A Bump in the Road

by EloquenceInkwell

Rating: everyone
Tags: Trixie, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Maud Pie, Slice of Life
Length: 2424

When Trixie's cart breaks and leaves her stuck on the side of the road, help arrives in an unexpected package

Trixie Lulamoon is traveling the same route through Equestria that she always has, pulling her show cart and only home behind her. When a wheel on that cart cracks and Trixie finds she can't fix it herself, help arrives in the form of a pony who leaves Trixie frustrated and confused, and perhaps just a little intrigued.

Written for the Everfree Northwest 2015 writing contest.

Special thanks to my lovely prereaders: Taialin, PathfinderCS, and Shadow Beam! Double thanks to Shadow Beam for also providing the cover art!

Published 2015-03-21 05:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2015-03-21 05:10:01 UTC

A Bump in the Road

The Great and Powerful Trixie was undoubtedly at a low point in her life. She trotted along, pulling the show cart she called home behind her, sweating from the summer heat and chafing where the harness rubbed against her. Normally she would be traveling from town to town to perform for the people there, earning bits and adoration everywhere she went. However, after being shown up by Twilight Sparkle in the ursa incident, then seeking revenge using an amulet that made her just a little power-hungry and losing to Twilight again, her career as a performer seemed to have reached its end. No one wanted to watch her perform, and after her latest defeat she didn’t even really want to try anymore. She still traveled, but it had become a slow trudge, performed out of habit rather than necessity. Although she traveled the same roads she always had, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was lost.

Squirrels chattered in the trees overhead. Trixie looked up at them to find that one of them appeared to be watching her.

“And just what are you looking at?” she asked, glaring at the tiny creature. The squirrel merely tilted its head and continued staring at her.

Trixie used her magic to pick up a small rock and hurl it at the animal.

“Go away!”

The squirrel jumped out of the rock’s path, then Trixie heard an odd crunching sound as it struck something hidden by leaves. She only had a moment to question what she had hit before she heard loud, angry buzzing.

“Bees!” Trixie ran down the path as fast as she could, sweat dripping into her eyes and her cart bouncing on rocks behind her. She ran without looking back until she couldn’t hear buzzing anymore, and then kept running. She didn’t stop until she heard a loud crack directly behind her.

After the crack she could feel her cart shift and resist being pulled. She quickly came to a stop and turned to find the right front wheel in splinters, then immediately unhitched herself and trotted over to inspect the damage.

While the wheel was damaged far beyond use, Trixie noted that at least nothing else looked cracked or broken. She quickly identified the cause of her misfortune, a large pointed rock jutting out of the road. She groaned as she glared at the offending object.

“Typical. Doesn’t anypony know how to maintain a road around here? Stupid rock.” She kicked the rock hard with a forehoof.

“Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow…” She sat on her haunches and rubbed her now-aching forehoof for a bit before getting back on her hooves and gingerly putting weight on it again.

“Well, no matter. There’s a spare wheel in the cart. Trixie will have this fixed up in no time.”

She hopped into her cart and levitated out the spare wheel and her tool kit, setting both down on the ground by the broken wheel.

“Now to just lift this thing up and get what’s left of the wheel off, put the new wheel on and…” She attempted to lift the cart with her magic but couldn’t even lift it high enough to get the broken wheel off, let alone put a new one on. She attempted to lift it with her hooves as well, using them as well as her magic, but she still couldn’t get the side of her cart more than an inch off the ground. She dropped the cart in exhaustion and slumped down next to it.

"This never would have happened if Trixie still had her old cart. Stupid ursa minor. Stupid Ponyville." She tapped a hoof against her horn and looked up at it, frustration still plastered on her face.

“And stupid horn! What’s wrong with you today? I’ve replaced wheels on this and my last cart dozens of times before! I mean, sure I had other ponies around to help me some of those times… well, most of those times… That doesn't matter though, Trixie can fix her own cart. She just needs to rest for a few minutes to get her strength back, that's all."

Just as she was beginning to settle in for this rest, and maybe watch for other travelers if one just so happened to pass by, she spotted another pony off in the distance.

“You there!” she yelled. “The Great and Powerful Trixie requires assistance with her cart!”

