Simulation Stimulation

Chapters

Indeterminate Jumps
On the Job
Settling In
Extracurricular Activities
The Long Walk
Debrief

Indeterminate Jumps

Trixie tossed her mane back out of her face as she trotted up to Starlight’s office. There was a smug smile on her face and a subtle sway in her step that turned the head of more than one of the students at the School of Friendship.

Much to the consternation of several of them, who didn’t notice each other until they’d managed to collide in the hallway.

Counselor Trixie giggled to herself, bouncing in place for a moment outside the office doors, before she raised a hoof and knocked. Her horn glowed briefly as she undid one of the top buttons on her blouse. Perhaps her suit wasn’t as comfortable as her old cloak, but it did have the advantage of being more flexible when she wanted to turn on the Great and Powerful charm.

Starlight opened the door to her office, and blinked at the blue unicorn ineptly posed like a model out of one of the confiscated magazines she absolutely kept in her desk for purely evidentiary purposes. Trixie leaned in and batted her eyes at Starlight, who sighed and put a hoof to the all-too familiar spot between her eyes that suddenly felt like somepony had taken a hammer to her.

“Trixie…”

Do you really want to ask this, Starlight?

No, but why start making good decisions now?

“What are you doing?”

Trixie pulled back, looking around as though she’d just realized how many eyes were on her.

“You, uhm… you asked me to come to your office after the day ended?” Trixie pointed out, tucking her tail down so it wasn’t hiking up the skirt around her hips any more.

“Yes,” Starlight agreed patiently, “because I wanted you to help me with something to use for history class. And I told you that.”

Trixie’s cheeks flushed as she started doing a remarkably good impression of Fluttershy.

“And… ah… I suppose that wasn’t a euphemism for…” She slid a hoof along the tiled floor.

Starlight sighed and shook her head. She picked up Trixie in her aura, hauling her into the office and closing the door behind them. She sat Trixie down before she decided to ask the inevitably agonizing question she had left.

“Do I even want to know why you thought it might be?”

“Well, Sunburst was talking about that ancient poet at lunch….”

“...Trixie, he was talking about the Brontneigh sisters. You’re thinking of Sappone. Who wrote about two thousand years before either of the Brontneigh sisters were even alive.”

“There is a reason Trixie is a guidance counselor, and not a professor!” The younger mare sniffed disdainfully. “So… what did you have in mind?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about the feedback Sunburst got last semester, after the History and Defense of Friendship course,” Starlight explained. “About how our more kinesthetic learners have been having trouble with it. Sunburst has been trying to bring in more artifacts and such, but I had an idea that could make the whole process a lot easier!

“I pulled out my old notes on Starswirl’s time travel spells,” she continued, “and started working with him on making the changes that we’d need for this. I’ve come up with a variant that looks at a historical time and place, pulls the information from that time into the present, and then creates an illusion that the student can do things in. Basically, it puts them in the middle of a historical event, but without the part where they actually travel through time, break causality, and spend the rest of their lives being hunted by slavering hounds that stalk them through time and space!”

Starlight’s horn flared briefly, and there was a muffled canine yelp inside one of her desk drawers before she opened it up to pull out an amulet.

“The only problem is, in order to really test it, I need somebody who doesn’t know anything about the historical event that I’m sending them to. Which means Starswirl, Sunburst, Twilight, and myself are all out.”

“So you picked the friend you had who’s the biggest dunce about history you could think of,” Trixie deadpanned. Starlight giggled nervously, eyes darting from one side to the other.

“I mean, if I’d wanted to do that I’d have just asked Rainbow, but… well… Applejack made it perfectly clear what would happen if I ever did that again after the Strawberry Incident.”

Trixie sighed and rolled her eyes indulgently.

“All right! But you owe Trixie a favor for this. Say, dinner tonight?”

“Sure!” Starlight grinned. “We can hook up with Sunburst, talk about the results, and see if it’s ready just yet! Now, since the spell has to be something we can use without having me there to cast it on everypony, I’ve put it on this amulet,” she explained, continuing on as Trixie huffed mentally.

How can somepony so smart be so incredibly dense? She sighed to herself as Starlight prattled on with some sort of technical magical jargon that would make sense to precisely three unicorns (and one alicorn) in all of Equestria, and Trixie wasn’t one of them. Maybe over dinner, she’d be able to get through to Sunburst that she wanted to get some alone time with the headmare - he was, somehow, usually less oblivious than Starlight was.

“So, do you think you’re ready for a trip to ancient Equestria?” Starlight asked cheerfully, drawing Trixie’s attention back to the present.

“Of course! The Great and Powerful Trixie is always ready to expand the limits of magical knowledge!” She took the amulet from Starlight’s aura and put it over her neck as Starlight nodded and got ready to take some notes.

“All right. Just remember, if you need to get out, just use the safe word.”

Trixie blinked. Maybe ignoring Starlight’s technical talk wasn’t the best idea after all. Unfortunately, before she could say anything, Starlight had charged her horn and zapped the amulet, activating the imprinted spell. The world flashed a bright blue, and Trixie felt the world turn inside out.

When she could see again, she was on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Looking around, she saw that she was dressed in the flashy livery of a Unicornian rent collector, at least if her memory of prior Hearth’s Warming pageants was anything to go by. Behind her, she was hauling an empty cart, and ahead of her she could see the smoke from distant chimneys.

“Oh boy,” she whimpered, trying to figure out where - and when - she was.

On the Job

"Okay Trixie," the unicorn reminded herself, "you're just in an illusion spell! It's not real, you're just seeing the past. Oh, why didn't Starlight tell me what I'm supposed to do?"

