Murder for 'Briar

Chapters

Ch. 1 :: The Show
Ch. 2 :: Sawmill
Ch. 3 :: A Stickie Situation
Ch. 4 :: Checking In
Ch. 5 :: Checking Around
Ch. 6 :: Checking Out
Ch. 7 :: The Bright-Faced Moonflower
Epilogue :: Confessions

Ch. 1 :: The Show

Trixie gazed through her curtain, trying not to disturb it while gauging her audience.

"Oh-oh-oh! is it time for the show?? Everypony BEEE QUIEEET!" Pinkie shrieked, leaping into the air, all four legs waving impossibly fast. She then seated herself next to Maud and Mud Briar, her "elbows" on the table and head on her hooves, eating their chips. Trixie had long since judged that the fat mare was quite rude.

Trixie stopped peeking and scowled towards her assistant. "Are we ready?! Everyone's waiting!" She hissed to the enormous backside to her left.

"We can't rush a birthday show, Trix," the annoyingly just-so lilac unicorn responded, her head buried in the complex electronic mess that controlled the lights. "I know how much it means to you that every show's perfect!"

"None of my shows are ever perfect! Hurry up!" Trixie demanded, dancing in place.

Today was the birthday of that insufferable bog toad, Mud Briar. Maud Pie - his special somepony, and Trixie's friend - had felt obligated to allow Pinkie Pie the honor of running the birthday party; indeed, her sister may have gone postal had she not been selected for this responsibility. Because the crazy pink broad was so busy, that meant that Mud Briar and Maud had to stay in Ponyville for a few days. Expecting a few guests from abroad, they'd rented a mid-sized villa with several bedrooms.

It was in this villa that Trixie had managed to set up a small stage for her show.

Trixie tried to avoid any expenditures in Ponyville whenever possible. She'd met the mayor one time and had already concluded she was as greedy as they come. The rental rates in this place made her shudder, and she worried Maud might have been taking a risk with her finances.

No, Trixie's faithful, loyal wagon which had never betrayed her, other than its walls full of gaps for the cold-as-Luna's-kiss wind to slip through and chill her to the bone, was good enough for her. The Apples even helped fix up her wagon when she stopped by. They were disgustingly generous. Trixie did not like to feel indebted.

Trixie'd grown accustomed to visiting this podunk town quite frequently, since her assistant over there had obligations here. Of course, the locals came to see her every week even if she did repeats. They'd both been invited, so it was convenient to do Maud a favor and perform one of her classics for Jerkbriar.

Her hat fell askew and she instantly adjusted it with her magic. Starlight had paused, so Trixie continued hissing. "While I doubt Mud Briar ever closes his eyes, your boyfriend is already asleep!"

The mare finally tugged her head back out. "Haste is why you keep blowing yourself up, Trixie," Starlight Glimmer admonished her. "And Sunburst is not my boyfriend! As for his condition... He's just suffering from blimp lag." She waved a hoof dismissively.

Sunburst had flown in from the Crystal Empire at Maud's request. Trixie rather doubted there was anything for Sunburst and Mud Briar to connect upon. There wasn't much for anypony to connect with Mud Briar on. Sunburst lived in the land of ice and snow and knew nothing about anything green. The idiot once tried to eat a poison oak and Mud Briar stopped him - the only time she'd ever heard him raise his voice. Trixie would be mortified if she owed that pouting prick her life.

Sunburst was currently snoozing, his dorky bearded head on the next table over from Maud and Mud Briar, unaffected by Pinkie's noise. Trixie & Starlight, Maud & Mud Briar, Sunburst, and Pinkie were the only ones in the room. Pinkie was now sitting quietly next to him with a huge grin, glancing at Maud with a cold sweat. Maud must have shooed her away somehow. Trixie knew from experience that all it took was a look; she herself had misread Maud's expression one time and would never make that mistake again. The learning had carved into her soul, like the words of an ancient language set in enchanted stone.

"Okay, Trix. Ready!" Starlight said, confidently.

"As we rehearsed." Trixie responded. "Don't mess it up this time! And one and two and three and WELCOME!" As light set one kicked on, clicking heavily with bright white and gold lights, Trixie swept the curtains aside and stepped out, knowing to hold her hat in place magically for just an instant, so no unicorns in the audience - a whopping four ponies, the only unicorn of which was asleep - would notice her attempt to keep the curtains from knocking it clumsily off her head.

Sunburst jumped up, his glasses popping off his head. He fumbled for them in midair - Pinkie caught them as they fell and hoofed them back. "Th-thanks..." he mumbled awkwardly, placing them back. He blinked as she also hoofed him a beard comb, then self-consciously began to groom his disheveled goatee. Pinkie tactlessly stared with wide eyes before she apparently remembered there was a magic show going on and went back to the head-on-hooves thing.

"Welcome to the GrRreat and Powerful TrRixie's Humble Birthday Admittedly Taken A Bit Seriously Magic Show!" she bellowed, gesturing grandiosely.

"Is humble a modifier for the birthday or for the show?" Mud Briar responded, as though she had been talking solely to him. Her eye twitched, but her smile did not falter. She would never admit this to anyone, probably, but she was deathly afraid of upsetting Maud Pie. She'd sooner slap Princess Luna across the face and see what happened.

"Today, o noble audience, it is you who shall be humbled!" she retorted, and Mud Briar nodded with raised eyebrows as though impressed with her wordplay. "You shall be shocked! You may be petrified! You will certainly be utterly aghast at the sheer nerve of the Great and Powerful Trixie as she performs yet another insane stunt no other pony would dare consider!"

"I believe many ponies have dared to perform magical tricks on stage," Mud Briar retorted. Maud was glancing at him. With the lighting like this, and her focus on her performance, Trixie wasn't sure what her look meant.

Starlight had been gradually fading the lights from set 1 to set 2. This one was red and pink, a bit more sensual; it was a good, warm lighting for when Trixie was talking a lot. Naturally, it was used very frequently.

"Today, the Great and Powerful Trixie shall make a pony... disappear," she hissed ominously. "I will need a volunteer! Someone who no one likes, perhaps, and won't miss." She waited for laughter that never sounded.

After a pause, Pinkie jumped up, waving and hollering. "Oh oh oh me! Everyone hates me! I'm no good to anyone!" she cried cheerfully.

"I do not believe any of those sentiments are accurate," Mud Briar observed.

"Very well! The lovely lady, next to the sleepy bearded stallion, please come on stage," Trixie said confidently, but she was already certain her trick was ruined; nothing worked logically when Pinkie was involved. Hopefully Starlight, the mad genius that she was, had accounted for this possibility and had somehow Pinkie-proofed the trick. If not, well, at least only three ponies and the saboteur would see her humiliation. Just a certain one would critique it, at great length.

Pinkie slowly, agonizingly, bounced up and down, gradually making it from her chair to the stage. Trixie soon seized her magically and set her onto the stage, then panted. Pinkie was the heaviest pony she had ever lifted. "Th-thank you for volunteering, Pinkie Pie, phew," she gasped very loudly.

There was a pause and a horrible grinding sound, wood against wood. Trixie cringed. Pinkie blinked, her wide eyes and bright smile unaffected.

"That sound is very conspicuous," Mud Briar noted.

Trixie cleared her throat meaningfully.

"It's heavy, Trix!" Starlight whispered back.

"Use your magic!" Trixie hissed in turn.

"Why are we whispering?" Pinkie asked, without moving.

"Oh, right." And a large, royal purple coffin quickly floated through the curtains, engraved with a frontal depiction of a pony, forelegs crossed, mouth fallen open - like a mummy who'd died horrifically. The aura around it vanished and it clunked onto the stage, making the entire thing shake.

"Ooooh. Terrifying!" Pinkie approved.

"Our lovely volunteer," Trixie said. Who could stand to lose a few pounds, she thought. "Will now enter the horrifying, bone-chilling, blood-curdling Skull Chamber!"

"Technically, as no skull is present on the exterior design..." Mud Briar critiqued, "It should be considered more of a..." He leaned forward and squinted. "... Mildly Distressed Mare Chamber," he finished.

"Huh? I don't feel very distressed!" Pinkie pointed out.

Mud Briar, your mare is about to be mildly distressed if you don't shut your daffodiling mouth. Trixie thought, but kept smiling. "If you would please enter the Sku -- um, enter the Chamber, Pinkie Pie!"

On queue, the lights rapidly swept, from one side of the stage to the other, from red and pink to blue and violet. Trixie was hoping she would be able to add music to this part someday.

"I would expect music," Mud Briar complained. Maud was definitely looking at him now, but he didn't seem to notice. Trixie wondered what the music of her hoof percussing against his nose would sound like.

Pinkie lightly trotted over to the Working Title Chamber, standing perfectly to one side of it from the audience's perspective, and knocked on it. Thoonk thoonk. "Nothin' in there," she observed. Trixie was surprised; that was actually a good bit. Trixie walked to the other side of the Whatever-It-Is Chamber and opened it slowly. It swung open in her own direction. Pinkie waved to the audience, saluted, and stepped inside, copying the posture of the mare on the lid. Trixie grimaced at her also copying its face, and closed the coffin like she was putting a bad dream in a jar.

She yelled very loudly. "Pinkie Pie is now inside of the Chamber!" She announced. She had to be this loud because the Chamber was supposed to be lined up with a trapdoor in the stage floor, which Pinkie would fall down while she was speaking. The volunteer's shrieks, as well as the loud click of the release, were muffled by the design of the floor and the Chamber, to a level she should be able to talk over easily.

"That is readily obvious given her having just entered it," Mud Briar noted. Ha! Got you there, snot-face! That is "technically" incorrect! Trixie gloated in her mind. If Pinkie hadn't done some weird Pinkie thing, she had already exited the Chamber before dumbness had exited Mud Briar's mouth.

"Trixie shall now recite an arcane incantation which shall banish Pinkie Pie from this world forever!!" Trixie called out, rather loftily.

"I hope not," Maud said. Trixie's heart stopped for a second, but she saw Maud was smiling and relaxed. Phew! She wasn't really going to banish Pinkie Pie to the world between worlds forever, but she was worried Maud might think she was going to, and then Maud would banish Trixie to the hospital forever.

The Chamber began to shake like someone was in it, which was by design. It had been a very expensive prop and Trixie was getting as much mileage out of it as she could.

Trixie began to recite.

"O power beyond light and darkness!
O power of life that does not bleed!
O power at the banks of the river of time! Trixie pledges herself to thee!
Thy mighty gift, through Trixie's hoof, shall banish the fool and smite the unworthy!
Let us together destroy the boundaries of reality...
X-ZONE!"

Trixie used this incantation a lot; she just swapped the name at the end out depending what she was supposed to be doing. She thought it would sound particularly cool if her trick was slaying a dragon or something. No one had ever called her out on reusing it, and it had taken her about a week of angry rewrites and crumpled-up notes, so she wasn't keen to make any more.

In the event that the Chamber had not properly released, which happened time to time, Trixie's long-winded incantation, which of course did absolutely nothing, allowed ample time for Starlight to solve the problem any way she felt necessary. On a good day, this was a few pissed-off yanks at a lever. On a bad day, it was a burning stage. Today must have been a good day, as nothing happened to clearly indicate a problem to Trixie.

"Let us see if it worked..." Trixie said in a low, sadistic tone, and slowly walked back to the Chamber. This was her second fail-safe. She was now very quiet so that Starlight could communicate to her a need to improvise if none of her solutions worked.

She heard Starlight tapping at the floor behind the curtain. She stopped and inclined her head, staring at the Chamber. Starlight paused, then tapped the Horse Code for "FTE", or Failure To Engage. This meant a prop did not do its job; in this case, the Chamber had never opened its trapdoor, which meant - to Trixie's mixed feelings - that Pinkie Pie ought to have been jostled around in the thing while it was shaking.

Actually, no. The Chamber's oscillation was not strong enough to overcome Pinkie's weight - or any pony's weight, even. Trixie turned her head to the crowd.

Pinkie Pie was in the back of the room, waving giddily. She put a hoof to her mouth. Shhh, the gesture meant.

Trixie blinked. That couldn't be right, if the Chamber had not engaged. But Pinkie couldn't be in two places at once, could she? And she was definitely not light enough for the Chamber to shake with her in it.

Screw it. If Pinkie was in there, she'd improvise a reason why and try it again. If Pinkie was in there and also in the back of the room, Trixie would eat her hat. Trixie slowly approached the Chamber and knocked. Toonk, toonk.

She opened the chamber.

No one was in there.

"SHE'S GOOOOONE!" Pinkie Pie shrieked, leading everyone to look to the back of the room. She trotted back to the table with Sunburst, sat down next to him, looked around at everyone, blinked three times, and suddenly began applauding. "Yaaaaay Trixie! She's the best!" she cried, smacking her hooves on the table.

