Better the devil you know
"What is this place?" Autumn Blaze asked.
"It looks a little like the Everfree," Trixie replied, "but it smells worse."
Their breath steamed as they walked, autumn foliage making the trees resplendent. Dry leaves crunched under their hooves.
"What did that spell do to us?"
"Clearly Trixie's teleportation needs improvement," Trixie said. "Trixie never apologizes, however."
"I've heard you apologize to Starlight."
"That's different," Trixie snapped.
"Why is it different?" Autumn said.
"Because Starlight got power of attorney over Trixie's bank accounts, so Trixie must be obsequious to Starlight."
"Why does Starlight control your bank accounts?"
"It was an incident that involved fireworks, a head injury, and a marital aid. Hush."
"What does 'marital aid' mean?"
Trixie rolled her eyes and adjusted her witch's hat. "Dildo."
Autumn laughed. "You got a head injury from a dildo due to fireworks?"
"Starlight suffered the head injury. And don't ask where the marital aid was."
"Where was the—"
"Trixie said 'don't ask.'"
They walked together silently for as long as Autumn Blaze could stand to be silent, which was roughly ninety milliseconds. "How long have we been walking?" Autumn asked.
"Trixie doesn't know. Stop complaining. Not that long. Maybe an hour."
"Oh, I wasn't complaining!" Autumn pranced, high-stepping a circle around Trixie on the forest path. "I'm pleased to be walking and talking with somepony!"
"Perhaps talking at Trixie less would make it feel more special?"
"Hey, is that a town up ahead?" Autumn asked. "I could really use a warm drink and a nice hooficure after all this walking!"
"Trixie does not like being in the stocks." She struggled, trying once more to extract her head and forehooves from the wooden pillory. No good; too tight. Designed for these tall 'Puritans,' not for a pony, she stood on a wooden crate to reach the head- and forehoof-holes and it still stretched her neck painfully.
The crowd milled, staring silently. Two Puritans stood close to Trixie and Autumn, the shorter one writing notes on a scroll, the imperious taller one looking imperiously tall.
Autumn craned her neck to look at Trixie from her pillory. "We're the center of attention. We should 🎶siiiing—🎵"
The tall Puritan hit her over the head with a birch switch. "No singing. It is an affront to God."
Autumn shook her head. "Ow! That hurt. I guess we're singing from different hymnals about this, huh?"
The tall Puritan smacked Autumn again. The short Puritan continued writing, taking a transcript of every word.
"So you don't have wine,"Autumn said, "your women are dressed like cabbage, and you don't have song? No wonder you're so—"
He smacked Autumn Blaze again.
"You two beasts of the devil," continued the tall Puritan, now smacking Trixie over the head with the switch for good measure, "are accused of being beasts of the devil. What is your plea?"
"I'm sorry, what was your name again?" Autumn Blaze asked him.
"The Reverend Cotton Mather," said the tall one.
"I can't cotton to such a name!" Autumn said. "Not that it mathers."
Cotton Mather hit Autumn again.
"Ow!"
Trixie shook her head, then shifted her butt, hating the feel of the rough fabric of the petticoats and skirt the puritans had put over her backside before they had crammed her into the pillory. "Trixie is surprised and pleased just once to receive public punishment in a pillory and not need to take an antibiotic afterwards, but Trixie doesn't understand what 'beast of the devil' even means."
"Is this the devil we know or the devil we don't?" Autumn asked.
The puritan switched her over the head again.
"I'm starting to like that," Autumn said, winking at him. "Try smacking my bottom."
Trixie tried to facehoof, but didn't have the range of motion while in the pillory and instead just rattled her chains. "Trixie can't believe Trixie has to be the responsible adult."
Cotton Mather hit Trixie.
"Wait, hold on," Autumn said, her voice contemplative. "'Beasts?' I thought you thought we were witches?"
"Clearly you are not," Cotton Mather intoned in his most imperious preacher voice. "Although this one—" he hit Trixie over the head again "—was dressed in witch's hat and cape, and while neither of you wore skirts and petticoats to protect your shame, it is clear that this one can't perform any spells, and you are clearly not right in the senses."
"I'm right in the senses! I sense you've got yet another birch switch up your ass."
