Dark Star fights against CRT in the school system continues along his path to ensure a future for his and his race's children. Iron conducts a salvage operation finds and recovers hidden treasure. Amber is learning how to exploit simps establishes relationships in her new town. Spark harbors multiple terrorist continues helping Wellspring and the wolf tribe. Silver acts as a step father for unwanted foals gives back to the community at the orphanage. All of this and more
>>154746His knees remain on the bed, but he lowers himself further, so that the tip of his genitals makes contact with the edge of the lips of hers. He stops kissing her, and pulls away, looking into her eyes and watching her.
>>154747Has Mustard by now flipped himself over with Amber on her back, rather than both lying on their sides?She shudders as he makes contact during the kiss. The bare skin of her lips pull apart readily, and Mustard feels some semblance of moisture on his tip already. What's more, he can feel them twitch–pulling apart and contracting rapidly–against him, the sensitive skin of most private parts skimming each other. Amber stops moving, holding her breath and watching him in turn with an uncertain expression on her face.
>>154748That was going to happen this post. Now it happensMustard Trim grabs onto her back, and tries to move within her hind leg's own grip of his hind quarters. He rolls, and then physically picks up Amber with his forehooves, placing her on her back underneath him. He moves his legs up so that he is almost standing overtop of her. Though his tip pulls away for the process, he moves it back in, as if a physical reminder. He looks down at her face, into her eyes, and above all, gauges her response.
>>154749Amber loses her grip of his hindquarters and her hind legs become splayed out to either side, her hooves holding up the blanket almost like a tent. His tip can slide in readily for an inch, if he chooses to go that far, but if he tries to press beyond he would find that her vaginal walls block the way by making the opening far too small for him. She looks up at his face looming in the dark, biting her lip. Finally, she asks, almost breathlessly,
"You're not a changeling, are you?"
>>154751She smiles nervously up at him.
"I'm asking because, well, changelings can change size and shape, and they have…um, a projection to, uh, do nasty things to captured ponies that I don't want to say…." She shudders.
"…So after you first changed shape to poke with er, your appendage, I became really worried." Looking back up with a combination of confidence and embarrassment, her face flushed and her ears folded back, the mare tells him,
"But I know you aren't a changeling because those creatures can't be kind and loving like you have been. I don't know how you, er…grow like that, or why, but I believe you."
>>154752He looks at her awkwardly. Then he stares at her a little longer. And then he simply bends his legs, and basically lays on top of her, completely closing the distance between their two bodies. He moves his forelegs by trying to dig his hooves under her in a hug. He places his muzzle to the side of hers, head side by side in a hug.
>>154754Although it's difficult for her to do so, she wriggles her torso to try to give his forelegs a little bit of room. She returns the gesture by wrapping her four legs around him in a gentle embrace. The side of her muzzle feels hot, and he can hear her tail swishing back and forth across the bedsheet, as well as feel it hit him lightly in the hocks.
She says,
"I love you so much, my heart feels like bursting." She nickers softly as well.
>>154756He moves his head away far enough to look her in the eyes while laying on her. He asks her,
"Are you in heat?"
>>154757Did you know that the time of estrus can be manipulated with external light? InterestingAmber initially stares back in confusion.
"Huh?" Then something clicks.
"Oh. You mean when you feel hot and funny and have to cool off with a swim? That doesn't usually happen to me for at least another month."
>>154760I think it's based off of length of day or something. I would bet the regularity of electrical lighting would fuck with it massivelyHe looks down at her, stares, and blinks. Then he says "I want to see something."
He hops right off of her, off the bed, and walks over to the wall. Amber surely has time to react by the time he turns on the lights.
>>154761It's a good idea for a story for sure. Ted Ponzynski did nothing wrongAmber sits up in the bed and hops out after him, looking intently at his dark silhouette.
Another reversal from an intimate moment…is he mad or upset at me for bringing up changelings, or suspecting even for a moment he could be one? But something feels different this time…
>>154762The silhouette, draped in Amber's blanket walks across the room towards the door. He is less visible in the dim light that seeps through the windows than he was under the lights that jewel the void back on the hill. He scrapes against the wall once, twice, three times, then
click.
The lights come on. He blinks twice, evidently a bit phased by the change the light. Though he's draped in Amber's blanket, she can see the finer details of parts of his body that she could not in the dark. His mane and how it hangs, or the yellow-brown color of his coat in its finer detail. He slowly walks back towards Amber, looking at her.
