Interlude 1: the last wayhouse before the Cyber Dragon

Mounting a horse was much like mounting a motorcycle, although KitKat and Amethyst’s positions were reversed. With the benefit of hindsight, it might have been better to have not reversed their positions; Amethyst was shorter than KitKat (even when seated), and KitKat could have seen over her head.

However, just as KitKat didn’t know how to operate a motorcycle, Amethyst did not know how to operate a horse. Kind of weird, since a few chapters ago Amethyst was a horse.

Maybe if KitKat had bought a unicorn from Crazy Eddy, Amethyst would have done okay.

Anyway, that meant that instead of KitKat cuddling up against her bare back—armor and all—, Amethyst had to instead cuddle her bare front against KitKat’s back. Armor and all.

not-Epona also didn’t have footpegs (or in this case, hoofpegs) and I just now realize that stirrups would be useless for an anthro equine, so we’ll just have to imagine that they somehow work, or else spoil every anthro fic you read going forward that has a traditional saddle.

You’re welcome.

And speaking of saddles, traditional saddles (Western or that other kind that I don’t like) aren’t built for two, so Amethyst was stuck riding bareback. While bareback.

The good news was that the back of KitKat’s armor was just as warm as the front of her armor for the same reason, and although it wasn’t quite the same for Amethyst to wrap her bare arms around KitKat’s nauga hide armored torso, it was good enough.

•••

The path on the other side of the forest was exactly the same as the path on the other other side of the forest. The first side of the forest. Well, at least the way that KitKat and Amethyst had approached; it stands to reason that if they’d come from the other direction the outlet would have been the inlet and vice-versa.

Unlike in the forest where the path was narrow and ill-kempt, almost like it had been forgotten.

Neither KitKat nor Amethyst wondered too much about the employees who kept the road, or why they might groom it all the way up to the forest and then stop.

They did wonder—after an indeterminate time of travel—just how far it was to the Cyber Dragon’s lair. The dropdown map wasn’t much help; it obviously wasn’t to scale.

It also wasn’t very detailed, a fact which both of them noticed as the sun was setting and they saw a big billboard advertising ‘The Inn’ which was ‘The Last Stop Before the Cyber Dragon’s Lair.’

It had a pointing-finger logo on it, as if they needed to know what direction to go to find it. They’d not passed it yet, therefore it must still be in front of them. Although for all the help that the dropdown map gave them, it could have been anywhere. Except for indicated on the map, that is.

“I hope they’ve got a hot shower,” KitKat said. “Or a bathhouse. You can’t imagine how grubby I am.”

“I can imagine; I can smell you.”

“My gambeson is just about soaked through.” KitKat sighed. “You know, when I first decided I wanted to go out adventuring I didn’t even think of wet armor and how uncomfortable that would be.”

Amethyst, who had long since loosened her deathgrip on KitKat, nodded. Pressing her bare torso against the armor had given her a similar result to wearing it, heating her up to an uncomfortable degree. That, combined with the body heat radiating off the horse.

As the sun settled towards the horizon, those sources of warmth suddenly became welcome, even with all the fur Amethyst had to keep her heat in.

“You don’t think it would be a trap, do you?”

KitKat nodded. “Of course I think it might be a trap. I think everything might be a trap. Except for Mareiott hotels—I’ve got a loyalty card with them, so they wouldn’t dare.”

•••

The inn didn’t look like a trap, which further supported the hypothesis that it might be. Nevertheless, KitKat parked her horse right in front, just alongside the sputtering neon “Vacancy” sign.

She hopped off the saddle first and then helped Amethyst down, cupping her hands for a hoof support and her shoulder for a hand support. The unicorn used those and the saddle horn to get off—three-point contact is important for safety, and that applies to humans, equines, and anthros.

Both of them stretched out to ease the stiffness caused by hours of riding, and both of them walked in bow-legged, sort of like cowboys after a long day in the saddle.

Amethyst even had an appropriate hat.

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From the outside, it looked like you’d imagine a medieval high fantasy inn to look, and the theme carried on in the inside, even down to the buxom bartender (who they couldn’t see from the lobby) and the grumpy pot-bellied man who was at the guest counter and who was also her uncle.

He knew damn well that one day she’d be carried off by some adventurer.

He eyed the two newcomers with dispassionate disapproval. KitKat thought that might be because she was taking on a role generally reserved for stallions; Amethyst thought that might be due to her nudity. Neither of them knew that it was actually because the innkeeper really wanted to be a balloon bookkeeper but the inn had been passed down through generations and you just can’t throw away tradition that easily.

“We’d like rooms, please.” Even if the innkeeper was being gruff, there was no need for KitKat to be rude in return.

“Only got one,” he said. Gruffly.

KitKat frowned. There hadn’t been any other horses parked out front, and it was awfully quiet for a hotel that was nearly sold out.

“It doesn’t look busy,” Amethyst observed. She wasn’t afraid to say what everyone was thinking.

“It’s not.”

“Oh.”

“Only got one room.”

“Why?”

“Don’t get many travelers on the road. One room’s plenty.”

Amethyst narrowed her eyes. “There are a bunch of dormers, implying a bunch of rooms.”

“It’s a big room.”

