Blurring Realities

It was a couple of days before he finally decided to come out of his little hidey hole he had found in the north eastern portion of the city. The building was beyond condemned, but held a number of rooms with old furniture that held a somewhat solid roof over his head. One of them even had a passable mirror.

It wasn't till the sun had climbed a decent height into the sky that he had finally pushed aside his guilt to check his surroundings.

He really didn't have the drive to try and forge for resources or anything of use, so his hooves dragged tracks through the fair amount of dirt and dust that layered the floors. The incident of two nights ago still plagued his mind, his guts twisted up.

He had indirectly caused the death of more people.

That would stick with him for a while, but his stomach growled that morning in the most painful way, protesting the lack of food being shoved into it. He had eaten the last of his rations back at camp.

So the sun found him hesitantly peeking out through one of the windows on the third floor. There were no windows, having long been knocked out, so he had an unobstructed view below.

The streets were moderately busy. All manner of horses and griffons walked the streets. All wore clothes. As he thought about it, noting the very basic designs, so did the guards and even the poor family that had been on that cart a couple of nights ago. Rough things, a tunic and pants for the most part. The guards wore rudimentary armor made of steel and thick cotton straps.

No shoes, unless they did as horses do, and had metal shod hooves.

But what to do. He couldn't run around naked, he would be noticed for sure that way. Folks tend to notice that sorta thing.

He spotted a pair of horses in an alleyway, the glint of shiny things caught his attention as they exchanged hands. Money.

It looked like this world revolved around hard currency. Might be like one of those rpgs that he had once played. Still, in order to have a chance at getting some cash of his own he needed to be wearing something.

Looking around from his vantage point he spotted some clothes on a line strung across a pair of buildings. They looked to be roughly his size. No sign of any kind of underwear.

The idea of stealing didn't bother him much, just getting caught made him momentarily hesitant about it. It was still somewhat early in the morning as best he could tell, so maybe no one would notice if someone snagged them off the line.

He left the window, and climbed to the roof of the building from one of the fallen beams that had torn a hole in the ceiling some time ago. Once there he spotted conveniently laid planks bridging the gaps between the rough bricked structures on his side. Luck?

"Oh this is gonna be easy." An odd thought struck him. "How would horse underwear even work?"

Staying low so as not to be spotted by a rando on the street, it didn't take him long before he managed to make his way to the building, with the clothing line suspended above the avenue beneath. He bit his lip as he traced the big black pipe leading from the water tower he crouched beneath.

It was a good bet that it extended all the way to the bottom. That could be used to get close. But now that he was here, his nervousness about getting caught had increased. Creeping to the ledge he peered over at the windows across the street.

"Huh, like back in the day…" Not that he knew what it had been like in the 1900s, but the scene inside the apartment looked like something straight out of those old images on the internet. There was even an iron radiator in the corner of what appeared to be the living room.

He shook his head, he needed to focus, he was not out sightseeing.

The line was suspended across an alleyway, on a wheeled pulley system. All one had to do was grab the line your laundry was on and pull it to you. Convenient. This was going to be smooth.

He wanted to smack himself a moment later as he pulled his leg back. He had it in his head to shimmy down the pipe.

"You have magic dumbass! Come on!" Though too far to simply pluck the clothing off the strings, he was in range to pull them close by the wheel.

However, the moment he started pulling the clothes to his side of the alley, the wheels screeched like some type of dying parrot.

"Smooth sailing my ass!" He berated himself, but he did not stop.

Here he sat, naked, on top of a building, reeling in a clothing line with the wheels giving him away to anyone who bothered to listen and look. He sped up.

It was by nothing else but a miracle that no one came out to see what all the noise was about. No one looked up from the street either. And absolutely no one opened a window to begin shouting at him in a terrible Russian accent or screaming for the cops.

Another miracle. His judgment had been right from before, the clothes were only a little bigger than him. He felt bad for stealing kid clothes. But they could likely get more. He grabbed what he needed and scrambled away from the edge, practically fleeing back to his hide away, eyes darting for anyone that might have spotted him.

