Free as a Bird (or, Vogelfrei)
The bony crux between Trixie’s horn and forehead still ached. There was an old trick, which could now be found only in mediaeval manuals on hoof-to-hoof combat, that unicorn stallions would use in the days of yore if they were found unable to defend themselves otherwise (such as with magic). The trick was this: to slam one’s head onto the opponent’s own, connecting at the bony, plated juncture where the horn grew from the skull; so as to bludgeon an enemy with little or no damage to oneself. It was this technique that Trixie brought to bear during a heated exchange at the Ponyville market, that afternoon. This was the reason the base of Trixie’s horn ached, and also the reason he now sat in the holding cell of Ponyville’s police station.
There were no other ponies in the cell or, for all Trixie could tell, the rest of the building; save Officer Squall, the young pegasus mare whom he had allowed to arrest him. If the absence of others granted him any relief upon entering the cell, that feeling had now faded, as the dull throbbing pain he felt was exacerbated by the low, monotonous hum of the cell’s fluorescent lights. The quiet, inane horror of it all played on his already overwrought nerves, and the stallion could be seen to sway minutely back and forth, as an unconscious attempt to diminish his distress over the evening’s events.
It should be noted, here, that Trixie was a large stallion, tall and well proportioned: his body exemplary of the long-limbed, loose-jointed unicorn ideal. This body, already predisposed to athletic endeavors, was muscled by a regimen of exercise intended to maintain a practicing magician’s ability to perform exhausting ritual work. Besides his muscular physique, Trixie was naturally gifted with a preternatural intelligence, and though in this were borne antisocial predilections, he had taught himself the intricacies of interpersonal exchanges, since his awkward childhood, and as an adult of twenty-one years now possessed an indelible charisma. Finally, it should be said that Trixie was a beautiful stallion, his face radiant with the epicene countenance found only among the most eugenic lines of unicorn nobility.
The notion this must impress is that Trixie possessed many paths to attain whatever he wished, without resorting to the use of magic or physical violence. Yet, that evening, he found it perfectly reasonable to assail another stallion, an earth pony of lesser stature and strength, and who on-the-whole appeared very frail compared to the unicorn.
“He provoked me,” Trixie thought to himself, and there was some truth to this. Though even the most innocuous jab seemed an overwhelming attack on his fragile ego. “But Twilight will say that’s just an excuse,” there was more truth to this. Twilight Sparkle, Trixie’s ‘warden’ since he attacked Canterlot some months before, controlled his ability to cast magic through an ensorceled ring affixed to his horn. She had also been tasked with reforming him, by her teacher, Celestia. Knowing she’ll come to bail him out caused Trixie more anxiety than relief, and the lecture he dreaded to hear was already echoing through his mind.
Twilight frightened Trixie.
They had first met twelve years before, during their first year at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Trixie Lulamoon, an aspergic child prodigy who spoke in monotone and moved like an automaton, was severely underperforming. The magicians who administered the School recognized his natural gifts and thought they would be best cultivated by a tutor; and, accordingly, the prospective valedictorian of the first year students, Twilight Sparkle, was assigned to guide Trixie through the entire curriculum. Though neither student at first found the arrangement agreeable, their schooling carried on in this fashion for five years, and they came to enjoy one another’s company and counsel.
Trixie abandoned his education, and Twilight, at the age of fourteen, when he left Canterlot to study magic in parts unknown. In the intervening seven years, he would occasionally resurface as a traveling mentalist stage magician, but never for long. They reunited only months ago, when Trixie was due to be sentenced for his crime against Equestria, and Twilight personally appeared before Celestia to beg for his life.
This led, quite organically, to their current predicament.
His fear of her lay herein. Trixie, who had studied and adopted the amoralist principles of the High Unicorn ethicists, considered himself a superequine, far beyond good and evil. He delighted in schadenfreude, and found humor in even the most petty cruelties. Twilight, though, only had to look at him, and this all melted away. Something about the mare resonated with a primal empathy deep within Trixie. Whatever childlike innocence still existed inside him, that he couldn’t club to death as he grew into adulthood, was enthralled by Twilight, and this gave her power over him.
Twilight was the only pony in Equestria who could make Trixie feel guilt.
He was powerless against her. Were Twilight to grace him with so little as a gentle smile, all his hard-learned philosophies would be overthrown, replaced by a stupefied adoration of her. A look of disappointment, and Trixie would feel his stomach drop and his heart wrench as shame would fall like a shroud over him. Lastly (and though Trixie was many times more given to tears than she), the mere thought of Twilight crying conjured in him a feeling of sadness so profound that further description would do it disservice.
