Grand-Père Presto’s Gumbo
Welcome Home, Trixie
There was an all-encompassing sensation of life flowing through Trixie’s entire body as she trudged through the busy city of Neigh Orleans. From nose to tail, from hooves to every inch of her coat, it swept into and through her physical body as much as her soul in a tugging sensation as if she were trying to wade through mud. Sluggish surrounding swamps and sea breeze mixed with the scents of wood smoke and cajun cooking to form little pockets and pools of fragrant aromas, lurking in wait to ambush her all the way through the trip. The constant bursts of memories triggered by those familiar spicy aromas turned her head into a mish-mash of thoughts as she plodded slowly through town from the train station towards home. Every step was a different experience, from the sharp nasal bite of cumin to the soggy dampness of decaying vegetation, woven through a thick blanket of humid air that smothered her normal joy at going home to Grand-Père and his famous cooking.
Failure. That was all which remained of the once great and powerful pony she had been. Every elated step upwards in her career had been matched later by a similar precipitous fall downwards, and at the bottom of each descent, she had wanted so badly to return home and throw away all she had dreamed about since she was a little filly.
Today was the first time she had actually yielded to that crushing depression. Even having a giant space-bear chase her through Ponyville and destroy her precious first wagon had not brought her this low. The Great and Powerful Trixie was a thing of the past now, a loser who had been soundly tricked and defeated, even while wearing an artifact of Dark Magic that could have destroyed Equestria. Great and Foolish, most certainly, but never again would Trixie be Great and Powerful.
Her slow trudge eventually took her to the Lulamoon family brownstone, a slice of a larger rowhouse that had always seemed far too large for her small family, but Grand-Père Presto had purchased the entire building when he was young and known as The Great Presto, an undisputed king of his culinary empire. A few renters in the other subdivided sections of the home waved at Trixie as she plodded up to the door, but she did not return their greetings. Instead, she fumbled the key out from under the flowerpot and quietly unlocked the door, slipping the key back where it came from afterwards.
She stood outside of the door for a while in the hot sun, feeling a trickle of sweat run down her back. She had always dreamed of this moment, returning triumphant to her childhood home as the greatest unicorn who had ever lived. There were parades and speeches in that dream, and a banquet where she would invite every one of the ponies who had ever mocked her. Grand-Père Presto would cook, of course, and sit there with his shawl pulled over his lap and that crooked grin that he always wore. After the dinner and the speeches, she would dazzle them all with her talent.
It was all dust now. Nothing but dust.
Trixie let the door swing open by itself, just like it always did. The unbalanced hinges were a legacy of Neigh Orleans and her famous variable foundations, just as the cracks in the walls and the occasional bit of loose plaster on the ceiling showed the ever-so-slow descent of the city back into the swamp from which it had been built. She strode slowly from the humid air of the city into the cool house and closed the door behind her, taking a deep breath of the dry air inside to settle her nerves.
“Ah, ma petite fille,” came the gravelly voice of her grandfather from the kitchen where he always seemed to be, rain or shine. “It is a long time, no?”
“Yes, Papi.” The depression that swept over Trixie left her unable to move, merely standing with her head bowed. A faint shuffling noise came from the kitchen, followed by her grandfather in his walker. He was as he always was, a thin earth pony with pale blue skin wrinkled like parchment and stretched over a rack of bones, but his violet eyes glittered with a vivacious life that no amount of age could ever quench. Those perceptive eyes swept across Trixie’s wrinkled and sweat-stained cape, taking in her unkempt appearance with just the hint of a frown and a shallow sigh. “Still no handsome stallion by your side, eh?”
“No, Papi.”
The creak and shuffle of the walker whispered through the empty house again until the old earth pony was standing by Trixie’s side, his pale blue hide seeming a faint ghost of her own darker shade. “The world, she is a dangerous place, yes? Filled with magic and adventures. The newspapers, they have been treating your adventures rather worse than others I could mention, I suppose.”
“Yes, Papi.”
He snorted, then coughed a long, dry hacking series of wheezes afterwards. “Yes. No. When you travel to the big world, she teaches you things are black and white. Now you come home, and your papi has to teach you a lifetime of lessons all over again before you can hold up your head as ma petite fille again.” He hobbled over to the front door and opened it again, standing out of the way as it swung wide and a gust of the humid spicy air of Neigh Orleans swept over them.
“Get out.”
“What?” With the sound of her heart pounding in her ears, Trixie turned, only to see her grandfather tracing his way back into his kitchen.
“What, you think the Great Presto can teach you on an empty stomach? All these years wandering the cold world and you have a chill in your belly that only my famous gumbo can cure. Go down to the market and bring back some of this and a little of that.”
“I-I don’t know if I can, Papi.” Trixie looked out into the bright sunlight and wanted nothing more than to go to her room and hide under the covers, weeping into her pillow.
Presto gave out a mighty snort of disgust from somewhere beyond the dark kitchen doorway. “Your blood has gone cold if you accept defeat, but Great Presto, he knows. There is fire in you, more than in a barrel of Piccolo Pie’s Pickled Peppers, and you would drown that fire into a sea of tears. But your Père, he knows how to ignite that fire again. If you would have it, that is.” There was a soft sound of an extremely old stallion lowering himself into a comfortable chair which had adjusted to his hindquarters over many years of pressure. “Go, ma crevette. Bring old Presto back a challenge to his dusty skills, and we shall see if we can coax the fire back into your blood.”
~ ~ ~ ^ ~ ~ ~
The market had been every bit as sweaty and smelly as Trixie remembered, which made her grateful to have left the hot cape and hat back at home. Still, she felt naked out in public without some sort of covering, and her mother had several hats on the rack by the front door, so Trixie had put on a quaint straw boater with a hole for her horn. Mother’s old canvas shopping saddlebags dragged across her back, weighted down with decades of memories and stained by countless trips to the store. Now they bulged just as full as when Trixie had been a small filly, riding on her mother’s back as they picked their way through the crowded noisy market filled with seafood and fresh vegetables. Papi was old even then, but he had always been filled with a blazing fire of life that sparked and spat flames as he argued with all of the merchants and farmers, even the ones who sold strings of dry peppers capable of burning blisters on an unsuspecting filly’s tongue if not treated with care.