An hour later he was dressed in a brown and tan ensemble, and standing before the third story window again. An argument was going on between two stallions in the street. Both wore aprons and one was covered in flour, while the other was covered in dust. The one to the left had a horn, and was looking so bewildered.

Behind the other were two kids. Both around his size. They were crying.

"Ahhh shit."

He didn't need to be close to be able to tell that one stallion was blaming another for the missing clothes.

A horse in armor showed up, and seemed to be trying to mediate between the two. It seemed like the argument was going to go on for a while.

His stomach growled and he decided to ignore the scene down below, what was done, was done. Orion needed food. He could beg, but he would need to move away first, in case someone pointed out the clothes he was wearing and alerted the guard.

Looking in the opposite direction he spotted a market, or what he hoped looked like a market.

Descending the groaning stairs carefully, he made his way out to the street, and cursed softly under his breath. He had come out right in front of the arguing pair of horsemen.

Giving them a wide berth like the crowd, he managed to get by without a glance from either party.

"Just another horse kid making his way through town. No need to pay attention to little old me." He repeated in his head as he avoided oncoming traffic.

He would say the market was jumping, except besides the hubbub of noise from arguing horses about prices, it all seemed rather subdued.

Everyone looked dead on their feet tired. Must be a Monday.

His confidence had grown from when he first stepped hoof onto the cobblestone road. No one looked twice at him. No one cared that a little horse dodged and weaved amongst the foot traffic of the busy city.

And with English being the main language here, he would blend in even if he had an odd accent to the local populace.

For a long time he just stared at all the wares each stall had to offer. Most of it looked winter aged. But still edible. Judging by that, and the steady increase in temperature over the past couple of weeks, he must have arrived at the tail end of winter.

He also listened to the people and what they were talking about. Events from two nights ago still seem to be the talk of the town. A funeral was being held for the young colt, barely a stallion, tomorrow.

Guilt reared its head once more, but he fought it down, there was nothing he could do about it now. And he had been trying to survive himself so could he really keep blaming himself?

"You can't put the yolk back in the egg." His grandmother was fond of saying when mistakes happened. He wished that made him feel better.

He pushed it all away and focused on the stall before him. Apples, a little shriveled but still looked palatable, tempted his hands. But he was not unobserved. The woman that was managing the stall was eyeing him too, with a look of suspicion.

"You're just gonna stand there and watch me sell my food? Or are ya gonna try and steal?" She growled harshly.

She was older than most he had seen. Crows feet sat around her eyes and she had a nasty scowl that pulled at her features. She had more gray in her fur than green.

Bluntly put, she ugly.

He knew she was watching too carefully, and he found it hard to lie without a plan.

"Honestly, seeing as I have no money I was thinking of a grab and dash." The horse's eyes widened in shock, then barked a hoarse laugh of dry amusement. Once done she fixed him with a mirthful look.

"I do like honesty. What, your father didn't give you no duncas before sending you on your way to school?"

He blinked in surprise. School? Duncas? Duncas must be the currency here. School? Fat chance he was gonna go through that shit again.

He thought about how to respond. Simple lies would serve more than complicated ones.

"Do I look like I come from money to you?" Truth. "I barely have clothes!" Also true. "I usually have oatmeal in the morning." Was true before all this bullshit happened to him. "But I got sent out with nothing before school." The lie.

She smiled kindly, he took it back, she wasn't that ugly. Just old and worn.

Grabbing a trio of apples off the table she tossed it at him.

"You're lucky I have a soft spot for hungry colts. Now get on with you before you get in trouble with the marm! Go on!" She chuckled, swatting lightly at him.

He held the apples gratefully, and beamed back at her. She wasn't ugly at all, she was beautiful.

"Thank you kindly ma'am!" And he dashed out of the market and down an alleyway. Apples firmly held in his hands. This might turn out alright after all.

If only all his interactions with the locals went as smoothly as the old fruit seller. But of course, that was not the case. He had to limit his interactions with her for the time being to avoid suspicion.

Those first couple of months, Orion went hungry most evenings. But by the time the end of summer he was becoming quite good with levitation and stealing the food right off the tables.

