Of Maids and Mistresses

They eventually managed to pull themselves together, yet their unsteady paces made their trip home resemble more a drunkard’s gait than the elegant stride for which unicorns were known, and there were no doubt those amongst the ponies they encountered who truly believed them to be inebriated at so early an hour, rather than just under the sway of a cake overdose. In light of what she believed to be her imminent victory, Twilight didn’t really care. She was far more concerned about the turning and churning of her stomach than about any unpleasant looks thrown in their general direction.

Trixie--whose ‘not throwing up’ strategy seemed to have backfired somewhat--followed behind her mistress miserably, hanging her head slightly. She hadn’t requested a merciful death a second time, but the idea continued to seem at least slightly tempting, even as her body slowly overcame its food-related ordeal.

At long last they arrived in the library’s relative peace and quiet, and the both of them wordlessly threw themselves down onto the sofa. They remained there for the next hour--gradually recovering--until somepony stepped in through the front door. Trixie immediately jumped to her hooves, and Twilight was but all too happy to let her deal with it.

“I say,” Rarity’s voice came floating through the air, “I do believe Pinkie Pie said there’d be some manner of tent construction going on here by the time I arrived, yet you appear to be lying around, dear. We all have our flaws, but I hadn’t thought laziness to be one of yours. Oh, and by the way, darling,” she said as she walked up to Trixie, “you look absolutely amazing in this... I outdid myself, if I may be so impolite as to make that claim.”

Twilight got up with a frown. She glanced over to Trixie, but the mare’s nervous fidgeting made it obvious that Twilight didn’t have to expect any help coming from that direction. A little voice in the back of her head said that that was her own fault for never encouraging her to speak, but she pushed that voice away with an annoyed grunt.

“She obviously didn’t tell you she nearly poisoned us with her latest cake recipe,” the purple unicorn said defensively.

“Oh dear, baked bads?” Rarity ventured a guess, but Twilight shook her head.

“Baked goods... too good.” She shuddered at the thought once more, and Trixie looked at her pleadingly, not wanting to be reminded of it for fear that she’d go straight back to Pinkie’s to request the making of a new Pinkie Pie Cake. The results would no doubt be catastrophic, or at the very least highly unpleasant. Twilight caught her maid looking at her, and she nodded. “Let us never speak of this again,” she said.

Rarity shrugged; she wanted to ask for more details, but since she had made a similar request concerning “Tom” in the past, she felt obliged to honour Twilight’s wish. “Very well, dear. But if you want that tent up by this evening, we really must get started.”

“Well, we’ll need canvas-”

“I brought a cartload.”

“Ah.”

And with that they started working on the tent under the curious eyes of the ponies passing by, several of which stopped to look at the strange construction.

Twilight had no idea where Rarity had gotten it all, but the amount of canvas she had brought along proved to be more than sufficient. The real problem, they had thought at first, would be figuring out some way to support the canvas and keep it up, but Trixie soon came up with a solution. In all her years of showmareship, she had learned quite a few spells which made setting up a stage on your own a breeze, and she magicked up supporting structures almost out of thin air. When questioned about it, though, she claimed not to remember where she had learned the spells, or (even stranger) why she had done so.

By lunchtime they were already mostly finished, and Rarity went home briefly to grab a bite to eat. Trixie and Twilight stayed behind and continued working, as neither one had built up any considerable appetite.

When Rarity got back, all that was left to do was pretty up the place with some decorations, and Twilight wisely followed her lead in this. Where Twilight went, Trixie followed. They finished up by placing several tables (from Twilight’s special storage) at certain intervals inside of the tent, and then admired the fruits of their labour.

Just when they thought they were cleared to enjoy some well-deserved rest, Pinkie Pie bounced in.

“Wowie zowie, looking good girls!” the pink pony said as she admired the tent from the inside. “I’ve made sure that everypony in Ponyville knows there’s gonna be an amazing, funlicious party here tonight, but we’re not done yet!”

“What, there’s more?” Twilight said. “What more could we possibly-”

“Well, we don’t have snacks or drinks yet, duh!”