She felt strangely young and old again as she struggled back to the house with her discoveries, as if she could see herself as that little fascinated filly again, as well as her mother and her grandfather all at once. Cold patches along her flanks where the ice packed around the raw shrimp dribbled and dripped down her hind legs, mixed with the shifting scents of peppers, okra and scallions just as it did when she was a curious little filly again, sticking her nose into bags of Papi’s custom chili powder and nibbling on the fresh vegetables. It was a long walk back from the market, but her legs had grown so much stronger after walking from town to town on the road, and her back bore this burden well. It was not nearly as heavy as the wagon smashed into kindling by the giant space-bear, or the heavy lumber wagon she had been forced to use on tour afterwards. In particular, it was a much lighter burden than the gold throne she had forced those two foolish colts to drag across all of Ponyville, or the weight of guilt she still carried.
Tricked like a fool, and glad of it too. What kind of monster would Trixie have become if she had not been rescued by Twilight Sparkle’s brilliant friends?
“Papi?” Trixie eased the door open to the house and slipped into the kitchen, making an extra trip back to close the front door again, firmer this time so that the loose latch would catch. “I’m back from the market, Papi.”
“Ma Bluebelle? Non.” Grand-Père shook himself from his nap, seemingly stuck in his comfortable chair. “Sorry, ma petite fille. An old stallion, his mind wanders through the past without enough to keep it busy. And what have we here?” His glittering violet eyes took in the bulging saddlebags and the corners of his wrinkled mouth turned up in a smile. “You are an adventurous filly, Beatrice. Shrimp, crawfish, and sausage?”
“Kielbasa, Papi. It has a little chicken in it, but mostly soy and vegetable protein,” she explained while unpacking the bags onto the table. “The griffons go haywire over it.” She poured the shrimp into a bowl and threw the rest of the ice over them for later, while the pail of crayfish she simply sat down on the floor to swim for a while in their tin prison until they were needed.
“Your father, he will hold his belly and complain all night,” chortled Presto. “Moaning and groaning about how decadent his little filly has become, but you can bet he will sneak back into the kitchen in the middle of the night to grab just a taste more. Mama, however…”
After a long, dry pause, Trixie stopped unpacking the rest of the vegetables into bowls and stood with her head bowed over the table. “She will be angry about how I left, Papi. Only a few of her letters caught up with me while I was traveling.”
Presto patted Trixie on the hoof with long, slow touches that she missed so much. “Our children, they do things we do not approve. When she met your father and told me of him, I was so angry. You know what I threatened to do?”
“Cut off his wings and turn him into a proper earth pony,” said Trixie with a smirk. “You threatened to cut off something else too.”
“Baa!” exclaimed Presto, throwing up his forehooves. “Children. They do not do what we want, but act like they know what they are doing is sooo much smarter than what their older and much wiser parents have determined. And what came of that that?”
“Me,” said Trixie with a badly-suppressed grin.
“Well, I suppose on occasion it can turn out for the best,” said Presto grudgingly. “Still, you would have made an amazing cook, much like your mother.”
“Anypony can cook,” said Trixie, knowing exactly what response that would bring.
“Oh, ho, ho!” The aged stallion made to get up from his comfortable chair, taking one or two practice moves in the process. “Anypony can cook, ha! Anypony can burn things on the stove, or add a little cheese to a piece of bread and call it a meal, but cook? Without cooking, food is merely food. You might as well wrap it up in little plastic packages and sell it in machines.”
“Papi!” protested Trixie as she got out the rest of the vegetables and arranged them on the table. “You did exactly that! Wherever I traveled in Equestria, I could always find a store with a little package of home.”
“Baa!” Presto waved a disparaging hoof. “So I am a hypocrite. It holds back age, like chili powder. You, now. You always knew what it was to cook.”
Trixie hesitated, taking a bite out of the leafy end of the celery in order to divert attention. It did not work, as her grandfather settled back down in his chair with a mischievous expression. He gestured to the table with one hoof. “Anypony can get up on stage and caper like a clown, but it takes a performer to be great, yes?” He nodded at the table full of food. “Perform for me, ma petite fille. Show your grand-père how great you really are.”
“Papi!” She looked at her grandfather, who was sitting back in his chair and grinning. “I can’t cook your famous gumbo.”
“Ah, then you have failed before you even start.” The grin on his face faded. “Is this what you say when you first perform for me on stage, yes? Did you whine about not being able to do your tricks, or did you charge out, all filled with your fire and determined to spread it to the world?”
She sat the gnawed piece of celery down on the table before it was a total loss. “I don’t want to, Papi. What if I make a mistake? I’ve already failed so many times. I don’t know what it’s like to succeed anymore.”
“Ah, every fire, she requires a spark.” The old stallion scooted to the edge of his chair. “I shall tell you a secret that you must never tell anyone else, no? Lean over here and learn, young one.” He put his mouth to Trixie’s ear and whispered, “I make mistakes too.”
“No!” Trixie stepped back with a hoof held over her chest. “You’ve never burned a biscuit or scorched a souffle ever! You’re the perfect cook, Papi. You’re perfect. I’m just…”
Trixie felt the touch of an old and dry hoof beneath her chin, lifting her face up so she could see the raw ingredients spread across the table in the way grandfather had taught her. They seemed to be actors on a stage, each one of them gathered and prepared for their role in supporting the star of the upcoming performance. “When you make a mistake on stage, do you throw your hat down and storm away like some spoiled foal, or do you lift up your head and keep going, working the mistake into your act until everypony in the audience thinks you did it intentionally?”
“The show must go on,” murmured Trixie.
“Show me.” The old stallion settled back down into his chair with a sigh, folding his forehooves over his chest as Trixie picked up a bowl.
~ ~ ^ ~ ~
For the longest time, there was no more noise in the kitchen than the rattle of the whisk against the side of the bowl and the slow near-snore of Presto in his chair. Finally, Trixie cleared her throat and asked, “Are you proud of me, Papi?”
“Wha?” The soft snore stopped and the old stallion smacked his lips, settling his dentures on toothless gums. “Course I’m proud of ma petite fille,” he muttered. “You could be wearing a skirt and waiting tables at some shrimp stand and I would be proud of you.”
