The Wizard of Whitetail Woods IIIby Admiral BiscuitChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 1The Wizard of Whitetail Woods III Chapter 1 Admiral Biscuit KitKat paused, her ears swiveling. Somewhere ahead, she’d heard the dull crack of a twig, and possibly what were several scuttling feet against the mulchy forest floor. The Wizard also stopped in his tracks, readying his wand. Just in case. For a minute or two, all was silent in the forest, and then KitKat nodded. “I think they’re passing south.” “You sure?” “Not entirely. The winds aren’t in my favor, but that’s where I heard the noise.” “Fair enough.” The Wizard put his wand away and adjusted his belt, then the two intrepid adventurers continued on. KitKat carefully placed her hooves; the Wizard shambled along like a shoggoth. They were far enough north of the wandering band of trilobites that didn’t matter. Probably. 💦 “So now what?” The pony and human stood at the bank of a river. Wide, it was, and raging. Both of those thing were odd, given that the river was running through a nearly flat forest, and also that it wasn’t marked on the map KitKat had. “This river isn’t on my map,” KitKat muttered, looking at the map again to be certain. “Dammit, I knew I should have bought a new one.” “A new map?” She nodded. “On account of how natural features change over time.” “Geological time; that’s centuries or millennia.” The wizard glanced at the map. It looked antique, but then nearly everything in Equestria did. “You didn’t steal the map from a museum, did you?” “I sent away for it. A dozen box tops from Cheerilee-Os.” “Anything you send in boxtops for isn’t worth the stamp,” the Wizard said wisely. “Trust me; I got a pair of X-ray glasses once and all they did was give me a headache and the unending horror of knowing that every person I met had a skeleton hidden inside.” “Uh-huh.” “That’s why I came here, you know. To get away from the skeletons.” “Monologuing won’t get us across the river,” KitKat observed. “A boat would be smashed to finders if we tried to cross. There aren’t any dead trees we could fell, and the mossy rocks look slippery. Dangerously slippery.” “What about building a bridge?” “You took any civil engineering classes? Because I haven’t.” “I had a merit badge in basketmaking, and what’s a bridge but a big basket?” KitKat blinked several times as she parsed the Wizard’s statement, then shook her head violently in an attempt to dislodge the stupid. “Have you been licking toads again?” “You’re not my Mom.” “Okay, then.” KitKat regarded the raging river while the Wizard examined his hands. In her mind, half-forgotten potamology lessons were running through her head. “We gotta go upstream. There’s gonna be some kind of dam or restriction to the flow, and a head of water above that.” “Upstream, yeah.” The Wizard looked down at his hands again. “Hey, how come you have hooves?” “I’ll tell you if you promise to STOP LICKING TOADS.” “Whoa, don’t be all shouty about it.” Indeed, damn beavers had been hard at work building a beaver dam. The damn dam consisted mostly of mud and sticks, since that was what beavers generally worked with. Concrete would of course have been a better dam material to use, but KitKat knew it was practically ungnawable. To be precise, the damn dam had a big damn hole in it. Dozens of beavers were frantically working to dam the damn dam, dragging hastily gnawed-down trees into place and then backfilling with mud and moss and leaves and other forest detritus. KitKat took in the scene, identifying the big beaver—that was who she’d want to talk to, after all. He was easy to spot; he wore a white hard hat. The Wizard kept to himself, mostly mentally composing inappropriate beaver jokes. “Puhutko hevosta?” KitKat shouted. The big boss beaver looked in her direction and nodded. “Ya, speak a bit of Ponish, eh. What you want?” “We cross river,” she said, gesturing to the turbid tempest. “Is easier upriver or can we cross dam?” “Damn dam’s unstable, don’t you know?” the beaver said. “Laiska kirjailija put a hole in it, eh?” “I’m sure-footed like a mountain goat,” KitKat replied. “And he’s—DAMMIT STOP LICKING TOADS.” “Best to hoof it upstream, river’s wide and shallow.” “Kiitos.” KitKat bowed her head to the beaver and then grabbed the Wizard’s belt in her teeth and dragged him along with her. They still had a magical macguffin to look for, after all. 💦 They made camp on the far side of the stream. As the big beaver had indicated, beyond the dam impoundment caused by the damn dam, the river was wide and shallow and easily fordable. KtiKat only got wet to her gaskins; the Wizard had longer legs and didn’t even get his zatch wet. A small fire was the first order of business, and once they had an ample supply of deadfall, KitKat sparked her shoe on a rock and got it going. They laid their bedrolls out on either side of the fire, KitKat took off her saddlebags; to everyone’s good fortune the Wizard didn’t take off his robe. “We need to put our food up to keep it safe from bears.” “Bears?” KitKat nodded. “Bears. Were-bears, Owl Bears, Space Bears, and boring ordinary Bears.” “Are there really bears in these woods?” “There are psychotropic phrogs, so of course there are bears.” KitKat looped up a piece of rope and wrapped it around her saddlebag. Those carried most of their food, because the Wizard didn’t have a backpack, and because his robe also didn’t have pockets. Granted, there wasn’t all that much food. KitKat mostly grazed on the available flora, while the Wizard preferred to snack on whatever fauna he could catch. In case he couldn’t catch enough fauna to satisfy his hunger, he’d slipped several wheels of emergency cheese into KitKat’s bag. “I’ve never understood why hanging food up is a way to keep it safe from bears.” “Really? That’s basic woodsmareship.” “I mean, I get that they can’t reach it, but then they’d just see us lying on the ground and figure we’d be a good bear snack.” “You’d think that we’re a good bare bear snack, but it’s a well-known fact that bears are obsessed with piñatas, and when they see food hanging up, they try their best to break the bag open with a stick.” “You’re bullshitting me.” “Am not.” KitKat tugged the bag up and tied the rope off to a convenient bollard on the tree. “Find a nice, straight stick you can leave by the bag to use as a piñata whacker, and just make sure it’s not long enough it’ll actually hit the bag.” 💦 As dusk fell with a gentle clatter, the two adventurers laid snugly in their bedrolls. The Wizard had his wand out and was perusing one of his many spellbooks, while KitKat idly worked a hoof pick around her frog. She looked over in his direction for a moment, and once she realized he had the centerfold out, went back to minding her own business. Nopony wanted to see that. 💦 It was midnight in the small glade where they’d set up their camp. All was silent, save for a boring bear futilely swinging a piñata smashing stick at the supply saddlebags. He’d eventually give up and shuffle back off to shit in the woods, as bears do. Honestly, he’s not really important to the story. KitKat was sound asleep. So was the Wizard. 