"It is Midsummer Day, one hundred and twenty years prior to Unification," a high pitched voice buzzed in Trixie’s head. "The earth pony village of Treadhaven was late in sending their rents to the Duke of Reading. A collection agent was sent, but did not return for weeks, causing diplomatic tension. Events in history will be experienced during approximately one hour of real time. You are in the agent's place, and should see if there was a better way to handle things using your knowledge of Friendship." Somehow, the entire explanation came through before Trixie could even react to the voice.

"Who are you?" She demanded. "Where are you?"

"I am Zone Initiation, Governance, and Information. You may call me 'Ziggy.' I am bound to provide basic information in order to prevent severe deviation from the lesson plan. The scenario will reinitiate if such deviation is detected. Mistress Starlight should have explained this before casting the spell."

"Well, excuse Trixie for not realizing that all the mystical technical talk was actually important this time!" Trixie huffed. "So I don't get out of this unless I go get this rent and bring it back, huh?"

"Affirmative."

"Well, then it's a good thing that the Diplomatic and Charismatic Trixie could convince a yak to buy snow!" She sniffed, starting to walk down the road. "Let's get this over with."

Fortunately, the smoke rising from chimneys down the road gave her something to navigate towards. While well-walked, the dirt path she was on was still just that, dirt, and clearly not properly maintained. Every few minutes, Trixie paused to pick a stray rock out of her path and toss it off to the side, smooth out some of the holes in the ruts, or otherwise make up for the lax maintenance of a backwards time and place. She noticed low shoots and leaves in the fields to her right, and occasional earth ponies out plowing or planting fields on the left.

Why they were out planting on Midsummer Day she had no idea. Wasn’t it supposed to have become the Summer Sun Celebration? They should have all been… well… celebrating!

“Hey!” She shouted at one of the nearby workers, a lilac-toned earth pony with a purple and green mane… actually, she looked quite a bit like Starlight, now that she thought of it. Maybe an ancestor? If her mane weren't tied back like Applejack's she'd almost be a dead ringer. Her cutie mark was different though, a halved grapefruit it looked like?

“Hmm?” The mare looked up at Trixie, then sat down the seed basket she was working with and sighed.

“Ye might as well head back to yer castle,” she told Trixie in an accent much like Rockhoof’s. “It’s going to be at least a few months before we have the year’s rents, an’ that’s if the damn featherbrains don’t mess with us any more.”

“That is unacceptable!” Trixie scoffed. “Even if it is true. The Great and Powerful Trixie demands to speak to your leader!”

The mare narrowed her eyes, more of the field ponies stopping to watch the scene.

“If true? Listen here, lass, we’ve got enough trouble with having to replant the first harvest after the pegasi without havin’ to humor some wee hussy of a unicorn who thinks she can boss us aroun’!”

“In case you’ve forgotten,” Trixie replied smugly, “you’re behind on your rent. So I can, unless you’d rather I come back with additional help.”

She just hoped that was true. Doing that wasn’t the same as trying to end the scenario early, right? She’d have to ask “Ziggy” about the rules more. Apparently threatening armed force wasn’t enough to reset, so that was something!

The earth pony glared at her, another expression that reminded Trixie of certain... incidents involving Starlight (and bottles), but she maintained her imperious posture.

"All right!" She snorted, turning to the workers with a shrill whistle. "Come on, ponies, we're takin' a break so Miss Powerful here can talk to Pa!"

"Excellent!" Trixie smiled. She'd have this solved and be finished with Starlight’s test in a few minutes! It just took some patience, and not taking off in a huff when somepony called you something they shouldn't!

Trixie pulled the cart into town, the earth ponies from the fields forming a circle around her as she used her magic to fix her mane and hat. She didn't think anything of the crowd, not even when they reached a gated set of palisade walls and had to wait for the gate to be opened to go in - or when that same gate slammed home behind her.

"Pa!" The lead pony shouted. "We've got ourselves a guest down from the castle, like it or not!"

Trixie heard some muttering as an older pony, a sea-green earth pony with a blue mane and a set of papers as his cutie mark, came out of the ramshackle structure that could be generously called a "hovel."

"...Of all the star-damned hassles that could -" He cut himself off as he kicked the door to his shack shut and turned to face Trixie.

"I'm Burgo Meister, the herd leader this season. We don't have your rents, but they should be ready in a few months. If you want them right now, ye can go get them from the featherbrains, 'ave a word with them about their 'scutage'."

"What in Cellllll…" Trixie trailed off as she remembered that name didn't mean anything here and now. "What is 'scutage'?"

"Probably not anythin' you hornheads have t'worry about," one of the ponies in the crowd muttered.

"It means we had a choice between payin' off those damn bandits or having them haul our foals to the border as grist for the mill. I wager even yer Duke would rather that didnae happen. It'd cost him good workers."

Trixie stared at Burgo, trying to see some sign that he was lying, making it all up.

He had to be making it up. Sure, things had been bad before Hearth's Warming, but that?

"He is basically correct," Ziggy offered silently. "Mortality for such 'conscripts' was over ninety five per cent, a functional death sentence. Scutage was often used as a euphemism for the ransoms paid to get them back."

"Shut up!" Trixie whispered to the voice in her head, still trying to wrap her brain around the idea. It just… couldn't be possible. Even Ziggy's confirmation didn't make it make any more sense.

Not on the sort of scale where they'd have slang for it!

"The Great and Powerful Trixie has her doubts about this story of yours."

A low, dangerous muttering passed through the crowd, and for once in her life Trixie questioned the wisdom of opening her mouth again.

