Sacrifice: Trixie's Lament

After the previous night, Trixie had thought to sleep in. She deserved her beauty sleep, after all, but morning came quickly and the moment the rays of light shined through the parted curtains, Trixie was awoken. She groaned, opening one eye only to cover it by a hoof and sit up. She rubbed her eyes before blinking and looking out in front of her. The night before had actually happened. Trixie had not just simply dreamed it all up, or had a nightmare. She didn’t know whether to be happy or disgusted, since she was split down the middle of wanting to change for the better while also seeing it as a waste of time to try and change because nopony would change their view of her. Or would they?

Deciding she would get nothing done if she just laid in bed, Trixie crawled out and prepared herself for what her day would entail. Having rested and gone to bed rather calm, relaxed, and feeling good about herself had given Trixie an unfamiliar sense of energy—she felt like she could take on an Ursa Minor now.

Trixie decided her first stop should be someplace with some decent food to eat, at least that’s what her noisy stomach told her to do. But when does Trixie listen to anypony but herself? Her belly then gurgled a second time and she sighed.

“Fine. Breakfast it is,” she finally agreed, and headed off to the only place in Ponyville she could think of off the top of her head.

* * *

“HI! WELCOME TO SUGARCUBE CORNER! WHAT CAN I,” —Pinkie Pie’s eyes lit up when she saw Trixie walking inside, her hat on a downward slant to hide her face from the ponies staring at her— “TRIXIE!” she screamed, then bounced her way over to the unicorn.

Trixie sighed at Pinkie Pie’s elated way she welcomed patrons, especially her. Trixie raised her head and looked at Pinkie. “Must you be so loud?” she asked in an equally loud tone that was her way to show Pinkie how quickly she had gotten irritated by the mere presence of the pink pony.

“Loud? I’m not loud. I’m always like this!” Pinkie replied with her forehooves in the air and a wide smile. Trixie looked around them and saw the customers give them a glance, then resume their own agendas.

“Right,” Trixie said before looking at Pinkie again, “the Great and Powerful Trixie is hungry. She demands food!”

“Okay. What’ll ya have?” Pinkie queried back as she guided Trixie to a vacant booth, handing her a menu.

“Hmm...” Trixie suspended the menu up in front of her face, opened it with her magic as well, and perused Sugarcube’s goods. While she would never have thought that such a place called “Sugarcube Corner” would have anything which wasn’t a sugary delight, Trixie found foods like hay fries and hay burgers, even salads. “Trixie will have an order of hay fries and a water.” Trixie then slammed the menu shut and threw it back at Pinkie. At least that’s what it looked like from the staring eyes around the two mares.

“Okie-dokie-lokie!” Pinkie Pie said with a salute before bouncing away to fulfill Trixie’s order.

Trixie looked around herself while she waited for Pinkie Pie to return with her meal, and as she did she noticed some ponies staring at her awkwardly. Deciding that filling her stomach was more important than what other ponies were doing, even if they were giving her intense stares, Trixie turned away and ignored them, deciding to look at the bright colors of the bakery-cafe styled shop. How anypony could stand to have so much pink was beyond Trixie, but it was real and it was there, mixed in with the tan-colored walls, just standing out like a sore hoof.

“How can anypony sit in a place like this?” Trixie bawled, “It’s hideous!”

“Well, somepony is hungry,” Pinkie Pie said as she bounded out from the doorway and into the main room, then over to Trixie’s table. The smell of hay fries made Trixie’s belly rumble again.

“Trixie is,” —Trixie remarked— “now give Trixie that food!” Trixie lit up her horn and yanked the tray off of Pinkie’s back and set it down on the table.

Now while everypony in the room had heard the commotion and turned their heads towards Trixie and Pinkie Pie curiously, they beared witness to Trixie’s unruly disrespect while Pinkie Pie did not and went about being her usual, peppy self.

“Wow! Somepony is really hungry today! Enjoy!” Pinkie then bounded away to leave Trixie alone.

Raising a fry in her aura, Trixie bit into it. As one would have guessed, it had a hint of hay flavor with a pinch of salt, but Trixie kept eating them plain, even if there was a bottle of ketchup sitting on the tabletop. After a few more fries Trixie stopped chewing. She felt like she was being watched, stared at even.

At first, Trixie just ignored it, taking a sip of her water out of the bendy straw followed by another hay fry, but it quickly wore on her as she felt such pressing, rude eyes watching from behind her back. Trixie thought of looking over her shoulder to see if there was somepony really looking at her but she remembered she was wearing her magician’s hat, and it impeded that thought, so she had no other choice but to physically turn her head.