💦 Unbeknownst to both of them, one of the duo sleepwalked, and it wasn’t KitKat. Author's Note It all goes downhill from here, kids. Chapter 2The Wizard of Whitetail Woods III Chapter 2 Admiral Biscuit A soft rustle through the leaf-litter caught KitKat’s attention, snapped her out of a pleasant dream. Her ears were focusing even as her head came up from the pillow and her eyes snapped open. We should have had a sentry. Too late for that. She was expecting some monster from the depths of Tartarus, some nocturnal denizen to wreak havoc on their camp, but it was even worse than that—it was the Wizard. His robes were open and he had his baloney pony in hand and pointed directly at her. His eyes were closed in a blissful fantasy, undoubtedly involving the last centerfold playmate, and KitKat tried to twist out of the way but her bedroll betrayed her, and the wizard sprayed his magic all over her. Her body wrenched in agony as the spell took hold, twisting and forming her body into a new form, shaping her as the Wizard’s willy willed. She was powerless to stop it and could do nothing but cry out in horror. Quietly, so to not attract any predators who might be nearby. And then the transformation was done; there was nothing left but a drying glaze of roman yogurt splattered across her. The Wizard grunted and turned, shuffling back to his bedroll, clearly unaware of what abomination he’d wrought. To most ponies, it would have taken at least a few minutes to process what had just happened to them. How their hooves had changed into wriggly pink tentacles, how their fur had vanished to be replaced with smooth skin, how their ears had shifted and immobilized. How their tails had shrunk into a largely useless coccyx which couldn’t be flicked in frustration. At least she didn’t have a horn or wings to lose; in that regard, being a lowly mudpony saved her from additional horrors. “God damn it.” That was a useful phrase she’d learned from the Wizard. “Also, teletubbie kut and tapan hänet.” Those were useful phrases in ponish and beaver, respectively. She looked down at her body. “He went and turned me into Miss July 2008. Fake tits and all.” Most ponies would have either galloped off in a panic or curled up under the covers in the forlorn hope that they’d imagined what had just happened. Tempting though it was, KitKat didn’t do that. The Wizard had already transformed her once, and who knew what he might get up to later in the night if she didn’t take action now? She’d seen his wrinkly winky more times than she cared to admit—every time he cast a spell, in fact—and the idea of him getting a notion to stick it in her was repulsive. She’d rather fuck an Abyssinian. Her saddlebags carried all sorts of useful accouterments. Bedrolls, spellbooks, emergency cheese, and also sixty-six feet of black nylon rope, braided from the finest aliphatic polyamides. KitKat’s fingers fumbled at the buckle and she finally gave up and opened it with her mouth, as was proper. Murdering the Wizard was still an option on the table, but she needed him to change her back into a pony, so she left her tabarzin behind. If he confessed he couldn’t change her back, well, then it was time for the axe. Human fingers made short works of knots, and it hardly took her any time at all to truss him up like a Thanksgiving turkey. He moaned in his sleep, something about hurt me, baby, and a few other things along that vein, and she resolved that tomorrow morning she was going to burn the dog-eared copy of Six Shades of Grey she kept in her saddlebags for alone time. Clearly the Wizard had been reading it, too. She should have known by how some of the pages stuck together. 💦 Being human sucked. On her way over to tie him up, she’d been filled with vim and vigor and vengeance, but now she was reflecting on how every time she took a step, it felt like she was going to fall over. How the forest floor wasn’t all that soft after all. And most importantly, how cold it was to be out in the forest at night without a proper coat of fur. She slipped back under her blanket and rested her stupid human head on her pillow, finally drifting off to sleep as she considered whether it would be more satisfying to dismember the wizard in biological order or alphabetical. 💦 Meanwhile, the damn beavers continued their damn dam repairs. They were quite industrious and worked three shifts. Also, the bear had enjoyed the go and returned to his bear lair, where he had also curled up for a blissful night’s sleep, dreaming of pickinik baskets and the bounty contained therein. 💦 I didn’t mention the skunk, but she also made a lap of their camp and then left, having found nothing of interest. Author's Note It’s not too late to stop reading. Chapter 3Wizard of Whitetail Woods III Chapter 3 Admiral Biscuit Morning dawned as it normally does. The stars faded as the dark sky lightened, nocturnal creatures returned to their burrows and nests, crepuscular creatures came out, and they were quickly followed by early birds who not only caught the worm, but who wanted to tweet to every other creature in the forest about it. The Wizard observed all of this. Unbeknownst to KitKat, he’d woken up in the middle of the night, having felt the call of nature. Beknownst to her (but not immediately to him), he was securely tied in position and couldn’t answer the call. Since then, he’d spent the rest of a restless night alternating between anger at the fact that his travelling companion had betrayed him—unaware that he’d betrayed her first—; worrying that all Gaia’s creatures who were interested in snacking on a helpless Wizard might consider him worth snacking on; and trying not to piss himself. To an extent, he had a ranged weapon and she’d left the ropes loose enough that he could roll at least, but he wasn’t wise enough at wilderness lore to be certain which way the ground sloped, nor was he skilled enough to aim without a hand on his maypole. KitKat also spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning as she tried to find a comfortable position. Ponyloaf was out: humans didn’t bend that way. Prone got weird on her neck after a while; her stupidly large tits made resting on her side uncomfortable; supine left her feeling vulnerable. Not to mention that her blanket was sized for a pony, which meant it wasn’t long enough to cover her human form completely. Furthermore, the realization that her cutie mark had vanished from her hips also weighed heavily on her mind. Had she spent more time examining herself, she would have discovered that it had just moved to her back, spreading out into a proper tramp stamp. That was something that the Wizard would notice, but that was later, after he got up. 💦 Later, after he got up, the Wizard finally had his long-deferred meeting with nature. While he had occasionally fantasized about this exact situation, it turned out that he had minor performance anxiety when there was an extremely pissed-off naked chick just out of reach behind him, and that that extremely pissed-off naked chick had a rope in one hand—the other end looped around his neck—and a wickedly sharp tabarzin in her other. One slice, and it’d easily take his head off. Either of them. Unlike women, the Wizard was not accustomed to casual conversation while using the bathroom (or in this case, a tree), but he did his best. “You look sexy this morning.” His compliment fell on deaf, non-mobile ears. “You’re about to look like something I scraped off my shoe after stepping in it by mistake.” She clenched her fist around her axe. “Either piss or get off the poplar.” 