The unicorns let out a little moan, but they went to work nonetheless. Pinkie went to fetch some supplies at Sugarcube Corner from time to time, and the rest of them took up positions in the kitchen, which quickly turned into a battlefield of spills and left-over ingredients. It didn’t take Rarity long to forget all about actually preparing anything, as she spent all of her time cleaning the kitchen and making sure everything continued to sparkle. Twilight tried to convince her of the futility of such a course of action as long as the kitchen was still in active use, but the fashionista simply would not heed her arguments.

In the end she gave up, and focused on helping out Trixie with the food preparations. The maid was so much better at that kind of stuff than she was, so she quickly decided to leave much of the actual preparing of the food up to her, choosing instead to busy herself with the logistical sides of things. Her organised mind could very easily plan out the most efficient order of doing things, and so she was rather well-suited to that task. The only “problem” was that, within the kitchen, the role she was playing was obviously inferior to that of the one actually doing the cooking, a fact which she quietly resented. At the same time, that resentment surprised her; surely it was alright not to stress the mistress-maid thing for a few hours, or was it?

Then, at long last, even the seemingly inexhaustible Pinkie Pie could no longer think of any additional preparations that could be made, and the three unicorns settled down with relief, wiping the sweat off their brows.

“Good work girls,” Pinkie Pie said with enthusiasm. “This will be a party Ponyville will long remember! By the end of this night, you will have soooooooooooooooo many friends, Trixie! Everypony will come greet you, and then we’ll be friends forever and ever and-”

Twilight tuned out at that point, instead focusing on her own thoughts. She really hoped Pinkie was right, for she was rapidly running out of ideas, and if the evening ended in a disaster it’d be harder than ever to get Trixie fully integrated.

Trixie herself was being uncharacteristically silent, even by the most recent standards she had set for herself, and Twilight caught her shivering slightly from time to time; she was obviously nervous, and perhaps even a little scared.

The purple unicorn cuddled up to her. “Hey, relax. It’ll be fine. I’m here, after all, right? I’m not going anywhere.”

The maid smiled uncertainly, but she seemed to calm down at least a little bit. “Thank you, mistress...” she whispered.

Twilight pulled her in closer, and Trixie did not resist as she submitted to the kiss. Pinkie continued talking on and on, apparently completely unaware of what her friends were doing, but Rarity tuned her chatter out as well, choosing instead to concentrate on the much more interesting scene in front of her. Eventually the two of them noticed they were being watched, and they had the decency to stop what they were doing, looking slightly embarrassed.

“You two do look cute together,” Rarity mused, “although you do need to be a little more careful with her, my dear Twilight.” She pointed at her neck, roughly in the same location where Trixie still had trace amounts of love bite on display.

Trixie now blushed profusely, but Twilight grinned.

“Maybe I prefer it that way?”

“If you say so, dear.” Rarity shook her head, and Twilight thought she could just barely make out something about “nerdy ones” as the fashionista mumbled to herself.

The sun started its slow descent behind the horizon, and the first guests started to arrive. Pinkie Pie greeted everypony personally and enthusiastically, to Rarity, Twilight and Trixie’s great relief; another hour of Pinkie Pie’s ramblings, and the guests would have probably found the three of them just about ready for the inner wards of a psychiatric hospital.

At first, Twilight tried to strike up a conversation with everypony who passed by, using the occasion to introduce them to Trixie, whose shyness had almost (but not quite) reached Fluttershy-like levels because of the steadily growing crowd. The initial results were rather mixed, with some ponies offering friendly smiles right away, while some others remained more skeptical. At the very least, Trixie’s outfit had become so common a sight within the village that almost nopony seemed to pay attention to it anymore, and those who still did seemed to be very appreciative of it. One couple even approached them to ask exactly where they had bought it, whereupon Twilight promptly pointed them towards Rarity.

As more and more guests started to arrive, though, Twilight could no longer keep up with them, and their position close to the entrance of the tent became increasingly untenable, as there were simply too many ponies passing by.

“Come,” Twilight commanded Trixie, “let’s slip inside until everypony’s settled in.”

Trixie nodded, and together they entered the library which stood in the middle of the tent; however, it became rapidly apparent that it wasn’t the sanctuary Twilight had thought it to be, as there were just as many ponies standing around inside as there had been outside. Various tables had been spread out around the room, and ponies continuously walked in and out to grab food or drink from them. Twilight even spotted a few ponies restacking partially depleted tables by getting new portions from the kitchen, yet she recognised none of them.