Starlight poked her head out from the curtains to examine what was going on. She and Trixie shared a look. Trixie shrugged. Starlight sighed.

"At the beginning of this act," Mud Briar began, "I expressed my doubts as to your claim that this trick had never been dared before. Inference: That it is an original trick. And while I found your performance of it very impressive, technically it is a derivation of a classic routine, popularized by Hoofdini and presumably practiced well before his time in various forms. Thank you for the entertainment."

Trixie forced a grimace, bowed along with Starlight, and returned back stage.

"I hate that guy," Trixie muttered.

"Come on, Trix," Starlight said. "It's his birthday. You can put up with it for one day, right?"

"He's always like that," Trixie protested. "None of us can even talk to Maud."

Starlight nodded in sympathy. "I admit, they've been spending a lot of time together," She said. "Anyway. How did you make Pinkie disappear if the Chamber didn't open? I didn't blink her. You told me not to use unicorn magic for this trick."

"I have no idea," Trixie said, "But I wish I could make Mud Briar disappear so easily."

Starlight rolled her eyes and turned away, beginning to clean up.

Trixie put a hoof to her mouth.

Make Mud Briar disappear... she thought to herself, a smile creeping onto her face.

Ch. 2 :: Sawmill

After Trixie's show, everyone had a light breakfast. Except Pinkie. Pinkie ate three lunchboxes, and whatever was in them.

"Captain Mud Briar! Will ye be needin' any more of me services?!" the weirdo growled like a pirate. Trixie had no idea why. There was nothing else pirate-themed about this party. There wasn't any theme to this party.

"Thank you very much, Pinkie Pie, but I ask nothing further of you at this time." he replied. "You are released from our contract and free to go about your day. Please do not be a stranger."

"We'll be going out soon." Maud Pie said. "You could come along if you like, but I know you're busy today."

"Sure am! I've never used so much orange and purple frosting since... Oh! Since last Nightmare Night! I wonder what the link there is. Have a great time! Happy birthday again! Bye! See ya!" Pinkie continued talking as her legs went out the door and the rest of her stretched out before following, until she yelped as her head was slingshotted out of the house. Trixie needed to learn how to do weird things like that. It would certainly... leave an impression on an audience. Maybe not a good one, though.

No one said anything for a few seconds. Trixie just stayed sitting at a far table, hooves folded together, staring over them at Mud Briar. You may not know this, but most ponies do not mysteriously vanish on their birthdays, Mr. Mud Briar... she thought in her head. Then she blinked and dropped her hooves. What kind of an evil line was that?! It was just a fact. Mud Briar loved stupid awkward facts like that, that's why she hated him so much. No, Mud Briar represented the facts, so Trixie needed to be... Opinions! Yes, that worked. Then their metaphors and themes would reflect their antagonism.

"Starlight. Sunburst." Maud listed.

Trixie folded her hooves again and tried again. You may not know this, but I really daffodiling hate you, Mr. Mud Briar...

"Trixie."

The blue unicorn jumped as Maud addressed her. There went her evil scheming pose. "Y-y-yes?"

"Pinkie is not that busy today. I dismissed her because I think she would not like the movie we are going to see. Would the three of you like to come along."

Trixie blinked. "What movie?"

"You don't remember what movie you wanted to see?!" Trixie hissed.

Ponyville's theatre had recently remodeled into a multiplex; they were able to run four movies at once, drastically increasing profits... and crowd size. Fortunately, it was early in the day. This close to Nightmare Night, ponies mostly stuffed this place once the sun went down, sitting for horror flicks. The entire place stunk of burned butter -- Trixie's least-favorite memory of her younger days, when she sometimes appeared in her father's carnival shows.

Oh, and everything to eat here was so expensive Trixie may as well have bought the companies that made it. She wasn't going to pay that much for food she wasn't sure Mud Briar was allergic to.

"Correct." Mud Briar buzzed. "In my defense... I am ashamed." He looked down. Be ashamed all you like, Mud Briar, Trixie internally gloated, For as soon as the Great and Powerful Trixie sees a way, you will be ashamed and doomed!

"You wouldn't stop talking about it for a month." Maud said. "You looked up the movie theater's schedule obsessively. How did you forget the title."

"Do you remember the title?" Mud Briar asked. "Please tell me you do."

Maud stared for a few seconds. "Nope." She eventually said. Mud Briar looked down again.

"Okay, okay." Starlight tried to soothe everyone. "We know this mysterious movie's airing sometime today. Right?"

"Correct. I recall this theater is scheduled to air this particular movie once every few hours for the entirety of this week," Mud Briar said. "It's a new installation in a series. Immensely popular."

"And it's probably got something to do with some kind of..." Starlight began to wave a hoof with each thing she listed, "... plants, or wood, or leaves, or something. Right?"

"Absolutely." Mud Briar confirmed. "But the name continues to escape me. Prediction: I shall likely be rather vexed upon remembering the name several hours in the future. It is likely I will never 'live this down', as the jocular phrase is generally employed."

That is absolutely correct, Mr. Mud Briar... You won't, Trixie thought, imagining herself petting a suspiciously Starlight Glimmer-colored kitty cat.

"It's okay." Maud consoled him with awkward pats on the arm. "You get stressed in theaters."

Mud Briar turned his nose up. "Affirmative. They are full of germs and smell like burned butter."

"We packed your towelettes. It'll be okay." Maud continued patting. "Trixie, can you talk to the lady at the counter. Just ask her what movies are airing today and try to find the one about sticks. You're good at getting information out of ponies."

She was, sometimes. "Wait." Maud caught her leg as she went to walk off - causing Trixie's heart to stop for an instant in terror - and hoofed her a bag of bits. "Remember we need five tickets because there are five of us."

"Yes yes, Trixie's got it," she laughed nervously, and approached the ticket-lady.

"Morning, ma'am!" the freckled girl smiled perkily. Trixie disliked her on sight.

"And a very good morning to you!" Trixie said, doffing her hat. "The Great and Powerful Trixie wishes to see a movie, but has, despite her usually keen memory, forgotten the title. She is certain it airs today! In this establishment!"

"Oh, that happens all the time." She whistled when she made "s" sounds. She was adorable. Trixie hated her. "Do you remember what it's about?"

"Indeed! One: It is part of a series. Two: It is related to trees. Three: It is very popular."

"Hmm," the girl danced in place a bit and looked around in thought, "I can think of two such movies airing today, ma'am. Is that your group back there?" She craned her neck to look beyond Trixie. Trixie glanced back to be sure no one else had come in to be identified as her group.

"Good morning!" Mud Briar said loudly. "Or perhaps hello! I believe either is suitable for the occasion!" Maud rolled her eyes and sighed out her nose.

Trixie turned back with a scowl. "Trixie is obligated to say yes." She hissed.

The clerk rolled her eyes. "Oh, I know what that nerd wants to see. Tree of Harmony III. It's an 'epic' telling of the whole Elements of Harmony story. It's all gritty and realistic, has awkward forced romance plots, every single time a good guy appears it starts playing upbeat trumpets, the whole nine yards. If you ask me, the first two were pretty good but they're starting to go downhill, ya know?"

Trixie nodded, slightly dizzy from the girl's ranting. Any long enough series tended to have that problem. They ran out of ideas, lost key staff, changed the direction or introduced some new gimmick that ruined all the lore, and - what Trixie hated the most - brought back annoying minor characters for fan service.

Sweetie Belle was in the middle of squealing angrily at Rarity when she suddenly stopped.

"What. What is it now, Sweetie Belle. What are you going to say!?" Rarity hissed, teary-eyed.

"I'm sorry, Rarity," Sweetie Belle said in a trance, walking slowly to the window and staring out towards the theater, "You're not the most hypocritical pony in Equestria." Her eyes looked a thousand yards away. "There is someone greater."

"Is it Trixie?! Tell me it's Trixie. I can't be more hypocritical than Trixie!!" Rarity fell onto her couch and levitated a fruity beverage to herself.

Sweetie Belle suddenly shook her head, looking dizzy. "Trixie? Who's Trixie? What were we talking about, again? Oooh is that juice?"

Trixie had to correct herself. Her least favorite thing was when a good character became "marketable" and got a crappy sidekick. She looked back at Maud and Mud Briar, imagined there was a pillow over the latter's face, and smiled sincerely.

She turned back. "Who plays Twilight Sparkle?" Trixie growled. This mare was formerly #1 on Trixie's pillow-smothering to-do list. She was now #1 and a half after Mud Briar.

"I dunno," the clerk shrugged, "Some tramp with no brains and a big ass. But hey, that's pretty much half of Applewood, right?" Startled, Trixie changed her mind. She liked this mare a lot.

"Just to be sure..." Trixie clarified, "What is the other movie that fits this criteria?"

The clerk suddenly got a big, gap-toothed smile. "Sawmill IX. He doesn't want that one. Guaranteed."

Trixie had all but made up her mind already, but she didn't want the rest of the group to hate the movie too. "Tell Trixie what it's -- did you say nine?"

"Yes, ma'am. Nine. One more than eight. They shine them out pretty fast."

"Madness. Anyhow, Tell Trixie what it's about." Trixie continued.

"A mysterious force turns ponies to living wood and some maniac or another chases them down and hacks them up into planks 'n' stuff. Their souls get trapped in the houses built of their grainy flesh."

If there had been no glass, Trixie would have kissed her.

"Thank you again, Trixie. We can always count on you." Maud said. Trixie's heart stung a bit.

They were waiting for Maud and Mud Briar to disinfect their seats before they sat down. Since the theater wasn't full right now, they were able to take the front row.

"Oh, hello..." someone said in a gentle voice that made Trixie double-take. "I-I guess I'm not the only one worried about germs..." There was a nervous laugh.

"Fluttershy?" Starlight asked, disbelieving. "Wow, what are you doing here?"

Yep, that was her; and Rainbow Dash was on the other side of her from them, forelegs crossed, scowling. Dash didn't look in the mood for talking. She actually looked kind of pale. Trixie hadn't tagged her as a movie-sissy.

The yellow pegasus looked left and right. She struggled to reply. The others might have thought it was because Fluttershy didn't know Mud Briar or Sunburst very well and was anxious, but Trixie knew better. In fact, if Starlight had been too slow, Trixie would have had questions herself.

"It can be inferred that she and... Miss Rainbow Dash, if I am not mistaken... are here to watch the same movie as us," Mud Briar answered for her. Fluttershy nodded and looked away, tapping her hooves together. Dash just gave a curt "yep that's me" nod and looked away grumpily.

Starlight, the eternal sweetheart, picked the seat closest to Fluttershy, presumably so she'd be between friends.

The lights went off and the movie started.

An hour or two later, the five of them sat with utterly blank expressions at the local Hay Burger. Well, the other four did. Trixie was doing her hooves-together-looking-over-them thing again.

Okay, get this right, Trix... She thought to herself. She heard herself clearing her throat in her head. Why Mud Briar. Did the movie... slay you? Oh ho ho. Then she scowled, her face a bit red. Celestia's mustache that was horrible.

Mud Briar had not spoken a word since the movie had started with a cold open wherein a tree-stallion had immediately taken an axe to the groin. He blinked as a heaping plate of tater tots was set in front of him. He looked down. He put one in his mouth.

He chewed and swallowed. "Trixie." Mud Briar finally spoke.

"Yes, Mud Briar?" Trixie asked in a very sweet voice. Don't shine all over this, Trixie.

"That was not the correct movie." he said, and put another tater tot in his mouth. "And these are delectable."

"Trixie is very sorry," she cooed, "She must have... mixed them up, somehow. The ticket-mare described Sawmill and Trixie was sure you'd think it was just... to die for! Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm-ha! Mwahahahaha!"

Everyone in the restaurant stared at her. Nailed it, she thought.

She put her hooves back down and cleared her throat. "Trixie will need to pay Maud back, of course."

"That's okay, Trixie," Maud said. "I liked the gory tree movie. I would not die for it, though."

"They killed the hot one!!!" Sunburst wailed, and buried his face in his burger. He mumbled something about how they never kill the hot one.

"Worry not, Sunburst. It was a movie. The actress and her unnaturally voluminous undercarriage are unmarred somewhere in reality," Mud Briar soothed him. Sunburst wiped at his face with a napkin and nodded.

"I've never seen a pony get split like a log with an axe," Starlight shuddered. "I mean, sure she was made out of wood and stuff, but gosh that's gross."

Trixie had mentally projected Mud Briar's face onto everyone who died - especially that first fellow - and had been quite comfortable with the whole thing.

"Poor Fluttershy," Sunburst sobbed, "She must have been traumatized..."

"Are you kidding? She loved it," Starlight said. "I was right next to her. You didn't hear her whispering? 'Yeah, yeah, get 'em', she was saying. It was Rainbow Dash who was sobbing and hiding her face."

