In the Heat of the Moment

It was another scorching hot day, and the trail to Dodge had been a long, dusty one. Trixie was glad to see the wooden buildings of the city appear over the next rise. Her carriage-bearers were tired, and thirsty, and so was she. They descended the rise, and soon they were on the streets of Dodge. Trixie left her carriage-bearers with a good tip, and, now that they were getting a well-deserved rest, it was her turn. A few steps away, and the doors of the “Dusty Gulch” saloon beckoned. An excellent name, she thought, as she entered…

…the bar didn’t serve bourbon. Western towns never did. But they had whisky, and that was almost as good. The view was nice, too. The barkeep was a blue stallion with a safety pin cutie mark and a magnificent horn, and he kept winking at her – or maybe to the stallion to her left, who had a brown coat and a cutie mark of a window. She was fairly certain they were occasionally making out. That didn’t seem very professional to her – not that she was going to tell the two stallions to stop, since the barkeep would have to rear up on his hind legs to reach over the bar, which gave Trixie a good view of his…

…well. Suffice to say that the brown stallion was not going to be left wanting if things came to that. Or Trixie, as the two moved closer to her, and within moments she was on the bar and between the two as they nipped at her flank and nibbled her ears and caressed her body in ways that felt sooo good as Trixie’s front hooves and telekinesis reached out to the two stallions and stroked their –

“Trixie Lulamoon,” a new voice said. Trixie looked up and saw Twilight Sparkle, who seemed unperturbed by Trixie’s current…predicament. “Ah’m here to settle our score.”

Trixie got down from the bar and found herself outside at high noon – the perfect time for a duel. Twilight was beside her, facing the opposite direction, however, their right shoulders touching. Twilight leaned over to Trixie and placed the point of her horn on Trixie’s own. “Trixie…!” she sang. “Our horns are touching…!”

Trixie gasped as Twilight began rubbing her horn up and down along Trixie’s own, and Trixie responded in kind, leaning in, then moving down, kissing down Twilight’s neck, across her barrel and stomach and towards…towards…

…towards waiting, jasmine lips as wings of a similar color folded around her, as strong hooves, impossibly strong hooves, grasped her and pulled her close as she found herself falling, Raindrops underneath her, kissing and caressing each other, but Twilight hadn’t gone anywhere, was still behind her, her hooves rubbing her flanks and her tongue doing…other things…and Windowpane and Pokey were back and Cheerilee had arrived with an implement of individual destruction which she was showing off to Lyra and Bon Bon as Big Macintosh showed off how appropriate his name was as he plunged deep into Caramel who was busy with Zizanie while Shining Armor –

Trixie woke up making a sound that was actually outside her range of hearing, though it gradually faded back into it as she ran out of breath and was reduced to just panting and sweating and trying to keep her hips still as she reminded herself that she was in Ponyville, she wasn’t in the Mild West, and she sorely doubted that ponies in the Mild West had time for orgies of the caliber that Trixie had just dreamed about, not as long as they had to deal with ornery buffalo –

The door to Trixie’s room burst open. Trixie cried out in surprise, throwing her blanket over her trembling hindquarters even as something jasmine-coated and blue-maned burst into her bedroom – Raindrops, wings flared and eyes wide. “Trixie?” she demanded, looking around for threats.

Trixie put a hoof to her chest, trying to will her heart to stop beating so fast. “This – ngh – th-this is Trixie’s house!” she exclaimed, interrupted only by the feelings still coursing through her body and originating from her nethers. “Hah…this is Trixie’s b-bedroom! This is-s Trixie’s bed! What about that is confusing?”

Raindrops stared at Trixie, eyes flickering from her face to the rest of her, specifically one hind hoof that was sticking out from under the covers and twitching slightly. “I heard screaming,” the pegasus explained after a moment, eyebrow raising.

“Nightm – ahn!” Trixie tried to explain as she shuffled the sheets around, trying to do a better of job hiding her nethers. All she succeeded in doing was stimulating them, still sensitive from their night raid on her brain’s subconscious. “Gah…hah…n-n-nightmare, that’s…hnh…that’s all…”

“I’ll…head downstairs,” she said, turning quickly and exiting Trixie’s room. She paused outside of it, though she didn’t turn around. “Um. Does…does this mean that you won’t be taking my advice?”

