Fallout Equestria: Medicine & Mail

Author's Notes:

This is a companion chapter to Chapter Two in Medicine & Mail. If you have not read at least through chapter two in the main storyline, then this perspective will not make any sense.

This is the edited version of this chapter. Content has been revised to remove the sexual content to remain within the Teen rating of the main story. Some characterization and details will be missing from this version, so it is recommended to read the unedited version in Tales of the Marejave unless you are bothered by sexual content.

Chapter Two-point-Five

Matron Willow

“‘Prudes!’ Can you believe it? Those minotaurs, they think

Just because they have these spirits of debauchery and carnality,

That we’re repressed! Us, regular, pure ponyfolk!”

With all the activity of the dozens of patrons, dancing, joking, laughing and playing games of dice and cards with exaggerated gusto, the air here was thick and hot. Minotaurs and ponies shuffled back and forth from the bar, ordering drinks and returning below to their games or tables. The two minotaurs that moved aside to let me sit across from Willow shared stories and laughter over my head like I wasn’t even there.

“Alright, so you’re not with Bit,” Willow called out, her voice loud, necessary to cover the excessive bass levels of the speakers all around, but flat toned. “What exactly are you?” The pink unicorn was slowly turning a glass around in her telekinetic field, the turquoise glow of it creating a cascade of hues across her features.  She had painted herself up in a dark purple tribal pattern, and was wearing a lacy black and white outfit.

She was decidedly gorgeous. And I’m staring.

I shook my head and tried to turn my attention away from the mesmerizing mare. “I—” I didn’t actually know how to respond to her question. I fumbled with some words, and tossed some ideas around in my head but nothing seemed to fit. What was I, now?

With the Hydra that coursed through my body, I couldn’t even be sure I was still fully unicorn. But then, with the suppressor anchored to my horn, I didn’t even have that going for me.

Right now, I was just a small pony days further away than I’d ever been from my home, unsure of where I was going to go, and whose company I was in, or even what I would do after this night. I knew that, in the back of my mind, I wanted to find Silver. But the need of it seemed to have lessened of late.

And each time I looked at the priestess, it seemed less important even still. I shook my head and sighed.

“You don’t have to say,” Willow added with a gentle voice, a smile touching on her lips. “I just wanted to know who was keeping the company of my favorite little gambler.”

I looked up at Willow, the warming tone of the last words catching my curiosity. She was looking across the bar, and I followed her gaze to Ghost Ant, hovering over Bit, who was flat on the ground on her haunches.

The grey minotaur—short by minotaur standards, but still several times my size—stepped up to the bar, and swept his enormous arms aside, shuffling most of the row between us toward me.  Bit walked to the bar, and disappeared behind the mass of muscle and fur in front of me that was leaning back to watch the event.

Willow giggled, and stared down at the glass she was floating with her magic, her cleaning temporarily halted.  It seemed like she was lost in a memory, and her downcast smile added a wisp of melancholy to the view.

“It was just an accident,” I rushed to say, causing her to perk up. “I helped her, and then she helped me. We’re…even, now.” I wasn’t sure how to explain it. I didn’t know how Bit Flip actually felt about the arrangement. She helped me out back at Old Fort Celestia, but only after invoking a debt, and she did refer to me earlier as business.

Maybe I was just luggage.

“That’s it?” She sounded disappointed. “That’s so…well, that’s very her, isn’t it?” She laughed a little, her voice trailing off.

The bar aside me erupted in cheers, and a cream-colored stallion in black bartender robes called out that a drinking challenge had been issued. I leaned back and tried to peer through the thickening crowd to glimpse at who was involved—Bit was over there, so I was curious—but the throng of gatherers and watchers for the challenge obscured my sight completely.

I sat back straight and sighed. The minotaurs beside me had risen and joined in with the rest of the growing crowd to the side, so I was left curiously alone, save for Willow, who was looking at me with a soft smile.