💦 Breakfast was a tense affair. KitKat was the better cook of the two, that was unquestionable, and she was familiar with cooking human food. She was not used to eating it, something the Wizard became acutely aware of when she set her bowl of oatmeal on the ground and stuck her face in, lapping it up with her tongue. He kept his mouth shut, because he preferred that all his appendages stayed attached. He’d already estimated that she was unlikely to murder him before he turned her back into a pony, but that there was a seventy-five percent chance she wasn’t opposed to lopping off a limb to motivate him. “Look, I’m sorry, okay. I didn’t know that I sleepwalked, nor did I know that I could cast spells in my sleep.” “We can fix one of those things with a chastity cage,” she said. “Or a Prince Albert, a short length of chain, and a butt plug.” The Wizard hesitated for a moment, imagining how that would work, then shuddered as he figured it out. “Let’s not be hasty. Let’s consider the advantages.” “I’m cold and these dumb tits make my back hurt.” “Well. . . .” “So hurry up and get your peen out and turn me back into a pony.” “It’s not that simple,” he said. “I’m just not feeling it right now.” “You are without a doubt the most useless Wizard I have ever encountered. Can’t cast a single spell without your third leg being hard, and you’ve got to have a hundredweight of porn magazines to keep you going. You ruined my copy of Six Shades of Grey. I’d had that since I was a filly, you know.” He hung his head in shame. “So what’s it gonna take? Huh?” She wiped the oatmeal off her nose with the back of her hand and stood up. “I’m one of your pinup girls now; I’ve got the tits you like so much and I’d wink my clit at you but it turns out humans can’t do that. What’s it gonna take to get you hard? Do I have to find another wandering spider?” “Please don’t.” He cringed at the memory. Treatment for the spider-induced priapism had involved a monster needle to drain the stagnant blood out of his corpora cavernosa. Until that moment, he’d fantasized about having a hot nurse hold his johnston; now, like so many of his adolescent dreams, it had shattered into a million pieces. “Maybe if we were to, you know.” “Not a chance. You got your magic by fucking a unicorn, you told me that, and I’m not going to risk you losing it by fucking a human.” “You’re not really a human,” he countered. She crossed her arms and gave him a death glare. “Really? Because I certainly look like one. And I feel like one. Inside and out. Do you know how weird it is to have an extra bone that I didn’t have before?” “A bone?” The wizard blanched. “Oh, God, there’s a skeleton inside you.” He got to his feet and tried to run, but only made it ten feet before the rope pulled taut and yanked him off his feet. He crashed to the forest floor, whimpering and blubbering as KitKat—in the form of Miss July 2008—crouched over him. Author's Note An em dash followed by a semicolon? What madness is this? Could it get any worse? Chapter 4The Wizard of Whitetail Woods III Chapter 4 Admiral Biscuit Having hands was a mixed blessing. The Wizard remained conscious after KitKat bitch-slapped him, which wouldn’t have been the case if she’d whanged him upside the head with a shod hoof. “Focus on what’s important here. I’m supposed to be a pony, okay. And the only way I’m going to get to be a pony again is if you can whip it out and get it hard.” He shied away from her, muttering under his breath about sneaky bones. “Come on, man, get your shit together. Ik ben het zat om vast te zitten als een slet en vast te zitten aan je zielige reet. You got what you wished for, didn’t you? Kasvattaa palloja, Jesus Christ.” “Would you stop switching languages on me at least?” “No.” She crossed her arms. “This is hardly condusive to getting a rise out of me.” The Wizard would have done whatever the equivalent of popping a collar is, except that he was on his back on the ground in a bathrobe with an extremely pissed off and extremely naked supermodel nee pony crouched over him. “You’re supposed to rise to pressure,” KitKat said. “Else what’s the point of a Wizard at all? When we were chased by timberwolves you had no problem getting it up and doing what needed to be done, so what’s wrong now?” “That you’re considering murdering me?” “So? You think the timberwolves didn’t have the same thoughts in their walnut brains?” “I don’t know. I’m just muddling through and doing the best I can, okay? I didn’t ask to be a wizard, that just came to me.” “I bet that’s what the unicorn said, too.” “Shut up.” KitKat let out a long sigh, finishing by blowing her bangs up. “You’re right. I’m losing track of what’s important. We need to get the magical mcguffin; everything else is a distraction. I’m letting my temper get out of hoof. Let’s start over, shall we?” “Yes.” “Please turn me back into a pony.” 💦 Every teenager ever fantasized about Lara Croft wearing just a little bit less on her excursions through the wilderness. The mere thought of it was enough to send teenage hormones into overdrive, to produce a result. The Wizard was fully aware of that fact. He was also aware of the irony of who he’d transformed KitKat into. (She wasn’t, because while she could speak English fluently, she couldn't read it.) One would have thought that seeing her traipsing through the woods, naked as the day she was born—except now in human form rather than equine—would be more than enough. The sway of her hips, the flounce of her hair, the way she had her saddlebags hung off her shoulder because obviously she couldn’t wear them pony-style any more. The string of curses under her breath every time she stepped on something sharp. The way her hips swayed and her boobs bounced with every step despite her attempt to restrain them. It should have, but the Wizard knew that she was harboring a desire to dismember him, possibly in order to steal his bones; more likely because she was still mad that he’d turned her into a human. Either way, dismemberment was dismemberment, and he was invested in keeping his member membered. The two of them had come to a mutual agreement that they would continue on the adventure at hand—at hoof was how she described it, despite lacking four of them—and as soon as he got in the mood, he’d point his spitstick at her and turn her back into a pony. He’d been agreeable since it was hard to be otherwise with a saddle axe against his throat, but deep down he was expecting that there’d be a plot twist. 💦 For her part, as the day wore on, KitKat just wanted things to return to normal. She was stuck with the Wizard, she’d signed a contract to that effect and was honest enough to honor it. That was the cost of civilization. And she really did want to get to the end of the adventure and find the mcguffin and then let the future bring what it brang. She tried to ignore the pain in her unshod feet or the constant chill on her furless body and the back pain Playboy tits caused. She kept shifting her carried saddlebags around in the hopes of finding some way that they were comfortable to carry, even knowing in her heart that there wasn’t. She kept holding out hope that the Wizard’s ding-a-ling would perk up, the sooner the better. As fate would have it, it did, and not in the way either of them could have expected. 💦 Kukka was a skunk. Kukka had always been a skunk, and knew little outside that lifestyle. She snuffled around looking for food and sometimes a mate and generally ignored the world at large except when it came close enough to require her to raise her tail as a warning. She knew the woods like the back of her paw, and she had nothing but contempt for bears who attempted to open hanging foodbags like pinatas when clearly the correct way to nom the tasty treats inside was to spray the carriers of the foodbag in the hopes that they’d drop it and scurry off to anywhere else that didn’t smell like a skunk’s ass. As plans went, that was surprisingly high on the scale of effectiveness. There was little she could do when the bag of food was already hanging, and thus she’d snuffled around the camp and moved on. If the stick had been longer and the bear had managed to break the bag open, she might have tried to stink him off, but it wasn’t, so she didn’t. Now, though, her food was moving, carried along by a biped who was going in circles through the forest since she’d cheaped out and gotten her map in exchange for Cheerilee-Os boxtops, which anypony with any sense would know was worthless. The fact that it came pre-antiqued ought to have served as a clue; if that wasn't enough, the fact that the compass rose had east and west reversed ought to have been obvious. Or, for that matter, the fine print at the bottom which indicated that it was not to scale and not to be used as an aid to navigation. Remember how I said the skunk wasn’t essential to the plot? Well, I lied. Kukka wasn’t exactly clever when it came to plotting out an ambush; her life mostly consisted of muddling into situations, spraying stink everywhere, and waddling back out of the cloud of miasma in a ‘heroes never look back’ manner. In her mind, the bullet points of her plan were nothing but question marks, ending with ‘get food.’ That was sufficient. 💦 KitKat could have smelled her coming from a mile away, except that like all her other pony attributes, her nose had been turned into a senseless beak that was practically scentless. The Wizard was still focused on the hypnotic sway of her bare fundament and also didn’t notice the skunk before it was too late. As a result of this, Kukka managed to get both of the as they crested a small rise in the forest. One moment, the way way clear; the next moment, a flagged tail and a skunk’s butthole, and then they were fleeing. The Wizard shrieked like a little girl. KitKat, who was the more ambivalent of the duo, took it in stride, dodging the primary blast and in her hasty but orderly retreat, sidearming a wheel of sharp cheddar at the skunk. It wasn’t the outcome anypony, anybody, or anymephitidae could have hoped for, and yet at the end of the brief scrum, the Wizard got the karma he surely deserved, KitKat dodged the worst of it, and Kukka dragged a kilo of cheese back to her burrow. 💦 Differences of opinion drive us apart, while a common suffering can bring us together, and so it was with KitKat and the Wizard. Both of them fled the scene in tandem, despite the fact that one wanted to dismember the other, and the other knew that the other other was filled with bones. 206 of them, in fact. 💦 It’s said that adversity builds character. In this case, adversity built an orderly retreat. The pair beat feet back the way they’d come, away from the skunk scent and beyond. Presently, they were faced with the damn dam—it was dammier than ever, owing to a colony of dam beavers who had worked tirelessly to patch the damn hole. In fact, they retreated back to where they’d begun, the Mareiott on the edge of the forest. Author's Note Lick a toad, see the future. Chapter 5The Wizard of Whitetail Woods III Chapter 5 Admiral Biscuit Checking in was the first issue. The deskmare, understandably, was not keen on allowing two weird looking adventurers, one wearing a shoddy bathrobe and the other wearing nothing at all, to reserve a room at her hotel. Entreaties that she’d let them several nights before when KitKat was still a pony fell on deaf ears, and the Wizard’s AAA card didn’t do the trick either. Had they not smelled like a skunk’s asshole, the deskmare might have been more accommodating. Or not, who’s to say? Eventually, the duo convinced her of their bonafides, and she grudgingly accepted a hoofful of bits in exchange for a night’s lodging, with the assurance that if the room stank like skunk in the morning, they’d be paying extra. She also sniffed and bit every coin that crossed her frog to ensure it was genuine. KitKat had often impressed in the wizard that bite marks in bit coins were typical; until that moment he hadn’t seen the required action in action. Their room fortunately contained two beds, a flushing toilet, and a bathtub. A nightstand which had a drawer which boasted an IPU Bible, and several freshly-washed towels. Importantly, it also featured a bathtub rather than one of those shower-only contraptions. Everypony knows that bathing in tomato juice is the best way to combat skunk odor. Not everybody knows that it isn’t actually effective; while the odor of tomatoes masks the skunk smell due to olfactory fatigue, the thoils don’t actually get washed off. A better treatment would have been hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and liquid soap. Since neither of them had access to google search, and since the Wizard’s schlong was still being shy, thus precluding a spell to neutralize the odor, they called down to the kitchen for enough gallons of V7 juice (which was similar to V8 juice, but lacked the lettuce in order to avoid trademark and patent lawsuits) to fill the bathtub. If the Wizard’s membrum virale had shown signs of life, KitKat would have still ordered the juice; she’d’ve rather been a smelly pony than a non-smelly Playboy centerfold. In due time, the juice arrived, in dozens of cans pushed on a repurposed maid’s cart. The bellcolt required a tip to use his can opener on each can in turn, and the duo proceeded to fill the bathtub. There are probably things less sexy than a private bath in cold reconstituted tomato juice (and beets, celery, carrots, parsley, watercress, and spinach, in case you were curious what the other six were). Even when there’s a couple in said bath, practically anything else is more sexier. I don’t base this on actual knowledge, but it’s honestly an ‘everybody knows’ kind of thing. Isn’t it? The point is that during the intimate process of bathing, where each of them did their very best to put tomato juice anywhere that skunk skank might be sticking, the Wizard’s old chap finally rose to the occasion, despite the constant litany of complaints from Miss July 2008, formerly KitKat the pony. She seized on that (not literally), literally wrapping her human hand around his stem and pointing it at herself. Also squeezing and stroking in a manner which might cause the magic to happen. What happened next might be described as a miracle or a sin, depending on one’s upbringing. The important point of it is that at the end of the impromptu bath handy, KitKat was a pony again, and without ever slitting the Wizard’s guggle. A circumstance which left both happy. It’s often been said that there’s nopony happier than a pony covered in V7 juice doing a victory dance in a bathtub filled with tomato juice, skunk skank, and a Wizard, and KitKat illustrated that bit of homespun wisdom impeccably, even briefly breaking into song. She skipped the dance; bathtubs are notoriously slippery. 💦 In due time, both of them were suitably scrubbed down, and in case you were wondering, they did take a shower afterwards because nobody and nopony likes to go to bed while still coated in tomato juice. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself. Thought so. 💦 In some ways, as the two of them laid in there separate beds, it was a return to normal. To the status quo. If this were a serial, it would be the moment where things returned to exactly the way they were at the start of the episode, facilitating easy syndication. ~~Of course, it isn’t; it’s a genuine representation of the struggle of man~~ vs. ~~beast on a quest to self-actualization.~~ KitKat wasn’t what one would consider a clever pony. She’d willingly been pillowtalked by a Wizard—literally the worst Wizard in all of Equestria—into accompanying him on a quest for a magical mcguffin, and even after signing his NDA and what could only be interpreted as a gross breech of contract, stuck by his side. Nearly paladin levels of lawful good, that’s what I’m saying. It was a fact that the Wizard sleepwalked, that was undeniable. It was also a fact that he thought with his disco stick. Further, it was also a fact that in his tadger-thinking, humans were more attractive than ponies, especially if they were centerfolds and had fake tits. KitKat hadn’t known that when she signed the NDA back at the bar, but she knew that now. While the contract didn’t specifically mention it, it didn’t preclude it either, and that was just a thing she had to deal with in her relationship with the Wizard. Adventuring was risky. That was something she had known, and something she’d fully embraced. She was prepared for most eventualities. Thus it was in a Mareiott on the edge of an untamed wilderness, in a hotel room with two beds and a litter of empty V7 cans and also a pungent odor of skunk asshole which honestly wasn’t fully masked by tomato smell, KitKat laid in bed. Mostly asleep, but only mostly. And predictably, in the middle of the night, the Wizard woke, took his anaconda in hand, and shuffled over to her bed. We all know that it didn’t want none unless she’s got buns, hon. This time KitKat was prepared. This time, KitKat had a mirror. FIN Author's Note It’s everywhere! It’s in my raccoon wounds!