>>154763Amber blinks at the sudden, harsh brightness, and raises her foreleg to cover her eyes briefly before it becomes tolerable at least. She wears a bemused expression and follows Mustard with her head, wondering why the hay he got up, turned on the lights and is wearing her blanket. That's not typically what a pony does who gets up to use the bathroom or get a drink of water. She scrutinizes him, trying to make heads or tails of this.
>>154764He comes to her
"I want to see you"
He says
"I want to see more of your body"
>>154765She takes a step back, unsure of how to process this demand or the tone of his voice. Reluctantly she stands still to observe what he's doing.
Her tail, set slightly low, hangs straight down like a curtain from her steep croup, and still looks kempt compared to her mane which has been ruffled and moved about, but still extends slightly past her high withers. The warm lighting makes it hard to distinguish the purple music note of her cutie mark from its light amber background, but the sea-like horizon part of it stands out all the more. Her stocky legs, short and thick, have, like most of the rest of her body, a moderately long coat which lends a slightly fluffy appearance. These support a thicker torso with a barrel-shaped chest and high stifles but a short back, making her look decently suited for the draft work she was raised to do.
Bluish-purple eyes, set on both sides of a narrow white stripe that stops just short of her muzzle, observe Mustard closely, silently looking as closely at him as he is at her.
>>154766For pic of Amber
There's something oddly non-reciprocal about his request. Though Mustard Trim requests and can see Amber, he is half veiled by Amber's own blanket. What Amber can see is his muzzle, rather long and subtly lighter towards the end, small depressions beneath each eye that imply the use of focal corrective glasses (she's never seen him wear them), pale blue eyes that look almost like the water of a shallow lagoon, with each eye focused on Amber in a purposeful rather than exploratory manner. His mane is a shade of dark brown and presently hangs over to his left side. It's a bit on the longer side, and is cut to disrupt a straight cut by several long diagonal cuts.
While not quite "scrawny" and not quite the absolute slimmest colt she's ever seen, he has scarcely an ounce of superfluous fat on his body. There's a bit more muscle, but it's hardly impressive, and as a whole his appearance is thin and lanky, making him look even taller than his actual height, which is slightly above average for a stallion. His legs are long with visible bones. His coat becomes slightly lighter and fluffier near the hoof. His coat hairs are short.
Of his chest, belly, flanks, cutiemark, and indeed essentially any detail past his shoulders, Amber can see little. Both the blanket and Amber's point of view obstruct a clear view.
>>154767Amber has closely examined him and the hairs on the back of her neck want to stand up. Perhaps it could be the harsh lighting, but this does not look like the Mustard Trim she fell in love with. There is no trace of his awkwardness or tenderness, instead there stands a colt–no, a grown stallion–with a cold gaze and a lean, no-nonsense physique. He has adopted an entirely different personality, if indeed this is Mustard Trim. A voice in her head tells her that her dismissed suspicions were indeed true, that she had been purposely beguiled in twenty-four hours and is now alone in a locked room with something hostile, her only key not on her person. Another voice tells her that this must be a joke of sorts, that it must be the harsh lighting that makes him look fierce.
She stands in place, though now her ears are folded back and she has shifted her weight to her rear. As her neck is bent back, she must look up at him with her wide eyes.
>>154768Is it true that Changelings can mind control you just by looking into your eyes from a close distance? Is it true they can put you in a paralyzing trance? What is it like to have your soul eaten by one?
Mustard Trim looks at her, placing his eyes on her body, and then walks around her. He eventually lies down on the bed, turning 180 so that he is now facing Amber, lying on his belly. He bends his forelegs to fold his hooves underneath himself. He still wears the blanket, though it is starting to fall off to his left side.
>>154769If the legends were true, Amber would be boned, figuratively and likely literally as well.
Amber can't help but shiver as he devours her with those eyes. She continues to stare at him, trying to process what's going on. He is now directly behind her, and she turns in place slightly to keep him in her direct line of sight. She tries to think of something to say, after he hops onto the bed, but all that comes from her mouth is a drawl of
"Uhhhh…". Her ear twitches.
>>154770He tilts his head, holds both ears firmly in Amber’s direction, and blinks.
“What’s wrong?” He asks
>>154771She blinks in turn.
"Mustard, what's going on?" she asks, taking a couple of steps to the side away from him.