I remembered the sorrowful expression she held a few moments before. Bit had mentioned that she and Willow shared an intimate past, but it certainly felt like one side held on to the memories of it more dearly, and it reminded me of Silver Sheen. My relationship with her took years to develop, and then, just as it did—

A great slap hit my back and nearly sent me tumbling over the bar. A gruff, booming voice yelled from my side, “’Ey Willow! Didn’t know ya had yerself another ’nitiate!” The rust-coated minotaur reached an arm around my side and hoisted me up effortlessly over his shoulder, and began walking from the bar.

I struggled in vain, and reached out with my arms and eyes to Willow, who just shrugged and giggled.

The crowd at the edge of the bar erupted again. And I was right, it was Bit Flip in the center of the group, sitting aside an azure stallion, with several lines of shot glasses and a familiar dark alcohol (ooh, Black Whiskey!) prepped for the contest.  “—Ish yer favorite!” I heard from within.

The minotaur dropped me down atop a table where two stallions and one massive griffin sat. Their faces were flushed from the heat of the building, laughter, and judging from the number of bottles and cans that were knocked off when I was unceremoniously flopped onto the table, they were all extremely drunk.

The crowd near Bit broke into a sing-song tune, sloshing together a mixed rhythm and swaying to off-key cries of “Drink until y’can’t drink no more!”

As I gained my footing atop the table, I started, “I’m not—”

The scarred griffin let out an ear-piercing squawk, which turned into a laugh and a haggard coughing fit.  The others at the table joined in the laughter, but it felt distinctly like they were not joining with the griffin, and more laughing at him.

“Aye, we know!” The minotaur joked, slapping my back. “No paint! But you’ve got the lace on! Ye’d be a Maiden or Honorary Priestess with that but ain’t none o’us knows you, so that can’t be!”

One of the stallions, with a splotchy grey-purple coat and numerous pocks over his face, leaned up onto the table and yelled out at me, “We jus’ wanna know—”

“You an’ Bit a thing?”

Even over the booming bass and noise of the church-bar, I was sure everyone in here heard it. The extreme volume made me wince and lay my ears flat reflexively, and the overwhelming stench of alcohol and other far-less inviting smells from the stallion’s breath had me scrambling back.

I fell onto the floor, hitting flat on my back, and my eyes watered.

A massive arm of the rusty minotaur hoisted me back to my hooves, where I stood, looking at each of the four drunkards in turn, feeling the flush of my embarrassment warm into a smile, and I laughed along with them.

Near Bit Flip, the crowd of challenge-watchers hollered and hooped, and a shaggy minotaur with excessively long dreads looked at me before calling back into the throng, “’Ey! Bit’s got’er a fillyfriend!”

I knew someone heard that! I blushed, “Everybody really does assume that! We’re not!” I laughed along with most of the upper floor. I looked up and caught a few glances of the evergreen mare as she downed glass after glass of whiskey. She is cute, in her way, but I don’t feel anything toward her like that.

The bar was full of rowdy, but good-mannered types, it seemed. I looked over the faces of everyone at the table before me and in each I saw enjoyment and relaxation. The griffin was the largest I had ever seen, standing nearly as tall and broad as most of the minotaurs, but still smaller than the stoic minotaurs standing at all corners draped in a single massive black cloth. The stallions were much older than I, covered in grime and dirt, and one was wearing a tattered engineer’s cap.

The crowd around the challenge had begun to disperse, and leading them was Bit Flip, flushed in face and carrying a healthy pile of chips, making her way down the ramp at the end of the balcony to the gaming floor below.

“Now now,” the gentle voice of Willow came from beside me, “It’s not fair to take my catch from me like that.” She had stepped up beside me and was looking at each, glancing back to me. She ran her tail slowly, gently up along my cutie mark.

I whimpered, and my entire body flushed. My ears pinned back, and I shivered as she ran her tail down the inside of my flank. My knees felt weak suddenly, and I wanted to collapse and whimper from the sudden intimacy.