Even when the mare herself was not near him, as when he would study his ancient libri on High Unicorn metaphysics, he would feel his thoughts drifting toward Twilight. Toward her tender, caring eyes; or her sweet, cloying aroma. In his most abject moments, he even let his mind wander about her soft, feminine form.
Trixie Lulamoon, fool that he was, couldn’t see the beauty in this, and considered his secret love for Twilight a defect in his lower nature, something to be excised. What good was a mare’s love to a pony who had devoted himself to the higher mysteries?
So, whenever he felt these emotions (almost exclusively in Twilight’s presence), he would manifest them through (and mask them with) a morose and generally unlikable comportment. Trixie’s crest would drop and his eyes would glaze over; and nearly every word he spoke, which should have dripped with saccharine affection, became a mocking sardonicism. On occasion, Twilight could coax intelligent and more-or-less affable conversation from him, as she was cleverer than he and, for the most part, understood Trixie better than he, himself.
These occasions were few and far inbetween, but they gave Twilight hope that the sensitive young genius she knew in magic school still lived somewhere in Trixie.
The door that led from the holding cell’s hall into the lobby slid open, and Officer Squall trotted up to the metal bars, saying, “Twilight Sparkle’s come to pick you up.” From under a wing she produced a key and jammed it into a metal panel, unlocking the mechanism that kept the cell closed.
“Who’s that?” he asked, with no sound of humor, as he already, mechanically, had sunken into gloom, anticipating Twilight’s arrival.
The policepony rolled her eyes and led the unicorn out into the lobby. No bail had to be posted, as Equestria’s laws had terms in place for situations like Trixie’s, as a holdover form the unicorn legal system. Those laws, acting in accordance with the fact that stallions only made up a quarter of Equestria’s population (and were, out of necessity, granted certain leniencies) nearly assured the crime wouldn’t even reach a judge’s ears. (And if it did, Trixie, like almost every one of Equestria’s judges, was a unicorn, and so possessed special, unwritten privileges.)
Twilight was sitting in the dimly lit lobby with two of her friends, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Trixie couldn’t make out Twilight’s expression when she caught view of him, because he was purposely looking away. He could guess, though, how the pegasuses were looking at him. As it occurred to Trixie, Rarity was the only one of Twilight’s friends who saw him as anything more than an arrogant bully.
Trixie sauntered over and took his place next to Twilight, without ever laying eyes on her, while she and Squall exchanged words he didn’t care to hear. He was looking through the station’s windows at the brilliant orange hue Ponyville had taken on in the sunset when he felt Twilight’s hoof wrap around his foreleg, to drag him outside like a child.
Once they had stepped outside the station, Twilight and her friends shared goodbyes and the pegasuses flew off. Trixie was still making a point to nonchalantly look away from Twilight, but he could feel her gaze on him; she wanted to make a point before they started on their way home.
“Well?” Trixie sighed, the first to relent. “What? What do you want to hear?”
“Look at me, Trixie,” she said, with the disappointment he dreaded in her voice.
He finally looked at her, making eye contact. Every nerve in his body was zapping his brain, demanding he look away; but this would signal shame, and he couldn’t do that. Even if shame was all he felt before her, he couldn’t show it.
“What happened this time?” she asked, her voice taking on a timbre of irritation at seeing Trixie unrepentant.
“Some dirtclod at the market mouthed off to me, so I put him in his place.”
Twilight could only sigh and shake her head. She said,
“Why can’t you ever take anything seriously, Trixie? Don’t you understand how lucky you are to be here, and not banished to the middle of nowhere? Or petrified? Y-...” Twilight stopped herself. She cared very deeply for Trixie, and he could hear it in her voice, even when scolding him. She continued, “You better hope that other pony is alright, Trixie. You can’t keep getting into fights like this, y- look at you! You could break somepony’s neck!”
“I wish I did,” Trixie sneered.
“Trixie!” Twilight couldn’t express herself any further, and only looked at him sternly. A moment later, she grabbed his foreleg and started down the road to the Golden Oak Library. When she felt him walking along of his own volition, she let go.
They walked along in silence for awhile, and once he saw Twilight had cooled off, Trixie spoke up, saying indignantly,
“It wouldn’t happen if you didn’t make me shop for all your groceries. Or is it my fault for valuing what remains of my dignity?”
