One Bowl of Soup
By
The Incognito Brony
(Brony Incognito elsewhere)
Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony in any part, nor is this intended to infringe on any copyright or license owned by Hasbro or anyone else. If you actually read this disclaimer, you deserve a cookie.
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Trixie pushed through the underbrush. Ahead, the forest cleared, and just beyond was the crest of the hill. The red glow of the setting sun was painfully bright after three hours in the deep woods, but its light shone down on her goal. Below her, hidden from the casual observer in a large, dry gully, was the Ponyville dump.
Trixie swallowed hard, then eased herself down the steep incline. Earth crumbled under her hooves, but, while she hit solid ground faster than she’d meant, it was without incident. She let out a relived breath she'd been holding, then paused and tapped a hoof. The noise came back as a hollow knock. She looked down, lifting a few small timbers with her magic to clear the view. The ground was an old storefront. A quick look found another one beside it; beyond that were the remains of a roof riddled with holes.
"What do those ponies do in that town?" she asked, aloud. Ponyville was some three miles away. Being heard wasn't high on her list of concerns.
Gingerly, she made her way through the refuse. There were remains of old furniture, toys and more houses all around her. One half-buried device looked like it had once been the illegitimate lovechild of a candy cane and a bicycle. Thankfully, the Ponyvillians didn’t seem to use the dump to dispose of food. Where it ended up, Trixie had no idea, but while the place smelled of old metal and stagnant wood, it mercifully lacked the reek of wet rot.
Her prize waited for her against the natural wall of the dump, lit by the last inch of sun still poking above the horizon. There, half buried under unidentifiable debris, was her wagon. It was shattered, broken and snapped in half, then had its parts tossed into a haphazard pile by uncaring hooves.
The show mare sighed deeply as a weight found its way into her heart. She'd known the wagon was destroyed, but in the confusion she hadn't had a chance to really take stock. A shake of her head and she went to work.
Propelled by magic, debris flew away from the wagon in all directions. Piece by piece, Trixie unearthed her shattered home until every offending timber, chair and splinter was gone.
Trixie looked around the wreck, then beside it, then lifted portions to see underneath. An angry growl escaped her throat and she started tossing more debris away until she hit actual earth.
Trixie, standing on one of the many piles around her wagon to keep away from the ground’s remarkably large collection of nails and other sharp accoutrements, cast a glare roughly toward the town. "And somepony stole Trixie’s wheels. Of course. Why wouldn’t they? Well, Ponyville, the Great and Powerful Trixie is not so easily beaten."
The wagon, meant to unfold into a stage, came apart easily. The curled front of the wagon bed was removed and set on a rough-trod path out of the dump that Trixie had found during her search. A set of ropes found in one of the trick boxes were tied to it to make a crude sled. From there, the mare tore through all the storage compartments. Rockets, smoke grenades, more ropes, trick urns, anything undamaged went onto the sled. Her bed was a lost cause, but an old bedroll was found tucked into a corner and added to the pile.
By the light of her horn and the pale glow of the full moon, Trixie pushed aside the last of her broken possessions and uncovered the secret box set near the rear axle. Inside, still intact and untouched, were her stash of bits and an old, dog-eared book. She nearly cried when she saw them. She wrapped her bedroll around both for good measure and put them on the sled.
One last trip into the refuse and Trixie returned carrying the sign from her wagon with her. She laid it carefully down on top of everything else.
The exertion had left her coat matted with sweat, her breath came hard, but still Trixie turned to face the nearby town. Or, at least, where she thought it was. "Farewell, Ponyville. I hope I never see you again."
With that, Trixie took the rope in her teeth, set her hooves to the Earth and shoved off.
The sled didn't move.
She pushed again, straining against the rope in her mouth.
Nothing.
Again, she pushed forward with all her strength. She managed to move the sled a few inches and cut her lip.
Trixie, panting, dropped the rope and looked at the crude contraption. Finally, she stepped over the rope, grabbed it in her teeth again, and started to pull. At the same time, she used her magic to lift the front of the sled a millimeter. The thing started to move.
It was slow going and difficult, and she was already exhausted to boot, but Trixie didn't stop. Pride and a fierce desire to leave this thrice-be-damned town behind her kept her going, even if it was backwards.