Chapter 1The Wizard of Whitetail Woods III Chapter 1 Admiral Biscuit KitKat paused, her ears swiveling. Somewhere ahead, she’d heard the dull crack of a twig, and possibly what were several scuttling feet against the mulchy forest floor. The Wizard also stopped in his tracks, readying his wand. Just in case. For a minute or two, all was silent in the forest, and then KitKat nodded. “I think they’re passing south.” “You sure?” “Not entirely. The winds aren’t in my favor, but that’s where I heard the noise.” “Fair enough.” The Wizard put his wand away and adjusted his belt, then the two intrepid adventurers continued on. KitKat carefully placed her hooves; the Wizard shambled along like a shoggoth. They were far enough north of the wandering band of trilobites that didn’t matter. Probably. 💦 “So now what?” The pony and human stood at the bank of a river. Wide, it was, and raging. Both of those thing were odd, given that the river was running through a nearly flat forest, and also that it wasn’t marked on the map KitKat had. “This river isn’t on my map,” KitKat muttered, looking at the map again to be certain. “Dammit, I knew I should have bought a new one.” “A new map?” She nodded. “On account of how natural features change over time.” “Geological time; that’s centuries or millennia.” The wizard glanced at the map. It looked antique, but then nearly everything in Equestria did. “You didn’t steal the map from a museum, did you?” “I sent away for it. A dozen box tops from Cheerilee-Os.” “Anything you send in boxtops for isn’t worth the stamp,” the Wizard said wisely. “Trust me; I got a pair of X-ray glasses once and all they did was give me a headache and the unending horror of knowing that every person I met had a skeleton hidden inside.” “Uh-huh.” “That’s why I came here, you know. To get away from the skeletons.” “Monologuing won’t get us across the river,” KitKat observed. “A boat would be smashed to finders if we tried to cross. There aren’t any dead trees we could fell, and the mossy rocks look slippery. Dangerously slippery.” “What about building a bridge?” “You took any civil engineering classes? Because I haven’t.” “I had a merit badge in basketmaking, and what’s a bridge but a big basket?” KitKat blinked several times as she parsed the Wizard’s statement, then shook her head violently in an attempt to dislodge the stupid. “Have you been licking toads again?” “You’re not my Mom.” “Okay, then.” KitKat regarded the raging river while the Wizard examined his hands. In her mind, half-forgotten potamology lessons were running through her head. “We gotta go upstream. There’s gonna be some kind of dam or restriction to the flow, and a head of water above that.” “Upstream, yeah.” The Wizard looked down at his hands again. “Hey, how come you have hooves?” “I’ll tell you if you promise to STOP LICKING TOADS.” “Whoa, don’t be all shouty about it.” Indeed, damn beavers had been hard at work building a beaver dam. The damn dam consisted mostly of mud and sticks, since that was what beavers generally worked with. Concrete would of course have been a better dam material to use, but KitKat knew it was practically ungnawable. To be precise, the damn dam had a big damn hole in it. Dozens of beavers were frantically working to dam the damn dam, dragging hastily gnawed-down trees into place and then backfilling with mud and moss and leaves and other forest detritus. KitKat took in the scene, identifying the big beaver—that was who she’d want to talk to, after all. He was easy to spot; he wore a white hard hat. The Wizard kept to himself, mostly mentally composing inappropriate beaver jokes. “Puhutko hevosta?” KitKat shouted. The big boss beaver looked in her direction and nodded. “Ya, speak a bit of Ponish, eh. What you want?” “We cross river,” she said, gesturing to the turbid tempest. “Is easier upriver or can we cross dam?” “Damn dam’s unstable, don’t you know?” the beaver said. “Laiska kirjailija put a hole in it, eh?” “I’m sure-footed like a mountain goat,” KitKat replied. “And he’s—DAMMIT STOP LICKING TOADS.” “Best to hoof it upstream, river’s wide and shallow.” “Kiitos.” KitKat bowed her head to the beaver and then grabbed the Wizard’s belt in her teeth and dragged him along with her. They still had a magical macguffin to look for, after all. 💦 They made camp on the far side of the stream. As the big beaver had indicated, beyond the dam impoundment caused by the damn dam, the river was wide and shallow and easily fordable. KtiKat only got wet to her gaskins; the Wizard had longer legs and didn’t even get his zatch wet. A small fire was the first order of business, and once they had an ample supply of deadfall, KitKat sparked her shoe on a rock and got it going. They laid their bedrolls out on either side of the fire, KitKat took off her saddlebags; to everyone’s good fortune the Wizard didn’t take off his robe. “We need to put our food up to keep it safe from bears.” “Bears?” KitKat nodded. “Bears. Were-bears, Owl Bears, Space Bears, and boring ordinary Bears.” “Are there really bears in these woods?” “There are psychotropic phrogs, so of course there are bears.” KitKat looped up a piece of rope and wrapped it around her saddlebag. Those carried most of their food, because the Wizard didn’t have a backpack, and because his robe also didn’t have pockets. Granted, there wasn’t all that much food. KitKat mostly grazed on the available flora, while the Wizard preferred to snack on whatever fauna he could catch. In case he couldn’t catch enough fauna to satisfy his hunger, he’d slipped several wheels of emergency cheese into KitKat’s bag. “I’ve never understood why hanging food up is a way to keep it safe from bears.” “Really? That’s basic woodsmareship.” “I mean, I get that they can’t reach it, but then they’d just see us lying on the ground and figure we’d be a good bear snack.” “You’d think that we’re a good bare bear snack, but it’s a well-known fact that bears are obsessed with piñatas, and when they see food hanging up, they try their best to break the bag open with a stick.” “You’re bullshitting me.” “Am not.” KitKat tugged the bag up and tied the rope off to a convenient bollard on the tree. “Find a nice, straight stick you can leave by the bag to use as a piñata whacker, and just make sure it’s not long enough it’ll actually hit the bag.” 💦 As dusk fell with a gentle clatter, the two adventurers laid snugly in their bedrolls. The Wizard had his wand out and was perusing one of his many spellbooks, while KitKat idly worked a hoof pick around her frog. She looked over in his direction for a moment, and once she realized he had the centerfold out, went back to minding her own business. Nopony wanted to see that. 💦 It was midnight in the small glade where they’d set up their camp. All was silent, save for a boring bear futilely swinging a piñata smashing stick at the supply saddlebags. He’d eventually give up and shuffle back off to shit in the woods, as bears do. Honestly, he’s not really important to the story. KitKat was sound asleep. So was the Wizard. 💦 Unbeknownst to both of them, one of the duo sleepwalked, and it wasn’t KitKat. Author's Note It all goes downhill from here, kids.