“Nightmare!” Trixie repeated. “Bad dream – bad dream! I’ll t-take anything that might cut down on these!”

Raindrops nodded, waving one hoof as she trotted off. Trixie shivered slightly, climbing from her bed carefully, horn glowing as she tossed yet another set of sheets into her laundry. She spent several moments trying to compose herself, as well as an awkward few minutes in her bathroom trying to clean herself up as best she could with only her sink working. Eventually, she made her way downstairs, and found Raindrops sitting in her living room, staring intently at her hooves. Her front door was open, but didn’t look broken – she must have accidentally left it unlocked last night, but she was just as happy to not have had Raindrops break it in her eagerness to come charging to her rescue.

“Okay,” Trixie said nervously. “I’m, uh…I’m sorry you, um…saw that. And smelled it. And heard it…”

Raindrops offered a slight shrug. “To be expected, I guess,” she said, then offered a slight grin. “So…who was in it?”

Trixie cast a glare at Raindrops, who chuckled slightly. “Something I learned the hard way,” she said as she stood. “Try not to keep things bottled up. It’s…bad. Though I guess this doesn’t really count.” Trixie’s lips remained tightly sealed, though she did look down as she considered. Raindrops offered a shrug again, as she trotted past Trixie. “Well, let’s get going,” she said, heading out the door. Trixie followed, leaving behind her cape – something told her that she wouldn’t want it. Outside, the sun was only just beginning to glare over the horizon, and nopony was yet out on the streets besides the two of them.

After a few moments of following behind Raindrops, Trixie caught up to her friend to trot alongside her. “…Pokey Pierce,” she said softly.

Raindrops looked at her sidelong. “He’s gay.”

“Not in my dreams, apparently. Or at least he’s…open to experimentation."

Raindrops chuckled again. “Well, that horn of his is impressive – ”

“And Windowpane,” Trixie added after a moment.

Raindrops’ eyebrow raised again. “Huh,” she said. “He’s…the window-repair pony, right? Can’t say I know him that well. Guess it makes sense you would, though – ”

“A-and Big Macintosh,” Trixie interrupted, feeling the floodgates tearing open.

“Everypony dreams about Big Mac,” Raindrops said, looking wistfully into the sky.

“And Applejack and Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor Cheerilee and Lyra and Bon Bon – ”

“And me?” Raindrops asked wryly.

Trixie’s mouth snapped shut, and she stared at her hooves. Raindrops chuckled again, fluttering her wings a little. “It was only a dream, Trixie,” she insisted. “Gotta admit I don’t think I’ve ever had that many ponies in my dreams…”

“Last night I dreamed about the entire Night Court plus Luna.”

Raindrops’ face scrunched up at that. “Ew. Not Luna, I mean. The entire Night Court. ‘Cept for maybe Blueblood and one or two others, there’s not exactly much to look at there…”

Trixie stared at Raindrops. This was a very different side to her friend that she was in no way used to seeing. The early morning combined with the very reason the two were trotting to the Whitetail, however, made her surprisingly open to conversation of this nature. “Blueblood? Viscount Prince Blueblood?” Trixie demanded. “He’s…he’s a pig!”

“I can believe that,” Raindrops said with a morose sigh. “Doesn’t change that he’s been voted ‘best-looking stallion in Equestria’ three years in a row…even if what’s inside is ugly, doesn’t mean that I can’t admire the packaging. Maybe take his looks and give him Big Macintosh’s personality. Imagine meeting somepony like that on a moonlit night…or at the gala…”

Trixie stopped trotting, staring at Raindrops. “Okay,” she said. “Who are you and what have you done with Raindrops?”

The pegasus stopped her trot herself, looking worried. “Not again…” she intoned softly.

Trixie fervently shook her head at that, holding up her hooves. “N-no, not like that, I just mean…it’s really hard to imagine you as swooning for somepony.”