As the table erupted in shouts and hoots, Willow nudged me over to the edge of the upper floor and leaned against the railing. She spoke softly into my ear, “That’ll give them something to talk about.”

I kept my eyes down at the tables below, trying desperately not to think of the feel of her tail along the sensitive inside of my leg, the look on her face and—okay, I really need to stop thinking of that! By Celestia’s grace I think she’ll make me come just looking at me.

“You play?” Willow nodded down to a table below.

I was glad for the topic change, but I shook my head. “I mean, I’ve played before, but only with travelers and a few other ponies around town. Never in a real environment. I don’t know if I’m any good.”

Bit Flip was leaning over a table with more spectators than apparent players, and pulled to her a small pile of colored chips, laughing.

Willow looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Never know until you try,” she giggled.

“I’d like to,” I mused. Watching the jubilation of everyone below, cheering as Bit pulled another win, and erupting as she bet it all and lost it immediately after, it felt like there was so much that could happen in just one game.

Looking over at another table, a group of griffins and minotaurs were holding cards and trying to hold themselves as steady and flat-faced as possible. Each player glanced at another and after what appeared to be careful consideration, dropped some chips into a bulging pile. They all dropped their cards face up, and one griffin jumped up, hollering, while the rest of the players squirmed and rubbed their heads. How interesting.

“So why don’t you? The services are still on for a while yet. Go mingle.”

“I’d, um,” I shifted. “I don’t know. I think I’ll just stay up here for now.”

“Nervous, huh? Well, looks like there’s something else I’ll have to show you how to overcome later.” She turned from the railing and grazed me lightly with her mane as she walked by, then brushed her tail across my face and walked to the bar. A sweet scent lingered after her.

Her small, lithe frame moved slowly, deliberately, and swished her tail about. The dark cloth wrapped around her body tightly and the thin stockings and lace left little to the imagination. The dark purple paint accented her features and kept bringing my view to her flank.

I followed slowly behind her toward the bar, and watched her make her way around it, never for a moment taking my view from the sight of her. My body was warm, my face flushed, and I was tingly in all the right places. She was simply gorgeous—maybe even more-so than Silver…

“Darling,” she spoke to me, breaking me from my trance, “Eyes up here.”

Luna freeze my nethers, she saw me. Again!I slumped down and covered my head with my hooves, hoping the burning in my cheeks, ears, and under my thighs would settle.

She laughed, and pressed a hoof to my ear gently. As I looked up, she whispered, “I hope you didn’t make a mess in my panties.”

I squealed and tried to stammer out something, but words were not forming.

“Willow! Ah need another round! No, make it two! Me an’ mah buddies, we need another toast for Laitis!”

“Certainly!” She beamed. With the shimmering lights of the church playing about, and the glow from her magic, her sapphire eyes sparkled. The purple paint that she painted around them only made them stand out more.

As she trotted about, talking excitedly to the mottled stallion requesting drink after drink, her mane bounced and flowed, billowing out and framing her face. She worked her magic over multiple bottles, lifting and flipping each in turn, seeming to delight in the activity. It was amazing to watch—she turned bottles and spun them around, dropping her magic hold on them momentarily, picking them up again at the precise moment the last drips needed to fill the glasses below the bottle hit, and managed the menagerie of bottles and glasses without ever missing a beat in her sing-song sway and dance.

She smiled as she set the tray of multi-colored drinks down by a nearby lace-clad minotaur. It seemed like the entire church lit up with her.

I tried to edge myself closer to that sight, wanting simply to be a part of the aura that she seemed to emanate. My body tingled, and burned with powerful sensations. I have the heat of Celestia’s sun in me, I groaned.

I have to stop thinking of that. I needed to calm down, take a breath, and steady myself. I can’t, I still have Silver. When I find her.

As I exhaled slowly, a glass was slid up to me, bathed in a dark greenish-blue light. The mix itself was a creamy white, with a thick foam on top and thin slices of something light-green rimming the glass.

