The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Splish Splash, Pony Bath

"Whooo!" Amber splashed in a bathtub, the nurse having given permission for her to disregard her surroundings. "I feel a weight off my shoulders already!"

"That would be all the grease you can finally get out of your coat." Jamjars fluffed her mane, mostly regrown to its former glory since the days when Valey cut it short. "It's one of the things I miss about having a wig. It didn't accumulate oils... Cleanliness, here I come!"

She jumped over the edge, joining Amber's tub with another splash. Felicity was next in line, droplets spattering her face from Jamjars' cannonball. "Ah..." She lifted a hoof.

"Get in here, girl!" Amber beckoned heartily with a foreleg, already submerging her mane. "You didn't follow us dirty castaways just to spectate, did you? There's room for one more."

"An offer I'll gladly accept..."

The nurse stepped away from the second tub, finished drawing it as well. "This one's ready!" she called, moving on to a third.

"Who would have thought a hospital would have a bathhouse?" Slipstream stared around, climbing into the fresh tub. "This place is nice."

The nurse chuckled, leaning on the next tub while it filled. "Oh, this isn't the bathhouse. It's just big so we have room to work around delicate injuries or patients who need support, and clean so wounds don't get infected. If you want to see Kinmari's real bathhouse, you'll have to compete for space with the sports teams, but it's on the southeastern end of the island."

Felicity poked her head above the edge, midway through her preliminary rinse. "You have a bathhouse more real than this one!?"

"Get what you can while the getting's good." Jamjars shrugged, scrubbing at her forelegs.

Harshwater followed close behind, the last to join as Nyala joined Slipstream and Grenada waited for the third tub. She glanced at Amber. "That weight off your shoulders is called not being breathed on by guards," she mentioned. "Hosting a fighting force is never comfortable. My old company overstayed its welcome far too many times for me not to know that."

Amber sighed, resting her chin against the railing. "Either way, I suddenly want to take a nap. How many times did you wonder if we'd get turned away before landing?"

"That was Shinespark. I only wondered twice." Harshwater shook her head, moving to join Grenada as the third bath finished.

"You wondered too, didn't you?" Felicity asked, approaching Amber from behind and putting her hooves on her sides. "You're remarkably tense. Bathing buddies again? Feeling clean really does help with this, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve as well..."

"You're never going to stop liking feeling pretty," Amber replied, egging her on. "You realize it would feel a lot better if you got properly dirty first though, right? Skipping bathing for a week or two is lazy. You need to work day and night on a boat until your coat is black with grease, resin and sweat. That's when this feels really good."

Felicity cleared her throat. "Clearly you never spent a decade in the desert of Gyre. Let me tell you I still occasionally dream about the sand in my coat, and having an attractive coat and mane is much more important when it's a tool as well as a luxury."

Jamjars made a show of turning her back on the whole conversation, but she had a faint grin, and her ears were half backwards, listening. One tub over, Nyala and Slipstream had engaged the nurse in conversation, her duties otherwise finished.

"Your school didn't have houses?" the nurse was saying. "That's fascinating. I mean, I haven't traveled Equestria enough to know how other schools here do it, but still. It seems so weird to me. Where do you sleep?"

"At home." Slipstream shrugged. "Ironridge's population was dense and vertical, but not that spread out. I just flew to college every day."

"Home with your parents?" the nurse pressed.

"Well... sort of." Slipstream waved a hoof. "My mom and dad were... complicated. Not always together, but never far apart. They must have treated relationship drama like a recreational sport. Great role models, let me tell you. But I had four or five houses I usually lived between."

The nurse's eyes widened slightly. "I am from a small tribe on an island far to the south of here. My whole village sent me here so that I could make the island proud, but I haven't seen them in two years because of it. That must be so different..."

Slipstream poked Nyala. "And what about you? Did you have schools in Icereach? Probably a small enough town that your parents were never far away."