Raindrops was quiet, rubbing one front hoof against her opposite leg as she considered the point. “I’m a scary mare, Trixie,” she said softly. “I don’t think there’s a pony from here to Cloudsdale that doesn’t know what I can be like when I get mad. When this…this anger, this boiling rage that’s always just there, bubbling beneath the surface…when it boils over. You’ve seen it first-hoof, when I wrecked half of Ponyville in my fight with Gilda, or when I threatened to kill you and was mad enough to steal a stormcloud from the patrol station to threaten you with it. Ask around and you’ll hear plenty more stories.

“And it’s just who I am. And I don’t like it. I hate it, but it’s who I am, and to an extent I accept it. But…well…sometimes it’s nice to imagine that I could be…be different. You know? Somepony that somepony would actually risk getting intimate with. Somepony a stallion…or a mare…wouldn’t worry about making angry. The kind of mare that somepony would want to sweep off her hooves and carry her off into the sunset, or dance with at a gala, or…”

Raindrops trailed off, chuckling a little. “Anyway,” she said. “Come on…”

Reaching the Whitetail Wood took only about fifteen minutes, but they kept trotting for another forty-five afterwards through the forest, Raindrops taking wing and checking where they were several times before they finally reached ‘her’ clearing.

There wasn’t much to distinguish it from any other clearing, other than its size – at least not at first glance. It was roughly ovular, about two hundred feet by four hundred. Its upper northeastern quarter was separated from the rest by a stream, only about four feet wide and maybe two feet deep deep at its deepest point.

Of course, then Trixie began to pay attention to the details. All the loose stones and rocks seemed to have been gathered up and removed from three of its quarters, creating a broad, flat area safe for running without having to worry about chipping or splitting a hoof. The northereastern quarter, on the other hoof, was laden with rocks of various sizes, many of them cracked or even split open as though something had struck them with great force – something hoof-shaped. Trixie noted, however, that none of the rocks looked like they were – nor had they ever been – particularly large. The foals’ tale back in Ponyville was that Raindrops could split boulders apart when she was mad enough, but from the looks of things, that was just an exaggeration. Even mighty Raindrops had her limits.

“Okay,” Raindrops said. “Here we are. We’ll start with a few laps around the clearing, get the heart pumping and the blood flowing. Then we stretch to get the muscles nice and limber. And…we’ll see where things go from there.”

Trixie nodded. Her ‘nightmare’ had, of course, drained her heat, but it had been steadily building up again over the last hour. It was still manageable, but…well, she was fairly certain she had been inspecting Raindrops’ cutie mark a little too closely as she’d followed her into the woods. She resolved to make sure she stayed ahead, or at least beside, the pegasus pony as the two began galloping around the edge of the clearing. Raindrops ran along the inside of their course, wings largely remaining at her side as she kept an eye on Trixie. The unicorn, herself, was panting after just the first lap – she wasn’t used to exercise, spent most of her days sitting comfortably behind a desk or on a couch. Still, she was determined not to give up after only one lap, and so pushed on through the second, and the third that followed afterwards. Raindrops called off their gallop after that, leading Trixie to the center of the clearing.

“Okay,” Raindrops said, sitting on her haunches and directing Trixie to do likewise. Trixie was panting, though from running rather than heat for a decent change. “Now just try and do what I do. If you can’t, that’s okay, just try your best and don’t strain yourself. You’re looking for resistance but not pain. First, stretch out your left hind hoof and reach for it with your forhooves, like so…” she showed Trixie what she meant, and Trixie did her best to copy. Raindrops kept an eye on her as she did. “Hold for five seconds…and…switch to right hind hoof…”

The stretching made Trixie’s legs tremble a little, but she followed Raindrops’ advice to not over-exert herself. “Okay,” Raindrops said. “Left forehoof high in the air, right foreleg behind the neck, pull a little backwards...hold for five seconds…and…switch to right forehoof in the air, left foreleg behind the neck…”

Trixie complied. Her heartbeat and panting were both slowing to normal levels at this point, and she could feel her muscles loosening. After a moment, Raindrops stood again, flaring her wings to their full span. “This part’s just for me,” she said, flexing and unflexing her wings, spreading them out wide and then up and over her head, craning her neck back as she did until she could poke the top of her head with her alulae and holding the position.

