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
>>154536“Hehehe” he starts to giggle as well, as his eyes seem to become brighter, abs his lips pull back into a smile. He moves his right leg around her, and pulls her in closer. His jacket moves with his arm, and it almost seems that she could be embraced under the jacket. His muzzle hairs are perhaps a bit more corse than would be preferred.
>>154537Amber pushes her hoof under his jacket and lets his body rest against his, enjoying his warmth. She kisses him on the tip of his nose before pulling her head back. Despite the darkness in the car, he may be able to make out a blush.
>>154538He places the hoof lower on her body, to around where her chest and belly meet. He pulls her closer, until the fur of her upper body contacts his. He tries to pull his jacket around her, though the jacket is a bit to small for it to work like that. He begins
snuggling her.
With his eyes snd lips, he makes an almost awkward smile at the small kiss, again looking into her eyes
>>154539She hesitantly joins in snuggling, returning his awkward smile. There is a key difference between the top of a hill and here, though: they aren't exactly alone, and she's aware of that.
>>154540frownIf it wasn’t abundantly obvious, their position halfway along the peninsula is a long way from Amber’s apartment in East Baltimare.
>>154541A thought occurs to her. Mustard will almost certainly want to become
intimate with her when they get back to her apartment. That prospect worries her much less than it would have several hours ago, but now she gets the sense he won't wait!
>>154542Amber alone has the key to her own apartment.
Besides GuidoThe drive is maybe as long as 20 minutes past occasional houses down country roads, then past rows of single family homes, row houses, and finally tenement buildings and factories.
The taxi arrives at Amber’s own tenement building, unglamorous as it is, and stops.
>>154544“No no, I can get it.” His tone is more worried than anything.
>>154545"You already spent a bunch tonight," she coaxes. She asks the driver how much is it.
>>154547She pays the sum from her funds that she did NOT earn from "touching stallions."
Does she now have 17 bits left? The up-to-date balance is on another computer
>>154548I felt like she had 56 bits remaining, but maybe I’m wrong.Mustard Trim silently accepts a situation that is both humiliating and strictly necessary.
He looks to Amber
>>154549I won't be making any big purchases before checkingShe gets out the paper bits and pays the cabbie, thanking him for the ride.
>>154550The driver nods, and Mustard Trim steps out
“So….”
>>154551She grabs her dress and hops out of the cab. She looks around the street before trying to sneak in the building alongside Mustard.
>>154552Okay, so she
is inviting him in, rather than sending him home?
>>154553As Amber pointed out earlier, he's not exactly in a state to be sent home. He's not likely to get in less trouble if he goes back now than if he stays longer and goes back clean, and there's nothing wrong with having a houseguest.
She beckons him to come indoors.
>>154554His tail moves side to side, and he has a wide grin. He happily trots besides her.
“So. This is where you live?”
>>154555"Mhm. Sorry it ain't much, and I can't even offer you anything to eat or drink except for water…"Her own tail swings left and right in a mixture of giddy excitement and nervousness as she goes beside him up the flights of stairs, eventually turning into the hallway.
>>154556Amber is covered in a coat of crusty cum. It is beginning to smell. Most of it matted in a puddle on her fur, but some of it dripped and ran further away.
For all of Mustard Trim’s protests about money, there is no hiding the fact that Amber’s single bedroom rented apartment is much smaller, in an older, lower quality building, and in a greatly worse neighborhood than Mustard Trim’s rowhouse near the riverfront.
Mustard Trim steps through the threshold of her apartment door, and closes the door behind him. As unassuming and as trustworthy as he is, he is still a young male who has made advances on Amber before. Amber is alone in a her apartment with him.
Mustard stops, and looks around him, imbibing Amber’s solo life.
“So you live alone here? No mother, no father, no sister, no brother? No roommates?”
His gaze is focused on the small details of the dresser, the bed, the imperfections in the wall and window seals.
>>154557She paws at the floor sheepishly.
"Well, I came alone, and I didn't know anypony here, certainly nopony I could really trust…." She smiles nervously at him, then looks over to the very modest bathroom.
"Would you like to get washed up first?"
>>154558He isn’t perfect - his mane is messy, there’s dirt on his hooves - but there’s no sign of any mess on his lower body or genitals, or anything.
“I think I’ll wait for you, he says.”
>>154559To be fair, Amber–despite her curiosity–is too polite to look closely at him there.
"Alright…um, make yourself at home," she says shyly, as she puts away her dress and enters the bathroom, closing it behind her. She tries to get as good a view of herself in the mirror that she can.
Does her bathroom have a door or just a curtain separating it from the rest?
>>154560He places a foreleg on the bed, folding his hoof underneath. Amber closes the door behind her.
She sees that her mane has not fairer as well as his has. It is disorganized, and even has bits of leaves and dirt in it. Her frame is stockier, thicker, more muscular, and quite simply less feminine than the dainty, thinner Aster Spring and her perfect mane. The substance on her belly has made a visible translucent mat that almost resembles glazed sugar on cardboard.
I know these are turn-of-the-century immigrant shacks, but what the hell kind of bathroom doesn’t have a door?
>>154561She grimaces, almost in disgust, at her own appearance.
"What did ponies think I was up to out there? And why didn't he at least tell me I look like I was ridden hard and put away wet?" she mutters to herself.