"Sort of." Nyala looked away. "The scientists who came after the war... the first ones, before Navarre... they wanted to educate us, so they wrote down their knowledge and taught it to anyone who was curious. Safe knowledge, not things like experiments that could get us hurt. It wasn't structured and there weren't classes. If you wanted to learn, you just asked."

The nurse's eyes shone. "What kinds of things do you learn at schools in the north?"

"A little bit of everything." Slipstream shrugged. "I tried to study business, which mostly involved learning about the industries that were big in Ironridge at the time. I couldn't tell you how to wire a mana circuit, but could definitely hire someone who could. Of course, Ironridge had more ponies than jobs, so you're fresh out of school and you get a thing working for a help desk at the skyport, getting yelled at by travelers who missed their flights. What can you do?"

The nurse watched her for a moment. "That sounds intense." She turned to Nyala. "So what did you do?"

Nyala hesitated. "Nothing... really. Icereach was too small and remote to have real jobs. You just contributed to survival. Clean the caves, grow food, clear snow away. Help build things and explore new areas underground. The town was growing, since the life expectancy got much higher after the scientists started helping us and the birthrate was always high."

"Imagine living underground..." The nurse stared off into the distance. "Even having a roof over my head is still unusual for me."

"Half of Ironridge was underground too," Slipstream added. "A massive mining operation for getting metal and resources to build with. I didn't see it a whole lot, but the times I toured it? Well, I remember it being hot."

"I like it hot," the nurse said. "Kinmari has always felt cold to me. It's so far north..."

Nyala rubbed her wet fur self-consciously. "And I'm going to have to shorten my coat, because Icereach was on a glacier."

"Same for the skyport," Slipstream added. "Though I never could handle that weather well..."

Further along, Harshwater and Grenada had a tub to themselves, both seeming reluctant to take up more than their fair share.

"I have never understood bathing together," Grenada said, staring over at the first tub, where Felicity and Amber were soaping and lathering each other without shame and Jamjars had stopped being able to hide her interest. "Should it not feel awkward?"

"There are ponies who can make it awkward," Harshwater replied, "and there are a lot more who won't care about you washing next to them if you return the favor. When you work a dirty job, know all the ponies involved and the alternative is smelling like a battlefield in the morning, you just deal with it."

Grenada kept staring. "...The Spirit had showers in our hideout. I was far too self-conscious to use them. If you had seen the artwork, you would have been too."

"Less tight of a group?" Harshwater guessed.

"Desperate ponies in desperate times," Grenada replied. "But are those two desperate? Or does being submersed in water make ponies just willing to treat anyone like their lover? They did this in the river by Griffonstone as well..."

Harshwater shook her head, having no qualms about scrubbing beneath her wings but still keeping to her side of the tub. "It's a cultural thing. Travel the world, you learn to expect quirks from everywhere. Apparently it's a Riverfall thing to share beds with your friends."

Grenada nodded, averting her eyes and cleaning her coat as subtly as possible.

"You know," Harshwater said, leaving her her dignity and not staring, "you have a lot of shame and innocence for someone as jaded and beaten-up as you are."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Grenada growled, not looking up.

Harshwater shrugged, moving on to her armpits. "You've been on this crew for just as long as I have, and I know exactly what you went through and put others through in Mistvale. Unless you've forgotten about our little history there? You've been through a bad rejection, you're hardened enough to order an army of one to their death, and yet you're still sheepish about taking a bath. It's just water."

Grenada narrowed her eyes. "Forgive me for believing in true love when ideals are all I have left. My city has been gone for months, and my hero falls farther from the pedestal I once held her on with every passing day. I do not want to compromise my beliefs now that everything that gave me them has left or been taken from me."

"Suit yourself." Harshwater moved on to her tail. "But last time I believed in true love, my crush tried to kill me twice. One suicide mission after Valey in the mines, another up to Mistvale... It's safe to say I'm never doing that again."

Grenada sighed. "Shinespark never tried to endanger or kill me. I know she was watching my back. She merely turned out to be a much more broken mare than I saw her as."