“I nearly went to jail,” she said, still stirring the mixture of oil and flour for the roux. “They said I had stolen a huge diamond⁽¹⁾ in Manehattan. One of Twilight Sparkle’s friends saved me. She is rich, Papi. Making dresses and frilly hats for wealthy clients with gems she can find with her own talent, while I was grazing by the roadside between performances. Rarity could have just laughed when I was in trouble, but she stuck her neck out to help me when I needed it most.”
(1) Friendship is Magic, Issue 21
“Jus because you are different from someone, does not make them good or bad,” said Presto. “Differences are what make things better. Think about the roux. Flour is one thing, and the oil another. Together with beer… Did you remember the beer?”
Trixie picked a brown bottle out of a bag on the table and used the heavy iron opener by the cabinet to open it with a suppressed hiss, then opened a second one for her grandfather and sat it on the table next to his chair. She leaned back as she lifted the beer to her lips and took a measured swig. In the ranks of noble unicorns, it would be considered bitter and sharp with a yeasty aftertaste, but to her senses, it was just as much home as the kitchen she was standing in.
“Ahh,” declared her grandfather. “Now we’re cooking. Why you put the roux in a pot and turn on the oven, though? You not want to cook it right?”
“I’m using the oven because I want to do it right, Papi. I always scorch it on the stove.” She poured the pale liquid into the thick-walled bowl and slipped it into the hot oven, setting the timer afterwards and taking another sip of the warming beer.
“So this friend of yours, you write to her more than you do you mama, yes? Ma Mirabelle, she loves to hear from you.”
Presto shifted in his chair during the long silence, and Trixie could hear the sound of another sip of the beer being taken, along with a satisfied sigh. “No, you do not. All what you say now can not go back and make things right in the past. It is done and cannot be changed. Only the present and the future can be changed, yes? If you burn the roux, you cannot go back in time to when it was not yet burnt and snatch it from the fire. So it is with life. We go on and do more things instead of just waiting for the old ones to change, like making trinity, yes?”
“I suppose, Papi,” said Trixie. She brought the onions over to the chopping board and peeled off the dry outer coats, popping them into her mouth and chewing as she chopped and diced. Years out on the amusement circuit had taught her the hard-learned lesson of not wasting food. Even a thrown tomato could be converted into an afternoon snack. She brought up the eye protection spell automatically as her sharp knife cleaved the onion into neat tiny cubes and the smell of onions filled the air. The celery followed suit, and she munched the leafy tops while making fine little bits out of the stalks. She snuck a peek at Presto and reached out with her magic to pick up a carrot, only to have the old stallion snort in his brief snooze. She picked up the peppers instead, cleaning and dicing them into the same bowl with the rest of the three ingredients of the trinity to wait until later.
“When you focus on one thing, you forget another,” said Presto with his eyes still closed. “Ma crevette, what is it you are forgetting now?”
“The roux!” exclaimed Trixie, resetting the timer and giving the liquid in the oven a careful stir. Once she had closed the oven door and given a fierce scowl at the nonfunctional timer, Trixie took a sip of beer and yanked a tomato out of the collection of vegetables on the table.
“The timer, she has not worked for many years. It is a bad thing when your trust is betrayed, yes?”
“Yes.” Trixie spun the tomato around, deftly peeling and coring it in her magical field with the skill of an experienced chef. “Everypony I've known for the last five years has lost my trust somehow. When you—” Trixie cut off abruptly, turning her attention to the tomato and its subsequent reduction to a state roughly resembling catsup. “Trixie does not trust anypony or anything, particularly wheels. They all seem to wait until the right moment and then stab Trixie where it hurts the most.”
“Your friend you spoke of, the wealthy one with the dresses. She trusts you.”
“I don’t think any of Twilight Sparkle’s friends can betray a friendship.” Trixie worked on reducing a second tomato to component atoms, adding, “Not like Trixie.”
“Friends do not come easy. You have to work for them, sweat for them, pay attention to what they need and be there when they need it, just like cooking, yes?”
“I’m never there, Papi. I’m on the road somewhere.” Trixie deliberately dumped the shredded tomato on top of the trinity before picking up the peel and popping it into her mouth too, taking a sip of beer afterwards to wash down the acidic aftertaste. She endured the resulting silence as she turned to the next bowl and its chilled contents, studying them for a long time.
“Eh, you think the shrimps, they shell themselves?” Presto shifted in his chair and tapped the table with one hoof. “Obviously they too difficult for you. Pass me a knife and I do it for you, like I did when you were small.”
“I’ve got this,” grumbled Trixie, holding the knife over the heap of iced shrimp. “They just reminded me of changelings for a while, all shelly and identical. I’m not afraid of them. I’m not afraid.”
“No. You never were afraid of anything, ma petite fille.” There was a faint sound of a small sip from his beer, very small, because her grandfather had great respect for his failing kidneys. “You would go with me to de restaurant, all happy and wanting to do my work for me, yes? Remember when you dropped a can of cayenne pepper into the tomato soup that one time? Your mama, she was so mad, but your papa, he say, ‘Trust Presto. He know what to do.’ Your papa, he not afraid of making mistakes either. He marry your mama, and all of his kin, they say, ‘Why you marry somepony who cannot fly?’ He say, ‘She make my heart fly higher than any wings.’ Smart featherbrain, your papa.”
“Papi!” Trixie inserted the knife into the shrimp she had been holding and twisted, tossing the shell into a second bowl for the stock while turning over the pale chunk of flesh and digging for the bitter vein that still needed to be removed. “You never did like Papa.” She switched to her old Cajun accent that she had been so careful to keep off the stage. “You say he not good enough for your little Mirabelle, and dat he fly away wit her to some cloud somewhere. All de time, you bug him. ‘Eees dis a feather in the soup stock? When will ma petite fille sprout wings and fly away from her family?’ He tried not to show it, but those little snipes and barbs hurt him.”
She stirred the roux in the oven, then shelled shrimp for a while, separating out the good, the bad, and the usable, much as she had done with her life. “Our whole family, they hurt each other. Mama, she say you spend so much time wit me because you miss her growing up. Gran-mama, she hurt you so bad when she die. Papa, he spend so much time at work dat I never see him hardly. I hurt… everypony.”