>>154772He blinks
“I’m laying on the bed” he answers
>>154773"You looked so threateningly at me, like you wanted to hurt me…" she croaks. She appears emotionally hurt; even if this is a joke it's a cruel one to play.
>>154774His expression fades, eyes widen, and ears fall down. He jumps over to the side like a puppy saddened to be evicted from the blanket he was laying on. He looks over towards Amber in silence for one, two, three, four, five seconds, before loping over to the door, and turns off the lights.
The room is thrust into a darkness greater than it was before he turned on the lights.
>>154775"Eep!" cries Amber. She is not one to be afraid of the dark, but now not only is she in a locked room with a pony–or creature–that has acted strangely at best and aggressively at worst, it's now a locked room that's nearly pitch-black. Her ears swivel to pick up any sound as her sense are at high alert.
>>154776It sounds as if there is movement near the door, and like he lays down.
There is an automobile outside. Someone is speaking downstairs. Then another automobile outside. The sound of trotting hooves and a cart. A distant warehouse door opens. Even further away, a train horn. Are those gunshots? A dense, lower class neighborhood mixed heavy industry isn’t exactly prime location for quiet and tranquility.
>>154777An ambush, trying to get me if I run out? she thinks to herself. She instead does what any logical mare would do in this situation: she hides underneath the bed.
>>154778Well, that's one option. Amber has not yet been dragged out from underneath the bed and entombed in a cocoon where every pleasant emotion is drained from her still-conscious experience for several decades. Not yet anyways.
From across the room,
"Amber?"
A little frightened
>>154779Don't answer, don't answer, don't answer.... she commands herself. She tries not to make a sound, cowering in her position rather than risk traps.
>>154780"Amber?"
For what it's worth, it really does sound like an excellent mimicry of Mustard Trim
>>154781She can hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears. The question is, was Mustard replaced without her somehow noticing, or has Mustard always been a changeling patiently waiting to do horrible things to her? The thought of her love being tricked, or even induced, is enough to make her stomach roil.
>>154782From across the room,
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.Hoof steps across the floor, getting closer and closer, until there is the sound of movement on the bed, and finally a very heavy depression on the bed
>>154783Amber squeezes herself as flat to the floor as she can in order to not be felt.
He knows I'm trapped. It's the careless swagger of a predator knowing his prey has nowhere to go. She tries to remember if her window has outside stairs like she's seen on some others.
>>154784>Reasonable accommodations to fire safety in BaltimareNo. Whole city is a death trap
Nopony - no creature - comes for Amber. She is left alone
>>154785Well then, there is only one way out. She racks her brain, trying to remember where she left the room key when she came in.
>>154786An excellent question indeed.
>>154785>no fire escapeFinally an excuse to share this music: https://youtu.be/mvJjmWTg7Qo>>154787The only alternative is to beat the door down, and unless if she's extraordinarily lucky there's no away she could break it down before being attacked. Surely the key is somewhere close to the door?
[1d20 = 10]
>>154788SLAM
Amber hits the door…. It’s a little painful, very loud, and not really successful
gasp“Amber?!”
A very frightened cry
>>154789That roll was for remembering the key, though that's just as good lolShe lets out a pained gasp from hitting an object more solid than it looks. She scurries to the bathroom and closes the door behind her.
"Stay away!" she yells.
>>154790“What?! What did I do? I didn’t do anything?”
A cross between exasperated and persecuted/downtrodden
>>154791She tries to keep the door shut with her body, as to her knowledge it lacks a lock.
"St-stay away, y-you thing! I'll fight back," she threatens.
>>154793She sits on the toilet, keeping the bathroom door braced with her hind legs. She tries hard not to hyperventilate reflecting on what's happened. All night she's been alone with a changeling, and not once but several times she had left herself utterly vulnerable to its depredations. Feeling sick to her stomach about that, she attempts to maintain some modicum of composure.
>>154794After some time, she can hear the door open to her apartment
>>154796She weighs her options carefully. It could well be a classic trap, opening and shutting the door to lure her out. Or the changeling doesn't want to attract so much attention after spoiling its attempt. She has only seconds to lose before it disguises as somepony else to terrorize others. Amber also has the duty to warn Mrs. Trim that her son has been replaced by a changeling.
After only a moment of hesitation, she dashes out of her bathroom and hopefully her apartment to chase her foe.
>>154797This is going to require a roll
>>154799She rushes into her room to see the door cracked open, then outside, she can barely get a glimpse of what seems to be him running downstairs towards the door to the street
>>154800She sprints after him at full tilt. How should I roll this?