"That's the trouble with perfection," Harshwater complained. "Not that Shinespark couldn't afford to be taken up a notch or two on the self-worth scale, but the moment you get it in your head that someone is great... Ugh, I still have issues with Valey. I have nightmares about fighting her and being saved from something else by her all in the same dream!"

Grenada raised an eyebrow.

"That's at least partly your fault, you know," Harshwater scolded. "It's still hard for me to look at Nyala and Felicity straight, all because I spent weeks nearly getting beaten to death by a gang of sarosians because you wanted me to attack instead of defend. So don't just raise your eyebrow!"

"Sorry." Grenada hovered over a vial of soap. "I am aware that I was an ineffectual leader. It seems leading with heart instead of my mind is a weakness of mine, after how many times it has gotten me in trouble. So you can understand the desire for someone bigger and more perfect."

Harshwater leaned back, letting her mane soak. "That's what I said."

Grenada glanced at her and grimaced.

"What?"

"We have a lot in common."

Harshwater sighed, letting suds fan out from her. "Glad you noticed."

---

A splash sounded across the room as Jamjars climbed from her tub, the first member of the group to finish. She immediately grabbed a towel in her aura and buried her face in it, scrubbing at her mane.

Felicity and Amber both looked up, the former floating on her back as Amber lathered copious amounts of perfumed foam across her chest, forelegs and belly. "Done already?" Amber asked. "But we just got here."

"Yes." Jamjars swaddled herself with towels, using the telekinetic glow of her horn to hide her camouflage spell as she forcibly turned her cheeks back to their natural yellow. "I'll go do my mane somewhere else. I have some things to take care of."

She blotted her fur until she was sure it wouldn't drip, leaving two towels around her mane and tail and carrying a third in her aura for good measure. "Are you sure?" the nurse asked, breaking away from a discussion about board games with Slipstream and Nyala. "We have this room for as long as you need!"

"Where's the way to the roof?" Jamjars asked, not turning around. "And where's Starlight and my things? Now that I don't have to smell my own sweat, I need some fresh air."

"Right, then right at the intersection, left at the next, and your friends' door is on the right." The nurse made a zigzag with her hoof. "And there's no roof access for patients. Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'll be fine!" Jamjars called back. "I just need my brush from my satchel!"

The nurse let her go. She rounded several corners, then leaned against a wall with a sigh of frustration. She needed to get a better hold on herself. Being weird was fine when her siblings were weirder and she could pressure them into being beneath her, and on the ship, there was only Starlight to care about. But here? There would be ponies her own age. There couldn't be that many young adults without foals to grow into them, and while adults might be able to lord things over her, there was no way she wasn't going to be at the top of the stack among peers. And for that, she needed to not do weird things like letting herself get flustered by flirting adults and silly dreams. That was for the airship, when she was bored and no one else was around. Here, she had to get serious...

Jamjars shook her head, hurrying off to go find Starlight and recover her things.

Comments

[Phoenix Kitten]

Oh Jamjars.. you are such a fish out of water here, and it's going to be glorious to watch.

[KMCA]

I swear Jamjars... Don't you ruin this for them.

[Hap]

lol at chapter title

[ZanyZapper]

Oh Jamjars, I don't think you quite understand the concept of a college town. You're going to be trying to rule a population of foals that doesn't even exist. All those young adults aren't from there, you silly filly!

[Oberth Effect]

Jamjars, it's a college. Everyone is weird.

[Oberth Effect]

9976264

Thanks for clarifying!

[Cold Bolt]

"A little bit of everything." Slipstream shrugged. "I tried to study business, which mostly involved learning about the industries that were big in Ironridge at the time. I couldn't tell you how to wire a mana circuit, but could definitely hire someone who could. Of course, Ironridge had more ponies than jobs, so you're fresh out of school and you get a thing working for a help desk at the skyport, getting yelled at by travelers who missed their flights. What can you do?"

I keep forgetting just how... along for the ride Slipstream is. She wasn't really rescued or recruited, she just saw a cute catbird and a chance to trade her boring desk job life for some adventure and decided to give it a shot. Given the number of times I've fantasized about getting to do something similar, I really can't blame her.