Her legs and horn began to burn before long. They had both given that up in favour of a simmering agony when a voice called out.
"Howdy."
Trixie cracked an eye she hadn't noticed she'd closed and looked to the source of the voice. She found a tan mare with a blonde mane walking with her, slowly, just on the other side of an old, log and post fence.
"Howdy." The blond mare tipped her Stetson when she spoke.
Trixie recognized her, of course. The blond was one of the townsponies she'd challenged when she'd put on her show.
The other mare laughed lightly, as though nervous. "Reckon that's what's left of your wagon. Right sorry about that. Twi' had the colts ditch the stuff, but after the way you left, nopony figured to see you here again."
Trixie tried to say, "Go away," around the rope in her teeth.
It came out, "oo o'ay."
"Well now, that's mighty understanding of you."
Trixie wanted to scream, or at least throw something. She eyed the other mare, immediately thought better of it. That and the thought of lifting another ounce with her magic made her horn twinge. She just kept on pulling her load down the rough earthen track.
“Ya know, if ya don’t mind mah saying...”
Trixie did. She really did.
“...ya look plum tuckered.”
Trixie eyed the mare again, this time with a glare.
The blond mare laughed; this time a deep, rich chuckle that flowed easily. Trixie fumed a second before catching the twinkle in her eye. The other mare was laughing at herself.
“Sorry. Why don’t you come on in and sit a spell? Looks like you could use some grub.”
Trixie stopped, blinked, looked at the mare, blinked again and cocked an eyebrow. The rope fell from her mouth. “You must be joking,” Trixie said in a deadpan.
The mare tipped her hat. “Apples ain’t in the habit of joking about food. Here, let me help ya with that.”
Without another word the mare hopped over her fence, nudged Trixie to the side and took the rope between her teeth.
Trixie let a smug wisp of a smile onto her face, one which fell, along with her jaw, as the farm mare not only managed to move the sled, but did it at a walk. She dragged the thing the dozen or so yards to the farm’s gate and then just as easily pulled it up the lane toward the homestead. The heavy load might as well have been made of cloud for all the strain that showed on the mare's body.
Trixie swallowed once, found and replaced her jaw from where it had fallen into the dust and numbly followed along behind. Her legs were thanking her for the break by happily jabbing themselves with red-hot pins.
The mare left the sled near the front door of her home and went inside the house. The door, she left open.
Trixie followed her inside, pausing just long enough to pull the door closed. The farm mare continued to lead her into the home, not looking back. It was a spacious old place, done up in earth tones and sporting a rather overt apple motif. Everything was well kept and obviously well loved. Worn furniture and bookcases lined the walls. The show mare followed through another two doors until they arrived in a kitchen that looked a generation out of step with the world Trixie knew.
The blond mare didn't look back at Trixie, she just went over to one of the many cupboards. "Now, why don't ya'll sidle on up to the table and ah'll fix us something."
There were no cushions at the table, nor chairs. Instead there was an old bench; even older, Trixie would wager, than the floor it stood on. It was rough hewn, but the wood had been worn smooth from generations of use. She sat down on it, but it was with a sense of unease. She felt like an intruder here.
"Gosh darn, Mac, when ah said take everything you could sell ah didn't mean mah breakfast." The blond closed the cupboard, moved to the next and repeated the process until she finally reached into one and pulled out a can. "Ah hope ya like soup, Trixie, it looks like ah'm lucky mah brother didn't take the sink to Canterlot with him."
"You remember who Trixie is?"
The blond was already opening the can. She didn't speak until the contents had been poured into a pot and set on the stove. "Don't tend to forget getting hogtied in front of the whole town." She pulled some flour down from a cupboard, put it into a bowl and mixed in eggs, milk and a few things Trixie couldn't put a name to. She mixed the contents by hoof, pounded it a few times and divided the resulting dough into circles that found themselves on a cookie sheet and slipped it into the oven.
"Then why would you help Trixie after she, um..."
The farm mare gave her a sideways and oddly smug smile. "Turned me and two of mah closest friends into a laughingstock and chased a third right outta town square?"
Trixie shrank on the bench, her face suddenly warm. "Yes."
