A Wish Before Midnight

A Wish Before Midnight

Chapter 5 – A Misunderstanding

“The carriage had been traveling at a very calm pace by now. The rhythmic wobbling of the trailer had been easing Bronze. He could feel himself dozing off as his body begged to be carried off to sleep. For just a brief moment, he closed his eyes. Then, as his world faded to black, a faint voice called to him from what seemed like deep within a valley. A soothing, feminine voice. . .”

“Bronze. . . Can you hear me? It is crucial that we meet. . . First, you must find—” One of the wheels of Trixie’s carriage rolls over a hole in the ground, jarring the entire trailer and stirring Bronze awake. The trailer comes to a stop as Bronze realizes the entire room is on a slight tilt. The trailer door is unlocked and falls to the ground to reveal Trixie with an aggravated look on her face.

“It looks like one of the wheels has broken, so—” Trixie notices the large gap in the wall of the trailer. “Trixie had not known how bad the damage was. Now that she’s seen it . . . she supposes that will need to be repaired as well.” She takes a breath to calm herself. “Unfortunately, we will need to set up camp here. You will assist Trixie in gathering firewood.” Trixie leaves the doorway, but quickly returns. “And by, ‘Assist Trixie in gathering firewood,’ she means for you to go off and do it yourself.”

“W-What? You’re not going to help?” Bronze asks.

“If Trixie remembers correctly, she hasn’t yet been paid. Plus, you’ve made things worse by destroying her wall. So, to answer your question . . . yes.” Bronze sighs, giving in to her demands. He agonizingly gets to his hooves, and leaves the trailer. “Here.” Trixie uses her magic to strap a cloth satchel around his waist. “Be sure to collect enough.” Bronze glares at her, but she only returns with an infuriating smirk. He heads into the woods, collecting as many broken branches from the ground as he can. Figuring it should be fairly simple to collect some branches, surely it shouldn’t be too difficult. However, there appears to be a mysterious lack of fallen branches.

He delves deeper into the woods, scanning the ground for any debris. Until he is stopped in his tracks by a startling sound. A growl erupts from within a cluster of bushes, and with it the branches rustle as something moves about inside. Bronze finds himself gazing into a pair of small eyes that glow in the darkness. He freezes as the animal approaches him; a coyote showing off its rows of sharp teeth. Bronze shuts his eyes as it circles around him, sniffing the surface of his armor. He sits with his heart trembling, and listens as the bushes rustle. Opening his eyes, he watches the coyote stand a short distance away. The growling has ended, and becoming more and more anxious, Bronze gets up and trots back in the direction of Trixie’s carriage. Patiently waiting, Trixie confusedly watches Bronze breathlessly trot out from the trees. “What is the matter with you?” Trixie asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Huh?! N-No, there was a-a coyote.” Bronze gasps for air.

“That’s all? You, a knight, got scared of a mutt? I hope you realize, but a coyote has never attacked a pony. Not once.”

“You don’t understand. I hate coyotes, wolves, dogs . . . anything like that.”

“. . . How much firewood did you bring?” Trixie peers into his bag, and glances back up to him with disappointment written across her face. “So, ‘that’ is all you found?”

“Well. . .”

“Give Trixie the bag,” she demands as she removes the satchel from Bronze’s waist and straps it to herself. “Trixie will return momentarily, and you will keep watch of her belongings until she returns.”

“Right, will do. . . Be careful.”

“You needn’t worry about Trixie; she can handle her own.” Trixie wanders into the woods, disappearing from sight. Left with nothing else to do, Bronze returns to the trailer to take a better look around. With the moonlight peering through the broken wall, he can see a large, red curtain that’s been drawn all the wall the end of the trailer. Other than a tall, wooden cabinet next to a storage chest in the corner of the room, the trailer is otherwise empty. The chest is bound by a rusty, metal lock. However, the cabinet door is slightly ajar due to the intense gyrating of the carriage from earlier. Bronze grips the handle of the cabinet door, reluctant to pull it open. He understands the meaning of respecting other ponies’ privacy, but his curiosity is overwhelming.

“I’ll just take a peek. . . It won’t hurt anything,” Bronze whispers to himself. The door quietly creaks as he pulls it open, revealing a slew of miscellaneous objects. The bottom shelves inside the cabinet are lined with piles of tools. The next shelves are stuffed up with sheets of different colored cloth alongside stacks of spools of thread. Above those is a shelf of candles along with a few books of matches. Then, the topmost shelf; the dust of which gives off the impression it hasn’t been rummaged through in quite some time. First, a stack of three old books. Bronze gets to his hind legs, pulling the top book from the stack with his teeth. He opens the cover as the first page reads: Spellcasting and Enchantments Volume 3. Below that is a stamp that reads: Garden’s Creek Library. Unfamiliar with the name of the book or place, Bronze wonders just how long this book has been sitting in Trixie’s cabinet. Considering the yellowed pages and the amount of dust, surely it must be way passed overdue. He places the book back, and moves on to the little brown sack. It almost appears empty, but upon touching it with his hoof, he can feel a sort of lump underneath the cloth. Untying the string keeping the bag sealed, he finds a peculiar-looking stone. A small, transparent, purple gem so sleek it glistens in the moonlight. Baffled by what purpose it must serve, he figures it might just be some kind of rare mineral of some kind. However, not one he’s ever seen before. Stuffing the stone back in the bag, he moves on to the last object on the shelf. A rather child-like instrument; an old xylophone and balled wand sit neatly in the corner. He takes it down from the shelf, inspecting it all over. Though, he finds absolutely nothing special about the toy.