“So you steal one diamond.” Presto made a snort of indignation. “Youthful indiscressions, get you off in two to five.”
“It’s not the diamond! I could have destroyed Equestria!” Trixie stood panting with the remains of a shrimp impaled on her knife. “I took every bit I could beg, borrow or steal and bought a cursed amulet. The longer I wore it, the more powerful I became, and the less… Trixie I was. Twilight Sparkle says it could have turned me into some horrible monster.” Her voice dropped. “More horrible than I already am.”
Grandfather made the clicking noise under his tongue that he always did to distract Trixie from her complaints. It worked, much as it had worked ever since Trixie was a foal. She could feel his old dry hoof on her back, stroking back and forth just as he had done when Trixie was very young and emotionally frail. “Remember. The past, she is served, but the future, she has not yet been cooked. You say what terrible ting you had become, but I see a great little filly who is. Did doing this bad ting make you less or more? You still have your magic, no?”
She turned to the bowl of shrimp and lit her horn with a vengeance. Flesh, shell and bitter veins split from each other like a waterfall hitting a rock until there were no more unpeeled shrimp to take out her anger on. The useless veins went into the composting, the shrimp shells and tails clattered into a pot for stock, and the pale crustacean flesh vanished under a wave of crushed ice before she turned back to her grandfather. “Ta-da!”
“Ah,” said her grandfather with a sigh of relief as he sagged back into his chair. “You still have it, yes. Best to use it to make the stock now, or we be here until it gets very dark and all of the old ponies in the house have gone to bed. Stock. Now.”
“I should have started with the shrimp,” said Trixie, turning to her cutting board and floating over a wad of vegetables.
“True,” said Presto over the noise of chopping. “But that is the past. Focus on the now, or you will make nothing but trouble.”
“How can I focus on the now when I screwed up so bad? Merde!” The mass of chopped vegetables landed in the bottom of the pot with a thud, followed by a pair of bay leaves and a giant lump of tomato paste. “Leeks! Here or in the roux? Grand-père? Oh, why am I asking you? Both!”
She trimmed the roots off the leeks and ran them through the water before shredding them with a flying knife. Half of the chopped leeks flung themselves into the pot, the other half into the mix of onion, celery and peppers that made up the trinity, and only a few scattered around the room with the speed of her motions. She popped the door of the oven open again and gave the roux a quick stir and a lick of the whisk. “Not yet, not yet. Hot, hot!” Grabbing the beer, she gave it a long draw until she reached the bottom of the bottle.
“You are your mama’s fille,” said Presto with a chuckle.
“Ha! Trixie is her own mare. Watch.” She waved one hoof, made a gesture, and produced the beer bottle again. “Presto. A fresh beer.” She took a drink to prove her skills and poured a little into the pot.
“Are you missing something, child?”
“I’m missing time,” she snapped. “Ah! And vermouth.” Trixie rummaged through the cabinet and pulled out a wine bottle, which she upended over the stock pot. “There’s never enough time to do things right, and never enough to go back and do them over. Magic doesn’t even help. Mention anything about traveling back in time to anypony, and they get all wriggly about it.” A blizzard of seasonings swept across the stock pot as Trixie concentrated. “I don’t even know when I would go back to if I could. When I did my first performance? Before I went to buy that cursed amulet? Before the changelings came sweeping down on Canterlot?”
Presto chuckled. “Before you met dis Twilight Sparkle you spoke of?”
“No, Papi.” Trixie’s lips drew back into thin lines as she turned on the kitchen hot water faucet and used her magic to make the water arch across the kitchen and into the stock pot. “Let’s see you do that, Sparkle.”
A quick stir, a little fire under the stock pot, and Trixie turned her attention back to the roux.
“Almost there. Just a few more minutes. Trinity. Stock. Mushrooms! How could I have forgotten?” The flat oyster mushrooms spilled out of the container and flowed over the cutting board, reduced to small cubes as Trixie’s knife flew. “Mushroom, pepper, onion, garlic, a little more garlic—”
Presto made an approving noise from his chair.
“—and into the pan — wait!” Trixie spread a puddle of olive oil across the bottom of the pan and waited for the sizzle before dropping in the small hovering ball of vegetables, which gave a violent hiss.
After taking a deep and appreciative breath, Presto said, “Seems a little much there for my gumbo.”
“Trixie is hungry,” announced Trixie. “Only some of that is going into the pot. Oh, the pot!”
She banged the small pot onto the stove and laid the roux down into the bottom of it like a dark floor before dumping the trinity on top and giving the mixture a quick stir. A few swift strokes of the spatula and another splash of beer got all of the leftover bits out of the frying pan, which went floating over to the sink. The stewpot came out next, sitting in line like a fat customer waiting for a seat as Trixie gave a quick swipe around the inside of it with a dry towel.
“Mama has been keeping the kitchen clean while I’ve been gone,” admitted Trixie somewhat grudgingly. “A little dust, though.”
“She only cooks for two now,” said Presto rather quietly. “Dere a lot to do for gumbo, and wit all she do at the company, your papa and she don’t spend too much time at home any more. She much like her little filly, all determined to take the weight of the world on her shoulders and punish herself for things she not do wrong. Your papa, he try to keep a smile on her face, but they both miss their petite fille.”
“I had to leave, Papi. I had to.” Trixie poured the rest of the beer into the empty roux bowl and chased it around with the wooden spoon before pouring the resulting fond into the simmering mixture of roux and trinity. “I had to,” she added again while holding the spoon, unable to stir.
“Had to?” Presto dryly coughed once. “Who was it told you about choices?”
“You, Papi.” Trixie reached out with her hoof instead of her magic and grasped the wooden spoon, giving the simmering gumbo a slow stir.
“Durned right.” There was a faint noise to her side, as if an elderly stallion had just discovered his granddaughter had managed to switch his full beer for her empty beer right under his nose. “You are who you decide to be, yes? You aim high, and you not get sucked back into the Neigh Orleans mud. You fly, like the bird you were meant to be. Now stir your mushrooms before they burn.”