He also got really good at pickpocketing, often being able to lift whole purses out of unsuspecting ponies' pockets.

That made him shake his head in amusement. The horse people referred to themselves as such. And calling anyone a horse was akin to calling them a whore. A whorse. So stupid, yet it did cause him to giggle anytime he thought of it.

There were other races in the city as well. Griffons, of course, also a fair bit of something called Diamond Dogs. Those were big brutish looking mutts of various breeds. Most were ugly. They came in various blacks, browns, and deep blues.

There were also some minotaurs. It seems this world is sticking as hard as it could to Grecian mythos. They ran a couple of smithy shops that mostly just took care of dented pots and pans but occasionally dealt in weapons.

Weapons were a major oddity. Early twentieth century living, coupled with medieval war craft. It made absolutely no sense. Where were the guns?

That wasn't a question you could just ask people. Mostly because it looked like no one here would know what the hell he was talking about. Questions for later.

The city itself was known as Stalliongrad. He could not help but note the pun. It was terrible, and with a sickening feeling, he knew it in his bones that it was only a prelude to what was to come.

The rather bustling, if downtrodden, metropolis was located far north of the equator. Explained the way it always seemed to be colder than he was used to.

The city bordered a nation called Prance. More puns. The one he was in was called Marussia. His suspicions were being proven true.

Stalliongrad was actually a port on the river of Coltish. Which connected to the lake, turns out it was not an ocean he saw, just a massive lake, called the Marussia Dame. Another river emptied out the lake into the North Celestial Sea. That other river was also known as Coltish. The puns were going to kill him before he got to twenty again.

There were apparently other nations out there, with all kinds of people. But he didn't bother to pay attention to most of them. Only one really, and it was often the one most folks believed he was from.

It was because of his accent.

"I'm telling you little one, you still sound like you just stepped off the boat from Equestria." The kindly, more gray than green old mare, Agnessa reminded him for what felt like the ninth time.

"For the love of god Aunt Aggy, I've never heard of the place." She had insisted he call her Aunt Aggy, and it fit. Nice old mare.

He had begun coming back once he figured out how to lift purses, the guards had yet to nail down the perpetrator as he kept choosing random spots to stalk at. He figured it would take them a while to clue in that it was a child that was causing all the financial mayhem.

He had come back and paid her, much to her protests, what she had given him all those weeks ago. He had also started exclusively buying food from her as the summer wore on. He felt she deserved it, and she was always happy to see him.

He learned about Equestria from her. How it was a land of wealth and opportunity. It sounded like America. Which immediately told him that becoming a citizen would take an insane amount of money and time to do.

He laughed her off more often than not. Mostly because it was true. He had never heard of the place before she mentioned it, and hadn't bothered to try and sneak into the local library again to find out.

Last time the griffon running the place had been on him so fast that he had to toss an entire bookshelf at her in his desperate need of escape.

Lifting that bookshelf hurt like hell.

Speaking of magic, he quickly found his limits. At just ten feet, his magic just stopped. It didn't peter off like some he had observed. There were children that had more range than he.

However, his simply just stopped abruptly. It annoyed him that he was somehow less, and he could figure out no explanation as to why.

Work crews of older ponies showed even better range than the kids. He watched one Unicorn lift a pallet of three to four hundred pounds some thirty feet up in the air. She did it effortlessly.

"You can deny it all you want colt, but I'd ask your daddy or mommies about where your family came from. I mean your name, Orion Falls, that certain no Marussian name if I've ever heard it."

He had kept his first name, and adopted the last name of Falls. In part out of panic when he was asked, and part because when he first got to this world he fell all over the place trying to learn how to walk again.

"Yeah yeah, whatever ya old crone." He chuckled and she laughed back.

She would often remark how he didn't sound like a colt. More of an old mare in body.

Mare. His attitude was often compared to that of mares. And he couldn't quite blame her for thinking that.

In this world, the mares, women, whatever, ran almost everything. Made sense as most of his victims were mares. Stallions were the stay at home family types and were often more demure and subservient. Also there were less of them for some reason, like, way under ratio. Something like one to eight, mare heavy.