“Oh hey Twilight!” Pinkie said, suddenly appearing next to her. “Isn’t this party great?”

“Pinkie, who are those ponies and why are they in my kitchen?”

Pinkie frowned. “Silly filly, somepony has to refresh the snacks, right? So I just asked a few ponies to help out for half an hour, and in half an hour I’ll ask new ponies, and so on! I told you about this earlier, or how did you think we were going to do it?”

Twilight opened her mouth as if to respond, but she closed it again right away. Truth be told, she hadn’t even realised such arrangements were necessary, and tuning Pinkie’s chattering out had obviously been a bad idea, as some of the things she’d said apparently had carried some importance.

“Err, right,” she finally managed, “good... good job, Pinkie. Very good. Outstanding.”

She smiled sheepishly, and Pinkie Pie threw her a scrutinizing glance. Before she could see through the ruse, however, somepony behind Twilight caught the earth pony’s attention, and she rushed off with an excited “Oooo!”. The purple unicorn let out a breath of relief, only to jump up with a scare as somepony appeared next to her once again.

“Ah, Trixie!” Verdant Green shouted in greeting. “Good to see the party girl herself, how’s it going?”

Trixie hid herself behind her still-startled mistress a little bit, as she smiled at Verdant nervously. “Ah, T-Trixie is... alright... t-thank you...”

“You two know each other?” Twilight asked when she finally recovered.

“Of course! I met this charming lady when she came to buy some greens from my stall. Had a little... misunderstanding at first, you see, but she ended up saving my stall from green rot, and all’s well that ends well, ain’t that so?”

Twilight nodded, before turning towards Trixie. “Green rot?”

“Ah, i-it was n-nothing, really...” Trixie blushed furiously, feeling slightly guilty; she had, after all, caused the green rot herself. “I... I just... pointed it out... that’s all...”

“Hey, are you feeling ok?” Verdant asked Trixie with a worried look on his face. “You seem to be shivering slightly.”

“Oh, she’s just a bit shy, that’s all,” Twilight said quickly, with an affectionate glance towards the other mare.

“Shy? But... last time she was quite-”

“It’s the crowds, you see,” Twilight interrupted, “my love is rather bad around them.”

“I... see,” Verdant said without much conviction, which was unsurprising; the lie had been incredibly bad, especially if you considered the fact that Verdant had seen Trixie’s performance last time she was in town. Who would ever believe that showmare shied away from crowds? “Well, I’ve got some friends to meet up with, but nice talking to you. You take good care of her, Twilight Sparkle, she’s a keeper.”

She nodded at him as he walked off. “Green rot. I’ve never read about that in any botanical book...”

Trixie blushed again but remained silent, and Twilight did not ask.

They went outside again, where the guests were now mostly either gathered around the various tables, or standing in little groups with their circles of friends. Everypony was talking in a very animated fashion, and one side of the tent had even been reserved for a few ponies playing instruments and those who wished to dance to the music--no doubt yet another thing Pinkie had taken care of. Twilight’s respect for the earth pony continued to grow, and she almost felt ready to completely forgive her for the cake earlier that day. Almost.

Once again, Twilight and Trixie started greeting ponies left and right, stopping to strike up a little conversation with everypony, and excusing themselves as fast as the rules of decency would allow in order to continue on to the next group as swiftly as possible; there were a lot of ponies present, and they’d be hard-pressed to introduce Trixie to all of them no matter how hard they tried.

At one point, she even spotted Granny Smith talking to the Mayor, and she frowned. Pinkie chose exactly that moment to appear again.

“Hey Twi, you two want punch?”

“Eh, no thank you,” Twilight said, and Trixie shook her head as well. “Pinkie, you invited Granny Smith?”

“Well, duh, you said everypony everypony! I didn’t invite the children, of course, it’s past their bedtime.”

“Wait... does that mean you also invited... Dash, AJ and Fluttershy?”

