They're... ON HOLIDAY?

Day 3 - Storm: 8/11

The casino is filled with creatures busy trying to fill the rainy afternoon. Among those are two muscular zebras wearing two-piece swimsuits each, presumably in hopes of later going swimming into the indoor pool two floors down, but in reality to draw the attention of the gaming patrons, and it certainly is working.

Zemi rubs against a griffon who just rolled a lucky pair of dice with a seductive, red lipstick-laced smile.

"You're on a roll, lion," she whispers into his ear, "Care to buy a thirsty desert mare a drink."

The griffon's eyes widen as he takes in the spectacle that is the zebra bodyguard, but he controls himself and slides several chips towards her.

"It's all skill, babe," he replies, "But even the best could use something to rub for good luck," he presents his talons holding a pair of dice, "Or maybe a kiss."

With a seductive smile, Zemi puts her mouth to his fist and blows on it.

"I prefer taking it slow," she says in a deep voice, but freezes as she catches something from the corner of her eye. Straightening up, she turns towards her zebra companion and whispers into her ear, "Zara, this guy's an easy mark. Take it for me for a minute and get us something to drink, will you?"

The second zebra nods and takes Zemi's place as the griffon watches Zemi head off in the direction of the bathrooms.

"Where is she-?"

"My friend just went to freshen up for you," says his new zebra 'trophy', "I'll be more than happy to keep you company in the meantime," she leans towards his ear, "And if you're lucky enough today, your luck might just continue even tonight..."

***

Having left smaller Zara to entertain the griffon, Zemi enters the short hallway leading towards the bathrooms. She's not worried about her bodyguard companion. In her experience, griffons love someone smaller to feel dominant over and, despite her size, Zara can easily bend the griffon's spine into a pretzel if he tries anything. In Zemi's mind, posing as a casino trophy is an innocent activity, mostly. In general, stallions don't get to be close to mares as physically fit as the bodyguards, so they let their guard down when met with some compliments. It nets the mares free drinks, company they can leave whenever it grows stale, and the girls know not to take things too far and lead their marks on. Despite Baron 1313's and Zamira's lack of etiquette requirements, no member of Zamira's unit wants to shed bad light on the Northern San Palomino delegation because, no matter what, it sure beats working for that sleazebag Blueblood.

The strangeness that caught her attention is difficult to explain, being more a sense of several small things not fitting together rather than one big problem. She, herself, isn't sure what caused her to leave, and goes through a mental checklist of her own. One - a changeling went to the bathroom. No reason to do that, but nothing wrong with that, per se. Two - the changeling was the slightly bigger but dumber one. Three - the changeling was carrying a small pile of chips on its back for some reason. Four - shortly before that, she saw other changelings win big at something. Five...

Five - a stereotypical coke fiend went in there shortly before the changeling.

*Click!* *Whirr!* *Clap clap clap!*

*Click!* *Whirr!* *Clap clap clap!*

*Click!* *Whirr!* *Clap clap clap!*

Zemi stops in front of the stallions' bathroom, listening to the repeating sequence of noises for a while before entering and getting assaulted by even more nonsense.

The changeling is sitting in the corner of the room under the condom dispenser, surrounded by colorful wrappers strewn around it. It briefly looks at her, then puts a chip from a now much smaller pile into the machine's slot, pokes a button seemingly at random, the machine whirrs, a wrapped condom drops out, and the changeling claps its hooves together with a happy smile.