“Really?”

“No.” He turned his attention back to KitKat, who was sorting through her various purses and belt-sacks for her Mareiott Loyalty Card, just in case the innkeeper accepted it.

Spoiler: he didn’t

“We’ll take it,” KitKat said, thus paying Amethyst back for accepting this job in the first place. “You got a bath?”

“Yeah.”

“And a bar?”

“Also yeah. And a fitness center, so long as you consider ‘fitness’ chopping wood. Ten percent discount for each cord of wood you chop and stack, up to three.”

“That’s not a bad deal,” KitKat said. “We’ll take it.”

“You already said that,” the innkeeper gruffly said as he handed a key across the counter.

•••

The Bar

Most of the bars in inns that KitKat had frequented had been bustling places, with tables crowded with adventurers of every stripe shoulder-to-shoulder, bragging about their last mission or hoping for their next. Or maybe angling for a quick hook-up. They’d had a buxom bartender with smoky eyes who flashed a little too much in front of handsome stallions or cute mares. They had wooden mugs and a wooden floor lined with straw for ease in cleanup, a cheery fire burning in the fireplace all year long; sometimes they even had a minstrel over in a corner strumming away at a lute or cranking his hurdy-gurdy—it was the kind of atmosphere she longed for after a long day or week or month adventuring.

Amethyst didn’t really go to bars anymore, since she’d been banned. She assumed they hadn’t changed much in her absence, but had no evidence one way or another.

This bar was like every other bar, except that it was smaller and quieter (they were the only two guests) and there wasn’t a bar bard to play with his instrument or sing, and there wasn’t a fireplace—burning or not—and the buxom bartender was none other than Kukka the skunk.

“You again,” both Kukka and KitKat said simultaneously. Neither of them knew each other’s names, and neither of them had been anthro the last time they’d met, but neither of them was one (two?) to forget a face.

Going back a moment, Kukka the skunk in anthro form was hawt. Smoking hawt, in fact, in an outfit that could have been painted on, and was cut both too low and too short at the same time. Paradoxically, it was even more enticing than Amethyst’s complete lack of clothing, since sometimes what’s left to the imagination is more sexier than just seeing it all laid bare.

Besides her ‘technically they’re clothes,’, she had curves in all the right places and also stripes in all the right places; it was enough to make a man or mare completely overlook the delicate eau du skunk that she couldn’t help but effuse.

She was what she was, but then aren’t we all?

“I’ll have your strongest house ale,” KitKat said. She was willing to let bygones be bygones; she had bigger fish to fry (metaphorically) and a raging thirst.

“And for you?” Kukka was also willing to let bygones be bygones, even though the last time she’d been near KitKat, she’d been launched by an explosion and had landed right on a scorpion’s nest.

Amethyst, who was sharp enough to sense that there was a history between KitKat and Kukka and who was also wise enough to know that unpacking that history would take more than one round of drinks, simply said: “Something fruity and loaded with alcohol.”

“Devilfruit cocktail, got it.” Kukka flounced off and both mares couldn’t help but watch her ass . . . there was something compelling about something so sexy and yet so potentially destructive.

•••

There was one thing in the world that could overpower a skunk’s odor, and that was a durian. Kukka pinched her nose shut with one hand as she thunked it on the bar counter and cut into it, opening a small hole in the top to pour alcohol in.

She emptied most of a bottle of rotgut into the durian (you wouldn’t be able to taste the alcohol at all) and then dumped in some sugar to make it sweet. She thought about adding a scorpion, but then remembered that ponies didn’t like the taste.

While durian cocktails were unusual—especially since durains and alcohol probably shouldn’t be mixed—the only fresh fruit the inn could get was durians, since the one fruitmonger who traveled the road didn’t sell anything else.*

It was also the only kind of cocktail that Kukka knew how to make.

They also only had one kind of ale, but there was a changeable sign on the front of the butt so it could be whatever the customer ordered. Kukka put up the ‘dark ale’ sign and poured a glass, then dumped in some squid ink to make it darker and give it a deeper flavor profile. She thought about adding a scorpion, but then remembered that ponies didn’t like the taste.

After their drinks were delivered, they ordered their food. KitKat got a bowl of roasted butternut squash with curry leaves, potato and celery root biscuits, a seventeen-ounce carrot steak, and a wild mushroom galette; Amethyst ordered a cucumber sandwich and a beet and arugula salad. Using a firearm didn’t burn as many calories as swinging an axe.

They were two more drinks in by the time their food was prepared; besides serving drinks, Kukka was also the chef. She even had a chef’s apron, which completely covered the frontside of her minimal dress and was part of the reason she wore such a revealing dress.**

She had a lot of extra scorpions (ponies didn’t like eating them), so she snacked on them while she was cooking. She loved scorpions.

Once the meal was cooked and plated, Kukka took off her apron and flounced out into the dining room with the food, then she stood back behind the bar watching in wonder as KitKat ate all her food, while Amethyst had leftovers which she boxed up for later.

Author's Note

*that isn’t actually true; he sold lots of fruits. He only had durians left by the time he got to the inn, because nobody bought durians. They were banned everywhere, except Yakyakistan.
**the other reason was that she liked to show off her assets