For approximately half a second.

"And even if it is true, she cannot return without the payment owed!"

"Well ye ain't about to get it here! We dinnae have a crop for ourselves right now, let alone fer his lordship or this Great an' Powerful Trollop fer that matter!"

“Why you-” Trixie glared at the older stallion, and her horn flared with magic. Just in time for one of the ponies in the gathered crowd to leap forward, slapping a metal cone over Trixie’s horn. She yelped as her corona fizzled out, the cone cutting off her magical flow. “Hey!”

“Ye all saw it, everypony!” Burgo’s daughter shouted, a wicked grin on her muzzle. “Magical assault on the mayor!”

“What?” Trixie looked at her incredulously. “That was not an assault!”

“Then what were ye planning?” Somepony in the crowd scoffed. “Winkin’ back to th’castle?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie hasn’t had a plan since she got here!"

"Well, somethin' we can agree on," Burgo Meister snorted. "Pomelo! Take her down to the stocks."

"Wait-" Trixie was cut off as the mare she'd talked to first tossed a loop of rope over Trixie's head and tugged to start pulling her towards the pillow in the village square. "What are you-"

"Keep yer trap shut an' deal with what I do if ye want this as painless as possible," Pomelo whispered to her as she buckled her into the stocks, neck through the heavy oak collar, tail lifted up and threaded through a loop of rope above it.

"Once we're done here, I'll tell Pa yer stayin' with me while yer here. Don't argue."

Something about her tone told Trixie to listen for once in her life, so the showmare shut up and pinned her ears back to shut out the jeering and mocking from the crowd.

"When you hornheads come down from the castle, ye always act like a bunch of spoiled little foals," Burgo lectured as Pomelo went off to get something. "So it's about time ye got taught a lesson the way ye'd teach a spoiled foal!"

Pomelo came back, a broad wooden paddle with holes drilled through it in her clenched teeth. Trixie's face flushed almost as purple as Twilight Sparkle's as she realized what was about to happen. She tried to pull her tail down, but it was fully flagged whether she liked it or not, giving everypony behind her a good show if they wanted it.

Thankfully, she saw parents moving their foals up to the other side, so at least they wouldn't be seeing what happened.

Pomelo walked around behind Trixie, flicking the silky hairs of her tail up into the unicorn's face before she raised the paddle and waved it around, making a light whooshing noise through the holes as the crowd jeered.

"I'd say our guest here's earned a good baker's dozen, wouldn't you?" The mayor shouted above the crowd, whipping them up into a low roar of shouting and what Trixie had to assume were slurs, for all that she'd never even read them before.

Seriously, a 'boggin knob-headed numpty?' Was that some kind of bird?

Trixie heard a brief whooshing sound, then yelped as pain erupted from the Powerful impact of the paddle on her haunches. Just as the shock was starting to pass, another blow was landed, right on the edge of the first. The lilac-coated mare wielding the paddle put all her effort into each blow, aiming them with the sort of skill a professional would envy. Each time, a bit of fresh buttock was added to the pain portions of the showmare’s posterior, and the numbness trying to set in under the old blows was driven away by a fresh impact.

Trixie bit her lip until it nearly bled, trying not to cry out again after the first blow had startled her. She couldn't make the crowd stop watching, but she could deny them the sort of free show they wanted.

“Ach, she thinks she’s a tough one, she does!” A mare teased.

“Put some neck into it, Pom!” A pony called out of the crowd. “Think she’s enjoying it!”

Trixie blushed brightly as she realized some of them were catching on. She couldn't stop the drops of moisture collecting on her marehood after the fifth blow, or the way her body stiffened as the sixth landed right on the sensitive flesh just as her clit winked out in response to her arousal. Her knees buckled, but the pillory kept her up until she could take her stance again.

If she closed her eyes and imagined it was Starlight doing this, and that she was in a club instead of the town square, she could almost enjoy the abuse.

That thought was driven out by the eighth blow, this one from below, swinging up as if to punish Trixie for losing her hoofing and sending a shockwave of pain through her hips like she'd been kicked.

Just five more, she reminded herself - four, as the ninth cracked loudly against the more padded portion of her flanks. She could feel tears on her cheeks, but still hadn't cried out again aside from the first. The long wait after the ninth blow made Trixie wonder just what was happening behind her, but even if she could turn her head, the collar would be in the way. A careful hoof stroked over Trixie's flank, as if testing the heat of her abused flesh.

“If y’want a break, Pom, you could always pass that over t’give somepony else a chance!”

Something in the stallion’s voice made Trixie understand just why Pomelo had told her to go along with what she did, and not fight back against her ‘punishment.’ Just had just enough time to process that before the last four blows came, three to one of her cutie marks and the last on the opposite side. Trixie's mouth hung open, no sound coming out as her brain processed the pain flaring through her body. Her horn tried to spark up with a spell to see how bad the damage was, but the inhibitor meant she just gave herself a headache trying it.

A high pitched, quiet whine of pain finally squeaked out of her throat, like the air coming out of a barely-opened balloon.

Pomelo tossed the paddle aside, barking out orders that Trixie couldn't hear over the pounding of blood in her ears. Somepony undid the stocks, and Trixie collapsed to the dirt, whimpering as her flank hit the ground.

"I'll go make sure the wee dobber doesn't keel over on us," Pomelo announced, slipping her head under Trixie and picking her up almost effortlessly. "Git back t'work ye sods! Y'don't want some prissy hornhead showin' ye up tomorrow, do ye?"

