The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Down By The River

"But darling, that river is full of arctic runoff! It's probably freezing!"

Grenada dipped a hoof in the fast-flowing river. "It is quite warm."

Felicity's face scrunched.

"Maybe water temperature works differently in this land," Grenada mused, the Immortal Dream visible a hilltop away. "Maybe this one comes from an underground spring. Maybe the storm rain was hot."

"If it was hot, it would have cooled the day it fell," Felicity pointed out. "Now this is getting slightly awkward, so I suppose I'd appreciate it if you moved me one direction or the other..."

The aura around Grenada's horn pulsed, and with a tingle of telekinesis, Felicity went from held above the water to slowly dipping into it. "Mmm, you're right," she hummed. "I'd hardly call this quite warm, but it isn't frigid, either."

"Enjoy." Grenada sat back, pulling out a technical manual from the trashed library and beginning to read as she held Felicity steady in the background.

For a moment, Felicity was content to soak. Eventually, she asked, "Fascinating read?"

"No." Grenada flipped a page, not needing eye contact to concentrate on her aura. "But it gives me something to do."

"Ah." Felicity hung in the river, making a few halfhearted attempts to clean her fur. She was beyond caked from everything she had been through, between mud and crawling along the floor. "Well, I don't suppose you'd rather help me out, here? Especially since it doesn't seem Amber's going to show..."

Grenada didn't look up from her book. "She is mourning. What do you need?"

"Everyone is mourning, darling," Felicity sighed, breaking off into a brief fit of coughing. "Ugh. Excuse me. What I want is to be pampered, but circumstances not permitting, I would settle for a little help not feeling like a used dishrag."

Grenada looked up and raised an eyebrow. "I am already holding you in the water."

Felicity gave her an intense look. "This will be much more awkward than it needs to be if I have to explain the ins and outs of assisting a fellow mare with a bath, and I assure you, I am the much more shameless of us two."

Grenada shrugged. "If you are asking me to physically wash your coat and mane for you, I would rather not."

Felicity groaned.

"Hello?" Amber's voice called from the top of the hill. "Felicity, was that you? You down here?"

"Aha! More ponies!" Felicity waved up at the hilltop. "You came?"

Amber drew into sight, carefully making her way down to Grenada at the riverbank. "I really hate to leave Valey for long, but since I'm here... you called?"

"Closer to shore, please," Felicity requested, and Grenada moved her. "So, you came after all."

Amber set Valey's beret and her saddlebags carefully on the grass, then didn't wait for Felicity to finish drawing near. She leapt off the hillside into a cannonball, splashing down into the river with enough force to make Grenada look up in surprise. Seconds later, Amber surfaced, treading water and skillfully holding her own against the current. "Yep," she said, staring into Felicity's eyes, just close enough to be inside her personal space. "So, what are you asking? We're going to get this done right and done quick, because I have a friend I need to get back to. How clean are we talking, and how much am I going to have to do for you?"

Felicity smiled broadly. "Now that's the right attitude. I don't know if a single bath ever can rid me of that floor's smell, but as close to perfection as you can come. And while I don't expect a luxury spa worker, I am very worn out and would appreciate if you did your best to pamper me."

"Right." Amber gave Grenada a businesslike look. "I've got this. Let her go and put the bottles from my saddlebags by the shore."

"Wait, what-?" Felicity started to protest as Grenada's aura disappeared and the river's current seized her, but Amber instantly had a hoof around her, dragging her close enough to the shore that a pony could either float or stand. Amber braced herself with two legs, held Felicity in place floating on her side with a third, and used her free hoof to feel through her coat.

"Hmmm..." Amber bit her tongue in concentration, rolling her in the water again. "Mostly mud on your back and... what's this you were crawling through?"

Felicity blinked, then giggled at the way she was being held. She made a face at Grenada. "Well, someone's not afraid to get their hooves dirty. And I have no idea, but it was the floor of the mess hall in a pirate ship. Smelled like cheap ale."

"Yep." Amber nodded, holding out a hoof and rolling Felicity onto her back, still floating her at the surface. "Green bottle, please."

Grenada shrugged, floating the bottle out to Amber. "It is not a matter of doing work. I just do not feel like caring for another mare's coat... or getting wet."

"Your loss." Amber grabbed the bottle, popped the cap and held it in her teeth, measuring an amount onto her hoof before closing it and tossing the bottle back to shore. "I've always found swimming relaxing. Here we go..." She started rubbing in the shampoo, frowning at the small amount of lather. "Wow, this might take a bit. This is gross."

Felicity closed her eyes and leaned back, floating on the surface. "Glad to have your assistance, darling. I'll repay you if I can, sometime."

Amber continued working on Felicity's chest. "You play your part, and I'll play mine. I don't know you all that well, but staying on our side this time is a better way than any." Her hoof moved lower, and she blinked. "You're pregnant?"