Trixie finished the last of her meal then took one more drink before she turned her head and saw two ponies, as she thought, looking at her. Now, while their gawking was innocently harmless, Trixie took offense to the leering and decided she had to show the minty green unicorn and her cream-colored friend just how offended she was.

“What are you looking at?” Trixie scoffed.

Bon Bon and Lyra both blinked when they had been caught, but by how rudely Trixie spoke to them after catching them, Bon Bon was the first to narrow her eyes and say her mind. “What are you looking at?” Bon Bon sneered back with contempt.

Trixie drew back with abhorrence at the mare’s uncouth attitude towards her. “How dare you talk back to Trixie with such ignorance!” She pointed her hoof at Bon Bon to emphasize her point.

After Bon Bon had drawn herself back and readied herself to retaliate, she was stopped by Lyra’s hoof on her shoulder.

“Let’s go, Bons,” Lyra said, hopping off her seat. Bon Bon followed suit and the two of them walked out of the bakery, with Lyra letting Bon Bon leave first just so she could give Trixie a death glare before seeing herself out.

After they had left the place and Trixie finished her glass of water, she dug out a few bits from her saddlebags and left them on the table before leaving herself. Although her food was okay, Trixie was beyond upset and very irritable at that point that she made her way out of the shop and slammed the door loudly behind her.

This did not go unnoticed by the remaining patrons, or Pinkie Pie herself, and it most certainly did not get by the overlooked Fluttershy, who was walking towards Sugarcube Corner.

For Fluttershy, it wasn’t hard to find where Trixie had gone as all she had to do was follow the sea of complaints from the denizens of Ponyville until she was led straight back to Trixie’s abode, her stagecoach.

“Well, um, here it goes,” Fluttershy told herself unassuringly as she gave the door two gentle taps.

“Who knocks on the door of the Great and Powerful Trixie?” Trixie answered from inside.

“It’s--”

“--Fluttershy?” Trixie said, blinking as she stood in the doorway, staring at the yellow pony, “and what brings the shy mare to Trixie’s door, hm?”

“Oh, well, I--I was in town and thought I’d come say hi,” Fluttershy replied. “So, umm, hi.”

Trixie was in a daze at Fluttershy’s meek greeting and reason for being at her door, but quickly recovered when she sensed falter in the pony’s tone.

“Fluttershy, what are you really doing here?” Trixie asked, “Did you come because of the rumors going around town?”

Fluttershy didn’t speak, she only stared at Trixie wordlessly for a minute before lowering her head in defeat. “Yes,” she squeaked.

“Trixie thought so. Well you can leave now. The Great and Powerful--”

“--I want to help you, Trixie,” Fluttershy whispered, stopping Trixie in her tracks.

“You want to what?” Trixie asked, because she had not heard what Fluttershy had said the first time.

Fluttershy gulped and raised her head to look Trixie in the eye then spoke up. “Trixie, I want to help you,” she reiterated calmly, “I want to help you be a better mare.”

Trixie stood there with a blank expression on her face as her brain processed everything Fluttershy had just said to her, including the offer to help Trixie start work towards becoming a better mare than she was.

It wasn’t until Fluttershy’s mouth was moving that Trixie shook her head and brought herself out of her daze in time to hear the pony invite her to her own cottage for tea.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie accepts the shy one’s offer!” Trixie answered back. She then shut the door on Fluttershy. Moments later it reopened and Trixie stepped out, dressed in her trademark hat and cape.

The two mares walked through Pony Square, and as they did, Fluttershy kept Trixie’s attention on her by talking about anything she could think of: Trixie’s life since the second duel with Twilight, the jobs she’s had and the places she’s been, even to what she was doing back in Ponyville again.

Fluttershy was glad she did this as it did not seem like Trixie was aware of anything happening around her except for what the two were talking about. This was a good thing because that meant Trixie was not seeing the leers the citizens were giving her, or hearing the whispers about her either.

At Fluttershy’s home, Fluttershy made Trixie and herself some tea; chamomile for herself, and a raspberry & honey mix for Trixie, a new flavor she wanted to try. After bringing out the tray with the kettle, two cups, and a handful of packets, Fluttershy set it down on the table in front of the couch, then poured the kettle of hot water into each cup and let Trixie pop in her own.

The aromas of chamomile and raspberry filled the air and brought ease to the two mares and the animals who were all lazily lounging about the livingroom.