With the show over, the crowd began to disperse, and Trixie was carried off through town to get a little relief. She let herself rest until she was carried into a small home made of clay, mud, and rough-hewn boards, then unceremoniously dumped onto the floor.

“Trixie remains unconvinced that that was the painless option!” Trixie protested, looking up at Pomelo.

“Letting me do it means ye didnae get left there overnight,” the earth pony chuckled lowly. “Which means ye don’t get to be the evening’s entertainment. Though I suppose ye might enjoy being pelted with leftovers, judging by how excited ye got.”

Trixie blushed again, looking around and finding a basic mattress, more like baled straw with burlap stripped over it.

“That is Trixie’s own private business!” She protested, crawling towards the mattress.

“Oh, aye, but it’s certainly interestin’. Get on yer hooves, ye Jessie, I didnae work ye over that bad.”

“Trixie’s cutie marks beg to differ.” Trixie pouted, but did pull her legs under her, standing up with a wince. “Those last four could have broken something!”

“If I’d wanted t’break something, it’d be broke. Now go an’ lay down, I’ll fetch some salve so the swelling will go down faster.”

Trixie did as she was told, shifting a bit to get the most irritating reeds out of her side.

"Your gonna have to earn your keep as long as you’re here," Pomelo explained gruffly as she sat a small clay jar down next to the bed and sat to inspect Trixie's flanks. "Probably put ye on cart duty, shouldn't be able to screw that up too badly."

"I have worked on a farm before. A rock farm, actually." Trixie hissed as Pomelo started working the thick, cooling salve into her fur, focusing on the worst of the welts.

“We haven’t gotten that desperate yet,” Pomelo chuckled. “Ye don’t have the flanks of a rock farmer, that’s for sure.”

“Trixie worked primarily with pyrotechnics. But maybe you should wait to judge her flank until after it’s had a chance to recover from your abuse?”

“Well, didnae take long t’get some fight back in ye, did it?” Pomelo laughed, the sound so much like Starlight’s that Trixie couldn’t help but smile a bit at it. Then she yelped as the earth pony swatted her flank with a hoof.

“Don’t go thinkin’ I’ll take it easy on ye, just because ye have a cute rump. But I do promise ye that I won’t let anypony get out of line. They know better than t’mess with me.”

Trixie turned around to look at her keeper, for lack of a better term for the moment.

“They aren’t going to mess with your toys?”

Pomelo’s head shot up, and she locked eyes with Trixie, blushing under her fur.

“I said I wouldn’t let anypony get out of line. That includes me.”

She finished rubbing in the salve, closing the jar up and wiping her hooves off on Trixie’s fur before she stood up.

“Going to be a lot of turnips, chives, an’ radishes for meals. I don’t know when ye ate last, so I’ll go grab some food for ye before I go out to finish up the day’s chores.”

“Trixie can wait for dinner,” the showmare told her, glancing out the window at the remaining light in the sky and guessing how much longer that would be. “And… thank you. For keeping things from getting out of hoof. Trixie is not used to worrying about that sort of thing,” she admitted.

“I’d imagine ye aren’t used to worrying about a lot of what we do down here,” Pomelo snorted, turning to head back out to the fields. “Get some rest, you’ll need it for tomorrow.”

Trixie settled in as her hostess went out to finish up her work… then stood up with a wince once she’d had a couple of minutes for Pomelo to make some distance.

She didn’t know much about this time, but Trixie knew one thing - every village she’d done a show in that was as poor off as this one had taken guests very seriously. She wasn’t sure that she counted as one, but she did know that she wasn’t going to let them keep thinking she was some prissy, stuck-up, arrogant unicorn!

She started to explore her temporary living space, looking outside for anything that could be used to stretch out the rations. She looked out one of the windows, shifting the woodpile against the house slightly to expose broad, flat orange mushrooms growing up the backside of the pile like little balconies.

Trixie grinned, going outside to inspect them a little more carefully and start pulling some free. With a little luck, tonight was going to be something special.

Author's Note

This chapter... oy, this chapter! This is the one that took me forever to write, almost 4 months to finish it! Thank you, Myrkin, for being so patient with me.

Settling In

The next few weeks were… almost relaxing for Trixie, as odd as it seemed. Meals were light, but her experience foraging on the road meant that she could offer a little help telling which mushrooms or berries were safe to eat and which weren’t. During the day, she hauled the supply cart for the different plots, taking an array of fertilizers, tools, and pest poisons from one work group to another. The whole time, Pomelo was watching to make sure she didn’t miss anypony calling for something… or get around to a signal too slowly, cracking a short whip inches from Trixie’s flanks any time she did.

And, sometimes, just for the way Trixie instinctively started to flag her tail with each crack. She’d catch herself each time, ears flattening and cheeks burning when she realized what Pomelo was up to, but she didn’t complain either. Being, technically, a prisoner in the village, she was expected to wear a bit and harness that would keep her from slipping the cart and making a run for it, and the constant pressure against her jaw made it all the easier to sink into a mental fantasy that she was playing out an extremely kinky scene with Starlight.

Trixie almost wished they had blinders to put on her… or that they’d think of it, if they did have them.

Pomelo, of course, was hardly oblivious to the effect that her ‘encouragement’ had on her houseguest. The first night she’d been there, to make sure she was rested for her first day of work, the earth pony had insisted on giving Trixie the mattress for the night. That lasted about an hour before Trixie had gotten up and laid herself down just a few inches away from Pomelo. When Pomelo woke up to find her, she grudgingly accepted Trixie’s excuse that she was used to sleeping on the ground.