The pink pony shrugged. “I did want to invite AJ, but according to Granny Smith, she went camping. Apparently that’s what she always does when she needs some time to think, although what she’d have to think about, I have no clue! She’ll probably be back by tomorrow, though.”

Twilight had a few theories as to what AJ may and may not be thinking about. “And the others?”

“Well, Fluttershy is too scared of big parties like this--remember the one I held for you? She didn’t come then either--and Dash’s cloudhouse was shut tight! Perhaps she was out?”

Twilight had a few theories about that, too, and none of them involved Dash not being inside of that house.

Pinkie Pie left them again, and several hours passed. Twilight became increasingly optimistic with every smiling face they left behind. Even Trixie gradually overcame her shyness a bit as the party went on, but she never got rid of it completely, and her default reaction during moments of uncertainty remained hiding behind Twilight.

Eventually they went to talk with the Mayor and Granny Smith as well: the Mayor tried to see if she could get Trixie to perform again in order to create more publicity for Ponyville--which was of course impossible in her current state--while Granny Smith mostly complained that somepony of her age shouldn’t be standing as long as she had been.

“Trixie,” Twilight said, “please go inside and fetch a pillow for our guest.”

“But-” the maid began after one look at the crowd around her, but she was quickly stopped by Twilight’s stern look. “A-alright...”

“Oh, and Trixie,” Twilight added, leading her a little bit away from the guests for a moment, “if anypony asks anything of you, or needs your help with anything, oblige them, alright? It’s not unfeasible that some ponies will want to strike up a conversation with you on the way there, and you need to continue to appear nice to them, even without me there, alright? Can you do that?”

“Y-yes mistress, Trixie can do that for mistress.”

Twilight smiled, and pressed a soft kiss upon Trixie’s cheek. “Good, I’ll be waiting here.”

And with that the maid set off to complete her task, nervous though she was. She slowly made her way through the crowd, mumbling “excuse me” and “sorry” whenever she had to squeeze past a few ponies, trying to make herself as small as possible in the process. Her heart started thumping faster and faster the longer she was stuck alone in the crowd, but she pushed on, knowing her mistress’ gratitude awaited her in the end.

Finally she stepped into the library--which was still very busy--and grabbed a pillow from one of the sofas, breathing in deeply a couple of times before she dared go back outside. Relief washed over her when she approached the end of her journey at long last, which quickly turned to horror as she realised her mistress was no longer amongst the group of ponies she had returned to.

Granny Smith accepted the pillow gratefully, as Trixie directed a question towards both her and the Mayor. “W-where’s m-mistress?”

“Who?” the Mayor asked as she raised an eyebrow, and Trixie could tell she was slightly inebriated.

Granny, meanwhile, had fallen asleep.

“Mistress Twilight,” Trixie said with a hint of panic in her voice, “w-where is she? I need to... I must...”

“Ah, Twilight... Rarity came looking for her a moment ago, something about... something about some drunks causing trouble on the other side of the tent, I don’t even know... If you wait here, I’m sure she will...”

But Trixie had already stopped listening, as she turned tail and made her way over to the other side of the tent as fast as she could. She felt panic rising in her throat like bile, and had to struggle to keep her breathing under control more and more with each passing minute. She finally thought she’d arrived at the “other side of the tent”, but Twilight was nowhere to be seen amongst the many, many ponies.

Trixie’s legs started shaking, and the world began spinning before her eyes. The crowd around her felt suffocating, as if they would be coming ever closer and closer until they eventually crushed her, or trampled her to death... That wasn’t true, of course; it was merely a trick played by her mind, like how the walls of a tiny room can appear to be trying to crush you as well, but Trixie wasn’t able to convince herself of that fact. She felt trapped, until she suddenly realised there was one place of relative calm left in the area: the second floor of the library. Surely her mistress would come to look for her there eventually. Maybe she’d be a little bit angry with her, but she just couldn’t... she simply couldn’t stay in the crowd alone, there was no way...

She retreated back into the library, and made her way up the stairs at once, relatively unhindered. As she passed through, an earth pony colt standing in one of the corners of the room punched his friend in the shoulder to grab his attention.

“Hey Berret,” the colt--who had a green pea and a question mark for a cutie mark--said to his friend, “she came in again.”