Everyone stared at Starlight like she was nuts.

"Sun's tits, don't believe me then," Starlight shrugged.

Someone from the next table over laughed. "You folks went to see Sawmill IX, didn't you?"

Starlight growled. "No, we went to see Tree of Harmony III, and the Great and Bumbling Trixie got the wrong tickets, so we ended up seeing Sawmill IX."

The entire restaurant erupted in laughter. "That's hilarious," somebody guffawed.

"This is a rhetorical statement, but someone please kill me." Mud Briar said, calmly eating his tater tots.

You've forgotten to blow out the candle, Mr. Mud Briar. But if you insist... Trixie thought to herself. She might have felt more menacing if she was not doubled over on the table giggling and hiccuping like a schoolfilly.

Ch. 3 :: A Stickie Situation

Trixie hadn't had much opportunity at the movie theater. She murdered herself with laughter, that was about it. Whatever, she could roll with that.

What she could not roll with was the building they were approaching. As soon as she saw the massive logo on the front, and the conspicuously-dressed ponies flooding in and out, she let out a horrific sound like the wheels of a train screeching against the metal as it suddenly hit the brakes.

So did Mud Briar and Sunburst, actually. All three of them froze, staring. The boys were delighted. Trixie was aghast.

Maud Pie shuffled her hooves and looked away, bashfully by her standards. "I know we didn't tell the rest of you," she apologized, "Mud Briar's the one who wanted to come here today. He made that sound when we read about the event a few months ago, too."

The building's logo read:

⭐ GalactaStick ⭐
50th Anniversary Event

"It's very convenient that this coincides with his birthday," Maud said. "Since he loves this show so much. It's almost like they're holding the event just for him."

"That is highly improbable," Mud Briar began, "Though it is a fact that I have adored this creative franchise since my foalhood!" Trixie was alarmed to hear something almost approaching emotion in his speech.

Seeing Starlight's blank expression, Mud Briar turned with the brightest look Trixie had yet seen on his punchable face and began to rant to her about what GalactaStick was.

Trixie, however, already knew more about this property than she ever wanted to, which was anything.

GalactaStick was over a dozen TV series, a bunch of movies, and some comics about space, sticks, and friendship. She hadn't thought that space opera and botany would go together quite so well, but they had sold her on the idea rather quickly. It had a lot of drama and a very contrived idea of how "magic" worked; apparently unicorn horns could be removed and used as little laser-shooting devices ("Stickzers") with convenient "Morally Question" and "Vaporize With Extreme Prejudice" settings. There was also some nonsense about thaumatically altering the number of dimensions in space and time in order to achieve Friendship Speed. One was never to surpass Friendship 10. This would turn one into the Princess of Everything. (Trixie never understood how that was a bad thing.)

Oh, and every single damn episode someone said "Make like a tree!", either right before vamoosing from danger, or right before killing somepony. Trixie didn't get it, but it had become annoyingly recurring amongst fans.

Trixie knew this much because she had been in it.

Not the original run of course - that was fifty years ago, she was not that old. No, it was a more recent one: GalactaStick: Odysseus. She'd bumped into a producer in a coffee shop somewhere. She had been... voicing an objection to the brewmaster, and this producer caught her on her way out and said she was "perfect". Trixie had not paid attention to anything else he had said. Gigs were far between at the time, she needed some money, and he said the magic word. If Trixie had a flaw, it was that she was not at all modest.

But the producer was right, and Trixie had indeed otherwise been perfect. She was made for the part she played and completely nailed it. Her minor villain role was immensely popular with --

Trixie tried not to actually narrow her eyes. She did it in her mind. Her mind-eyes.

Stickies.

There was the problem. Trixie had at first been delighted with the prospect of legions of adoring fans - not at all modest, etc. - and she had certainly secured that with her stellar performance. The, er, outfit may have helped too, actually.

But then she learned that some fans of some things were... feverishly dedicated to their various objects of idolatry. So dedicated, in fact, that they became angry and rambunctious if other fans did not like it the same way. No, it wasn't because someone hated or even disliked a facet of the franchise. Everypony collectively agreed that GalactaStick: Windwillow was an atrocious spinoff... No, fans merely collectively lost their shine when any of them did not share the same favorite as anyone else.

Trixie was not very good with other ponies unless she wanted something from them, as with the ticket-mare earlier that day, but she at least knew that having three in a room practically guaranteed they would not all share the same favorite anything. Crowds and riots were indistinct in this world of stars and sticks and, just from her magic shows, Trixie had run away from more riotous crowds than any mare should hear about in the news in her lifetime.

And these "Stickies" were just the worst!

Furthermore, GalactaStick: Odysseus was easily the most perverted series in a long-running franchise that was always a little perverted by contemporary standards. Trixie's own character was proof enough of that. So it was those kinds of fans who tended to like Odysseus over the other series.

Trixie had heard someone say that the producers had actually let fans write some of the episodes. She could certainly be fooled if that were not the case. Oh no, not just "coworkers making out on the job for no reason". Not even just "the cute alien-flower character has a weird alien-flower pregnancy that almost destroys the ship", but that happened too. Nope, we were talking "the captain mutated into a tree-lizard and banged her first officer and they abandoned the tree-lizard-babies on some moon somewhere" levels of controversial. Yes, Odysseus was written by madponies, and Trixie just had to have been born at the right time that that was the highlight of her career thus far. She liked to think that instead, Trixie was the highlight of Odysseus. (This was probably definitely not true... but then again, she had to have a freakish cult somewhere who thought so.)

Trixie had quickly grown to appreciate that her character had worn an elaborate costume: her face, cutie mark, and on ne dit pas had all been covered, so most Stickies, who didn't stalk the cast on Facehoof, did not recognize her right away. She'd been at first a bit peeved that so much of her "natural beauty" was hidden, but that turned out to be a blessing. Trixie had foreseen many manners of her own death over the years; some impending, some far-off. But she was determined not to perish in a frenzied orgy of Stickies.

She considered how odd it was that Mud Briar, one of the most particular sons of bitches she'd ever met, did not seem to recognize her. Of course, appropriate as he was, stalking might be beneath him. On the other hoof, she started to worry that maybe he merely hadn't brought it up because it would not have been appropriate. It would only ever be appropriate if he was her boyfriend.

Trixie withheld a gag reflex and stopped thinking about that right away.

"... So, they just kinda... wander around space... looking for alien plant life? Like, specifically plant life?" Starlight clarified. She was the only one in the group who knew nothing about GalactaStick. Trixie envied her.

"Correct, though at times fungi are also included, which technically are not plants. The crew of the various starblimps travel through space, the over yonder beyonder. They explore strange new gardens, seek out new herbs and spices, and --"

"-- dare to plant where no stick hath yet grown," Trixie finished in a bitter monotone, then covered her mouth in horror.

Mud Briar and Sunburst blinked at her. "I am surprised you are familiar with this show, Trixie," Mud Briar pontificated. "I would not think it was 'up your alley', as the colloquial expression is generally employed."

It wasn't. She'd been enchanted for a while, but mostly because it was a bigger stage than her little traveling show.

Mud Briar was, as long as she'd unhappily known him, incapable of saying things he did not believe to be true, so Trixie presumed this meant her secret was safe from him for now. Still: Crap! She could absolutely not blow her cover here!

Sunburst yawned. "Well, we're all full of surprises," he said. You don't know the half of it, beardy, Trixie thought to herself. "I just hope we don't step on any hooves while we're in there!" the becloaked wizard worried. "The First Seed fans are pretty hardcore." Trixie understood that "first seed" was a cutesy way to say the original series, because that was the "seed" that grew the entire stupid cheesy GalactaStick space-forest.

Mud Briar began to slowly raise and lower his hooves, still wearing his deadpan. Everyone stared. Maud smiled.

"I am fidgeting." Mud Briar explained. "I am attempting to communicate my eagerness to enter the building rather than continue to spend time outside of it in conversation."

And so, Trixie reluctantly followed the group into the building, wrapping her cape tightly around herself and tugging her hat a bit lower down. Trixie would definitely not be noticed wearing these items in a space-themed convention for a series she had played a very distinct character in.

It took Trixie all of ten minutes to completely change her mind about not wanting to be recognized.

In a far corner from the door, Sunburst peeked up over a table display, scanning the building.

Maud and Mud Briar were on the other side of the building, barely visible with the central dais in the way. Maud was watching over Mud Briar like a mother cat; Mud Briar had serious tunnel vision for the show prop replicas. From his expression, Sunburst guessed he approved of the accuracy.

Trixie was nowhere to be seen. How did she do that? At least she didn't drop a smoke bomb this time.

And Starlight...

"Sunburst!" Starlight chirped from right next to him, and he yelped and stood up, making sure his coat was still buttoned around his front. "Huh, it is kinda chilly in here, or maybe it's just me," she said, shuddering. "Have you seen Trixie?"

"N-nope. Not since we came in!" He subtly covered the display he was standing next to with his entire form, leaning sideways against it like he was cool. He did not want Starlight to see this one.

"Huh. Wonder where she went," Starlight said, and moved to wander off. "Yargh!" She cried ten steps later, shying away from a life-size statue of a Bloominous Rotter, a pony-like creature debuting in the Black Oak comic series, whose "head" was but a toothy maw surrounded by wilting petals. Its pollen could turn ponies into "zomblooms" and then later into Bloominous Rotters. In early stages it was reversible, somehow. Starlight scampered off, looking over her shoulders with her ears drooped and mouth tense. The poor mare was almost literally on an alien planet right now. Probably why she felt so cold.

He exhaled nervously and looked at the display again. Each display in this corner... a far corner from the door, which he found under-appreciative... bore figurines, posters, and limited edition comics for a particular story arc, or a particular episode, or a particular minor character, depending. This one was her display. She wasn't in the center of this alcove - that might be a little too candid - but she was the center of his attention.

His muse. He might have licked his lips a bit, or taken his glasses off to clean the steam off.

She'd been a feisty one. She was bombastic and commanding, and loved to just let it all hang out. She barely passed the censors, because her a-hrrm-hrrm - he coughed in his mind and blushed in reality - was artistic. She could use psychic powers to enslave stallions (or mares, depending) and bid them to do her bidding... almost like a changeling, but without the change part.

That's why he didn't want Starlight to know about her. She was touchy about the whole "enslavement" thing.

Then he frowned, suddenly uncomfortable. That's weird, he considered, stroking his beard, his eyes looking up and down her divine form. I didn't realize before how much she looks like --

There was a poof, a hiss, and a foghorn-like moo from the central dais - his head popped up instinctively. He froze, his hoof falling from his beard. Most of the attendees gasped.

His GalactaStick crush, Lactiria, the Bitch of Cadenza IV, was standing on the central dais, slowly emerging from the blue and violet smoke. The cowprint spandex thigh-highs and bodysuit complemented her beautiful, powder blue coat. Her lustrous, silvery hair sprouted out in a wild mane from the imposing cow horns and bovine skull-like mask covering her face, except for her little droopy ears. And the udder! It was huge and bare! And, now that he saw her in person, really obviously a prosthetic. He supposed live appearances were not up to the cosmetic standards of TV production.

Maud's smile dropped very quickly as she turned and stared up at this creature. She blinked once.

"[My faithful harem]!" Lactiria cried, slowly turning on the spot. She said it in Cowlon, of course, but Sunburst was fluent. He could always speak the language of his goddess. "[There is one among you who resists my sultry call, who will not drink of my water of life!]" She pointed directly at Mud Briar, who leaned back with a gigantic wobbly grimace and a hoof to his heart.

Every eye in the convention turned to the couple.

"[Trample this infidel!]" Lactiria commanded.

"Make like a tree." Maud said. She did not need to know Cowlon to understand what was going on; she tossed Mudbriar onto her back and ran out the door, with about half of the building in hot pursuit. A grey mare with blonde hair now lay flattened in front of the door like a rug. One older mare fainted as her daughter joined the crowd with hearts in her eyes.

"Sunburst! What're you doing?!" Starlight yelled, teleporting rapidly to navigate the stampede.

Sunburst skidded to a stop halfway to the door and adjusted his coat - some of the buttons had popped from his furious galloping. "I, uh," he said, stepping to the wall to avoid being knocked over by Lyra and Bon Bon, the last two to join the rush. "I was just. Erm."

Starlight stomped over to him with a scowl, and began to rebutton his coat. "Having some trouble under that coat, buddy?"

Sunburst blanched and stammered. "H-hey stop it! You're as bad as my mom!"

Starlight backed off, her face pale. "Your mom points out when you have a huge boner?!"

"WHAT!!" Sunburst shrieked several pitches higher than normal. "N-no!! She messes with my coat in public! I-it's really embarrassing."

"Uh-huh," Starlight grunted, back to scowling. "You're not Mud Briar, so I'll trust you to keep this short."

