An Illusionist's Discontent
Author's Note
I was messing around on google docs and found a short story I wrote years ago and never finished, and seeing as how Trixie (or my highly idiosyncratic version of her) was the main character, I figured I'd rewrite it for the dual purpose of implementing a couple of experimental ideas of mine and entertaining you, the reader, with something relevant to the upcoming episode. The two most prominent ideas of mine that'll be featured here are some highly incorrect intermingling of the past and present tense (to try and convey not only an objective idea, but a subjective emotion) and a version of the "unreliable narrator" I've dreamt up that I call the "hostile narrator".
Now, the only thing that makes this story AU is the fact that I have written Trixie to be a stallion, as I am (like a method actor) more confident in my abilities to realistically portray and characterize a male main character--and the proper implementation of my inventions into this work necessitates a high fidelity to realistic characterization of certain aspects of this Trixie's psyche that I only comprehend from a masculine perspective.
One Autumn Day
One Autumn Day
We find our puerile protagonist lying in his usual sporadic slumber atop a tattered hammock which is suspended by rusty nails penetrating walls of living wood, reduced to their current state by the punctured vascular tissue of this large tree’s root. Tucked away in his ugly little room, in this ugly little town he feels he’s been unjustly thrust into, the wizard-turned-errand-boy Beatrix Lulamoon is snapped from the aether of dream by the delightful shriek of a little librarian to whom he owes his ugly little life of servile sub-existence.
“TRIXIE! GET UP, SPIKE MADE BREAKFAST!” With a sickeningly sincere sweetness cultivated by the basic (to Beatrix, it seemed unilateral) idea that she is the savior of a confused stallion’s tortured soul.
Annoyed eyes of rose break open, a guttural snarl, and another silent reproach aimed at his circumstance. The reader will observe that the unfortunately named Mr. Beatrix’s rotten mood is accountable to the fact that he knows he now faces another day of candied debasing and victimization by his own paranoid delusions. The loser hisses, “Trick-seeee…” as he tries to fight his crippling melancholy long enough to rise. How he despises that acidic little pet-name so many ascribe to him; it was a lasting insult to his mutilated ego, which would have withered and died by now if he were stable. He’d often mispronounce his feminine forename in masculine ways (most notably Bay-o-tricks, to evoke a feeling of barbarous romanticism) in a pitiful attempt to scavenge some fragments of dignity from the smoking wreck that is his life.
“YOU DON’T WANT TO HURT SPIKE’S FEELINGS, DO YOU?” In reality, this playful summon was tempered by a rising tone and sarcastic regard to the fact that the little whelp didn’t like cooking breakfast, or cared if people liked it; but in Beatrix’s mind, addled by years of various shadowy magicks to make up for his own lack of ability, it was the most sardonic mocking a mare might muster in her voice.
“I’LL BE RIGHT UP, TWILIGHT!” In his attempt to eke out a non-threatening tone, Beatrix’s voice cracked. More swearing was mouthed. Hopping out of his bed-net the loser hobbled out of his room, up and out of the basement, and into the repository of knowledge now swathed with wafts of that oh so familiar hotcake scent. As Miss Sparkle’s horned face popped into view from the kitchen, Beatrix was rubbing the whiskers about his neck, examining the various tomes housed in this homey prison. Twilight gazed awhile at her thrall, affectionately. One of the qualities she found redeeming about him was his genuine thirst for knowledge (he had read the majority of the merchandise, especially those regarding traditional schools of magic, despite his normal practice of those malefic).
“Your batch is ready, Trix.”
“Delightful.” Monotone and miserable. Beatrix sits at a rustic little table as a stack of pancakes enveloped in a violet aura hovers in front of him. Wonderful. He eats; eyes Spike now and then. Breakfast is drenched in syrup. Beatrix hates syrup, but who cares? He does! Adding this offense to the petty little list he’s writing in his head, it doesn’t occur to him that he’s never told anyone his disposition on syrup. He keeps eating. Simple joys like this are lost on him. Somewhere in his life simple joys were mistranslated into tedium. He focuses on spike again, blocks out Twilight sipping her warm coffee in the seat adjacent; doesn’t want his mind reeling with emotions--the kind he doesn’t understand. He thinks about himself, then retires into those thoughts. Minutes pass, and the sugary gloop gradually (and begrudgingly) disappears into his mouth. Twilight lowers the steamy brew from her delicate features and begins to speak,
“It’s Monday, Trixie.” Genuinely warm.
