warm and beautiful, the sun was bright and clouds were drifting on the breeze higher than I could have ever hoped to be. I heard Lom giggling to my left, just out of sight behind some houses, probably with Retalia. A few ponies were traversing the street and giving me awkward looks.
I waved my right hand at them and smiled as warmly as I could, they hurriedly passed and went on their way. I could understand, strange creature shows up in town, buys the inn, then gets into a losing fight with a minotaur. I’d be worried too if that happened in any town I live in, even now.
So, I turned to find Lom. The road was rough and I yelped and growled a few times as I stepped on rocks. Tender soft feet are no match for hooves or boots on almost any ancient or modern road. And few creatures, it seems, has tough enough feet. I walked off the beaten path through town and walked on the grass by the side of the road.
I found Lom playing with a set of foals in a grassy yard between one story houses; they were chasing her and all the younglings were having so much fun.
“Yearlings! Get away from that savage, lest it buck ya in the muzzle.” The foals turned in a short arc and returned to their mother, hiding under her after her scolding. A grey mare that looked in her thirties, a black mane, and brown eyes. “And you, to let your own offspring play with my little ponies, ya carry the ignorance of your tribe everywhere you go,” she condemned Retalia.
“Nag, Retalia am no savage,” he shouted back, lowering his head and spreading his stance to charge. I had to step in before something bad happened.
“Hey! Quiet, the both of you. Is this how you want your children to act? Angry and ignorant of others?”
“And you, freak, who’re ya to rump into this? Ya thinkin’ cuz yer rich ya can do what’ya want?”
I placed my hand over my chest and fell to my knees, turning to face her, merely two lengths away, placed on my best act of my life. I leaned over and started to sob. I looked up to see concern on all their faces, a couple windows opened and noses peeked out from around corners to look at the scene. “Horses, ponies, why do we have to fight? Can’t we all just get along?”
“M-Mocha, is you okay?” I heard Lom ask next to me.
“Yeah, it’s just so sad to see such amazing creatures, that both bleed the same color blood, but to fight with foals too?”
I looked into Lom’s face and saw, for the first time, sadness.
“Goblin tears. Foals, do not listen. A couple a dirty forest horse, livin’ in the wilds and-”
“Hey, we gotta problem here?” A voice said from above us, a second later Rea fell to the earth, landing heavily in the grass, her talons digging into the earth to prevent her from bouncing into the air from the speed at which she landed.
“Yeah, she’s being mean,” I said with a humph and crossing my arms, looking down at her smallish self with a scowl.
“Wha- why ya foalish freak, what’r ya talkin’?”
“You. Are. Mean,” I said as I stuck out my tongue.
“Okay you two, break it up. Being mean isn’t a crime, but Beth, you can’t stop every creature from playing with your kin.”
“See! That’s what I-” A look that actually gave me the chills was shot to me from the gryphon. “Shutting up.” For a gryphon she was about my height but her length and mass made her deadly, as all gryphons tend to be, but without my body working and my armor, who knew where, I was in no shape to risk even an argument.
“As I was saying,” Rea continued to Beth, “your children need to grow up around others. If yer so intent on having them be alone, then y’all can just as soon move to the mountains and take yer chances.”
“And as for you, innkeeper,” she looked at me again, softer this time, “keep your… child, out of trouble,” my mouth started to protest and to correct her but her eyes steeled again silencing me, “just because you’re new here doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply. Stop by the station and I’ll bring you and your... mate, over there,” she nodded to Retalia who across the yard, sitting facing us, inspecting the grass with a nibble.
I gasped and felt my face heat up. It was rare that I blushed and in the moment my stunned silence lasted, she had taken it as an agreement.
“Very well,” She opened her wings, crouched, and loosened her claws from the ground in a single motion then hopped with a few flaps going high into the air.
“B-but, he’s not my mate,” I practically squeeked out of my mouth. I looked to my right to see Lom sitting directly beside me at the gryphon disappearing from sight in the sky.
“What’s ‘mate’ mean?” Lom asked innocently.
“Well yearling,” Beth said walking over with her head low, “it means your fathers ‘r very happy to have a foal as big as you in their lives.” Lom frowned.