The mare up the path lifted her head and began walking towards her. Slowly. So slowly, Trixie was sure that she would starve to death on the Celestia-forsaken patch of dirt she sat on before this mare finished her casual stroll over to her.

Trixie surveyed the mare as she finally reached her: grey fur, plain un-styled straight mane, a clipboard in her teeth, full saddlebags, and a pencil stuck behind one ear. All in all, she looked like she would be the exact opposite of helpful.

Trixie pulled herself up off the ground and faced the grey mare. “Could you have walked here any slower? Can’t you tell that Trixie is in the middle of a crisis here?”

The mare looked around slowly before responding. “I don’t see anypony else here. Where is Trixie?”

Trixie gritted her teeth in frustration. “I’m Trixie! The Great and Powerful Trixie, in fact! Trixie is surprised you haven’t heard of her.” Trixie regarded the dull look of the earth pony again. “Though, she supposes that she isn’t that surprised…”

“Why do you talk about yourself in the third person?”

“Because, well, because… That isn’t important right now! What’s important is that Trixie is stranded on a road in the middle of nowhere because one of her wheels caught on some stupid rock and broke, and now she has to replace it, but her cart is too heavy to lift by herself in her exhausted state.”

Trixie gestured to the broken wheel, and the earth pony followed her gestures, only glancing at the wheel before turning her attention to the rock that broke it. She lowered her head until her muzzle was within an inch of the rock and inspected it carefully.

“Hmm. Metamorphous. Quartz inclusions. Recently fractured.”

She pulled out a small chisel and a capped vial from one of her saddlebags, uncapped the vial, and began chipping bits of the rock into it.

After a moment of staring at the earth pony, Trixie voiced her confusion.

“What are you doing?”

“Collecting a sample of this rock.”

“Why?”

“I study rocks.”

Trixie sighed and glared at the mare. “Well if you’re quite done with your rock sampling or whatever, Trixie still needs help with her cart if she doesn’t want to be stuck here all day, and I can assure you that she doesn’t.”

The grey mare made no effort to quicken her pace as she continued to carefully chip away at the rock. After another minute, as well as a lot of angry teeth grinding on Trixie’s part, she put away her tools and her sample and looked more closely at the wheel.

“It’s broken,” she stated flatly.

“You don’t say.”

“You shouldn’t run while you’re pulling a cart.”

“What makes you think Trixie was running?”

“There’s no other way the cart could be so badly damaged.”

“Well- well, Trixie had to run! She was being chased by a- a manticore! A big, angry manticore!” Trixie took on a nonchalant tone. “I mean, not that the Great and Powerful Trixie is afraid of manticores. It was just attacking a town full of innocent ponies, and Trixie had to lure it away before she could fight it, so that her awesome magic wouldn’t harm any innocent bystanders. She just hit a rock while she was running, and had to fight off the manticore here.”

“I didn’t hear anything.” The earth pony said, oddly enough sounding neither accusatory nor curious.

“I fought it before you got here.”

“I’ve been out here for hours.”

“Well- well maybe you were just too busy looking at rocks to hear anything!”

The grey mare considered this for a moment before responding. “Okay.”

Trixie waited for her to say something else, but nothing came. She wasn’t sure if the mare didn’t believe her or just didn’t care, but either way her complete lack of interest left Trixie grumbling under her breath.

She watched as the grey mare went back to inspecting the cart. “Umm, did I mention it was a three-headed manticore?”

“You did not. You just want me to lift this cart and replace the wheel?”

“Yes. It was a rare fire-breathing breed too. Nothing special for somepony like the Great and Powerful Trixie, but such things are usually interesting to you more common fo—“

Her jaw went slack mid-sentence as she watched the mare lift the right side of her show cart into the air with a single hoof.

Trixie stammered for a moment before managing to get her words out. “H-how are you doing that?”

“I’m lifting it,” the earth pony answered before using her free foreleg to remove the broken wheel from its axle.

“Well, yes, but how? That cart weighs a ton, even the Great and Powerful Trixie’s magic couldn’t lift it that hig—I mean, normally Trixie could lift it herself of course; she’s just worn out from fighting that manticore."