Berret, also an earth pony, turned around, rubbing his painful shoulder. “Where? I don’t see her, you goof.”

“She went upstairs.”

Berret blinked. “What, alone?”

Pea smiled a slightly creepy smile, which bared all of his teeth. “Alone.”

They exchanged a nod of understanding, and without saying a word they quietly followed the mare. Once upstairs, they spotted Trixie frantically running from window to window, as if she could somehow find Twilight from up there; that was, of course, impossible, as the roof of the tent didn’t reach up above the windows.

“Evening lass, lovely night for a party, isn’t it?” Berret said out loud, as they walked towards the maid.

Trixie turned around with a scare, and backed off towards one of the walls, her eyes big with fear and uncertainty. “Who-who a-are-”

The two of them came closer and closer, and Trixie backed off all the way until she bumped into the wall, and could back off no more.

“Oh, that’s an easy one. I’m Berret Red, and he’s Mystery Pea.”

“We’re not from around here, you see-”

“-but we know a party when we see it!”

“Quite right,” Pea admitted. “And while we’ve been all over Equestria, one thing is always the same-”

“-mares,” Berret filled in for him. “We speak your language quite well, and right now that outfit of yours is telling us that you need a, shall we say, little something something.”

“I don’t know about you, but there’s no little about it on my end.”

“Do you mind? I was trying to be modest.”

They were so close now that they could've touched Trixie had they extended a hoof, and the maid made herself as small as she could manage. “Trixie... Trixie doesn’t u-understand...”

“Oh, come on,” Pea said as he stepped forward and pressed his body up against Trixie, forcing her to her hind legs and up against the wall, “anypony who dresses as provocatively as this knows what it’s all about.”

“It’s a party, after all,” Berret said as he came to stand next to her, whispering in her ear. “Surely parties are meant to be fun? Won’t you have a little fun with us? We can’t make this night a success without you.”

Trixie shivered in fear, but as she opened her mouth to speak, no words came. She wanted to push the colts away, to run downstairs as quick as she could, but she constantly heard her mistress droning one sentence inside of her mind: “If anypony asks anything of you, or needs your help with anything, oblige them.” Trixie didn’t want to say yes, but she was completely unable to say no, so all she could manage was a little sound that could be interpreted in any number of ways.

“She’s speechless with anticipation,” Berret said as he started to slowly push her skirt up. “Don’t worry lass, that happens all the time.”

“All the time,” Pea confirmed with a nod.

Trixie closed her eyes as her heart pounded in her throat, blind obedience and uncontrolled fear battling it out for control of her body, with fear slowly losing out and being replaced with submission. Her heart screamed out for her mistress to come to her side, but it was a plea that she could not get her lips to repeat for her.

It turned out she didn’t have to.

“What in the blazes is going on here?” Twilight yelled in anger as she arrived upstairs, having followed the trail of ponies who’d spotted Trixie all the way there.

The two colts turned around straight away, letting go of Trixie in the process. The mare’s knees buckled beneath her, and she collapsed in a heap on the floor, the stress and fear temporarily getting the better of her.

“Lady, haven’t you heard of knocking?” Pea asked.

“Well, there’s no door leading up here.” Berret shrugged.

“Still, she could’ve-”

“What were you trying to do to my marefriend?” Twilight said with a hiss as she stepped closer to them, a glint of murderous rage shining in her eyes. She glanced at Trixie’s shivering shape once, and the rage intensified even further.

It was the colts’ time to back off in a hurry. “H-hold on lady,” Pea said as he lifted a hoof in a defensive gesture, “w-we didn’t know she was taken. Tell ‘er, Berret.”

“Yeah!” the other colt said enthusiastically. “And besides, with those clothes, she was clearly the one seducing us, and-”

“ENOUGH!” Twilight yelled as powerful magic surged through her body, wrapping the two colts in her aura of magic as she lifted them off of the ground, struggle feebly though they did. “How dare you... how dare you... in my own house...” She seethed with barely contained fury.

“Well, she never said no!”

For Twilight, that was the last straw. With a terrible display of magic, all the windows in the room slammed open and, with one mighty, magical swing, she threw the both of them straight out of the window. She had enough sense to make sure they landed in the river behind the library, screaming after them: “And don’t you dare come back!”