>>154801Probably strength. Maybe attack. If attack, Base attack bonus plus strength bonus
>>154802Unarmed attack, nonlethal.
>the last thing 'Mustard Trim' sees[1d4+2 = (2+2) = 4]Hold on, shouldn't I roll 1d20 first for hitting? This is actually my first in-game combat, whew
>>154803Wait. You need a 1d20 attack roll
>>154811Success! Now he needs to be secured. Sadly she didn't bring rope like any citified filly would do, but she does have a bedsheet and that will work in a pinch.
>>154812"AMBER!"
The creature protests. Amber has it by the neck, on its back
>>154813Is it possible to choke it out nonlethally or does Amber not have the skills for that?
>>154814That requires special skills.
>>154815Then instead she drags him to her room, trying not to let him escape.
>>154816"What in Tartarus are you doing?"Amber has a grip, but not so thoroughly
>>154817"Sterp stergring er Uh'll het ya ergain!" she threatens, her mouth full of his mane as she half-drags, half carries him to her room. For such a small mare she sure is strong. And crazy, very crazy.
>>154818"Ahhhhhhhhh!" He thrashes around
But then...
From a side office, out crashes a fat, older griffin.
Guido"I DON'T KNOW IF YOU ARE FIGHTING OR FUCKING, BUT YOU WILL NOT DO IT IN THE COMMON AREAS AFTER MIDNIGHT!"
>>154819She is in awe of the size of this lad, fatly walking around the corner towards them. She tries to keep hold of Mustard's neck as she spits out his mane.
"HE'S A CHANGELING!" she yells out to him.
>>154820Mustard:
"No I'm not!"
Guido:
"
Not my problem if the stallions you bring home at night are changelings! You do not fight or fuck them in the public areas after midnight! Go into your apartment, go to a hotel, go to the streets, but you get out of the common areas!"
Guido has serious anger in his eyes
>>154821'Tis a shame it's not 11:30, that would have been a fun time in the hallways.
In any case, even when fighting for your life and the lives of others you don't argue with a 300-pound griffon bearing down on you. Amber yells out,
"Sorry!" with the most genuine terror she's felt since five minutes ago. Just before she does so, however, she attempts to buck Mustard's impostor on the plot as hard as she can, to finally get 'him' across her threshold.
>>154822You’ll get ‘em next time, little ponyWhimperWell, Amber’s at minimum got him to the stairs.
Guido folds his forelegs, looking over at Amber, clearly satisfied in having protected the integrity of the common areas
>>154824So she wasn't successful in
foalnapping trapping a dangerous subversive in her room?
>>154827She gets him to the top of the stairs. But up there, she fails to get him inside
"Amber?! What the fuck!"
>>154828She stands lower on the stairs, her body visibly shaking, sweat dripping down her coat, and her face a crazed mix of fear, rage, and betrayal. But she has ceased her assault, for even changelings are a preferable threat to the wrath of Guido.
"YOU. What did you do to the real Mustard?" she demands.
>>154829He appears to have tears running down his face, and he is gritting his teeth.
"What? Why are you doing this to me? What did I do?"
>>154830"To you‽ I loved you so, then you sized me up and tried to kill me, or worse, foalnap me or fill me with eggs. Tell me, when did you replace him? Was it before we even met?"She looks to be gulping for air and is on the verge of collapse, her own tears falling onto the cold hard steps?
>>154828"I didn't do any of that!"
He says frustrated
>>154832"But you m-must have, you would have!! Th-the thing...leering! I'm gonna tell your 'ma'! I'll tell the po-lice! I'll tell...I'll tell....urgh...." Her babbling voice grows faint and she slumps to the floor, her limp body falling down the stairs. She blacks out utterly and she won't be able to recall anything until she wakes up again.
On that note, I need to sleep myself. Thank you for pulling off that fun twist, it turned predictable wish fulfillment into fulfilling my wish for an unpredictable game.I'm looking forward to playing tomorrow, I'll try to start earlier from now on.
>>154833>>154834The light of the hallway is not as intense as the light of Amber’s room, though it carries the same obnoxious yellow tinge. Or maybe that’s just his fur. He does not wear Amber’s blanket, nor his own black jacket, nor the shirts he’d wear the work. Amber instead sees a scared little colt with reflective, watery blue eyes, and a mouth that hangs open. He looks right at her with kicked-dog expression she seen him wear when he’s assigned the worst section, and is made to serve the patio and large families of Diamond Dogs that demand everything and tip nothing. But not like that time he was told he needed to work an extra hour to help clean up before he could go meet Amber at the club Maurice. He had a look of excitement as he suffered through that.