Still, that second night, they’d both slept on the mattress, albeit on opposite sides. Over the course of the first week, each one slowly sidled closer to the middle, until Trixie woke in the middle of the night to the unfamiliar feeling of a hoof sliding around her barrel.

She didn’t say a word, just smiling and wrapping one of her forelegs around Pomelo’s, making sure to hold her close through the rest of the night, and only reluctantly letting her slip free in the morning.

After that, no matter how much her shoulders ached by the end of the day, how long she’d had to spend helping with the foraging after the day’s farming was done, Trixie was happy to snuggle back against her hostess.

Not that she’d be unhappy to get back home when it was all done. After all, Pomelo was just a simulation… wasn’t she? It was hard to care whether she was or not at night, especially not after the first month. That was when, on an impulse, Trixie had rolled over in Pomelo’s grasp and nuzzled in close to her neck, taking in a deep breath of her scent.

The earthy scent of a hard-working farm pony, Trixie had to admit, was definitely one point where Pomelo did not measure up to Starlight. Particularly not in an era when going down to the river for a bath was considered optional most of the year.

There were other downsides too, of course. For example, her stint in the pre-classical era had left Trixie wanting to provide numerous favors for whoever the pony was who had invented indoor plumbing. On a less practical note, constantly being called hornhead, bonehead, or prissy was starting to wear on her.

And then there were the raids.

Whatever doubts Trixie had about their story had disappeared before the first week was out. A flock of pegasi had come through, and every parent in the village rushed to make sure their foals were inside, the workers without families to watch taking cover themselves where they could be spared.

The first time, Trixie had just been shocked, up until Pomelo had unhitched her and dragged her under the cart.

The second, two weeks later, she’d been mad, watching helplessly as the raiders smashed sheds in retaliation for not having anything useful to steal. She didn’t have much she could do at that point, but she had an idea. One that, with a few borrowed supplies, she’d turned into a reality by the third raid.

That one came just as the village was bringing in a harvest of fast-growing tubers, mushrooms, roots, and young greens that would mollify the unicorns in the castle. As before, most ponies in the village hurried to take cover.

But not Trixie. Instead, she rushed to the back of the cart once Pomelo unhitched her, ripping up a tarp to reveal a trio of crude mortar tubes they’d been carving. Pomelo took her magic suppressor, pulling it off and spitting it into the cart as Trixie used her magic for the first time in over a month.

Fortunately, the spell she was going to cast was one she could practically cast in her sleep.

"For her next trick…"

Trixie focused on the fuses at the bottom, sending a magical charge through into the coarsely milled powder charges.

"...the Great and Powerful Trixie will make these pegasi…" She waited until the fuses were about to go, then dove off the cart.

"...disappear!"

The first to go off was the romane candle, firing varicolored balls of flame through the pegasus formation. The second was a rocket that veered a bit to the left, but still exploded just as it was supposed to, showering the pegasi with burning green metallic sparks.

The third was Trixie's personal favorite of the bunch, a singled rocket that burst into clusters of smaller bottle rockets, screeching through the sky on the way up before the rockets started whizzing through the air, the pegasi yelping and diving out of the way. Most of them flew off, but a couple caught a rocket to a wing or in their mane or tail, diving to the ground to try putting out fur and feathers in the nearby river before they fled into the forest after their wingmates.

When the blasts were finished, the silent air was filled with the stench of burnt sulfur and charcoal. Slowly, ponies came out to see that the attack was over, some collecting the lost feathers and others checking to make sure there wasn't any serious damage done by the fireworks.

Trixie, for her part, stood in the cart and took a bow.

"Anypony for an encore?" She asked with an exhilarated grin.

Extracurricular Activities

If Trixie had arrived at the worst Midsummer celebration ever, she was preparing to leave after one of the best harvest festivals. Maybe the harvest was fairly meager. Maybe she was facing a hard hike back to the castle the next day. Maybe she did have the inhibitor cone back on, 'just in case.'

But none of that measured up to a village of put-upon earth ponies celebrating a victory and all knowing that it was her doing. After weeks without getting to do a show, or even a little trick to distract one of her students from their latest meltdown, it was positively intoxicating.

Besides, Pomelo had been the one to say 'just in case,' and Trixie wasn’t exactly convinced she didn't have ulterior motives.

That was what led Trixie to sidle up next to the mayor’s daughter after dinner, flicking her tail against the grapefruit mark on her flank.

“So… tonight’s Trixie’s last night in town,” Trixie pointed out. Pomelo made a low grunting noise in her throat and took a long drink of the small ale in her mug, as if she were hoping that drinking enough of it would end up having some impact.

“You know...” The showmare continued, letting her blue coat brush against Pomelo’s lilac one. ”If somepony wanted to make tonight memorable, instead of just pretending she’ll be just as happy with a hot water bottle, Trixie would like to think she’s been clear enough about her interest. And she will be down at the river if that somepony’s interested.”

Trixie sauntered off, flicking her tail against Pomelo’s muzzle as she began the walk down to the river.

By the time she’d reached the water’s edge, Trixie couldn’t really hear the celebration above that well. She put a hoof in, testing the bottom of it, and climbed in once she was content that the bottom was more rocky than muddy, with smooth stones that were perfect to slide down against and let the cold water soak into her fur. She started scrubbing herself down with her hooves. It wasn’t a proper bath, but what was proper around here? It would at least get the sulfur smell out of her fur. Besides, why take a proper bath when she was hoping to get dirty again right after?

“I hope I haven’t been sitting in Starlight’s office in real time,” she murmured.

