"I made some extra yummy breakfast." I presented the plate with tasteful garnishes and the most winning smile I could manage.

Gael inclined his head, at me, at the eggs. "Uh... feeling better today?" He grabbed his fork and tried some without any further delay. "Not bad."

Not bad?! Huff... Well, that was Gael. "Sorry to bother you, but..."

"Not interested."

"Not that!" I began to go warm in the cheeks. "I need some bits..."

"What for?" He raised a brow, but he hadn't flatly denied me, so... win?

"Some mare health, uh, things." Oh boy did I smile, I hoped charmingly.

He went right back to eating eggs, not even looking at me for a bit. At least he was eating, hirrah?

With the fork set down lightly, he pushed to stand up. "Time to wash up."

That wasn't an answer! Still, I followed after him. Soon he was in the cold water of the stream, and I was there at the shore, watching him. "What, ya not gonna clean me today?"

I blinked at that. "You want me to?"

"I thought that was one of your things." He shrugged in the rolling waters. "I got used to it."

I slipped right into the waves and pony-paddled my way to his side, grabbing him up with a smile. "Reporting for duty." I got right to cleaning him off and maybe hugging him while I was there. If I was a human lady, I would have been mashing bouncy parts against him, but as a pony, I had no such parts. Didn't mean I didn't enjoy giving hugs. Ponies gave good hugs, and it felt nice on the giving side.

He was soon clean, but I didn't quite give up right away. He was a perfectly fine thing to run my hooves over, but he was also shaking? I drew him closer and worked all the harder, just to realize it wasn't shaking, really. He was... purring. Aw!

"All done." He drew away, the purring birdcat removed from me. "You seem pretty healthy to me."

Oh! We had gone back to the other topic, uh... "And I... am right now, but it won't... stay that way." I swam to the shore, shedding water in a great set of shakes. "I won't get anything extra, promise."

"If I see you come home with a candy bar..." He stalked off with a frown. "Come on." He led the way back to our house, where he had me wait outside. "One moment." In he went, coming out with his talons wrapped around several coins and shoving it against me. "There. Bring back the change."

I accepted the coins with a smile. I had never held so many shiny coins! "Thank you! I won't get anything extra," I repeated. "Just the health stuff."

"Just the health stuff." He rolled his eyes as he stormed towards work. "Go ahead if you can, or come on."

I... actually wasn't sure. I tucked the coins away. Did I mention I had a pocket? Ponies do have pockets! It was like being a marsupial, but it wasn't for young, just random things we wanted close at hoof. It was also nice and dry and furry on the inside and out. "I'll be back!" I scampered away, but only far enough to watch him leave.

When I scampered back for the door, a griffon dropped down by it. Gelly! "I have the payment."

She snickered at that. "You're making this sound super shady."

Well, it was, a little... I rushed around her into the house and came out with the leftover eggs on a plate. "Ta daaa!"

She snatched the plate and got right to eating without delay. "Mmm, just as good as I smelled, even better. Did you go all out today? I can taste it, hmm... So did he give enough?"

I had no idea! I fished out the coins to show her. "Where do I go?"

Her eyes darted in minute motions, counting? "Yeah, that's enough to start." She fell to all fours, leaving the plate just inside the doorway. "I'll show you."

I pulled the door closed, grabbing the knob in my mouth and making sure it was properly shut. "Alright, thanks!" Gosh, we were going to an adult griffon store? That was quite the thought, and I warmed, musing about what it'd look like.

I followed her through the griffon town, looking around as if some big obvious sign would note which place I should be looking at, but... maybe they didn't want to be that obvious? How were griffons compared to say... human people? "Is it alright that I'm a pony and this is probably a griffon place?"

"You have the same bits." She rolled her eyes without turning back. "Less fingers, but same down there. What makes us both fair ladies." She smirked as she said it, clearly not seeing herself as a fair lady. "Pretty sure what works for us will work for you." She suddenly did look to me over her shoulder. "Unless you think we're built like birds back there? We ain't! I swear, no idea where that idea came out..."

So... I peeked. I was a bit behind her already, and her agitatedly swishy tail was quite poor for privacy concerns if one was looking for it specifically. Yep, she had all the parts I had come to expect from a female. Two innies, one of them having a smaller innie hidden within, I knew from personal experience. She didn't look exactly how I looked, but she was a birdcat, and I was a horse, but we were both recognizably female.

Good that some things worked the way you expected them to. "You really never talked with your parents? You know, The Talk?" Crap, she had seen me peeking. "You said you know what a boy and a girl does, but you're so clueless." Her eyes rolled. "I can't figure you out, pony."

