Ever Onward

“What happened?”

My head throbbed and stomach churned as I slowly cracked my eyes. It was dark, which wasn't all that weird for my room even in the middle of the day, but even then I should have at least still had the soft glow of my computer's screensaver or the internal LEDs to provide at least some light.

“I think Spike scared her and she fainted.”

I groaned, trying to sit up despite the unbearable effort it took. Who the fuck was talking outside my door? Did mom have company over? I sighed, shuffling groggily to my feet and shivered at the cold stone underneath. I really should ask mom to get me some carpet, or at least start wearing socks to bed.

“M-Mom? Could you guys be a little more quiet? I've got a killer fucking headache.”

“Oh! I think she's awake. Wait out here and I'll go greet her.”

“Hello? Mom?” I hissed, clutching my head, and walked towards the stairs only to bust my toe against solid rock. “Fuck! My! Ass!”

Light flooded my dark room from behind me, blinding me and forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut when it sent needles through my already throbbing head.

“Oh no! Are you okay!?”

“Mom, why are you letting random people into my room!?”

“I, uhm… I'm sorry, but I don't think this is where you think it is.”

“What the fuck do you mean? I'm in my room, so why wouldn't… I…” I blinked, squinting tightly to try and get my eyes to adjust and see just who Mom had decided was okay to just barge into my room only to stumble back up against the wall as a short, lavender horse stepped towards me, backlit by the flickering flame from a torch hung on a wall behind her. The door she was standing in wasn't my door. It was thick, heavy, and rough, made of a weird black wood. The walls weren't the concrete filling of a house's foundation, but strange, rough stone, and my queen-size bed was nothing more than a cot on a raised stone slab.

My chest tightened as she walked toward me, her hooves clicking on the stone floor. Her mouth moved, but I couldn't hear her over the pulse pounding in my ears. Was this for fucking real? Was I dreaming? My head swam, and I nearly toppled over, but a magenta glow surrounded my body, a glow that matched the one around a short, rounded horn on the horse's head, and held me like a blanket just above the not quite smooth floor. My vision blurred as the horse rushed over to me, her hooves touching me and sending sharp tingles through my skin like my limbs were just resuming their blood circulation after having been slept on for an hour.

I tried to focus on the horse, but every time I looked away from the magenta glow on the floor and into her overly large lavender eyes my throat tightened, threatening to suffocate me. It was the only thing keeping me from screaming as her mouth kept moving, her words jumbling together between the ringing and pounding in my ears.

“Oh Celestia, are you okay? You aren't hurt, are you?”

Her hooves moved all over my body and I flinched every time they touched me, trying to cringe away, but the magenta glow held me fast. I was trapped, barely able to even twitch. “G-go…”

“Go? Go what?”

I could just barely make out what she was saying, but it didn't make the constricting in my chest lessen at all. Just imagining a horse speaking like it was some cartoon made my skin crawl. I wanted her gone. I wanted to be alone. I wanted my mom. “G-go aw-w-way. M-mom…” I darted my eyes to the door as a shadowed passed by it, saw something vaguely human backlit by the torch on the wall. It was tall, dark, but it wasn't some freaky talking horse. “H-help!”

It was a weak shout. I couldn't even hear it and, if it hadn't been for the fact that I felt the word come out, I would have assumed that I had imagined saying it, but the horse backed off, her horn still glowing and holding me captive. I was terrified, the sensation surging as the tall person stopped next to the pony. Their words were muffled by my throbbing headache and lightning pulse, but it was obvious that they knew each other. Worse, though, was that whatever this person was, whoever they were, they weren't human.

In the magenta glow, I saw a dog, huge, sleek black, and sharp-toothed, and staring at me with hungry, blue eyes. I'd signed my death away and, as it came closer, my vision faded just as my hearing did. Hot tears stung my eyes as I tried to suck in air, panic constricting my throat further. I was going to die, eaten alive by some freakish werewolf dog thing and crazed, horned horse. I couldn't move, held completely immobile by some freaky magic bubble that made my skin itch the longer it held me. I felt the dog-thing put its huge hands around my arms and sobbed out my last breath.

“M-m-mom. M-mommy. Mommy p-please…”

Then, the tingling itch stopped and I sagged, the beast's hands the only things holding me up. I wanted to crack my eyes open, but I was too scared to watch myself being torn apart. I just wanted to go home, away from whatever hellscape this was, and be back in my basement so my mom could tell me dinner was ready.

When the hands wrapped around my shoulders, I finally screamed, the hoarse cry sounding like somebody had thrown my voice through a grinder over the fog in my ears. I tensed, screaming and crying as I waited for the werebeast to rip my body apart, but it just squeezed me tighter. Was it going to crush me to death? Was it going to suffocate me? I was already having trouble breathing, but it wasn't squeezing hard enough to make it worse.

I finally cracked an eye open, just enough to see my impending doom, but all I got was a face full of black fur. Sharp nails scraped across my back through my blouse, pressing just hard enough that I could tell that they were there, but not enough to be uncomfortable, and the hands they were attached to rubbed my back almost as if they were trying to soothe a child.

“Shhh… Shhhhh…”

I tentatively wrapped my arms around the black-furred body, flinched when it tensed, and squeezed it tightly. I don't know if it was the gentle petting, the softness of this dog person's voice, or some mind fuckery that it and the horse were using, but there was something oddly calming about the hug it was giving me. If I could ignore the tickling of its fur, I could almost imagine my mom holding me after a particularly bad night and whispering platitudes into my ear. I sobbed into the beast's chest, matting the black hair to my face, but if it cared it didn't show. It just held me, petting and hugging and cooing softly until I finally stopped weeping and just sniffled into its fur.

I never imagined that, at any time in my life, I would be comforted by a dog monster in some nightmare dreamworld, but here I was holding onto one as if my life depended on it. And it might have. I don't know what the horse was doing, what it had been doing, if it had been trying to kill me or not, but, whatever this dog person was, it had come and saved me.

I rubbed my face into its fur, took a deep breath, and pulled away. It seemed reluctant to let me go, at first, and would have been more than able to keep me from moving if the way its hold easily stopped me, but relented when I pushed harder. I looked up into its eyes, its large, bright blue eyes, and tried to smile, but all I could manage was a grimace. Even after being held like a child to its mother, I couldn't stop the fear from swelling in my chest. The dog person was huge, even kneeling down with me, almost half my height taller than me, and its doberman-like face and large pointed ears didn't instill any less worry. Even if its face was creased with humanlike worry, it still looked like it could kill me without any effort.

I tried to say something, but my voice choked and I had to look back down at the floor. Fresh tears streaked down my cheeks. This wasn't home. I wasn't home. I don't know where I was or how I got here, but I know I wasn't home. “Are you okay, little one?”

I jumped at the deep, feminine voice, glanced up at the dog-pers- dog-woman, and dropped my gaze again. Her hand wiped my face, her sharp-nailed thumb swiping at the tears as they formed at the corners of my eyes. I was shaking like a leaf, too scared to move despite how gentle she was being, and mustered up everything I could to shake my head. “Is Lulabelle scaring you? Would you like Lulabelle to leave?”

I peeked around the dog-lady and to the horse still watching from the back of the room. She was just sitting there, horn dull and face twisted in a grimace, but even looking at her doing nothing made my chest clench. I nodded jerkily, dropping my gaze to my lap, and the dog let out a short sigh. “Very well. Lulabelle apologizes for upsetting you, little one. Lulabelle did not mean to scare you.” The dog stood up and turned away, but instead of telling the horse, Lulabelle, to leave, started to walk away herself.

I scrambled to catch hold of her leg, barely grabbing the bottom of her paw and nearly tripping her, but she kept her balance and looked back at me, confusion clear on her face. I flinched again, still unable to meet her gaze, but being with her was better than whatever the horse would do to me if I was left alone with it again. I pointed a shaky finger in the horse's direction.

“Oh.” She paused and turned, forcing me to let go of her foot. “Princess Sparkle, Lulabelle thinks she-”

“Y-yeah…” The horse's voice was quiet and thick. “I'm sorry if I scared you, I was just-” A hoof touched my shoulder and I jumped away, and watched her horn as she took a step back before finally walking to the door. She looked hurt, if the weird human-like emotions on her face were genuine, but I didn't trust her. How could I trust anything that could keep me from doing anything with just a light from a horn? “I'll be in the atrium if you two need anything, Lulu.”

She was gone before anybody could respond, leaving the dog, Lulabelle, and me, alone. Suddenly, I wasn't feeling all that comforted by her presence anymore. I was stuck in this room, defenseless and nearly paralyzed by fear, with an animal that could easily tear my throat out without even breaking a sweat. I crawled back into a corner, facing away from the towering dog-woman. The floor was cold, stinging my bare butt and making me all too aware that I was missing important clothing, but that shame came second fiddle to the terror gnawing away at my heart. Any second now, Lulabelle would do what I'd expected her to do the moment she'd turned her canine eyes on me and gorge herself on my flesh. I didn't think I'd be much of a meal, being as thin as I was, but would a weredog even care?