The mushrooms and other veggies were darker on the sides than they should have been. She flipped them over anyway, scrambling them around in the bottom of the pan while turning down the heat.
“Garlic,” she declared. “I need lots of garlic.” Even through the protection spell over her eyes, tears began to run down her cheeks as she turned cloves of garlic into a chopped mash. It became a ritual: Stir the stock. Stir the gumbo. Stir the mushrooms. Chop more garlic.
“There can be too much of a good thing,” said her grandfather. “Turn down the heat and speak with me.”
“Why, Papi?” Trixie continued to chop the garlic clove she was working on into tiny little fragments while chewing on the dry bits she had cut away. Presto’s low breathy chuckle distracted her from pulling over yet another clove, and she fiddled with the juicy white root for a moment before dropping it back with the few remaining in the source bowl.
“You ask ‘why’ now. Perhaps a little fire is coming back to your blood, yes?”
She gave the bubbling gumbo another quick stir and turned down the heat to a low, low flame under both of the pots. With a twist of her magic, she swirled the fried mushrooms and herbs, sprinkling them around the surface of the developing gumbo until she was satisfied with their density. The rest she slid onto a plate and dropped on the kitchen table. “Did you want any, Papi?”
“Non.” He waved a declining hoof as Trixie got out a fork. “I am in no condition. You are young, and can eat such things.”
After shoving the vegetables around on her plate for a while and taking a tentative bite, Trixie put the fork down. “What about when I get old, like you, Papi? You have my mother, and my mother, she has me, but I don’t have anypony. No friends, no family. No little fillies at the table, begging Gran-Mama Trixie to pull a bit out from behind their ear.”
“You want fillies?” Presto’s voice had a note of exasperation in it, as if the discussion was a familiar one inside the family. “Go down to the Prench Quarter and find a fine young stallion. You can have as many little fillies as you wish. A family, however, is something you cannot just flick your tail and get. You ask me, and I tell you. Find somepony you can trust, and family will follow.” There was a fairly long pause as Trixie picked up the fork again and ate, just barely tasting the delicious mushrooms and their accompanying vegetables. Presto added, “Unless you know one you already trust, yes?”
“No, Papi.” Trixie pushed the half-empty plate across the table and moved over to begin chopping up the okra. “No.”
“You say no in a way that mean yes, yes?” Her grandfather chuckled again. “You not like the answer that your Grand-Père Presto find. Maybe he a pegasi, like your papa, an’ you think your mama, she not like?”
“She has wings,” admitted Trixie while chopping okra.
“She,” stated Presto with a very discouraging growl to his voice that wiped away all of the previous levity. “You not thinking about little ones then, are you?”
“She lives in a castle, Papi. Probably with hundreds of servants and guards, catering to her every need, and with a line of handsome young studs just waiting to fulfill any other need she has.” Several more okra turned into fragments before Trixie continued. “I heard about her in school, before I dropped out. Then I read about her in the papers and thought I would go to her town to see if reality matched the stories. She lifted a bear the size of a house, Papi, while casting other spells. I could never compete against that. So I fled. Defeated.”
Presto shifted position. “Non. Not in defeat. Not ma petite fille. You retreated from the stage in order to make a comeback, even greater and more powerful than before, yes?”
“I worked at a rock farm,” growled Trixie, the knife and several okra held motionless in her magical field. “For most of a year, I scrimped and saved, plotting my return. I didn’t steal,” she snapped. “I took my wages and everything I could borrow, all in one giant attempt to redeem myself with the most powerful magical amulet in Equestria and show how much greater I was than Twilight Sparkle.” She chopped viciously at the okra. “That worked out well.”
“This Twilight Sparkle, she not angry at Trixie?”
“No,” admitted Trixie, still lost in chopping.
“This pony who run de rock farm, he not angry at you either? He not shout and demand his money back?”
“No,” admitted Trixie again. “Twilight and her friends got together and paid off my debt.”
“Oh?” Presto’s voice took on a much more whimsical air. “And when this friend of Twilight, the one you call Rarity, she meet you in Manehattan and risk her own neck for yours, did you thank her?”
Trixie stopped chopping. “I think so.”
“You think so, yes? Your grand-père, he thinks so, no.”
Trixie returned to chopping okra, although at a much slower pace as her grandfather continued.
“You insult this powerful Twilight Sparkle’s friends, she save you from the giant bear. You return and threaten her friends, she save you from a horrible fate. This Rarity who give you money, she help you and not want repaid. Your mama, she would at least have you write a thank-you note.”
“I was wrong, okay!” Trixie slammed a hoof down on the table and scattered shredded okra everywhere. “I made a mistake. I made a lot of mistakes. I made some of the biggest mistakes it’s possible to make and still be alive! Nopony else ever makes mistakes! Celestia didn’t lock her sister in the moon for a thousand years due to a mistake! Shining Armor didn’t nearly marry a bug because of a mistake! Twilight Sparkle didn’t blow up her library because of a mistake! I’m not the only pony in Equestria who has done something wrong!”
Trixie lit her horn and little bits of okra from all over the kitchen made a trip to the compost bucket. She pulled out several more seed pods and glared at them as if they were the reason for her anger.
“Ah,” said Presto. “Now we sees the fire. By itself, all fire can do is burn and destroy. It is what you do with it that counts. So, what you do?”
Trixie stirred the cooking gumbo ingredients and soup stock automatically while thinking. For once, the fire in her heart out-burned the chill in her gut. “Apologize, I suppose.”
“And?” Presto coughed a few times, quietly and dryly as Trixie thought.
“See what I can do to make it up to them?”
“Non.” Presto shuffled forward in his chair, staring across the quiet kitchen with only the bubbling of the pots in her ears and the sweet waves of cooking wafting up through her nose distracting Trixie from his words. “They forgive you already. You not need to do things to be forgiven. They done. You do things because you are forgiven. You tell them, you is grateful for their support, and you is better now for it. Be the fille that I know and love. Apologies and such come from de heart, like cooking, an’ dere no bigger heart in all of world den ma petite fille, yes?”
“It is a great and powerful heart,” admitted Trixie. “I got it from you.”
“Non, you got it from your mama, an’ she gets it from her gran-mama. An’ someday, you give it to your own little fille, if you find somepony who can share that big heart of yours and make it even bigger.”