“Hnnninyegh.”
“What was that?”
“Yes, Twilight; I know, Twilight.” Beginning hastily, but coolly reverting to a servile tone.
“You know you have to shave before you go out.”
What purpose does it serve, to constantly degrade me in front of these cretins? Is it so threatening, that I was born to a higher stock than the inbred pig-folk of this lowland bowl of filth? In the Old Country, I’d be called a pre-pubertal colt if I shaved my face; or even a homosexual. But how would that differ from this slum? ‘Cut yer mane’ they say, in an attempt to save face after their peasant-stock mares try to molest me--The repugnance of it all! No one tells the great and pow-
“Did you hear me?”
“HNNIGHymm…”
“I said you need to sha-“
“YES, TWILIGHT. OF COURSE, TWILIGHT. THANK YOU, TWILIGHT.” Forkfuls of food crash into the juvenile idiot's mouth.
The bookish mare rolls her lilac eyes upward and over before rising. She strolls to the countertops behind our maladroit magician, making not the slightest attempt to hide her utterance of, ‘someone’s in a mood’ and quickly steps back to Beatrix (who is now hunched over in his seat and pouting vehemently), grabbing his half-finished plate of gloop. Before he can lie and say he was going to finish his breakfast,
“Go scrape that scruff off your face, Trixie, the market’s going to open soon and you want first pick.”
Thank you for telling me what I want.
“And I’m sending you out to the Everfree to fetch some ingredients for my chemistry.”
Well, isn’t that just cute? Infantile refinery compared to I, who was taught alchemy by the fabled shamans of the Redbluff grypho-
“Are you going to go or not?” The only thing spike said throughout breakfast. Beatrix scowled viciously and sauntered to the bathroom to prepare himself for the ensuing trials. As he opened the door to the chamber, he made out one last faint murmur from Twilight in the kitchen, ‘he really has gotten better.’ The reader will observe that there is no other way to describe the wizard’s resultant sentiment than utterly, abhorrently pissed. He slams the door behind him, and greets his only source of solace in this tree. The mirror.
Mr. Lulamoon carefully admires his aquiline features, his pointed muzzle and the perfect curvature of his long snout in ratio to his thin, lengthy horn and sharp ears. He had always been told he had the blood of the most noble and ancient houses of Equestrian nobility, and this was clearly evident in his elegant facial features; but his greater skeletal structure, and his features in general, were more reminiscent of the barbaric unicorn cultures of the fatherland. Tall stature, elongated bones and loose joints made the young wizard look very slender and wise (as a wizard ought to), but such a frame often looks unnatural unless leaning against something—and especially in motion—but Beatrix made it all look graceful (as a lifetime of hubris and self-scrutiny will temper one to do). He’d never admit it, but he looked very attractive without a beard, and the scraggly hairs detract from his naturally sophisticated appearance. But he’d never admit it.
There’s but one item of dissension he has with his otherwise flawless reflection—a golden ring, inscribed with white magic, planted on the base of his horn. In addition to his preference for silver jewelry, this seemingly insignificant circle of alloy vexed Mr. Lulamoon deeply. It prevented him from casting the most simplistic magicks, much less use the dark and terrible knowledge of yore he has spent many of his twenty-one years amassing. And if he tries, well, then he will be subject to the wrath of his warden--the even more vexing sorceress Twilight Sparkle, who was made his master after Mr. Lulamoon’s great offense at the Canterlot palace.
It’s only a matter of time until it happens. One day she’ll return from some night out with those friends of hers under the cosmic sway of some flaw in the female anatomy. Spike will be gone out with Snips or Snails, and you know what she’ll make you do? The greatest act of ignominy a mare could pose on a stallion.
Golden Oaks’ supposedly malicious librarian knocks and carefully creaks open the bathroom door, and folds her forelegs at the lack of progress her charge has made toward the grooming of his visage. Leaning against the arch,
“It’s been fifteen minutes, Trixie, come on.”
Our ever gracious and noble protagonist levitates a can of shaving cream to his unkempt face and lathers (Twilight had allowed basic magic after the first month Beatrix had been under her watch, saying such hateful things as “You’ve been doing really well,” and “You deserve to use your magic.”) before carefully raising a blade and taking one-sixteenth of an inch out of his beard. He retracts and returns for another one-sixteenth.
