I steeled my gaze to her, normally a forced frown I liked to wear when in cities and I didn’t want to be bothered was what I used to travel. Well, now it was real. “You- You…”
“Genius?”
I couldn’t hold it in, I laughed heartily at her and beckoned her in, she entered and shut the door, placing her box by my bags she merrily levitated a bag from it and dropped it into her lap at the same time she sat into her seat.
“I haven’t had a partner in that scheme before, you were excellent.”
“Scheme? You’ve done that before?”
“Yeah, usually to some weird stallion that I don’t know. I toss ‘em ten bits and I keep the rest I collect,” she said levitating bits from the bag, “I got about forty here, so you can have-”
“Stow it, lady. What the feather were you thinking, doing that to me?”
“Feather? That’s a pegasi thing, second is that when a helpless widdle fiwwy is hurt by a mean owd stowwion, den awl the ponies gwive her all the money she needs to get home. Before she knows it, she’s home with rent, to be delivered to her roommate in the nick of time.”
I was thoroughly impressed. She was a genius in a way, the way she phrased that whole thing went from being like a filly learning to talk up to a mare that was highly educated and her confidence...
“Touche, you’re well versed it seems, in the female wiles.”
She nodded once and let the bits fall back into the bag. “So, I owe you a new hat. Also,” she grinned laying on the bench seat and levitating several pages in front of her, “you were saying something about,” she paused to read that unicorn language they use.
Wingdings. Literally the font wingdings with a couple changes and omissions to make it pony friendly, is the official written language of the unicorns. Mother. Fucking. Wingdings. They took the original unicorn thirty letter alphabet and turned it into fucking wingdings. I couldn’t believe how far that prank would go. I sighed and rolled my eyes, I couldn’t wait to get to that part.
“...something about a tea party.”
“Yeah, well, let’s just continue from there, you clever girl.”
We found out Beth was a foal sitter during the afternoons and she’d whittle and carve stuff in her free time, while her evenings were full of actual hard work with tools creating all kinds of things, from door hinges to decorative items. I guess I wasn’t in that bad of a place to have met her, she was a hub of networking options and she might have been able to help with keeping my armor alive for a while longer.
Retalia was a bit smitten with her, I could see him, after they’d gotten on the topic of his line of work, that he kept staring at her whenever she’d turn her attention to me. I finally excused myself when the foals she was watching came scream-giggling into the house.
“Lom made a plotters!” they shouted, hopping in place, giggling loudly.
I looked to Retalia who looked to Beth who blushed. Took me about two seconds to figure out what that meant.
“Oh shit. Retalia, we have to get Lom.”
“Why? Lom in trouble?” he asked as I got up quickly, banging my knee on the table, much to the delight of the foals. “No, but she made a mess. Like at Collective,” I said looking intently to him.
He got it a second after that and did his best to politely excuse himself while not trotting over the foals as he stared at her until he left. I had to give him a shove to the side to get him out of my way while I got out the doorway, nailing my head on the way out. At that point in the day I didn’t even stop.
I was ready to yell at the little mare but then I saw her, sitting, head low and sobbing softly.
“Lom?” I said as I exited the home and began to talk to her. She was about six lengths away, so she had time to react. She looked up to me, tears had matted the fur across her muzzle from her eyes to her nose. It broke my heart. She knew she did something wrong and tried to hide it the only way she could, by sitting in it.
And she sat there and cried, looking to the ground in shame, waiting for somepony to yell at her. I quickened my pace and knelt in front of her and embraced her into a hug. She shuttered a lot before I felt her foreleg wrap around my not broken arm, thankfully, and she pulled me into her.
I let her cry onto my shoulder for a moment until she calmed down. “Lom, Lom it’s okay. It happens.”
“B-but, Lom bad now.”
I pulled back just enough and she leaned back and I looked into her eyes. “You’re not bad. You’re the most, best Lom I know.”
She huffed some snot from her nose onto my chest and she started to smile. “Real?”
“I would never lie to you. You are the best Lom I know.” She sniffled and let me go, I took a step back and she wiped her nose on her postern.
“L-Lom messy now,” she said, her voice trembling, “Lom, not want to move. Make mess,” she whimpered again.
“Well, that’s not a problem then,” I said as I untied my tota and returned it to its sheet form then in a swift motion I covered Lom in it.
“M-Mocha,” she gasped, “what you doing?”
“I’m making sure my favorite horse is okay to walk home, to get a bath.”
“B-but what about-”
I knelt down and started to lift her, which I knew she hated. A flurry of movement and she was on her hooves and looking, almost proudly at the… Toga, That’s what they’re called. Not tota, toga. The method of wrapping the sheet around myself. She looked to it and smiled to me as Beth cleared her throat.
“Darlin’, Ah’ll take care of the mess, ain’t the first time, won’t be the last a pile ends up on a foal care lawn. See ya later you two. See ya later, Retalia.”
He stumbled as she singled him out but he kept his eyes straight in a trained manner and walked, taking the lead, back to Una’s house. With a quick wave I followed the two.
This time it was Lom who got the awkward looks. The local ponies looked at me briefly but focused on Lom. I couldn’t figure out why, but the reason was a good one. Still one that persists until this day.
Ponies in many places don’t wear clothes. Not even during winters, but back then wearing clothes was a sign of a pony that was going to trade sex for money. That’s why I got looks the way I did.
That’s why she was getting them too. When we got back to Beth’s she quickly cleaned Lom up and informed me that I shouldn’t have gone out fully dressed unless it was very cold, or I was very sick.
She also explained, through a nice shade of pink on her cheeks, that the reason full clothes were worn for those types was because males could have a full erection ready and the mares could take whoever the stallion was without leaving marks on her body, and the, uh, fluids he’d leave wouldn’t leave a scent as obvious between sessions.
Yes, I am being very cryptic. I’m not comfortable talking about trading sex. So then I decided that I’d wear less. Sure, it was a nice day and there weren’t many bugs out, but I didn’t want to have a mosquito suddenly bite me on my male bits. That was before I knew this world was free of those awful parasites.
I was able to fashion a pair of shorts from some extra linen that was more or less rags that were going to be thrown away from scraps around town. Una put out a request and brought them over. My military uniform was still usable and the blood was cleaned off it, however I wasn’t going to cut a perfectly good uniform.
So, a couple days later I was okay enough to go back to my new purchase; the inn.
I went was led there by a new friend and neighbor named Otter. He was a farmer, like over ninety percent of the town, and he showed me home. That was quite a surprise. I thought I got the inn, I also got the house across the street. I had no idea these gems I traded blank bullets for was enough to get me what I got.
I had two more of larger sizes. What could I buy? How rich was I? My mind was reeling at the opportunities while I toured the house. Lom stayed outside while Retalia was spending time with Beth. They were an unofficial pair, by any standard of the word. She was teaching him some about crafting with tools, he was teaching her and a few other youth guard techniques.
They were a good match and no pony thought otherwise. Lom wasn’t much of an indoor horse, so I made her a tent out back while I took classes at the schoolhouse in basic literacy. I learned the hard way what to charge for creatures that wanted to stay at the inn, and how to check them out after their rooms were checked.
I also started taking a deposit of some type to compensate for any damages a raging horny sex festival of three minotaurs had that shut half my hotel down for a good week while I rebuilt it and sterilized the room they were in. I was, to say the least, not very fond of minotaurs.
Well, it’s funny how life throws you a crystal when you were expecting a gem.