“I call it a Doozy,” Willow explained, walking up to me with that bright, beaming smile of hers. “It’ll calm you down.”

I lapped the foam, and was hit with a sensation of flavor I had never experienced before. It was delicious. It had a light flavor of the cactus pods we had eaten previously, but there were other flavors I didn’t even know mixed in, and a familiar, distinct flavor of a fine whiskey.

The foam gone, I greedily took a large gulp of the thick, creamy drink. It was oaky, but fruity, and the taste seemed to change as it worked across my tongue.

“Good. Maybe that’ll keep your mind off somepony, and I won’t have to clean up a puddle under your seat.”

I coughed and hacked, gasping at air, trying to breathe through the burning of forgetting how to for a moment. Her tone was in jest, but I felt like she waited until that exactly moment to say that, just for the sake of seeing me teary-eyed and embarrassed.

As I started to regain my ability to breathe properly, I giggled, then laughed.  In between breaths, I took more deep gulps of the Doozy, until the glass was empty.  Another was set just next to it.

I pulled the second drink to me, and giggled. “You must think I’m a pervert pony.”

“Not at all, dear. It’s not the first time I’ve elicited a reaction.” She leaned on to the counter and had slid close enough that I could see the sparkling of background lights in her sapphire eyes, framed by that dark paint.

My cheeks burned and I took to washing away my embarrassment with another long drink.

“Just never so honestly,” she finished. She kept her bright eyes on mine for what seemed like an eternity, and for that time, nothing else seemed to exist. Finally, she adopted a sultry expression. “Your eyes are amazing. I’ve never seen such a deep amethyst. And the way they shine in the light with the reds and purples…it’s very unique, and more than a little sexy.”

I wanted to flinch away, to turn, but I could not. Finally, I melted, and slumped down slightly. She’s intense.

I needed to change the topic. I would wither away under the veritable onslaught of emotions and desire, and I felt like she knew she could get me to squirm with just the slightest motion or just a few words. And she seemed to enjoy it.

“Um, so—” I wanted to say something, anything, but words weren’t forming. Topics and questions and ideas all floated around, but I couldn’t grasp onto any, until…“You and Bit Flip.”

“Hm?” She leaned back and straightened up slightly. “What about her and I, dear?”

“You’ve known each other for a while. I don’t know anything about her.”

Willow settled back onto the bar. “And you want to know more about her?” She turned her head slightly, drooped her ears, and said in a hushed, sad voice, “Dear, that hurts.”

I had intended on ignoring whatever tease she responded with, but the sudden change in demeanor caught me off guard. Without realizing it, I apologized.

“I thought you wanted to know about me,” she continued.

“I-I do!” I stammered, without realizing.  Then I did, and tried to cover my embarrassment, “I-I mean, I do, but, uh—” But nothing. I really did want to know. I wanted to know how soft her coat was, to know why she was here and what choices in life she made, wanted to know if I could just nestle up in her mane and sleep, wanted to know her taste—Aaaaugh!I downed the rest of the cup quickly.

She giggled and looked up at me. Her expression was soft and she was trying not to laugh, but her cheeks tugged and a smile broke out, then she laughed.

It was a heart-warming sound, and then I realized she had been playing me. I was sure she could read every thought I had from the way my body moved at that moment. Before her I felt completely naked—not that her lingerie I was wearing was exactly covering—and she could see everything about me. It was embarrassing, but also comforting.

“It’s fine, I understand,” she told me. “But, really, it’s awfully loud in here, and I think this would be a conversation better suited to something more private.” After saying something to the cream-colored stallion quietly, she stepped from the side of the bar and motioned me toward an exit.

As the door opened to the outside, a gust of cool air washed over us, taking the immediate heat from me, and breathing a comfortable coolness over my sweaty coat. The night was quiet but for the rumble of the church’s music, and the moonlight had coated everything in a light blue hue. The buildings shimmered, and the lights of the town flickered all around.

