Powertrip

D U S T

tiny

ˈtīnē

adjective

1. Very small.

What had he even gotten himself into? If he had just swallowed some of his ego and accepted the fact he had to be carried by his sister, then he wouldn't be lost outside with very little chance of ever getting back home. A new sense of panic washed over Dust, already draining his weakened body, but at least being held aloft by telekinetic magic was giving him time to rest after the trials he had gone through. His family probably hasn't even noticed that he was gone yet, mistaking a minuscule piece of lint of him and finding it as no different company. This sense of anxiety bothered him to no end, but what else could he do but think about such things? Forever lost out here with no hope of ever returning . . .

. . . No. It was simply the negativity talking. This situation could be turned around and resolved, he just had to give it time. Ponies were reasonable creatures. Things could be discussed, thought out, planned, and executed. All he had to do was talk to Trixie and convince her to take him back home, despite the bleak circumstances and her general reaction to him asking the first time. Dust sighed, just wanting to be normal for a chance and rely on himself, but look where that ended him up at. With a broken wing and no mobility, at the mercy and risk of a massive blue unicorn with a goddess complex.

Thunderous thooming hoofsteps equatable to a far away storm sounded in his ears as Trixie walked, but they were relatively muffled by the aura of magic protecting him, a welcome safeguard from the overwhelming disarray of events prior. In this shimmering mist of sparkling pink, everything outside of it was simply cast in a way that either it was deadened or not even heard or felt at all. Normally he would be feeling rushing winds and a onslaught of noise, but instead hardly anything at all. It was strangely comforting in a sense, and reminded the tiny pony of whenever his mother carried him in her own telekinesis. Hers was much more familiar and gentle, but this was at least slightly reminiscent enough to evoke such feelings.

Occasionally Dust would note that the unicorn's eyes would stray to him briefly, instead of a swaying sky of blue they become the black of pupil or the colorful outline of the iris, as if analyzing and assessing him. Her sight would only latch onto him for a few seconds, but those spare moments did make him feel odd. Every time he called out to her in an attempt to initiate a conversation that could surely save him any more trouble, either she was purposefully ignoring him or he was being held at a distance that his pitifully minute voice just feel short of her hearing range. Both of those possibilities agitated the puny pegasus to no end, but what could he do other than wait?

"E-excuse me? Excuse me!"

". . ."

"Hello? Err, Trixie?"

"Come on! You could hear me earlier!"

Dust Mite grunted in annoyance, beginning to wave and bob about in the hovering space in attempts to get her to notice him with movement. No such luck on that front either, Dust having to defeatedly resign to being ignored with a huff and crossed arms.He really, really hoped he could get a chance to speak with her before anything . . . unsavory or unfortunate would happen. Her ominous words from earlier still rang in his ears. Quite literally in fact. Sometimes the echo gets stuck in his head and it's pretty much all he can hear sometimes for a few minutes. Really hoping he wouldn't have to invest in a tiny hearing aid before he gets old, going deaf early would probably suck, especially given sign language or reading lips would be useless given he couldn't see it half the time with the size-scale disparity.

Within moments, boredom. Not much to do other than wait and see wherever she was going and taking him along. Dust briefly tried to remember if he knew anything about Trixie . . . she could just be another random pony, but he found something distinct about her. After tapping his brain for a bit, it hit him with a small "A-ha!" stated aloud for making himself feel clever. His family had spoken of her during dinner a few times. Apparently a magician who arrived in town and showed up the bearers of harmony, until apparently she was chased out of town by a Ursa Minor? Lilycup could have just been making up lies to make the story seem more exciting. Then the time she apparently took over Ponyville, but that couldn't have happened, more lies probably from Lily and Cloudy just to jib him. Now his parents did seem tired and distraught that day when they returned, but it must've just been from a long work session.

In all honesty, Dust had no idea what he was getting into. Summed up his life pretty well, as poorly as the outcomes usually were.

