My heart pounded in my chest as I read over the note again. That couldn’t be right. She wanted me, at the Maretropolis Mint? How was I supposed to get there? Why did she want me?

I hadn’t been out of the brothel in....how long had it been? I mean we weren’t exactly trapped in here, we could leave if we wished, we were simply...encouraged...not to. Particularly the newer members of the fold. You never knew when someone might have loose lips about just how special the menu was. Not to mention it wasn’t exactly safe out there on the streets for a mare on her own. Here there was the subtle knowledge that if anypony tried anything, it would not end well for them.

My mind flashed to the once threatening horned pony who had quickly become a stain under a heap of twisted metal. Out there, there were no lovely Madames waiting with FlimFlam Mobiles to throw through the ceiling. The only thing there was there was out there, was the streets, a bunch of ponies you didn’t know, and the vague hope that none of them planned to do anything horrible to you.

I’ve never considered myself agoraphobic, but as I thought about it, the idea of leaving the brothel scared me...Before I’d come to be here, I had lived on the streets. They weren’t a nice place to be. Living here and doing what the Madame asked of me had been so much better of an alternative that I’d do it for 1000 years before returning to that.

I knew what it was like to sleep on the sidewalk, to try to eat out of a trash bin only to find nothing edible inside. To be hungry to the point of crime....and just what some stallions might do if they found a little mare out on her own.

I shuddered.

Still if the Madame needed me I couldn’t think about any of that. I mean she was the reason I was here, for good or ill. And she’d taken my secret in stride, she’d apparently known for a while and treated me no differently. Nopony else had ever done that. I was indebted to her for far more than room and board and she knew it. So who was I to deny her request?

I sighed and folded the paper, putting it behind my ear. I was going to need some less conspicuous clothes.

I turned to head back up the stairs to my room, the Madame did usually have a few nice out on the town things to wear. They weren’t exactly your run of the mill clothes, if we ever did decide to go out on the town we might as well advertise after all, but it was better than my usual costume.

I paused as I reached the stares, a bit surprised to find the stallion from the table standing at the base of them, he looked nervous, and a bit confused.

“Where are you going?”

I tilted my head. “Upstairs to change, I can’t go out in this, I’d be less conspicuous with a neon sign on my head.”

He looked perplexed. “Change? Um...miss, most ponies don’t usually wear clothes...just take them off.”

I blinked. Oh. He was right, as I looked behind me out one of the brothel’s windows I could see various mares and stallions walking about. A few of them were clothed but the great majority simply walked about in the nude. The idea was odd to me suddenly, without anything to cover me up I felt...well...naked.

“Quickly, just go into the bathroom and stash them somewhere.” He looked worried. “The Madame is not a patient mare.” My mind flashed with close to a million questions. But he was right, and I knew that all too well. No one kept the Madame waiting…

--

The stallion was waiting when I got back from the bathroom. I’d earned quite a few odd looks from stallions and girls alike. I felt so...exposed. I shifted about on my hooves uncomfortably. I imagined this was what it was like to be a new, particularly homely girl at school. Of course, I’d never set hoof in a school in my life, and I liked to think I was far from homely, so I didn’t have a frame of reference.

He smiled nervously at me and turned to walk out the door. With nothing else to do I followed him. Behind me I could have sworn I heard Honeysuckle say “Get it girl!” as I walked out the door. He had a FlimFlam Mobile parked outside. Of course he did, you seldom saw anyone come to the brothel who didn’t have money. I’d heard that the things were really cheaply made deathtraps with a fancy name and a jacked up price. But hell, that described the things the rich loved to a T.

I held my tongue until we made it inside, he even held the door open for me, what a gentleman. But the second it closed the question on my mind wouldn’t be held back.

“Who are you? Tell me. Now.”

He made a motion to the driver at the front of the machine, and my stomach lurched as we pulled forwards. Luna’s full moon, I was not used to moving under anything but the power of my own hooves. His face flashed with concern.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” I managed not to throw up. “Now answer the question.”

He looked troubled, then nodded. “Well, I would say the best description for what I used to be, was the Madame’s accountant.” He held out a hoof. “Booker’s my name.”

I didn’t shake it, I was worried what leaning forwards might do to my stomach. I was slowly shaking off the motion sickness. On the streets it didn’t pay to be unable to adapt. I was never off balance long if I could help it. He took his hoof back with what looked like a genuine frown. I felt as though I’d kicked a puppy.

“Very well. In any case, I’ve managed the Madame’s books for a number of years. Somehow I hadn’t noticed exactly where all the…” He cleared his throat, blushing. “...auxiliary income, was coming from. She always had a reason, some cheap sale on foodstuffs resulting in extra profits or some such. But about a week ago she seemed a bit distracted, and a might bit busier than usual. She made a slip, and I came to investigate.

“Of course, if you come to the ‘restaurant’ at night and follow the motions of other stallions, you can rather quickly find out what is really going on. I’m quite surprised I never noticed before. It’s as though something was keeping me from it.” he shrugged. “Not quite sure what. But…” he got even more bashful than usual, looking at the ceiling as his blue cheeks started to turn purple. “When I discovered it, the Madame told me to come by...I...I’ve never had much luck with the ladies you see...I was tempted I-”

I stopped him there with a raised hoof.

“You don’t have to defend yourself to me, I work there, remember? Get on with the story.”