“The simulation runs for approximately one hour of time in the real world,” Ziggy reminded her silently. “A single class period. Had you resolved the situation as expected in the lesson plan, you would have returned for debriefing and discussion within minutes of beginning. Instead, additional data was constructed to complete the historical simulation where events have deviated while remaining within parameters.”

“Well excuse Trixie for not magically reading their minds and figuring out how to make everything better!” She grumbled. “They didn’t even have the food, how was I supposed to fix that?”

“Did ‘sending a message explaining the situation to the castle’ occur to you?” Ziggy asked, the magical intelligence’s even, emotionless tone somehow still managing to sound exasperated and annoyed.

Fortunately, Trixie was prevented from answering the question by the sound of hoofsteps in the grass. She turned to see who was approaching, and grinned when she saw Pomelo carrying a bucket with a brush sticking out of it.

“Trixie was starting to wonder if she’d taken your snuggling the wrong way!” She lifted her tail out of the water, flicking a spray of droplets at the earth pony. Pomelo sat the bucket down on the banks, and climbed in with Trixie.

“Part o’ me wishes she had,” Pomelo grumbled. She took a rough bar of soap out of the bucket in her hooves and sighed. “Lay down, ye deserve a little pampering after ye saved us like that.”

She started rubbing the soap over Trixie’s coat as the showmare settled in, her tail laying out across the water as it flowed over their bodies.

Damn it, this was all just taking place inside Trixie’s head, wasn’t it? Why did Pomelo have to act like a real pony right now?

“The Great and Powerful Trixie travels a lot as part of her work. She has been with many ponies, in many towns, and had to leave them behind… but she is always happy to see them when she returns.”

“And when might that be, hmm?” Pomelo scoffed. “Ye never came here before, even for other rents.”

The showmare rolled her eyes. Pomelo may not have been as dense as Starlight, but she clearly had many of the same issues. Fortunately, this wasn’t the real world. Pomelo wasn’t real, the village wasn’t going to be around after the spell ended… none of this was real.

Which was kind of weird, having lived here for the last month and change.

But if it wasn’t real, then that meant she didn’t have to feel bad about whatever she did here. And with the whole thing being over once she was back at the castle….

“Trixie’s never had a reason to come here before,” she murmured, turning to look at Pomelo and holding her forelegs out. “Maybe you can give her one?”

The earth pony slipped up against Trixie, kissing her hungrily as she pushed Trixie over onto her back. Trixie kissed her back, tasting ale and the lingering spice of radish on Pomelo’s breath.

“Want to give Trixie her magic back and see what she can do?”

“Ye wanted a reason to come back, didn’t ye?” Pomelo smirked. She rolled onto her back, pulling Trixie on top of her and giving her a smoldering look. “Show me why I should want ye coming back.”

“Ooh, a challenge!” Trixie grinned, claiming another kiss before she started working her hooves along Pomelo’s muscular form. She peppered kisses down the farmpony's body on the way, glad she'd thought to move this down to the river. It gave her the chance to surreptitiously give her a light scrub down, leaving her clean for each nuzzle and nibble.

“Let your mane down?” Trixie suggested, nosing at the end of Pomelo’s ponytail. With a shrug, the farmpony undid the ties holding it in place, letting her mane flow freely in the water.

And letting Trixie sink a little bit deeper into the idea of this just being a warmup for when she finally got Starlight to quit being so dense.

“Where’s that - ah ha!” Trixie grinned as she found the bar of soap that Pomelo had left on the banks. “Let me show you why unicorns enjoy being so prissy,” she winked, taking the slick bar and sliding it in between Pomelo’s hindquarters, working up a lather that got closer and closer to directly stroking over the earth pony’s puffy marehood.

“Mmm - when ye have somepony to do that for ye, certainly,” she groaned. Trixie shrugged slightly, but kept up her attention, nuzzling at Pomelo’s teats once she’d washed them. Dextrous lips worked her nipples to stiff buds while Trixie finished cleaning up her ‘workspace,’ as it were, rinsing the soap off with cold river water before she looked up at her lover’s blue eyes.

“You do remember that Trixie isn’t made of glass, don’t you?” She stuck her tongue out impishly, drawing a growl out of Pomelo’s throat. She grinned as two hooves pressed into her mane, shoving her muzzle down into the rushing water as Trixie’s tongue slid out to explore the dark purple flesh she’d been dreaming of for weeks.

She quickly moved in closer, savoring her Mistress’ potent flavor and tilting her ears so she could best hear Pomelo’s moans. Trixie let her help set the pace, reading the nigh-on universal language of hooves-on-head to tell her where to lick harder, when to nuzzle or nip or move her focus. She loved the way a pair of hooves felt against her head, the little tremors that told her she was doing the right thing.

Trixie half-closed her eyes, her nostrils above the water so she could breathe in the scent of her partner. She pressed her tongue inside, seeking out more of the stifled moans and whimpers. Along with the rocks at the bottom of the river, it took her back to the last time she’d done something like this, in a subterranean stream deep beneath the rock farm. She could hear the sound of the party over the hill, but put it out of her mind to focus on the tangy wetness that just kept coming the more she worked her tongue around, searching out the particular points that seemed to work most.

After a few minutes, Trixie really set to work, humming pleasantly as she pressed in deeper, her lip curling back to stroke lightly against Pomelo’s winking clit. The earth pony bit down on her pastern to stifle the noises she made as she watched the unicorn devotedly worshiping with tongue and teeth. Trixie looked up, meeting her eyes and moving to claim a heated kiss, letting Pomelo taste herself before sinking back down to devour her marehood.

