Interlude 2: Because the first interlude went on longer than I anticipated

“That shook some of the dust off,” KitKat said, as the two of them walked down the hallway towards the bathhouse, refreshed by both their drinks and their meal and their postprandial cordials (which I might have forgotten to mention in the last chapter, sorry!) and relieved by the fact that they got through the entire dining experience without Kukka ever going off. That’s kind of a departure for the franchise, if we’re being honest. Maybe I’m going soft in my old age.

“I never thought I’d enjoy a durian cocktail,” Amethyst said. “Once you get past the horrific odor, it’s almost pleasant. Especially the second one.”

“I’d imagine that’s because there was so much alcohol in it, it singed my eyebrows.”

“Probably.”

•••

The bathhouse wasn’t attached to the inn; it was safer to have it in a separate building to limit water damage in case of flooding. That was what the innkeeper’s insurance agent had said, anyway.

It was semi-conveniently attached to their room down a rickety staircase, then across a flagstone path with landscaping on either side to put one in a wilderness state of mind. Neat enough that one’s mind wouldn’t go too feral, though; after all, the inn ~~preyed on~~ attracted a clientele who had been adventuring and wanted a touch of normality before wading back out into the wild, wild world.

Inside it was all one room, although partitioned off to make two: a changing room and the room with the bath. It smelled of steam and lavender and automatically granted one hit point of healing simply by entering the room. Such was the ambiance.

Of the two mares, only one really needed a changing room, but it would be churlish for the other one to lower herself into the bath without waiting for the other.

It would also be unhygienic which was why there was a large shower cubicle so that guests could bathe before bathing.

As soon as they’d entered the changing room, KitKat started stripping off her armor, a process ironically made more difficult by her anthro transformation. Every fastener was in a new place and a new design.

She unlaced her bracers, slid them off her arms, and set them on the bench, then sat down beside them and lifted one leg at a time so she could get her greaves off.

Amethyst removed her hat.

KitKat reached behind her neck and loosened the tie on her gorget, setting that on top of her growing pile of armor, while Amethyst started piling guns up on her bench.

Both of them had picked a seat where they could watch each other and also watch the door. Just in case of trouble.

KitKat put down her tabarzin, then unfastened her belt, leaving all the pouches and purses attached to it, then started working on the ties on either side of her breastplate, eventually separating the two lower halves. It opened up like a clamshell and came off over her head, revealing a stained gambeson below that.

Amethyst was still piling up guns.

Now that she could bend over better, KitKat stood up again and untied her cuisses, setting them next to the empty turtle shell that was her breastplate.

Her gambeson came off next, and of course it snagged and fought on the way off—it always did, even when she was in her normal form.

And then she was nude, save for a light ramie shift that she wore as a long undershirt. That extended to mid-thigh, same as the mail on the bottom of her breastplate, providing modesty.

It was soaked with sweat under the arms, the entire back, and most of the front as well, lessening the modesty it provided as well as any sexiness it might have imparted.

As KittyKat lifted her shift up and up and placed it on the bench, it was the first time either of them had seen KitKat nude.* Her clumped-up sweaty fur was criss-crossed with scars (she hadn’t always had armor) and there were plenty of bruises that couldn’t be seen underneath.

KitKat ran a hand down her coat, smoothing out some of the tangles across her breasts and down her stomach, then stretched her arms out behind her back and jutted out her chest before twisting to loosen all the kinks in her back.

“You ready?” she asked Amethyst.

“Sure am.” The unicorn wrinkled her muzzle. “No offense, but—”

“Believe me, I know. Cost of wearing armor.” She touched a scar that ran from her left shoulder towards her breastbone. “And that’s the cost of not.” She bent down and picked up her axe, then headed for the shower.

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Amethyst picked a gun and followed her. Showers were an excellent place for an ambush, as they both knew.

“Do you think that the spell, the portal, knows to put the scars in the right place?”

“What do you mean?” KitKat turned on the shower and stepped in before it could even begin to come up to temperature. She was quite used to bathing in ponds and streams, so a cold shower was no bother.

“Well, among other things, our teats had to move from here—” Amethyst motioned towards her crotch— “to here, so that much transformation is possible. Did your scars move to the appropriate location in your new form, or are they in the same place but across something new?”

“You mean, did I have a scar along the top of my breast?”

Amethyst nodded.

KitKat looked down at her boob, examining it for the first time. The last time she’d had tits, they’d been Playboy Model tits, probably enhanced with silicone jellyfish, and she’d hated them. This time, given her more appropriate bulk, they were smaller than average and not in her way at all, so she hadn’t paid them any mind.

“I probably do,” she concluded. “There was a time when I remembered where I’d gotten each scar, and some of those tales were epic . . . some less so. There’s one on my forehoof that I got when I stepped on a board with a nail in it.” She lifted up her hand and examined it; sure enough there was a faded scar running the length of her middle finger. “But the one above my breastbone, that’s where it belongs. I just got a boob added under it.”

Amethyst was still pondering things—or waiting for the shower to warm up—but KitKat was a mare of action, and she lifted a hoof and used a brush to start scraping off all the muck that had packed in around her horseshoe and frog.