"Ditzy," I offered as a proper name. "Thank you, for putting up with me." I laughed awkwardly, noticing we were coming up on a plain looking store. Was that it? I didn't... see anything lewd in sight. "Is this it?"

"What were you expecting?" She grabbed the door and had it open with a little jingle of a bell up above. "Hey, you in here you old buzzard?"

An older female voice replied, "If it ain't a Gelly bean. You got, uh, something stuck to you."

"Ha Ha." Gelly gestured back to me. "This is a friend of mine, and a customer of yours, so treat her right."

Oops, there I was, in the spotlight. "Hello." I waved at the large, well, she literally was a vulture, at least for the bird half of her. The feline part was like a leopard? "I'm Ditzy."

"I didn't think ponies were in for this stuff," admitted the new person. "Name's Gabrielle." G name, griffon confirmed! "Welcome to my shop." She gestured in broad motions with a wave of an arm and talons. "Where every lady is treated like a queen, because she takes it into her own hands." Gelly snorted. "What? Oh, you don't have those." Her eyes were on my hooves.

I rose them up closer. "Yeah, sorry. These are all I got." I felt... ashamed. If I just had fingers, it would have been so easy! "What can you do for me?"

"Where every lady is treated like a queen," repeated Gabrielle with meaning. "And I won't be proven wrong just because a pony came in. Now, you came to me with bits?"

"She has 'em," cut in Gelly. "And I'm gonna bounce. Much as I'm vaugely curious, watching a pony friend get her toys ain't for me." She turned with a swish of her tail. "Good luck, and you better treat her right! She tells me you ripped her off, I'll be back." Gelly stormed off, slamming the door behind her.

I rubbed behind my head a little. "Sorry." Gelly was being awful protective of me. It was... kinda nice, in a way. "So... assume I don't know a thing. Everything back there is a mystery." I glanced over my shoulder. "What do you suggest?"

"Well, the first thing I'd say is to stop being scared of yourself." She hopped down from her perch to land in front of me. "You're a queen, all of you, even those parts... Especially those parts. Every bratty boy came out of one of those, so if one of them gives you noise, you remember that and shove them back in their place." She sneered at the thought of it. "Now, stand up." I reared up quickly.

She reached out, supporting me as my body wanted to fall right back forward again. "Spead 'em." She helped get my legs to shuffle out in either direction. Now, with Gelly, I had snuck a... somewhat discrete peek.

Gabrielle was examining me like a doctor. She reached without fear or hesitation, splitting me right open to look into my depths. Oh god, I blushed up quite the storm. "Mmm... different, but mostly the same." That is when my nerves sang out with joy and shock and I jumped in place awkwardly. She had just touched me, much as Jessica had. "That's what I was hoping to see. What about..." She touched some new part and I squeaked. It was powerful enough to be almost painful, almost. "Perfect... Different arrangement, but all the parts are what I'd expect. I can help you."

She let me fall back to all fours, but started leading me around in a circle so I could see myself. "These are your lips. The other lips." She smirked on her beak, the lips of griffons. "They are sensitive, and the first thing I was brushing like that. All of them, inside and out," she instructed. "Treat them like a lover, gently, warmly. They are queens and deserve the best care, but where they may be queens, this... is the empress." She pointed at my vagina.

"The whole thing?" I asked quizzically. I was no expert of female anatomy, but... "You mean inside, right?"

She casually reached out and split me open without so much as a moment to ask. I squeaked, but she got right back to pointing. "Here, near the bottom. That is the center of your journey."

I had found my clitoris. It was such an unassuming little thing. "Huh..."

"Don't 'huh' at me." She let me close up. "This is important. Now, since you have all the same parts, most of what I have will work just fine for you. Now I have a question I feel sure you won't know the answer to." I stared at her. "How big are ponies, boy ponies, down here? On average, I mean." I... didn't know that. "I had a feeling you didn't know. Well, we'll just start with things that don't care."

She prowled across the showroom floor in the feline fashion she half was. "Some of the best toys are small, sleek, and subtle. She reached into a small box and drew out something small enough it was hidden in her hand as she walked back to me, upright. "Now, let's see how you feel with this." She shoved her hand against my lips, the ones on my face, and forced something into my mouth. I squawked, which gave her space to get something between my teeth. "There you are."

I reared back, something held there. I saw a mirror laying there and rushed over to it. Hanging from my teeth, a bright red little wand. Wait... "Is this a vibrator?"

"One of my best," assured Gabriele. "Powered by magic." Her eyes fell. "Got it from the ponies, come to think." The thought hit her. "Suppose it shouldn't have been as surprising they might use what they sell."

One of the best... Wait. "How expensive is it?"

"Can you put a price on the care of a queen?" so replied Gabrielle with a big smile. "Don't be intimidated, just show the bits."