Trixie reached down between her own hindquarters, working her aching sex with a hoof until Pomelo noticed.

“Be a good girl, an’ I’ll make it worth the wait,” she promised even as she tilted her hips up to give Trixie better access. The showmare decided to take the offer, putting her hooves on Pomelo’s cutie marks and redoubling her efforts. She caught Pomelo’s clit in her lips, rubbing her teeth against it, and the rough surface pushed her Mistress over the edge.

Pomelo’s body stiffened, her stomach rippling as her inside clenched down around nothing. Her juices gushed out, Trixie shifting to swallow what she could before the river water washed it away. The farmer pulled her up, kissing her hungrily and wrapping her forelegs around her.

“You’re good,” she murmured.

“Great and powerful, even?” Trixie teased.

“Cheeky twat.”

“The cheekiest,” Trixie giggled. “Now, I believe-” She was interrupted by a conspicuously loud voice from the top of the hill.

“Best make sure the hornhead didnae fall in an’ drown,” Burgo joked, starting to come down the hill. Pomelo quickly pushed Trixie off of her and rolled onto her front, grabbing a brush from the bucket and starting to act like she’d been scrubbing Trixie down.

“That should get the last of that powder smell out,” she said as she spat out the brush, looking back up at her father’s silhouette. “We’ll be back up in a moment, pa!”

“All right, just don’t go forgettin’ ye ain’t her housemaid!” He called back down, turning to leave them be.

“I presume that means I’m going to have to wait for that repayment,” Trixie pouted once they were alone again.

“Aye, afraid so,” Pomelo sighed. “That was him warnin’ us, somepony was wondering where we were an’ about to come lookin’. Thank ye though… I’ll be sure ye don’t go without,” she smiled, giving Trixie a peck on the lips before starting back up the hill.

For a moment, the unicorn considered taking care of herself before heading back up… but the prospect of being caught alone like that didn’t particularly appeal to her either. Instead, sighing dramatically, she shook herself dry and followed back up the hill herself.

The Long Walk

Trixie had hoped that Pomelo was just planning to wait until they were alone in her home before finishing things up, but the celebration had stretched out until the deep hours of the night. With a long walk hauling a full cart… well, it might only be a limited time that she spent in Starlight’s office, but she still felt every minute of it here.

Which, as much as it left Trixie’s libido unsatisfied, at least left her with the promise of being able to shoot for the real thing once she was back in the real world.

It also left her in the odd position of waking up with Pomelo nibbling at her mane and rubbing something hard and cool against her stomach.

“Time to get ready for your trip home,” Pomelo murmured. “Enough time to make some breakfast and give ye a gift t’remember me by.”

“Gift?” Trixie asked sleepily. Then she felt the cool hardness against her belly slide down, and a flared tip stroke against her neglected marehood. “Meep!”

“A little somethin’ I’ve been working on for a while now,” Pomelo chuckled. “Make your walk a little more interesting. If you’re game, go ahead and spread those haunches.”

Trixie giggled, but did as she was told, moaning as Pomelo worked the tip against her marehood. Slowly, she started pushing it in, filling Trixie with an unyielding dildo made of smooth stone. Pomelo worked it in and out a couple of times, getting Trixie worked up a little, and then strapped it in place.

"That should hold it until ye get back to your home an' get the suppressor off."

Trixie’s eyes popped wide open.

“Until - you want Trixie to wear this for the whole hike?” She squeaked, rolling over to look into Pomelo’s eyes. The earth pony pulled her in, kissing her hungrily before giving the base of the toy a push with her hoof, making the unicorn moan into her mouth. When she finally released the showmare, she pulled back with the same smug little smirk Starlight always had when she knew she’d won an argument. She lidded her eyes, leaning in close to whisper softly into Trixie’s ear.

“An’ I want you thinkin’ about me every step o’ the way, of me covering you with that wee beastie strapped to my flanks instead.”

Trixie whimpered as her body clenched down hard around the rigid thickness in her marehood, uselessly trying to pull it in deeper.

“You’re evil,” she pouted.

“Consider it a ‘thank you’ for last night… or an incentive to come back for the real thing an’ stick aroun’. Now, let’s get you fed an’ on the road. The sooner ye get back to the castle, the sooner ye can come back.”

“You make an excellent argument,” Trixie granted, climbing to her hooves and shaking out the sleep before she and Pomelo started making breakfast.

Within a few hours, Trixie was on her way up the road to the castle. Some of the villagers had come to see her off, but she had a feeling most of them were just glad to see her going. Fortunately, whatever Pomelo wanted, Trixie wouldn’t have to disappoint them by coming back.

Each step up the road made the stone dildo in her marehood shift around, working inside of her to keep a steady trickle of arousal coming down her thighs, but never enough to push her over the edge. She’d already been walking for about a half-hour, and it was damned near maddening if she didn’t stop every few minutes to let herself cool down. Of course, she couldn’t take too long - she had a cart full of vegetables to deliver, and the late summer sun wasn’t doing them any favors.

Besides, the sooner she got back to the castle, the sooner she got out of this simulation.

“Can’t Trixie just go back now?” She whined, starting back up the hill and trying to not think of the stone length pressing insistently up against her inner walls. “The lesson’s finished!”

“Lesson parameters require the delivery of the goods,” ‘Ziggy’ reminded her. “It is not the lesson plan’s fault that you decided to extend the process for carnal pursuits.”

“Hey, no commenting on Trixie’s carnal pursuits! You don’t even have a body to know what it’s like.”

“Evidently, frustrating, if your continued lack of progress is anything to go by.”