Because of that ratio, mares would often herd up with one stallion and several "sister wives" so they could all have a man in their lives. Or stallion as it were. That's where the "mommies" comment came from. Often kids had more than one mom with all the sister wives in a herd.

It was a cultural blow for him to realize most mares expected to be deferred to in most situations. Many of the hawkers and stall managers were mares. Construction crews were mare dominated. Even the guard had more mares than stallions, stallions getting the often cushy paper pushing jobs. Anything that wasn't directly combat oriented.

He had realized with sudden clarity that the loss of that one from the night he snuck into the city was a major blow to the general population. It was a shock, but it again, made sense. Though the guilt hadn't increased over it.

But none of that was for him. He wasn't about to kowtow the line like that. He was his own man, colt, horse person, whatever.

So his attitude and actions were often compared to a mare.

Agnessa was often his first pit stop in the morning, he also got to hear any rumors from her first, and she always seemed to have an ear tuned for it.

The guard and council had finally gotten the mayor, or Mer, to begin repair on the outer walls. That tragic night's incident had finally given them the leverage needed to restore the ailing bulwark. Also patrols had been sent out, and those volk, were being hunted down and exterminated a month after the event. So, a justice of sorts. He still felt like shit, but at least something was being done.

Other rumors was most often divulged into who was losing their stall or the occasional murder that would make its way onto the tongues of everyone. Certain names were whispered but never spoken. The nature of those deaths made it all but certain that Stalliongrad has a crime family problem.

Once he got his fill of food and rumor, he would wave goodbye to Agnessa and start his day of looking for marks, locations to stash stolen goods, and more food.

It wasn't a great life, but he was well fed, and clean too. He had taken to washing in the public fountains dotting the wealthier parts of the city.

Of course, that wasn't to last.

The first breath of fall worked its way past his coat and bit at his fuzzy flesh. He had managed to buy a used one with few holes. A little time with thread and needle, pricking himself a dozen times, and he had pockets to put his ill gotten goods hidden away within. Maybe he should have put more padding between himself and nature instead.

He moved often, never staying too long in one busted ass building or another. His paranoia often led him to moving homes in the middle of the night. The clatter from marching guard patrols would often drive him from bed in a panic.

Today he was coming into the market from the north end. Having found a place to sleep in the basement of an old chapel nearby.

The chapel was built once in worship of a deity known as Celestia. He had often heard folks using her name in some form of curse or blessing. Mover of the sun apparently.

Basically she was Helios, or Jesus, they way some spoke of her.

The practice itself seemed to have long since been abandoned in everything but the most rudimentary of belief. Which led to the state of the church now, dilapidated, like so much of the ailing city. At least it was warm and dry.

Entering Market Chariot, it's what they called the eastern market, and really it did look like one of those ancient Grecian racing tracks from old, he made a beeline for Agnessa's stall.

His approach from behind the tent was halted abruptly when he heard a familiar voice.

"Celestia damnit, mother! I know you didn't steal anypony's purse! But these duncas have all been imbued with magic." The familiar sound of coins in a cloth bag rattled. "None of our guards have noticed anything, even those out of uniform, when the purses vanish right off them. Stones were often found in their place. Lately, it has been coal." The voice sighed heavily. "I'm not even supposed to be telling you this. As best that can be determined, it's always done in heavy press of hoof traffic when unicorns are in thick numbers." Orion's face fell, they at least had a race pegged. "We've traced many of the coins coming through you. Not all of it but a good chunk. All I am asking is if you have a suspicion for who the thief might be. That's it!"

The coin he had been stealing lately had been tampered with. Shit. They must have been getting reports. Was he too good? Or had he stolen from the wrong person. Double shit.

Agnessa's voice spoke up, hesitant at first, but firm, and surprisingly loud.

"A-and I'm telling you I don't know! I have all kinds of customers. Nopony has been very obvious if they are a thief. Everypony pays. Wouldn't be much of a thief if they were. I can't help you, Altai. Other than to tell you to wait around and test all the coins that pass through my hands."