She knew that good hoof hygiene was a foundation of healthiness—an apple a day kept the doctor away, and hoofpicking kept the farrier at bay.

Unlike Amethyst, who had the dainty hooves of a unicorn and light brass shoes that wouldn’t interfere with her magic, in her current form KitKat was gifted with hooves the size of dinner plates, no hoof polish (it would just chip off in combat anyway), and honest-to-goodness steel shoes with proper caulks. To put a more modern spin on it, Amethyst was wearing Converse All-Stars while KitKat had combat boots.

Once she’d cleaned the bottom of her hoof to her satisfaction, she went to work on the feathering on her ‘ankle’. Some earth pony mares marescaped their feathers, but she wasn’t a vain pony and left them alone, even if it meant brushing out mud and crud and blood after a day on the job.

As she worked, Amethyst finally set hoof in the shower, now that the water had come up to a civilized temperature. She took the lazier route of magicking off the majority of dirt which had accumulated in her dainty unicorn hooves and then holding each in turn under the shower spray, rinsing off what her magic missed.

Just when she’d set her second hoof down (she only had two right now), she felt warm hands and a bar of soap on her shoulders. It took her a moment to realize that KitKat was bathing her.

Amethyst wasn’t the kind of mare who was often at a loss for words, or if not words, action. She had, after all, seen some st.

She had also bathed herself as long as she could remember. Back in Equestria, that was one of the great things about being a unicorn; you could soap or shampoo or loofah wherever you pleased with one simple spell.

Obviously, that wasn’t true for all three tribes and there were social expectations built up around that fact; just the same it was a complete shock to her and she was still trying to figure out how she stood in regards to personal boundaries and an understanding of Equestrian culture at large up until KitKat started soaping her breasts, which suddenly caused new and conflicting feelings.

“Uh . . . we’ve both got hands now, we can wash ourselves.”

KitKat paused and looked at her hands as if this was a new discovery, despite the fact that she’d had them most of the day already and had also been primed to have hands from when the Wizard had turned her into a centerfold.

“I guess,” she said. “It’s not as good bonding to wash ourselves, though.”

Amethyst thought about that. And she thought about how it had felt to have KitKat cling onto her as she drove the motorcycle through the Labyrinth of Logic, or how it had felt to clutch onto KitKat as they rode not-Epona all the way here. She thought about how the other two tribes were very into social bathing and mutual grooming, and she thought about just a few minutes ago when she’d watched KitKat undress and how she could have helped her with some of the more difficult to access ties, and she’d instead sat and watched while she played with her guns.***

She grabbed a second bar of soap off the soap dish and started scrubbing KitKat. Not without incident; she faltered when KitKat reached her groin and that led to some awkwardness and a belated boundary establishment, which by mutual agreement might be temporary or might not be; that remained to be seen.

KitKat didn’t press her, nor did she complain when Amethyst pointedly avoided the danger zone as she worked her way down KitKat’s chiseled, well-muscled physique.

•••

When they were both clean, KitKat shut off the shower and the two mares turned their attention to the bath. It was hot and fragrant, and promised to ease tension (muscular and sexual) with a good long soak.

By mutual silent agreement, the duo took opposite sides of the tub, both preventing any lingering awkwardness from the shower and more importantly to cover each other’s backs if the need arose.

•••

They stayed until well into the night, sometimes making Smalltalk and sometimes silently contemplating things, and then the two of them got out and dried off and Amethyst strapped on her guns while KitKat gathered up her armor in a big pile which was really too big and clumsy for just one trip so the unicorn carried some in her hands and some in her field and the pair made their way back to the inn and then up the stairs to their room which was the only room in the inn (this made it easy to find, and avoided the need for room numbers [although since the innkeeper was a proper host, he had tacked a number to the door of the room (and while ‘1’ would have been the logical number to put there, the number ‘3’ had been on sale, so that was what was on the door)]).

As one would expect, since it was an only room, it only had one bed, a California King which could fit no less than five adventurers at once, seven if they were friendly, nine if they were very friendly, ten if they were smaller than average and only slightly friendlier than average, and so on with various combinations of size and sociability.

“Well,” KitKat said as she regarded the luxurious—nay, decadent—bed. “It looks like our innkeeper is also a matchmaker.”

Indeed he was.

She set down her armload of armor and Amethyst added to the pile and then the two of them were standing in the room, both fully naked, regarding a gigantic luxurious hotel bed. You can guess where this is going.

•••

A pleasant night of sleep for both, of course.

After they’d tossed a coin to decide who got which side, and after they’d both tried to fall asleep on their side—separated by a gulf that was almost as wide as the Panamare Canal, eventually the two ponies had come together in the middle, and it’s here that we leave them for the night, spooning platonically to share in each other’s warmth.

It would have been a funny twist in the narrative if KitKat were the small spoon, but given her size and bulk that would not have been logical.

Author's Note

*In her anthro form, that is; KitKat had seen herself nude in pony form plenty of times (the majority of the time, in fact [she often didn’t wear armor on adventures, and certainly didn’t in her day to day life]).**
**She had also been nude when the Wizard transformed her into a human Playboy model (he probably could have transformed her clothed, but he was the worst Wizard).
***possibly symbolic penii.