Just a few minutes. That's it. That was what she was telling herself. Let her have her few moments of godhood once more, gloat and lord it over the tiny little thing, and then help him. She was reformed. She was a better pony, but slipping into old habits couldn't be that damaging, right? This is what she asked herself as she made her way back to her traveling all-in-one home/wagon/stage, using it as a temporary setup in Ponyville until she can get off her hooves and back into show business. Trixie did truly pity him, and was intrigued slightly as well, but the urge to feel a power rush was all too overwhelming. Just holding him in front of her with her magical grip was enough, he was nothing. Only the smallest fractions of concentration was required to hold him, and whenever she looked at him it was so easy to see nothing at all or just a passing fleck of something impossibly miniature just caught in the air of her bubble of magic.

In a few minutes she reached her little slice of home. Small, yet cozy. Entering the wheeled room, she set her groceries aside and sat down at her dresser, eyes narrowing to focus on Dust floating in front of her, still held deftly by her magical grip. "Hmm . . ." She pursed her lips, and then bit the lower one. Just looking at him gave her such a powerful . . . emotion. It was hard to aptly describe. She had quite the ego when she was boasting about her feats during her first visit, but the shame drove her to almost becoming a deity. Yes, she had been humbled, and yes she had actually been forgiven and even made friends, but her current situation stirred the same feeling of when she held the alicorn amulet in her grasp. A shiver coursed through her body, and Trixie closed her eyes for a brief moment to allow herself to revel in such thoughts.

The Ever-Greater and All-Powerful Trixie. Trixie the Goddess. Trixie the All-Encompassing. The entirety of Equestria . . . nay, the world, beneath her, at her hooves and at the mercy of every whim she fancied with her monolithic stature. Towering over it all, feeling as massive to every living creature as she does in comparison to teeny tiny trite of a pony right here before her. Millions upon millions worshipping her visage, her very word that of-

"Um . . . excuse me?"

She blinked. Trixie snapped from her vision and squinted, furrowing her features to grumpily scowl at the tiny being. "What? Couldn't you see Trixie was busy daydreaming?!" The magic-maker scolded, a burning degree of harshness set in her tone.

"O-oh. Sorry." Dust could feel his very essence shiver under her words, and if it was possible for him to shrink even smaller, it felt like he would at any moment right now. "I was just-"

"Silence. The Great and Powerful Trixie is speaking."

". . . Okay . . ." His voice was so low it became indiscernible.

"You have bothered Trixie with your presence, and your general rudeness in touching Trixie's horn and interrupting her will not go unpunished!" The aura of magic lowered until it touched down on the dresser's wooden surface, dissipating with a flourish of trailing swirls that disappeared into the air. Dust yelled slightly, free-falling for a few moments before smacking down onto the surface with a hard smack. Wincing from the jolt to his system, he stood up slowly, making sure everything was there and that he wouldn't lose consciousness upon standing.

"Ugh . . . do you always have to refer to yourself in third person . . .?"

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

" . . . Hmmph." She loomed above as some great blue replacement for the sky, idly drumming her fingers a great distance away, every time the moveable masses thudded against the new landscape on which he stood a series of rhythmic quakes shook the world in a rapidly repeating staccato. "Now . . . what to do with you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Trixie will not repeat herself."

"I just . . . you're being awfully . . ."

"Silence." Her booming voice repeated in an eruption overhead and interrupted Dust once more. He was most likely not going to get anywhere the way he was going about things now. Maybe . . . he should simply play along for now. Get on her good side. So far she's only been mighty peeved at him.

"Y-yes, oh Great and . . . Powerful Trixie." Dust managed to stammer out, partially because he was actually nervous and afraid.

There was a recognizable shift in the enormously encompassing unicorn's body language as she leaned back, revealing more of herself as she peered down with now a slight glint in her eye. "Hmm . . . yes. You are much better to grovel. Trixie likes."

"H-have you decided what to do with me yet? I may be small, but I do have my uses!"