She was a bright lady. Quick witted and sharp tongue. It's more than reasonable that she would come up with an idea like that so quickly. That hesitation also meant she had a sneaky suspicion who the thief was, and was betting he would come by to be snagged up by the cops, and she was speaking loudly in order to warn him should he be near. This was around the time he showed up every day after all.

Orion tiptoed away, being careful to keep the tents and potential customers between him and the guards that were surrounding Agnessa's stall. He hadn't noticed them at first, but as he drew further away they became obvious.

He dumped the coins in the fountain. He wasn't sure if they could track the signature like a bloodhound or not, but he wasn't taking the chance. He quickly bought breakfast at another stall and it panged his heart to spend the last of his duncas somewhere not Agnessa's.

Turns out he was right they could track money that had been contaminated with a certain magical signature. All his hiding spots throughout the city had been hit. From what he could tell, they just had to be close in order to recognize them.

Guards were everywhere, with unicorns amongst them. Horns alight and their heads waving back and forth. Searching. He had been far too confident.

They had begun stopping whole groups of people to scan their purses. Some were pulled away only to be released later for one reason or another. A couple were hung on to, from the shouting and arguing these women had priors. Almost no stallions were stopped.

It had been wise to get rid of all that money that was on him too. He had gotten lucky actually. Seemed to be a running theme for him as of late. Luck. Had he not visited Aunt Aggy's stall that day he would never have found out that they were onto him, and would have been blindsided by the fuzz.

He didn't know why he was so fearful of the city's equivalent to police, but the idea of letting himself be captured, or just turning himself in, made his stomach clench into knots that actually hurt. He knew enough now that he could simply pretend to be a poor lost little child, but his acting had been terrible even back on earth. He could lie with the best of them, but sealing the deal with a performance was beyond him.

He scurried toward the darker, less patrolled, portions of Stalliongrad. As it was, none of his 'bedrooms' were viable now. This forced him into some of the worst sectors of the city. If he was living in the ghetto before, this was the projects. With no financial support from the state, infrastructure was bare minimum, even the street lamps were darkened more often than not. The few alight were often done by the citizens themselves. An island of safety in the rough undercurrents of the neighborhood.

Many of the buildings were far worse than the hovels he had taken up residence in. Walls and roofs caved in, windows looking not much more than gaping eye sockets in the dark that had long since lost the wood supports. Creepy.

Any domesticated animals found here were feral almost entirely, it was one of the reasons why he stayed away. His one encounter with an alley cat had been terrifying. For such a little thing, it was vicious as hell and had almost taken an eye in its attack.

Food became a problem as well. Without money or the ability to freely move about the city to steal he was stuck with whatever he could scrape up.

Thank God he learned to fish with magic. So that kept him going for a while. At least till the river froze over during one of the coldest evenings. He hadn't even realized how cold it had gotten till he went out to one of the canals to get that night's dinner.

Water freezes quickly this far north.

It was around this time that his home, a warehouse that had collapsed in on one side, was invaded. Not by the guards. Nor by Agnessa either.

He had spotted her one evening, calling out and looking for him. Orion had been forced to avoid her. A pair of guards in the shadows not too far away had been following. Likely there for her protection, but he couldn't or wouldn't take the chance.

No, it was a horny mare who had purchased some time from a hooker. From a stallion hooker of all things. It was so weird that stallions made up most of the prostitution in the city. He had quickly learned of this his first few nights here, and why he often stayed away from the projects. This is where they haunted.

The thudding of hooves on dry rotted wood snapped him to full alertness faster than a cup of coffee. His eyes widened in fright, blood pounding in his ears.

As his senses honed in, his heart decelerated. But not by much once he understood the subject.

"Are you clean?" Murmured the quiet voice of a mare. Husky and deep for a female, it came out in a needy, demanding tone.

"Y-y-yes. Of course. They wouldn't allow me o-out here otherwise." The demure voice of a stallion spoke up.

"Good, good." She nervously responded. There was a rustle. "Now, rut me like you haven't seen a mare in years. Because I haven't been with a stallion in months. Not since that chit...you know what, you don't need to hear that. Get to work." Like a switch all nervousness had vanished from her lips. Only the demand still remained.