“Lom no yearling, nine times the flowers have blossomed, not two,” she harrumphed leaning back, sitting like me, and crossing her forelegs.
“So much like her father,” Beth mused, covering her mouth as a giggle arrived, cutting into my masculinity like a knife. Lom smiled wide and nodded. “Ya see, I ain’t exactly the most trustin’ of ponies, but ya seem like a nice unique family and all. I’m sorry fer how I acted and if’n ya wanna let our kids play fer a bit, we can talk and get ta be a might neighborly type ‘a friends.”
“S-sure,” I stammered as I blinked several times in rapid succession, refocusing my attention. “I-I’m Mocha.”
“Yea, yea. The rich frea-, I’m sorry, I mean creature who outright purchased the inn before he stayed in it. I’m Beth, nice ta meecha.”
I bent over and we shook hooves, I stood up quickly as a slight cramp formed in my lower back, and hay was my head swimming. I thought I’d fall over. Which I did, right onto my freaking broken arm.
I blanked out from pain for a second and was on my back, the cool grass poking the exposed shoulder and my lower legs, but in a good way. I was holding my splinted limb, with Beth, Lom, and Retalia standing over me, looks of concern on them. It was actually reassuring, but all I really wanted was Cadence. I had always had a slight fantasy that she’d be standing over me, as I lay bleeding and wounded in the field.
Time would slow down, she’d lean over me, tears dripping into the ends of her long hair that was undone and offering a block to the sunlight as it streamed through, making her look more angelic than she normally could.
Seeing horses and a smaller grey pony weren’t nearly as magical, none at all honestly. I tried to sit up and grunted in pain, Retalia wasted no time in helping me sit up. A few seconds later and I nodded, Lom trotted to my left side, I placed my hand on her back, pushed myself up, then smiled again.
“Well, how about some coffee.”
“Cof-ee? We have tea, mister Mocha.”
“Heh, it’s ‘mister’ now? Your attitude changed quickly, are you okay, Lommie?”
Lom shot me a glare that made me giggle.
“Me. Lom,” she stated flatly.
“Awe, no likie be called Lommie?”
Retalia snickered and poked Lom in the side, to which she hopped away from him, almost pronked, a full stride. Landing she looked at him. “Retalia, scared me! No again do that,” she scolded. He pointed to the two foals behind Beth and Lom didn’t waste five seconds to have that link that youth have.
They shared a look to each other, then to us adults, then immediately started playing again.
Lom being as large as Beth did cause me some concern and it showed. “Lom, don’t be too rough,” I advised looking as they took to the center of the yard and began hopping around the little colt, all giggling.
“Well Ah’ll be, looks like our kids’re just dandy. Yer a good set of parents, I ain’t even gonna ask how, but congrats,” she said smiling in that happy-slash-accepting way ponies do before turning and trotting to the back door of the house.
“Mocha, what she talking about?” Retalia asked. I couldn’t pass the opportunity up.
“We were married while I was out and they think Lom is our daughter,” I said casually, taking my first steps after Beth.
I had almost made it to the door thinking he didn’t get it before he freaked out.
“What?! I no marry, I no have mate now, I-I have never had mate, why us? S-stallions? Why, you and me, married?!” I snickered and looked back to see him standing with his head down, hyperventilating into the grass, his eyes widened in shock at the prospect.
“Oh, c’mon husband, let’s have tea with our new friend.” He inhaled sharply and looked at me quickly.
“Y-you not Retalia’s mate.”
“Oh honey, you’re so cute when you deny our love. C’mon, we’ll talk it over tea. Lom,” I quickly called, “daddies are getting tea, play nice.”
I turned to walk in the home, ducking slightly to get into the doorway comfortably. I glanced back to see Retalia sitting in the grass, looking at me, staring more like.
“Don’t stare too much, you know what that could lead to.”
He blushed and turned away, my teasing having taken its toll his forlegs became wobbly and he looked to Lom, who was still playing with the other foals, chasing now. I whistled twice in quick succession to get his attention while I heard the pony mother, Beth, making some noise behind me.
I motioned with my left hand in a ‘come here’ gesture, to Retalia, before turning and taking in my surroundings.
My vision was still acclimating to the darker inside of the home but it was enough for me to make out a lot of knick knacks, poultry based hand carved knick knacks at that. The kitchen was simple.
