Incognito in Manehattan

Virgin Fields woke up exhausted.

The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the early morning markets were rich with the sound of "Whaddaya mean, six bits?". The realtor had insisted that it came with "a real splash of local flavour", and "a built in natural alarm clock". Fields had never been taken for a ride before, but she was fast realising what that local euphemism meant. She stared at the ceiling for a while, letting the memory of the previous day play over her. Was it a bad dream? She desperately hoped so.

Which was when the tall, dark, and handsome stallion from last night walked into her bedroom carrying some kind of breakfast food.

"I would have knocked, but there are no doors in here." the changeling smiled. "Potato cakes with sour cream and spring onion, tea that is apparently from Stalliongrad, and a lemon wedge. Should get you back on your feet."

"Thank you? Incognito. Sir? But I uh, didn't have anything in the cupboard. Or much in the fridge." Fields stammered confused as the tray of fried goodness was placed on her lap.

"You live upstairs from a market square, fresh ingredients aren't hard to come by. Normally I would judge someone for the absolute void of that pantry, but you have a solid reason. Not like you eat out every meal."

Fields internally vowed that she would never let him know.

Incognito's face fell to a disappointed deadpan. "You can't lie to me, Fields."

He can taste fear. CHANGE SUBJECT!

"So, how did you um, pay for-" Fields quickly corrected herself. "I mean, get, the ingredients?"

"You mean, did I seduce three merchants for a small amount of produce?" A raised eyebrow. "I have enough money for a while, don't worry about me. One of the benefits of living in a condemned building is negligible rent. Plus, I make my own construction materials when I eat too much."

He wasn't eating! "Oh, sorry, do you want some of my?" Fields picked up her tray and held it out. "You went to all this effort to-"

"I like cooking, don't worry." Incognito waved her off. "Also, I don't eat food anymore. If I have my way you're going to be trying a lot of my recipes so I can live through you vicariously. Now eat before it gets cold."

Fields dived in, surprised at the little bit of garlic. It was warm, it was grease, it was cream, and it went down easy. Her hooves were still heavy from the adrenaline, but her magic still worked, so she ended up laying up in bed while her glow fed her pieces of creamy potato. It took her exhausted mind about half the plate before-

"Hang on, what did you mean, you can't eat food anymore?" A few more pieces whirred in her brain as she shot up in bed. "And you talked about your body like it was new!" The rest of breakfast flew through the air before a mosaic of hasty red and calm green magic caught it and returned it to the plate.

"Ohhh, you can talk without stammering." a gentle tease in that sultry voice that brought a blush to Fields face. "Do you want the actual story or a complete fabrication?"

"The real story."

"Nobody ever wants the fake one, and I worked so hard on it." Not no-pony. "Alright, short version, I'm an extradimensional being in a new body. Not the first either, there was one in Canterlot about fifteen years ago. Since he took my people's traditional name, I went with the alternate one. Plus Incognito fit with being a shapeshifter." He shrugged, like this was the slightly regrettable but obvious thing to do.

That was a lot. A lot of completely ridiculous nonsense.

"You're bucking with me." Fields blurted out before she could stop herself. "Sorry, I mean, that's, wow, you must be so. . . homesick? For your other dimension?"

If Incognito was offended he sure didn't show it. "I do miss both eating food and not having to wear a fake face to stop from being hunted to death for how my new species eats. Those are maybe the top two. Speaking of..."

Fields gulped She'd hit a nerve, and a painful one, she started to apologise, but-

"I've not had breakfast yet." Incognito continued with a waggle of an eyebrow and a husky smile. Not what she was expecting.

"Uh, do you want something from the market, or I could-"

"Virgin Fields, you know what I eat." Incognito changed expressions as fast as blinking, from flirty to serious in an instant. "Now, there are a few ways I can get it, and you need me well fed if you want someone between you and the Comb sisters. Beach and Pick aren't the strongest or the smartest of the bunch, plus their older sister would have their hides if they actually hurt me. Others though, let's just say you'll want me running on a full charge."

"Okay, so, what are our options?" Fields started retreating into the safety of her bedsheets, starting to cocoon.

"Option one, the best one, you enjoy snuggles, smooches, and the genuine coltfriend experience, including home cooked meals, emotional availability, and of course, changing your first name to Plowed." Incognito finished with a smirk and a wink.

Fields grasped for words, only finding a few strangled sounds as her mouth opened and closed, trying to work in place of her brain.

Professor Virgin Fields, Canterlot scholar extraordinaire, researcher and scientist, had no idea what she was doing when it came to stallions. Normal ones, at least. To her, the average male was an undiscovered creature from a distant country on a test she hadn't studied for. However; dangerous monster-colt stallions with hearts of gold and loins of fire that previously only existed in a fringe section of the erotica section she had read several guidebooks for. Time to try a line, she thought.

"Oh no mister lustbug, please don't eat my virginity!" Clutching the covers tightly to herself, she gave the sexy predator in disguise her best come hither look.

Seconds passed as those words hung in the air.

Incognito was a consummate professional. He'd heard things from reasonable to extremely cringe inducing in his months of work as a professional comfort provider. One mare had even asked him to dress up as a changeling and pretend to drain her love in the most sexual way possible. But he was also a child of the Internet, and very familiar with bad hentai dialogue. And like this, said completely seriously, in the actual situation he found himself in?

"BAH HA HA HA HA HA HA~!" He was on the floor before he knew it, mask shattered, rolling about, clutching his sides. He couldn't breathe.