Willow was walking ahead a few steps, moving up a wide wooden set of stairs that circled around the church, keeping her pace slow. The moonlight glimmered off her mane and coat, and silhouetted her in a faint glow.

I trotted up to her side and fell in with her pace. The night air was calming, and all the burning of my desires and the Doozies were washing away, bit by bit. I felt genuinely comfortable here.

I hadn’t felt like this since Desert’s Edge. Since before Silver left.

We reached a balcony overlooking the Crags, and Willow nestled down. Looking out from the top of the building across the Rusted Crags, it felt like a completely different world than from just inside the church. Here, it was calm and quiet, with nobody around but us.

It’s just us.

I stepped closer to Willow and leaned up against her slightly, nuzzling at the edge of her ears. She had a sweet scent about her, much like the sugary drink she had served me earlier, but with a touch of something else—just the slightest hint of something erotic, and passionate.

She cooed and booped my cheek with her nose. “I thought you had questions?”

Sudden realization hit me and I shrank back. “Sorry!”

She arched her eyebrows and frowned, then patted the spot I had just sat in. She had changed her expression to a half-smile. Her features were inviting, and I sat back down, leaning against her slightly. I could feel the heat of her body against my own.

“What did you want to know?”

“If I could just stay here like this forever.”

“Forever?”

What? Oh, Luna fuck me with the crags of the moon, I didn’t think that, I said it! I covered my head with my hooves and sank onto the wooden balcony. “I’m sorry, I, um…”

“You needn’t apologize, dear. You seem to hide from your feelings a lot, but your body is so honest,” she teased.

I turned away. She was absolutely correct, and I would fool nopony otherwise right now. “S-So, she—Bit Flip, I mean—said you two were more than friends once?”

Willow turned from me and looked out across the cloudless horizon. She stayed silent a moment. “We’ve been friends a long time. Her caravan comes through here quite a bit, and she seems naturally inclined to games of luck and chance, which means we’ve had several dealings in the past.”

“Luck?”

“Mmhmm,” Willow nodded. “She’s just as likely to have the best luck in the Wasteland as she is the worst. She has a bad habit—and don’t tell her I said this—of getting too into it.”

“How do you mean?” Just keep talking.

“You’re familiar with dice, right? A pony with average luck like you or I, when we roll one, we will get random results, from one to six. She, on the other hoof, will only ever get one or six.” Willow giggled, then continued in her silken voice, “It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it. It’s freaky luck, no matter how she says otherwise.”

I thought back to meeting with Bit in the cave during the storm. She told me she gambled, and lost, and it started to make more sense now. If she was lucky, the storm would have passed quickly or turned another direction. If she wasn’t, she…She certainly wasn’t lucky about that.

Willow took a breath and glanced down at me, squeezing me slightly. “Ah, sorry, that didn’t answer your question.”

“It’s alright,” I whispered.  I didn’t want to step on her hoof here and hit a touchy subject. I just wanted her to keep talking. Her voice made my ears burn with excitement, and leaning against her felt like resting on clouds.

“Well, you asked, so I feel like I should answer.”

“You don’t have to,” I rushed. “I don’t want to make you say something you’re not comfortable with. I just wanted you to talk, and, well, anything works.” Whatever I can to keep you talking, and keep my thoughts modest. “Um, alright, here’s something I don’t understand. Why does she hide her wings?”

Willow giggled. “I take it she got defensive once or twice?”

“Mmhmm,” I hummed. “Earlier, flying would have been better for her than walking, but she snapped at me.”

Willow considered the question for a moment, and stayed silent, but kept her gaze on me. Finally, she spoke up, “She plays her cards close to her vest. Likes to have that last bit of leverage in a conversation or deal. I see that sort of thing in the cards and games downstairs a lot, actually, but she puts it into practice.”

“It was certainly a shock.”

