"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.