Trixie blinked. Raindrops was…surprisingly flexible, certainly far more so than Trixie had expected. The pegasus was full of surprises today, it seemed…after several long moments, Trixie realized she was staring, licking her lips a little, and stopped just as Raindrops finished her wing-stretch. “Okay,” she said. “Now, let’s see, how to get you exhausted…”

Trixie shuffled a little. “We could just run,” she ventured. That had not been the first suggestion to pop into her mind, but fortunately her brain had overruled any attempts to suggest other methods.

Raindrops shook her head. “Doing nothing but running, we’re more likely to get you bored than tired. We don’t want that. Idle hooves tend to wander. So…let’s start with push-ups.” She got down onto her stomach, and Trixie followed suit. “Pretty simple,” she explained. “Just don’t use your hind hooves. We’ll start with twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five?” Trixie exclaimed. She made no secret of her sedentary lifestyle: twenty-five was asking a lot from her.

“If we have to, we’ll take a break,” Raindrops said. “But the goal is tiring you out, remember?”

Trixie sighed, nodding. “Okay,” she acquiesced, readying herself, then beginning. “One…two…th-three…”

Trixie had to stop for several seconds at ten, and again at seventeen. She powered through the last eight before letting herself fall to her stomach. Raindrops hadn’t said anything at her needing to stop twice, instead only having her switch to rear push-ups, using her hind legs this time. Trixie felt more than a little uncomfortable waving her rear in the air, but then again there was only the two of them around. She still finished them as quickly as possible.

Following the pushups, Raindrops had Trixie roll over into her back, and do crunches, fifty in total. She’d needed to stop several times for that, but Raindrops again remained silent each time.

By the end of the crunches, Trixie was beginning to get a sense of just how tired Raindrops wanted her to be – but only a sense. The jasmine-coated pegasus had apparently done some reading on unicorns, and knew that their telekinesis was, in many ways, like a muscle – including having the ability to tire them out if overused. Thus, the stones at the other end of the clearing had been put to use, as Raindrops had Trixie levitate as many as she could and swing them around, up and down and side to side, fifty times in total. Here, Trixie didn’t tire quite as fast, being used to telekinesis - so Raindrops had helpfully added another fifty swings.

Raindrops smiled a little as Trixie put down the stones after her hundreth swing. “Okay,” Raindrops said. “Now we’re going to have a little fun.” She trotted out to the middle of the clearing and planted her hooves firmly on the ground, flaring her wings. “I want you to try and move me from here,” she said. “Don’t use telekinesis.”

Trixie blinked as she panted from the effort she’d been putting into their work-out so far. “Just…move you?”

“If you can.”

Trixie stared a few moments more, trotting up to Raindrops’s side. “Um…” she intoned. “Okay…” she placed her hooves on Raindrop’s side and pushed. Unsurprisingly, the pegasus didn’t budge an inch at first, remaining firmly in place without much effort until Trixie threw her shoulder behind the effort. Raindrops began pushing back, grunting a little before gradually beginning to slide. Trixie stopped. “Ha!” she exclaimed at her several inches of progress.

Raindrops nodded. “Okay,” she said, “now keep trying ‘til you’ve pushed me to the other side of the clearing.”

Trixie blinked a few times, then let out a groan at the thought of trying to do so, given how much effort it had taken to get just a few inches – never mind a hundred feet. Raindrops turned to face her, holding up her front hooves and grinning a little. With resignation, Trixie placed her own hooves on Raindrops’, and began to push.

To say it was slow going was an understatement, and to say that it was hard would have been a disservice to the term. Raindrops never tried to take back ground she lost, but she pushed against Trixie for every inch that the unicorn tried to claim. Trixie might have given up had Raindrops not been first saying, and then shouting, words of encouragement even as she resisted Trixie with all her might – or, rather, a significant fraction, anyway, as Trixie strongly suspected that if Raindrops actually didn’t want to move, Luna herself would have had trouble pushing her.