“Papi!” Trixie began chopping the okra again while blushing furiously. “She’s not like that.”
“Why not?” asked Presto with just the smallest amount of teasing in his voice. “She have a big heart, you have a big heart—”
“They all have big hearts! That’s the problem! They trust Trixie!” The knife went clattering across the table as Trixie lost her magical grasp on it. She made no effort to retrieve it. Instead, she just stood and stared across the table into nothingness as if she were the only pony in the house.
“Anything you can do, I can do better,” said Presto, ever so softly. “Ever since you were a little fille, you say that. Now you find not only one pony who do something you cannot, but six of them, and you heart, she weeps. It is not failure which has damped your spark, child. It is what comes after.”
Trixie remained silent.
“When the bear, she chase you out of Ponyville, you not beaten,” said Presto. “When you made a foolish decision to trust in an amulet instead of yourself, you did not lose faith. But when you were accused of theft and Twilight Sparkle’s friends trusted you, that breaks your heart, yes?”
“Yes.” Trixie looked down at the uneven floorboards of the kitchen. “I trusted you, Papi. I knew that no matter what I did, no matter where I went, you would be here when I returned. You were the one thing I trusted with all of my heart, and when you…”
The old stallion sighed a deep and dry exhalation much like the wheezing of some dusty piece of farm machinery. “We all die sometime. Me. You. Even alicorns, I suppose. Where one journey stops, another begins. You have journeyed across the world while I remained here. Tell me, which of us has seen more? Which of us has lived more of their dreams?”
“Papi.” Trixie moved her lips, but no more words came out.
“You,” said the old stallion in a voice so dry it might as well have been a breeze through the old house. “My dream was to be the best cook in all of Neigh Orleans, an’ I was, once. Your mama’s dream was to have all of Equestria know what delicious treats her papa could make, and she lives that dream now. Your dream was to be the greatest unicorn in all of the world, an’ when you found that pedestal, dere be somepony already on it. Now she’s gone and become a princess, an’ you know what? That pedestal, she be empty again, jus’ waiting for you. All you gotta do is step up.”
“What if… What if I’m not good enough, Papi?” asked Trixie all in a rush. “What if I fail again?”
“You not try, you fail for sure,” said Presto. “You think these new friends of yours want you to fail? You think this princess who catch your eye, she want you to fail? No, they cheer and shout for you. They trust you.”
The old stallion shifted in his chair, running a dry hoof across the stack of letters that was wedged into the bill holder on the kitchen table. Exotic stamps from distant countries marked several of the well-worn envelopes, as if the letters inside had been removed and read many, many times over the last years. Other letters were intermixed between them, from elegant envelopes of soft creamy paper that must have been worth a dozen bits each to a number of sturdy, utilitarian manila envelopes embossed with apple trees. Between them, they were addressed in six different styles of hoofwriting, and all had Trixie listed as the destination, but each of them had been carefully opened and examined by somepony other than the addressee.
“Your mama, she never could resist opening a letter,” said Presto, nudging one of the nearer envelopes until it fell over in Trixie’s direction. “All the while you work on the gumbo, I see you looking at this out of the corner of your eye, but never you actually pick one up. Go on. This Twilight Sparkle’s friends, they been writing you for some time now. Your mama, she keep their pictures right up there with yours.”
Lifting her head from her numb inspection of the thick sheaf of letters, Trixie looked directly at the far wall of the kitchen and the plethora of photographs pasted to it. There were the few pictures of Trixie she had sent back from various stops across Equestria when fortune had smiled and the crowds were plentiful, but there were also many pictures of Twilight Sparkle and her friends. ‘Wish you were here’ and ‘Write soon’ were inscribed across photographs of the city of Griffonstone, the ooze-covered Grand Galloping Gala, and various other places that Trixie could remember from her travels and then some. Even Discord waved back from one of the pictures, and for a brief moment, Trixie could swear he was actually still waving.
Presto waited until Trixie had finished sniffing before he added, “They trust you. They think you better than you think you are. They know the pony inside just as well as your mama and papa do. We all love you. When you gonna see the Trixie inside that we all can see? You no longer ma petite fille no more. You something more. Much more.”
* * *
The cold lump of ice frozen inside Trixie’s gut thawed further as she read the letters from Twilight Sparkle and her friends. They were not false braggadocio about how much better they were than Trixie, but rather happy expressions of their exciting adventures mixed with heartfelt requests for Trixie to return to their little town in order to spend some time with all of them, to talk, to go to the spa together, and just to ‘hang out.’ There was even a photograph of those three little mobile disaster zones and their new cutie marks, along with a sworn and notarized statement that they would not attempt to become ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Magicians, Yeah!’ on her next visit, which of course she had to explain to Papi. The only bit of trepidation that Trixie felt was when she read the letter from Snips and Snails about how they also were looking forward to her return, and that they had been working on a magic act that she would really enjoy, if only they could borrow a saw.
The simmering gumbo loosened deep reservations inside her which she was unaware of holding as she read about the little town and its inhabitants, and a few tears may have dropped into the pot in the process, which was no great loss, as she had been somewhat stingy with the salt anyway. In between reading letters, deft manipulation of the burners allowed her to finish cooking the stock on time and pass on to the next stage.
After straining the heavier solids away, she mixed a portion of the stock in with the gumbo. It made her think of the way Twilight’s friends had similarly made her stew in her own head with their comments and fueled her desire to prove them wrong. Without the bitterness of her anger, she could accept their forgiveness, she could accept forgiveness from everpony who she had ever considered to have wronged the Great and Powerful Trixie, whether they had actually wronged her or not.
And maybe, just maybe, Trixie could forgive in return.
Memories of her precipitous exit from her childhood home as well as her two exits from Ponyville felt muted in the steamy air of the kitchen, as if the unwanted guilt was dissolving away into the simmering gumbo. Instead, happier memories flooded in to replace them, bringing the entire kitchen to a steamy memory-filled crescendo of flavors and emotions.
