Trix And Stones Won't Hurt Us, But Can Words?
“Come one, come all, everypony, to the Great and Powerful Trixie’s Show!”
It took a lot to wake up Rainbow Dash from her naps sometimes. Celestia only knew that Applejack had bucked trees hard enough to rattle her own teeth in the backlash, failing to even nudge Dash back to the land of the living. Her own father had joked she had moved away from Cloudsdale because if she spontaneously fell asleep, the drop from her new cloud home in Ponyville would at least be survivable.
However, hearing the name of one of the flavour-of-the-week antagonists that had come to Ponyville over the last year was enough to jolt her eyes open. It was hardly a graceful awakening, as she fumbled around confused on her small cloud bed, mumbling “Huh hey wh-wait, TRIXIE?” She hissed, turning to spot the magician pony that had once upon a time terrorised Ponyville. While Rainbow Dash had napped, Trixie had come into town, setting up what appeared to be a new caravan, attracting a medium sized crowd of ponies for a late Monday afternoon. The unicorn had picked up a new pair of the purple star-studded hat and cape she had worn here last time, once more wearing it with a flourish.
“She thinks she can just come into town like that?” Rainbow Dash asked aloud, not really caring that nopony could hear her from how high up she was. Why, she out to give that unicorn a good piece of her mind! Tensing her legs, she made to jump off to glide down to the stage…
…and then grimaced, remembering how she had been humiliated when confronting Trixie on-stage that last time. Perhaps it would be better to retrieve her friends first before approaching the self-proclaimed Great and Powerful stagepony. “You better be ready, Trixie, to pay for what you did the last time you were here,” Rainbow Dash said before taking a running jump off her cloud. She just hoped Twilight Sparkle was actually available at the moment. That mare had been going on about the end of the world, especially after Cerberus had shown up in town.
“Thank you, thank you everypony!” Trixie gave a bow while on her hind legs, rather glad that the show had gone without a hitch. She knew she was arrogant basically all the time, but had toned it down for this performance, preferring to instead do her regular light shows and magic tricks, giving any hecklers few opportunities to inject his or herself into the play. Trixie wanted as little chance of this show going wrong as possible.
Starting the show right before the local school let out for the day meant the fillies and colts whom had seen her last performance and no doubt heard rumours would be coming in after she had finished her warm-up, and would be hesitant to throw any questions at her. The multiple mothers out for shopping would similarly not wish to deny their sweethearts a genuinely entertaining play. “You’ve been a good audience today, but this will be Trixie’s only performance today! She intends to be in Canterlot by tonight!”
With the clapping and stomping of hooves, she retreated backwards, casting a spell to close the curtains of her travel wagon close. Behind stage, she packed up the props she had utilised back into their proper boxes, intent on switching out a few of them at the storage she had rented in Canterlot.
It was with practiced confidence that Trixie didn’t immediately jump as the curtains were pushed open, and a blue pegasus with a mane and tail with stripes of colour along the rainbow was nearly in her face, “Alright, what are you doing back here in Ponyville, Trixie?!”
Trixie turned around, standing on her hind hooves again to gain height, putting her above head height with the hovering Pegasus. Idly, she noted two more ponies had come in behind her, a white-furred unicorn and a light-orange Earth pony. She refrained from grinning at how all three ponies she had showed up at her original show had come to see her here. It was really going all too easy. “Trixie just put on a show,” She calmly explained, “Unfortunately, she is not doing an encore tonight, though she may be doing one tomorrow in Canterlot. Until then, if you would like an autograph, wait outside until Trixie is done packing.”
“She doesn’t mean that,” The unicorn interrupted, visibly agitated, partially at Trixie's presence, partially that Twilight Sparkle was out of town. Had her friend been here, she was certain they could have given Trixie an even better talking down to. “Rainbow is talking about you bringing in that Ursa Minor the last time you were here!”
One of the many things Trixie had trained herself in was facial expressions, and she allowed an eyebrow, ear and her nostrils to all simultaneously twitch, giving off what she hoped was the right impression of cool anger. “Trixie bring in an Ursa Minor? As Trixie recalls, she had nothing to do with that. She believes it was two of your colts that decided to go and agitate the Ursa and lead it into town!” She held her nose up in the air, forelegs crossed.