“Find anything interesting?” Bronze’s heart jumps as the words are spoken right behind him. Nearly dropping the toy, he fumbles around until he gets a better grip as he stares directly into Trixie’s menacing glare. “Trixie supposes you have a knack for snooping through things that don’t belong to you!” she scolds as she rips the xylophone from his grasp and places it back on the shelf.

“I-I’m sorry! I was just—”

“Doing exactly what you shouldn’t!” Trixie slams the cabinet door shut. “It’s no wonder those knights chased you out of the castle! You’re a criminal aren’t you?!”

“What?! No, of course not! I’m nothing like that!”

“Well, clearly you have your mind set on stealing something of mine!”

“No! Y-You’ve got it all wrong!”

“Trixie doesn’t have time for this.” A pinkish glow erupts from underneath the brim of Trixie’s hat, and the same glow envelops Bronze’s armor. Glancing down to notice the glow around him, he is violently thrown across the room and outside the trailer. He tumbles across the grass until he is stopped by a tree trunk. Trixie casually steps down from the trailer, watching Bronze struggle to get to his hooves. “Trixie should have left you behind, let those knights take you in.”

“Wait. . . I’m not a criminal; I swear! Just listen for a moment!”

“Trixie doesn’t need to hear anything you might have to say.” Several stones lift up from the ground by Trixie’s magic, and Bronze begins to panic. One by one the stones are thrown in his direction, each one missing as he dodges and leans out of the way.

“This is insane!” he shouts in the midst of the first couple of stones coming his way. “Look, I’ll just leave! You’ll never see me again!”

“Oh, no. Trixie isn’t going to just let you off the hook that easy. She’s going to make sure you fully understand why Trixie isn’t one to be toyed with.”

“I wasn’t trying to steal anything!” She ignores his plea, and instead lifts a large, fallen tree branch from the ground with her magic. “. . . Trixie, I don’t want a fight.”

“That’s too bad,” Trixie pouts. “Because you’ve got one.” It’s clear to him that there’s no way of talking it through with her, he nervously scans the ground nearby for something to defend himself. He spots a long tree branch, and grabs it with his teeth by the middle. With an awful taste in his mouth, and concerned with the sheer size of Trixie’s branch compared to his, he readies himself regardless. The levitating branch swings without recourse, as Bronze does his best to utilize both ends of his to block. Considering there isn’t another pony wielding the branch, it’s difficult for him to adjust. Bronze cannot find a clear way for him to in fact win this fight besides taking Trixie herself down. However, he can’t find a way around her weapon. He can feel his jaw tiring, and his teeth aching. Realizing he’s losing his energy to fight, Trixie approaches whilst still swinging her weapon relentlessly. Trying his best to stay on his hooves and grip his branch, Trixie’s final swing snaps his in half. With the other half still in his mouth, he attempts to continue his fight. However, after merely a couple more swings, Trixie manages to land several bashes to his armor. Bronze drops his branch, and Trixie sweeps hers under his legs causing him to fall on his stomach. Trixie walks over, towering over him. “You see, this is why Trixie remains the ‘Great and Powerful’. Surely the Princess will pay a great reward to have you turned in.”

“D-Don’t. . . You don’t understand.”

“Trixie is tired of listening to you talk.” A sudden creaking of wood followed by rustling in the bushes near the carriage Trixie catches her attention. She scans the woods around the trailer, then turns back to Bronze. “Trixie is going to go investigate that sound, and as for you. . .” Trixie winds up her tree branch, and breaks through the wind as it hurls towards Bronze.

“The branch whacked Bronze straight on his helmet. The hit was so powerful you could hear the vibrations of Bronze’s helmet echo for a short time. The world instantly went black, and Bronze would reawaken to something startling, yet peaceful. There wasn’t a single sound in the air, and all the pain in his body had vanished. He lifted his head out from the grass, and gazed ahead at a gorgeous view. His body laid at the bottom of a deep valley. Shadows laid like a mist at the very bottom, while the moon hung right above the valley as its light graced the canyon walls. At the very end, he could make out the blurry outline of a figure. Before he could make out a single detail, the world vanished, and awoke for the second time under the warmth of the morning sun. However, he found himself in a much more worrying situation.”