“I’m strong,” she stated matter-of-factly. Trixie watched her wide-eyed as she put on the spare wheel. She didn’t even look like she was struggling or breaking a sweat.

“So, are you a weightlifter or a professional sportspony or something? Or do you use your super-strength to fight monsters and bad guys, winning the praise and admiration of those you save?”

“No. I study rocks.” She looked at Trixie as if confused by her questions.

“Well, yes, but what do you do with…” She gestured in the mare’s general direction. “… that?”

“What?”

“Your strength! What do you do with it?”

She considered this question for a moment. “I use it to break rocks on my family’s rock farm.”

Trixie stared at her dumbfounded. “That’s it? You have the strength of twenty ponies and you’re wasting it on a rock farm?”

“It’s not a waste.” Trixie thought she might have detected the slightest hint of defensiveness buried in the earth pony’s monotone voice.

“But… but who’s going to admire your talent on a rock farm?”

“What talent?”

Trixie came very close to tearing her mane out.

“This talent!” she yelled in exasperation as she frantically waved her hooves at the heavy cart that was still being held up effortlessly by one hoof.

The mare stopped what she was doing long enough to look up at Trixie as she spoke. “I don’t get it.”

Trixie hung her head and sighed. “You know what, never mind. Are you almost done?”

The mare nodded and went back to fixing the cart while Trixie attempted to puzzle her out. She just couldn’t figure this strange mare out; she could do something extraordinary and she didn’t even care! She didn’t even seem to understand that it was extraordinary at all. While Trixie was completely blown away by what this mare could do, the mare herself didn’t seem to pay it any mind, like she was just doing her job and there was nothing special to it.

This mare had no showmareship, no flair, not a single thought put into how to entrance and amaze, yet the Great and Powerful Trixie herself could not look away from her remarkable display of strength. Trixie didn't get it: how could such a bland, dull mare hold her attention without even trying? She found herself reminded of that spotlight-stealing Twilight Sparkle and how she acted during their first meeting. She had at least used some lighting and sound effects do draw attention to her, but this? This was a grey earth pony with bad hair and a perpetual look of boredom doing something that nopony Trixie had ever seen before could do, and doing it in the least interesting way possible.

Trixie thought back to how Twilight had tried to explain why those Ponyvillians were more impressed with her than with the Great and Powerful Trixie, and began to wonder if this might have been what she was getting at. If she was describing this strange art of not trying to get anypony’s attention in such a way that it just makes ponies want to pay attention to you more, this ability that the mare in front of her was using to hold her attention. This… humility, or at least Trixie thought that was what she remembered that purple attention thief calling it. As she considered the odd mare in front of her and her use of this humility thing, the pony she found herself contemplating finished attaching the wheel and set the cart down. Much to Trixie’s surprise, she then immediately went and hooked herself up in the cart’s harness.

“What are you doing now?” Trixie asked, running over to her.

“The axle’s cracked. There’s a town nearby where you can have it fixed.”

“Yes, but are you going to pull the cart there yourself? Why?”

“It will be harder to pull with a damaged axle.”

“Trixie is much stronger than she looks you know. She could easily get her own cart to this town.”

“This will be faster.”

Trixie gave up arguing and nodded, walking with the grey mare as she began pulling the cart. “Hey, what’s your name anyway? You never introduced yourself.”

“It’s Maud.”

“Maud, huh? Well, I guess you already know my name.”

“I do.”

“Hey, Maud?”

“Yes?”

Trixie paused for a moment, looking down at her tired hooves. She bit her lower lip and took a slightly shaky breath.

“Thanks…”

Author's Note

Since it was pointed out to me that this question might come up, here seems like a good place to address it. Yes, I know that Trixie worked on the Pie family rock farm for a while, and that this could mean that the two had met prior to when this story is set. I just assumed that Maud was away at school for the pony equivalent of her bachelors in rock science during what was probably the three weeks that Trixie was working there (because let's be serious here, Trixie didn't last more than three weeks).

Now that that's out of the way, I hope you enjoyed my little one-shot about these two. Thanks for taking the time to read it :twilightsmile: