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// The Truth Hurts 
// Story: Unfamiliar Familiar 
// by Addiccus Phinch 
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	The time it took for Trixie to pull it together was rather short, and I didn't have much of it to think before she was standing and preparing to run. She used magic to pick up her hat which had flown loose from the blast, and lifted as many sacks as she could with before taking a hurried step away. Perhaps hoping that I wouldn't notice her disappearance, being too preoccupied with whatever vicious and powerful monsters get preoccupied by. I guess she was in enough of a hurry that she didn't see me watching her the entire time. Unfortunately for her escape plan, I was.

"Wait." I called out. None of the anger or fake magnificence present in my tone, just a mild depression. "Just wait a moment, please."

My words caused Trixie to halt in her actions, and when she wasn't moving it became obvious to me that she was shaking. Fuck dammit, this wasn't going to be easy. Acting like everything wasn't real was not the best way to set the groundwork for a conversation. Especially if it left you shamed and confused, and her terrified of what was next to her. Kinda like a the morning after a particularly interesting party. I let out a sigh and continued to speak.

"Trixie, don't leave just yet please, I...I need your help. Please. I swear upon my life I will not harm you, but don't go."

Looking back on it now, I must have sounded like I was begging. I suppose I was, and she must have heard it too as she dropped her sacks with death-row resignation and turned to face me. The fear was evident on her face, but she held it together surprisingly well. 

"W-what-" She bit down on her lip, refocused and tried again. "What is it that you need, Great One?" The shakiness was still evident in her voice but the stammer was gone.

I tried not to notice the tone in her voice, or how she addressed me. Instead I patted the dirt next to me.

"Please sit down, we need to talk."

She shuffled somewhat nearer, but stopped before getting close.

"If its all the same to you, Great One, Trixie would rather stand."

I nodded, and leaned back to look at the sky. hoping that taking my direct attention away from Trixie might mollify her slightly and give her some sense of comfort. I could taste the irony in that thought, considering the past hours events and let out a chuckle. I almost flinched at the sound she made in response.

I never liked people being scared, maybe in a joking manner but never truly. It was a sadistic pleasure reserved for the others that I generally refused to take part in. When people were happy, and confidant I was too. When they were frightened, It made me sick. Not out of disgust, but out of a general sorrow. When I acted the way I did before, she had been a fake in my eyes. An illusion. Weaved with madness and animated by insanity. But now that she was flesh and blood, what I had done was simply appalling.

Shame. A lovely feeling that I know quite well. And grew to knew further.

I felt the compunction to try and explain to her my actions, to get her to understand why I appeared to be the very thing she thought she had summoned, when In truth I was not. I wanted to explain my sickness, and how the situation was so absurd that I believed I had gone insane. I wanted to explain so many things, in hope that it could shed some light on the situation and make it more understandable for the both of us. Yet I didn't know where to begin...

I squeezed my hands together in an exercise of futility when a familiar pinch gave me exactly the "Hi-im-not-an-evil-monster-ice-breaker-conversation-opener" I needed.

"Trixie, unicorns have a unique culture among pony tribes when it comes to marriage, am I wrong?"

I Didn't change perspectives, but i didn't need to look at her to understand the confusion. She obviously had no idea where I was going but went along with it. I was pulling on my knowledge of the show here again, not to frighten her like before, but to maybe make myself seem a little more human to her...or equine, or whatever.

"Yes, Great One. Most of it is similar to the other tribes, but the unicorns have a few unique customs."

She couldn't seem to bring up the courage to inquire why I was asking this of all things. I continued, ignoring the unspoken question.

"And one of these customs in unicorn marriage, is the exchanging of rings between the mare and the stallion to signify the bond, yes?"

"Yes, Great one." 

"Then in that case..."

Without looking I lifted up my left hand showed her its back. Wiggling my ring finger, I hoped it would draw attention to the solid gold band upon it. A simple piece of metal of both a modest sum of material worth, and an endless amount of emotional value to me.