Some kind of stove, maybe wood or coal, given the lack of unicorns and excess of forest within a day's march. An ice box, a small sink consisting of a large metal bowl of some type and a place for drying plates and whatnot. There was a table a length from me with no chairs, it was low so an obvious sitting table.
I could see through an open doorway another room with a lot of pillows. Heh, eeyup, it was a traditional living room, back then it was quite grand though. Pillows were around, but they were only used by those with status or those that had a need for them.
“Take a seat, please,” she gestured to the table, merely knee height for me, “fresh tea, almost ready.”
“You have tea ready all the time?”
“No, but cold water is always free, so I have some on my stove, ready just in case.”
I smiled at the logic and nodded as she went to a cupboard about five feet high, er, fifteen hooves high. Oh, I didn’t think you knew foot measurements since they’re used mainly by minotaur. Anyway, she reared up and opened a door, on wooden hinges none the less, and began taking out three wooden cups.
“Wow, those look nice,” I said. For an instant she tensed then relaxed with a sigh.
“Heh, fer a second I thunk ya were talkin’ bout my flanks,” she guffawed, “I don’t gotta worry about that with ya, now do I?” she said nudging the cabinet closed with her nose and landing on all fours.
“Well,” I started to say as Retalia walked to the door and sat outside like a puppy, frowning at me, “oh, you gonna come in and have tea with us?”
“Retalia wants no tea. Tell truth, now.”
“But-”
“Now, Mocha,” he said sternly.
“Heya, what’s goin on? I don’t wanna lovers fight in here.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said lowering my head and taking in a deep breath, “Beth, he and I aren’t mates, I don’t have any children, and the only person I love is a female of my own species, with hands, not hooves.”
I winced as I heard a hoof clop on the floor, waiting for something to hit me, or shouting to begin. I looked to her and she had furrowed her eyebrows, but wasn’t that mad.
“Well, Ah understand, but don’t like ya led me on. Mister Retalia, ya comin’ in fer tea?” He nodded and stomped his feet just outside the door, clearing them of some of the stuff that got clotted on ‘em. He trotted in, tall as I was sitting, walked right past me and whapped me, with his tail, across my face.
Yeah, it was kinda funny, I deserved it.
“Mister Retalia, yer the honest one, so ya get the first cup.”
She placed a wooden cup, hand carved again, with a wooden attachment on it that let hooves hold it. Or, a hoof, I should say. It was before magic was as useful as it is today, it took a lot more training and work back then to learn how to use the latent magic in one, much less focusing it to the hoof pads, to pick something up.
Those that didn’t want to, or feel they needed to, never learned how, so there were these custom grips that were made, by none other than our own Beth.
While we got acquainted with one another and cleared up a few misunderstandings, while I avoided my military past, in favor of taking a new title, traveling defender. I found out she was the craftspony of the town. Great one too. She offered me a good discount on my first works, whatever I needed to get me started.
I couldn’t help but cringe inside. I wasn’t getting out of this one horse … Aheh, sorry, two horse town.
I made peace with Retalia and told him I didn’t mind who was with who, as long as I was with Cadence.
“Well, our time’s up.” She looked at me incredulously, like I had planned to ditch her all of a sudden. “No,” I clarified, “our time in the room, it’s up. I have to get to the station, you’re coming, right?”
With a huff of relief she did that unicorn thing where they gather all their stuff in one motion while making it look like nothing, packing it all into a box. The one box she had when we started.
“Is that all you have?”
“Yeah, kinda all I have. Oh, and twelve bits,” she said sheepishly.
Holy shit, she really has lost everything to this obsession, I thought, though my smile was ever present.
“Well, I started out like that more than a few times. Let me pack quick and I’ll meet you outside.”
“No, that’s okay, I can wait.”
I smiled as I tried to will her out of the room to no avail. I turned and made sure my saddle bags were still evenly packed, the promotional fliers were sticking out so I could drop them as I went about my day. Check and check, a dozen times over. I picked them up and slid them over my withers, letting them slide back to my sides.
I tightened them, wiggled a bit, then tightened them a little more before nodding in approval. I reached to grab my hat that I’d taken off and hidden below my bags last night and slipped it on with a sly grin. Running my hoof along the rim I winked at her. “Let’s roll.”