As soon as she turned away from the window, Trixie threw her front hooves around her neck and started crying against her chest, now that her inner feelings seemed to be in line with her mistress’s wishes.

“Oh, thank you... t-thank... you...” Trixie sobbed. “They... they were gonna... t-they wanted... t... to...”

“Shhh... it’s ok... it’s ok...” Twilight whispered as she stroked Trixie’s mane with one hoof, and held her close against her body with the other, letting her cry out for a while. “They’re gone, they can’t hurt you... mistress is here... I’ll protect you, always...”

Slowly but surely, Trixie calmed down, reassured by her mistress’s presence and words.

“But, Trixie,” Twilight suddenly said with a frown, “you’re powerful enough to take on two colts, even if they’d been unicorns... so why didn’t you even ask them to stop?”

It was Trixie’s turn to frown, as she looked up at her mistress with her still tear-stained eyes. “B-but mistress... you told Trixie to oblige the guests when they asked, and they are guests who asked, s-so...”

That one simple sentence, seemingly the epitome of logic, was like a dagger through Twilight’s heart. She felt herself choke up, as she whispered hoarsely: “T-that’s why? Just because I... said...”

The world shattered and crashed down all around Twilight, and her head started spinning out of control. She wrestled free of Trixie’s grasp weakly, and stumbled over to a table, which she used to support herself as she was on the very verge of collapse. For days she had been absolutely convinced of her cause and methods, certain that the course she had set was straight, true and pure, but all of a sudden she wasn’t so sure anymore. She had not managed to make Trixie more altruistic or humble, no... she had done something entirely different: she had completely destroyed the mare’s sense of self-interest, her will slaved to Twilight’s every command.

“This... this isn’t how it was supposed to go...” Twilight uttered in a sense of shocked horror as she tangled her forehooves in her mane, sinking down to the floor. “This isn’t what I had in mind... All I wanted was to help, but I... but I...”

“M-mistress?” Trixie asked worriedly as she approached with caution. She had already repressed her own emotional shock, as the worry she felt for her mistress superseded all other concerns.

Twilight glanced at Trixie, tears in her eyes, when suddenly Applejack’s voice came floating towards her.

But you, Twilight... you need ta get your act sorted out, before ya hurt those you hold most dear.

Tonight she had, undeniably, put her own marefriend into a terrible situation, one that would have ended up catastrophically had she not entered the room exactly when she did. It didn’t matter that nothing had happened, something could have happened, and it’d have been her fault. All of it would’ve been her fault, and while she managed to stave off disaster this time, who was to say there wouldn’t be a next time? And a time after that?

Applejack had been right all along. She had taken advantage of Trixie, made her her loyal slave, to such an extent that the maid would willingly allow herself to be raped, if she thought it would please her mistress. Twilight was suddenly overcome with disgust. Disgust for herself, disgust for what she had become, and disgust for what had almost happened that night. In a flash, she saw all the events that lead up to this evening, and realised that a lot of them, like the thing with Dash the day before, should have been highly suspect even to herself, even before the events of that evening.

Her disgust boiled up from her own stomach in the form of actual physical nausea, and as she fell to her knees she threw up for the second time that day, yet this time she had nopony but herself to blame.

Within mere moments, Trixie had grabbed a bucket and a piece of cloth, and she quickly put the bucket down in front of Twilight, cleaning the corners of the mare’s mouth. “M-mistress, are you ok? Was it something you ate?” Her concern for Twilight dampened her shyness; she’d do anything to bring her mistress back to full health, preferably right away.

To Twilight, however, it reminded her too much of the horrific truth she had just caught a glimpse of, and she was forced to hang over the bucket as her stomach played up yet again. After that, her stomach did not quite come to rest, but she simply did not have anything to give anymore.

Trixie stayed by her side, trying to comfort her, keeping her mane from hanging down into the bucket and wiping her forehead with a wet piece of cloth, while simultaneously trying to clean up the pool of sick Twilight had left upon the floor.

Eventually, Pinkie Pie appeared at the top of the stairs, to find Twilight still shaking in Trixie’s hooves. “Oh, there you are, Twi, we were wondering-”

“P-party’s over,” Twilight said, her voice hoarse and her throat painful.