That ring represented everything that mattered to me in my world. Why I cared to try and fight my madness, why I wished to leave this world fake or not and return to my old one.

Two months from yesterday I had been scheduled to get married to the light of my life.

and today, I had been drug out of my world and tossed into this one.

"Do you know what this means, Trixe?

Despite her apparent issues with magical knowledge, She wasn't stupid, and in the time it took to blink she seemed to had put the pieces together. Not that it was rather hard mind you. The look on her face would have been priceless if I was in a good mood, but now only seemed to give me some slight recompense.  Her eyes were wide, and her mouth  had made a small 'o' shape.

In the words of someone wiser than me, she seemed to realize that she had "Dun Goofed."

My tired eyes locked with hers and my voice was resigned

"Are you absolutely sure you cannot send me back?"

Her small nod was the only response I got, and I would have to be enough.

I stood up and Trixie took a step back. I ignored her in favor of walking to the trees which ringed the small clearing and began the painstaking process of gathering up twigs and branches. Behind me I heard the door to Trixies trailer open and her step inside. I continued picking up the wood, and once I had a large armful I walked to the firepit. Dropping the wood unceremoniously in the center. Drawing from my limited experience in outdoorsmanship, I judged the amount of wood to satisfactory for fire making. 

I looked around for some kind of lighter or tinderbox, but found nothing of the sort. I went to search through the sacks, but stopped partway and smacked myself in the forehead. Trixie was a unicorn, and probably used magic to light her fires instead of some tool. So unless I wanted to be rubbing some sticks in frustration id need her help.

Yet as I stood in front of her wagon, i couldn't bring myself to knock. My hand had been stayed by the strange mix match of emotions in my system. First and foremost was the absolute shame that always followed after an 'episode'. Despite telling myself not too, I let my paranoia draw quick judgments. Judgments which led me to act in a stupid and careless way that left me hurting.

And not only me

I must have terrified Trixie to no end, and then hitting her with the guilt card, letting her know what she took from me. Insulting her, destroying her confidence by shattering her, admittedly sucky, circle. All in less than an hour...She was likley as much of an emotional wreck as I was. She probably needed time, and so did I.

Too bad that I needed fire, and despite modern intelligence I lacked paleolithic ingenuity. 

So I Knocked

At first she didn't respond, causing me to knock a second time. This time with more force. I heard some noises, and from behind the wood came a muffled voice.

"What do you need?"

"I need you to light a fire."

I chose not to mince words. If she started this fire, I could sleep comfortably outside and not bother her further. 
There was a moment of silence before she responded.

"...You need Trixie to start a fire?"

The questioning in her tone made it obvious she found this hard to believe. I hadn't thought that a viscous summon would likely have fire abilities in their demonic roster of power,  and at this point came to a crossroads. I either could continue my farce, and try to get her to do what I wanted through fear, or tell her the truth. The first option was risky, as it entailed a continuous amount of bluffing that I eventually would have to back up. And when the time came, and I was unable to perform. She would see me for what I was and who knows what would happen. There was a decent chance it would involve smothering me with her hat while I slept.

Option two was no better, as it meant that she would feel no compunction aside from guilt to help me. Guilt that would pale in comparison to the anger of me duping her in the first place. I absent mindedly rubbed at my wrist and the marks I could feel on the skin. Also, if I told her the truth I would loose the only thing that protected me from her and her magic. Fear.

For not the first time in my life I cursed the sickness that had placed me in this situation. If I hadn't been insane, I could have reacted rationally to my awakening. If I had done that, I would have been able to explain to her my situation and would have convinced her to send me back, despite my urges of seeing this strange and wonderful world of ponies.
Ok, perhaps it wouldn't have gone as smoothly as that, but it damn well would have turned out better than this.

Damning my brain, I bonked my head against the door of her trailer in frustration.

Trixie must have taken this as a third and final knock because to my immediate surprise she immediately opened the door, perhaps to avoid my ire. This was counterproductive as my support was the door in which she was opening. Causing me to fall.
I caught a glimpse of surprised purple before slamming into a mix of blue and brown. The blue being infinitely softer than the brown, as it was comprised out of pony than hard wood. Her surprised yell was matched by my groan as it became painfully obvious that the choice had been made for me.