I yelped when her hands gripped my shoulders and tried to wrench away, but her hold was firm. “Lulabelle apologizes for scaring you, little one. Lulabelle does not mean you any harm.” Her voice was soft and her hands trailed warmly down my arms until I felt her body press against my back. She wrapped her arms around my chest, hugging me gingerly, and eased me back until I was resting flush against her body. “Would you tell Lulabelle your name?”

I hesitated. Was it safe to tell her? Even with her lovingly holding me, could I trust her? What would she do if she knew? What if, like that horse, she had some freaky powers that she could use if she had my name like the fae in fantasy? “It's fine if you do not wish to share. Lulabelle would just like to get to know you. Ah! Lulabelle's name is Lulabelle, by the way, though others sometimes shorten it to Lulu.”

I couldn't stop the giggle that crept its way out. There was just something hilarious about a seven foot tall dog woman saying her name over and over again to refer to herself instead of just saying I or my. “Did Lulabelle do something funny?”

I shook my head and curled my fingers around her forearms and rested my chin there. “M-my name's… M-Marilynne R-rose.”

“Marilynne Rose is a lovely name.”

She shifted against me and I tensed, but then her legs slid up beside mine, encasing me in a full-bodied embrace, like a big, warm, furry cocoon, like I was snuggled up against a giant dog and not some bipedal canine hybrid. Like this, unable to see anything from her but her arms, it was easy to let my fear slip away. “Y-you can… call me Mary… I-if you w-want.”

“Lulabelle cannot.” What little happiness I was getting out of the conversation, stunted as it was on my side, seeped away and I sagged, but the dog squeezed me gently and nuzzled her chin into my hair. “It is improper for a dog from Lulabelle's pack to refer to another so intimately, so do not fret. It does not mean Lulabelle dislikes you.” It was odd, being relieved at that, especially since I didn't know shit about her other than her name, but the anxiety from thinking I'd already overstepped some boundary with a stranger, even if that stranger was cradling me like a child, had quickly crept up. “Are you feeling any better, Miss Rose?”

“Y-yeah…” I wasn't, not with the fear still roiling around in my brain and the pounding in my skull, but how could I dump my problems on her? I didn't know her and she didn't know me. Why would she care about some whiney loser's headache?

“You're trembling. Are you still scared? Cold?”

I tensed, but it didn't stop the shaking. “C-cold…” I was burning up, her body heat more than enough to keep me hot in a blizzard, but cold could be fixed and there wasn't anything Lulabelle could do to stop the creeping terror. I had no idea what was going on, where I was, or what was going to happen to me and I was too terrified to even ask. Maybe it was all a dream, like some hyper lucid nightmare, and I'd wake up eventually, but what if it wasn't? What if this was real, what if I wasn't at home passed out in my computer chair? I could still imagine it was all fake if I just didn't know.

“Come. Lulabelle will take you upstairs and get you a proper bed.” I looked at the little raised slab of stone and flimsy cushion that I'd woken up on. It barely even counted as a cot. “We are sorry for the poor conditions, but when you fainted you started running a fever and this was the coolest place in the mansion. Princess Sparkle has had Miss Palefeather doing everything she could to break the fever.”

“O-oh… How l-long was I…?”

The weight of Lulabelle's chin lifted from my head and I glanced back to find her staring up at the ceiling as if she was searching for something and quickly looked away before she noticed. “Almost a day, Lulabelle thinks.” I shuddered, trying not to imagine everything that could have happened to me while I was comatose for nearly a day, and she hugged me tighter. “Come, let's get you somewhere warmer, Miss Rose. You are shaking like a leaf.”

I nodded and Lulabelle rose to her feet, letting me know just how chilly the room was compared to being held next to her nearly sweltering body heat, and held out her hand. I stared at it, hesitating. She'd been so nice to me, some random girl she'd never met that was too afraid of her to even say so, but even still I couldn't bring myself to trust her or look her in the eye. I tried to get up on my own, but my legs didn't want to cooperate, weighing me down like lead as I tried to leverage myself on the wall to no avail. “I-I…” Tears formed at the corners of my eyes as I stared at her dog-like feet. I was a pathetic, worthless little mess and now I'd just shit on the one person who'd shown me nothing but kindness for nothing what? “I c-can't…”

I waited for her to get angry, cringed back when I saw her move closer, but she just knelt back down and slipped her arms under my legs and around my back. She didn't even grunt or strain as I was lifted like a princess from the cold floor. I could feel the cords of her muscles under my thighs and on my back, powerful arms on a titanic dog-woman, and couldn't stop the blush that crept across my face while she smiled down at me. I wanted to apologize, for being useless and shunning her offered hand, but no matter how much I moved my mouth, nothing came out. Whatever fear had been welling inside of me trickled out as fire spread across my cheeks.

“Lulabelle does not mind if you are afraid of her, Miss Rose.” Her smile was bright and warm, the frown that I'd caused evaporated like ice in the hot desert sand, and I turned my face down in shame. “Lulabelle only wants you to feel safe.”

I finally found my voice voice again after nearly a minute of silent muttering to myself, but it was nothing more than a choked whisper. “Wh-why?”

The dog didn't answer for a moment, instead opting to start carrying me through the torchlit door and into a short hallway lined with four other entrances that dead ended on one side and travelled upward on a curving stone staircase on the other. It looked like the dungeon in some medieval castle and, judging by the barren room I'd been kept in until now, I'd say that it might not have been far from the truth. The stairs circled around twice before ending at another large, wooden door, held together by strips of metal plating further sinking in the fact that this was probably once a jailer's dungeon, that opened up into a surprisingly bright and richly furnished hallway.

The stone walls, unlike in the basement, were adorned with brightly colored, if somewhat faded, tapestries and paintings of varying horses, most of them unicorns, either posing like a medieval baron in a portrait or depicted in scenes of fantastical fights. There were paintings of hundreds of armored horses, each wielding a weapon in their hooves in a bizarre display of dexterity or floating around them in a bubble much like the horse had held me in earlier. There were paintings of monsters being slain, of scholarly mares and stallions pouring over books as thick as my head, and wizened old horses with wizard-like facial hair that no horse should have ever had scribbling on a scroll with a floating quill. Wilted and dead flowers lined the walls in between doors fogged windows in vases sat upon little wooden tables. It was freaky, like I was in some bizarro world like the planet of the apes where all human monuments and art had been replaced by horses.

Sure, it was beautiful, but it filled me with a not insignificant amount of unease.

“Lulabelle will admit that she first comforted you out of duty, Miss Rose, but…” I chanced a glance up at her, startled by her sudden talking after the pregnant lapse, and dropped my eyes back down with a blush. There was something about the dog-woman's smile that made my heart beat faster. As goofy as it would have looked on an actual dog, it was surprisingly pretty on her and that played all kinds of issues through my head. “To be honest, there is just something about you that makes Lulabelle happy. Lulabelle does not know what it is, but she likes you.”

“O-oh.” It wasn't what I was expecting, but it wasn't like I could shut it down. Being carried like a bride through a castle was really messing with me, especially when it made me feel so safe.

“Plus, Lulabelle thinks you are cute.”

“O-oh!” My face burned brighter and I squirmed in her arms, trying to do everything that I could not to let her see my face. Nobody had ever called me cute before, nobody my age, at least, and I couldn't deny that it filled my stomach with butterflies. Was she my age?

“Here. This is the room Princess Sparkle had prepared for you before you arrived.”

I jumped again when she spoke and looked at the rich wooden doors. These ones, unlike the plain wood leading to the dungeon, looked masterfully carved and maintained, though they also had the faded look of age like everything else. The door opened to a lavishly furnished bedroom complete with massive armoire, a desk topped with a full vanity, a writing desk, and a massive canopy bed missing its drapery. The bedclothes and room's trappings were a rich maroon, age-worn as was everything else, and seemed recently cleaned. It was a room fit for a queen and I felt a well of shame build up knowing that it was being wasted on me. Even if I hadn't been kidnapped, this was far beyond my worth.

Lulabelle strode through the door and right up to the bed and settled me down on it as gently as a woman of her stature could. I sank into the comforter and the pillowy softness of the mattress, the downy cushions embracing me like a cloud. It was so much more extravagant than my bed back home.

“If you need anything, Lulabelle is staying in the room directly to the left with Miss Ysayle, so feel free to-” She started to turn and leave and a surge of panic made my heart thunder. Before I even realized it, I was hanging off the bed and holding onto her hand and, as her fingers squeezed around mine, the mounting fear eased back down. I felt like a baby, freaking out without her security blanket, but she just smiled and settled me properly back on the bed and sat next to me. My face was on fire with a mix of shame and embarrassment, but she just kept on grinning. “Very well. Lulabelle supposes she can stay with you for now, Miss Rose. Are you feeling unwell?”

