Return to Disharmony

“Alright now Trixie, today I have to work on an important piece for the upcoming celebration. While I’m working on it, I want you to maintain the garden and make sure no suspicious ponies come along to make a mess of things understand?”

“Yes sir,” Trixie said flatly.

“Also, I don’t want to hear any more complaints about you harassing the visitors. If anypony comes up to me today and tells me that you’ve been slaking off, I’ll dock you an hour’s pay understand?”

“Yes sir,” I suppose not everypony is ready to learn about my greatness.

“Good, now today I want you make each statue on the east end shine. Also be careful around the Discord statue, there has a lot of strange rumors are flying around Equestria about it being possessed or something.”

“Alright sir, I’ll make sure to clean all the statues.”

“Good, then I’ll see you later and try not to mess up.” Mr. Leo said in a half serious, half joking tone.

Mr. Leo disappeared behind the entrance to his studio, a large wooden house with earthly tones and brown paint with an emblem resembling Mr. Leo’s cutie mark emblazoned on the front door. As Trixie walked away from Mr. Leo’s studio, she could hear the sounds of chiseling coming from behind the doorway.

•••

Trixie carried around a small pale filled halfway with soapy water. While her unicorn magic helped her to clean many of the statues fairly fast, time still slowed to a crawl for Trixie as she slowly started on Mr. Leo’s assignment.

I still don’t believe this, I, the great and powerful Trixie, forced to work as a groundskeeper for an old goat who carves rocks all day long.

Trixie had finished her first statue for the day and walked towards the nearest one, a statue with four fillies stacked on top of one another representing friendship.

Humph, if I still had my wagon, I’d be able to rack in more than enough money to quit this demeaning job.

“I could help you with that.”

Trixie heard a voice coming from behind her, causing her to turn around only to find nothing.

Must be hearing things…

Ignoring the strange voice, Trixie continued to wash the statue.

As time went on, Trixie had finished washing statue after statue after statue along the eastern part of the sculpture garden. As she neared the end of her quota, she found herself standing in front of the statue of Discord.

The statue of Discord depicted a strange creature with the body of a dragon, horns, the paw of a lion, the talon of a griffin, the leg of a horse, and the leg of a lizard, holding its arms out as a look of fear spread across its face. Trixie didn’t know the specifics about this strange statue except that it had come from Ponyville and that a mysterious rumor had circulated which related to this statue.

“Superstitious fools, afraid of a stupid rock.”

“Now that’s not very nice, I’m actually quite eloquent once you get to know me.”

Trixie jumped, spilling her bucket of soap onto the ground, as she frantically looked around to see where the voice was coming from. After she chided herself at jumping at the air, the begrudgingly traveled back to the worker’s quarters to refill the bucket. As she walked towards the quarters, she took one last look at the Discord statue before calling a stupid rock under her breath.

•••

Trixie walked into the worker’s quarters behind Mr. Leo’s home. She took the empty bucket in her teeth and dropped it into the sink without thinking. The bucket clanked loudly against the hard surface of the sink which caused Trixie to cringe as she heard her boss yelling at her from his house.

“What’s going on out there?”

“Nothing Mr. Leo, I just dropped something in the sink.”

“Well try to keep it down out there, I’m trying to concentrate!”

Trixie grumbled as she turned on the sink and added some soap, creating a soapy mixture which created foam which rose over the edge of the bucket. Trixie blew the excess suds off and carried the bucket with her magic, careful to not spill anymore on the ground lest she have to deal with Leo’s mouth again.

Trixie made certain to avoid the Discord statue as she continued her job for the day. When she was finally finished, she stole one uneasy look at the Discord statue as she walked towards the worker’s quarters to deposit the bucket and check in with Mr. Leo.

As she passed his home, she noticed that she couldn’t hear the sound of chiseling from within, meaning that he must’ve been finished with his job as well.

“Trixie!”

Trixie looked up to see Mr. Leo standing in the doorway of the worker’s quarters with an angry look on his face.

“I saw you avoiding the Discord statue, now I know I told you to be careful around the Discord statue but I didn’t say that you could slack off in your duties.”

“I was going to do it late-“

“Save it Trixie, I’m docking you half an hour’s pay! Now drop off the bucket and follow me, I need a second opinion on the piece that I’m working on.”

“Yes sir…”

As Trixie passed Mr. Leo, she couldn’t help but calling Mr. Leo every terrible name in the book.

“I bet you’d love to see him suffer huh my little pony.”

Trixie stopped in her tracks and looked around the worker’s quarters.

“What in the world is wrong with you Trixie?”

“Go ahead, tell him that you’ve been hearing voices from nowhere, I’m sure he’ll understand without sending you away.”

“N-nothing sir just thought I heard something.”

“Well don’t go crazy now; I’m not giving you nearly enough work for you to go loopy on me.”

Trixie dumped the bucket into the sink and followed Mr. Leo into his studio, a large empty room with chiseling tools lining the walls, where a large slab of carved marble sat in the center of the room with a small stool stationed in front of it.

“So, what do you think?”

Trixie could’ve lied but she knew that Mr. Leo would’ve seen through her faux criticism. She sighed and took a closer look at unfinished sculpture when she saw something that dropped her jaw and caused her to rush towards it.

“Hey be careful!”

Ignoring Mr. Leo, Trixie rushed over until she was spitting distance away from the sculpture. To her shock, she wasn’t wrong with her assumption and shook her head in disbelief.

Sculpted into the marble's surface was the face of the mare who had ruined her life.