“What?”

“S-Send everypony home... Please...”

“But I-” Pinkie tried, but Trixie stood up. If her mistress was feeling weak, then she’d just have to be strong for her.

“Mistress is feeling unwell, Pinkie. Either you stay here and take care of her and I go send everypony home, or you go do it.”

“Oh, euh... Alright,” the earth pony said, somewhat taken aback by the maid’s sudden shift in character, “get better, Twily wily! Don’t worry, Pinkie will take care of it!”

And with that, she disappeared down the stairs again. There was a great commotion downstairs and around the library for the next half an hour or so, before everything became quiet.

Even after her stomach finally stopped turning itself upside down, Twilight still did not move from her spot for quite some time. Her mind kept bombarding itself with dark thoughts and feelings of regret, as she tried to figure out where it had all gone so wrong, where she had gone all wrong. She thought about the many ways in which she had wronged Trixie, and about the friendships she had endangered, and for a single moment an amount of despair came over her that was greater than anything she’d ever felt before, which threatened to smother her in its cold embrace. But then Trixie put a hoof on her shoulder, and she snapped out of the worst of her thoughts, yet she still felt numb and lost, as if she was looking at her own body from a distance.

“Mistress, the guests are gone, and I believe the bigger part of the tent has even been taken down,” Trixie said as she offered Twilight a glass of water.

Twilight nodded and drank it all up in one go, but as she looked back at Trixie she choked up again, not knowing what to say. What did you say to somepony you had so grievously wronged, whom you had degraded in such a way that they weren’t even capable of recognising the injustice you had stacked upon them?

She suddenly felt tired and heavy, and her thoughts got weighed down by the limitations of her physical shell, which cried out for the rest which was needed to recover from the day’s hardships.

“Let’s sleep,” she said quickly, not trusting her voice with longer sentences.

Trixie nodded, as she helped her mistress towards the bed--completely unnecessarily, as Twilight could walk just fine--before taking off her own clothes and slipping under the sheets herself. With one last pulse of magical energy, all the lights in the house went out one by one, and the room was veiled by darkness.

After only a little while, Twilight felt Trixie’s hooves reach out for her. She longed for the warmth and comfort they represented, and while she knew she did not deserve the affection expressed by them, she accepted nonetheless. Trixie’s hooves caressed her body, but Twilight just held the other mare closely, relishing in her warmth. In the darkness she could pretend that everything was alright, that nothing bad had ever happened, that Trixie was perfectly ok, even if it was only for the length of a single night.

“M-mistress?” Trixie’s voice came suddenly. “Are you not... are you not going to use Trixie tonight?”

Twilight maintained a shocked silence, not knowing what to say. It was true that they’d been having sex virtually every night for a while now, but to hear Trixie say it like that...

“Did Trixie... did Trixie... a-anger you?” the maid said, and the pain and worry in every word struck Twilight like a whip. “Trixie’s sorry... Trixie w-wanted to wait for mistress outside, b-but T-Trixie was... was so scared, and then inside Trixie... Trixie... P-please forgive Trixie, mistress, she will do better n-next time...”

Something, a last remnant of strength, finally broke within Twilight, and her shoulders started shaking as she burst into tears. “Oh Celestia,” she sobbed, “T-Trixie... please, please forgive me. I... I’ve t-treated you... so... so badly, and I... Oh Celestia, how could you e-ever... f-forgive me?”

Trixie pulled Twilight closer in her embrace, making soothing noises as Twilight started crying louder and louder, feeling an almost instinctive need to console her, although she did not understand the nature of the grief she was trying to protect her mistress from.

“I... I’ll f-fix it...” Twilight promised. “I’ll s-set it right... I promise... oh love, I promise... I promise...”

For a long time, Twilight kept sobbing and begging for forgiveness, and every time Trixie granted it to her with a heartfelt “I forgive you, mistress.”, though she did not know why, nor did she understand what sins her mistress was seeking absolution from. All she knew was that her mistress was in pain, and thus she comforted her, caressing her mane and holding her close until Twilight’s body and voice finally gave out, and she sank into a nightmarish sleep in the early hours of the morning.