Starlight gestured to the obscene cow-thing, which was now trying to tug her own face off and mumbling something about stupid sticky props. "What the daffodil is that!"

"Do you think Trixie is taking her role kind of seriously." Maud asked.

"This is amazing!!" Mud Briar babbled. "Incredible! The best day of my life!"

The crowd still chasing them, leaving huge clouds of dust in their wake, was yelling something Maud did not understand.

"Oh. Okay." Maud said.

She waited a few seconds.

"Forgive my delay in responding. What is the basis of your question?" Mud Briar finally said.

"That was Trixie in that costume." Maud said.

"That is highly improbable." Mud Briar protested. "She spoke fluent Cowlon. A professional. Possibly the actual actress making a surprise appearance. This is more common than you may think."

"I saw her coat and hair color under the outfit. I recognized her voice and body language even though she was speaking in tongues and dressed like an immoral mare," Maud said. "My father would perform an exorcism on her if he saw that."

She rounded a corner expertly, the crowd skidding and struggling to follow. They continued chanting.

"They're saying 'the Buxom Queen has spoken'," Mud Briar translated. "This is the phrase recited by those Lactiria has --"

"You were attracted to Trixie." Maud accused, cutting him off. She leapt across a fence and kept running, slowing the crowd.

"Bleaaragh," Mud Briar boggled, "I beg your pardon, both for my interjection and in light of your accusation. I expressed an affectation towards Lactiria, the Bitch of Cadenza IV, who is a fictional character. I would not even grace this with a 'technically' as I do not believe Trixie was within that costume."

"Trixie was familiar with this show before we entered."

"I inferred the same myself, earlier." Mud Briar permitted. "But interest does not a cow-matron make."

"Trixie was nervous. She disappeared as soon as we entered and then Lactiria showed up."

"Most mares are nervous at any GalactaStick gathering," he retorted, "We, er, nerds, are not always very elegant in approaching members of the female condition. Your argument is akin to 'No one has ever seen Applejack and Mare do Well in the same room together'.'"

Maud sighed. She would have to tell him the truth about Mare do Well later. "Starlight and I were not nervous."

Mud Briar considered while Maud leapt lightly across the rooftops of Ponyville like a ninja. "A sample size of three, two congruent, one outlying, is sometimes sufficient to arouse suspicion, but never to draw a conclusion."

"Trixie told me she was on TV once."

Maud leapt directly across Ponyville river, where there was no bridge. The crowd stopped. She ran towards the general area of Rarity's house; she would circle back after vanishing from sight, hoping the crowd would not know which direction she had taken.

"Am I to presume you will combine these strands of logic together?" Mud Briar asked.

They ran past Rarity and Sweetie Belle as they came out of the Carousel Boutique, both sipping juice. Sweetie Belle squeaked, carried away by the wind. Rarity cried out and reached for her in vain.

"There is a strong possibility that Trixie is the actress who played Lactiria on your silly TV show." Maud concluded.

There was a long pause.

Maud ran to her and Mud Briar's house, expertly skidded into a walk, opened the door, and set Mud Briar down on his hooves.

"It is highly likely that I was attracted to Trixie on the basis that Trixie is, very probably, the actress of the Buxom Queen, Lactiria, the Bitch of Cadenza IV," Mud Briar said as soon as she let go.

Maud looked out the door to see if anyone had pursued them so far. She cracked her hooves together like knuckles.

"This may seem highly illogical," Mud Briar continued, "but I would not have terribly minded to have been murdered by Lactiria's feisty hordes."

"You're right. That does not seem logical." Maud pouted.

"Tell me if you accept this postulate: Death is a certainty?"

"Not if you're an immortal Princess."

"I am not. Thereby, at some point, I expect to die. Consequently, I have influence only in the time and manner of my death. Dying to the hordes of the Buxom Queen would be an honor beyond my semantic ability to describe. Beyond even that of suffocation by the hitherto-thought-extinct giant choking ivy. You are not part of this following, you may not understand. A fitting analogy would be..." And he thought it over. "... if you were murdered by Lavan."

"A major antagonist of Lord of the Rocks, my favorite literary series, who was born of lava and whose shattered crystal body, which he seeks to gather and restore by perverting the One Lodestone, is composed of a mineral otherwise completely unknown to pony minds and possibly nonexistent in the entire universe." she confirmed.

"That is correct."

Maud's eyes glanced to the side for a moment. Then she looked directly at him again.

"I forgive you," she said.

"Okay, so, let me get this straight," Starlight commanded. She was very aware that her dainty trot was telegraphing her displeasure to her companions. "You played a mutated sex goddess in a TV show for horny nerds, aka Stickies."

Starlight was also very aware that she needed to be standing directly between Sunburst and Trixie, because he had recently realized she was his hot cow-pony waifu and he would immediately pounce her if Starlight neglected her duties. She adjusted her trot or teleported accordingly.

Trixie trotted with them, comfortably combing her mane from the wild bush it had been back to her normal coiffure. "Trixie played a space alien sex goddess in a TV show for nerds in general, aka Stickies - some of whom were, and are, undoubtedly, ravenously horny."

"I can attest," Sunburst admitted weakly.

"These people need to get laid," Starlight said. "Where in the world did you find that costume?"

"Upon entering the den of sin," Trixie began, sniffing imperiously, "The Shy and Sneaky Trixie headed directly to the very back of the building, near the storage room. Trixie reasoned this was the least interesting place for a Stickie to turn his or her gaze."

"Sweetie Beeelle!" Rarity called, running through their group, checking under Trixie's hat. "Sweetie Belle! Where are yooouuu! Oooh my one and only sister..!" And she ran off.

Starlight cleared her throat and nodded. "With you so far..."

"Trixie was, to her chagrin, recognized at once by the staff of the establishment, who naturally kept guard over said storage room. Due to her quick thinking, extreme gall, and magnetic attraction of her hoof to blabby mouths, Trixie was able to avoid an incident."

"Did you, now." Starlight said in a monotone.

"At that particular instant yes! The starstruck staff allowed Trixie celebrity access into the storage room, where she hoped to hide away from the goings-on."

Starlight saw where this was going. "And the costume was in the storage room."

"Trixie admits that she was startled to see her own skull from a bygone era glaring at her from a pile of junk, and became gradually more possessed by the ghost of Lactiria, as an older mare may be possessed by photographs of her younger days, and may have lost her head a bit searching frantically for the rest of the pieces in order to relive the moment, yes."

"Great, that's my first question answered. Here's number two: Why did you have an udder?"

Starlight refused to turn her head to identify the slobbering sound that she was sure came from Sunburst's direction.

The showmare blushed. "As a space alien, the Bitch of Cadenza IV had... alternative anatomy," Trixie explained, her chin tilted up regally. "The cosmetic team fitted Trixie with a prosthetic cow udder. It was very comfortable; Trixie's unmentionables have never enjoyed such luxury since."

"So they took your measurements." Starlight deadpanned.

Trixie blushed, raising her chin even higher. "They were very impressed, Trixie assures you --"

"Moonshine, Trix, this is one thing you don't need to compensate for."

"A-and what is that supposed to mean?!"

"Now here's my third question," Starlight said, even more loudly, "And you pricks better not try to fool me again like you've done the last five times I asked. Who is 'the Bitch of Cadenza IV'?! I never saw that name among all the weird shine that was in there."

Sunburst stammered. "F-fool you? We would never --"

"Shut up, About-to-Burst." Starlight grunted, and he closed his mouth and cowered with a grimace.

Starlight wasn't in the mood for moonshine. She knew Sunburst had been holding something back about this character the way he was trying to hold somethin' else back, and Trixie was regressing into full smug mode to avoid facing anything about her actions. She was getting answers or by Luna's hairy asshole she was gonna throw magic down their throats like she did with Big Macintosh.

"Trixie! Tell me about your cowsona." she ordered.

"T-Trixie's what?!"

"Tell me about the cow, Trix," she growled dangerously.

"Okay, okay!" Trixie waved a hoof defensively. "She was the antagonist of a two-parter in GalactaStick: Odysseus, the perviest show out of the bunch easily. Cadenza IV was a pleasure paradise planet. Or so it seemed! In reality, it was a prison planet. Males (or females!) from all over the galaxy were lured by the promise of sweet alien poontang. But alas! The Buxom Queen, Lactiria, the Bitch of Cadenza IV, utilized her psychic powers and feminine wiles --"

"As in her giant swinging cow-udder they showed on children's TV," Starlight said, and Sunburst stumbled. Three guesses what he tripped on, she thought bitterly.

"-- yes, that. She was able to enthrall any appropriately-inclined stallion or mare, and force them to do her bidding. Unfortunately, almost everyone on the Odysseus was ready to jump anything that moved, so she effectively enslaved the entire --" Trixie stopped in mid-trot and blinked, turning her head slowly, glancing at Starlight nervously.

"Why, Trixie!" Starlight began to yell. "Why are you looking at me!" She wiggled her enormous ass and waved a hoof with every other word. "I'm not an over-endowed space alien cow-slut! I'm just a mind-controlling tyrant! Why, I could never match Lactate-ya or whatever her name was! I'm all butt, no boobs. Thaaaaaaat's Starlight!" She punctuated her name by punching the air with a hoof.

There was a pause.

"Oh sweet Celestia," Trixie mumbled.

"What's the problem, Trix?" Starlight asked, with a smile too wide and a voice too sweet.

"Trixie has just realized that the existence of these replicas mean that the specifications of Trixie's costume are public knowledge, so every Stickie knows her measurements."

"Are you kidding me?!" Starlight roared. "Everyone in the world knows and praises your --" and she actually lifted Trixie's cape and pointed - "greatness, and you're complaining?!"

Trixie meeped and tugged her cape back down, bright red in the face, her eyes squeezed shut. "You maniac! Praise Trixie's talents, not Trixie's tits!"

"I'm going ahead of you girls," Sunburst rasped, and trotted off ahead of them.

Author's Note

Trixie puts the lacta in GalactaStick.

Ch. 4 :: Checking In

It was starting to get dark, and Maud was still staring out the door, a silent warden of stone.

"Are... we doing anything else today or..?" Starlight ventured to ask.

"We can't. I don't know how long Lactiria's spell lasts." Maud retorted. Trixie had of course not used any magic at all; the crowd had basically hypnotized itself into obedience.

"Half an hour after last exposure," Sunburst offered. Starlight glared at him. "W-what? It's canon!"

"Indeed," Mud Briar said, "Though technically the effects lasted thirty minutes and forty-six seconds, adjusted for timelapses and camera relativity." Trixie slowly rose up behind Mud Briar, hooves raised and making little neck-grabby motions. For her, the spell had lasted several weeks of shooting.

"Trixie must really know how to shake it." Maud said. At the sound of her name, Trixie put her hooves down and acted innocent. Then what Maud had said processed and she shrank into her coat, turning from blue to red.

Starlight sigh-growled. "Can we go anywhere? Like, somewhere that 'Stickies' won't follow us?"

Sunburst stroked his goatee. "Stereotypical Stickies like to think of themselves as highly intellectual. They hate things they see as 'childish'. They won't go anywhere that is too puerile for their tastes."

Starlight smiled. Before anyone could process it, they had all been teleported.

They'd been listening to the sounds of carousels, church organ music, and vampire-chortles all around them for about ten minutes. Five of these were spent waiting for Maud to finish getting candy.

"Maud. Maud please, just turn around for a second. Maud!" Starlight yelled, and Maud sighed and turned around.

"What." she said dangerously. Her gaze slowly went upwards. "Oh." She said. "I see."

They all gazed up at the neon sign in front of an elegant, dark mansion.

MURDER
House of
🧟DOOM💀

Trixie liked these words on this sign.

"That would never pass TV guidelines." Maud popped a rock candy into her mouth, visible sparks dancing around her lips. "MmMmMm..." she warbled.

"We're going to be hiding out here?!" Sunburst exclaimed.

Trixie just made a happy gasp, her eyes watering in joy. Then she choked on the bubblegum she just inhaled, her eyes watering in dying. Maud gave her a good thwack and knocked the gum right up out. Probably a lung or two, also. "Th-thank-you..." Trixie choked.

"It's where we'll be having fun!" Starlight corrected. "The spell will definitely wear off by the time we're through. Besides, can you think of anything more childish than a haunted house at a carnival?"

Maud had another rock candy. "MmMmMm... I would think the entire fair would put them off," Maud said. "Look at all the foals here. We're the only group who are all adults. You should try these. They're marvelous."

"Does Pinkie make rock candies?" Starlight asked curiously.

"She'd love to, but she needs a recipe. She's banned from the fair, so she can't acquire any to study." Maud said. "If I smuggle them to her, they'll know it was me and I'll be banned too. I can't take that risk. Not even for Pinkie."

