Size Up Starlight

Trixie had spent a good few hours asking around for any stores that sold monster noisemakers, or any exotic musical instrument that sounded like a roar. They were very rare items, and she was about to give up as she was looking around in an old store that sold antique musical instruments. Trixie was so focused on trying to find the right instrument that she didn't realize that another pony had been standing in her way.

She bumped into the rump of a very fat orange colt. Trixie fell to the floor, the other pony completely unaffected from the crash, but appeared concerned for the dizzy performing artist below.

"Are you alright there, miss?" the orange colt asked, offering a large fat hoof. Trixie looked up, slightly repulsed by the roly poly curves on the colt in front of her, but acted kindly and accepted his hoof.

"Ugh, apologies," Trixie said, rubbing the dust off her shoulder. She then looked back at the fat colt, and noticed that his big round flank had a large stretched cutie mark of a tuba. "Trixie was wondering..." she began, "if you knew anything about big bassy horns that sound like a monster's roar?"

The big orange pegasus raised his eyebrows. "Oh, sure, I know a lot about 'em." He turned around to face Trixie, dwarfing her by ten whole inches in height, his wide girth also surpassing her body twofold, with embarrassingly useless wings that were clearly unable to cope with his enlarged frame in flight.

"Name's Jupiter Summers," he introduced politely, "I specialize in horns, especially bassy ones, as you can see." He indicated back to the picture of a yellow tuba on his rather large flank. He then faced Trixie. "I've collected a few roaring noisemakers in my career. They used to be used in classical plays, y'know. They've gone out of fashion with the magical age, though, with the invention of unicorn digital recordings. Anyway, I'm rambling, you said you needed one?"

"That would be much... appreciated," Trixie replied, keeping her head high despite being absolutely bored by the rambling fat colt wobbling in front of her face, "Trixie requires a deep, frightening roar for her performance."

The fat orange pegasus's eyes lit up. "That's wonderful!" he exclaimed, "I thought I'd never see the day that my old noisemaker would become useful again. I'll lend it to you for free, just make sure you return it when the performance is done." Jupiter turned around slowly, reaching behind an old dusty shelf, pulling out a large complicated machine on wheels. It was a strange design, and was almost as big as the fat orange pony himself in both height and width. It had a mouthpiece and lots of cogs, wheels and strange wind pipes that curled and twisted in many shapes, only to end up in a large round horn that Trixie could easily peep her head into.

"Wait, you run this shop?" Trixie asked as she held onto the noisemaker's handle. "Trixie didn't see you when she first walked in."

"Yes. I often wait out in the back room, I don't get many customers," the wide colt explained. "Anyway, just take care of it, it's quite old. Good luck with your performance, m'lady."

Trixie lowered her brow slightly, as she found Jupiter to be aesthetically unpleasing and wanted to leave quickly. "Well, thank you. Trixie will take good care of it." She walked the noisemaker towards the door, and then stopped to look back at the shop owner.

"Hold on," she asked, "Trixie couldn't help but notice your... shapely shape. Would you happen to know where one could buy a lot of cheap food for a low price? Asking for a friend."

"Hah, hungry eh?" the jiggly colt chuckled, "well I think Hayburger has some special discount offers they serve for large parties and events. They might give you a discount if you're related to royalty or something, but that's pretty rare in this town."

"Good enough," Trixie concluded, "Trixie must thank you for your efforts, mister Summers. Now Trixie shall make her leave."

And make her leave Trixie did as she pulled the noisemaker behind her outside the store, and began trotting towards Hayburger.

Later on Trixie arrived at the restaurant while hauling her unusual device. Hayburger had very few customers eating when she came in. She gave a sigh of relief as there was no que to order, so she simply went up to the counter directly. A dark beige Hayburger staff mare with dull brown hair quickly appeared to take her order from behind the counter. Her speech and facial expression looked extremely barren of any emotion.

"Hello, welcome to Hayburger, may I take your-"

"Trixie," the loud performer began as she lifted her chin up dramatically, "requires a large batch of... uhhh.... hay, for her great upcoming performance."

The Hayburger staff mare, who's gray-blue eyes appeared to show nothing but a hollow hull of empty thoughts and broken dreams, slowly answered almost automatically. "Hayburger serves parties and events at a discount cost of fifty bits per shipment of hay. All terms and conditions apply."