“The only reason I make you do the grocery shopping and other chores is because, otherwise, you would never leave your room,” Twilight said. “I know it’s a change from hiding in your cart out in the woods for weeks at a time, but you need to develop better social skills. Skills for communicating with ponies when you aren’t on a stage.”
“And that means I’m supposed to let myself take abuse from every mudhoof with something to prove?”
“No, it doesn’t. It means that you shouldn’t give in to every impulse that crosses your mind, especially violent ones,” Twilight said, more gently than stern, as that was what it usually took to get through to him. “And I want you to stop using those words.”
“What words?”
“You know which words, Trixie. ‘Mudhoof’ and ‘dirtclod,’ and every other tribalist epithet you like to say. They’re hurtful, and I know you don’t actually feel that way, so I want you to stop.”
“You don’t know how I feel.”
“Then how do you feel, Trixie?”
He muttered annoyedly, but otherwise didn’t respond, and they continued walking.
Before long, they had reached their home, and Twilight sat down beside the front door. The sunset had given way to a melancholy dusk, and Trixie had calmed down, so he sat beside her unbidden. They rested in silence for a minute or so, then Twilight turned toward him. In that subtle language of intuition that develops between two ponies, she asked him to do the same, and look in her eyes. He did.
“Trixie, do you know why I get so disappointed when you do things like this?” she asked, tender and genuine.
He didn’t answer. Twilight waited, then continued,
“Do you remember when we all went to see Rainbow in the best young flyers’ competition? Well, before that, when I was trying to figure out a way to get us there, to Cloudsdale.”
“Yes, I remember. When you couldn’t cast Illimitable Nebula’s ‘wings for the wingless’ spell a second time, we found a spell that let non-pegasi walk on clouds.”
“M-hm. Do you remember what you said to me when I almost hurt myself casting the first spell? And you thought I was going to try it again?” Twilight asked, taking one of Trixie’s hooves in her own.
Trixie glanced away in embarrassment, and didn’t answer.
Twilight continued, smiling, “You begged me not to, and asked to do it yourself. You said that, if somepony had to get hurt casting a spell, you would rather it be yourself, than me.”
Trixie’s face was turning faintly red. He waved her off, saying, “I only said that so you would let me use my magic; I would have escaped, if you had let me.”
“I can tell when you’re lying, Trixie,” Twilight smirked.
Trixie was taken off guard, but quickly recovered.
“You only think you can.”
“Alright, then, how about this: Two weeks ago, when you heard that filly, Coronet, wasn’t going to have a birthday party because her parents couldn’t afford it, do you remember what you did?” Twilight asked, and Trixie could feel himself blushing. “After you talked to Pinkie, you came straight to me, and implored me to give your magic back for the party, so you could put on a magic show for her and all the other fillies and colts. As I recall, you didn’t try to escape then, did you?”
Trixie didn’t say a word. How could he? He just looked down at his hooves, embarrassed.
Twilight stared at him, lovingly, in silence for a few moments. Then she leaned forward and nuzzled him, sending a chill up his spine.
For Trixie, time stood still. He could barely make sense of anything. He felt Twilight’s body heat melt into his own, contrasting starkly against the nip in the air. He smelled her heavenly aroma, and felt the gentle-but-firm caresses of her cheek and neck as she nuzzled him.
He heard her sigh softly and say, almost whispering to him, “The reason I get so disappointed is...”
Twilight pulled away and looked in Trixie’s eyes, saying, “Trixie, you’re so sweet, and kind, and I know you have a good heart. But you try so hard to hide it, and I don’t know why. I don’t know why you choose to act so cruel to everypony.”
Trixie didn’t respond. Twilight sighed and returned to nuzzling him. After a few moments, he began nuzzling her in return, and this took her by surprise, but she tried hard not to show it.
They sat there for awhile, nuzzling one another affectionately while the night descended and the cold began to encroach.
“Twilight?” spoke Trixie.
“M-hm?”
“I was thinking about something, today, when I was in that cell. Could you, uh, could you tell me something?”
“Tell you what?” she asked, sweetly.
“When we were kids, and I left Canterlot… when we were fourteen, y’know… I didn’t…” Trixie began, with more and more difficulty as it went on.
“Yes?”
“When I left, it didn’t… I didn’t ‘break your heart,’ or anything, did I?”
“Oh, Trixie,” Twilight wrapped her forelegs around his barrel, embracing him.