"I can do spells!" Trixie protested. "I'm totally a witch!"
"I assume you can't try and convict animals?" Autumn said. "So we'll just be going now."
Cotton Mather hit her again. "We've already tried and hanged a dog for being a witch's familiar."
"We're not dogs," Trixie pointed out. "I don't even like dogs!"
"You executed him?" Autumn said. "A dog gone tragedy."
"Silence, beast. You're clearly a witch's familiar. As a familiar, you shall now tell us who your witch is."
"Which witch?" Autumn said. "If you want me to snitch about which witch, there's a bit of a hitch, I've got an itch for more switch."
Cotton Mather smacked Autumn with the switch again.
"Oh yeah, that's the stuff."
"Her name is Starlight," Trixie said. "Starlight Glimmer."
"Trixie's extra 'familiar' with Starlight and her witch's teat!" Autumn said, then rattled her forelegs against the pillory. "Somepuritan do finger guns, that one was great."
"Give us her baptized name," insisted Cotton Mather. He gestured at his congregation, gathered behind him in the square. "We will burn her along with you!"
Trixie felt her face go pale. Burn? They couldn't be serious! And they wanted her to pick out one of their own number to burn with her?
"I'll confess!" Autumn yelled, trying to wave her forehooves in the stocks. "Me! Me! Pick me! Over here! Totally confessing! I'll confess like a mobster with a plea deal!"
The Reverend Cotton Mather turned to her. "Yes, tell us, who is your witch, familiar?"
"It's him!" Autumn yelled. "It's the Reverend Cotton Underpants!"
The crowd began to mutter and snarl. Cotton Mather turned to them. "Silence! She's throwing wild accusations." He turned back to the stocks. "Maybe if we send one of you back to the devil, the other will be more cooperative!"
Trixie felt her face go pale and her mouth went as dry as Luna's baked goods. "N-no!"
"Oh! Me! Pick me! Send me to the devil!" Autumn was shouting. "That's where the details are!"
"You admit you are of the devil?" Mather demanded.
"Well, maybe," Autumn muttered, looking left and right. "Depends if we're between. Which way's the deep blue sea?"
"Cease speaking of the devil."
"Hey, my hooves are idle, who else will find work for them?"
"Anyway," Autumn said, sipping tea as she and Trixie sat in the library of the Friendship Castle with Twilight, Starlight, and Sunburst, "I kept using horrible puns to make them angrier and focused on me. Then when they tied me to the stake, I asked about Neighponese futanari hentai, big billowy petticoats, and Cotton Mather's mother, and they got so mad they forgot entirely about Trixie. She was able to use her magic to pick the lock on her chains and sneak out of the stocks."
"What happened then?" Sunburst said. "You went nirik and lit the pyre for them?"
"Nah, too obvious," Autumn Blaze said. "I wasn't mad enough to go nirik, so I let them burn me just a little bit, before I transformed over."
"So what happened?" Twilight asked.
"Trixie ran away like a long-tailed abyssinian at a rocking chair convention and reversed her flubbed spell, arriving back here at the castle."
"Trixie didn't 'flub' the spell, it just didn't do what Trixie intended!"
"So you just left Autumn displaced in another dimension?" Sunburst said with a glare.
Trixie shrugged sheepishly.
"Pffft, I was fine," Autumn said. She eyed her tea, went momentarily nirik to warm it up, and then changed back. This left the upholstery on Twilight's chair smoldering. "After I niriked, the ropes and petticoats burned off. I hopped off the pyre and started running around the town like a naked border collie herding repressed sheep."
"Why did you do that?" Sunburst asked.
"Frankly, I was a little bored, and a lot annoyed," Autumn said. "So I burned down a few buildings and singed a few petticoats. They scattered and ran, but ol' Reverend Cotton Underpants stood his ground and waved a Bible at me until I yelled 'the devil take the hindmost!' and charged at him. Then he ran off, too, and then I followed Trixie into the woods and found the portal right before it closed."
"You burned down their village?" Starlight asked.
"Well, part of it," Autumn admitted.
"That's awful, right before winter," Starlight said.
"Well," Sunburst began, "To play devil's advocate—"
"If Sunburst finishes that sentence," Trixie said, "Trixie will burn Sunburst at the stake."