"I don't know why I keep being surprised when ponies don't remember that," Felicity muttered, lifting her head and looking at herself. "Is it really that obvious?" She sighed in disappointment.

Amber shrugged, bracing Felicity against herself to hold her against the current and working more gently. "When your best friend has three kids and you spent a year of your fillyhood trying to feel kicks, you've felt it enough to tell." Her lips pursed in concentration. "That's not a problem, is it?"

"No, no..." Felicity just leaned back again.

"Well, it's making you tense." Amber started scooping water with her hooves, rinsing without rolling her back over. "And this will feel better if you relax. I know what I'm doing, here. Between that and having your other best friend be depressed for two years, you pick up a little about how to make a girl feel good. I'm not your luxury spa worker, but I know how to get this done right."

Felicity hummed, doing as instructed and leaning back. Amber worked quickly but never roughly or sloppily, asking Grenada for various shampoo bottles and occasionally turning Felicity in the water, focusing mostly on her mane, tail, legs, chest and belly but gradually getting everything.

"Darling, you really do know what you're doing," Felicity murmured as Amber held her on her side, carefully massaging her shoulder and foreleg. "You're sure your brand isn't a coincidence and your true calling is as a professional masseuse?"

Amber shook her head. "That's a long story, but no, it's for building and maintaining boats. And I'm just washing. If you want a massage too, you're going to have to come back to my cabin, because I've been away from Valey for too long already."

Felicity's eyelashes fluttered at the implication that Amber not only didn't consider this a massage, but thought she could do a real one. "Oh, I'd like that..."

"This is why I did not want to help," Grenada said from the shore, still reading. "You are getting far too into this. Sharing a bed out of necessity is one thing, but this is another."

"Good thing you never lived in Riverfall," Amber muttered, rubbing against the grain of Felicity's leg fur to get at the roots.

Felicity smiled contentedly, not expending the energy on a shrug. "If only you knew what you were missing out on."

"I have imagined it many times," Grenada replied, turning another page in her book. "How much longer will you be?"

Amber flipped Felicity over again. "Just a last rinse here, and then we'll go back to the ship to dry off. You can stay in my room so I can finish."

Felicity purred her assent.

Grenada shut her book and sighed. "You two are far too friendly, too quickly."

"Too friendly?" Amber shrugged. "You're talking to the mare who was friends with half of Riverfall. Everyone knows what my first choice is for things to be doing, so as long as I'm out here instead, I'm going to make it worth everyone's while. Felicity, you're enjoying this?"

Felicity sighed happily. "I'm going to have to find a way to get this again someday..."

"Preferably some way better than threatening to get my bed dirty and complain," Amber said with a wry smirk. "But there you go. Just gotta read ponies and figure out what makes them tick. And Felicity straight-up told me."

Grenada just shook her head. "Fine. I will carry you back if you still need it. Let us go."

"Well, telling people what you want is usually a better way of getting it than being obscure," Felicity remarked, satisfied and content as Grenada's aura formed around her. "Now if it isn't too much to ask, getting dried off sounds wonderful, and if that massage is still on the table..."

"If we can do it in my room," Amber replied, leaving no room for argument.

"No objections..."

Amber gathered her things back in her saddlebags, set Valey's hat lightly atop her head, and trotted after the other two back towards the ship in the adjacent valley.

Comments

[Phoenix Kitten]

I'm surprised that Amber's presence hasn't somehow triggered the metamorphic capabilities of Valey's shell.

...and a silly idea just entered my mind, what if Valey's shell eventually becomes Thorax?

[KMCA]

9821129
Valey becomes Valey!
Damnit I want Valey back.

Also d'aww she's wearing her hat.

[alamais]

9821129
I dunno, the behavior of the shells is odd. At first (right after mark loss) they are aggressive, but after some time in captivity—perhaps specifically in the care of people who care?—they turn into lumps. Of course this may all be disproven if they get back and find out Valey's shell amscray'd out a window. But if it holds, maybe these are fundamentally different from the show 'lings.

[Phoenix Kitten]

9821614
It seemed more like Chrysalis had a sphere of influence before she hijacked the daydream network from Garsheeva, and was acting as a controller to a bunch of drones. They got Valey's shell out of the sphere of influence, or Wallace's heroic sacrifice injured Chrysalis enough that she couldn't maintain control, reverting her to a mindless state. Less like a sapient being and more like a pet. It's not going to wander away from the beings that feed it, there was nothing stopping Nyala's body from fleeing after it was purged of Navarre. It didn't react to Valey's presence unless she had food on her person and was feeding it, and Puddles body reacted to the harmonic energy in Maple after the Windigo was sucked into the Windigo heart it ate.

[Boopers]

C'mon in boys, the water is fine!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCnmYSIzZBc