Octavia took a train back to Canterlot and stayed in bed for several days, sobbing into pillows. She didn’t want to be behaving that way, but she couldn’t stop. She didn’t like how she had behaved with Rarity either. Losing her cool, crying, begging. . . but most of all losing her cool, not being in control of herself. And the lies. Octavia was not usually squeamish about employing a few untruths to get what she needed, but some of the lies she told Rarity to get her to stop had hurt to tell. Especially the ones that claimed the prosecutor had been right. She dimly remembered believing those lies as she told them, anything to make the hurting stop.

And what if it was right, if the stallion hadn’t wanted it? It was still his own fault; then he should have complained more. Served him right for not standing his ground. Like you stood your ground with Rarity? asked a small, traitorous voice inside her. But that wasn’t the same. Was not was not was not.

On the third day she managed to convince herself it didn’t matter. It was all in the past; she couldn’t change it anyway. And there were things that needed doing in the now. She stood up, took a bath, and went out in the world to find out whether she still had her position in the Fillyharmonic after her trip to jail and subsequent conviction.

Nopony seemed to be really sure who could even decide that, but at the end she managed to get the issue settled in her favor, by the tried and true device of fucking the concertmaster. The old goat of a unicorn, who had her meet him in a tiny hideaway in Starview so his wife wouldn’t find out, fancied himself a submissive, but had so specific ideas about how he wanted to be topped that he might as well have swung the floggers himself. Diapers and bare-hoof spanking do not belong in the same scene, was Octavia’s firm conviction – or at the very least not in that order – but she was not there to enjoy herself anyway, so she came through for the cause and landed the deal. It was a distraction, at least.

“Name and business, ma’am?” The two guards at the castle entrance crossed spears in front of her.

“Octavia Melody, for a rehearsal with the Fillyharmonic.”

The guards looked at each other. One of them pulled out a list and leafed through it. “Sorry,” he said. “Felons can’t enter the castle, except with an escort for official business.”

Octavia smiled her winsomest smile. “Sorry, I didn’t make it clear. I’m in the orchestra, not just audience.”

The guard shrugged. “Doesn’t change the rules.”

“Look, I work here, okay?” She swallowed several choice words about the guards which wouldn’t have been helpful in the situation. “That means I’m on official business.”

Now the other guard spoke up. “Actually, the Fillyharmonic is an independent charity that borrows the Great Hall for some of its activities.” He nodded smugly. “Not official business.”

Octavia looked from one guard to the other.

“Say, didn’t you use to date Sergeant Trombone?” asked the first one.

“Why, yes!” she replied, eager to get through with these nincompoops. Who’d have thought Rusty could still be useful?

“Old pal of mine right back from basic,” said the guard heavily, looking past Octavia into the distance. “Poor guy was devastated at being dumped. Tried to tell him it was prolly just a misunderstanding, but, y’know . . .”

“Ah, yes,” improvised Octavia. “I probably ought to talk to him, get that cleared up.”

The guard nodded, but didn’t say anything more, just stood there scanning the castle square for approaching enemies.

“So, are you going to let me in or what?”

The other guard sighed. “You heard the corporal, lady. No felons in the castle. Now scram, or you get to add disorderly conduct to your collection.”

It would be easy to throw a fit, make a scene, demand their commanding officer. But Octavia had better self-control than that. She couldn’t imagine it would end well; the guards were stronger than her and could retaliate with impunity if she annoyed them enough. She considered trying to seduce her way in, but that wouldn’t work either. Damn Rusty.

She turned around and left.

When she came home she found an official envelope in the mail. It contained a summons from Princess Luna – no, not a summons: she was ‘cordially invited’ to pay the princess a visit (at the castle she had just been barred from!) to ‘discuss adjustments to your community service’.

She broke down laughing in the kitchen. It wasn’t actually funny, but the surrealism of it all overcame her. After she calmed down, though, she had to admit things looked pretty bleak. Unless she found something to do about the guards, it looked like she didn’t have a job after all. And now the princess wanted to see her again, no doubt to alter the deal into something even worse than Rarity. That was bad, bad news.

How had everything suddenly gone so wrong? She knew it, of course, knew that it was all her own fault. It had began going wrong the moment she started letting other ponies make the decisions for her. That had to stop now. She had to take control of her life back.

It took her most of the afternoon to convince herself she had to do it. It would involve sacrifices and discomfort, yes, but it was the only way to get back in charge. She would not meet the princess to hear her latest humiliation; instead she would take the option none of the fuckers expected her to.

She played a violent, determined rhapsody long into the night, until the pony downstairs had enough and came knocking angrily on her door.

The next morning she went to the provost’s office to demand the one fate that was hers alone to claim.

* * *

Cressie is first out of the train when it halts, jumping up and down excitedly on the platform. Pokey and I follow at a more dignified pace.

As soon as we’re down, the conductor gives a short peep of his whistle and the train starts moving again. The Coltanooga sleeper usually doesn’t stop in Mill’s Crest at all, but Pokey has pulled some strings and made it so we could get off anyway. He doesn’t really have to impress me with how important he is in the railways, but I don’t mind as long as some of the special treatment rubs off on me. Having a hot meal in the dining car was much nicer than rumbling along in the local, eating sandwiches and getting here hours later.

After the train has left, the platform is lit only by a single lantern on the side of the small station building. Pokey stands below it and fetches a long leash out of his bag, which he clips into Cressie’s collar. That calms her down somewhat.

“I thought we couldn’t do that until we were there,” I say to him while we walk up the modest gravel road leading away from the station.

He shrugs. “We have a kind of understanding with the locals. They know what’s going on anyway, and as long as we keep the real naughty business out of sight, they won’t complain about seeing a leash outside the estate now and then.”

There probably aren’t that many locals either – as far as I can make out by the lights, there’s just a few houses huddling around the train station. Back in Canterlot the nightlife has barely begun by now, but here our own hoofsteps and the soft clinking of Cressie’s leash are the only sounds to be heard. There’s a brook babbling somewhere too, I think, and out in the distance our train is passing over a bridge with a series of ka-dunk’s.

After a few minutes’ walk, the station road joins into a larger highway. On its opposite side runs an old stone wall, interrupted by a driveway flanked by wrought-iron gates that look like they haven’t been closed for years. A lit sign besides the gate declares it to be our destination: ‘Club Campanile, resort & playgrounds’, and below that in smaller letters, ‘Sorry, no walk-ups’.

Behind the wall, the cobbled driveway curves gently through the darkness, marked by park lamps that make little islands of light on the ground every dozen paces.

Two ponies come walking towards us up ahead, a couple of youngsters about Cressie’s age. The mare is dragging the stallion by a rope and collar. When Cressie spots them, she trots ahead, as far as her leash will let her, eager to make new friends. I stay close by Pokey, brushing my flank against him for moral support. These will be the first ponies from his ‘community’ I meet without being on the job with a script to follow. I’m sure everything will be all right, but . . . it’s nice to have somepony to stand beside me.

The colt is clearly much less enthusiastic about the meeting than Cressie is. As she comes closer to the couple, his expression gets progressively more panicked, and he seems to try to hide behind his marefriend. “Sweetie,” he pipes up, “do we really –”

With a look of sudden fury she jerks him towards her. “What did I tell you about talking!” she hisses. “Are you trying to embarrass me in front of those ponies?”

She baps him in the face with the free end of her rope, and he winces and tries to shy away from her. “Weep,” he says, blinking.

Apparently ‘weep’ is how he represents the whinge of a distraught puppy. Cressie can do that much more lifelike – I catch myself feeling a bit proud on her behalf.

“Heel!” barks the mare, pulling the rope tight for a second more before releasing it. Her coltfriend slowly turns around and sits down beside her, looking sullen.

Pokey clicks his tongue to call Cressie back to his side, on his other side from me. We walk towards the couple together.

“Evening there,” calls out Pokey. “Here for the obedience training, I take it?”

“Yeah.” The mare sighs and rolls her eyes. “It had better work.”

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” asks Pokey. The scoundrel, he knows I was apprehensive. No, not a scoundrel – I’m just not used to anypony understanding me that well.

“No,” I admit. “But then again you did the talking there.”

He nods. Ahead of us, the lodge comes into view behind a copse of trees. It’s a large old country house, inviting light streaming from many of the windows.

“It’s really not that different from ordinary society,” Pokey says. “Well, one rule. If you see a pony wearing head tack, they’re being in character with their role, and you shouldn’t talk to them unless their master invites you to. Same with a collar if there’s a leash attached to it. But a collar without leash just counts as jewelry, so you can talk to that pony.”

That doesn’t sound too complicated. “I can talk to Cressie, right?”

“Of course.” He chuckles. “You’re in her pack already.”

Cressie has run a bit ahead, but hearing her name she turns back and looks up at me, head cocked. I ruffle her mane with my magic, and she smiles and starts walking again.

The lobby behind the ornate front doors is brighter and more modern than I had expected. Pokey walks us directly to the reception desk, off to the side.

“Checking in, please. Pierce, two nights.”

The receptionist smiles and implies a bow. “Of course, Master Pierce, ma’am. You’ll need a kennel for the pet too, I suppose?”

Cressie, sitting meekly by Pokey’s side, looks up at him uncertainly.

“No, we’ll just take her with us to the room –”

The receptionist holds up a hoof. “Very sorry, sir, but we have a strict policy of no pets in the rooms.”

“Are you sure? She’s very well-behaved,” says Pokey, pulling a coin up from his bag and setting it down softly on the reception desk. It’s a single bit. “I guarantee you won’t get any complaints.”

The receptionist deftly sweeps the bit down on his side of the desk. “I guess we can bend the rules just a bit,” he says, all smile. “Is there anything else?”

“Well, would you happen to have one of the small dungeons available sometime tomorrow?”

“Let’s see . . .” He consults an appointment book below the desk. “I have number three, six to eight p.m.; would that be alright?”

Pokey nods. “I’ll take it. And a kennel for that period, too.”

“Of course, sir. Your room is number eighteen, up the stairs and down the hall. One or two keys?”

“Did you really bribe that pony one bit to let Cressie stay with us?” I half-whisper to Pokey as we’re reaching the top of the stairs. “And he took it?”

He nods and grins, stopping at the top landing. “It’s a code of sorts. Some of the members like to play at being forced to put their pet away by hotel rules. So the convention is that you can bribe as much as you want; as long as it’s an even number of bits they’ll be completely inflexible and you get nowhere. But if you make an odd offer they’ll hem and haw but ultimately take it. So everypony gets to choose for himself how large a bribe their scene calls for.”

That sounds pretty clever. “So a single bit is just a way to say you’re not playing that game at all?”

“Ahem,” says somepony. I swivel around and see an earth mare has come out from the corridor and is waiting to get past us. Wearing a silk jacket and matching earrings, she looks like disdain made flesh.

“Master Pierce, would it be too much of an imposition to ask that you entertain your . . .” – she pauses, looking me up and down – “companions in a place where you don’t block the main stairs?”

Pokey intercepts her, affable as always. “Why, Mistress Harshwhinny! What a pleasant surprise to meet you here.”

She gives an unimpressed grunt. “If you missed me, all you had to do was show up at either of the last three Trustees meetings. Now, though, you will excuse me; I am late for my dungeon slot. Come, bondsmare!”

She pushes past me and Cressie and down the stairs, followed by a white unicorn with a wild electric blue mane, wearing a bright red halter. As she passes by me, eyes downcast, I suddenly recognize her as the defendant Finey introduced me to after his court case. I remember the head-tack rule Pokey told me about, though . . . which is a good thing; I’d have no idea what to say to her if it had been allowed.

Pokey leads the way down the other end of the corridor.

“What was her problem?” I can’t help asking once we seem to be at a safe distance.