Chapter 2The Wizard of Whitetail Woods III Chapter 2 Admiral Biscuit A soft rustle through the leaf-litter caught KitKat’s attention, snapped her out of a pleasant dream. Her ears were focusing even as her head came up from the pillow and her eyes snapped open. We should have had a sentry. Too late for that. She was expecting some monster from the depths of Tartarus, some nocturnal denizen to wreak havoc on their camp, but it was even worse than that—it was the Wizard. His robes were open and he had his baloney pony in hand and pointed directly at her. His eyes were closed in a blissful fantasy, undoubtedly involving the last centerfold playmate, and KitKat tried to twist out of the way but her bedroll betrayed her, and the wizard sprayed his magic all over her. Her body wrenched in agony as the spell took hold, twisting and forming her body into a new form, shaping her as the Wizard’s willy willed. She was powerless to stop it and could do nothing but cry out in horror. Quietly, so to not attract any predators who might be nearby. And then the transformation was done; there was nothing left but a drying glaze of roman yogurt splattered across her. The Wizard grunted and turned, shuffling back to his bedroll, clearly unaware of what abomination he’d wrought. To most ponies, it would have taken at least a few minutes to process what had just happened to them. How their hooves had changed into wriggly pink tentacles, how their fur had vanished to be replaced with smooth skin, how their ears had shifted and immobilized. How their tails had shrunk into a largely useless coccyx which couldn’t be flicked in frustration. At least she didn’t have a horn or wings to lose; in that regard, being a lowly mudpony saved her from additional horrors. “God damn it.” That was a useful phrase she’d learned from the Wizard. “Also, teletubbie kut and tapan hänet.” Those were useful phrases in ponish and beaver, respectively. She looked down at her body. “He went and turned me into Miss July 2008. Fake tits and all.” Most ponies would have either galloped off in a panic or curled up under the covers in the forlorn hope that they’d imagined what had just happened. Tempting though it was, KitKat didn’t do that. The Wizard had already transformed her once, and who knew what he might get up to later in the night if she didn’t take action now? She’d seen his wrinkly winky more times than she cared to admit—every time he cast a spell, in fact—and the idea of him getting a notion to stick it in her was repulsive. She’d rather fuck an Abyssinian. Her saddlebags carried all sorts of useful accouterments. Bedrolls, spellbooks, emergency cheese, and also sixty-six feet of black nylon rope, braided from the finest aliphatic polyamides. KitKat’s fingers fumbled at the buckle and she finally gave up and opened it with her mouth, as was proper. Murdering the Wizard was still an option on the table, but she needed him to change her back into a pony, so she left her tabarzin behind. If he confessed he couldn’t change her back, well, then it was time for the axe. Human fingers made short works of knots, and it hardly took her any time at all to truss him up like a Thanksgiving turkey. He moaned in his sleep, something about hurt me, baby, and a few other things along that vein, and she resolved that tomorrow morning she was going to burn the dog-eared copy of Six Shades of Grey she kept in her saddlebags for alone time. Clearly the Wizard had been reading it, too. She should have known by how some of the pages stuck together. 💦 Being human sucked. On her way over to tie him up, she’d been filled with vim and vigor and vengeance, but now she was reflecting on how every time she took a step, it felt like she was going to fall over. How the forest floor wasn’t all that soft after all. And most importantly, how cold it was to be out in the forest at night without a proper coat of fur. She slipped back under her blanket and rested her stupid human head on her pillow, finally drifting off to sleep as she considered whether it would be more satisfying to dismember the wizard in biological order or alphabetical. 💦 Meanwhile, the damn beavers continued their damn dam repairs. They were quite industrious and worked three shifts. Also, the bear had enjoyed the go and returned to his bear lair, where he had also curled up for a blissful night’s sleep, dreaming of pickinik baskets and the bounty contained therein. 💦 I didn’t mention the skunk, but she also made a lap of their camp and then left, having found nothing of interest. Author's Note It’s not too late to stop reading.
Chapter 3Wizard of Whitetail Woods III Chapter 3 Admiral Biscuit Morning dawned as it normally does. The stars faded as the dark sky lightened, nocturnal creatures returned to their burrows and nests, crepuscular creatures came out, and they were quickly followed by early birds who not only caught the worm, but who wanted to tweet to every other creature in the forest about it. The Wizard observed all of this. Unbeknownst to KitKat, he’d woken up in the middle of the night, having felt the call of nature. Beknownst to her (but not immediately to him), he was securely tied in position and couldn’t answer the call. Since then, he’d spent the rest of a restless night alternating between anger at the fact that his travelling companion had betrayed him—unaware that he’d betrayed her first—; worrying that all Gaia’s creatures who were interested in snacking on a helpless Wizard might consider him worth snacking on; and trying not to piss himself. To an extent, he had a ranged weapon and she’d left the ropes loose enough that he could roll at least, but he wasn’t wise enough at wilderness lore to be certain which way the ground sloped, nor was he skilled enough to aim without a hand on his maypole. KitKat also spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning as she tried to find a comfortable position. Ponyloaf was out: humans didn’t bend that way. Prone got weird on her neck after a while; her stupidly large tits made resting on her side uncomfortable; supine left her feeling vulnerable. Not to mention that her blanket was sized for a pony, which meant it wasn’t long enough to cover her human form completely. Furthermore, the realization that her cutie mark had vanished from her hips also weighed heavily on her mind. Had she spent more time examining herself, she would have discovered that it had just moved to her back, spreading out into a proper tramp stamp. That was something that the Wizard would notice, but that was later, after he got up. 💦 Later, after he got up, the Wizard finally had his long-deferred meeting with nature. While he had occasionally fantasized about this exact situation, it turned out that he had minor performance anxiety when there was an extremely pissed-off naked chick just out of reach behind him, and that that extremely pissed-off naked chick had a rope in one hand—the other end looped around his neck—and a wickedly sharp tabarzin in her other. One slice, and it’d easily take his head off. Either of them. Unlike women, the Wizard was not accustomed to casual conversation while using the bathroom (or in this case, a tree), but he did his best. “You look sexy this morning.” His compliment fell on deaf, non-mobile ears. “You’re about to look like something I scraped off my shoe after stepping in it by mistake.” She clenched her fist around her axe. “Either piss or get off the poplar.” 💦 Breakfast was a tense affair. KitKat was the better cook of the two, that was unquestionable, and she was familiar with cooking human food. She was not used to eating it, something the Wizard became acutely aware of when she set her bowl of oatmeal on the ground and stuck her face in, lapping it up with her tongue. He kept his mouth shut, because he preferred that all his appendages stayed attached. He’d already estimated that she was unlikely to murder him before he turned her back into a pony, but that there was a seventy-five percent chance she wasn’t opposed to lopping off a limb to motivate him. “Look, I’m sorry, okay. I didn’t know that I sleepwalked, nor did I know that I could cast spells in my sleep.” “We can fix one of those things with a chastity cage,” she said. “Or a Prince Albert, a short length of chain, and a butt plug.” The Wizard hesitated for a moment, imagining how that would work, then shuddered as he figured it out. “Let’s not be hasty. Let’s consider the advantages.” “I’m cold and these dumb tits make my back hurt.” “Well. . . .” “So hurry up and get your peen out and turn me back into a pony.” “It’s not that simple,” he said. “I’m just not feeling it right now.” “You are