Unwell was an understatement. Even with Lulabelle's weirdly calming presence, my heart was still racing. Everything was so wrong, nothing made sense. One moment I was trying to relax in my room before dinner and then the next I was waking up in some medieval dungeon and being manhandled by a horse with a glowing horn. Then I was being hugged by a weredog and now I was being treated like a princess in what seemed like a castle. I was scared and confused and had no idea what was going to happen to me next. All I wanted was to be home, and I kept hoping that the next time I closed my eyes to blink I'd wake back up in my computer chair and it all would have been a freakish nightmare, but every blink, every passing moment, and each warm body that I felt worked to solidify the truth that, whatever the fuck this was, it was real.

“I-I'm… s-scared…” I clenched my eyes shut and tried to fight off the tears that were threatening to pool in their corners. I didn't want to cry again, but my anxiety had other plans. “I-I-I don't know wh-what to d-do…”

Lulabelle's big, strong arms lifted me off the blankets and pressed me against her chest and, this time, I wrapped my arms around her eagerly. No matter how terrified I was of her, something deep inside of me told me that I could trust her. “Lulabelle is so sorry, Miss Rose. Lulabelle wishes she knew what she could do for you, but Lulabelle only has herself.”

I pressed my face as far into her short fur as I could. I wanted to tell her that even just this hug meant more to me than she could ever know, especially with the roiling emotions storming in my gut, and that it would be enough, but I couldn't find the words and I knew that it wouldn't be. What I wanted, what I needed, was for this all to be over, but that wasn't going to happen. So, instead, I just held onto her like the was a single buoy in a maelstrom.

“Hey Lulu, you in here?”

I flinched as the high-pitched voice pierced through my wracking sobs, but Lulabelle didn't seem to react much at all. I felt her shift slightly, then shivered as her deep, womanly voice rumbled through her chest. “Lulabelle is here, Miss Ysayle. Is there something you needed?”

“I heard the little lady was awake! Do you wanna go-” The voice cut off as it got closer and it sucked in air in a surprisingly adorable little gasp. “Oh! It's her!” There was a pressure on the bed then a soft, cool, squishy body pressed up against my side. “Ohhh, she's cute… Hey, are you okay?”

I turned just enough to look under Lulabelle's arm and came face to face with the frown-crossed face of a giant crimson lizard. Her large, green eyes were wide with concern and her sharp-nailed fingers were gripping my shirt like a child holding onto their mother. Even through my teary vision, I could tell that whatever this was was cute, for a lizard. “Miss Rose is not feeling well, Miss Ysayle. She is having a difficult time trying to adjust to what's happened to her.”

The lizard just kept staring up at me, her shimmering emerald eyes piercing into my faded green, until she let go of my shirt and pressed her hands against my cheeks. I flinched, not expecting the touch, but it didn't hurt, and the scales on her hands felt more like skin than the rough scales of any liard I'd ever held before. “She's really pretty…”

I felt Lulabelle laughed against me as I turned my head away and blushed. I was getting way too much attention, and, even if it felt good, it was making me feel beyond awkward. “Yes, Miss Rose has something of a charm to her.”

“And she's so warm.” My face burned brighter when the lizard squeezed in closer, pressing herself between me and Lulabelle. “She’s so squishy, too. I wanna kiss her. Do you wanna kiss?”

Now my whole body was burning and I responded the only way I knew, curling up on myself and shutting out the world. All of the attention was setting my nerves on ends, even if it made my brain buzz and heart flutter. I wasn't used to being the center of attention like this, let alone the subject of any affection, even if it was probably just teasing, and the fact that neither of them were human didn't help. “St-stop…”

“Ohhh! She's shy!”

There was a sound of fur meeting skin and a muffled ouch and I felt Lulabelle's hand stroke through my hair. “Leave her be, Miss Ysayle. You're making her uncomfortable.”

There was a moment of silence before the lizard's squeaky voice cut through the flimsy protection my curly hair provided. “Sorry… You're just really pretty!” A part of me felt guilty for reacting so poorly to clearly well-meant flattery, but the larger, much more pronounced well of anxiety that I'd built up over years of near isolation crushed it down. My nerves were firing at maximum and it took everything I had not to just curl up and hide away like a turtle. “I'mma go let Sparky know that she's up! She'll wanna know!”

“No!” I was up and panting before the lizard could even try to crawl off the bed, and finally got a good look at her. She was tiny, about two feet shorter than my five, and had a tail almost as long as she was tall connected to the base of her spine at a pair of wide hips. Her legs, like Lulabelle's, were digitigrade, but unlike the thinner, muscular legs of a runner, the lizard's were thicker and her toes were capped by sharp, curved nails. Her arms were slender, her face short and almost beaked with three fleshy spines flaring out from the sides and moved with her expression almost like a dog's ears. She was definitely cute but that did little to assuage the fear that had clenched at my heart. “I… I don't…”

“Lulabelle thinks that Miss Rose is scared of her.”

I dropped my eyes and nodded. “I, uhm… I don't like how… how she… keeps me still…”

“Keeps you still?” It felt weird holding a conversation, even stunted as it was, with a lizard and a dog. “Ohhhh… She held ya with her magic, huh?” The lizard chuckled and patted my leg, the tiny hand plat-ing softly against my thigh. “It feels a little weird, huh? But ya don't gotta worry! Twilight's the nicest!” Just hearing the word magic used so casually would have left me dumbstruck if it wasn't for all the other weird shit I was surrounded by. What was magic in a fantasy land of talking animals?

“M-magic?”

“Oh, yeah! Everybody's got magic!” The lizard stood on the bed, wobbling when the cushy mattress made it difficult to stay upright, and grinned. “Not everybody can use it like Twilight can, but everybody has some magic in 'em! I bet you do, too!”

That thought made my heart seize up and I had to swallow the lump that lodged itself in my throat. Me? Have magic? I could admit that it'd be cool to be able to cast spells, but… there was something terrifying about suddenly having powers that I had no idea how to control. “I-I d-don't…”

“I mean, you'd hafta learn how to use it and figure out what your affinity would be, but I'm sure ya can learn!” Her beaming grin was wide as she gripped my shoulders. “You look like you'd be a good conjurer!”

“I… What even is-?”

She sidled up to me, pressing her soft cheek against mine, and waved a hand through the air. “I bet ya could have all the familiars ya wanted! Didja know that my great-grandsire was a conjurer?” I cringed away, but she just pressed closer and draped herself off my shoulder. She wasn’t heavy, probably weighed little more than a full school backpack, but the close proximity was setting my nerves on end. Sweat was beading on my forehead and it was getting harder to breathe. “He wasn't all that good, but he liked to show off for my sister and I when we were hatchlings! He used to call up-”

“Miss Ysayle… Please, you're upsetting Miss Rose.”

The lizard girl looked at me, gasped, then hopped away, eyes downcast. “Oh, sorry… I'm just excited, yannow?” Her grin came back, more subdued than before, and a surge of guilt twisted my gut. She was being friendly. She wasn't trying to hurt me, or make fun of me, but my brain kept summoning up every scenario that ended with me alone and in tears. I was better off just being by myself and not getting my hopes up. They'd leave me just like- “I mean, it's not everyday you meet somebody as pretty as her, right Lulu?” My eyes flicked over to the dog and I flushed when she smiled and nodded. “Right!”

“I-I'm not…”

A soft black hand touched my cheek, and my face burned hotter. “You are a lovely girl, Miss Rose, and don't let anybody tell you differently.” She grinned wider as her hand trailed down my face to caress my shoulder. “Lulabelle would love spending some time with you, if you'd have her.”

The black dog's thumb rubbed gently across my collarbone, sending shivers down my back and butterflies into my gut. “W-what do-?”

“Ysa, too!”

The crimson lizard girl scurried into my lap and pressed her back against my chest. Her spines teased at my breasts as she rubbed herself against me, but I couldn't tell if she'd done it on purpose or not. What were they doing? Were they trying to…? “A-are you… tryna f-fuck… me…?” A surge of pleasure welled from my core at the thought alongside a mote of shame. They were animals! This wasn't okay, even if they were being nice! I'd never had sex before! A million thoughts raced through my brain as my face caught fire. I wasn't ready for this!

Lulabelle chuckled, and the sound doused the fire in my gut. Ah, of course… I don't know why I was so disappointed, or why I'd gotten my hopes up like I'd just told myself not to. Of course they wouldn't actually want to have anything to do with me, be in any way attracted to me. I was just some plain, boring little ginger for everybody to make fun of. Anger welled in my breast, and tears threatened to sting at my eyes again, but the dog's other hand cupped my chin and her thumb traced my lips. My lips tingled at the touch and my brain stopped.