The staff clerk rested her hoof lazily on the counter as she stared at the bewidlered Trixie for a response.

"Well, erm- Well," Trixie stuttered, "Trixie is holding this... meeting for... the uh.. royal student of Princess Talkative- err- I mean- Twilight. Yes. Trixie requires this event for Starlight Glimmer, so erm, could you lower the price a teenzy inzy little bit?"

The dull-brown mare in front of Trixie didn't even flinch, which made Trixie's mind panic even more. The clerk slowly lifted her arms off the counter robotically and turned to look at a piece of paper written next to her. She then slowly looked up at Trixie. "Trixie Lulamoon?" the clerk asked monotonously.

"Y-Yes." Trixie hesitated.

The clerk slowly lowered the paper and nodded to Trixie. "Your name is on the official list of valid ponies related to the Princess, so your request is approved." The clerk then shifted back to Trixie with her elbow rested lazily on the counter and her head slanting against her hoof. "Five bits per hay bale."

Trixie gleamed happily, but then remembered last night where she strained her back to pull a heavy cart of apples for Starlight. "Could you get it... delivered?"

The clerk nodded.

"Great, could we get it delivered today?"

The clerk nodded again. It was literally the only movement she was doing now besides breathing and tracking Trixie with her dead eyes. The lack of emotion made Trixie uncomfortable. "Well, th-Thank you, miss..."

"Sour Seeds," the clerk answered while slowly passing Trixie a parchment, "take this paper around the back and tell the boys to get it delivered wherever, and... whatever."

Trixie hastily took the paper and left immediately. She was glad the confrontation was over.

Meanwhile, a hungry and fifty foot tall Starlight Glimmer had been laying around trying not to think about food. She had already eaten from some of the surrounding tall Everfree trees that had lined the performing area, and she feared that it would be careless to continue what was essentially mass deforestation of leaves. She had to throw all thoughts about the crunchy, savory taste of wonderfully thick bright green leaves out of her mind. The mountains of wet leaves with a sweet coating of natural tree sap, which to her size was looking more like honey on soft, melting slices of bread...

Starlight took a deep breath. "Exactly," she thought to herself, "I mustn't think of any of those things. I just need to hide here, behind the trees..." She looked around as lonliness tugged the sides of her mouth downwards into a frown, "with nopony to talk to... while starving..."

She sighed again from the lack of nourishment and boredom, leaning onto her side just behind the thick line of now barren-rooted trees in front of her. She rested her head sideways on the muddy ground with plenty of flora surrounding her. Suddenly, she noticed a large patch of tall flowers sitting right in front of her nose, tickling the edges of her nostrils with their blue petals.

Something made Starlight's brain snap with instinct.

She smashed her massive hoof down onto the flower patch and literally scooped the flowers into a big pile, straight into her open mouth. CRUNCH, the large, room-sized packed ball of plants vanished between her teeth. Starlight sighed through her nose, as her mouth was full, feeling wonderful once again.

She began chewing loudly until she suddenly heard some a group of hoof-steps walking towards the performing area. Her ears stood up and she stopped chewing her mouthful of natural food as she heard the footsteps grow louder. There were some muffled voices as well, along with the creaking sound of multiple wagon wheels creaking at the same time.

Starlight was hidden behind the trees, if only just. Laying on her side helped to hide her massive size, but she also had to make sure to hold her breath and breathe very slowly through her nose, while keeping her mouthful in her mouth to avoid gulping too loudly. She had to stay perfectly still.

She heard the ponies just beyond the trees talking, but could only make two deep-voiced colts and a very loud and annoying mare barking at them. She was very sure that the mare was Trixie, but she'd never heard the other two colts before. She kept waiting and waiting until she heard Trixie say goodbye to the two colts and waited for the sounds of cartwheels creaking to fade away fully.

Once there was silence, she slowly gulped her mouthful of plants and raised her head up slowly from behind the trees, slowly seeing Trixie alone near her performing stage, along with thirty large hay bales scattered around the field. She then finally noticed a strange machine on a little wagon which was roped around Trixie. Trixie looked around curiously below, seemingly confused. "Starlight?" Trixie asked, "Where are you? The coast is clear."