“If it weren’t for yer braggin’, Snips’n’Snails would’ve never brought the Ursa inna town!” The Earth pony declared. “Ya claimed to have beaten an Ursa Major, and couldn’t even beat a Minor!”
Trixie glowered, “Oh dear, Trixie has learned her lesson that young colts can’t seem to tell the difference between exaggeration and reality. But tell me, erm…what was your name again?”
“Applejack,” The Earth pony snorted, then pointed to her fellow ponies, “This here’s Rainbow Dash, and that’s Rarity,” She introduced the Pegasus and unicorn respectively. “You might remember them and I as the ones you embarrassed last time you was here. Ways I see it, you owe us a ‘pology for that, sugarcube.”
“Trixie, er, I do feel bad for what I did to you, your mane, that is” Trixie stated to Rarity as she lowered herself back onto all four hooves, temporarily dropping her illeism for her apology, genuine as it was, before reverting back to third-pony. “Trixie was in a bad mood after seeing you tear one of her curtains off. They didn’t come cheap, you know. But she supposes she overreacted, since Trixie knows how awful that spell must have been to wash off if you didn’t know the counterspell.”
Rarity, for her part, was taken off-guard by the apology she hadn’t expected to actually be forthcoming, causing her to stutter at first, “Er, ah, I guess I was in the wrong a bit there too,” She admitted. “But it took me several hours to wash out that dreadful colour! I insist you at least tell me what book you learned that from!” Ghastly as the green hair was, such a spell was only terrible when put in the wrong hooves, such as when Trixie had abused it. Rarity was certain she could put it to so much better use.
“Easy enough,” Trixie replied, “It’s in The Traveller’s Grooming Cantrips by Elder Mare Athena.”
Rarity made a mental note to see if Twilight Sparkle had that book in the library, and if so, to borrow it.
“Er-hem!” Applejack coughed, and the attention in the room turned back to her. “That’s nice and all, but where’s our apologies?”
“Yeah, what she said!” Rainbow added, seeming to get even closer in Trixie’s face.
“That’s easy,” Trixie hmmphed, “Trixie doesn’t believe you deserve one.” Speaking over two indignant exclamations, she explained, “Trixie put on a show for free with donations optional, and you two decided to interrupt. Trixie doesn’t care for hecklers, and she’ll embarrass them if she has to. Besides, Trixie’s reputation has already been ruined as a result of the Ursa incident, perhaps you’re happy with that already?”
“Why you! Tell me why I shouldn’t knock you in the face right now!” Rainbow made to make a mock punch to show precisely what she meant, attempting to get even more in Trixie’s face, but found herself pulled back, a brief pain in her hindquarters as the familiar sensation of her tail being tugged on caused her to turn around. “Applejack!”
Applejack thought she would reluctantly have agreed with Trixie, given that the unicorn’s caravan had been destroyed by the Ursa minor. She didn’t say this aloud, knowing exactly the right things to say to get Rainbow Dash angry, and simultaneously to cool her temper off. “Now calm down, sugarcube,” She told Rainbow, “Ah doubt she’ll give us what she wants, so maybe we should just leave her be and let her leave town, so long as she refrains from coming back again.” Even if Trixie wasn’t quite in the wrong as Applejack wanted to believe, she still had no desire to ever see the showpony again.
Rainbow snorted out loud, crossing her front hooves with an annoyed look on her face, but Applejack knew she had her Pegasus friend calmed down for the moment.
“By the way,” Trixie interjected, “What was the punishment for those two foals, anyways? Trixie notices the fact they brought the Ursa into town was covered up outside of Ponyville, so she doesn’t know. Community service of some sort, she assumes?”
Rarity, who had become a passive observer in the conversation since being apologised to, narrowed her eyes. Trixie seemed to have, well, tricks up her sleeve. She was leading up to something, but Rarity couldn’t quite put a hoof on it.
“Mustaches!” Rainbow shouted at the showpony, venting off some of the anger that still seemed contained in her, like a boiler releasing a little bit of steam. “Twilight made them wear mustaches for a couple of days with a super awesome spell!”