“Lulabelle wouldn't have been quite as crass, but yes, Lulabelle would love to have you in her bed…”

The dog's husky voice burned my ears and, suddenly, Ysa's squirming weight meant something entirely different. She might not have meant to tease my chest, but the way her tail tickled just inside of my thighs was definitely deliberate. “I-I…” I couldn't deny that I liked the attention. My body was heating up, and my breath was coming in shorter gasps, but… “I-I… c-can't…” They were animals. This was wrong. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine them as just cute girls after my attention, even if that was hard enough to believe in itself, but every time I felt them touch me or peeked in their direction, my brain yelled at me to stop. “I can't. I…”

Neither of them put up a fuss. Lulabelle's hands pulled away, though it felt like there was some reluctance in the action, and Ysa, even if she stayed in my lap, stopped wiggling and teasing my thigh with her tail. The abrupt halt was jarring, but it gave me a much needed moment to steady my breathing. Panic had been starting to swell, but I was in control again. “You okay, Rose?”

Ysa's voice brought me out of my mind and I glanced down at her to find her looking backwards and up into my face. I started to nod, but stopped halfway. “Y-yeah…”

“You can talk to us if you need, Miss Rose.” Lulabelle's voice was soft and gentle, and I glanced over to see a face full of worry. It was baffling. I'd just spurned her advances, legitimate or not, and she was worried about me. “Lulabelle was not lying when she said that there was something about you that attracted her, if that is what you are concerned over.”

The smile that spread across her muzzle, while somewhat uncanny, was bright and genuine. My brain told me she was lying just so she could turn it around on me later, but the warmth in her face burned that thought away. Maybe… Maybe she wasn't… Maybe I could… “I j-just… I d-don't know… y-you…” It wasn't a complete lie, and I wanted to beat myself for not just admitting that I was scared and freaked out, but the words had already come out.

Ysa giggled in my lap, stretched, then wrapped her tiny arms around my neck as her head pressed into my chin. “Oh! Yeah, I guess that'd make sense, huh? Spent too much time around all the ponies, right Lu?”

The weredog laughed as well. “Lulabelle supposes that may be true.” Confusion must have crossed my face, because Lulabelle answered my thoughts immediately. “The ponies are, shall we say, promiscuous.”

“They'll just mate wherever they are! I bet Iron and Brass are goin’ at it right now!”

“Yes, it's as Miss Ysayle says.”

I tried not to picture two horses going to town, but my brain conjured up the images before I could even stop them and I flushed, embarrassed. “O-oh…”

“Yes. Lulabelle apologizes if she seemed too forward.” The dog bowed her head slightly and I dipped mine in response, unsure of what to say. The attention, even if it made my gut squirm, was appreciated. “Lulabelle is serious in her request, however, so if you do change your mind…”

I gasped and covered my face with my hands to hide my embarrassment and the pair just laughed. It was awkward, being the center of attention, but even through the ever-present weight of anxiety in my gut, I couldn't stop the smile that split my face.

“So, ya wanna know about us?” I nodded, but didn't pull my hands away. I didn't need to see the lizard girl's face to know she was grinning at me with her tiny, sharp teeth. “Well, ya already know my name, but I'll tell ya again anyway! I’m Ysayle, but ya can call me Ysa! I'm eight years old and wanna find my mate!”

“E-eight!?” I gasped, the shock wiping away any shame that I'd had. I was being propositioned by a child!

“Yeah! Momma had me when she was six, so I'm slacking. Just wanna find the right one, yannow?” Her grin smile was bright and innocent. “How 'bout you?”

It took me a moment to snap my mouth shut. “I'm… nineteen.” The pair gasped, and I looked between them, caught completely off guard by their reaction. Ysa was eight, for Christ's sake, and they were shocked by me being nineteen!? “Wh-what?”

“Nothing, just…” Lulabelle coughed awkwardly, clearing her throat. “Lulabelle just didn't expect…”

“You’re so old!”

I scowled, turning my attention back to the lizard, and glared down at her. “I'm not old! Look at me! I'm barely an adult!” I turned my glare to Lulabelle, finally catching on to what she'd tried dancing around. “So? What about you? How old are you?”

The dog woman shuffled awkwardly, and a surge of triumph welled in my chest. I was right! She was about to call me old, too! “Lu-Lulabelle is… seven…” And then it all came to a fizzle.

“Seven…” Just hearing that come out of a girl as large as her and with a voices as deep as hers baffled me. “Seven…”

“Yes.”

“You're seven…” Lulabelle nodded. “And eight…” Ysa shook her head rapidly, her grin wide and toothy. “I need… Wow. Uhm… I don't know if I can… hang around you anymore…” I averted my gaze from Lula, suddenly very aware of her exposed breasts. Small as they were, the fact that they were on display for somebody not even half my age was quickly making me very uncomfortable.

“What!?” Ysa jumped up and looked me right in my face, but I looked away as fast as I could. “Hey! Just cuz you're old doesn't mean ya hafta leave! I still think you're cute even if you're practically a grandma!”

I turned back and gaped at her. “Grandma!?” I was on my feet before I noticed and staring down at the dog and lizard. “I'm not a grandma! You-! You're kids!”

“I am not! Being old is no reason to be cranky!” She huffed and jumped to her feet, glaring up at me as if she wasn't half my height. “I could go out and start a family right now if I wanted to! I bet you couldn't even lay a single egg if you had every bull in the world!”

“Egg!?” I jabbed an index in her face, intent on lecturing her about human reproduction, but she snapped at it, forcing me to yank my hand back. “Hey! Don't fucking bite me you overgrown gecko!”

“Then don't poke at me!” She jabbed her own finger into my gut and I slapped it away. “And I'm not a gecko, I'm a kobold you naked monkey!”

“Kobold, gecko, whatever you are, doesn't matter, cuz you're just a big lizard! Why don't you go slurp up some flies, scalie-girl!?”

“Why, I-! I'll have you know that-”

“Ladies, please! Could you-?”

“What!?” “Huh!?” Lulabelle flinched back as we turned on her and quickly raised her hands. It was so absurd, this amazonian dog woman jumping back in surprise from two people she could easily crush with little effort, that I couldn't stop the snort of laughter that bubbled up.

I fell back and burst out laughing, clutching my gut as I tried to breathe through my mirth. Soon after, another peal of giggling filled the air, high-pitched and bubbly and I felt Ysa collapse on top of me, knocking the wind out of me as our laughter combined. It took several minutes for me to calm down, as every time I looked at Lulabelle through my tear blurred vision her confused stare ignited a new explosion of laughter, but when my mirth finally petered down to light, sporadic chuckles I leaned up and gently eased Ysa off my stomach.

“What?”

“N-nothing, I just…” A choked back another giggle and grinned at the dog-girl. “Your face was just… funny. God, I feel like I just crawled out of a cartoon.” I took a deep breath, stared up at the ceiling as I suppressed my bright grin, and looked back at her. “I haven't laughed like that in ages, so… Thanks.”

“You are… welcome? Lulabelle is still unsure of what she did.”

“Nothing, nothing.” I grinned at her then looked over at the kobold slowly coming to her senses. “Hey, uhm… Sorry for yelling at you. I don't know why I got so mad, but… Sorry.”

Ysa giggled and rubbed her cheeks. “I'm sorry too, Rose. I thought it was a game at first, but then I got angry too, and…”

I chuckled and patted her head, smushing her spines down only for them to spring back up when I pulled my hand away. “It's fine… Oh, and you can call my Mary, if you want. Rose is my last name.”

“Ohhhh! Mary is a pretty name too!” The kobold clapped her hands, the scales making little plats with each clap. “And I like your laugh too! It's really cute.”

I flushed again and had to push down the giddiness that it filled me with. “Look, I, uhm, appreciate the compliments. Really, I do, but… It's not really appropriate, don't you think? I mean, you guys are practically kindergartners! Well, Lulabelle could technically pass for an adult, but…”

Lulabelle tilted her head, a clear sign that she was thinking, then opened her mouth in a little ‘o’. “Lulabelle thinks we are having a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“What? How?”

“Lulabelle is a desert dog, and we become sexually mature around our fifth year. We can have pups sooner, but most wait until they've had about six years before settling down with a mate.”

I stared at her as I tried to process the information. It made some sense, in a bizarre sort of way. I mean, regular dogs could, and would, breed when they were a year or two old, so why would it be much different with her? It didn't make the sound of the age any less uncomfortable to think about, but it made sense. I turned to Ysa and she just grinned up at me.

“Kobolds usually start their clutch at three! I guess my mother and I are a bit weird.” She giggled as I pressed a hand to my pounding head. I felt like if I thought about it much more the headache would just get worse.

“What about your kind, Miss Rose?”

“Ten to t-twelve…” I sighed, massaging my temples, then looked between them. “Well, that's when we start to be capable of having kids, but most people wait until they're in their twenties and thirties.”

“Wow… Why would you have kids so late!? You're almost halfway to the grave by then!”

“A, rude, and B, not really?” I chuckled. Who'd have thought that I'd be teaching animal people about the lifespans and workings of humans? “Unless they do something stupid, or just get really sick, most of us live till we're about eighty. Well, in the more modern countries, at least. Plus, it's illegal to have sex under the age of sixteen in most modern countries, too.”