They all looked at Mud Briar. He was staring quietly at the MURDER House of 🧟DOOM💀 like a frightened puppy.

"In we go," Starlight said, and levitated Mud Briar, taking him into the house. Maud pouted slightly, following close behind.

Trixie darted past them giddily as they entered.

Trixie loved haunted houses.

She hadn't been in a haunted house attraction since she was a filly. Her father had taken her, as part of teaching her the importance of perspective in the various arts of show business. She'd been horrified and delighted by the rattling cans, the cardboard pop-ups which gave way in later years to far more intimidating animatronics, the fake footsteps coming after her, everything. It was a place of illusion. It was her soul.

One day, when she was no longer a filly but a young mare, he had shown her how it all worked. All the gears, the pulleys, the switches. How flat the cardboard looked from this side. She had crossed the veil to the world beyond, and she knew now how thin a veneer, how delicate a facade it all was. As a child she had been the audience, and now, as an adult, Trixie was the show.

She was sad about that, in a way. She could never again be beguiled and enchanted. Her innocence was gone forever.

You know who was "innocent"? Mud Briar. He was going to be gone forever too.

Trixie walked into some kind of lobby, like for a hotel or something. There was a tall, gaunt waiter blocking the beautiful double-doors forward.

"Oh, this is not so bad," Mud Briar said when Starlight dumped him onto the floor.

Three mares were sitting at a table fretting. One of them looked up, her ears perking up. Once everyone had entered, she gave a happy gasp and tapped the others. All three of them then began silently counting their group, tapping their hoof in the air once for each head.

"Omigosh!!" the red-haired one exclaimed, "Guys, there's five of them!!"

"Yes, very well, you can count," Trixie drawled, rolling her eyes.

"Trixie! Manners." Starlight approached the mares, but kept a respectful distance. "What are you ladies talking about?" she asked cheerily.

"So like, this haunted hoouuse? It like, takes in groups of eight," the neon pink one with the pale green hair said. (Her color combination made Trixie feel ill.) "We've been waiting for...everrrrrr for ponies to show up! Waiting is the worst."

"What! This attraction serves eight at a time?" Trixie asked, incredulous. The haunted houses of her day were basically just a walk from A to B. An engineer would secretly follow the kid through, but in the walls or the floor or whatnot, and trigger all the scares manually. It worked well as long as the kid didn't turn around. What was this house's trick, if it worked for eight who could wander around and screw up the plot line, so to speak?

"I know, right?!" the red one replied. "And y'know, there's three of us and five of you, and that's eight. We can totally go together!!"

Trixie wrinkled her nose.

"Oh, don't worry about Lily," the redhead said, gesturing to the pink mare with the blonde hair. "She's shy, she won't bother you!" Lily gave a bashful smile and a wave.

"It sounds very convenient to me," Maud put in. "Let's do it."

"I am not entirely comfortable joining with strangers." Mud Briar hesitated.

"Then we'll introduce ourselves! My name's Roseluck," the pale mare with the red hair said, "Aaand this is Lily Valley..." The shy blonde mare waved again, looking away. "... aaand this is Daisy!" The neon mare with the pea soup mane nodded.

Trixie took her watch out.

"Our names are," Mud Briar began, "... in sequential order from your left to your right while facing towards me: The Great and Powerful Trixie..." and Trixie actually felt a bit touched that he granted her this full title, "... Starlight Glimmer, Maud Pie, Mud Briar (that being myself, please remember the space), and Sunburst (no space.) We are hereby no longer strangers but acquaintances; charmed, I assure you."

15 seconds, Trixie read. She nodded and put her watch away.

The girls giggled. "Wow, Mr. Mud Briar, you're so polite!" Roseluck complimented.

"Articulate 'n' stuff, too," Daisy added.

"It's his birthday," Maud Pie droned. "We're a couple." She nuzzled him possessively, staring at the girls with the very slightest pout.

"Oh wow! Happy birthday!" Daisy offered. "You two are so cute together!" None of the three seemed to feel intimidated. Trixie supposed they were not smart enough to know better.

"Thank you." Mud Briar said. "And yes, we are." And that was all he had to say about that.

"So!" Starlight coughed. "Are we uh, all going in or..?" Everyone nodded and the mares stood up. "Alright." Starlight led them to the tall, scary butler. "Eight to go in, please."

"You weesh to researve rums in ze MURDEAR 'ouse of 🧟DEUM💀 for eight poneez, two monsieurs, seeks madamoiselles?" the waiter asked. Trixie happened to know a tiny bit of Prench and was rather put off by the accent.

"... Um, yes?" Starlight leaned back.

"It weel be tan beets pear ponee."

"Eighty bits?!" Starlight choked.

"Zees eez a veary fine estableshmant, mademoiselle," the waiter huffed indignantly. Trixie was very impressed with his overall character, at least. He must have been doing this job for a while to get so good.

"Well, like, we were gonna pay our thirty," Daisy consoled.

Maud put a hoof on Starlight's shoulder. "Mud Briar is worth fifty bits. I'll pay."

Trixie wasn't sure about that, but hey, Maud was renting in Ponyville. Who was Trixie to question how loaded she was?

"No way, Maud! Look, let me pay my ten at least," Starlight insisted.

Trixie immediately changed her mind. "Trixie will not be a moocher!!" she hissed. "She will pay her share, also." Trixie was absolutely a moocher, but she wasn't about to let Starlight show her up.

"W-whoa-whoa," Sunburst said. "A gentlecolt can't let only the ladies foot the bill!" And neither could a nerd, for he forked over ten bits.

Maud gently put a hoof over Mud Briar's mouth before he said a word. "It's your birthday." she reminded him. "I suppose I'm only paying twenty. But consider it a present. I'm paying for both of us today."

"Very well," Mud Briar sighed. "It had better turn out a better investment than the movie." Trixie smiled. Ha ha, your lady-friend paid for you. Not the only way he was inadequate compared to Sunburst, if Starlight's TMI ranting earlier today was at all reliable.

The butler rapidly counted the bits, taking only a second or two. Trixie had the feeling he'd worked in a casino before; her father counted chips with a similar technique. "Merveilleux! Right zees way, sears end ladeez." The butler backed through the door and gestured for them to enter.

Walking into a grand entrance hall, with its two stairwells heading upwards, with doors between their bases and at their tops, as well as paths leading off to the sides, Starlight noticed a placard to the right. "Hey," she called to the others, "We might wanna read this." Trixie made an uninterested sound and continued examining the room as the rest of the group crowded around to read.

Welcome to the MURDER House of 🧟DOOM💀! We hope you enjoy your stay here.

You and your group will enjoy a thrilling mystery full of spooks, scares, and mayhem! Eight of you have checked in... but WHO WILL BE CHECKING OUT?!

Be sure to always check under the bed. What you don't know CAN SEND YOU TO AN EARLY GRAVE!

MURDER House of 🧟DOOM💀 is a thriller entertainment program intended for children and young adults. All guests are safe in the care of screened and curated staff members and all apparent abductions, murders, and rude ghosts are choreographed. All trapdoors, spinning bookshelves, falling cages, and other gadgets and props have been extensively safety-tested and are certified AAA by the Equestrian Board of Pranks & Trifles.

Scare Your Hooves Off Inc. is not liable for any distress or injury due to guest misuse of or tampering with rooms, gadgets, or props or due to guest interference with the scripted events.

After reading the fine print, Starlight gave a sidelong look towards Trixie, who had just turned a GalaxyWhatever convention into a porno shoot about an hour ago. Starlight didn't know how this MURDER House of 🧟DOOM💀 program was gonna go, but she knew Trixie would daffodil it up somehow.

"Honored guests, velcome!" called a tall, skinny mare who was suddenly there at the top of the stairs. Trixie yelped and ran back to the group.

Starlight squinted a bit. Tall as heck, check. Long floppy hair, check. Really long limbs and neck, but really skinny body, check. Little fangs, check. Whoreish eyeshadow, super check. "Are you a queen by any chance?" she asked suspiciously and a little aggressively.

The tall mare laughed, a throaty, elegant laugh. Then she floated into the air and down in front of them without using any clear magic. The flower girls shrieked and stepped back, as did Mud Briar. Maud, Starlight, and Sunburst stood and stared. Trixie put a hoof to her chin and examined critically, eventually nodding in apparent approval.

"A queen? Nossing so fulgar. I am... Countess Blackrose," the tall lady said, "And I haff invited you all here tonight... for dinner." There was a flash of light and a thunder crack as she smiled. "Zere iss, after all, nossing quite so delectable as spending cherished time viss cherished friends. No one leefs forever, you know..."

The flower girls huddled together at that. Maud gave Mud Briar a kiss. He blushed. Sunburst stepped a bit closer to Starlight. Trixie watched the tall mare intently with a smile.

"What time is dinner?" Starlight asked, since everyone else was too chicken-scratch to talk.

"Ah, hungry, are ve? I can relate. Dinner vill be... soon," the Countess crooned. "In ze meantime, I am sure you haff come a long vay, und vish to find your roomss sweeftly." She held up a hoof and somehow "snapped" it, the way griffons could snap with their talons.

Six maids and two butlers appeared from smoke. The ladies wore dresses with white pinafores and lacy headdress. The men wore fine suits with coattails and cravats. On their headdresses and caps, as well as on the gals' aprons, the valets bore various icons, one unique to each. Each valet's outfit had a clearly predominant color, unique to them.

"Each uff you shall be seen to by a... personal attendant." the Countess crooned. "Ve shall haff a tour of ze house, und zen you vill be escorted to your roomss. I may be spoiling my guests viss zis arrangement, but I vish for none of you to be... neglected."

Maud and Mud Briar looked at one another. "Will you be okay alone." Maud asked, worried. Mud Briar sighed and nodded. "Alright." Maud relented.

Starlight paired up with a valet wearing a plum-colored dress, signed with a star. The others, of course, each paired with a valet also.

"Zen I shall leaf you to my loyal serfants!" And the Countess cackled and faded away into thin air with wisps of purple fire. Trixie blinked and rubbed her eyes in disbelief.

The enormous group began to walk together through the house.

Ch. 5 :: Checking Around

"We can't bunk in twos or something?" Trixie heard Starlight ask her valet.

"L'Countess does not feesh zis," the response came, hushed and trembling.

Starlight blinked several times, probably not understanding through that accent, and rolled her eyes.

This valet business may be a nuisance, Trixie thought to herself, glaring at Mud Briar and his butler. That particular valet wore green, and his cap bore a palm tree icon.

Trixie had been examining every single spot of every room they went through as her valet, a tiny pegasus who might have been an older filly, kept a close eye directly on her. She wore blue, and her icon was a peacock... so Trixie decided to call her Peacock.

Trixie had been wrong: This act was completely enchanting. These people were dedicated. Their acts were superb! The way that freaky Countess had descended like Princess Celestia was flawless! And even when Trixie spotted something, how foolish of her not to bring her mischief kit! She wasn't sure how she could target Mud Briar with any of these fun-looking gadgets anyway, especially if their valets were following them around like they were naughty geese.

As the group passed through the ballroom, Trixie felt the pressure plate underneath the entryway. Her attention was soon drawn to the chandelier, hanging right above the grand piano. There was no way that thing was not rigged to fall right off the ceiling. It was positioned just in front of the piano, c'mon.

Trixie stared up at it and thoughtfully slipped some more bubblegum into her mouth.

"Trixie!" Sunburst mumbled to her. "That is incredibly rude!" His valet - yellow, sun icon, Trixie would call him Sunshine - patiently watched them both.

"N'impord quoi! Occupe-toi de teff oignonff." she replied. Whadeffa! Mind your own buffineff. These folks had surely had ruder guests, it was a game for kids. Besides, she was already putting a plan in motion. Sunburst looked at her, utterly flummoxed, and awkwardly shambled off.

Peacock and Sunshine stood by like watchdogs as Trixie admired the mount of the chandelier. The oddly claw-shaped one that looked like it might open. "Nife fandelier."

"L'Countess eez quite proud of eet!" Peacock responded, as though Trixie were the most elegant lady she'd ever met.

Soon, they were moving to the next room.

"Do you haff a pen?" Trixie asked Peacock in the hallway, still chewing her gum. Starlight looked at her with a very Twilight Sparkle-ish scowl.

The maid's hoof went to one of her pockets, then set back down. "Why mademoiselle, whateffer for? I'm afraid I haffn't paper."

"Laiffe tomber." Neffa mind. Trixie had already gotten what she needed, actually. The maid must have understood, since she smiled and nodded. Trixie hoped waving her literally-gummed-up, half-forgotten Prench around wouldn't come back to bite her like it usually did. She needed to stop being so darn sassy.

After several short speeches for each room, full of cute little hints and insinuations she found rather endearing, they were all led separately to their bedrooms. For some strange reason, the eight rooms of the house were spread evenly around the perimeter, and the eight guest bedrooms were spread evenly between them. Trixie's bedroom featured the emblem of a peacock over the door, glowing brightly, presumably for ease of visibility. She smiled. Mud Briar must then be staying in the room with a palm tree over the door. This was good to know.

Peacock opened the door and bowed Trixie in.

There was a comfy bed, a bedside table, a bunch of drawers, and a small table crammed together into a space not much larger than Trixie's wagon.

The ever-wary unicorn (except when she wasn't) suspiciously eyed all of these things. She was particularly suspicious of the bed. Then, carefully adjusting her gum in her mouth, Trixie tripped on her cape and fell on her face in the only clear spot on the floor.

"Sacre bleu! Are you alright?" the girl rushed to her side to help her back up. As they rose, Trixie easily swiped the pen from Peacock's pocket, moving it to her cape. She wouldn't have dared to try this with an older, more experienced showpony.

"I'm fine," she rasped, rolling her eyes.

"Sen you must lissen, s'il vous plaît," Peacock suddenly recited, in a low, desperate voice. "You haff made a très terrible mistake to come to zees cursed place!"

Trixie suspected everyone else was being given a similar spiel, and opted to cut hers short. "Your Counteff iff a fampire," Trixie said with her mouth full, while checking the drawers in her room. She was acting the way Starlight did in their O&O sessions; skip the dialogue, loot everything, be a total bitch, etc.

"It is obfious, non?" the girl replied, not missing a beat. "She cap-chaired our souls long ago! She may yet take yours! We, her servants, cannot leaf unless she is slain. Even zees act of disobedience may have harsh consequences..."

Trixie respected her performance (though not her accent), but she would not be the one to slay the Countess; hers was another zombie. She guaranteed she would not be the hero of the story by immediately claiming the privilege, still chewing her gum, and choosing to avoid Prench in this already-confusing rant she was about to give:

"Fear not, young wady, for da Wife and Well-Prepared Triffie came here knowing thiff. Yeff, fee may ffeem utterly unarmed and poorly dreffed for the occaffion, but thiff is merely to avoid ffuffiffon; Triffie will break this curfe of yourff."

Nah, she wouldn't. But if she could break her own curse by breaking Mud Briar's head open, by say, dropping a chandelier on him, that would be magnifique.

"Vraiment?" Peacock asked hopefully. Really? Trixie doubted the mare had actually understood a word she'd said through the gum. The maid nervously fidgeted with her dress, giving Trixie a mild panic attack; but she could see her actually using some kind of device. "If you are as prepared as you say..." She paused. Trixie knew she had communicated something and was awaiting a response. "Fairy well. Go, and do vat you can, but be careful: L'Countess hass eyes efferywhere." She looked both ways and coughed. "Bonne soirée, Miss Triffie!" she said loudly, and bowed out of the room, leaving the door unlocked.

Trixie presumed that everyone else's door would be locked; this must be how they kept the show under control. Only one or two guests would be out and about at a time, while the rest would be in their rooms, listening to the scary stuff happening outside, or solving some puzzle in their room or whatever, until some "story event" occurred that everybody attended. The guests must take turns in this game.

Trixie suspected that the order of unlocked doors was probably also the order ponies were "taken" by the Countess. This was the only way to guarantee everyone got a turn. It wouldn't do for the first pony to disappear during this first turn; there should be one more story event that pretended to be normal before someone vanished, it was a better build-up. So, Trixie would probably be "taken" after the first story event, during the next pony's turn. What her role would be afterward - as part of the scares, perhaps? - she did not know. She would not likely be able to do anything during the story time; she had to make the most of this turn.

"L'Countess hass eyes efferywhere" probably meant that their staff was monitoring the rooms, deciding how to progress based on what the players did. Secret cameras would be expensive, and not very optimal given the ornate decoration of the mansion. The valets likely doubled as monitors, since they only needed to watch the pony whose door wasn't locked, and then only after the valets had all departed. She rather doubted the private rooms were monitored themselves.

Now that Peacock was gone, Trixie took the paper from her bedside table. There was probably some invisible ink on it or something, whatever, Trixie had a far more important use for it. Taking a risk in presuming the bedrooms were not monitored, she pulled out the pen she'd stolen and wrote as quickly as she could. As a unicorn who relied on elegance and precision, this was blazingly fast indeed. She wrote six notes reading:

AVOID BALLROOM, DEATH INSIDE
DO NOT TRUST VALET

... and one note reading:

PLAY PIANO
C A D
DO NOT TRUST VALET

The final line of each note ensured, hopefully, that none of the other guests would show the notes to their valets, who would not be looking for them either. They would only look for notes that were meant to be part of the game.

Trixie replaced everything into her cape, took a deep, slow breath - she didn't want to choke on her gum this time - and headed out, starting her watch.

Trixie estimated she had no more than ten minutes - nine, now, after writing those notes - before they forced her turn to end somehow. Probably less. Also, she wasn't sure she wouldn't bump into any ponies in monster suits.

Her first task was to find the Palm Tree room. She had exited between the Conservatory and the Billiards Room... and at the first corner she found, the Palm Tree room was on her right. How convenient! She turned to approach with a smile.

A horrible squeaking sound and a dance of small shadows along the wall made her nearly swallow her gum, readying her smoke bombs. She soon realized it was a special effect of bats flying past. When this was over, she wanted to hug everyone who made this place and tell them what a good job they'd done.

She rushed to the palm tree door and knocked to confirm its resident.

"Yes?" Mud Briar responded immediately. "Who is it?" Only he could possibly respond in this way in this context. Trixie slipped the "PLAY PIANO" note under his door. "Yes? Yes? Hello?" Mud Briar continued to call as Trixie walked off.

She ran in turn to the other bedrooms, jumping at each creaky floor panel and anonymous breath or moan, and slipped them all a copy of the "AVOID BALLROOM" note without knocking.

Trixie then headed straight to the ballroom. It would have been more efficient to do this step earlier, as it was right next to Mud Briar's room... but she estimated she had only a few minutes left, and if this took more time than she expected, she preferred to have failed to doctor the chandelier rather than fail to warn everyone but Mud Briar about it.

As before, she distinctly felt a plate underneath the carpet as she entered. As she expected, it was not yet active and the chandelier stayed where it was; it was far too soon in the game for something so dramatic to turn on.

She walked under the chandelier and looked up. Yep, it was clear as day now - the chandelier was exactly over where she'd be standing if she was about to play the piano. It was most likely rigged to fall down the instant a foot was set in the room, or while exiting, once the pressure plates had been activated. That should guarantee nobody would get hurt as they'd be far outside of its danger zone. She suspected it was made of brass and sugar-glass, and wondered how in the world they would keep repairing or replacing it every game (and the piano, if damaged.)

Trixie jumped as scary music started to play from hidden speakers, her heart rate doubling instantly. Aw shine, she thought. Whoever's theme song that is, he's probably how they're going to end my turn.

Trixie made a show of examining the piano, then fumbled and dropped half of her smoke bombs. Blue and purple mist filled the room. While hidden, she removed the gum from her mouth, so that it would be less obvious to any monitors that she had brought gum into the ballroom when she spoke. "Oh dammit!" She coughed, trying to sound as panicked and angry as she could. "Trixie shouldn't have brought these stupid toys!"

Trixie then "felt" the chandelier with her magic, trying to locate the claw. Once she'd found it, she split the gum into thirds, slightly lifted the chandelier - which was heavier than Pinkie Pie, sweet Celestia - and wedged the gum in where it rested on the claw mechanism's three fingers. She then gently set the chandelier back down. Its sheer weight ought to have firmly glued it to the gum by the time it was activated, she was sure. Unable to see through the smoke, she would have to hope her artifice was not visible before the time came.

"Oi boss, we got a problem here innit," a gruff male voice mumbled from the east door - probably the guy who the music was for, using a walkie-talkie the way the valets did. Trixie had noticed that everyone in this place had a really offensive accent, for some reason.

"What is going on." came a deep female voice from the west-ish south door, and the scary music stopped. Trixie's heart stopped too; without the accent, the Countess sounded just like Chrysalis! As Trixie heard them entering the fog and coughing, she took the east-ish south door and fled.

"This gets worse every time we play," the Countess who might have been Chrysalis said in a long-suffering voice.

Trixie zoomed into her room and closed the door, leaning against it. Was that Chrysalis?! She suddenly realized that Starlight had been suspicious earlier... obviously not that suspicious or she would've started shooting. But up the other sleeve, Chrysalis could turn into things. Wouldn't she have... Trixie wasn't sure... disguised herself if she was part-timing in a haunted house, or anywhere else?

And for that matter... Did Chrysalis need money? Trixie thought she just slimily rolled around the shadows and ate people now and again. Which... is exactly what the Countess did in the game script. Well, shine.

Could it be a coincidence? Trixie had seen a few movies where actresses passed as Princess Luna in every way but the volume; the Princess may as well have been playing herself. It was a little harder to find a mare who could rival the heights of Chrysalis or Princess Celestia, though. On TV, camera tricks and short fellow actors could make it work, but live?

Trixie slowed her breathing and calmed down. Even if that was Chrysalis, she implied this game had been run several times before. Chrysalis had consistently not been smart enough to mislead opponents with false statements, so Trixie had to presume everyone who played this game was safe, or else the team running it would have to vanish when the Princesses came to investigate, or Twilight Sparkle blew up the house, or whatever.

Exhausted by all this thinking, Trixie thoughtlessly fell onto her bed... which flipped over, dropping her into a trapdoor.

"TRIXIE KNEW IT!!!" she shrieked as she tumbled.

Author's Note

Why no, I don't know French, what tipped you off?

Please do not leave comments that some of Trixie's "Prench" is spelled wrong. I know. So is the English. She had gum in her mouth.

Ch. 6 :: Checking Out

Maud Pie was worried. Well, she was happy that her room had a picture of an etched stone slab over the door, but otherwise, she was worried.

The only sound or sight she'd had from Mud Briar this past half-hour was during the "story" events of this game - sometimes the guests were actually able to mingle and trade hints and items. He was out of his wits. He was not in control - he was a guest held to (the literary conceit of) very high social standards, and it was his understanding that a very tall vampire lady was going to drink his blood. Or, well, that strangers would be touching him and making scary sounds near his face. The poor thing.

But Maud could do nothing for him, cooped up in her own little cupboard here.

She'd figured out that this game had turns. One or two ponies were let loose to "investigate" the Countess, who was very obviously a vampire but it was okay because it was pretend, and then everyone was called together for a story event and had all kinds of opportunities to talk or trade important items, and the two ponies who just had their turns ended up dead or something by the next guest's turn. It was an interesting idea. Probably the last few ponies left would win, somehow.

The eliminated ponies became scenery items, basically. They were dressed up like the valets, but they only showed up in story time, and acted like broken soulless husks. That was sweet of the people running the game, to let the losers keep playing, kind of. It also made sense. The story said the valets had their souls stolen by the Countess. Eliminated players also had their souls stolen by the Countess. So, eliminated players were on her side now. Neat.

Trixie had probably gone first, because she'd gotten eliminated first. Trixie had slipped her a note telling her to avoid the ballroom. There was death in it. Okay.

Roseluck and Sunburst had been eliminated next, so they must have gone together. She was pretty sure it was Sunburst who was trying to make ghost noises in her walls right now. She'd made a moo sound and the ghost had stopped talking.

Whoever went third - Maud would know with the next story event - had slipped her a note too:

Most definitely, absolutely, do not walk into the ballroom!!! 100% death! Trust me!

And no, DO NOT tell your valet! We'll get in SO MUCH TROUBLE!!!

The note read kind of like Starlight wrote it. This was a guess. It was not 100%.

And now Maud was listening to her valet (Slate) spin the next chapter of a sordid tale.

"Four uff your companions have fallen to l'Countess," Slate wailed. "I am fearful to defy her - she eez powerful..."

"I'm pretty strong." Maud said.

"If you beleaf you are strong enough, zen..." the maid paused, a hoof on her belt. She was obviously contacting the team. "Zen go! Light our darkest hour! I'll not stand in your way any lon-gair. I hope you have ze drive to succeed, and ze heart to forgiff us our seens..."

"Thanks." Maud said, and gently pushed her out of the way to get going. "Excuse me."

It is important here to restate that Dr. Maudileena Daisy Pie's favorite literature series was Lord of the Rocks. This was not light reading; it was only for serious bookers, and deep, sincere lovers of fantasy besides.

In addition, Maud was also an experienced player of Ogres & Oubliettes, a multiplayer board game themed around elaborate, fictional scenarios and improvised character acting... much like she was doing right now.

Through both of these hobbies, and in all other fantasy-related pursuits, and even throughout her travels in reality as a rockologist, Maud Pie consistently found that the correct response to any rumor was to go find, do, or kill whatever was described in the rumor.

Including, and especially, when the rumor specifically warned not to do something.

Maud walked right into the ballroom.

Naturally, her attention was drawn to the grand piano in the center of the room. Her sister Marble liked to play the piano. It was Marble's strongest voice. Maud walked up to it without pausing.

She admired its glossy sheen, the deepness of its black body and black keys, the blinding radiance of its white keys. She imagined Marble playing it, playing the song she'd made from Maud's poem about rocks. ... One of them, anyway.

Maud smiled, her eyes soft in reminiscence.

She did not at all see or hear the large, heavier-than-Pinkie-Pie chandelier that, after stretching the gum attaching it to its now-open claw sufficiently far, fell directly onto her, its descent silent and graceful.

It was the crash that was rather loud and horrific.

Trixie walked back home with her companions. They'd all had such a great time that Trixie, as a "taken" guest, had forgotten she was supposed to be trying to kill Mud Briar. None of them had been soul-sucked by any moonlighting changeling queens.

The Shadowy and Soulless Trixie had even gotten to play a vital role in undermining the Countess, as Trixie was obviously going to be a pain in the ass, so they worked it in. Professionals.

She kept glancing at Maud. Maud had assured the staff of the MURDER House of 🧟DOOM💀 that she was fine, and wanted the game to continue for the sake of her boyfriend's birthday. In fact, she'd stayed right there with the shattered chandelier all over her, pretending to be a corpse (and later a zombie) for the rest of the game - after a pause to check and make sure no other props were compromised, of course.

And Maud was absolutely fine. There was no indication a chandelier had fallen on her any more than that a snowflake had. Trixie had never been more terrified of a presumably mortal mare.

"I'm so sorry, Maud," Starlight offered. "My note encouraged you to check out the faulty chandelier, didn't it? I didn't want to be too obvious in case the staff kicked us out for messing with it."

Trixie looked away with a scrunchy face.

"How did you know the chandelier was faulty." Maud pondered.

"Well, I got a note telling me to stay out of the ballroom, so I went in it."

Trixie's various vital organs paused for a moment. These ponies are idiots!! she thought to herself. I need to be more careful.

"Roseluck and I weren't so bold," Sunburst deadpanned.

"I teleported in, of course!!" Starlight clarified, "Because I figured the pressure plates at the doors would activate something if I walked in."

"There was a pressure plate." Maud asked, surprised.

"Yeah! You didn't notice?" Starlight asked, surprised. Maud was normally very perceptive.

A slight blush graced Maud's cheeks and Starlight chose not to dwell on it. "I saw there was a big-ass chandelier hanging over the middle of the room," Starlight continued, "And soon found that Trixie had bubble-gummed the chandelier."

Trixie stumbled and fell on her face again.

Maud pouted. "Is that true, Trixie." The unicorn estimated she now had a few seconds to cheat death.

"Trixie-can-explain." Trixie then told two truths and an utter lie as she got back up. "The Alert and Astute Trixie noticed this chandelier was rigged to fall down. The Caring and Concerned Trixie believed this chandelier would badly hurt anypony it fell upon. The Mistaken and Mislead Trixie believed her bubblegum would keep it from falling."

"Yeah it kinda fell on Maud," Starlight pointed out.

"It might not have if you hadn't gummed it, actually," Sunburst added.

"Trixie is aware." She looked down. She felt sincerely bad about that. "It's good that Maud is okay."

"I'm embarrassed." Maud said. "I should have noticed the chandelier or at least the pressure plate." Her eyes darted away as she looked down.

"It's okay, Maud, it happens," Starlight said. "Remember in O&O when I fell for a really obvious mimic chest?"

"You are a loot fiend," Maud said.

Starlight laughed. "Yeaaaah. I am." She rolled her eyes.

"It was really nice of them to set it up for Mud Briar to take out the Countess," Sunburst mused.

Trixie had been rather impressed by that. As soon as they were showed Maud's "corpse", Mud Briar's demeanor completely changed. He'd resolved to destroy the Countess, and smoothly manipulated the other guests and valets to figure out how to do it. He'd held up the "ancient unicorn horn" dipped in "Celestia's tears". He'd yelled, "Make like a tree, Countess!" Then he'd stabbed the black book, and she'd done this elaborate death rattling act, fell down into an abyss, and exploded into fireworks. Every single guest, taken or not, had a story reason to be there to witness that. It was so awesome.

"Trixie was very relieved to find that the Countess was not Chrysalis." she said.

"Loons, no kidding," Starlight sighed. "I almost shot her. What was her name again? Tree Top?"

"Indeed. She was the obligatory Very Tall Pony back in her circus days," Trixie smiled sadly. Her own circus days had been swell. Everyone said she was such a cute filly. Now she was an adult and cute wasn't good enough anymore.

"I'm not surprised Princess Luna tackled her the last time she was in Canterlot," Sunburst added, "She's a dead ringer for the real deal."

"I would like to see some of her fantasy roles," Maud added. Tree Top had apparently played some queens or other noble ladies in a few TV specials. And a few scary ghosts, of course.

"Pffft," Starlight suddenly got the giggles, "Remember Trixie's face when Merriweather told her in fluent Prench that she let her pickpocket her?"

"Trixie was elated!!!" the magician hopped up and down. "Can you imagine having to train yourself to speak worse for a role?! Did you ever think we were supposed to cheat?!"

"You weren't supposed to drop a chandelier on my head though." Maud mused.

Trixie stopped jumping and grimaced. "R-right. Perhaps that was a bit too much cheating..."

Ch. 7 :: The Bright-Faced Moonflower

The group decided to take it easy for the rest of the night.

While Sunburst and Mud Briar played cards, Trixie looked through one of Mud Briar's plant encyclopedias. She felt vaguely bad about ruining the movie. She felt a little more bad about the GalactaStick thing. She felt terrible about dropping a chandelier on Maud. What if it had been Starlight? She could be dead.

She resolved to find a way to get rid of Mud Briar that would not involve any of the rest of them at all. Her conscience would rest much easier that way.

And, in fact, she'd already found exactly what she needed. Trixie committed the important bits to memory - the name of the thingy, it's very rare, yadda yadda - the rest didn't really matter. She'd put together a scheme that would work for sure!

Starlight came in from talking with Maud and yawned. Sunburst excused himself and escorted her up the stairs, also yawning. Trixie could not help but think they were super cute together. She wasn't sure if they were like a brother and sister, or like a couple, but whatever they were, it was cute.

Trixie looked down at the book. She didn't have a cute couple to be part of. She was always the weird, crazy one nobody liked. She sighed and put the book away.

It was just her and Mud Briar now. She opened her mouth to say something, but then Maud came in and she clammed up. The grey lady went directly up the stairs without pause. Trixie knew Maud usually went to bed early; she got cranky if she stayed up too late.

Mud Briar was still sitting in the same place Sunburst had left him. Trixie stood behind him and waited impatiently.

Mud Briar eventually got up, turned around, and jumped back at Trixie standing inches from his face, backlit by the moon coming through the windows.

"Bonsoir, Mud Briar," she cooed.

"Indeed, the current time matches the use of the Prench expression," Mud Briar permitted. "However, we have been speaking intermittently all throughout the previous day as well as tonight, and have been together in this room for at least one hour, so no standard greeting is quite appropriate."

A vein twitched in her temple. "The Sweet and Generous Trixie has one final present for you," she said. "Do you want to know what it is?"

"That can be inferred: If, at any point, I do not know what my present is, then I must not have received it, and I do wish to receive it, assuming that --"

"Trixie can lead you to a Bright-Faced Moonflower," she cut him off.

He was mercifully quiet for several seconds. "That claim is highly unlikely to be true given the information available to me. The Bright-Faced Moonflower is rated as the rarest flower in the world by several major horticultural publications, and no collector currently owns one."

"Trixie gives very good presents," She waved a hoof. "But she'll need you to put this blindfold on so it will be a surprise."

"You have already identified the present to me. Therefore, I should not be surprised --" Mud Briar objected, but mumbled as Trixie began to wrap the blindfold around his head, first getting it around his mouth before adjusting it. She could have strangled him with it. That would have been satisfying. But also, she would've gotten found out in like two minutes.

"Come on, now, let's get you one of these cool flowers. Just follow Trixie's voice or hoofsteps, she won't let you trip on anything," she promised. "It isn't very far!"

"Please wait," he said, "I will require --" and Trixie had put his saddlebags on him. He frowned. "You have placed something on my person. Are these my saddlebags?"

"They are saddlebags, yes. They have pictures of twigs and leaves all over them."

A pause.

"It is very likely these are the correct saddlebags," he conjectured.

"Great. Now come on!" she rasped. He began to follow her out of the house.

He was quiet for several minutes.

"Can't sleep. Gonna get cut up. They'll make a whole town outta me. The houses. The cupcakes. All me." Rainbow Dash mumbled as they walked past her. She was trembling on a low cloud shaped like a couch, with warm blankets draped over her. Fluttershy, wearing a pince-nez, was gently singing her a lullaby through teary eyes. "All me!" They heard Dash shrieking in the distance.

"I must recant an earlier statement," Mud Briar admitted halfway across Ponyville.

"Which one was that?" Trixie sighed.

"If you have indeed located a Bright-Faced Moonflower, which I currently doubt, then in actuality, I shall be surprised upon acquiring it, even though you have communicated to me your intention to lead me to one," he explained.

"Trixie can be very surprising," she purred.

"This has been evidenced to my satisfaction during the past twelve hours," he said. "It is really a redundant statement."

They were soon at the entrance to the Everfree Forest. Trixie glanced behind her and paused.

This was a terrible idea, what was she doing!

They were both going to get killed. Honestly, she just wanted him to vanish for a couple of days. Just a few days, so she could have one conversation with Maud that wasn't punctuated with tEcHnIcAlLy. Okay, maybe a week or two.

But wasn't she just getting madder and doing dumber, more reckless things because she wasn't really facing the problem and finding a proper solution? She could actually kill this guy.

Technically, you have already attempted to murder me via chandelier, she heard Mud Briar in her head, and tightened her jaw and kept walking. A classic horror literature trope; not very inspired, however. She may have started growling unconsciously.

"What is that noise?" Mud Briar asked.

"Nothing. Okay, listen," Trixie whispered, and he stopped on the spot. "You need to keep your volume down from here, because... because um...the local ecosystem... not only supports the Bright-Faced Moonflower but... also the, uh, the um... the pony-eating snapdragon! Yes, that."

The good news: He lowered his voice. The bad news: He did not lower his loquaciousness. "Are you properly licensed by the Equestrian Horticultural Accessibility Society to lead disabled individuals through the territory of the pony-eating snapdragon?"

Trixie's stomach dropped like a pit. "Y... You're disabled?" If he was, she was a monster.

"Technically," he drawled, "... wearing a blindfold constitutes a temporary disability in Equestrian law..."

She fought back a growl. (Trixie was of course a monster. She had almost accepted it.)

"... so long as it can be demonstrated to satisfaction that the wearer was entirely unable to see for the duration of wearing."

"Right. That's nice," Trixie lied.

"I am also allergic to peanuts," he continued, "With which the pony-eating snapdragon is cross-allergenic."

Trixie's smile suddenly grew ear-to-ear. Why couldn't he have told her that before they went to the movies? "Now that is good to know! Okay, keep following..."

She continued to lead him until the trees nearly blotted out the sun. He never asked if they were there yet, or how much further it was, or if they might have been lost, or even if they could take a breather. He was... kind of a weirdo.

Then she tossed a smoke bomb down. A force of habit, honestly, since the guy was blindfolded and all.

"Trixie." Mud Briar said after five minutes of no direction.

She elicited no response, the expected behavior if she was still present and able to speak. It was possible she was simply being rude or was distracted, however. He allowed a few seconds, the customary delay between speaking again.

"Trixie." He said again.

There was still no response. After speaking a companion's name twice, proper etiquette on their part was to respond in some way - unless they were intentionally being rude, in which case gradually more invasive means of acquiring the conversational partner's attention would become appropriate over time.

"Trixie?" He considered removing his blindfold. Technically, this would have constituted a breach of contract in that he had agreed to keep it on until such time as Trixie had delivered him to the location of a Bright-Faced Moonflower, as they had agreed upon orally. This would not be binding in a court of law, as no evidence of the contract ever existing would be available, but it would be supremely rude. Mud Briar liked to think he was the paragon of courtesy and good manner.

Mud Briar was not a good thinker in the practical sense.

He was very slow to accept that his company could possibly be improper. But, finally, after nearly ten minutes of silence, he was beginning to consider that Trixie may have violated their contract herself - namely by abruptly departing before completing the escort and subsequently informing him that he was free to remove his blindfold.