Right, the bits. I fished them out and made a pile of them on the floor ahead of me, counting as quickly as I could.

"That is uncanny."

I looked up at her. "What?"

"Your eyes, it's like you switch back and forth as you count." She shook her head. "It has nothing to do with this."

I was Ditzy, and she had funny wall eyes that did that sort of thing... It all came as part of the package. "I can't help that." I vaguely remember them hurting before? I could but be glad that had passed. I didn't have any aches or pains, just confusion. "Is this enough?"

"That's a sucker's question." She snatched them up as if her hand were a vaccuum, the coins vanishing as she began counting them more meticulously. "You're lucky Gelly's taken a shine to you. I don't want her screeching at me forever." She huffed with indignant misery. "Did you save up for this?" She put some of the coins back down. "Change. It's yours."

My wings shot out with joy. "Really?!" I clenched my teeth around my new toy, er, femenine health product. "Thanks!" I felt with my tongue and could work it out pretty easily. It had a very obvious twisty part, and working it, I was suddenly holding a shaking stick. "It works!"

"Of course it works." She wrenched it out of my mouth, ow. "Give me a second." She went into a back and came out with it, with a big ole string dangling down the other end. "Just in case you get it lost in something, in the front or the back, you got something to get it free with."

That was an embarrassing idea, and one I hoped to never need the rope for... Still, I wasn't a unicorn... It... could happen... "Thanks." I took it back from her and tucked it away in my pocket. Thankfully it was nice and small and slender, so it fit right in there. "Um... So..."

"Use it as if you had one long finger," she advised dryly. "Turn it on and let it work into you as you go gently. Do not rush the queen, and certainly not the empress. Come gently, think of lovely things and places you'd like to be, and allow it to happen at its own pace." She inclined her head. "Give it a try and it will come easily."

"But..."

"This is a personal journey." She clasped her hands together. "No other woman can tell you how to embark on it. I have given you all you need to get started."

Well, I knew how to use it, and the basic idea... "What about special friends?" Jessica would have showed me, I felt certain.

"That's between you and them," more curtly snapped Gabrielle. "And we aren't that. Now... you look like the kind of queen that would enjoy some... extra activities."

I went so very red, mind awhir with what she could mean by that. "Thank you!" I gathered up my coins and stuffed them away as quickly as I could. "I'll, uh, be back if I have questions."

Bursting out onto the street, I scrambled away off to Gael's stand to focus on his salesgriffonship instead of anything tucked away in my pocket.

"Having a bubble butt like that and not using it... Chicks these days." She didn't chase me, thankfully.

There was Gael, at his booth. No customer was there with him. A bad day? I hurried over to the side of the stand. "How's it going?" I got out just as I reared up, my hooves going on the counter.

"So far so good." He nudged me right back off the counter. "One s--customer."

Oh, good! He hadn't spent the whole day waiting. "That's great! Say, how many do you need?"

"All of them?"

My eyes rolled in response. "Silly, not what you want, what you need." I stomped from one hoof to the next. "What's your basic goal?"

"One a day?" He leaned over the counter to look down at me. "That's enough to keep things going."

So we'd hit the goal? "Great! Oh, but some customers you get more from than others... maybe it'd be better if we stuck to what they gave." I reared up, worrying my hooves together. "How many bits?"

"Can that a second." He reached out to tap the end of my nose. "Did you get your health stuff?"

I tried my best to fight the blush I could feel coming on. "Yes, and I got the change and nothing else." I dug into my pocket and soon had the coins on the counter for him. "Thanks for not asking lots of questions." It was a private thing!

"You dropped your lighter." He inclined his head at something that had tumbled out with my hurried grab for the coins.

There was the vibrator, laying there, for all to see. So, I squeaked and dove for it. I covered it like a grenade about to explode and I was saving everygriffon in the area! But all I was saving them from was my own shame. I worked it back into the pocket and sat up, heaving for breathe for that terrifying moment. "Sorry."

"Your favorite?" He shrugged, not putting it together what it really was. "Anyway, my budget kinda assumes I make at least five bits a day on average." I must have looked surprised. "What? I told you, knowing how to have a budget is why I can afford a nice thing when I want it." He huffed, looking about at those passing by. "We're at 13 for today."

We were doing good! "That means every day I've been here we're over the goal, great!" I pumped a hoof in celebration.

"Don't get too excited." A little smirk spread on his face. "You being here has thrown off the numbers a bit. Your treats and, uh, health things... Say, is that health thing something that comes up over and over, or a one time... thing?"

It would, in theory, provide repeated use! Er, not what he asked... "One time. I... didn't mess it up, did I?" The idea of being a terrible possession somehow rubbed me the wrong way. I was there to make things better!