Distractions while reading and thinking caused her to spill a little of the stock onto the floor while mixing it with the trinity, but a quick magical swipe of a towel concealed the mistake, turning it into a smooth transition to preparing the crawfish for their final destination. The kitchen remained flooded with the scent of the simmering gumbo while she added just a pinch of this or a smidgen of that at her grandfather’s murmured suggestions until the air was filled with perfection, exactly the same as all of the times she had sat spellbound and watched him in the same performance.
In far too little time, she was filling the rice cooker with long brown kernels of wild rice and shucking the boiled crawfish. Papa loved shellfish, which was one reason why Presto seemed to tolerate him so much, but Mama always was a little skittish about finding anything recognizably bug-related in her soup. Papi had always minced the shellfish tails into tiny cubes to please them both, which Trixie attempted her best to duplicate. Admittedly, some of the cubes were larger than others and the shrimp tended to look exactly like the crawfish once reduced to that size, but it made her mama and papa happy, so it was a sacrifice Trixie was willing to make. She had just added the chopped bits of okra and browned sausage to the pot and turned down the fire on the stove to a very low simmer when a loud noise sounded from the front room.
“Beatrice? Is that you?”
Bits and sharp edges of the melted ice in her chest threatened to reform in her heart again as Trixie felt her breathing slow to a halt at the sound of her mother’s nervous voice. Then she took a deep breath, letting the steamy bite of the gumbo flow through her lungs and sweep away any hint of her previous reluctance. This was not a stage upon which to display the Great and Powerful Trixie. Instead, it was home, and time to face what she dreaded the most.
It was time to be a daughter once again.
“Oui, mama!” Trixie wiped away a splatter of onion from under her eyes and blinked several times to clear her vision as an older deep-yellow unicorn took a single step inside the steamy kitchen. Her mother looked identical to the way she had when Trixie left, with perhaps maybe just a few more worry lines and many more years seeming to weigh down her back. The yellow of her coat was creased with the lines from her work saddlebags, filled with the meaningless papers she had always been working on while Trixie was at home, and the pale pink glow of her magical field was supporting Trixie’s hat, which had been hanging on the cloakboard by the front door.
“Oh, Bea. Am I dreaming? Is it really you?” Her mother stopped in the doorway, seemingly frozen in place much as Trixie was at the moment. The hat fluttered to the ground as Mirabelle’s magic blinked out, just like Trixie, who had just dropped her wooden spoon into the gumbo pot.
This was the moment that Trixie had been dreading the most. Five years of being away from home with only a few short letters exchanged, and Trixie was terrified that the shouting would start again, just exactly where they had left off so long ago. Her mother’s watery violet eyes brimmed with tears as she stared at her prodigal daughter, but she made no move to flee or advance. Instead, she just stood and stared until Trixie could no longer stand the silence.
“Mama? Is everything all right?”
The words seemed to trigger an irresistible response in the older mare. Mirabelle surged forward, catching Trixie around the neck and shoulders as long-suppressed tears burst out from the both of them.
They stood there, mother and daughter, locked in an unbreakable embrace for what seemed like hours, until her mother drew back with a dribbly sniff.
“I don’t want you to burn the gumbo,” she said with a quavering voice.
“It’s simmering,” said Trixie with a matching damp sniff. “I dropped the spoon anyway.”
“Good.” Mirabelle lunged forward again, more gently this time, and rubbed her head up and down her long-lost daughter’s neck. “I was afraid I would never see you again, Bea. I really was. I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too, mama.” She rested her head against her mother’s neck, taking a deep breath of the spicy mix of herbs and peppers that had always permeated both of her parents after a long day at work. Her malfunctioning brain wanted to say something thoughtful and kind about how much she loved all of her family, but the only thing she could think of at the moment was Presto’s Famous Cajun Snack Mix, and her thoughts blurted out when she opened her mouth again.
“I used to think about all of you every time I opened a package of Papi’s cajun snack mix. No matter where I was in Equestria, I could go to the store and have a little taste of home for just a few bites.”
“Oh, honey-bunch.” Mirabelle kissed her daughter on the back of one ear and just held her for a while, but after a moment asked, “Did you still like it when we started to add puffed milo?”
“Mama!” Trixie took one last long sniff of her mother’s mane and pulled back just far enough to touch horns with her. “It was… different. I got used to it.”
“Thank you, Bea.” Mirabelle kissed her daughter on the nose. “I wanted to keep it just the way your gran-père made it all these years, but your father convinced me to make a change. It raised sales by twenty percent, but I never knew if…” She trailed off to a quiet sniff and Trixie picked up the conversation.
“You didn’t know if Papi would have understood.” Trixie kissed her mother back on the nose. “He would have. I knew him as well as you, I think. He was a very perceptive old stallion, and he raised a daughter with a very large heart.”
“And he raised you,” said her mother, nuzzling back across Trixie’s neck. “I never seemed to have enough time for you. I worked so hard, trying to make my father’s dream into reality after his first heart attack, that I forgot who was really important in my life. When I lost him, I couldn’t handle it. I kept coming back into this cold and empty house every night, expecting to see him standing here in the kitchen, just as he always had been in my life. And then I lost you too.”
“I had to leave,” said Trixie, holding very still as she clutched her mother. “I had to. When he left… died, I never could admit he was gone either.”
“I understand,” said Mirabelle. “I didn’t like it, but I understand. I was just so afraid I had lost you forever.”
“You didn’t lose me, mama.” Trixie sniffed away the tears from the onions. Obviously the onions. “I just… misplaced myself for a while.”
They stood together in the kitchen for a long time, mother and daughter, with nothing else in the world between them except time and a pot of bubbling gumbo on the stove. After what seemed like ages, Mirabelle gave one last rub up against Trixie’s neck and lit her horn, floating over the purple peaked hat and placing it on top of her daughter’s head. She had the most peculiar expression, somewhat between remorse and pride as she blinked back the remainder of her tears and asked, “Does this mean you’re giving up your dream, Beatrice? That you’re going to throw away all of your achievements to come home and live with your old parents, yes?”
“No, mama.” Trixie lifted up her hat and dropped it on her mother’s head with just the smallest hint of a grin peeking out from the corners of her mouth. “I have my fire back.” Her growing smile faltered as Trixie glanced the empty chair and dusty walker to one side of the table. “Papi would not want me to throw away my dreams just to work in the factory with you. He wanted me to fly!” She snugged the hat down on her mother’s head and wiped a tear away from her older and slightly wrinkled cheek. “That doesn’t mean your little bird can’t land for a day or two and enjoy being with her parents, no?”