“That’s sort of the idea, isn’t it? If everypony thinks they’re dealing with an earth pony, they’ll react that way. Then it all gets thrown out when she flies away. Don’t show your hand until you know it’ll win you the match; that kind of thing.”

I nodded. Her words made the events at the Fort and the gate here seem more sensible, but my thoughts were only half on that. I just wanted to listen to that delectable voice of hers.

“Well! That’s all about the past,” she started, grinning. “I’d rather know about the present! Tell me about yourself, and how you came to know Bit, and why you’re here.”

“It’s not very interesting.” It’s not that I didn’t want to tell her, I just wanted to know more about her than I wanted to say anything about me. But she did ask. I sighed.

“I was leaving Fleshgrove and kind of fell into a cave during a dust storm. A while later, I saw something out in the storm, and a huge sheet or debris or something hit it. Not really sure, just some big shadow. I went out to help, and it was Bit. She tried stopping that something with her face,” I chuckled. “And later on, I got in a bit of trouble in OFC. That’s…where I got this ring. Anyway, she was there and helped me.”

But none of the others, I remembered sourly.

“What in Upniri’s name saw you in Fleshgrove?”

I slumped away from the warmth of her, and thought. I didn’t know what to say, or how to say it even if I did. Painful feelings were emerging as I remembered the past few weeks, but part of me knew I needed to say it. “I left…Desert’s Edge, where I’m from,” I was mumbling. The words were difficult to say, but I tried to push forward. “I…left for Silver.” My voice cracked. “I wanted to find her, and…“

Willow reached out and gently pulled me tight against her.

Something about that embrace, simple as it was, tugged on me, and I felt the emotions welling up. I wanted to stop them—I don’t want to feel that way! —but they kept rushing to the surface.

My eyes watered, then tears began falling, and would not stop. I cried, and wailed, and my body heaved and shuddered, pressing tightly against Willow. My tears ran over her paint, causing it to run, and my face and body smeared it over the two of us as I pulled and tugged her against me.

Willow stayed silent as my emotions flooded out, cradling me and nuzzling me.  She just held me, while I sobbed and blabbered, retelling the last two weeks of my life between fits of tears and wails. I told her about Silver Sheen, and how much she meant to me then, but how now it didn’t seem to drive me the same. I felt like I was losing her. I explained how my trust in ponies had been struck and broken from the events toward Fleshgrove and in Old Fort Celestia.

I really did want to help but there were so many times I ran away, had to flee, and couldn’t. I wanted to help, but I didn’t, or I couldn’t. So I ran, and left everypony behind. I wanted to be better, to do good, to help, but…“I’m just selfish.”

As I neared the end of my story, my body had settled but for the occasional shudder. My face was stained with my tears, and our bodies both were covered in smears of the dark purple paint she had covered herself in for the church’s services.

I breathed deeply, taking in her sugary sweet scent, and wrapped my arms around the mare’s body, pulling us as close as I could, to which she responded in kind. I could feel her heartbeat thumping against my chest, rapid and excited, and her breathing was shallow and quick. Her body felt so much warmer now, and in the cooling night air, I cherished it.

As I loosened my grip, she rolled with me onto my back. Her face was flushed and she was taking shallow breaths through her slightly open mouth. Her sapphire eyes glimmered with a hint of tears.

“I thought,” I whispered, my throat catching and haggard, “I thought I loved Silver. I don’t know. Maybe I did. Maybe…I just want to be a good pony.”

She looked lost, but sensual, with her eyes closed partly and—she kissed me.

I didn’t know why, but my eyes watered, and tears rolled down my face, settling on my mane. She shifted her body slightly, pressing her curves into mine, and for a while, it felt like I was losing a part of myself, becoming something of her, with her.

The night air was cool, but Willow’s body was warm, and between gasps and moans, I held her as close as I could under the moonlight.

I leaned over and kissed her, tasting the sweet flavor of the night on our tongues. “I’ll make us even.”

“Oh I should hope not! The night is still so very young, and once just won’t do!”