She sidles underneath the shower head, standing upright, and turns on the water. The water is unheated–that is to say, bitterly cold–and she swears to herself that she'll work twice as hard if it means getting a hot-water bathtub eventually. She first clears the mud and silt off her fetlocks and hooves, scrubbing the dirt out of the roughness of the keratin. She then scrubs at her mane, trying to clean it as thoroughly as possible while being hurried along by the water's temperature. She then moves onto her face, careful not to get soap into her eyes, and tries to make it as pristine as possible.
More accustomed to the cold water by now, she uses extra soap to lather up her barrel-shaped chest and scrubs away at it, steadily proceeding lower to scrape off Mustard's…bodily secretions, which don't resemble actual mustard in any way. Turns out though that it clings annoyingly to hair, and her skin feels almost raw by the time she's satisfied cleaning her belly, flanks, and the sensitive skin on her teats and between her thighs. Having next scrubbed her haunches and hind legs, she tries to get her back. Of course it's very difficult for a pony to reach her upper back and she ends up resorting to sliding against the wall. It's a bit easier to get her lower back, and then she scrubs her tail which is just as messy as her mane.
Now fully clean though still very scruffy-looking, with her hair sticking out at odd angles, she turns off the water and dries herself off with her new towel. Finally she brushes her teeth and gets out with a nervous smile on her face. She spent at least twenty minutes in there and she hopes he isn't too bored or impatient.
>>154562>The horse is ridden hard abs put away wetI appreciate that saying being used in this context very much
Mustard Trim has been kept alone with no radio, no television, no magazines, and no books for an entire twenty minutes. He’s been left to do whatever colts do in those situations.
When she opens the door, he must have been lying on his back in her bed. He jumps up like he’s startled, and quickly moves onto his side, back facing Amber. With a hoof he stretches his jacket and holds it up. He makes an awkward smile.
“Hi Amber”
>>154563Totally innocuous saying irl, hilarious double entendre hereAlso I got a book called "We Got Everything but Money" which, although nostalgia bait for Silents, offers a pretty good look at everyday life during the Depression and wartorn countries of the time. Would recommend.Even Silver was a better guest. At least he did it in a bathtub.Amber thinks he must be quite tired after that run and "cuddling."
"Sorry fer takin' so long, but, erm, it's a new bed and I'd rather you wash up first. The bathroom is all yours." She doesn't look closely at him, but grabs a brush and sits near the head of the bed, her tail swung out of the way of his head. She starts the tedious and slightly painful process of brushing her disheveled mane, paying attention to that rather than his suspicious behavior.
>>154564Near. Is it in audiobook?Do you just like comparing Mustard Trim unfavorably to Silver? Because the colt is already going to have a complexHe takes his jacket off, places it over his back, stands up after Amber sits down, goes into the bathroom and closes the door.
“How do you get the warm water?” He asks after about a minute and a half
>>154566“Oh. Uh. Okay.” He says.
He comes out a couple minutes later. Judging from the fairly short period of time he spent in the bathroom, it’s pretty clear that he did not go through a full shower or anything like what Amber did. He’s only slightly brushed his mane.
>>154567She looks at him with an annoyed expression.
"Come now, I can still smell you from here," she says while exaggeratedly wafting a hoof in front of her nose.
"I know it's cold water, but it's better for the health anyway, or so I'm told." Wandering eyes may notice that from his perspective she is "sitting careless," but her damp hair prevents any sort of view below her chest.
>>154568He just gives a “what did I do wrong?” expression, standing in front of her. He does at least take a look at her mane and her now-fluffy fur.
>>154570“I was gonna go back home tonight.” He says.
>>154572He backs up. Into the bathroom. And closes the door.
>>154573Amber resumes her simple grooming, humming to herself. But she does listen to hear if he's actually washing.
>>154574No.
He opens the door slightly, and looks through the crack at Amber
>>154575He sees her left mammary, a shallow dome about a hoofspan-and-a-third in diameter, resting just above her stifle with a small, conical nipple of a darker orange protruding from its center. Everything else that's spy-through-door worthy is hidden by her hair. Her ears are facing forward and frowns after a minute, but doesn't notice the door is ajar.
>>154577Well, then she does notice, but can't see him.
She coughs and stares at him, in a "Back already? Get back in there" sort of way.
>>154582She sighs and says plainly,
"I don't want you tracking dirt on my bed. Could you please shower for at least five minutes? Or do you need help washing yourself?"
>>154583He closes the door wordlessly. This time it’s different. He actually does turn on the water, and evidently takes a shower that lasts, well, five minutes.
He opens the door again. If Amber had hoped he’d resemble anything approaching sexy or appealing, she will be very thoroughly disappointed. His mane is wet, and falls down to either side in a straight, dark sheet. His coat is ruffled, evidently by a towel, though it’s short. He shivers a couple times, evidently from the cold. But worst is his wide eyed, frowning expression. It’s a sort of scared and sad expression she’s seen him wear more than once at work, best described as downtrodden, or persecuted.
>>154584Amber has by now just about finished with her mane, which looks much less frazzled though not perfect, and she starts on her tail. Her hoof starts at her dock behind her, and pulls with difficulty down the hair which is placed in her lap. She smiles at him entering, though she feels a tinge of regret forcing the poor citycolt to have a cold shower in winter.
"Now that wasn't too bad, was it?" she asks, though she gets the weird sense she's talking to him like his mother. She pats the bed next to him.
>>154585I’m sorry if this was explained, but what precisely is she doing with her hair?He obeys, and lays down next to her on the bed. He lays his whole body on the bed, on his belly, and he tucks his hooves abs legs underneath himself.