“I don’t want to rush you, Trixie, but we-“
“Hrmphleghn.”
Spitefully, Mr. Lulamoon attempts to hack off the rest of the whiskers on his right cheek in one swift motion. The result was a painful slicing sound and Beatrix’s shocked wailing at a half-inch gash on his pristine flesh. Twilight sighs and uses her own magic to heal her charge, who in turn examines his face frantically to make sure no scar formed. None did, and he was genuinely relieved until Ms. Sparkle turned out of the room and asked him to finish quickly (and safely).
It’s her fault in the first place! I’d have never cut myself shaving if she didn’t force me to shave.
“It was your fault!” He shouts at the door.
The reader will observe that Beatrix Lulamoon is a dipshit.
Minutes later Mr. Lulamoon was once again amidst several earth pony merchants, who often were the only ponies up early enough to get first pick of the day. Neither Twilight nor Spike accompanied him, as is the norm. Grocery gathering was one of the many duties to which he was delegated after his rescue from the headsman’s axe at the hooves of Ms. Sparkle. At first, he was very fond of it, when the atmosphere at Golden Oaks was tense and he had yet to experience the ponies that live in Ponyville. Now it, and they, had grown stale to him. Everyone knew him and what he had done to land himself there, but for a reason Mr. Lulamoon couldn’t explain, the denizens of Equestria’s agrarian center didn’t hold him in the same regard he did them. That is to say, where he saw them as backwards reprobates oblivious to the tedium of their daily comings and goings; they saw him as a confused, but intelligent young stallion whose boiling blood had never been inoculated by the joys of an easygoing life.
The only Ponyvillagers who didn’t share this view where the salesponies, which often found themselves victims of Mr. Lulamoon’s sleights and thievery (which the stallion in question found hysterically amusing). Another collection of ponies Mr. Lulamoon often found himself dealing with was the cutie mark crusaders, the first of whom Beatrix befriended was the exuberant, crippled filly Scootaloo--whom he had once sheltered when she fled from her home. But that was before he was captured, and still had his cozy little traveling magician act. The loser is struck with a painful kind of melancholy at these thoughts, and abandons them—looking to his grocery list for the next item.
An hour or so later, in the Everfree forest, Our protagonist is bent down under a particularly withered tree, sawing off a root with a kris he always keeps looped around his belt. After it’s sufficiently hacked, he twists off the remaining portion and places it in one of his foppish, over-ornamental pink saddlebags. ‘Root of Dreadglory’ is the last item to be crossed off his list of alchemical additives that were to be gathered for the good lady Sparkle. Despite his outward reluctance to come to the Everfree, he takes succor in the harsh environment. Before Beatrix went off his nut and wound up ensnared by Twilight, he spent most of his time in dark, foreboding places; hunting the shadowy secrets that enthralled him, and Twilight knew he enjoyed the atmosphere (one of the reasons she could send him here without guilt or worry). For that, he was grateful.
Mr. Lulamoon’s thoughts were interrupted (as they often are) by a pinecone banging against his head. After briefly entertaining the idea that the forest’s flora itself was attacking him, he glanced around to assure himself of his isolation. He raises it slowly to his mouth and crunches it gingerly. After repressing a couple memories and choking back a few tears, he departs for Golden Oaks.
Spike was in his cleaning apron, which Beatrix often wondered why had to be separate from his cooking apron, and Twilight was re-arranging the books in the usual cacophony of fluttering paper. This was done every other Monday, and whatever comfort a stallion of Beatrix’s disposition could find was found in Twilight’s regular scheduling--and her adherence to that scheduling. Of course, the ever gracious and humble Mr. Lulamoon could never express this to her, or even project his gratitude into a small smile. He slinks past the two and into the kitchen, setting a brown grocery bag on the counter and a pouch of various roots and herbs on the table.
He glares at the bounty of foodstuffs he so valiantly secured and, despite pointedly entering quietly and obfuscating his return, peers back at the kitchen doorway and sardonically spits,
“At least I’m appreciated.”
Commencing to skulk toward the back door, Beatrix contemplates slipping out until Twilight’s epistemic maintenance was complete, hating the racket it produced. Sliding up to the cool wood of the door and wrapping his hoof around the glinting metal of the knob, he relents.
But where would I go?
As the more astute observers might have surmised, Beatrix’s actions relating to those around him were not particularly conducive to friendship, acquaintanceship, distant familiarity or any form of social interaction. But, with a mind crippled by his fragile ego, Mr. Lulamoon believed himself to be the single focus of an entire town’s envious hatred, despised and rejected for his many great qualities. This is essentially untrue for two reasons: the first being that the denizens of Ponyville are actually quite fond of Beatrix, having only seen his magic act and Twilight Sparkle’s inexplicable affection for him, and the second being that Beatrix doesn’t have many great qualities.
His contemplations were cut short by the silencing of the racket in the library and the muffled voices of Twilight and Spike conversing as they entered the kitchen.
“Oh, Trixie’s back!” Twilight announced before the sound of a mare rifling through a paper bag could be heard. Ignoring the urge to sidle up beside a wall and hide like the pathetic coward that he is, our hero slipped back into the kitchen just in time to eye Twilight’s flank as she sorted the groceries on the counter. Seeing her start to turn, Beatrix’s eyes darted to the tile floor.
“There you are.” Twilight smiled at our ever noble protagonist, glancing at the groceries and then turning back to the counter.
“Would you come here for a second?”
She knows I don’t have choice.
Beatrix strode up next to his warden, head down, and was greeted with short, soft nuzzling. A shiver of pleasure zipped down his spine. Truly, only do victims of the gulag know such pain. The mare motioned to a cylinder on the counter, softly uttering,
“Trixie, this is baking soda. We need baking powder.”
Beatrix, unable to acknowledge even inconsequential mistakes,
“So? It’s the same thing--same use.”
“Trixie, baking soda is more alkaline than baking powder. If I try to make more pancakes with this, they’ll taste bitter. I would expect a student of the fabled shamans of the redbluff-”
Spike could be heard poorly trying to suppress laughter as the cornflower colored conjurer began to stammer in irritation,
“I-Oh-Ah...Yeah, alright. Make fun, what’s it matter.” Trixie turned away with a grimace, sauntering toward the living room before Twilight, sweetly giggling, placed a hoof on his back.
“Wait, it’s- Okay, I won’t tease you, I’m sorry.”
Trixie stopped, looking toward the front door.
“Hrrrng... Alright, I’ll go get your baking... whatever”
“Hold on, I’m going with you.”
“Wha-Hrrng… Why?!”
“So I can teach you the difference between baking soda and baking whatever. Spike, Trixie and I’ll be back soon.” The smirking mare said toward Spike in the kitchen as he was putting the groceries away, before she took a scarf off the rack by the front door and wrapped it around her neck to counteract the nip of the encroaching evening.
“Put on your cape, Trixie, it’s cold outside.”
“I don’t want to, I like the cold.”
“Trixie.”
Beatrix donned his cloak.
Stepping into the cool, invigorating air of the evening, Mr. Lulamoon and Ms. Sparkle trotted toward the much less active market at a leisurely pace; Twilight looking at Beatrix, and Beatrix looking at everything except Twilight.
“You know, Trixie, as I recall--you didn’t learn alchemy from any gryphon shaman. The way I remember, you and I learned chemistry together at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.”
An astute observer, like Twilight Sparkle for example, could see that this elicited a small smirk on the wizard’s face, a rare sight for the past few months. The mare shifted a little closer to Beatrix as they walked along.
“Remember, you and I would always be lab partners. We always had the same classes.”
“Well, we were both admitted at the same time, is why… I was too clumsy to do well in chemistry class.”
This was an exceedingly rare occurrence--for Beatrix had not only physically displayed happiness and spoken fondly of something, but he had also admitted to having any kind of shortcoming whatsoever, and Twilight was very happy about it.
“You were very good with the formulas, and you always took very good notes. When you took notes, that is.” She giggled, looking a little more closely at Trixie. To her surprise and disappointment, he lost his smirk and looked downward.
“I wasn’t a very good-... School wasn’t for me.”
“Oh, Trixie… You’re a very gifted mage, Trixie. It took alot to get admitted in the first place, you know. Maybe you weren’t good at the basics- But, I mean-... You understood the advanced theory better than anyone in the school, I remember, you amazed all our teachers. And you’ve always had a natural talent.”