Orion peeked out just in time to see a small stallion's pants yanked down violently. A large shadow, of what he could only imagine was a dick, being pulled out by a much larger female earth pony. Her hands began coaxing the pillar of flesh to full mast.

He just stared in horrified fascination for a moment before ducking behind his little shelters propped up walls in embarrassment. Heat flushing his face. He had often wondered how sex worked here. And unfortunately for him, he was getting a front row seat whether he liked it or not.

He actually wanted to leave, but they were between him and escape. So he bunkered down to wait and tried to focus on anything else but what was going on in the room next to him.

The mare didn't wait too long either, which was both good and awful. She had shed her own pants, as Orion could smell her scent flooding the whole area they were all in and he barely stopped himself from gagging. Washing must not be a high priority for her. Or he hoped. He would never have sex in this world if it smelled like that.

Peaking out again, this time in hopes of finding a way to escape the unfolding scene of debauchery and worst, smell, he chanced a glance at the pair again and blanched. "Jesus Christ, Ron Jeremy would have been put to shame!" If that was average, the human men of his world would be questioning their manhood en masse. The dude's dick had to have been over a foot long bare minimum.

The mare decided a little more foreplay was needed, opening her mouth wide she took that stick to the root in one smooth motion. She didn't even look like she was struggling with it.

That was enough for him. Orion. Crawled back into his hidie-hole as deep as he could go and shut his eyes. It did not stop his ears though.

For a few minutes the sound of sucking echoed in his head as she was clearly going to town on that meat stick. Soon, not soon enough for him, she was done as the sounds of gagging had stopped. More groaning wood.

"Now buck me, buck me like your life depends on it!" She growled out.

Mr. Prostitute needed no further encouragement, squelching meaty slaps could be heard. Orion stifled a groan as he tried to cover his ears.

Yet the thudding, wet, pounding continued unabated. Moans and gasps from the pair reverberated in the stillness of the night.

Now somewhere in the back of Orion's mind, came a fun fact. In his world, stallions rarely lasted longer than two minutes. Or so he had read online at three a.m. on a weekday after snorting far too much coke. Clearly that rule did not apply here. As the smaller pony continued to plow into the larger one for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. All while the bitch moaned affirmations and worship to someone named Faust.

Till finally he whispered in a ragged breath, "I'm going to come."

"Don't you dare pull out!" She hollered back. Which seemed to be all the encouragement he needed as the sound of two or three hard and heavy thrusts slapped particularly hard. He brayed at the top of his lungs. Orion tried not to think about the fact that some dude was jizzing not five feet away from him.

Silence reigned in near totality for a few minutes, save for the labored breath of the pair who had been putting on a show for any who cared to look. Suddenly the sound of splashing liquid and the smell of bleach joined the piss and sex smells already invading the tiny room. He wanted to retch. This was so nasty.

The least this mare could have done was buy a hotel room or something.

"I've had better." She finally spat, the sound of a pouch of coins thudding into something, followed by the rustle of cloth. Hoofsteps retreated from the dilapidated building was all the indication he needed to get moving.

"Jesus…..no romance in that bitch at all." He would have to move soon as this guy left. He would never get to sleep with that smell in his nose. Speaking of the stallion, new noises began to echo, of him getting dressed Orion was hoping.

"Did you enjoy the show?" Orion nearly jumped out of his skin. It was soft spoken, but the venom was there.

He debated on responding at all.

"Fuck no, I was trying to sleep! And I certainly didn't need to learn about the birds and the bees at one a.m. in the fucking morning." He retorted. He was angry, they had woken him up. Assholes.

His voice caused a clatter. Did the idiot fall over? "A-a colt?!"

"Noooo, your mom's sex bot. Of course I'm a fucking colt! Who do I sound like, God?!" He lashed back at the stunned pony.

"W-w-what are you even doing here?!" Orion peered around his makeshift wall and watched the dude hide himself behind another post as he desperately tried to get his pants on. Now that he was looking he noticed they were rather slutty. Both sides of his ass were showing. There was something on his cheeks. Did he fall in his own splooge?