“Um, so what do you do?” Trixie asked as she looked around the room and saw the different animals that were lounging. She never did understand why Fluttershy surrounded herself with animals. Maybe one or two as pets, but never so many that didn’t belong in a home—like a raccoon or a deer, for example.

Fluttershy looked up when Trixie had spoken to her. A smile crossed her face as her wings fluttered joyously from the question and the notion that Trixie, a mare who was usually self-centered and all about herself, wanted to have a conversation. A conversation!

“Oh, I help animals. I’m a caretaker for them. And I also pet-sit for ponies too,” ‘Shy answered Trixie.

Wow. What a bore. Trixie inwardly thought to herself. “So then these pets are not your own?” She held out a hoof and pointed to the flying turtle that was wearing aviator goggles then the fluffy white cat that was chasing a dog around in circles; or was it the dog chasing the cat? Trixie didn’t care to know.

“Oh, them? Yes, they belong to my friends,” Fluttershy answered, “You see, the turtle is Tank, and he is Rainbow Dash’s; then you have Opalescence, Rarity’s cat; and Winona, Applejack’s companion.”

The two mares spent the next hour just idly chatting away and getting to know each other while they enjoyed their respective tea, but that was going to end abruptly once Trixie got tired of it. And did she get tired really quick.

After they had just finished conversing about how Rainbow Dash had gotten promoted at the Rainbow Weather Factory, Trixie looked down into her empty cup and sighed with frustration. Noticing this, Fluttershy hopped to her hooves immediately, took the empty kettle, and trotted toward the kitchen.

While Fluttershy was away, Trixie let the lingering aroma of her tea entrance her and take her weary mind to places she’d never been. As she did, she listened to her thoughts communicate unfamiliar feelings

Fluttershy isn’t such a bore, is she?

“No,”

Rarity, for all her self-confidence and skill, isn’t as haughty or full of herself as you thought, now is she, Trixie?

“No, she isn’t,”

And what about Applejack, Spike, and that hyperactive pony, Pinkie Pie?

“Applejack? Trixie knows nothing about her,”

And Pinkie Pie?

“That mare needs to calm down,” Trixie said aloud just before she was brought out of her stupor by Fluttershy’s soft voice calling her name.

Trixie spent the next thirty seconds just looking at Fluttershy before shaking her head and looking down at her cup that was refilled and had a packet soaking in its center, mesmerizing her senses with the great smell of raspberry and honey.

“Trixie?”

“Huh? What? Oh, yes, Fluttershy?” Trixie answered back hesitantly.

“Are you okay, Trixie?” Fluttershy asked.

“Of course!” Trixie replied, “Trixie has never been better!” She then raised her cup and took a tiny sip.

* * *

What made you want to change, Trixie? If, umm, you don’t mind me asking, that is.

That question stuck with Trixie as she walked home after dusk and it gnawed at her like an itch that she couldn’t scratch, but it did so in a good way. Or at least that’s how Trixie was thinking of it.

What did make her want to change? Trixie reminisced the past couple of years that led up to this hefty decision and came to a single conclusion: Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight Sparkle was the reason Trixie wanted to change. Trixie had not only been defeated and humiliated by the recent crowning of the unicorn-turned-alicorn, Trixie had also been defeated by her a second time. That’s it. Trixie figured it out and as she had, she realized she was inside her stagecoach.

“Trixie must really stop daydreaming,” Trixie said as she shed her hat and cape, then plopped down onto her bed with a heavy sigh. “You… Twilight Sparkle, my rival—no—my nemesis!” Trixie huffed, “first you humiliate Trixie in front of all of Ponyville, then when she returns more powerful than before, you show her up. How dare you show Trixie up twice!” She hopped up and looked to the ceiling. “How dare you humiliate the one and only Great and Powerful Trixie!”

Although she was angry and giving her roof an evil glare, Trixie felt something wet mat her coat. Her scowl had become a frown and she slowly lowered her hooves and sat down on her bed as her tears came quickly, relentlessly. Trixie sobbed loudly as she cried and she hid her face in her hooves. She was poignant—embarrassed, humiliated, and overall, pathetic.

Trixie just wants to show she is somepony. Trixie thought as she let her hooves fall into her lap, watching her teardrops freefall, “Trixie just wants somepony to recognize her.” She gulped as if she were swallowing down all the pain that now pummeled her. “Trixie just wants to be happy.” She wept. After staring at the floor for twenty minutes, Trixie finally laid herself down in her bed and cried herself to sleep.