"Yes . . . Trixie has decided." She rumbled, leaning back even further in her seat, Dust feeling the quaking beneath him intensify as something incomprehensible slammed down in front of him with enough shockwave to blow him right off his hooves and fly back a good couple of yards, sending a fresh sear of pain to jolt through his back, mostly originating from his busted wing. Dust held back tears and a yelp, gritting his teeth and beating his fist against the ground until the pain passed. With heaving breath the pegasi sat back up, fighting through the aching that was quickly setting in and gawked upwards towards a sheer mountainside of blue hoof, escalating so high up it blurred and vanished beyond a certain point. Just the same could be said horizontally in conjunction vertically, the only way he actually knew it was a hoof was the rounded edges just past the point where his line of sight began to vanish and the unique scent it gave off.

Trixie chuckled, legs raised and kicked up onto the dresser, leaning back with her hands tucked behind her head with all the confidence in the world. "Worship Trixie's hoof." She commanded, giving the one before Dust a wiggle. "And once you're done with that one, the other." Her left hoof, adjacent by innumerable miles in distance, lifted up and dropped down with a tectonic impact to signify her words.

"W-well . . . alright . . ." Dust sighed, making a light jog to cover the distance towards the blue immensity, eventually reaching the underhoof.

"Alright, what?"

"Alright . . . Great and Powerful-"

"Great and Colossal."

". . . Great and Colossal Trixie." With a grumble he went to work, placing his hands against the wall and began to rub. Dust was particularly surprised by how soft it was. Normally a hoof did have its mixture of hard and soft spots, but this seemed amazingly marshmallow-y. Perhaps she had regular hooficures done? Or perhaps applied lotion daily? It was odd to have his mind wander to such thoughts, but he shrugged, dismissing it. Best to keep up the act. Already it seemed to be working, at least he hoped.

"Harder. Trixie can hardly feel anything."

Rolling his eyes and exhaling in a brief sigh Dust went from pressing inwards with his palms flat against the hoof to kneading in a circular motion, shoving in as hard as he could, managing to sink into the softness to wrist level. "How about that? Any better?" Dust called.

"Slightly. Trixie is beginning to actually feel something." She paused, adjusting herself in her seat. "Ticklish? Maybe. It is pleasant, so do not stop. Move on from your spot after you are done. You have all of Trixie's wonderful hoof left to worship~"

"Ugh." His sound of disgust was luckily kept to a level where she could not hear, a perk of being tiny. Badmouth all you want reasonably, and nopony would ever hear it unless you were screaming at the top of your lungs, or in an optimal location like near their ear. Dust actually had quite the sailor's mouth when he wanted.

Slowly did he make his way from his origin point, moving across the surface in a working pattern of pause, massage, break, continue on, and repeat. Occasionally Trixie would toss out semi-words of encouragement, but as time passed her annoyance returned. "Stop rubbing simply the outer edges of Trixie's hoof! Trixie does not wear horseshoes, so it is not so callous there. Move into the inner hoof, where it is so nice and silken."

"Umm . . . about that . . . I could, but . . ."

"But what?" Another rumble as the blue wall before him moved and disappeared with speed that should not match such great size, replaced by the glaring gaze of his pseudo-goddess.  "You dare defy Trixie?"

"It's not that! Not that at all! I'd absolutely would love to rub and love every last micro-inch if your sole, but, but . . . I can't reach all of it. Not in the position you had it in anyway." Dust continued to stammer, hands held up and prying for time.

"And just why is that?" Her tone was not getting any calmer.

"I . . . sort of have a broken wing. I don't know if you can tell all the way up there, but I'm a pegasus. Well, you probably got that when I flew into your horn, or otherwise I'd be on the ground, and . . . well that's not necessarily true. I'm small enough for the wind currents to pick me up whether or not I could fly them, I just so happen to-"

During his small gush of babbling, Trixie blinked once more and looked down at him. "Your . . . wing is broken?"

"Yeah."

". . ."

"Oh no it's not your fault! I sort of got it when I got lost outside."

"And you . . . were not just about Ponyville on your own. You were lost."

"Well, yeah. It's not safe for me. I've never actually left my home."

". . ."

"You uh, you okay up there?"

"Trixie is such an idiot."