Trixie glared up at the brim of her hat, the best she could do to try incinerating the disembodied voice in her head.

“How much farther is it?”

“You should be past the glamor wall at the apparent crest of this hill.”

“Then Trixie’s progress cannot be that lacking!” She snapped. She started to pull the cart into a turn at the top of the hill, feeling a faint magical field washing over her.

Then Trixie’s jaw dropped, and her eyes turned upwards… and upwards… and up some more, until she could see the castle at the top of a steep trail that spiraled up the damned-near mountainous hill ahead of her, hidden by illusions to make it harder for those who weren’t supposed to know its location to mount an attack on.

“OH, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!”

“Might I suggest that walking would be more productive than complaining.”

“Oh, believe me, Trixie is QUITE capable of doing both at the same time!” The showmare snapped.

She didn’t worry about doing both though, instead focusing on making the climb. The path was steep enough that there wasn’t really any place she could see to stop for a break on the way up, leaving her with no real alternative but to keep the hike going steadily. Her legs almost buckled a couple of times, as the toy strapped into her rubbed up against her winking clit. Mare juices drooled down her inner thighs with each step, her body trembling on the razor’s edge of orgasm more than once - but never getting that final release.

It felt like it took an hour to climb the hill, though the part of Trixie’s mind thinking about things other than getting out of the harness and getting off knew it couldn’t be that long. Fortunately, as she came around to the final approach, the portcullis was raised and other unicorns came out to help.

“Where have you been?”

“What happened to you?”

“Did those mudponies put this on you? Outrageous!” The magic suppressor was taken off, and one of the unicorns in the crowd picked Trixie up in their golden aura.

In just the right way to push the toy inside of her the extra fractions of an inch she needed.

Trixie cried out with pleasure and relief as her body spasmed and twitched, squirting out around the stone phallus inside of her and spraying the crowd with marecum. In any other situation, it would have been a humiliating display.

At least they aren’t actually real, Trixie comforted herself as she blacked out from the pleasure.

Debrief

Starlight blinked, her cheeks rosy as she watched Trixie’s eyes stop glowing and the spell beginning to pass.

“Trixie? Are you okay?” She asked as her friend started to blink and shake out her head.

“As Great and Powerful as ever!” Trixie proclaimed, standing up a little shakily. “Oof… perhaps the spell shouldn’t last quite so long though? It’s weird having my body be so much more stiff, but so much less tired, than my head says it should be.”

“Yeah, that can be a problem with nested mental illusions,” Starlight admitted. “Any other problems?”

“Can we talk this over later?” Trixie asked with just a hint of a whine in her voice. “It’s been weeks in there, and Trixie needs a real bath to wash the grimy feel off!”

And the smell of arousal, she admitted mentally, catching a whiff that told her the orgasm had clearly passed through to her body. Fortunately, Starlight didn’t seem inclined to say anything about that.

“Oh, sure!” Starlight nodded, her grin a little too stiff for Trixie to believe she hadn’t noticed that same scent. “I guess you didn’t find a better way to solve the scenario then.”

“Oh… I don’t know,” Trixie giggled. “Trixie may not know how it played out in reality, but there were some ponies she managed to make friends with!”

“Very good friends, I’d say,” Starlight muttered under her breath.

“Well, it is meant to respond to how you act, so it probably was a bit easier to do that, since you’re not as awful about other tribes as ponies were back then.”

“That is something you need to fix, actually,” Trixie admitted. “I can take it, but some of the students might be really upset about some of the things that can happen back then. Like ending up in a pillory with the possibility of… uhm… inappropriate conduct?” Starlight’s face blanched and she shot up in her seat.

“Oh my gosh, Trixie, please tell me-”

“It didn’t happen!” Trixie reassured her. “But the threat was uhm… implied. Trixie was locked up, but the punishment wasn’t that severe. However, things could have gotten very bad.”

“I designed it to bring a student out if they were ever facing a serious physical threat, but I thought the ability to use the safe word would be enough to prevent the other one,” Starlight muttered. “Did that not work?”

Now it was Trixie’s turn to blush as she stood up, tucking her tail down to conceal the sticky mess she’d made of her nethers.

“Trixie may have missed the part of your explanation where you told her what it was.”

“And ZIGI didn’t have it stored?” Starlight asked and cocked her head.

“...Trixie could have just… asked?!?”

Starlight sighed and facehoofed, shaking her head.

“Yes, Trixie. You could have just asked.”

“...Oh. Trixie… would like to go take that bath, now. But you still owe me dinner! Seven-ish?” She asked, turning to leave the office.

"Seven sounds fine. But, uhm… there is one other question I'd like to ask before you go," Starlight said nervously, toying with her mane.

Trixie turned back to face her boss, then followed the line of her eyes to where Trixie had been sitting during the test.

And the very noticeable pool of mare juices that she was discretely wiping up with a tissue held in her magical aura.

Trixie looked back up at Starlight, as if waiting for the question.

Starlight looked at Trixie, clearly not entirely comfortable with having to ask it.

"It's just… you did say they didn’t do anything inappropriate…" Starlight pointed out.

Trixie smirked slightly, making up her mind. She turned back around and stepped up until her nose was pressed against Starlight’s. Then, eyes half-lidded, she stepped back and raised her hoof to playfully boop her boss' nose.

"Don't invite Sunburst to dinner tonight, and Trixie will tell you all about it," she rumbled deep in her throat. Then, leaving Starlight stunned at her desk, the guidance counselor turned and sashayed out the door with a parting wink.

At both ends.

"Oh boy," Starlight whispered, her eyes wide.