“Well that's just dumb!” Ysa huffed and crossed her arms, her tail swishing noisily against the comforter. “Who'd wanna live in a place that didn't let ya have sex whenever you want?”

“Wait, do you guys-?”

“As long as the partners understand what is going on, then most places are very open about sexuality here.” She chuckled as I gaped at her, completely dumbfounded.

“Do you guys really…” I lowered my voice and leaned in. I hadn't seen anybody, but the door was still open. “Do you really… diddle kids?”

Ysa giggled and slapped my thigh. “Never heard diddled before!”

Lulabelle sighed, shook her head at the kobold, and just smiled at me. “Most species teach their young about sexuality at an early age, ponies and canines like Lulabelle especially, because we have very potent breeding cycles. Pups are curious, especially when their bodies are telling them they need to mate, so we give them all the tools they need to stay safe.” Her grin softened. “Back when Lulabelle was just a pup and her first heat cycle came, Lulabelle and her sister Roxie relieved each other whenever we had the chance. If she hadn't grown apart and found a mate, Lulabelle might still be with her.”

“Kids and incest…” Yup, this was getting really hard to wrap my mind around. I could understand, from the point of view of an animal, but it was really hard getting my human brain and human morals to look at it objectively. Everything I knew screamed at me that it was very much wrong. I mean, kids couldn't consent, but that was human kids. Could dogs and lizards and horses consent in the wild? They just fucked whenever they were ready, so… I shook my head. This was too much. I couldn't deal with this right now.

“Okay, well, that's… a lot to think about.”

“Wanna give it a try?”

“No!” I coughed, averting my eyes, and glanced back up at the crimson-scaled kobold. “I mean… Look… You're nice, both of you…” I didn’t have to force the smile that cracked across my lips. They'd been nothing but wonderful to me, even after I'd yelled and freaked out at them. “But… If I ignore the numbers, I guess I can think of you as adults, even if everything in my brain is screaming at me otherwise, but I'm a human.” They both just looked at me as if I was trying to explain quantum theory to a middle schooler. “I'm human, and you're not. Don't you think that’s… weird?”

Ysa just shrugged. “Not really.”

I looked over to Lulabelle, but all I got was a look of slight confusion. “I'm human and you're… animals? Well, maybe not animal animals, but… you're not human!”

“Interspecies relations are not unheard-of.” Lulabelle scooted closer to me and I couldn't help the blush that crept across my face as she wrapped me in closer. Now that they'd made a pass, it was really hard to ignore her blatant nudity. “Roxie wedded a young gryphon bull. Even if Lulabelle is upset that he took her sister, they are good for each other.”

“Ohhh! My little brother shacked up with a Saddle Arabian!” Her grin turned wicked. “You should have seen that stallion's face when he asked him out! You could just tell that the big guy was trying to figure out how it would fit!”

It was all just too much. Nothing about this place made sense to me. Horses were banging lizards, animals talked, gryphons existed. There was just too much shit to think about, to process, and, to top it all off, I had an overgrown lizard and bipedal dog lady trying to get under my skirt. I heaved a sigh, shoved all of my swirling thoughts deep down, and fell back onto the bed. I didn't want anything to do with any of it anymore. The sun was still up, but I just wanted to go to sleep and hope everything would be normal again when I woke up.

“Are you okay, Miss Rose?”

“No…”

“Are you feeling ill? Lulabelle can go get Miss Palefeather if you need-”

“I'm not sick…” I pressed my thumbs to my temples, trying to massage away the headache that hadn't left me since I woke up, but to no avail. “Well, I've got a migraine, but… I'm just tired…”

“Would you like us to stay with you while you sleep?”

I took a moment to ponder the offer. It felt weird, talking with these two so openly and easily. Sure, I still felt a little awkward whenever I looked at them and whenever we made eye contact. I still worried that I'd slip up and say something that would destroy whatever little bit of… whatever this was that we'd built in this short time, but… I glanced at Lulabelle, saw the worry plain on her face, and felt my heart soar. They seemed genuine. It'd been years since I'd had friends, not since… back then, and, no matter how much I told myself that I didn't need them, finally having somebody to talk to without stumbling over every other word was just… It was hard to imagine not having this. It was small, but I felt genuinely happy, albeit annoyed by the absurdity of everything.

Still, that didn't stop the anxiety entirely. My angry outburst had thrown a blanket over it, but now that I was calm and thinking more clearly it was harder to ignore. Being around people, even a pair of girls as nice as Ysa and Lulu, still set my nerves on fire, and it was getting harder to look them in the eyes again, but every time I took a surreptitious glance towards the bedroom's open door my stomach clenched. Being around people I trusted, even infinitesimally, was better than being alone and at the mercy of a world I didn't.

I peeked up at Lulabelle and cracked a nervous smile. “C-could…” I wanted to curse myself as I choked on my words, but the desert dog's warm hand cupped my cheek and banished the thoughts before they could sink their insidious teeth.

“Of course we can, Miss Rose.” Ysa squealed and slid back up into my lap, pressing herself against my chest with all pretense of a previous row of words gone. “Let Lulabelle close the door and we'll let you get some rest.”

As Lulu climbed from the bed and strode across the spacious room, I tentatively slid my arms under the kobold’s and around her middle. She giggled, grabbed my hands, and squeezed herself as tightly as she could with them, snuggling up against my stomach while her tail curled around my elbow. I blushed, ashamed that I'd hesitated in my anxiety, but having somebody close to me like this, taking my half-assed, nervous attempt at a hug and kicking it up to the maximum, made my heart thunder.

“Hurry up, Lu, or I'mma keep her all to myself!”

Lulabelle laughed as the door closed with a heavy clunk and rejoined us on the bed just as quickly as she'd gotten up. Her much larger weight sank into the mattress as she crawled up behind me and I practically fell back into her lap. She was so gentle as she positioned herself against my back, enveloping Ysa and me in her strong arms and resting her muzzle in my hair. Sandwiched between Ysa and Lulabelle, it felt like I was being cocooned, protected from everything and everybody. I wasn't home, but I felt safe, comforted, and wanted. I thought of my childhood, what little I could remember of it, and the times my mom would just hold me and how, no matter what was happening, good or bad, just having her show me affection would brighten the day.

So, yes, I was anxious about getting close to Ysa and Lulu, and scared that this would turn out like everything else in my life. There were a multitude of scenarios that I couldn't even fathom that could ruin everything, but every time I felt Ysa get more comfortable in my arms or Lulabelle pull us both closer those thoughts seeped away until I finally relaxed and…

...flinched, jolting myself upright to keep from falling as my heart raced and lungs heaved. It was hard to see in the dark, made even more so by the fog of sleep that blurred my vision, but there was at least a little bit of light spilling in from an open window. I squinted in the darkness, trying to figure out where I was while my heart tried to settle. The place wasn't familiar, it wasn't my room, and a sense of panic threatened to overwhelm me before a tiny, warm hand tightened around my wrist.

I looked down at the crimson form of a sleeping kobold and everything clicked into place. My thoughts slowed, my heart rate calmed, and I took a deep, soothing breath. I wasn't home, but I was safe… Kinda. I was with Ysa and Lulabelle and they weren't going to hurt me… Probably.

For the next couple of minutes, I just watched the two sleep as if they didn't have a care in the world, their chests rising and falling in even strokes, and felt not quite at ease, but… comfortable enough? It was a hard feeling to describe, but the terror from before was mostly gone and that was enough for me. At least, that is, until nature heightened its call.

I'd tried to ignore it, but the clenching pain in my bladder was growing persistently more present. I glanced between the two, debating on whether or not it'd be okay to wake them, weighing the odds of them being okay with it over my brain screaming at me that it'd be the wrong thing to do, before finally deciding to gently extricate myself from their entwined limbs and climb out of bed. Their missing presence was felt immediately as the chill night air passed between my legs, reminding me intimately of my missing unmentionables, and, embarrassing as it was, I made a mental note to ask what happened to them.

The door opened with the creak of slightly rusty hinges and I stepped out into the hallway that Lulu had carried me through before. Immediately I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the place, a literal mansion compared to my little one storey home, and I regretted not paying attention to things along the way no matter how shit of a state I was in mentally before. Just from this little section of the place, I could see two different branching hallways and a set of grand stairs leading up to higher levels with over a dozen doors leading to who knows where and the sheer enormity of it left me dizzy, but the clench of my thighs and threat of wetting myself forced me on.

I at least knew that the room to my left was just another bedroom, so I turned instead to the right and started walking. It was tough trying to move slow enough that I didn't jostle myself too much yet also keep up a pace that would hopefully ensure my safe arrival at a bathroom, but I was determined. I wouldn't make a fool of myself already.