Starlight giggled. "Up here, Trixie. I see you've brought a lot of stuff!"

Trixie looked around and smiled in a friendly way up at Starlight. "Indeed! Trixie has brought, well, more food, but has also borrowed a monster noise-maker for our act!"

Starlight seemed interested. She wanted a better look at the machine, so she slowly and carefully lifted her massive hooves over the line of dead Everfree trees, who's leaves she had a eaten off of, and landed one hoof after the other in the little grass area next to Trixie. She kneeled down onto the grass with her massive body and lowered her head close to Trixie and the strange contraption next to her.

Starlight had never seen an orchestral noise maker before. It was heavy and large, consisting of many winding pipes and wheel-cogs, with a little mouthpiece at one end and a large, round open tube at the end. Starlight slowly levitated the strange machine up in front of her nose, inspecting it curiously.

"This looks so weird," Starlight commented, while rotating the noise maker weightlessly, "do you think it'l work?"

Trixie gave a mischievous grin. "Well, let's find out, shall we?"

Starlight arched back a little to give herself proper space to breathe, and then took a deep breath while holding the large noise maker in front of her lips with her magic. She then closed her lips around the noise-maker while keeping it in position, and blew.

The noise maker rattled her jaw as a terrifying roar came out the other end of it. It sounded even more terrifying than an ursa minor, and it surprised both of them. The low rumbling roar made it's way through the entire village nearby and disturbed birds all throughout the Everfree Forest, followed by a dying echo that slipped into an eerie silence.

Starlight, who was shivering from the intensity and realistic nature of the roar she had just created, levitated the noise-maker away from her mouth and looked down at Trixie with wide-open eyes.

"I... didn't mean for it to be THAT loud, Trixie!" Starlight stuttered at Trixie below. "...Trixie?"

Trixie was frozen in place. She looked and felt both petrified and absolutely ecstatic at the same time. She wanted to scream in terror and scream in absolute delight at the same time, and the conflicting emotions canceled out into complete shock. Starlight had to nudge Trixie's body with a massively tiny push to snap her out of it. After a good gentle nudging, Trixie shook her head quickly and gasped. Starlight was worried.

"Trixie, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it THAT loudly!" Starlight began to apologize, but Trixie cut her off in excitement.

"That... was AMAZING!" Trixie cried with glee, "that was SO realistic, Trixie's tail felt like it was going to fall off with fear! This is exactly what Trixie was looking for!" Trixie was so excited that she began hopping around Starlight's hooves like a little filly.

"O... Oh." Starlight said with a slight hint of confusion.

Trixie then stopped and looked back up at Starlight. "Right, this means we're all set for the big day tomorrow!"

Starlight almost jumped, which was a good thing she didn't considering her size. "Tomorrow?!" Starlight cried in surprise. "You didn't tell me we were performing tomorrow!"

Trixie raised her snout confidently. "Trixie simply didn't want you to feel pressured during our practice sessions. See? Trixie is a good friend..."

"We practiced like... ONCE!" Starlight exclaimed.

"-And what a wonderful session it was, Starlight dear!" Trixie said grandly, "Trixie is certain that you will nail the role, with a little improv." She pet Starlight's hoof that was covering most of her view in a comforting way. "Just follow Trixie's lead and everything will go perfectly!"

Starlight sighed and rested backwards onto the mix of full and empty trees behind her. "Okay," Starlight huffed, crossing her arms, "I just really hope nothing goes wrong."

"Pshaw," Trixie said with a flick of her hoof in the air, "tomorrow will be great, perfect and an absolutely astonishing show for the audience, you just see!"

And with that, Trixie returned back into her wagon to prepare the last-minute preparations for the show as Celestia's sun began to settle in the distance. Starlight however wasn't too sure of it all.

"I really hope so," Starlight said with a doubtful sigh. She lowered the noise maker and levitated a large hay bale from one of the wagons that Trixie had gotten from Hayburger. As she was chewing the large packed hay bale, she began to wonder about how much trouble she was in. How long could she avoid Twilight before she was found out? She hoped it would be long enough to find herself a way to get back to normal before Twilight found her.

At least she was being sheltered by her good friend Trixie, even if it did come at the expense of being the undercover star of Trixie's show.

Well, it couldn't be that bad, could it?