The Hollow Kingdom of Octavia

Exhibit G

"This stallion was coming on to me pretty hard the whole night, and he was scaring away the potential for anypony else to try their hoof because he was either high or drunk or both. I figure we should just have sex and get it over with, so I take him to the mare's room and we fuck in the stall. I'm just starting to get into it when he suddenly pulls out and blows a load on the wall. At this point I'm pretty sure he's on something powerful because he was pretty much convinced his performance deserved an award. I would have settled for an encore, but his penis was not having it."

"Is this going anywhere?" Octavia asks, thinking that this is a strange way to start a story. Even Vinyl gives a bit more exposition before explaining how the sex went down.

"Unfortunately, yes," the mare said, heaving a sigh. "He starts parading me around after we leave the bathroom and hangs on me like I'm his marefriend or something. We dance and mingle a bit, and I guess it wasn't all bad. Honestly, I was just waiting for him to sober up just in case he gets in the mood again. It goes on like that for an hour or two until he's says to me, 'I have to go meet a guy.' He takes me to the top floor of the club where the private rooms are and we go into the farthest one. I was pretty stoked because I've never been in one before. He says something about how the guy won't be there for a couple of minutes and then gets all physical and feeling me up. We actually have some halfway decent sex on the couch before he pulls out again and splooges all over it. I kept telling him he could finish inside, but I guess he wasn't the type.

"Anyway, I try to get a little drunker while more stallions show up. I can tell that this meeting isn't really legit because most everypony there either had a facial scar or a five o'clock shadow. The stallion I was with calls the meeting to order and they start talking about stuff I didn't really care about. I just sat on the couch trying to look sexy.

"The meeting takes a short break so everypony could get a quick fix, and then we were leaving all of a sudden. We go out this back way I have never seen before right into this warehouse next to the club. I could tell things were about to get dangerous because there are bricks of Celestia knows what just standing around with a whole herd of thugs keeping tabs on them. I figured I was witnessing some kind of huge drug deal."

"Right out of the back of the club?" Octavia asks. She had always suspected as much, but Vinyl had never explicitly said anything.

"Yeah, isn't that crazy?" The mare was smiling for some reason, but quickly went back to being serious. "The owner has to know that something like that was going on. I could tell I was in waaaaay deeper than I cared to be. I mean, I've done my fair share of drugs, but something about the whole setup made me uncomfortable. I tell the dude I'm with I gotta use the restroom for its intended purpose, but before I can even get out the door a bunch of armed guards bust in through a door on the opposite end of the warehouse. Things got bloody fast, so I just hid behind some crates and whatnot. Oh, and you'll never guess what happens next!"

Octavia is shocked by the sudden appearance of a smile on the mare's face, as if the story is about to take a pleasant turn all of a sudden. On the other hoof, she can't see how things could've been worse.

"I get rescued by the hunk of a stallion Prince Shining Armor! Can you believe that?"

"You saw him at the warehouse?"

"In the flesh," the mare says, crossing her heart. "The guards were interested in what happened to him after he got me out of there, but all I know is he went back inside. The thugs were escaping or something and he wanted to stop them. I'll tell you, that club and that warehouse are rigged with more secret exits and entrances than you can shake a stick at."

"And the thugs made good use of them?" Octavia asks. For some reason, she could easily see Vinyl masterminding the quick entrances and exits of many stallions through different openings.

"They put up a good fight before they took off." The mare turns her eyes to the ceiling, recalling the shocking events of the previous night. "The guards couldn't figure out how they were disappearing, but I'm willing to be Shining Armor sussed it out. The guards are still poking around the warehouse, trying to find anything they might have missed."

There is a clattering in the back of the bar. Both mares turn to see the only other occupant has slumped over onto the floor. Octavia's informant immediately rushes to his side, trying to help him to his hooves. He struggles, but eventually gets upright. He mumbles under his breath, but Octavia can't hear a word of it.

"I think you've had enough," she says to him, basically dragging him across the bar. She stops in front of Octavia with the funky smelling stallion and smiles at her. "Would you mind taking him home?"

"Home?"

"His home, not yours," the mare says, clarifying what she meant. "Unless you're into that. I don't know if he's up for anything right now."

"Nnn... 's cold, Claret," the stallion mumbled to the floor. "Can't I sleep here?"

"You can't sleep here," the mare, who was apparently named Claret, tells the ragged pony. "This nice mare is going to make sure you make it back in one piece."

"But, I don't-"

"He lives two blocks west, between the dry cleaner and the office building. Consider it payment for the story or the soda if you want," Claret says, making it clear that this was not a matter of Octavia's preferences tonight. It was clear this stallion needed the warmth of his home at the moment.

Octavia relieved Claret of the stallion, who she found was lighter than she suspected. His mass was mostly comprised of coat, but his limbs were skinny and gangly. He also reeked of alcohol and sweat, but Octavia sucked it up. It was only two blocks. She could take this pony two blocks.

It would be as simple as that.