Grandeur

by Blue Blaze {COMET}

Rating: everyone
Tags: Original Character, Trixie, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Slice of Life
Length: 2004

Everypony is born with grandeur inside of them. But it's not easy being great. The question is, are you talented, or skilled?

It takes a lot of work for little things to happen.

Effort, skill and talent all fall into the same triangle.

High Hat, a magician of his own caliber, is all about talent and finesse. But when he does something that he's never done before and get disapproval, he has to try and handle himself with one of the most dangerous pitfalls life can offer.

Denial...

Published 2014-11-20 16:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-11-20 16:20:02 UTC

When Talent Outmatches Skill

Author's Note

This was a fun little diddy I wanted to do during my spare time, and of course, It's based off of my feelings about success. It's short, painfully so, but I like to believe that a little bit of effort was put into the pacing of the entire story. You have to read it slowly and carefully to get the full effect of the writing.

When Talent Outmatches Skill

“I don’t believe this!” A dark blue stallion exclaimed, slamming the magically enveloped opened letter onto the nearby desk. The door to his apartment closed behind him with a tweak of magic from the horn on his head. His golden eyes were filled with rage even though the short ponytail that his brown mane was tied up in was neat and not one strand out of place. He exhaled sharply through his nose. His name was High Hat.

An ocean blue mare looked up from the issue of Arcane Artist she was reading, her eyes skeptical as she sank into the crimson bean bag, her back hunched neck relaxed. A strand of her silver mane hung over in a split between her horn and her purple eyes gleamed from the light outside the window, a sort of childlike energy sparking through them. Her signature blue mage’s hat and cape were hung up by the front door along with a black and dark green cape with a tall, onyx magician’s hat. She rose one eyebrow at the stallion before her.

“I got denied! Again!” He cried, stomping around the small living room in the apartment. His hooves landed on the edge of the carpet and he stopped to stare out of the window to the morning life of Manehatten, just as the bustling city was waking up. There was light moisture on the window, and the tiny deck that the home was equipped with was damp with light morning dew. The sky was grey with heavy clouds looming over the populace like an invasion of darkness. Ponies of multiple hues and colours traveled up and down the sidewalks, carts road down the wide avenues and stray, battered papers flew in the light southern breeze. The signs of various shops along the street were flipped opposite to read “Open” and the business day officially began at nine-o-clock sharp. He rubbed the bridge of his muzzle with his hoof, exhaling in a groan of annoyance. This was only the morning and already he felt a headache filling his head.

“Trixie is not surprised at this point.” the blue mare said, returning back to the page she was reading.

High Hat turned around in a flourish of drama, sweeping his right foreleg up into the air out of habit. “This is what, the sixteenth time that I’ve got a denial letter? What are these publishers thinking? My story isn’t that bad, is it?”

Trixie had to put down her reading completely at his words. “Trixie doesn’t want to dignify that with an answer.”

He grimaced. “Trixie, come on. Would you please work with me here?”

“You shouldn’t be so shocked.” she pointed out. “You’ve never gone to school, much less even thought about writing a novel before. You’ve never even strung more than two sentences together in your entire life! What makes you think you’ll get your first story passed without trouble?”

He turned to his left and stared at the grey wall above his red couch, lost in his thoughts. “I’ve worked on this story for the past year, Trixie! I’ve put time and and effort into this project, and I need it to succeed! What you think I was doing between shows the past few months?”

Her eyes widened. “You haven’t been practicing our new performance routine?”

High Hat mentally and physically backpedaled. “Err, well, not to say that haven’t been practicing, which I have, by the way, but when I’ve felt like I know the new steps of routine decently I move on and spent my time on something else I find interest in. Writing.”

“So is that why you’ve been making mistakes in our performances? Dear Celestia, Trixie thought it was just because you were floundering about with your tail between your back legs! Now Trixie knows that you truly are stupid!” Trixie exclaimed, her eyes wide like dinner plates.

High Hat quickly faced the window, his face failing to hide his horrendous poker face. “L-Look, the point is, I’ve been working at this for a long, long time. I-I-I should be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel by now!”

Trixie glared at him. Her horn was enveloped with a light-blue glow and she grabbed an exert that was on a dinner table at the opposite side of the room. She pulled the piece of paper close to her face and began scanning a random line on the page.

“’Oh Glory, you are so handsome, I love the way your skin glitters and shines under the moonlight.’ said Archlight Shimmer, batting her long, voluptuous eyelashes. The two lovers could not rip their sight from each other as flocks of seagulls called from above the sandy beach line.” she said with a dead monotone.

“T-T-That’s not bad!” High Hat sputtered.

She raised an eyebrow. “High Hat, you have lovey-dovey dialogue like this that continues in circles for twenty pages! How could anypony bear to read this? Trixie may not be a romantic, but that doesn’t mean that Trixie can’t see this is garbage. You don’t have a ghost of a chance against writers who got years of actual education writing, never mind the experience. Why are you even writing romance? You haven’t had a date in years!”