"Nah. Now go." He waved off. "Won't get any customers while you're sitting there unless another pony that knows you happens along. That was pretty nice though... Still, the odds aren't with us there."

He wasn't wrong, the way I saw it. "I'll be watching." I gave a big flap of my wings and soon I was perched above him and behind where I could watch him and those coming and going around him.

Maybe fifteen minutes later, a griffon came up towards the booth, her talons pinching the ear of a younger griffon. "You give tours, right?" she demanded.

"Sure do." He smiled at the hen. "Uh... we've met, right?"

"Seen your face," she allowed, not admitting to any further. With a shove, she sent the younger griffon forward. "This is my cousin. Little piss is staying a few days, and I'm busy, so show him around so he knows how to get to the important stuff. No tourist shit, alright?"

Gael nodded, glancing down at the nestling. "You got it. By the time we're done, he'll be an old hand at our fair town." He held up some fingers, not enough from what I could see. "Fifteen."

"I said no tourism," her chest fluffed up. "Just the important stuff. Ten."

"I'm keeping your kid safe and entertained and out of your feathers," countered Gael with a smirk. "Thirteen."

She whistled softly, glancing over her shoulder. "I don't have time for this." With a great slap, she put down coins on the counter. "Be back in a few hours." And off she went as if she had a dozen other places to be.

I landed with a thump. I might have used my chest as my landing gear, but I was getting better, promise! Practice was the answer. It always was, right? The nestling blinked at me with a big gasp. "Wow, a pony!"

Gael smirked, an idea clearly hatching behind his eyes. "My pony, and if you ask her really nice, she might let you ride her."

"Really?!" He hurried up to me, looking me over from the left and right in great tilts of his body. "Hello pony! I'm Gerome!" G name! "Can I ride you? Um, please?"

Aw, I wasn't going to turn down a little kid. Besides, griffons were extra cute when they were young. I turned to present my side and sank down. "Hop on." He didn't hop, scrambling up onto me, his talons digging in a bit against me. Fortunately, pony fur and hide were both tough enough for the task. Annoying, but not injuring.

Gael pulled up the counter and slipped out to join us. "Let's get this train moving." He swatted me on the rump. "Onwards, valiant steed."

Huff! Well, if I was anyone's steed, I was technically his? Even if there was a kid on top of me. By the way, he wasn't heavy. I barely felt his weight. His motions were more obvious as he twisted to look here and there and enjoy being higher in the world. "You alright up there?"

He leaned so far forward he was looking at me upside down. "This is great! Mom said ponies don't like giving rides." And yet, there he was, on me... "Shows what she knows!" He righted himself with a little boyish giggle. "Where are we going?"

"Your mom said to show you the important stuff, so, first step, the market." He pointed ahead as he half-swaggered in that direction. "This is where you can get all kinds of things, if you have the bits."

So, I got to be part of the tour all personal like. On the positive, I learned where things were from the ground. I had only seen glimpses from above, trailing after Gael. "Say, Gerome?"

"Yeah?" He leaned to the side, looking down at me.

"Was that your mom, who dropped you off?"

"Pfft, no," he scoffed. "Just my big annoying cousin. I don't think she likes me much." Well, that was the default for a lot of griffons, but...

"She must care a little, or you wouldn't be here, riding a pony," I argued.

"Yeah..." He didn't sound entirely convinced. "Hey, mister!"

"What's up?" Gael turned to face his little customer. "Next stop is the well. Everygriff needs to know where that is or you're going to be really thirsty."

"That's nice." It didn't sound like he saw it that way. "I'm hungry."

"We're still in the market." He waved a hand over several stands selling various bits of foodstuffs. "Take your pick, if you have the bits."

"Well, I don't." He glared in the direction his cousin had gone. "She didn't give me none and I'm just a kid!"

Aw, a kid wouldn't have a job, and thus no money, barring a guardian intervening. I felt bad for Gerome. There had to be something... "Gael."

"What!" He was maybe getting annoyed people kept calling him. "What is it?"

"Sorry, just... maybe one bit? You did a really good job with haggling, I was super proud!"

He didn't look at me, instead at Gerome. "Don't tell her, but I took your cousin for a ride."

Gerome burst into new giggles. "She couldn't wait to get rid of me."

"Well, her loss is our gain... Let's have a little snack." He guided him, and me, said steed, onwards to fetch a little lunch. It was odd that the kid was so happy about his cousin being ripped off, but it did result in a decent meal and a pony ride around town, so... win for him?

Author's Note

Mare health needs, met! Ditzy is not rushing to talk about that with Gael, I don't imagine.

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