"Fuck everything..."
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I would love to say everything went smoothly for me from there, that Trixie was accepting and understood the reasons for my actions. That she fed me, gave me her bed, covered me with a blanket and sang me to sleep before staying up all night and discovering a way to reverse her spell. That we hugged in the morning, forgiving each other for our trespasses before she sent me happily home.

Instead my initial assumption was correct. Once she realized I wasn't the omniscient eldritch being that she thought she had summoned her rage knew no bounds, and I quickly found out what those markings on my extremities could be used for. Lets just say it wasn't pleasant. So after being bound to the dirt and forced to sleep outside WITHOUT even the comfort of a fire, I awoke...to nice cold water.

All over my head.

Trixie stood above me, the cooking pot I had seen the night before hovering surrounded by a pinkish hue. Her face held a contemptuous smile, and I knew I was screwed. It seemed as if a single night of sleep was all she needed to become her usual self, especially after realizing she had control of me. Releasing my binds, she ordered me to stand, and I did so. Wincing at the painful cracking my joints were doing in a group refusal to move. Too bad, like me, they had no choice.
Now standing Trixie stood before in a manner that almost reminded me of a drill sergeant, but with a glare half as kind. 

Lifting a hoof she gestured to all the scattered sack.

"Minion! The Great and Powerful Trixie will not dirty her hooves picking up her materials. Fetch them and place them in the wagon, I will be eating breakfast."

Tired and in pain, I was going to refuse her but then I caught the glint in her eye. She was wanting me to defy her, just to have an excuse to use the Bind again.

See, what I had discovered the night before was that the marks did more than just bind me to this plane. It bound me to her in particular giving her some strange benefits. The most obvious of which is that if I disobeyed, she could Bind me as she had done last night. Which had the simple enough effect of locking all of my muscles in a manner very similar to a taser. Which both made it impossible to move, and hurt like hell. So i wasn't in a hurry to have that happen again.

With nary a sound I went to work. Moving the sacks was a strange task as it varied in difficulty. Some sacks were light as if they were filled with feathers. Others were so heavy it took all of my strength to lift them. However I could never look to see what was within. The one time I tried, I had felt the muscles in my hand spasm and contract, causing me to drop the sack with a pained yelp. I gazed over to were Trixie was eating an apple, and saw not only the smug look on her face and the pinkish glow around her horn.

After that I just loaded everything into the wagon without hassle, and was rewarded for my efforts with a haughty snort and a declaration that I had taken too long, and that we should have been on the road and hour earlier.

It took alot of willpower not to notice the whispers.

Instead, I just nodded and apologized. Swallowing the retort and threats down into my throat. She was oblivious to my inner struggle, and casually threw away her apple core before settling into the seat in the front of the wagon. 

"Minion! Come here."

I did as such, and walked over to where she sat. She watched with veiled amusement, as if privy to some sort of joke. I didnt see what she found so funny. Until she pointed with a hoof to the harness at the fore of the wagon. The one she would have been wearing if she was going to pull it...

My gaze snapped back to her and her smile was cruel. That BITCH expected me to pull her wagon like some sort of mule! What was I, her fucking slave?

Apparently so as my internal rebellion was quelled when I saw a familiar glow around her horn, and to my shame I rushed to get the harness around shoulders. Trixies laugh did not help me to remain calm, but somehow I managed.

The harness was a bitch, because as I found out it wasn't designed to loop around human shoulders. It was meant to curve around a ponies barrel, meaning it would only fit around my waist. Anyone with basic knowledge of leverage would know that it would now be infinitely more difficult to pull now. Fuck. But still I hooked it tight and began waited for her instructions.

"Why are you just standing there Minion? The Great and Powerful Trixie has no time to waste! Get moving, we have a rock farm to visit."

...A rock farm? Double Fuck.