“Hrrnngh…”
“Trixie…”
Beatrix grunted once more, hurting the only mare that gave a damn about him like the loser he is, and looked up at the stalls they were approaching. He peered around contemptuously at the vendors, whom he assumed were struggling to stifle their laughter at the sight of him being babysat by Twilight, and groaned,
“Okay, we’re here. Let’s just get the baking soda and go home.”
“Powder, Trixie.”
“You need makeup too? Sure, humiliate me further. While we’re at it, just have me go fetch some ta-”
“Baking powder, Trixie.”
Beatrix paused.
“Oh.”
What a jackass.
A little while later, back at the Golden Oaks, the front door quietly popped open before the two unicorns slipped inside, disrobing at the door. The more pleasant of the two saying, in a prudent tone as she hung her scarf back on its peg,
“I wish you wouldn’t have made such a scene at Mr. Waters' stall.”
“You saw the way he was looking at my-”
“No, Trixie--I didn’t,” Twilight asserted, turning quickly to face the paranoiac pariah who was (unusually) taken aback by the mare’s blunt tone. “And I don’t think anypony sees it but you when somepony ‘insults’ and ‘debases’ you.”
Lulamoon, possessing all the emotional maturity of a twelve year-old, couldn’t even look in Twilight’s direction during this admonishment--instead opting to stare down at the carpeted floor, freshly clean thanks to Spike’s vacuuming that morning. The sight of her misunderstood little Trixie looking down dejectedly sent a twinge of guilt into Twilight’s tender heart, cooling her temper and prematurely ending the well-deserved castigation.
“Oh… Trixie.”
The lavender librarian softly trotted up to Beatrix, gently nuzzling him and taking the barely filled cloth grocery bag, reaching her hoof in as she turned toward the kitchen door. Nuzzling him once more before handing him a little orange pouch from the bag,
“Here’s your candy.” Before trotting into the kitchen, and a moment later being followed by the still despondent illusionist.
“But don’t eat it yet, we’re about to have dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Twilight glanced once at Trixie with a doubting look and grabbed a slip of paper on the table, looking it over,
“Spike says he’s eating dinner at Rarity’s. I guess it’s just you and me, Trixie. What do you want for dinner?”
“I said I’m not hungry.”
“Trixie, you didn’t even eat lunch today. And you know that you get headaches when you don’t eat.”
Beatrix didn’t respond, instead irritably looking around as if he was going to walk out.
“Is this because I yelled at you?”
“No.”
Twilight looked at him with that gentle gaze of disbelief, as if to say yes it is without making him anymore worked up.
“Alright, Trixie. Please come sit down for dinner?” Twilight said softly, pulling out Beatrix’s chair with imploring eyes. The irascible illusionist’s face softened a bit before he slid over into his chair, trying not to look at the mare. She nuzzled him and whispered her thanks before gliding up the counter to begin preparing some vegetarian comestibles for supper.
A few minutes passed of Twilight working and Beatrix trying not to stare at her.
“Okay, it’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.” Twilight moved in and sat in the chair to Beatrix’s right, shuffling it closer to him and smiling. Beatrix, the charmer he is, has his eyes focused on some nick in the wooden table and a blank expression on his face--not even acknowledging Twilight sidling up next to him.
“Remember how we would eat dinner at my house after school? Except, Mom was doing the cooking back then,” Twilight reminisced soothingly, still smiling sweetly at the loser next to her who only nodded his head, still emotionless.
“And you’d usually spend the night, and we would stay up talking. When was it that you stopped sleeping over?”
Beatrix, who must’ve been in rare form that day, smirked for the second time and said,
“It was the year we both turned thirteen, and your Dad said I couldn’t sleep over anymore.”
Twilight looked away, blushing.
“Well, you couldn’t sleep over in my room. You would still come spend the night, though, because of-” Twilight looked back over at Trixie, who was still fixated on the nick in the table, but slowly losing his smile--and Twilight realized that she was getting onto a topic that was probably best left alone. For now, anyway.
“Well… Anyway… You know the way we used to talk back then, Trixie?”
“Mhm.”
“Well… Look at me, Trixie.”
And Trixie looked at Twilight, and she nuzzled him for a moment before locking eyes with him.
“You know that you can still talk to me?”
Trixie stared into Twilight’s eyes for a while, silent.
“I know.”
Then they ate dinner.
The End