The first door seemed like just a storeroom, empty and dusty save for a rusted bucket and some ancient looking rope, and the next was an empty bedroom. The furniture was covered by faded white cloth, everything looked like it hadn't been touched in ages, and a veritable cloud of dust floated in the pale moonlight filtering in through a crack in the closed curtains and the flickering orange light of the hallway's torches. Two more bedrooms, furnished and abandoned like the first, followed, filling me with an eerie sense of dread, like I was walking through some haunted castle after being separated from the rest of the group. I couldn't stop the chill shiver that crawled up my spine at the thought, but, as I came to the last door before the turn, I noticed the flicker of light seeping out from the threshold.

I was nervous, almost scared stiff at the thought of having to face somebody I'd probably never met, let alone the purple horse from before, but my needs outweighed my fears, so I knocked lightly on the heavy wooden frame. Seconds crawled by agonizingly slowly, punctuated heavily by the growing need to relieve myself, but no answer came. I knocked again, a little harder, and received no reply again, so, swallowing the lump in my throat, I pushed the door open and was immediately hit by the husky moans and heady scent of sex.

I tried to stop the door and avert my eyes, but my blind reach for the corner failed and I crashed with a yelp to the floor. Immediately, the wet sounds of sex stopped as I groaned and picked myself up from the floor only to come face to ass with the thick, dark yellow lips of a very equine, very aroused vulva. I stared, stunned, as a sparkling blue aura dropped a vaguely penis-shaped length of glass to the carpeted floor and flinched as the slightly parted lips twitched open, flashing pink and sprinkling my face with moisture.

“I-I-I…”

“My, my, dear… Awfully bold of you to barge into a lady's room so late in the night.”

My whole body burned in shame as I slid back and away on the carpet from the sultry, winded voice and winking vagina. I tried to look everywhere but the off-white horse, but I couldn't resist the urge to stare like a bystander at the scene of a horrific car crash. “Oh… Oh G-God…”

The mare rose to her hooves and I clasped my hands over my face, but it didn't stop the tell-tale sounds of her hooves clopping unsteadily against the stone floor as she came, undoubtedly, to hurt me. “You know, dear, it's quite rude to interrupt a lady when she's relaxing…”

A faint glow surrounded my hands, the same sparkling blue that'd held her dildo, and panic surged through me as the tingling sensation forced them down and into my lap. I whimpered, tears pooling, and tried not to think of how I was going to be torn apart. “P-please… Pl-please d-don't…”

“Oh my, are you all right? Here, allow me to…” The tingling on my hands ceased and I looked up to see the spread of sheets that the mare had been laying on float over dab at my cheeks, soaking up the streaking tears. She worked cautiously as if she was making sure that she was trying not to spook a frightened animal and I felt shame well up in my chest. I was heaving for air and crying and she was trying her best to appear as non-threatening as possible. My brain still told me I was in danger, screaming at me that, at any moment, that blue glow would be turned on me again, but the mare's careful smile and slow, deliberate motions set my heart at ease.

“Harmony, though, you sure surprised me.” Her voice still held that husky, sultry tone, with a slight posh affect and it sent shivers down my spine. It reminded me of a young queen from fantasy games, experienced yet still youthful, and would have set my loins into overdrive if it didn't come from a horse and I hadn't just nearly wet myself. She looked up at me with curious eyes, having to crane her neck to stare into my eyes even with my meager four and a half feet. I felt like a giant until I remembered Lulabelle and that short burst of elation came crashing down. “I am a mite disappointed that I was not able to finish, but…” Her soft smile turned wicked and she bounced her curly mane with a flick of her head. “I would not be averse to having you join me in trying again.”

Embarrassment filled my cheeks and I stammered out a rebuttal, but the mare didn't even seem to notice, she started circling around me, her eyes roaming all over my body, and I pressed my skirt between my legs earning a tut of disappointment. “I have been wanting to meet you ever since the summoning. Never have I seen such an exotic creature like you before and I cannot deny that you have piqued my interest in more ways than one.” She stopped back in front of me and I tried to ignore the flame burning in my cheeks as she gasped and held a hoof to her mouth in exaggerated shock. “Oh! Where are my manners? My name is Silk Strand, textile manufacturer and heiress to the Silver Strand Textile Company.” She dipped her head in an odd equine mimicry of a curtsy and smiled up at me as if waiting.

I blinked, staring at her, until her smile dipped and my brain kicked back into gear. “O-oh!” I looked at my feet and rubbed my elbow. “M-my name's M-Marilynne… or M-Mary…”

I flinched as my hand was enveloped in that blue glow again and squeaked as she kissed my knuckles. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mary.” Her voice dropped again and I felt my body flush once more. It was amazing what her sultry voice did to me when it was so easy to picture it coming from a beautiful, full-bodied woman. “A pleasure indeed.” She giggled at my reaction, and turned back to the sheets and abandoned toy, sweeping them up in her aura and depositing them back on the bed. “So, love, what brings you to my room? However much I wish for it, I doubt you came here to ogle at my marehood.”

“I… I, uhm…” I shuffled in place before her aura took hold of my hand once more and gently guided me to join her on her bed.

“No need to be shy, love. I will not judge somebody as beautiful as you.”

“S-sorry…” I turned my gaze down as I sat on a mattress just as plush as the one in my room and fiddled with the hem of my skirt. “I, uhm… I was t-trying t-to… find the b-bathroom…”

“Oh!” She tittered softly and I felt shame sting my cheeks again, but she just nudged my hip with her own, her smile never fading. “Sorry, Mary. I simply was not expecting your late night wanderings to be something so mundane. Why, if I had suddenly found myself in a strange new world, I would be exploring it to find out all about its little secrets.”

“A new world…? S-so this isn't… Th-this isn't Earth?”

“Oh, love…” She gasped and pressed a hoof against my arm. Even if she didn't answer, her tone would have told me everything I needed to know. “I have never heard of this Earth, and I doubt you mean soil. No, you are on Equus at the fringes of Equestria, love.”

My heart sank at those words. A new world. A strange country named after horses. So that was it. I had no chance of getting home unless they could somehow reverse whatever it was that had happened to get me here. Silk had said I was summoned. Had they done it on purpose? Could I be unsummoned? Was it even a possibility? Fresh moisture streaked down my cheeks and the mare gasped. I flinched as she pressed back up against my side, but I didn't have the energy to pull away.

I sat there, crying, until I heard Silk's soft voice whispering to something that obviously wasn't me.

“No, Daisy, she is not feeling well. She is scared and upset.” She paused, and I glanced at her to see her gaze turned behind me. “Well, certainly. Everybody appreciates genuine concern.”

“Wh-who are you t-talking t-to…? Is there s-somebody else…?” I looked behind us, but didn't see anybody and a sense of unease settled in my stomach.

Silk smiled and turned back to me. “Oh, just one of my girls.” I flinched at that. Her girls? There wasn't anybody else in the room. Had she lost children and was now hallucinating them? “Go on, Daisy. I am certain she would love to meet you as well.”

A cold shiver crawled up my spine, and I opened my mouth to protest, but the sensation of several large, thin things pressing into my hair locked my body. The things settled onto my scalp, two, then four, then more pressed against my back and arms. I didn't want to look, didn't want to confirm what my brain was screaming at me, but my body didn’t listen and I turned agonizingly slowly to see the iridescent, jagged body of a spider easily as big as my head.

“Mary, meet Daisy. She is the eldest of my girls and loves to meet new people…” My breathing sped up as I watched the spider crawl its way down my back and to the bed at my left. My head started to swim, my vision losing focus as it crept slowly onto my thighs, its semi-sheer body glistening in the room's torchlight and legs sending muted tingles through my body every time they touched me. “Mary…? Are you…? Oh Harmony!” Hot wetness soaked my thighs and under my backside as my vision went white and Silk's barely audible words faded in and out, indiscernible from the pounding in my head.

I was vaguely aware of tingling all along my body and a feeling of prolonged weightlessness, before the shock of cold water in my face had me gasping and wiping my eyes. I shivered, searching the dull grey room frantically for the giant spider, but the only other thing around was a panicking Silk.

“Goodness, I am so glad you are okay!” I blinked, felt the hairs on the back of my neck bristle at the thought of being crept up on again, and whirled around to find nothing but a bare wall and ceiling. “I am terribly sorry, love! I did not think that Daisy would cause you such fright! Could you ever forgive us?”

I sucked in air, breathing as deeply as I could as if I was making up for lost time, and looked back at the unicorn, but never long enough to give anything else a chance to creep behind me. “Wh-what… w-was…”

“Oh, I really, truly am sorry! Daisy just adores meeting new people and I simply did not think that some are afeared of spiders.”

“Th-that… was a s-spider?”

I watched the door carefully as the mare nodded. “Oh yes, though not just any spider!” She smiled briefly before it morphed back into a worried frown. “You are all right, are you not?”

My heart was racing, brain throbbing, and ears pounding, I felt like I was on the verge of throwing up, and the hot wetness on my thighs told me I'd panicked and pissed myself. No, I was very far from all right, and, judging by the deepening creases on Silk's brow, my silence was telling her exactly that.

“Love, we are so sorry! We did not mean any harm, Daisy least of all! We simply wished to cheer you up and get to know you better.”