The temperature in the stage wagon seemed to cool almost immediately, as Applejack and Rarity alike cringed at Trixie’s look, Rainbow’s steam-like fuse condensing in the chill. “Mustaches.” Trixie said, cool as a cucumber, before her lips etched upwards in the creepiest grin all three had seen in months, her hat dipping low on her head to just cover her forehead. “Trixie merely tells tall tales for her shows and is shunned Equestria-wide for it after losing her caravan, while two idiots who actually bring an Ursa Minor into town get punished by wearing mustaches for a few days? In the name of Celestia, are you kidding me?”
“Er, now, now, Trixie,” Applejack moved to defuse the situation again, not wishing to see anypony blow up today before words were said that couldn’t be retracted, “They’re only colts, y’know. You’re an adult mare, so of course you-“
It was then that Rarity got a sinking feeling that somehow what Applejack was about to say was precisely what Trixie wanted. “Applejack, stop!” She pleaded quickly, trying to stop the farmer pony from going on.
“Got the bad rep, ya did bring it on yourself, y’know,” Applejack finished, seeming pleased with herself, ignoring Rarity completely.
Trixie’s grin curved downwards for a long second, before freezing in a neutral pose. “I see,” She said. “Trixie supposed then that if anypony grown up were to do something really bad like, say, use a mind control spell on an entire town, then that pony would definitely be chased out of town, never allowed to return, is Trixie correct?”
All three of the Ponyville citizens froze. Rarity at last knew what that sinking feeling was.
What Trixie had done was basically brag about something she didn’t do. Twilight Sparkle had enchanted a doll. Rarity understood why she had done it, so that Twilight could have a friendship report to send to Princess Celestia, but the consequences…she winced. Well, what little she remembered of the town-wide scuffle that had occurred certainly hadn’t been pretty.
And the punishment had basically been nothing. Twilight had fretted for a few minutes after Celestia’s appearance over what her punishment would be, and after her friends have volunteered to take on a collective punishment, it had amounted to sending friendship reports to the Princess about their daily going-ons.
It took Rarity several seconds to recover, shaking off her paralysis at the accusation and attempting to come up with a tactful response. Unfortunately, those few seconds were too many, compared to the Pegasus who was used to bragging about ‘Ten Seconds Flat’.
“How did you even hear about that?” Rainbow Dash demanded. However, for once she wasn’t focused on Trixie, her mind reeling at the comparison that had just been made.
“It’s amazing how much gossip you can hear, especially for a pony who occasionally performs in both Manehatten and Canterlot,” Trixie said, “Not that Trixie has been able to do a solo act for quite some time, but she has had to do small roles in troupes before.”
“Yeah well, Twilight was our friend!” Rainbow Dash said, the spit spraying from her mouth making a good impression of a wild Everfree cloud, “You were just some no-name pony that rolled in and caused trouble!”
“Oh?” Trixie quizzed her, “Do say. It sounds like Twilight Sparkle must have been the absolutely nicest, most helpful pony under Celestia’s sun when she first came into Ponyville.”
The comeback smacked Rainbow Dash in the jaw like a direct hit in one of her Iron Mare boxing competitions. Her wings instinctively flapped backwards, the Pegasus reeling as if she had just hit the rubber ropes of a boxing ring. At a loss for coherent words, Rainbow Dash was left rather dazed, “Er…”
“Big deal, it doesn’t matter,” Applejack snorted, “If Twilight ended up all acting like you did, we’d tell her off and try to get her to act like normal again.”
“Yes, yes,” Trixie said, flicking a hoof off at an imaginary object, the long hair from her fetlocks indicating her similarly-long travel times. “I suppose you would, just like you would, perhaps, tell off one of your other friends if they were bragging like I was. You certainly wouldn’t dress up in costumes and humiliate your friend until she was reduced to begging attention. That would just be disloyal, after all.”
This time, it was Applejack who was shut up, looking as if she had bit into one of her family’s prized apples only to find a worm in it. It was at this point Rarity decided to speak up, before Trixie could make another comment that slithered its way into her friends, or even Rarity herself. Even if Rarity felt a little bit guilty over her participation in the Mare-Do-Well episode as well.
“Enough,” Rarity said, at last trying to control the conversation, “I think you’ve made your point, Trixie. Perhaps we treated you unfairly. Here in Ponyville we like to think of ourselves as being open to outsiders, which I suppose hasn’t always been true.” An image of Zecora, a zebra shaman who had set up a hut deep into the Everfree Forest for her alchemical experiments, flashed through her mind. “But what did you come back here for? To shame us?”
Trixie opened her mouth, then shut it. She opened it again, taking a deep breath. Rarity readied herself. Applejack may have been the Element of Honesty, but Rarity, being prone to a few histrionics of her own, was able to tell hammy acting. The problem was that either Trixie was a very good actress (she had mentioned earlier playing in some troupes), or she wasn’t playing it up. At last, Trixie took her hat off, leaving her horn and the top of her mane exposed, and said, “I suppose I came for closure,” She said.
“What do you mean, darling?” Rarity was quick to respond, making sure to keep Applejack and Rainbow Dash out of the conversation as long as possible. It wasn’t too hard, she conceded silently, given that they still seemed a bit shell-shocked.
“After I left Ponyville, I was ruined,” Trixie said, nodding at the walls around her. “I had insurance on the old cart, but my payout was denied on the grounds of being an Act of Faust.” She would have spat were they outdoors. “But Trixie is nothing if not resourceful, working bit parts as required, until she had the funds for a new cart. She wandered around, and found a rare few towns that didn’t run her out of town, despite her newfound reputation. It was then that I heard about incidents here in Ponyville.”
She smirked, putting her hat back on. “It seems most of the ponies here don’t care about what happened the last time I was here. After all, compared to the likes of Nightmare Moon, Discord, a swarm of parasprites, skyscrapers collapsing, ponies constantly being run off a cliff, nearly being choked in smoke from a sleeping dragon for a century, love poisons, and let’s not forget a mind-control spell that caught nearly the entire town, a rampage by an Ursa Minor is fairly, well, minor.”
Rarity resisted the urge to groan over the bad pun at the end, but grudgingly admitted the truth of the matter.
“Trixie is happy she got to put at least one performance on that won’t end in disaster,” The magician admitted, “She meant what she said earlier. She intends to be in Canterlot by this evening, well away from here.” She shifted, looking to the side, before quietly adding, “And I suppose it makes me just a little bit happy that the one pony to ever upstage me apparently has her own flaws.”
Rainbow Dash literally growled, “You’ve got a lot of nerve saying that, Trixie,” Even as Applejack and Rarity traded nervous glances, each agreeing to restrain their friend if she went berserk over a careless word.
“I did try to stop the Ursa minor, you know, even being low on magic after putting on a show,” Trixie said. “I could have run away, but I didn’t. I stood and fought to protect two young foals I didn’t even know. Not everypony would do that, and not because they’re mean, but because they would be scared, and Trixie knows how difficult it is to fight instincts like that,” She had finished her lapse into first-pony pronouns, finally returning to her common third-pony speech.
“What’s your point, Trixie?” Applejack asked, counting to ten in her head over and over to keep herself from turning into Rainbow Dash.
Trixie regarded her for several seconds before speaking, “Trixie wonders. The three of you barged in on her after she put on a harmless show, demanding apologies for the last time you were here. If somepony was to commit a minor misdeed, the likes of which you’ve done something far worse and received minimal or no punishment for, would you stigmatise them as you have done to me?”
For once, there was silence as the magician had left the three Ponyvillians speechless. Looking out the window of her new caravan, Trixie narrowed her eyes, turning back to talk to them. “Leave, please. As Trixie said earlier, she intends to be in Canterlot tonight, and still has some cleaning work before she leaves.”
Recognising that they weren’t going to receive any more apologies that day, the three ponies left, unicorn, earth pony and pegasus.
Rainbow Dash was airborne as they left Trixie’s caravan, front limbs crossing as she pouted. “You know, she was right about Mare-Do-Well. Not cool girls.”
“Ah’m sorry, Rainbow,” Applejack said, and an apology from her was a genuine one. Even if she were to make an insincere one, anypony could see through Applejack like clean water. Dishonesty would radiate from her like Celestia’s overhead sun if she even told a little white lie.
“As am I, darling,” Rarity said. “But you understand what Trixie was doing in there, right?”