without a doubt the most useless Wizard I have ever encountered. Can’t cast a single spell without your third leg being hard, and you’ve got to have a hundredweight of porn magazines to keep you going. You ruined my copy of Six Shades of Grey. I’d had that since I was a filly, you know.” He hung his head in shame. “So what’s it gonna take? Huh?” She wiped the oatmeal off her nose with the back of her hand and stood up. “I’m one of your pinup girls now; I’ve got the tits you like so much and I’d wink my clit at you but it turns out humans can’t do that. What’s it gonna take to get you hard? Do I have to find another wandering spider?” “Please don’t.” He cringed at the memory. Treatment for the spider-induced priapism had involved a monster needle to drain the stagnant blood out of his corpora cavernosa. Until that moment, he’d fantasized about having a hot nurse hold his johnston; now, like so many of his adolescent dreams, it had shattered into a million pieces. “Maybe if we were to, you know.” “Not a chance. You got your magic by fucking a unicorn, you told me that, and I’m not going to risk you losing it by fucking a human.” “You’re not really a human,” he countered. She crossed her arms and gave him a death glare. “Really? Because I certainly look like one. And I feel like one. Inside and out. Do you know how weird it is to have an extra bone that I didn’t have before?” “A bone?” The wizard blanched. “Oh, God, there’s a skeleton inside you.” He got to his feet and tried to run, but only made it ten feet before the rope pulled taut and yanked him off his feet. He crashed to the forest floor, whimpering and blubbering as KitKat—in the form of Miss July 2008—crouched over him. Author's Note An em dash followed by a semicolon? What madness is this? Could it get any worse?
Chapter 4The Wizard of Whitetail Woods III Chapter 4 Admiral Biscuit Having hands was a mixed blessing. The Wizard remained conscious after KitKat bitch-slapped him, which wouldn’t have been the case if she’d whanged him upside the head with a shod hoof. “Focus on what’s important here. I’m supposed to be a pony, okay. And the only way I’m going to get to be a pony again is if you can whip it out and get it hard.” He shied away from her, muttering under his breath about sneaky bones. “Come on, man, get your shit together. Ik ben het zat om vast te zitten als een slet en vast te zitten aan je zielige reet. You got what you wished for, didn’t you? Kasvattaa palloja, Jesus Christ.” “Would you stop switching languages on me at least?” “No.” She crossed her arms. “This is hardly condusive to getting a rise out of me.” The Wizard would have done whatever the equivalent of popping a collar is, except that he was on his back on the ground in a bathrobe with an extremely pissed off and extremely naked supermodel nee pony crouched over him. “You’re supposed to rise to pressure,” KitKat said. “Else what’s the point of a Wizard at all? When we were chased by timberwolves you had no problem getting it up and doing what needed to be done, so what’s wrong now?” “That you’re considering murdering me?” “So? You think the timberwolves didn’t have the same thoughts in their walnut brains?” “I don’t know. I’m just muddling through and doing the best I can, okay? I didn’t ask to be a wizard, that just came to me.” “I bet that’s what the unicorn said, too.” “Shut up.” KitKat let out a long sigh, finishing by blowing her bangs up. “You’re right. I’m losing track of what’s important. We need to get the magical mcguffin; everything else is a distraction. I’m letting my temper get out of hoof. Let’s start over, shall we?” “Yes.” “Please turn me back into a pony.” 💦 Every teenager ever fantasized about Lara Croft wearing just a little bit less on her excursions through the wilderness. The mere thought of it was enough to send teenage hormones into overdrive, to produce a result. The Wizard was fully aware of that fact. He was also aware of the irony of who he’d transformed KitKat into. (She wasn’t, because while she could speak English fluently, she couldn't read it.) One would have thought that seeing her traipsing through the woods, naked as the day she was born—except now in human form rather than equine—would be more than enough. The sway of her hips, the flounce of her hair, the way she had her saddlebags hung off her shoulder because obviously she couldn’t wear them pony-style any more. The string of curses under her breath every time she stepped on something sharp. The way her hips swayed and her boobs bounced with every step despite her attempt to restrain them. It should have, but the Wizard knew that she was harboring a desire to dismember him, possibly in order to steal his bones; more likely because she was still mad that he’d turned her into a human. Either way, dismemberment was dismemberment, and he was invested in keeping his member membered. The two of them had come to a mutual agreement that they would continue on the adventure at hand—at hoof was how she described it, despite lacking four of them—and as soon as he got in the mood, he’d point his spitstick at her and turn her back into a pony. He’d been agreeable since it was hard to be otherwise with a saddle axe against his throat, but deep down he was expecting that there’d be a plot twist. 💦 For her part, as the day wore on, KitKat just wanted things to return to normal. She was stuck with the Wizard, she’d signed a contract to that effect and was honest enough to honor it. That was the cost of civilization. And she really did want to get to the end of the adventure and find the mcguffin and then let the future bring what it brang. She tried to ignore the pain in her unshod feet or the constant chill on her furless body and the back pain Playboy tits caused. She kept shifting her carried saddlebags around in the hopes of finding some way that they were comfortable to carry, even knowing in her heart that there wasn’t. She kept holding out hope that the Wizard’s ding-a-ling would perk up, the sooner the better. As fate would have it, it did, and not in the way either of them could have expected. 💦 Kukka was a skunk. Kukka had always been a skunk, and knew little outside that lifestyle. She snuffled around looking for food and sometimes a mate and generally ignored the world at large except when it came close enough to require her to raise her tail as a warning. She knew the woods like the back of her paw, and she had nothing but contempt for bears who attempted to open hanging foodbags like pinatas when clearly the correct way to nom the tasty treats inside was to spray the carriers of the foodbag in the hopes that they’d drop it and scurry off to anywhere else that didn’t smell like a skunk’s ass. As plans went, that was surprisingly high on the scale of effectiveness. There was little she could do when the bag of food was already hanging, and thus she’d snuffled around the camp and moved on. If the stick had been longer and the bear had managed to break the bag open, she might have tried to stink him off, but it wasn’t, so she didn’t. Now, though, her food was moving, carried along by a biped who was going in circles through the forest since she’d cheaped out and gotten her map in exchange for Cheerilee-Os boxtops, which anypony with any sense would know was worthless. The fact that it came pre-antiqued ought to have served as a clue; if that wasn't enough, the fact that the compass rose had east and west reversed ought to have been obvious. Or, for that matter, the fine print at the bottom which indicated that it was not to scale and not to be used as an aid to navigation. Remember how I said the skunk wasn’t essential to the plot? Well, I lied. Kukka wasn’t exactly clever when it came to plotting out an ambush; her life mostly consisted of muddling into situations, spraying stink everywhere, and waddling back out of the cloud of miasma in a ‘heroes never look back’ manner. In her mind, the bullet points of her plan were nothing but question marks, ending with ‘get food.’ That was sufficient. 💦 KitKat could have smelled her coming from a mile away, except that like all her other pony attributes, her nose had been turned into a senseless beak that was practically scentless. The Wizard was still focused on the hypnotic sway of her bare fundament and also didn’t notice the skunk before it was too late. As a result of this, Kukka managed to get both of the as they crested a small rise in the forest. One moment, the way way clear; the next moment, a flagged tail and a skunk’s butthole, and then they were fleeing. The Wizard shrieked like a little girl. KitKat, who was the more ambivalent of the duo, took it in stride, dodging the primary blast and in her hasty but orderly retreat, sidearming a wheel of sharp cheddar at the skunk. It wasn’t the outcome anypony, anybody, or anymephitidae could have hoped for, and yet at the end of the brief scrum, the Wizard got the karma he surely deserved, KitKat dodged the worst of it, and Kukka dragged a kilo of cheese back to her burrow. 💦 Differences of opinion drive us apart, while a common suffering can bring us together, and so it was with KitKat and the Wizard. Both of them fled the scene in tandem, despite the fact that one wanted to dismember the other, and the other knew that the other other was filled with bones. 206 of them, in fact. 💦 It’s said that adversity builds character. In this case, adversity built an orderly retreat. The pair beat feet back the way they’d come, away from the skunk scent and beyond. Presently, they were faced with the damn dam—it was dammier than ever, owing to a colony of dam beavers who had worked tirelessly to patch the damn hole. In fact, they retreated back to where they’d begun, the Mareiott on the edge of the forest. Author's Note Lick a toad, see the future.
Chapter 5The Wizard of Whitetail Woods III Chapter 5 Admiral Biscuit Checking in was the first issue. The deskmare, understandably, was not keen on allowing two weird looking adventurers, one wearing a shoddy bathrobe and the other wearing nothing at all, to reserve a room at her hotel. Entreaties that she’d let them several nights before when KitKat was still a pony fell on deaf ears, and the Wizard’s AAA card didn’t do the trick either. Had they not smelled like a skunk’s asshole, the deskmare might have been more accommodating. Or not, who’s to say? Eventually, the duo convinced her of their bonafides, and she grudgingly accepted a hoofful of bits in exchange for a night’s lodging, with the assurance that if the room stank like skunk in the morning, they’d be paying extra. She also sniffed and bit every coin that crossed her frog to ensure it was genuine. KitKat had often impressed in the wizard that bite marks in bit coins were typical; until that moment he hadn’t seen the required action in action. Their room fortunately contained two beds, a flushing toilet, and a bathtub. A nightstand which had a drawer which boasted an IPU Bible, and several freshly-washed towels. Importantly, it also featured a bathtub rather than one of those shower-only contraptions. Everypony knows that bathing in tomato juice is the best way to combat skunk odor. Not everybody knows that it isn’t actually effective; while the odor of tomatoes masks the skunk smell due to olfactory fatigue, the thoils don’t actually get washed off. A better treatment would have been hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and liquid soap. Since neither of them had access to google search, and since the Wizard’s schlong was still being shy, thus precluding a spell to neutralize the odor, they called down to the kitchen for enough gallons of V7 juice (which was similar to V8 juice, but lacked the lettuce in order to avoid trademark and patent lawsuits) to fill the bathtub. If the Wizard’s membrum virale had shown signs of life, KitKat would have still ordered the juice; she’d’ve rather been a smelly pony than a non-smelly Playboy centerfold. In due time, the juice arrived, in dozens of cans pushed on a repurposed maid’s cart. The bellcolt required a tip to use his can opener on each can in turn, and the duo proceeded to fill the bathtub. There are probably things less sexy than a private bath in cold reconstituted tomato juice (and beets, celery, carrots, parsley, watercress, and spinach, in case you were curious what the other six were). Even when there’s a couple in said bath, practically anything else is more sexier. I don’t base this on actual knowledge, but it’s honestly an ‘everybody knows’ kind of thing. Isn’t it? The point is that during the intimate process of bathing, where each of them did their very best to put tomato juice anywhere that skunk skank might be sticking, the Wizard’s old chap finally rose to the occasion, despite the constant litany of complaints from Miss July 2008, formerly KitKat the pony. She seized on that (not literally), literally wrapping her human hand around his stem and pointing it at herself. Also squeezing and stroking in a manner which might cause the magic to happen. What happened next might be described as a miracle or a sin, depending on one’s upbringing. The important point of it is that at the end of the impromptu bath handy, KitKat was a pony again, and without ever slitting the Wizard’s guggle. A circumstance which left both happy. It’s often been said that there’s nopony happier than a pony covered in V7 juice doing a victory dance in a bathtub filled with tomato juice, skunk skank, and a Wizard, and KitKat illustrated that bit of homespun wisdom impeccably, even briefly breaking into song. She skipped the dance; bathtubs are notoriously slippery. 💦 In due time, both of them were suitably scrubbed down, and in case you were wondering, they did take a shower afterwards because nobody and nopony likes to go to bed while still coated in tomato juice. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself. Thought so. 💦 In some ways, as the two of them laid in there separate beds, it was a return to normal. To the status quo. If this were a serial, it would be the moment where things returned to exactly the way they were at the start of the episode, facilitating easy syndication. ~~Of course, it isn’t; it’s a genuine representation of the struggle of man~~ vs. ~~beast on a quest to self-actualization.~~ KitKat wasn’t what one would consider a clever pony. She’d willingly been pillowtalked by a Wizard—literally the worst Wizard in all of Equestria—into accompanying him on a quest for a magical mcguffin, and even after signing his NDA and what could only be interpreted as a gross breech of contract, stuck by his side. Nearly paladin levels of lawful good, that’s what I’m saying. It was a fact that the Wizard sleepwalked, that was undeniable. It was also a fact that he thought with his disco stick. Further, it was also a fact that in his tadger-thinking, humans were more attractive than ponies, especially if they were centerfolds and had fake tits. KitKat hadn’t known that when she signed the NDA back at the bar, but she knew that now. While the contract didn’t specifically mention it, it didn’t preclude it either, and that was just a thing she had to deal with in her relationship with the Wizard. Adventuring was risky. That was something she had known, and something she’d fully embraced. She was prepared for most eventualities. Thus it was in a Mareiott on the edge of an untamed wilderness, in a hotel room with two beds and a litter of empty V7 cans and also a pungent odor of skunk asshole which honestly wasn’t fully masked by tomato smell, KitKat laid in bed. Mostly asleep, but only mostly. And predictably, in the middle of the night, the Wizard woke, took his anaconda in hand, and shuffled over to her bed. We all know that it didn’t want none unless she’s got buns, hon. This time KitKat was prepared. This time, KitKat had a mirror. FIN Author's Note It’s everywhere! It’s in my raccoon wounds!