“Harshie? Don’t mind her, she’s really sweet once you get to know her, so they say. I think she was trying to impress her new sub. Well, here we are.” He stops at the door marked 18 and opens it. “Ladies first.”

It’s a very nice room, bright and spacious with a dark hardwood floor. Pokey hangs up Cressie’s leash by the door and goes to one of the built-in cupboards to get out a large pet basket which he places on the floor next to the armchair set.

I sprawl out on the bed. “So what’s with all the talk of dungeons?”

“They have dungeons in the basement you can hire, if you’re lucky and they aren’t booked already.” He turns from Cressie to me. “I could give you a real trip down there, with proper equipment. If you want, that is,” he adds with an apologetic smile.

I can see he doesn’t expect me to say no, but I like that he’s giving me the opportunity anyway. If I nix it, he won’t even complain, but be a complete gentlecolt, and we can spend the entire weekend playing the vanilla couple on a romantic getaway. It could be nice enough . . .

Still, a dungeon! I have rescued ponies from dungeons, generally shoddy affairs thrown together from crude wooden boarding with no attempt at finishing. But I can’t imagine anything in this place being shoddy. Picture myself strapped tightly to a solid, well-made rack, helpless before Pokey as he turns to me, brandishing a – Oh, yes!

“That would be . . .” Nice? Lovely? Hot? I haven’t yet figured out a dignified way to ask him to tie me up and spank me. Good thing he keeps taking that initiative himself. “Belch wants!” I growl, cavehorse-style.

“How can I say no to that?” He sits down on the bed and begins massaging one of my hind legs. There’s a tenderness in the way he looks at me, something that goes beyond the smooth charmer he was at first. I think. “We can do whatever you want, you know. It’s your monthiversary”.

“Yours too,” I protest. “And Cressie’s.”

He nods. “But yours twice over. No, not in the bed. Down!” The last is to Cressie, who was about to climb into the bed with us. She folds her ears back, looking crushed.

“Aw, do you have to?” I plead on her behalf. “It’s a new place; it’s not as if she’d learn the bed back home is for her. And it is her monthiversary too.”

Pokey sighs. “Okay, just this once, then. Come, girl.”

She jumps onto the bed and burrows in between the two of us, burying her face in my side. I reach a hoof over to scratch her ear.

Pokey shakes his head with a resigned little smile and takes to petting her neck. “Perhaps what we ought to do,” he says thoughtfully, “is see if there’s a space for you at that pet obedience course that starts tomorrow.”

At first I think he’s talking to Cressie, but he’s looking straight at me. I stare back. Pet obedience? That’s not what I expected at all – is it really something I want? Me in Cressie’s place, not speaking, sleeping in a basket? I have a sinking feeling that I should have expected it – and I already feel bad about that feeling, because she likes all that perfectly well. Who am I to put myself above her?

“Do you think it’s time now?” I ask, stalling for time while I try to sort out my feelings. It would be kind of a privilege too, isn’t it?

Pokey looks confused. “Time for what?”

“Long ago you said I was not ready to call you master yet. Is now it?”

He stops stroking Cressie and looks at me intently for several seconds. “Bellchaser,” he says carefully. “I don’t think you can ever do that.”

I’m too confused to respond.

“You like being dominated in bed, and you’re wonderful at that. But calling me master, that would mean you let me run all the rest of you life too. I’d tell you where to go, what to eat, when to sleep, where to sit. You couldn’t do that for very long.”

“I can try harder,” I hear myself say, surprising myself with how determined to prove myself worthy I feel.

“It’s not a matter of trying,” he says with a smile. “Do you think Cressie needs to try to be mine? She just is.” He ruffles her mane lovingly. “And you’re you, the strong determined mare I also want to be with. Don’t you ever think you need to be something different from that.”

He’s right, it is a relief not to have to do all that. “But – that pet training . . .”

“Oh, that!” Suddenly he laughs. “No, sorry, what I meant was you could go with Cressie and learn to handle her right. You’re doing pretty well by yourself, but it would help you to be more sure of what you’re doing.”

That makes a lot more sense. “Would you like that?” I ask her, and she raises up her head and licks my face in assent.

“You go and show all those other pets how it’s really done,” says Pokey. “But it’s often the owners who have the most to learn. Remember that mare we met on the way from the station? She’s the one who really needs the course.”

“Mmmm.” I relax back on the bed, still cuddling Cressie with one forehoof. I do like the idea, though it will cut into the time all three of us have together.

“Pity we only have two days here,” I say.

“We could just stay on. I’ll call in sick.”

“Nah. I have to be at the office Monday morning anyway.”

‘The office’ is what we call my old apartment. I haven’t yet dared to tell Hissy Fit I’ve hooked up with a client, so I need to be there whenever I’m on call for the Service. I get some writing done too, but sooner or later it’ll have to stop. It costs almost as much to keep the place as Fizzy pays me – and she might not even fire me when she finds out. Other than her, I’ve long since stopped even pretending I haven’t moved in with Pokey. Which reminds me –

“I love you,” I say. “Both of you.” It’s not the perfect moment, but I could wait forever for that. And I’ve known for weeks I’d have to spit it out at some point on this trip.

He pulls me closer with his magic, reaching out a leg across Cressie in an attempt to hug us both. “I love both of you too,” he says. “I never thought that could make sense, but it does. Thanks for setting me right.”

“It’s Cressie who did that.” I give her a squeeze, and she turns around to lick Pokey.

I never thought I would be using the L-word on anyone, either. It doesn’t mix well with fuckbuddying. But here we are, me and my big, firm, thoughtful, perfect stallion, and my – whatever it is Cressie is to me. Marefriend? Herd sister? Adoptive daughter? Pet? Never mind what exactly; she’s mine. And I am hers. And his.

I am so lucky.

* * *

One day, a few weeks after Vinyl and I called it quits, I ran into Cinna at a Marebucks I had ducked into for breakfast on the way home from a morning rescue. The place was almost empty except for her, sitting at a corner table with a cup of something foamy and a magazine. I just had time to regret that I couldn’t go over and talk to her, before she noticed me and waved me over with a bright smile. Perhaps she doesn’t have the same kind of rules against talking to clients outside work that we have in the Service.

She was wearing a fancy hat and earrings with reddish gemstones in them that made her look a million bits. I didn’t wait to be asked twice when she invited me to sit down.

“How are you doing?” she asked. “I never got to hear how it all ended – did you meet up with that pony, what’s her name?”

So I told her all of it, from how I met with Vinyl at Rosemore Point, to getting the princess involved, to the trial and its outcome, and how Vinyl ending up doing community service. I felt happy to be telling Cinna things again; good memories, I suppose.

“Okay, back up a moment,” she said eventually. “This letter you had from the princess, was that a fancy diploma on yellow paper with an embossed seal and signed by the Chancellor of the Household?”

I tried to remember how it looked. “Sounds about it. It was yellow all right.”

She nodded. “Affine, do you have any idea how big a deal those royal favor certificates are? One of my clients has one – framed on his wall, and he makes sure to show it off to every visitor he gets. And there’s another who has kept his in a safe deposit box for twenty-five years because nothing is ever important enough to use it on.

“But you, you had one, and you went and spent it just so the pony who assaulted you could get to feel better?”

Did I screw up again? “Sorry. But I – she needed it so much, you know? What good would it do me to sit on it forever?”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “I’m only . . . very impressed you would do that. So, um, are you happy together now?”

“Not really, not in that way.” I shrugged. “She likes mares.”

“I see.” She took a long thoughtful sip of her coffee. “Say, how would you feel about meeting up again sometime?”

Oh, I’d love to. But, alas – “You know I can’t afford that.”

She shrank back into her chair, looking small and defeated. “I wasn’t thinking of charging,” she said quietly.

“What – you’re asking me out?”

She nodded. “But, well, you know what I do for a living, so I understand . . .”

“You do a fine thing for a living,” I said, almost automatically.

She didn’t look convinced. “It’s not always workplace emergencies, you know.”