“I’m not a Changeling” he says, in a voice that was not expected to persuade.
There is a single beat
“You could have just said ‘no’, rather than do…
this”
He walks towards Amber in a fast, deliberate pace, closing his eyes and trying to pull to Amber’s left side.
Whatever dangers Amber May have expected or feared, whatever traps or tricks may have haunted her imagination, they do not come to pass. Amber has succeeded in scaring away he who came for her love. He does not look at her, and indeed stumbles abs almost trips down the stairs as he passes, evidently because he refused to look at wear her was going. He would rather go downstairs and brave the wrath of Guido. He would rather go outside, and brave the streets of a bad neighborhood of the city - or perhaps return to family who will only castigate and humiliate him for the moral failing of attempting to sleep with a filly. He would rather do all of these things than remain up there by Amber for another minute. The jacket he came with is conspicuously absent, evidently abandoned in Amber’s room.
>>154835Poor Mustard lolAnd if this is his experience, who could blame him? It's enough to make one swear off dating and become an eternal bachelor, content to stay in one's room with the cold safety of illicit magazines and pinup posters.
Amber does not see him pass by, her unconscious, defeated form sprawled on the floor with her mouth hanging open and her mane unkempt once again. When and where does she wake up?
>>154836> It's enough to make one swear off dating and become an eternal bachelorSadly, very few colts learn the first time. He'll be back at it again.
Took me two women and four years to learn my lessonAmber experiences nothing for an unknown period of time. No sight nor sound, no thoughts, emotions or sensations. It's exactly like being dead, really. And she likely wished she were when she hears something:
"
What? Did you think you could pretend he pushed you down the stairs to the police? We saw the whole thing and he did not touch you. And the police are not coming. If the police come in one of your love spats, you will not be getting your deposit back. Do you hear me? If you get in a fight with your lover here, do it in your room and do not damage the walls."
>>154837Amber opens her eyes, her vision initially blurry. She slowly tries to stagger to her feet.
"Wha…" she stammers.
>>154839"S-sorry…" she murmurs as she leans agains the wall/railing and half-crawls up the stairs. At the top she examines her body to look for anything seriously wrong or unusual.
>>154840Her leg kind of hurts from falling down the stairs. Guido stands there with a very ruffly looking grey earth pony stallion who is a bit older
>>154841But nothing else? She limps back to her room, her head hanging low under their judgmental stares.
>>154842No. She's fine. Hard to tell if her soul has been sucked or not though.
>>154843She turns on the lights and looks around the room, trying to piece together what happened between the time her guest had first turned the lights up to now.
>>154844There is a blanket on the floor by the door, and Mustard Trim's jacket is hanging from the bed. The sheets on her bed are disrupted.
>>154845Unhurt…untouched…he didn't take anything but just ran away…The enormity and truth of the situation just strikes her, and she feels like ripping her own mane out. Amber just drove that colt out of her life, for good, not gradually due to natural incompatibilities but because of her own hysteria and foalishness. It feels like she made the biggest mistake of her life and her eyes well up with tears. She picks up his jacket and inhales his scent one last time before diligently cleaning and folding it.
>>154846He does indeed have a distinct, equine scent that lingers in the jacket. Perhaps she won’t be disappointed. She remains alone in the yellow light of the empty room.
She can hear the sound of air moving through the vents, of somepony talking next door, and of an automobile passing by outside.
>>154847Changelings can't copy smell.That smell only fills her with longing, but she has thrown away a great treasure and there is no getting it back. She thinks bitterly about Mustard married with Aster Spring in the future, posing with their beautiful children that could have been hers.
She deserves him better anyway. She's going to college, she reflects.
What time is it thereabouts? Once she finishes smoothing out the creases on the jacket she tidies up her room.
>>154848Like 12:15. Barely any time has passed, if her clock is to be believed.
Three beautiful pink and yellow foals, looking out over the bay as waves crash against the rocks. Amber is alone in a dingy apartment.
>>154849She sniffles as she finally gets back into bed, cold and alone underneath her blanket. She thinks she can still feel the imprint where Mustard was lying down, and laments her horrible tendency to jump to conclusions.
>>154850>>154851She remains alone in her bed.