“Y-you keep… s-saying w-w-we…”

She nodded her head fervently, another slip of a smile crossing her lips. “Most definitely, love. Daisy and I, and the other girls, want nothing more than to get to know you. Well, I might not object to something a little more, but…” I shot a stern glare her way and she at least had the decency to act ashamed. “Really though, we just wanted to get closer with our little saviour.”

“S-Saviour?” I didn't like the sound of that. Everything was beginning to pile up, problems on top of problems, and they were quickly becoming too much to handle. “Wh-what do you m-mean?”

The mare gasped and placed a hoof to her chest like a surprised southern belle. “Oh Harmony, has nobody told you anything?” I dipped my head and she let out a breath. “Goodness, that is… Well, I suppose the princess would know best, and yet…”

She watched me, concern evident in her wan frown. “Wh-what?”

“I suppose I could explain a little, but… You really should ask Princess Twilight to explain everything. She was the one that cast the spell, after all.”

She offered a small smile, but I paid it little attention. The purple horse was the one that cast the spell? She was the one that ripped me from my home to keep me prisoner here? I lost my home, my life, my mom and all for what? I clenched my fists and stared at the only door in the room, wishing with all of my heart that the horse in question would walk through so I could beat her to death. Sure, I probably wouldn't actually do any real damage, especially when she could easily just immobilize and do whatever she wanted with me with just a flash of her horn, but I could at least get one good swing in. A pale green fog crept in at the corners of my vision the more I thought about it and each passing second eased the pounding in my head until it was nothing more than a dull throb. It got harder and harder to breathe, forcing me to take in larger and larger draws of air and I might have passed out if a soft hoof didn't press against my shoulder and startle me out of my roiling, furious thoughts.

I stared at Silk, my eyes wide and gasping for air, as she looked me over, mouth moving yet without sound and it was then that I noticed the piercing ringing in my ears. I blinked, pressed my hands to my temples, and groaned as the migraine came back full force and everything else seemed to come back into focus.

“Oh Harmony, are you alright? What happened? Please tell me you do not suffer from seizures! I do not know how to handle those! Just stay here for a moment and I will-”

She stopped talking as soon as I grabbed her hoof. “I'm… f-fine. Headache…”

Silk watched me for several long moments, her eyes searching over my body as if she was trying to find something out of place, then heaved a relieved sigh and sank back to her haunches. “Thank Harmony… Goodness, you truly gave me a fright and twice in one night, to boot. I am beginning to rethink my little proposal, you know.” A nervous giggle escaped her lips.

I dropped my head and stared at my feet dangling over the side of a large bowl. “S-sorry… I'm just…”

She tittered again, this time much more confidently, and pressed up against my side. “I am merely teasing, love. I would never give up on somebody as enticing as you…”

Her sultry voice and obvious intentions made my body burn and I was thankful that I was covered, even if my skirt was wet. “Wait… Why are my c-clothes…” I yelped when I noticed just where my skirt was soaked and the conspicuous absence of my need to pee and covered my face in shame. “Oh fuck, I can't believe I… God just fucking kill me now.”

“Goodness, quite the mouth you have on you, love.” She snickered, and I tried to pull away, to spare her from touching somebody as disgusting as me, but she held onto my arm with her hooves. “Mary, there is no need to fret, everybody has little accidents now and then and, truly, I cannot fault you for yours after my little Daisy made you faint. Truth be told, that wasn't the first time you wet yourself, either.”

“Wh-what!?” I stared at her, trying to find words to yell at her to no avail, and she just giggled as if nothing was wrong with pissing yourself twice.

“Yes, love. When you were first summoned, you, uhm, were surprised by Mister Spike and…” She laughed more heartily, trying and failing to hide her mirth behind her hoof when I glared balefully at her. “I am so sorry, love. It is just… Really, twice in exactly the same way. Spike startled you so much that you screamed and fainted and when your body relaxed… Well, we discarded your strange undergarments since they were quite old and did not seem like they would survive a river washing. These, though…” Her sparkling blue aura lifted the hem of my skirt as she admired it. “We can wash these and have them back to you in the morning.”

I flushed at the thought of climbing back into bed with Ysa and Lulu without the thin layer of protection that my clothes provided. I'd only shared the bed with them for a few hours, known them for fewer, and they'd already proven very handsy. I very much doubted that they'd be less so when there was nothing between us but ourselves. “I, uhm… D-do you have…? Are there any…?”

“Mmm, yes?” She angled her head and I blushed, twisting my shirt nervously between my hands. “Oh! Goodness, you are nervous about taking your clothes off, are you not? That is quite adorable, if I must say.” She tittered softly and I felt my body light up like a Christmas tree. “No need to be embarrassed, love. Sure, we may find it odd, but some of us do wear clothes from time to time, but… To answer your not quite a question, no, none of us have clothes that will fit you.” I frowned, but she tapped my nose with her hoof and laughed. “That is not to say that we cannot make you some. As I said, I am a textiler and make fabric with the help of my girls, and my partner, Goldie, is a fashion designer and clothing manufacturer. If you give us a little time, we could easily make you the belle of the ball.”

Something about the idea of wearing clothes made from the silk of giant spiders sent goose pimples up my arms, but I couldn't deny that I would very much like something else to wear at some point… Especially if shit like this kept happening. “Th-thanks…”

“No need to thank me, Mary. I would have done it even if you had not asked.” She leaned in, her snout getting increasingly closer to my neck and sending fire into the pit of my stomach. “Anything for a beautiful girl…” And now I was definitely not considering letting this horse have her way with my. Why did this place have to be so fucking openly sexual? Nobody paid me the time of day back home and now every not-quite-an-animal under the sun was trying to get under my skirt. I refused to be seduced by a horse and, thankfully, Silk seemed willing to change the subject. “Now! I suppose it would not be sanitary to leave you soaking in yourself, so let us get you out of those clothes and cleaned up!”

Or, maybe not. “I, uhm… I d-don't…”

“Come on, love. No need to be shy. I will not do anything you do not want me to, but we simply cannot leave you dirty before sending you back to bed. Goodness knows Daliah would be cross.” She clopped her forehooves together and began undoing the buttons on my blouse. “Chop chop, Mary. The sooner you get undressed, the sooner we can get these clean and you back to sleep.”

I tried to protest, to hold onto my clothes, but her ability to manipulate things with her aura proved much superior to my futile efforts and I was quickly left divested of my decency and covering myself with trembling hands. “I-I-I'm really not c-comfortable with th-this…”

“O-oh… my…” The mare giggled, pressed a hoof to her mouth as she blushed, and stared at my naked body. “Y-you know… You are much more beautiful like this. Just look at those hips and that slender body. Why must you cover such tantalizing things with such a loose clothing? You really ought to flaunt what you have, love.”

I shuffled and stared down at my feet, shame burning in my face. “I-I'm n-not… that p-pretty…”

“Nonsense!” The mare trotted up to me, placed a hoof on my thigh, and gently urged me back and into the giant bowl in the floor. “You are a beautiful young lady and do not dare let anybody tell you otherwise. You may not be a pony, but any of us would kill to have a body like yours. Why, you look just like a copper-haired Fleur-de-lis back in her prime. Slim, foal-bearing hips, tall and curly hair… Would you consider being a model for Goldie's next fashion line?”

“M-model!?” Just the thought of somebody considering me even remotely pretty enough to be a model made my heart soar. My entire life I'd been picked on for being a flat, short ginger but here I was in some parallel universe where everybody was some sapient animal and were practically throwing themselves at me. If it wasn't for the fact that they are animals, I can't say that I would have refused them, and each passing remark made it that much harder to not just say 'fuck it’ and give in. I was terrified of what the future held in store for me, but I couldn't deny the growing pool of giddiness filling up in my chest.

“Yes, love. I cannot say that everybody will approve of you as a model, but fie on them.” She smiled and pressed her cheek on mine as she helped me recline on a ledge in the basin. “Now, how do you like your water?”

“L-like a bath?” She nodded and I took a moment to really look at the bowl and the rest of the room. The more that I thought about it, I should have realized that I was in some sort of bathroom, but given the situation and my fraying mental state, I couldn't blame myself for not realizing it sooner. The bowl was very obviously a tub, like some strange Japanese bath built into the ground, and looked to be filled by the pull of a pair of ropes from the ceiling and a wooden slat that would open at their command. Against the wall was another long pit, wide enough to easily prevent a mess yet not too wide that somebody couldn't squat over it like a strange yet functional toilet. There wasn't a sink, but considering the place's apparent age and that it was built by ponies it wasn't all too strange to assume that you could just use the water from the tub. It was, overall, strange, but only in the sense that I'd never seen anything quite like it before.

“Mary?”

I jumped, startled out of my thoughts, and gave her a nervous chuckle. “S-sorry… I got, uhm, d-distracted.”