Fields couldn't breathe either, she'd tried her best and it got her laughed at, like every other time she'd tried a suave line on a cute colt. She was going to die alone. The blankets, coaxed by scarlet magic, started to form a protective burrito around her as she tried to climb inside her own skin and die.

The sour taste brought Incognito back from his euphoria with a pang of guilt. He crawled up and onto the bed, pulling down the blankets to find a teary Fields morosely looking back.

"I'm sorry, Fields, that was horrible of me to laugh." He booped her snoot. She blinked in surprise, her magic flickering off and giving Incognito a chance to start to unwrap her from her fortress of blankets. "Would you like a hug?"

Fields sniffed. "How many bits?"

That almost hurt, but he supposed it was fair, considering how they met. "For you, free, an all you can cuddle buffet. Consider it my rent." Incognito held out his hoof. Fields hesitantly, still red around the eyes, reached out for it, but faltered at the last step. Incognito closed the gap, and gently pulled her into his chest, nuzzling the top of her head. "See? Nothing but snuggles now, as far as the eye can see."

Fields didn't know where to put her anything. One hoof was around him, sure, but the other just kind of lay there, just out of proper snuggle reach. She experimented for a bit, is it more comfortable here, should she try to reach out for him a bit more, is it safe to reach out for him, would he think she was going to molest him with the hoof she couldn't reach him with, how do stallions?

"Mwah."

Oh no

She'd been smooched. Her first smooch and it was in a pity cuddle. and on the top of her head. Did that count? How do you count them? Do you count them?

"Mwah."

Another! She was up to two now. Fields decided to count them, just in case she needed it to prove that she wasn't a kissless Virgin anymore. Maybe write it down somewhere, like a notebook. Proper notation and research documentation was important to-

"Mmmwah."

Three was a pattern! Fields' brain recognised that, but not why it was important. Also she was just thinking something about a research journal. Then there was a third impact. Of kisses. Brain function has shut down, please restart.

Something squeezed her hoof. It was a hoof. Another hoof. Incognito's hoof. He proceeded to gently tousle her mane with his snout as he traced little circles on her frog. Fields felt something leave her body, but she didn't care. She slumped against a large hunk of stallion as he placed smooch after smooch on her mane, She tried to turn to face him, but he just kissed her nose.

He booped her snoot with a smooch!

Fields didn't know that was legal. His eyes sparkled with a little bit of mischief.

"Feeling better now?" She was feeling bad? Why would she be feeling-

Oh. He laughed at her excellent line. She deflated. "I'll never get better at talking to colts. I always say the wrong thing, and they laugh at me."

"Hey, it's alright." A hoof started to stroke her mane. "Here's part of the deal. I'll help you. I'm pretty sure I don't count as a colt, so even if you aren't good at talking to them, you can be good at talking to me."

"Yeah?" Fields sniffled.

"And then you can use that as a base point to work on the more complicated side of your own species. Like how you need to know math to work on physics."

That made sense. Total, perfect sense. Why was she so tired? "You'll do that for me?" she yawned. Getting out of bed seemed like an impossible task, and the blankets were right there.

"Hoof to heart, Fields. Now, get some more rest. Last night took it out of you."

"Mhmm. Would you cuddle me as I snooze?" Consciousness was quickly becoming optional.

Incognito didn't answer, just helped tuck Fields into bed, and lay with her as she drifted off.

Hours later, but not many, Incognito was once again at the markets browsing for produce.

"Woooooooo colt, show us how those legs chase!" A catcall from behind him, glancing over his shoulder revealed a trio of mares in hard hats, two earth ponies and a pegasus, sitting on an i-beam suspended over some recent construction. One of them was making some kind of gesture with her hooves that was lost on the less than original changeling.

Hardly the first time he'd been called out to like this, Incognito struck a pose; one back leg stretched out, glance over the shoulder, tongue doing a little blep. The whooping reached fever pitch before one of the earth mares fell off their unsafe seat and the pegasus had to dive after her. Incognito wasn't worried, this world seemed to work on cartoon logic sometimes, the worst that mare would've gotten was a comedic bump on the head unless she landed in a garbage skip.

"Incognito."

Incognito had to fight the urge to jump and bolt. He knew that voice. Like it'd seen nonsense once and decided it wanted no part of it. Normally it'd be a pleasant surprise, but given the circumstances. . .

"Honey! Good to see you, you haven't been around in a while!"

Honey Comb was the enforcer of the Comb syndicate. A slab of granite carved into the shape of a pony, painted a dark yellow, and given a brown mane and tail so dark they were almost black. Finished with thick eyeliner and a presence that couldn't help but be noticed. Word on the street was that her triple hexagon cutie mark wasn't for beekeeping, it was for keeping the drones in line.

"Your house collapsed."

A mare of few words, she was a regular. One of the weirder ones too, she'd regularly stop by to just watch Incognito go about his business at his apartment. Not even in a sexy way, she just sit on his couch while he did the dishes in the other room, or tidied his shelves, or read a book. "The peaceful domesticity" she'd said she wanted. Incognito had a feeling she learned as many words as possible so she could speak less of them.

"My kitchen wall gave way. Thankfully I was out at the time." Technically true. "I'm not working for a while, until I can stop sleeping on my friend's couch and find my own place again."

Honey looked perturbed. She *loomed* perturbed. It was hard for her not to.

"But, if you're free, how about a market date?" Incognito sidled up to her unmoving form, giving her a little hip check. "I need supplies, and you are an excellent negotiator."

"Lead on." Honey pronounced.