"'Cause end of the day, Twilight whooped ya'll 'bout ten times harder than you got us. Reckon it all comes out in the wash." She turned away from Trixie to look into the oven. "'Course, you ever lay one hoof on mah friends again, ah'll buck you so hard you'll have to go to Hoofington to get your cutie mark back."
Trixie's heart dropped an inch. There was no malice in the other mare's voice, but it carried in a depth of pure sincerity that left absolutely no doubt in Trixie's mind. She was also left with a distinct impression that the other mare wasn't big on metaphor.
There was silence in the kitchen. Trixie found herself looking to the door; wondering if her already cramped muscles could get her away before the blond could catch her. This, of course, led to wondering if she could have managed that feat on her best day. Her hostess kept looking into the oven as the minutes rolled by.
A timer dinged. The blond took a potholder in her mouth and pulled out the cookie sheet. She came over and set it on the table, on a cutting board that looked like it was a permanent resident there. A minute later, her hostess set a large bowl of creamy tomato soup in front of Trixie. The hostess took a bowl for herself and sat down opposite the show mare.
Trixie looked down at the bowl, then at the fresh biscuits on the cookie sheet. She swallowed and looked at her hostess.
"Let me ask ya something. Ya'll planning on hurting mah friends again?"
Trixie shook her head.
"Then ah ain't planning on bucking nopony." With that her hostess picked up her bowl with her hooves and brought it to her lips.
There were no utensils on the table. With her horn still throbbing from earlier, Trixie followed the example. The soup was thick and warm, coating her ribs as it went down.
"Way ah figure it," her hostess said as Trixie drank, "alls it takes is one real bad day to muddy up your whole life."
Trixie lowered her bowl and reached out a hoof to the biscuits, pausing just a moment for the blond to nod before taking one.
"Trixie assumes you know this from experience?"
"Yep."
“And what, pray tell, can match the utter humiliation and loss of her home Trixie suffered at the hooves of this town?”
The way her hostess cocked her eyebrow at Trixie had the show mare swallow a mouthful of biscuit she hadn’t chewed yet. The blond patiently waited for her to finish coughing before nodding to a picture on the wall. It showed six ponies: Three children, one of which was obviously the blond as a filly, two ponies who were obviously their parents and an old, green mare.
“Mah Granny was home asleep that day, so ah reckon ya didn’t see more’n three of the ponies in that picture.”
“Trixie can’t be expected to remember everypony she sees from her stage. What difference does it make how many of your family came to see...” Trixie stopped and looked back to her hostess. Her green eyes held that same absolute sincerity.
"Trixie is... I'm sorry." Her eyes found her soup and stared down into it. A minute later she cleared her throat “So, you think that the day in Ponyville was my day?”
The blond sputtered and laughed, her hoof pounding lightly on the table. "That little ruckus? Nah. But ah reckon you get enough little bad days all in a row, they'll do the same thing." She looked straight at Trixie, right into her eyes. "And ah know a pony trying to prove something when ah see one. How long's it been since you had a good one?"
Trixie's lip curled into a practiced, smug grin. "Aside from the debacle here last week, Trixie has been doing nothing but dazzling audiences from here to Manehattan; across every corner of Equestria. Everypony she has met loves and adores her." She caught the look her hostess was giving her. She quickly picked up her soup and drank it dry, using the bowl to cover her face. She suddenly couldn’t stand the sight of the hostess.
"Reckon we got enough soup in the pot to last a spell, and ah got a couple'a ears if you wanna use 'em."
Trixie cast a few quick glances at her hostess, at the calm expression she wore. Trixie’s eyes narrowed. “What do you think you know about Trixie?”
The blond just cocked her eyebrow again. That smug eyebrow...
The bowl hit the table hard, Trixie’s hooves hit a second later, propping her up to glare at the other mare. “Can you even begin to understand what that Ursa did to Trixie’s reputation? My career?” Her legs throbbed at the sudden use. She didn’t care. “Can it even register in that puny pony mind what it’s like to have your whole life balance on a reputation?”
The blond’s eyes narrowed. “Reckon ah can,” she said, slowly. “Reckon it wouldn’ta come up if ya didn’t keep telling everypony you could whoop an Ursa.”