"Gee I don't know, I think somewhere in my opening salvo was the statement that I was "trying to sleep"!" He barked back, louder now.

"N-n-no, I mean w-w-why aren't you at home! Asleep in a bed!?"

Of all the stupid questions. Was this guy an idiot?

"Dude, do you need a fuckin' road map? Or is it not obvious!?"

He paused in pulling on the leg, almost falling over. "You're….you're homeless… you don't have a herd..." For once not a question and no stutter, just lost bewilderment.

"Very good, give the man a prize!" Orion began to pack his things. No point in being quiet now as he shoved what little he had in a small satchel he had purchased along with the coat, just before his luck ran out.

"B-but why?" Stuttering again. At least he had some pants on. In the waning moonlight he could see him clearly now. The too-close-to-being-chaps seemed to have some sort of nut cup that was attached as well, covering everything.

"Thank God, I didn't need to see that again." He answered him as he came out from around the wall he had wedged himself into.

"Because I don't have a family, man. I'm alone. So I sleep in busted down hell holes like this one." He gestured about him, one hand buttoning up his jacket. He looked down at the coin purse, still laying in likely cold excretions from the activities before. "Don't leave that behind. You earned it."

"I-i think I'll wait till it's frozen. It's unpleasant to hold when still wet." Made sense to Orion and he shrugged, and judging by the statement, this isn't the first time the stallion has been treated like this.

"I guess that's fair. But it's not quite winter yet so it's gonna take awhile." His horn lit up, basking the room in the familiar golden glow. He got his first good look at the stallion.

Skinny and small as hell, Orion actually came up to his stomach. Most ponies towered over him.

The gray furred, blond maned stallion squinted and raised a hand against the light. Orion noted with distaste the bruises and cuts on his hands and arms. This guy regularly got the shit kicked out of him.

"I'm Orion. You?" He glanced back at the pouch on the ground before looking at the older pony.

For a long moment he wondered if the stallion had heard him.

"Uh...I'm….I'm Stone." He finally replied. Unsure of himself.

He glanced at the pouch again and made a decision, a gross one but at least he wouldn't have to touch it physically.

"You got another purse on you?" The man took a step away from him and clutched at his side near his hip.

Orion sighed in exasperation. "Dude I'm not gonna rob you, I just wanna know if you have a spare one. No need to carry this nasty thing around if ya do."

"What?"

He groaned and his magic flared brighter.

The purse on the floor strings began to unwind in a golden black glow, any other night he would have liked to stare at that. His magic looked pretty to his eyes.

He worked quickly levitating the coins from their original place up to the surprised stallion.

"Here ya big idiot, take 'em. Leave that nasty thing if you can." The pony was so stunned that it took a cough from him before he got moving.

Quickly the coins disappeared into his own purse.

Both of them stood around for a second, not knowing what to do. Air misting in front of the two's faces. Not letting an embarrassing moment go to waste, Orion was the first to speak.

"Well this has been awkward as hell. Thanks for the impromptu education on the birds and the bees, Mr. Stone. But a new hole to crash in isn't going to find itself, and it reeks in here. So….yeah bye!"

He rounded around the silent stallion and made his way to the front of the building. He was grateful he had planned ahead, as he could see the first snow falls begin to fall silently outside. So much for not quite being winter yet.

"W-w-wait!" That annoyingly feminine male voice spoke up as he took his first step. Now he knew why his voice irked him so. He sounded like a certain asshole scientist that trapped him in horse hell. Only less happy, and arrogant.

"What?" He tried not to snap at him. Not his fault that his character was a meeker version of Burbidge, and the man was just treated like a dildo not even ten minutes ago, he could be nice for a change. "Sorry, stressful few months."

It was more than a few months but this dude didn't need to know that.

"You're...truly on your own? Nopony to help you?" His voice was steady for once, his gaze too. Pity filled his eyes. Orion wanted to hit him with something heavy.

He hated pity.

"Dude, I know it's hard to imagine. But some folks just don't have parents. I never did." Which was true. His parents had abandoned him early in his human life. He was lucky his mother's parents were made of better material. Even if he eventually failed them too, he noted with a snort. Just like good ol' mom.