She slowly moved to her hooves and stretched out, silhouetted against the bright moon of the late night. She took a step toward the stairs leading back down from the balcony, then glanced back at me. “If you really mean that, you’re going to want to come down here, don’t you think?”

I chuckled. “I’m not sure I can stand just yet.” My legs were weak, and felt numb. I felt drained in so many ways.

A moment later, I felt the tug of a magic field around me as Willow’s magic enveloped me and lifted me slightly. She floated me to her and set me down slowly.

I leaned against her, trying to keep myself steady, then nodded, and followed after her as she walked down the steps.

The church was as loud as it had been before, and nothing seemed to have changed. Patrons still screamed and yelled in joy and laughter, the minotaur monk-bouncers still pulled much smaller ponies apart in heated arguments, and the occasional eruption of cheering down below signified a spectacular win or loss in the various gambling games.

Willow stepped through the door without a pause, and as the multi-colored lights hit her, I saw just how much of a mess I had made of her. Her coat was more purple from the tribal paint than her own pink—in my fit of crying and moment of passion, I had smeared it in every direction. Whatever designs she had carefully painted on before were gone, replaced by a mess of raw emotion.

She took a few steps forward, then looked back. “We have to go through here,” she smiled, seeming to catch my uneasiness. She motioned me in, and after a deep breath, I took my first step back in to the church.

“Looks like she got the paint after all!” The familiar voice of the rust-colored minotaur boomed out across the balcony. He raised his mug, itself as large as some ponies, and hollered out, “By Laitis! Initiate the little one, Willow!”

“I think that my paint really looks good on you,” Willow whispered in my ear as I walked to her side. “Really brings out those eyes.”

She skipped up to the edge of the bar. “Can you do something for me?”

A light mocha colored stallion in black church garb walked up to her, a knowing smile playing across his face and his glimmering eyes. “Keep minding the bar? You’re busy? Don’t think you’ll make it back tonight?”

Willow giggled, “Yes, exactly. Thank you!” She trotted back to me and bumped her flank against mine playfully, then kept moving ahead. Her mane was a mess, still billowy but disorganized, and her priestess outfit was skewed and coming loose in all the right spots.

I flushed, but followed her down the long ramp toward the bottom floor, taking careful mind to stay a few steps back—anypony with half a mind for mares, and hell, probably even those who wouldn’t normally fancy such, couldn’t blame me for the sight of her sway and seductive movements.

When she stepped down from the ramp and turned in to the crowd, Ghost Ant grabbed her and hoisted her up, letting out a guffaw and squeezing her. “Matron, you’re all a’mess! And that—yep, that’s the smell of another mare on you!” He laughed, looking straight at me, “And not hard to guess which!”

Several of the others at the table and over the room turned at the minotaur’s booming jest, and I caught many glances shifting between Willow and I, and just as much snickering. Of course—I must look like quite the sight, covered in her paint. And to those that could tell over the myriad of scents in the bar, she was soaked in mine.

My cheeks turned crimson and my face burned. Everybody knows.

“Now now, Ghost,” Willow squeezed out. When she was set down, she motioned me forward, to which I hesitantly complied. “We have something private to attend to, so if you don’t mind…”

“Oh nobody minds!” a beige stallion hollered out behind the relatively short grey minotaur. Laughter and applause rang out around us.

Willow simply smiled at me and laughed, pushing her way through the crowd. I followed as close as I could, afraid to get caught and lost in the crowd as they began to chant to cries of “Laitis! Laitis!”

Willow stopped halfway across the room and turned to face Bit Flip, who was leaning with her back against a dice table behind her. Bit rested her chin on one hoof, and a coy, playful smile stretched across her features. She had a large pile of chips and caps immediately behind her, but curiously, her underbarding’s cloth cover was gone. She was sitting at the table, wings public, naked but for a pony’s modesty.

“So!” she called out, hopping off the chair and trotting up to the two of us. She flicked a glance between us several times, then broke out into a wide whiskey-grin, “Looks like somepony’s initiated now!”