Classic. She rolled her eyes as I did my suave look. Plus one more.
“Ladies first, and since I don’t see any, you better go first,” she said grinning at me.
“Ouch, I’ll take that as a compliment.” I said as I walked past her, “How long have you been thinking of that one?” I asked as she followed me out and closed the door.
The morning was almost past, Lunch was drawing near, and the train station was within eyesight.
“I’d been saving that one for my old roommate for months before she, um, before we decided me not liv-”
“Are you hungry? I’m getting hungry. Let’s check out that place,” I interjected before she could get all depressing.
“Oh, uh, yeah. Sure! I love that place. It might be a while before I come back this way so I should get a daffodil and safflower soup with a bean sandwich. I love the way they do their everything, but that’s my favorite.”
I’m still impressed how quickly and easily ponies of these generations are willing to change subjects. Back in my day, nah. Just kidding. I’m not that kinda old stallion.
We went to the outdoor cafe, ate a modest lunch, which I split the bill on to her surprise. She was now down to four bits. She’d have six but she had to have that smoothie. We left with full bellies and I had a heavy heart. It wasn’t easy for me to watch anypony, especially a mare like her, going broke.
“Well, I’ve got a quiet room on the train, number five, you can join me.”
“Well, I have enough for a ticket to Canterlot, that’s all the money I have left.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll owe me. I’ll start a tab,” I said adjusting my hat slightly to shield my eyes from the almost noon sun, “train leaves in seven minutes, we’ll make it then I’ll get on with my story.”
She forced a smile. “I don’t really want to burden you, I’ll do some evening work when we get to our next layover and-”
“I’ll not hear a word more on the matter,” I sound like a mother, sheesh.
“You sound like my mother,” she retorted, “fine, but I owe you and I will pay you back. I Pinkie prom-”
She stopped when I turned and stuffed a hoof in her mouth. “Don’t say that. You don’t know what history that promise has with it.”
She smacked my hoof from her mouth and spit her mouth clean onto the ground.
“Don’t do that! Do you have any idea how disgusting it is to put your unwashed hooves in somepony else’s mouth?” she said loudly between spits and sputters. I got more than a few looks of distain. “Pthleh, what the hay? You could have slapped me and it would’ve been nicer than that.”
“W-well, I didn’t really think about that, Wait, I’d never hit a mare, and I’ve read stories where it was a -”
“Stories?!” She shouted, now a crowd was growing around us as she looked to a mare who had a large tea in her magic. With an unspoken set of words the mare relinquished her beverage to my now anger filled co-traveler. She swished her mouth out and spit it to the ground making a small mud spot between us.
“Do you really think that some stupid book is going to tell you that stuffing your dirty hoof in my mouth is not only gross, but positively rude?!”
“Uh, I,” I started backing up, this was out of hoof faster than it should have been.
“And to top it all off you made me pay for my own meal after the night we shared together; in the same bed!”
Oh shit.
“N-no, wait, it’s not like that-”
“So, I meant nothing to you then?” she said growling with rage.
“Uh, no. I mean yes, but-”
She stomped her hoof on the ground and kicked the puddle of spit mud at me, across my front and my reaction knocked my hat off, whereafter a stallion reared and stomped it. A series of boos and throwing of foodstuffs they crowd had on hoof, I turned, pushed the stallion off my hat, grabbed it in my teeth and galloped to the train.
I had a couple followers who glared at me the whole time I was walking into the train and followed me on the platform, staring daggers at me as I went into the private cars to my room. I opened the door, shuffled inside, and took off my saddle bags.
“Well, that was the worst thing that’s happened to me in years,” I said as I took a seat by the window, drawing the shades so no pony would see me from the outside and call the mob to me.
I sighed and let my mind go blank before I felt a deep rage build in my chest, the likes of which I hadn’t felt in years. I was about to buck the opposite seat to nothing when there was a knock at the door, followed by it opening without me saying even a ‘hello’ or ‘come in’.
There she was, light green coat, box in her magic above her, and a grin that would be worth a thousand bits.
“Hey, I’ve got enough bits to take care of myself for a while now.”