“No, it does not.” Mirabelle looked her daughter over, from nose to tail. “It might take more than a few meals to fatten you back up, though. You look so lean, so… strong now.”
“Not enough gumbo, or at least Papi would say so.” Trixie hazarded a smile while fishing the wooden spoon out of the gumbo pot, only to have her mother reach out with her magic and try to take the spoon away.
“Bea! Let your mother have a taste.”
“No!” declared Trixie with a sharp nod and a wave of her spoon as if it were a wand. “It needs to simmer for a while before I add the shrimp and crawfish. If you’re hungry, there’s some fried mushrooms on the table.”
“Shrimp and crayfish?” Mirabelle licked her lips and cast another covetous look at the gumbo pot. “Your father, he will hold his belly and complain tonight, about how his little girl is becoming so decadent.”
“Yes, but he’ll still sneak down to the kitchen tonight and grab a midnight snack,” declared Trixie with a chuckle, tapping the wooden spoon against the pot to clean it and putting the lid down on the gumbo as if she were closing a safe door.
A tiny giggle escaped Mirabelle before she rolled her eyes and pouted in the exact same fashion that Trixie had used to get countless cookies and desserts at the dinner table. “It’s so nice to have you home, Bea. Could your mother just have one little taste of the gumbo? Please?” Fighting back an additional giggle, Mirabelle added a curled-up bottom lip and flattened her ears down for maximum pathos and sympathy from her fairly-small audience.
Trixie shook her head at the memories of their positions being reversed. “I love you, mama. Trixie loves mama,” she added, feeling very much like a daughter again.
“Of course,” said Mirabelle, taking a moment to wipe her eyes. “Mama loves Trixie too.” She eyed the wooden spoon sitting to one side and smiled. “Thank you, Bea. Thank you for coming home and making my father’s gumbo. You’ve made an old mare very happy, and when your father gets done flying home in a little while, he’s going to be tickled pink.”
Mirabelle stole another quick glance at the wooden spoon, which Trixie quickly picked up in her magic. She held it up for a long moment, and then yielded enough to open up the simmering pot and dip out a small spoonful of the gumbo for her mother to sample.
“Mmmm… Perfect. Just like my father used to make.” Her mother sucked in a little extra air to cool her tongue. “Papa would have loved to see you cook, Bea. He would be so proud.”
“I know,” said Trixie. “I know.”
Author’s Notes:
I’m including a few notes on the story here, because I’m fairly certain I’ll get asked. Presto’s Cajun accent is as authentic as I can make it while as understated as I can to make the text more readable. Justin Wilson is a good example of the verbal art. If you’re going to snipe at the way I write Cajun in the comments without proof that you at least lived in the area for a brief while, you’re going to get thumped. And if you do provide proof, you’re going to get drafted. :)
The section where Trixie talks about having been accused of stealing a diamond in Manehattan comes from the comic, Friendship is Magic, Issue 21. Applejack, Babs Seed, Apple Bloom, Fluttershy and Rarity all wind up helping Trixie find the real criminal, but I only mention Rarity here because otherwise it gets awfully cluttered in rapid order.
Chili Powder: Fire given physical presence in the form of chili peppers, dried and ground up along with a healthy amount of other secret ingredients such as cumin, oregano, garlic powder, salt, and the tears of the weak. Can only be extinguished with homebrew beers.
Roux: A mixture of fat (bacon grease, duck fat, vegetable oil, lard, butter) and flour, cook for an hour in the oven, stirring every 15 min until the color changes
Trinity: onion, celery, and bell pepper, otherwise known as the trinity in Acadian cooking.
Mirepoix: Like Trinity, but with carrots instead of bell peppers. Ick. No true Cajun pony would cook their gumbo this way, except perhaps Golden Harvest.
Stock(shrimp): Made with tomato paste, veggies, bay leaves, shrimp shells, parsley, leeks, flavorings, stew a bit, add wine/vermouth, cook an hour+, strain
Gumbo misc: Okra/Fille is used to thicken the gumbo. I used okra to avoid confusion. Real manly men cook gumbo. The recipe followed (roughly) in this story came from here, although the steps were somewhat muddled intentionally. If you try this, make your stock first, then start the roux in the oven (so it doesn’t burn) before you start making the trinity. Don’t overcook the shrimp/crawfish or they get rubbery. And use wild rice instead of white.
1 lb. Andouille sausage, cut crosswise into ¼-inch-thick slices
3 cups okra, cut into ½-inch slices
8 oz. vegetable oil/butter/shortening
8 oz. all purpose flour
1 large onion, finely diced
1 large bell pepper, finely diced
3 celery stalks, finely diced
1 Tbsp. Creole seasoning
1 14.5 oz. can petite diced tomatoes
1 amber beer
1 Tbsp. Louisiana Hot Sauce
2 bay leaves
½ tsp. cayenne pepper
6 cups seafood stock, warmed
1 lb. medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 lb. crawfish tail meat
Hot cooked rice
Scallions, sliced
Directions
1. Preheat a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add sausage and cook until browned; remove and set aside on a plate. Next, add okra and sauté until just slightly charred, about 3-4 minutes; remove and set aside on a plate.
Combine oil and flour, stirring constantly, to make a dark brown roux, about the color of chocolate; 45-70 minutes. Add the onions, peppers, celery, and Creole seasoning; sauté until tender, about 8-10 minutes. Add tomatoes, followed by the beer. Next, add the hot sauce, bay leaves, and cayenne pepper. Finally, whisk in the seafood stock, one cup at a time. Bring the mixture to a slow boil.
Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes, up to a few hours, skimming the fat/foam as necessary. Add sausage and okra back into the pot, cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until okra is just cooked through. Add the shrimp and crawfish; stir to make sure the seafood is immersed in the liquid.
Turn off heat, cover, and allow the seafood to gently cook for 10-15 minutes. Shrimp and crawfish tail meat should be firm and bright in color.
Serve in bowls topped with white rice and garnished with sliced scallions.