High Hat peered at the ground, hoofing at the soft material of the floor. His cheeks were heated like a tea kettle and his face screwed up into sour frown. “You know how romance novels are selling like hotcakes these days! Besides, all the young mares of this generation absolutely love shiny vamponies! If I wrote a story that had all the winning elements of a best-seller, than no publisher will turn me down! It’s foallproof!”

Silence reigned as High Hat waited for a response.

“Ha, that is, it was foalproof until the publishers, uh, actually started pushing me off and blacklisting any contact from me…” he said, laughing sheepishly. Trixie shook her head in the background.

With a heavy sigh, High Hat turned away from the couch, flicked his tail up and collapsed into the cushions. He sank a few inches, looking at the ground and put his fore hooves onto his cheeks, leaning his weight against his lap. He could only hear his own breathing deep in the distance.

“Is it really that bad?” he asked honestly, looking up to meet Trixie’s eyes.

Trixie nodded slowly.

He closed his eyes and rubbed them for a few seconds, groaning in annoyance. The morning glow that shined through the cloud seemed to sting him like night lights after a long, hard day.

“I just…” High Hat began, putting his forelegs down and leaning back into one of the couch pillows. “I just don’t want to end up like my father.”

Trixie put her magazine aside and got up from her seat. Frowning, she trotted over slowly to High Hat, her hoof steps muffled by the softness that was white carpet. She looked over him as his head tilted down, his eyes a bit hazy and distracted. When he didn’t say anything, she took a seat beside him, the cushion inflating for a second before evening out. He didn’t move, and let his forelegs rest useless at his sides against the couch. She didn’t dare touch him, and instead kept her hooves crossed against her lap with her shoulders slightly bent forward. She rubbed her hooves together. She wasn’t always great at choosing the right words to say.

“Hey,” she said, breaking the deafening silence. “There’s nothing wrong with being a magician. You’ve been doing it for years, Trixie’s been doing it for years. Your father probably had a blast doing it for his lifetime too. Even if you can’t become a great and successful writer, there’s always room for you on the entertainer’s road.”

He turned to look out the window. It started raining. Rain drops began to tap against the glass lightly, like little baby hooves tapping on a porcelain floor. “I know, I know. And I really, really like begin a magician too. It’s just that…”

Quiet entered the room again. High Hat thought in the peace while trying to figure out what he wanted to say.

“I had a sudden thought last year. It was after the arcane convention show we did in Baltimare, remember? I just thought, while we were cleaning up backstage, what if my mother broke up with my father because he was always on the road, performing for others all the time? What if she broke up with him because he didn’t spend enough time with her? What if she left him because he was too obsessed with his special talent and didn’t leave enough time for her?”

Trixie tried not to frown, but she couldn’t keep a neutral face either.

“I don’t want to end up like that. Some poor joker that couldn’t keep his head straight because it got lost in the clouds of smoke he created. I don’t want that to be me.”

He sighed.

“Look. Your father had enough time with you, right? Even though you were both on the road all the time and he had to do shows while you were his assistant, his still had time for you, to play hoofball or whatever sons and fathers do, right?”

“Right.”

“And he had time to do so even when your mother was with you, right?”

“As far as I can remember, yeah.”

“Well then Trixie thinks you’re overthinking it. It wasn’t your father’s fault that your mother left you. His job didn’t cause her to leave. It was her. Your mother made the decision all by herself. You shouldn’t feel bad about things that were out of your control. You can lead others to water, but you can’t make them drink, you know?”

He looked up at her, still slumped over.

“Look, you don’t have to be great at multiple things to be interested in life, if that’s what you’re worried about. But you should forget about getting lost in your profession. It’s your job, and you love it! I’ve seen the smile on your face after every performance you and I do, and it’s as wide as Celestia’s sunset! You only need to be great at one thing, and that’s all life asks for you.”

High Hat exhaled.

“And if there’s anypony that knows about greatness, it’s Trixie. After all, they don’t call her the Great and Powerful Trixie for nothing, do they?”

He cracked a smile, but he tried to dismiss it like the stone statue he his. He failed miserably. Trixie watched him close his eyes, and she felt a grin forming on her own face.

“I really don’t need to be better than I already am, do I?”

“Nope.”

He snorted. “I’m already great like that, I guess.”

High hat opened his eyes and turned towards his speaker.

“Thanks, Trixie.”

She put her hoof on his. He curled his ankle on the touch and wrapped his fetlock around hers.

“No problem.” She said with a smile. Her head dipped as she shut her eyes. “Makes me wish that I had parents growing up a little.”

He sobered up and straightened his back, his smile vanishing. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

He looked down. Placing his other hoof on hers, he lifted up her foreleg beneath chin level. She opened her eyes in surprise.

“I’m truly grateful, Trixie. I mean it. Thank you.”

Trixie gave a sugar sweet smile.

“Trixie thinks you should shut up now. After all, what are friends for?”