“No, but – I mean, the things you do for yourself, even if they’re the same kind of things, they mean something different when they’re not a job, don’t they? Something more?” I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to cheer her up or trying to convince myself that it would be okay to date someone of her profession. Probably the former – the idea of having Cinna for an actual marefriend was too large to contain right now.

“That’s a noble way to think.” She sighed, letting a hoof fall down to the table. “Not many ponies can keep thinking it, though.”

I put my hoof on hers. “I can try.”

* * *

They let Octavia out of the brig when they were two days out of Manehattan. She had tried to tell them that it was not necessary, she was coming willingly after all, but the captain had his instructions for the handling of transportees and wouldn’t budge.

Once she could go abovedeck, she spent much of the passage leaning on the gunwale, staring out to port at the Equestrian mainland crawling past in the distance, an endless parade of headlands and bays.

Eight years. Eight fucking years.

It wasn’t a life sentence, of course. Why, she would barely be forty by the time she could return. Plenty of time to start living again. But until then . . . well, she’d just have to make the best of it.

Curat de Minimis had tried telling her that the two-year prison term the princess had tacked onto her sentence, like a cherry on top, effectively did make it a life sentence. There wouldn’t be anypony forcing her into prison, he said; she would be free to choose when or if she’d go. She just wouldn’t be allowed off the island until she’d chosen to stay in a cell for two years. Many exiles never quite got around to that, he said.

Curat was a fool. He didn’t know what a pony can do when she puts her mind to it.

After three weeks at sea they reached Windhowl Key, an irregular grey-green knoll that rose out of the water, growing larger and larger for most of an afternoon and evening. Then the sun set, and the captain ordered the anchor dropped so they could approach the island in daylight. The approach was treacherous, he explained to Octavia over dinner. He appreciated having cultured company on the ship; she didn’t even have to sleep with him.

The garrison commander himself came down to the pier to welcome her to the island. “You can call me Skipper,” he said. “Everypony does.”

She shook his hoof and managed a smile.

“It says in your file you’re a sex offender,” he continued. “We won’t have to make you wear a bell, will we?”

“I hope not, sir.”

“So do I. Just see to it that I won’t hear any complaints, alright?”

“I will,” she assured him. “Where do I go now?”

“Hmmm. To begin with you can stay in ‘Codstring’ Trotter’s old hut down in the village. Been empty for the last few years; just ask anypony for the Mansion. But you’ll have to keep yourself fed, no room for loafers here. Got any skills you can make yourself useful with?”

“I play the cello.” She gestured towards the instrument case she had just carried down the gangway.

He shrugged. “Not a whole lotta demand for that, up here. Tell you what, go see the gang boss over there, with the red mane; you can earn some bits helping unload supplies from the ship.”

“I have money,” she said, perhaps a bit too testily.

The commander cocked an eye at her. “To last you eight years? Up to you, though – you can always check into Pension Steel Bars up at the fort when you run dry.”

She would have to do that sooner or later, of course – she didn’t intend to stay here ever after. But not right away; she needed to discover who was who in the island community first, perhaps make some connections in the garrison. Give it a few months, half a year perhaps. Then she’d be better able to control the circumstances she’d serve her time under.

There was also the possibility that the real princess, Celestia, would rein in her out-of-control sister and issue a pardon. She couldn’t afford to rely on when that would happen, of course, but it would be foolish not to give it some time to play out before she went to extremes.

“Thanks for your advice,” she told the commander, leaving it carefully ambiguous whether she was being sarcastic. She turned from him and walked towards the pony he’d pointed out. Even if she didn’t need money right away, it would probably be best not to begin acting the wealthy émigrée just yet. And she might as well start getting acquainted with the locals.

There were perhaps a dozen ponies busily unloading sacks from the ship. She looked them over while she went nearer, trying to gauge which of them commanded the most respect from the others.

Hmmm, one of them reminded her a bit of Rusty . . .

Author's Note

Edited by Taialin and an anonymous volunteer; proofread by Fuzzy Fabricator.