More silence, and he was about to nope right the fuck off when Stone finally spoke.

"I have an extra room…. i-it's not the greatest but it is warm, a-a-and I'm sure a couch is better than cold floors in the outdoors."

Orion paused. If it wasn't for the scene before, this would have screamed trap to him. But this guy was just too pathetic, and it was too random to be a set up. But he still pondered it over. He was a five year old child, debating whether or not to take the offer of a room from a hooker horse. A whorse.

It IS bitter ass cold out. The odds of him finding another place to sleep tonight was damn near impossible, as bad things happened in Stalliongrad at night, and that would make him hesitant to trust any buildings till he could inspect them in the light of day.

"You don't bring your...what's the word….Janes? Yeah, Janes. You don't bring those home do you?" He asked, eyes narrowing.

"Janes….you mean…oh. Oh! NO! No, why would I ever want that…home?! No, I don't do…business there." He spoke calmer at the end, but for once he seemed angry. Angry at the suggestion.

Another minute went by, Orion still mulling it over. Shifting on his hooves he was reminded of something. Something that was digging into the right side of his stomach. How had he forgotten about it?

The knife, shiv, he had made a month ago.

He had gotten the idea to make some protection since he was being forced into living in the worst area of the city. With so many dilapidated buildings in his area, it was easy to gather enough rusted metal. He seriously hoped tetanus wasn't a thing here.

The tricky part was getting enough heat to melt it all together, so for a week straight he snuck into the smithy, avoiding detection like a boss, for forge coal.

"Avoiding detection like a boss", was what he told himself. But really he had been lucky that last night. The minotaur. Minotauress? The female had been alerted to the fact that her stock of coal had been dwindling little by little, and had laid in wait for the thief. He almost ran right into her ass when he had snuck up from the basement that night.

She must have assumed the burglar was somehow picking the lock at the back entrance of the shop to get in. It must have never occurred to her that the one pilfering her supplies might be a child that could push his way through a cellar window.

He had to be extra careful not to make a noise as he began putting coal into a stolen thick leather sack, her tail wiggling in the air much like a cat ready to pounce. Muttering and cursing quietly about how long this would take. That she had to work in the morning and that this thief should hurry the buck up so she could get some sleep.

It was a hard won fight to not even giggle.

It had occurred to him on his fifth or sixth trip there that he could have just stolen a knife. It would have been way easier. He quickly dismissed that after some thought. The problem was, he was a kid. Which meant his tiny ass hands wouldn't be able to hold a blade of a size meant for an adult. And he did not trust his telekinesis to move the weapon for him.

He was no Darth Traya. Though he did lay plans for the future to try and master something like that.

After his final theft he found a warehouse deep in the projects that was practically just a pile of rubble. But the basement was still intact, with loose stone that he used to set up his impromptu forge.

His grandpa had owned his own machine shop. Making products for custom orders and the like. He had taught Orion simple things, easy steps that were proving to be good advice.

"Now it's important to not just heat it up as fast as ya can, young man. You have to steadily build the heat, otherwise the metal you're using won't be heated evenly. After that you need to keep it roughly around the same temperature as you shape it."

He didn't have a hammer or anvil, but his magic helped, a little. After six or seven hours of constant heating and forcing the near molten iron, not hammering, he managed to get a roughly blade like object.

It was absolute shit.

In the light of day the blade itself looked like flat, dull gray, rock candy on a swizzle stick. It would have to do.

It took another two weeks to give it an edge, sharpening against stone whenever he could.

The result was a jagged blade, some four inches long and an inch wide. The tip had been sharpened to a point as best he could manage. The handle was wrapped in the leather of that sack he had stolen.

It looked nasty, and he hoped it would intimidate any would be problem that may rear its ugly head.

He flourished the blade in front of Stone. The silhouette in the dark got the stallion's attention immediately.

"I'm going to trust you, a little. Try anything and I WILL jam this so far into your dickhole your ancestors are gonna feel it. Got me?"

A nod and a squeak was all he got.