Simulation Stimulation

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.