I could smell the alcohol lingering around her. Oh dear Luna, just how much has she had tonight?

“I—what?” I remember Bit Flip explaining she was a Maiden—rather, an Honorary Priestess—after drinking Ghost Ant under twice, but I hadn’t had anything to drink beyond a few Doozies recently. And I certainly did not challenge any member to a drinking contest.

“Only halfway,” Willow chimed. “Now she has to pay her part in.”

Bit Flip laughed, and patted my head with one of her wings. “Have fun, then! Or, should I say, be careful!” She laughed, and trotted back to her game.

The chanting around us had died out, but I still felt most of the bar’s eyes on me. The door across the room felt a mile away.

“Come on,” she laughed. “Perhaps we really should move somewhere private before you catch on fire!” She pulled at the door with her magic and stepped into the hall beyond, motioning me to follow.

I scrambled to my hooves and nearly dashed in beside her—just to get out of the immediate attention of everyone behind me.

The door shut, and the sounds of the activity beyond them seemed to fade into the distance.

“You’re very cruel,” I choked out.

Willow just laughed, and kept pushing forward with that delectable sway of hers. “You’re beyond adorable, so I can’t help it!” She stopped at a door with a placard above it, inscribed in gold against the black stone slab were the words Matron Willow.

She pushed the door open and skipped in.

We had taken to her bed, and I rolled up to her, nestling in her mane and wrapping my legs around her as she hummed a happy tune. “Why here?”

She hummed the melody again for a few seconds, then wrapped her legs around me in return and spoke quietly, “Part of it was how new it was to me. I had been with a caravan for almost a year, and seen so much. But this was suddenly so new, and exciting. So I stayed—only meant to stay until the caravan came back through—but as I became more involved in the church, I suddenly realized I didn’t want to go back out. I knew this was the place for me.”

“So confident,” I whispered. “I don’t know what I want. Not anymore.”

“Confidence is just something you have to learn. Nopony is always sure of themselves in every situation. But you tell yourself that you are, that you’re sure, and you can become that way.” She stroked my mess of a mane for a while before continuing. “You can become anypony you want, if you believe you are who you’re trying to tell everyone you are.”

“Mmhmm,” I hummed back. The desire for sleep was becoming almost overwhelming.  “Tell me more,” I tried.

She continued to stroke my mane, and gently rubbed my ears occasionally. Her rich, smooth voice was becoming distant as sleep overtook me.

The light of a late morning sun shone through the cracks in worn curtains over the multiple windows of Willow’s room.  This will be a good day.

I stepped up onto my hooves and skipped after the sashaying mare ahead of me. A wonderful day.

“I need to check something from last night before we get busy,” she explained, turning down the hall toward the gambling den and bar. Skipping through it, we made our way past all the groggy-eyed minotaurs and ponies. I kept close to Willow, trying to hide from the many snickers and knowing eyes.

We stepped through the door at the end back into the gambling den. Several minotaurs in the black robes of the church were moving about, separating the litter and cleaning up various spills and other messes.

She had stopped in the room, talking to one of the other church members. I trotted up to her, and looked around. Some of the patrons had taken to sleep on the lounges—and in one case, on a dice game table.

Willow pranced her way up the ramp to the bar, and I followed. The area here was much the same, with the same kinds of spills and unconscious patrons. I looked around over the church-bar, and that’s when I saw her.

Hanging from a chandelier was Bit Flip, mostly upside down. Her wings were out but her cloth underbarding—so she got it back, I see—was tangled up in it. Affixed to her drooped head was a bottle of Black Pony Whiskey.

I laughed, and directed Willow to the sight, and she laughed heartily.

“Should we get her down?”

Willow wiped a tear from her eye and shook her head. “No, no,” she giggled, “She’s fine. Let the Whiskeycorn sleep a bit longer.”

I knew I’d have to bring that up again later.