“Did you not hear me? Am I talking to myself? Nopony would want to hear about Trixie if she didn’t sound special!”
The blond opened her mouth, then stopped and blinked. “What in tarnation...?”
“And I will not apologize for silencing hecklers too dimwitted to know greatness when they hear it. So why not make them part of the act? Show them up so everypony can see what Trixie can do?”
The blond stood up, her face coming within inches of Trixie. The show mare flinched, but didn’t back down. “Now see here, Missy. Those there are mah friends and ya’ll’re the one who called them out.”
“There are always hecklers.” Trixie’s voice came out low. “In every town, every city, there are always ponies who laugh, who demand more, who can’t be bothered unless everything is the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen. Why shouldn’t I call them out when they’re making fun of Trixie?”
“Well, maybe they wouldn’t if ya didn’t strut around like yer the only pony in the world with a cutie mark for magic.”
Trixie’s lip curled back into a snarl. “It’s not for magic!” she yelled. “When was the last time you saw a pony using a wand? How would I even hold it? Why do you think Trixie wears the cape?”
Trixie stopped. Both mares blinked at each other.
“I should go,” Trixie said, slipping off of the bench. Her muscles all rebelled when her full weight landed on them. She hoped her hostess didn’t notice the grimace.
She was halfway through the door to the living room when the blond’s voice came. “Got anywhere to sleep tonight?”
Trixie let out a tiny, sad laugh, then drew herself up. “The Great and Powerful Trixie will drag the ruins scraps of her home until she can’t take one more step. There, she’ll sleep under the stars.”
“Mah brother ain’t never said no to a filly wanting to spend the night in his bed.” Trixie looked back and saw a wry smile on the blond’s face. “Reckon he ain’t gonna start now, ‘specially since he ain’t in town right now. By the way, name’s Applejack.”
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Trixie woke the next day at the crack of noon. It was significantly later before she managed to force her knotted muscles out of bed. A lot of sore stumbling later, she found Applejack outside the old farmhouse. The blond was transferring the last of Trixie’s belongings from the sled into an old cart whose primary colour was rust.
“There you are,” Applejack said. “Starting to wonder if you were ever gonna wake up.”
Trixie looked at the cart, then at the smiling mare. “Why?”
“Figured this’d suit you better.” She tapped the makeshift sled with a hoof. “And ‘cause good hard maple’s five bits a board foot and ah’d go twice as far to get rid of a few more carts.” She spoke very quickly and ended by pursing her lips and glancing her suddenly shifty eyes around.
Trixie didn’t smile, but it was a near thing. “Consider it a gift then.” She walked forward, slipping into the harness that waited for her. “And... thank you.”
“Hold up, bit more,” Applejack said from behind her. “Aw, dag nabbit.”
Something shifted in the cart behind Trixie, then bounced out and onto her back. It was lumpy, but soft and fell down beside her. She turned in time to see her bedroll hit the ground and unfurl. The bag of bits rolled onto the ground, but stayed shut. The front cover of the old book, however, flipped open.
Applejack appeared beside the bedroll. She was looking at the book. “Congratulations for finally getting it. Love Gran-Gran? Now, ain’t that sweet.” She looked up at Trixie. “Ah didn’t break anything, did ah?”
Trixie shook her head.
Applejack picked up the book, then the bag, carefully placing them back in the cart. The bedroll followed suit. Applejack let out a small grunt and the old cart bounced heavily. Trixie glanced back to see a large bag of apples in her cart.
“For the road. Bucked’em this morning.” Applejack tossed her an easy smile. “Ya’ll come back now.”
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Many hours later, stiff, sore and aching, Trixie settled herself under an oak on the outskirts of Hoofington. Children played ball nearby, they didn’t notice her. Her magic pulled an apple and the old book from the cart. The apple, she bit into. The book she laid at her forehooves. It hadn’t been properly opened in years. With her hoof, she lovingly brushed caked dust from the words Fairy Tales for Young Fillies.
She opened it, flipping past the printed stories, past the horn-written stories about The Great and Powerful Trixie, to the first blank page. There, with a quill conjured with her tired magic, she wrote: The Weary Traveler across the top of the page.