Trixie used her shoulders, her head (she was careful of her horn, of course), and her forehooves to push Raindrops. The pegasus herself spent most of the time resisting with only her hind hooves, her forehooves occupied on keeping a grip on Trixie to make sure that she didn’t slip and injure herself. Eventually, after what seemed like hours – and may very well have been at least one hour, in fact – Raindrops was finally pushed behind the tree line. The pegasus was panting and sweating, of course, while Trixie was all but on her knees and hocks, barrel heaving as she tried to suck in air. “H…ha!” She exclaimed at her victory.

Raindrops nodded. “’kay,” she said. “Now…we run again.”

Trixie blinked a few moments, staring, then groaned as she pulled herself to her hooves, trotting – not running, barely even cantering, more like simply shuffled – after Raindrops.

Consciousness came slowly but surely. Trixie felt dull pain across her entire body as she woke, and some degree of heat from her nethers, but her heat seemed like a remote, distant thing next to her exhaustion.

Trixie remembered Raindrops, remembered her work-out. She’d run several more laps, done more pull-ups and crunches, more levitation…the two had finally stopped for a breather after several hours, Trixie lying on her side and just panting and taking in the feeling of the cool grass beneath her…so soothing…so inviting. She had fallen asleep, that much was obvious.

The couch was a bit of a surprise, though. Trixie’s eyes fluttered open, and she found herself lying on the couch in her living room. The table nearby had a note on it; with effort, she managed to reach out and telekinetically grab it, bringing it over to her.

Good job today. Considering that you’ve never worked out before, you did great. If I’m right, you’ll probably end up spending the rest of the day in bed – night, too. Just make sure to get plenty to drink (and I mean water when I say that! No booze!) before you do.

I’ll be by tomorrow at around 3:00. Should give you plenty of time to sleep and recover.

– Raindrops

Trixie smiled a little as she let the note fall to the floor. That had gone well, she figured, as she stumbled from her couch and onto her living room floor. A glance at her clock told her that it was 2:00 PM – the two had apparently managed to work out straight through the midday break without even noticing, unless Trixie had collapsed prior to noontime, which she supposed was possible.

Trixie made to her kitchen, pouring herself a tall glass of water and draining it in just a few gulps. She was slightly more measured with her second glass, but still had it empty within a minute before leaving her kitchen. She considered her stairs for several long moments before deciding that her couch was plenty comfy. Therefore, she returned to her living room, bid Twilight Sparkle a goodnight, and closed her eyes, ready to just sleep through the rest of her heat if at all possible –

Trixie opened her eyes

Yup. Twilight was in her living room, specifically just in front of her bookcase, levitating a tome in front of her and apparently oblivious to Trixie’s presence, despite her having gotten up and then returned. The unicorn dragged herself to the edge of her couch, staring at Twilight for several moments before exclaiming “get out of my house!”

Or that was what she’d wanted to shout, anyway. All that came out was “geddoudam’ouse,” if even that intelligible.

It was enough, at least, to make Twilight jump a little as the lavender mare turned around to regard Trixie. “Oh!” she exclaimed, trotting forwards. “You’re up.”

“Mmph,” Trixie replied, leaning back into her couch as she remembered that Twilight was in heat and a dark possibility entered her mind as Twilight approached. “G’way.”

Twilight did the opposite, coming right up to Trixie, her horn glowing. “Okay, this’ll just take a second…” she said, as Trixie felt magic wrap around her. She let out a cry of surprise, trying to defend herself – but quickly found there was no need. It felt like there was vibrations across her muscles, like a thousand tiny masseuses working across them with warm hooves, kneading them and taking away the pain throughout them, if not the exhaustion.

Twilight clicked her tongue. “‘No pain, no game,’” she quoted, “except if I have anything to say about it!”

Trixie eyed Twilight as her horn stopped glowing; she was pretty sure that wasn't the saying, but elected to ignore it. “What did you do?” she demanded.

“Sort of a healing spell,” Twilight answered. “More like a masseuse spell. It helps with strained muscles that have been worked to exhaustion. It’s actually really interesting!” She glanced behind her, and several texts were wrapped in her effervescence and dragged forward. “See, when you work your muscles, they release a – ”

“How’d you know what I was doing?” Trixie interrupted.