He nodded, a bit flustered. “Oh, um...yes. So I came a few days ago, and...well...you were there for that bit.” He paused, seeming to recall the memory. “While I had figured out what the restaurant was for, I had no idea that the Madame was one of Maretropolis’s many supervillains. Now that I know...it seems blatantly obvious, but still everyone seems to remain blind to it.”

“Tell me about it.” I huffed internally.

“In any case, she seemed so caught up in saving the troubled mare from that night that she didn’t recognize me. She later connected the dots and...well… she sought me out. My job has been...expanded upon. Since then.”

I tilted my head. “Expanded upon?”

He nodded, his horned glowed as his magic grabbed something from below the seat. He flicked it open with an idle hoof.

“Yes, expanded.”

If he said anything after that it was lost on me, I was too distracted, gaping at well over a million bits, each lined in plastic sleeves inside the briefcase.

“After she connected the dots, she came and found me. She promised to make it worth my while if I helped in the operation rather than hindered it.”

I just stared.

He blinked. “Oh,” He seemed to realize why I was so dumbstruck. “This is how you’re getting into the mint. The Madame has a very...distinctive, look about her, even while not up to more...nefarious activities. Being as tall as she is, she rather sticks out like a sore hoof. She’ll need you to bring this to the mint under the guise of delivering several newly minted coins from their sister branch, which they usually use to calibrate their presses.”

I continued to stare. “Um...and why couldn’t you do that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t do well under pressure.”

I looked him over once, and believed him.

I gave a sigh. “Well...if the Madame wants, I suppose I can’t really a say no, now can I?”

He shook his head. “It would not be advised.”

I shrugged. “Well alright, but most ponies have far nicer duds than their birthday suits, won’t I still be conspicuous going in naked?”

He nodded. “Indeed, a mare with this kind of money does not walk around in the….” He suddenly seemed to notice I was naked and opted to suddenly be very interested in the window. I swear this stallion was purple more often than he was blue. “Nude...There’s some clothes under your seat. I shall adjourn to the passenger seat in the front of the vehicle until you are dressed.”

I was about to ask another question, but before I could get a word out his horn glowed and he vanished in a sparkly puff of magic.

I’m not terribly familiar with magic. Ponies say that everything is fair and equal, but earth ponies and unicorns in this city didn’t cohabitate terribly much. I figured it was because earth ponies usually made about three times less money than your average unicorn. Most of the girls in the the brothel were earth mares. There was a pegasi or two. They were mostly picked up by earth and unicorn stallions who found the wings excotic….admittedly I had to agree there, the way the muscles in their shoulders moved along the supple lines of their back as they reached a downy feather out to tickle along yo-

I bit my lip and clamped down on that thought like a bear trap. I was about to help rob a mint. I didn’t need to be getting wet right now.

Anyway, the main point is, there’s only one unicon among the girls of the brothel. Her name was Magic Show, a pale blue unicorn with an ego the size of the Clydesdale building. If she weren’t so grating she probably could have beaten Lace in the nightly take ins. The things I heard she could do with that horn of hers….

Damnit! No! Nononono. I didn’t need to be thinking about things like that. I needed to be getting dressed. I stood up.

And immediately fell flat on my face. Okay, I’d gotten over the moving sickness, but standing up effectively in a moving vehicle was something I had the feeling would escape me for a long time to come. Still from my lovely view of the floor, I saw the clothes that had been provided.

It was the most opulent thing I’d ever seen.

My brothel outfit was nice, but this was nice. It was a dress of tasteful light green that complimented the light tan of my coat quite nicely. I wonder if she’d done that on purpose when this had been picked out. It looked long enough to cover all of my legs. Now that was a weird thought. I don’t think all of me had been covered since I was an awkward not quite-mare in a hoodie. At the time I had been trying not to freeze to death on a sidewalk, so the covering had been pretty mandatory.

I grabbed it with my mouth and, shakily managing to stay upright for two seconds, I laid it over the seat. It was so….pretty…like proper girly pretty...Not sexy, not eye catching...but pretty.

I totally didn’t have anything in my eye and I defy you to find anyone willing to say otherwise...I don’t know, for all my blustering, and mare lust...I think deep down every mare, on some level just kind of wants a few minutes to look nice. Not for some stallion who couldn’t keep it in his sheath, not for some ulterior motive...just to look nice. I hadn’t looked nice ever. I’d looked everywhere on the scale from Hot Mess to just plain Hot, but never nice...Even though I was fully aware that this was purely so I could help the madame do some nefarious deed, it struck a weird chord in that strange place somewhere in my chest. The beaty thing that pumps the red stuff.

Tonight I was going to look nice.

But this was no time for sentiment. This was time for getting dressed and robbing places. I took a deep breath, and set about getting dressed.

Author's Note

Heya, I know there hasn't been a chapter of this in a long time, but my life got hectic as hell this year, and it's been pretty bad to my writing in general. I've fallen behind on commissions, and my stories have suffered a lack of updates as a result.

If I owe you a commission it's coming soon, and if you enjoy this story there will be more of it soon!

Also if you DO like this story, please take the time to comment, sometimes it's the only thing that keeps me writing it. I know it's short, and lacking on sexy bits, but in the next one we get a bank robbery, and I promise you'll enjoy that~

Laters.

Plotpony.