“Ohh, thinking about little ole me getting in with you, huh? I would not mind a nice relaxing soak with a beautiful lady.” I made to protest, but she was quick to giggle and plant a chaste kiss on my cheek with a look that promised more could be had. “I am teasing, love. Now, about the water?”

“H-hot, pl-please… B-but not t-too hot?”

“I understand. Tolerable, correct?” I nodded and she mirrored it before reaching out with her shimmering magic and grasped the pull-ropes. “Mind you legs, love. The first bit can be quite a shock.”

I curled myself into a ball and yelped as the torrent of hot and cold water splashed against my toes, hesitated to actually dip my feet into the steaming water, then eased myself into it with a sigh when it quickly came up to lap at my backside. The hot water sent painful prickles up my legs, but soon eased into perfect comfort as I sank as much of myself into the water as I could without slipping wholly into the basin. It was a wonder that I could even breathe with the suffocating heat, but that melted away right along with the stress that had been building and building ever since I arrived in… Equus. For once, I could relax and relax I did, letting my body and worries go and float up to the surface of the water and away with the steam wafting out of the open window.

“Not too hot, love?”

“Mnh…”

A soft giggle sounded from behind me before I felt the tingling touch of her magic at the back of my neck. I tensed at the touch but quickly melted back into the tub as soon as the grasping aura dug into my muscles and worked its all-encompassing grasp over my shoulders. “I figured you would be a girl that enjoyed her baths. And Harmony, the knots in your muscles. I may not know anything about whatever you are, but I very much doubt that anything should be this tense. How do you even move?”

Another grunt was all she got in response as she worked deeper and deeper with each pass, working out kinks in muscles I didn't even know I had. Each twist, every touch of pressure, burned and ached, but that fire blossomed away into sweet bliss that soon had me drifting off, eyes slipping closed. Despite the freakish world, regardless of the talking animals and their weird brazenly open sexual nature, I was relaxed and content. I didn't even care that I was naked around a horse that had quite literally offered to go to town on me despite my brain screaming at me that I should definitely be worried. Sure, maybe the first horse still scared the piss out of me, and Silk was definitely crazed for keeping spiders as big as my head as pets, but, just like Ysa and Lulu, something told me I could trust her.

“So, Mary, how would you feel about relieving some of that stress?” I felt warmth that wasn't from the water trickle through my veins. “I may not be all that experienced in the art of lovemaking, having only ever shared a bed with Goldie and my own toys, but I am certain we could learn many things from each other…”

The touch of her aura trailed lower, tickled across my stomach and teased at the curls of my pubes before my brain caught up with the sensation and I tried to jump up, but slipped at my lack of footing. I floundered, splashing as I tried to find my feet in the water and pull myself above the surface before Silk's magic eased me back onto the seat. The mare was laughing so hard that I could barely hear my own racing gasps. “Harmony, I simply cannot get enough of you.”

“Th-that-! I-! Wh-why would you-!?”

“I am sorry! So sorry, love! I just-” She held up a hoof as I glared at her and took a moment to compose herself. Her mane was plastered to her face, soaked from my panicked splashing, no doubt, and her fur dripped with water, but she didn't seem the least bit annoyed by it. “Sorry… Sorry. I could not let the opportunity slip by, though.”

“I-it's not okay! I…” I looked down. Sure, the touch had been unexpected, and I'd already been warring with myself over whether it was even okay for animals to be thinking about sex like I did, but goddamnit did it feel nice. “L-look… It f-felt good, but… ask, o-okay?” I hated that I was even considering it now after only a day. Was my resolve that fucking weak, or was I just a sucker for peer pressure and a wet pussy? I didn't want to be the weirdo in my family… More than I already was, at least.

“Mary, I was teasing.” She glanced up and away for just a second. “Sort of…” She let out a coy giggle hidden behind her hoof, then eased herself into the water next to me. Sitting at her full height, it came up to her shoulders making her just barely short of my upper body. “In all seriousness, I was testing the waters. You seemed interested, in a way, so I thought I would see if you were just playing hard to get, but it is very obvious that you are serious.”

I looked down, shame welling in my gut. “S-sorry, I just-”

“Ah! No!” Her hoof pressed against my lips and, had she not just been soaking in the water next to me, I might have gagged at the thought of having a horse's foot on my mouth. “No. Do not apologize. It was my fault for being too aggressive when I should have eased off. You are scared and I will not blame you for being nervous around a mare as forceful in her courting as I am. I will endeavour to be more mindful of your reservations, but…” I gasped as her lips pressed against mine, her hoof pressed under my chin to pull me ever so slightly closer, and pulled back with a smouldering grin, “do not think that I will give up.

“I will leave you be for now, love, but if you ever need me, well, my room is right around the corner and I am certain you know how to get there now.” She winked at me as she climbed out of the tub, her hair and fur pooling water on the floor before she wrang it out with a flourish of magic and wrapped several towels around herself, then gathered up my soiled clothes and sauntered out of the bathroom, tail raised the entire way.

It took me entirely too long to come back to my senses, too wrapped up in the softness of her lips to even think about the kiss itself, but when I did it was with an entirely new panic. This would be the fucking end of me. Not crazed purple princess horses, not giant spiders big enough to string me from the rafters, or whatever other freakish monsters that I don't know about yet, but embarrassment from enjoying attention from animals. Was I really that fucking desperate that I was actually thinking about a serious relationship with a dog, a horse, and a lizard? And the worst part was that my body was, very brazenly, telling me that I need to take care of it. It'd already been days since I'd diddled myself and now I was being teased.

I needed an out, a sense of normalcy, but where would I find it. I couldn't run away, I had no idea what was beyond this place's walls, but could I even stay here? I didn't have many choices and those that I had weren't very promising. Sure, I had a few people I could call friends, and one that I wasn't sure I ever wanted to see again, but would that be okay?

I sighed and grabbed what looked like a bottle of probably soap in a cluster of five at the edge of the tub, and popping the weird crystal stopper off the top filled the air with a flowery scent. I couldn’t read the weird hieroglyphs on it, but neither could I understand the others either, so it would have to work. It looked and felt like soap as it lathered in my hands and on my body, and it didn't burn, so I washed myself as quickly as I could before my thoughts caught back up with me. I was deluding myself by thinking I had a choice. Really, could I do anything other than trust Lulabelle and Ysa to take care of me and explain things that I didn't know? I was alone in a world I'd never known existed and there was no way I would survive on my own. I needed them and I had to hope that they wouldn't abandon me like…

Finding my way back to my room was much easier than trying to find the bathroom, especially now that I had a better point of reference to guide me. The excitement, if that's what you could call what my encounter with Silk and her 'girls’ had been, had worn off long ago and left me dragging myself through the hall, and by the time I closed the door behind me I was practically dead on my feet. There'd just been too much shit for me to deal with in one day and all I wanted now was to crawl back into bed and pass out, but there was just one more dilemma to face. It'd been easier to deal with Silk's advances, somewhat, even though she'd been much more forward about them, because, by the end of our little talk, she'd gone back to her room and ultimately left me to my own devices, but…

I sat at the edge of the bed and watched Ysa and Lulu sleep, their chests rising and falling with each even breath. I'd say I liked them much better when they were sleeping, but that little mote of loneliness that had taken up roots in my heart ever since Lulabelle lat- no- since I latched on to Lulabelle had me yearning for their company. It'd been years since I'd had any close relationship with somebody that wasn't my only nearby family member and I'd forgotten how great it felt and, now that I had the opportunity for that again, I was pretty excited to know them, but…

But there is always that fear. I know that they're going to see exactly how fucking awful and useless I am eventually, and then what? I'll be back to square one, except this time I won't have my mom to go running to. I'll be trapped in a new world that doesn't love me, with people that couldn't care less if I died or not, and there won't be anybody to stop me fro…

I sniffled and wiped my face with the corner of a blanket. Really, I'd be better off finding another room to sleep in, since I couldn't stop myself from asking them to stay here earlier, but that same insistent seed in my heart screamed at me that it'd be a mistake. I'd be throwing away the one thing that I really want in life because I was scared of losing it. I'd tear it up by its roots before it even had the chance to sprout and be burned away later, and that made my heart race even faster and sent my pounding headache into overdrive.

So, instead of doing what my brain told me would be best, I crawled across the bed as carefully as I could and squeezed back between the dozing kobold and dog, ready to cry myself to sleep at how desperate and terrible I was, so deprived of human interaction that I eagerly cozied up to the first things to show me anything close to genuine attention in years. I closed my eyes, tried my best not to sniffle and shake too much, only to gasp as two pairs of arms curled around me.

“Nature's call, Miss Rose?” I didn't trust my voice, so I just nodded against the chest pressed into the back of my head. Lulu hummed in acknowledgement, the sound just as languid and soft as if it was coming from a dream, and pulled me tighter. “Lulabelle… hopes you found the washroom without…”

Her breathing evened out again, but her grip didn't ease a bit and it took everything I had not to break down and cry as I clutched Ysa to my chest and waited for sleep to…