Twilight pointed to Raindrops’ note on the floor. “I read that,” she said.

That made a degree of sense. As long as Twilight had once again teleported into her home, she supposed that the unicorn had every right to read whatever she wanted, or at least as much a right as anything else she might do. “And…why’re you back?”

Twilight shifted a little. “Um…” she said, tapping her front hooves together. “There’s been some…complications…with my plan. And…and these are all my books anyway!” Twilight turned around to the bookcase, taking books off of them and holing them out. “Dweomer Heart’s Diatribe on Divinations, Comet Cone’s Conjuration Codex, the complete works of Star Swirl the Bearded with annotations by Clover the Clever…” she turned around, having levitated one book in particular close her, holding it tight to her chest with her forelegs. “You stole these from my wagon!”

Trixie blinked, eyeing the book in Twilight’s hooves. “That’s not yours,” she said.

“Yes it is! And you…you doodled all over it – ”

Trixie shook her head, pointing down to the bottom right corner of her bookcase. “That’s your copy of Don Rocinante. Kept it separate from mine.”

Twilight blinked, turning around and looking, pulling the book out after several moments and comparing the two. “Oh,” she said softly, levitating Trixie’s copy over to its rightful owner and holding her own copy close, after checking the inside first to verify Trixie’s statement. “Um…sorry.”

“S’ okay,” Trixie said, running a hoof across her own copy of the book, opening it to a random page. Indeed, on the inside, there were doodles, the crude stick-figures of a foal trying to draw the images that the words of the book itself were unable to convey fully – especially the windmill scene. “It’s…my favorite,” she said after a moment.

“Mine too,” Twilight said. She looked down at her own Don Rocinante. “It was my first book…I mean, my first real book, not just a little foal’s book that just taught numbers and letters…”

Trixie nodded. The same was true for her. She had actually learned to read just so that she could read this book – and the same was almost certainly true for Twilight. The other unicorn was looking behind her at Trixie’s bookshelf, biting her lip. “I…it’s been so long since I’ve been able to just sit down and read…I’m sorry, I came back here and just saw the bookcase and all my books…”

Trixie stared for several long moments, before sighing, leaning down into her couch. “Take,” she said, yawning. “Don’t care…not very good at learning spells from books anyway. They’ll just…” another yawn, “…sit there otherwise…”

Twilight turned at that, mouth open, though she didn’t say anything, and after a moment she looked down at her hooves. “Can…” she said. “Can I…stay here and read them? I don’t have any candles at…where I’m staying. And I’m here already…”

Trixie stared at Twilight. “Thought you were in heat,” she said warily.

Twilight offered wide smile. “Who needs a stallion when I’ve got books?” she asked. "That's what I did for my other heats."

Trixie decided she had no answer for that. Any attempt at coming up with one would likely have only resulted in her, at best, decrying the fact that Twilight could apparently escape her heat with so little effort. And besides which – once more, there was nothing that Trixie could do to stop Twilight if she seriously had any intention of causing her harm. Even if she had Twilight teleport away, the lavender unicorn could just teleport back as soon as Trixie was asleep. But so far, she had come across merely as eccentric, and with no intention of actually harming Trixie.

Trixie got off of her couch, standing on shaking hooves. “Whatever…I’ll just go upstairs…”

Twilight trotted forward. “Hold on, I can help,” she said. There was a purple flash that completely filled Trixie’s vision, and when it cleared, she found herself standing in her bedroom, staring at her still-stripped down bed. Twilight frowned at the sight of that, and set her horn to work again, conjuring a violet bed sheet, cover, and comforter from nothing and laying them across the bed. “There we go,” Twilight said. “I’ll just be downstairs.” She disappeared with another flash and pop.

Trixie blinked, staring at her bed for several seconds and debating whether she wanted to sleep in bed clothes conjured from Twilight Sparkle. After a moment, she decided she was too tired to care, and so climbed in, setting her copy of Don Rocinante onto the nearby dresser. Seconds later, she was asleep.