“Yeah, she was trying to make us hate each other!” Rainbow exclaimed out loud, pounding her hooves together in a smack of frustration. “And the worst part is, she was right! Trixie was stretching it, but I still feel sour about it.”
“Th’way I sees it, best we can do is not ta turn a blind eye the next time a pony does sumthin’ wrong. Ya reckon we should tell Twilight that Trixie was here?”
“No,” Rarity feverously shook her head, leading the three to her boutique. She knew Rainbow Dash didn’t have much of a taste for tea, but she was certain she could fix something up for the three of them to lift them out of the funk Trixie had dug a pitfall trap for and let them wander into. “Twilight was in the right when Trixie first came to town. She didn’t want to show off, even when we encouraged her to. It’s our mistake, we should be the ones to live up to being better. I think we’ve been using Twilight as a crutch too often. I wonder if we would have been so forgiving of Twilight, too, if we had been caught under that spell.”
“Grargh!” Rainbow said, venting some frustration. “Stop it, Rarity! I don’t even want to think about it. I heard about how Big Mac was affected, too. Strong farmpony like him, that’s so uncool.”
“Hey!” The sister of said farmpony said back, before pawing at the earth. “I asked my brother about, and he said even less than usual that whole night. Ah don’t wanna think how embarrassed ah’d be if ah was caught in that whole debacle. Whaddya think, Rares?”
Rarity found herself at the entrance to her shop, and paused as she brought a hoof up to her door. She refrained from commenting on the nickname Applejack gave her, settling for, “If you say so, sugarcube. I agree, though. It would have been most dreadful. I don’t think I could have shown my face in Canterlot for years if there had been pictures. Trixie did have one good idea, however. Who do you think is likely to do something horrendous that we should try to turn the other cheek for, be nice to after instead of hostile?” She asked, as she opened the door, only to trail off.
Tree sap.
It was everywhere.
“The Cutie Mark Crusaders,” The three let out a sigh in unison.
Author's Note
It’s been duly noted many times that the Mane 6 doesn’t come off the greatest in Boast Busters, and many a FIMfic has been written about this. I figured I’d write about it as well, but use many of Season 2’s episodes for Trixie’s turnabout zingers. The basic gist here is that Trixie hears about some of the things that happen in Ponyville in Season 2, and thinks the whole ordeal rather unfair. She then decides to get revenge on Twilight Sparkle by basically pointing out hypocrisies to her friends and making them feel bad. It would have been fuller, but I got tired of the concept after awhile and wrapped it up quicker than intended.
If you didn't pick up on it, this fic in fact has a very exact date: Monday afternoon, on the day before Tuesday when Twilight Sparkle uses the time travel spell in Canterlot in It’s About Time. Monday evening, her, Pinkie Pie and Spike break into the Star Swirl the Bearded Lounge, so by Monday afternoon they’re out of town. Trixie basically knew that Twilight Sparkle was out of town when she decided to put on her play. Similarly, she also was prepared with retorts and snarky comments.
I thought about having Ponyville Confidential come right before It’s About Time chronologically for the sake of this fic, then decided for the ending it actually works coming right after. Since AJ, Rarity and Rainbow Dash are the big sisters or sister figures of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, maybe they’ll act a little different when Gabby Gums is outed!
Originally, I was going to have something about a mysterious pony who was actually telling Trixie about all the events in Ponyville. This would be hinted at in Rarity’s thoughts as to how Trixie knows everything that happened. Then I decided to have a scene at the end where Trixie talks with somebody, without hinting who it is, even a gender. Then I decided I would actually make it somebody, but hemmed and hawed as to who it should be, pretty quickly settling either on Mayor Mare or Zecora.
In the case of Mayor Mare, she would have known Trixie prior to the Ursa incident and wanted her to guilt some of the Mane 6 into being more responsible. Zecora would have been all ‘pro-Harmony’ for the Mane 6. Finally, I nixed the idea altogether. I decided it would simply be best for Trixie to throw some words around and try to divide up Twilight’s group of friends if possible as a more subtle form of revenge, without anypony asking her to. Although, nothing says she still wouldn’t find the Alicorn Amulet ;)
That said, I worry I overdid it with Rainbow Dash, making her too aggressive all the way through. The same goes for Applejack’s accent.