Indeed, the last sound he had heard from her location was a soft hiss that he hypothesized belonged to one of her smoke bombs. Statistically speaking, there was a very high correlation between Trixie employing a smoke bomb and Trixie rapidly leaving the area in which she had deployed it.

Standing blindfolded, Mud Briar first decided that he did not have sufficient evidence to conclude as a matter of fact that Trixie had dropped a smoke bomb and abandoned him in the middle of the forest.

Mud Briar secondly considered that this remained the most sensible and likely explanation for the dissonance between his reasonable expectation of Trixie continuing to guide him or permitting him to remove his blindfold, and the reality of the failure of Trixie to give any indication of her presence for what was now approximately fifteen minutes.

This would also have been in accordance with her odd behavior over the entire previous day.

Mud Briar removed his blindfold.

He was alone in the middle of the Everfree Forest.

As he had no company, Mud Briar saw no need to say anything out loud. Instead, he immediately surveyed the area to determine his location, Trixie's fate, and, ideally, the location of a Bright-Faced Moonflower.

He quickly determined that this was not a suitable environment for the pony-eating snapdragon. This indicated at least one lie on Trixie's part, which increased the likelihood of her intentional deceit as relevant to their oral contract.

He looked at his blindfold. He was already aware that the Everfree Forest featured cockatrice. He did not know if wearing a blindfold would protect him from cockatrice petrification. However, he did know that not wearing one did not protect him from anything, and therefore, kept the blindfold with him. He would attempt to put it on if evidence of a cockatrice presented itself, and would subsequently exit its territory swiftly.

Mud Briar frowned slightly and began to walk through the forest.

Trixie's heart raced as she ran back through the Everfree Forest, smoke bombs at the ready. If a cockatrice couldn't see her, it couldn't petrify her. Maybe.

Mud Briar would be fine! Probably. He'd been turned to stone before. Wait, he had a blindfold, didn't he? Would that protect him? Trixie wasn't really sure.

She was almost out of the forest. Still galloping, she fearfully turned to look back, despite knowing from every horror movie this was a terrible idea. Looking back meant immediately encountering a terrible monster. It also increased the odds of running face-first into a tree.

So, she looked forward again. Her eyes went wide with horror and she skidded to a stumbling stop with a raspy gasp.

She was looking directly at Maud Pie's face.

Trixie's subconscious had learned to grade Maud's face on a scale of 1 to 10. Higher was scarier. She was at an 8. Her tail swished slowly and evenly. A swishing tail was a sign she was holding something back. Trixie's ears dropped, her pupils small, and she was sure she was about to shrink into her hat and disappear like the wizards of old. At least, she sure hoped she would.

"Hey there, Trixie," Starlight crooned casually, standing next to the dour earth pony. "We've been looking for you." Starlight must have felt perfectly safe on that side of Maud Pie. There's no way she would sound so comfortable if she was in front of her right now.

Sunburst was sleeping on his hooves.

"We thought we might find you here." Maud droned. Not good. Her voice was at an 8 too. Trixie's heart was telling her to turn and run right back into the woods. Trixie's brain was telling her that would put Maud at a 9 easy. "Because Mud Briar's saddlebags are missing. He wouldn't take them unless he was going somewhere..." Her eyes shifted around. "... plant-y."

"Also, both of your footsteps lead straight here. Were you... walking backwards?" Starlight asked.

"Yes." Trixie mumbled.

"Right, sooo, you might be woooondering why we got back up after going to beeed," Starlight chirped in a sort of sing-song voice.

"Mud Briar did not come to bed at his normal time." Maud said. "He keeps a fairly strict sleep schedule."

"So we went downstairs and gosh, you two just weren't there. That was such a strange coincidence, since earlier tonight, Mud Briar told me that he got this weird note during the MURDER House of 🧟DOOM💀... you know, the attraction where you dropped a chandelier on Maud..."

Trixie blinked and shuddered, like a deer standing between Princess Celestia and a cake.

"If I had not spited my notes, or he had taken his turn before me, the chandelier would probably have dropped on Mud Briar." Maud Pie stated.

"I think Maud's right. Because, and this is a really weird coincidence, Mud Briar was the only one who wasn't told to avoid the ballroom!" Starlight said like it was a revelation. "In fact, he only got a note telling him to play the piano which was right underneath it!"

"He is a sweet and trusting person," Maud said. Trixie supposed that was one way of wording it. She had been thinking more along the lines of simple, naive fool, mwahahaha!

"Aaaand this made me think, gosh, Trixie's just been messing everything up all day." Starlight condescended, making a big show of putting a hoof on her chin and looking really thoughtful.

"Like when you sicced a crowd of lovesick fanboys on him." Maud added.

"And..." Starlight started, and then threw her hooves in the air. "... whatever the shine you were trying to do with the whole movie mix-up."

"T-T-Trixie maintains that the movie mix-up was actually quite harmless..."

"True," Starlight nodded. "Except that in hindsight it was basically a threat! Everypony calls Mud Briar a stick in the --"

Maud glanced at her and she choked. Starlight had made a "stick in the mud" joke in Maud Pie's presence exactly once and was loathe to suffer for it again.

"-- calls him a stick!" Starlight finished. "And what happens in that movie? All the sticks get killed!" This was, of course, exactly what Trixie had been thinking at the time. It's just that it was supposed to be obvious after she got away with it, and that was... obviously not happening.

"What were you two doing in the Everfree Forest." Maud Pie asked tersely.

Trixie grimaced, her vision swimming. "J... Jogging..?" She warbled.

"Where is Mud Briar." It was all Trixie could do not to drop to the floor and beg for mercy. She opened her mouth and Maud's eyelashes dropped a quarter of an inch; Trixie's breath caught in her throat. "Do not lie to me." Maud warned.

"T-Trixie may have... been a very good jogger a-and... lost track of him in th-the f-forest..."

Maud stepped forward, pausing in mid-stride, tail frozen. Her eyelashes now rose a full half-inch. "You willfully abandoned my boyfriend in the Everfree Forest?" She blinked twice, quickly. Trixie's subconscious had been wrong; Maud had just hit a level she'd never seen before. Maud was at 11.

"When he was turned to stone the last time we were in here?" Starlight added. She had suddenly lost the edge in her voice and taken several steps away from Maud, staring at her and Trixie anxiously.

Trixie looked for a time at the horrifying visage boring into her soul, trembling from head to toe, her life flashing before her eyes. Just this morning, she had been terrified of someone else getting a slightly firm look from Maud, and now that she herself was finally experiencing one of her greatest terrors...

The fear was gone, for fear was of uncertainty, and Trixie's fate was certain.

Trixie gazed into the eyes of death, inhaled, and exhaled.

"I sure did," she said calmly.

Starlight gave a shrill gasp as Maud charged, seized Trixie, and hurled her to the side hard enough to create a wind. Trixie hit the soft dirt unceremoniously a few yards away and skidded ten body lengths, all of her smoke bombs going off, her breath flying from her lungs.

"I should've said something." The furious goddess of rocks rocketed into the forest behind where Trixie had stood.

"M-Maud, wait!! Sunburst, wake up!" Starlight yelled, glancing wild-eyed at the cloud of fog, then at Sunburst stirring, and teleported away.

Sunburst awoke with a snort at the commotion. "W-what? What's going on? Where is everyone?" He turned and saw her. "Sweet Luna -- Trixie?!" He ran to her side, waving the smoke away, and leaned down, looking between her and the deep skids behind her. "What happened?! Did you pick a fight with an Ursa?!" He began to examine her for wounds.

Long, long ago, Trixie had lied and said she'd done just that. Tonight, coughing and gasping for air as her diaphragm spasmed, she had no breath for lies. Perhaps no time, either. No, in her last moments of life perhaps, she would tell the truth.

"Y-yep." she croaked. "Ursa got me. Owe Luna... slap... in face. Guh..."

"W-what?" Sunburst asked, then levitated her up and ran back into town with her, calling for help.

Trixie's hat delicately swam back and forth in the air, settling back down onto the spot she had been standing just moments before. If anyone came by, and did not notice the deep ravine carved into the earth by Trixie's helpless form, it might look like she had indeed vanished into her hat.

Oh, if only!

Epilogue :: Confessions

"Fillies and gentlecolts!" Trixie cried before a crowd that stretched out into the horizon. "Behold, as the Great and Powerful Trixie saws this stallion in half!"

There was a cheer that could crack the earth in two as she produced a massive saw from her hat.

"Yeah! Go for it, Trixie! Kill that bastard!" Pinkie Pie shrieked.

"You and I never agree on anything, Trixie, but yes! Murder the only pony with a more punchable face than mine!" Twilight Sparkle cheered.

"You will get a full pardon," Princess Celestia promised.

Princess Luna stared anxiously and blinked.

"Technically," Mud Briar began, wrapped up in a box with only his head sticking out. "The severed two portions of my person would not be completely congruent..."

Trixie put the saw to the box and began to work feverishly, with loud grunting pats and a manic smile. The cheers only intensified.

"... thus one cannot define my remains as 'halves' under the mathematical sense..."

Trixie must have cut through the mouthy prick by now. She kept working, growling low under his ranting.

"... that 'halves' are the only two portions of a whole, and furthermore equal, and thus must be..."

The saw popped out, having cut through the entire box.

"... two bodies completely identical in all but orientation."

Trixie stared at him still talking, then lifted and stared at her saw with a massive scowl, as though it had betrayed her.

The crowd was silent now. She tossed the saw to the floor.

Princess Luna landed on the platform. "Trixie. Are you alright?"

Trixie turned, bowed to her perfectly, then leapt up and slapped her across the face, the crowd gasping in horror. Luna jumped back with a yelp and stared wide-eyed at her, completely baffled, one hoof where Trixie had hit her.

Trixie turned back and opened the box.

Two smaller Mud Briars fell out. "Technically," they began in unison with a higher-pitched voice than before, "Since we are identical, I suppose we are halves, if we are taken collectively as a whole..."

Trixie shrieked bloody murder and woke up.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa!! There, there, you're okay now," Starlight soothed, a gentle hoof on Trixie's chest. "You had a bad dream." Starlight tenderly hugged her, one hoof stroking her hair.

Technically, it is called a nightmare, Mud Briar's voice resounded in her head.

"Mama..?" Trixie asked breathlessly, out of her wits. Starlight got a wobbly smile and tears came into her eyes.

Trixie panted and looked all around at the ponies around her, and at the one in the bed across the room. They were in Maud and Mud Briar's room, it seemed. Maud Pie was looking at her - down to a 4 if not lower. In fact, she looked positively abashed.

Oh, that's right. Trixie had just been clobbered by Rockzilla. She'd almost forgotten. A pony could probably have forgiven her for forgetting the past three years of her life, actually. That would be nice. That time period included the GalactaStick thing.

Mud Briar sneezed ("Yazinga!"). He was the one in the bed, his face bright enough to glow gently in the dark, deadpanning up at the ceiling. Trixie's brows furrowed in utter confusion.

"Look in the corner, Trix," Starlight sniffed. Trixie was incredibly embarrassed she had called her mama and, to avoid looking at Starlight, looked in the corner.

And there it was. Planted in soil, and under glass, was a Bright-Faced Moonflower, gently glowing. He'd actually found one. Well! Trixie was not such a bad horticulturist after all, it would seem!

"Mud Briar told us that he's not infectious - just the flower is," Starlight said. "As long as no one, I dunno, clumsily knocks it over, it's safe under the glass." Trixie felt very targeted.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," Maud Pie spoke up. Her voice was wavering. "I was... very upset."

Trixie blinked a few times and tested her bones for broken-ness. She was able to sit up. They'd brought a cot in for her, it seemed, and she gathered up her bedsheets around herself for modesty.

"Trixie -- er. I understand. I'm... I'm okay, I think. Believe it or not, I've suffered worse, and... deserved it less too than I did tonight - wait." Trixie blinked. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"Only an hour or two," Starlight informed her. "You're a bit bruised up, but the doc said you'll be fine with some rest. We'll move you back to your bedroom tomorrow."

Maud looked away, her eyes watering. Trixie had never seen her so miserable. She remembered that, whenever Applejack injured someone with her immense strength, she fell apart into a huge guilt trip. Maybe Maud was also fearful of her own power.

Trixie awkwardly cleared her throat. "I um, feel I owe everyone an explanation..."

They all looked to her silently. Mud Briar yazinga'd.

Trixie opened her mouth and sighed. "Trixie is a bimbo."

Everyone raised an eyebrow. "What?" Starlight interjected. "What kind of an explanation --"

"Trixie is -- I am... jealous, petty, vengeful, and sometimes very stupid," she continued. "I have a huge problem with holding grudges secretly and... and um... inconveniencing the ponies around me with lies, falsehoods, and shenanigans."

The stares she got said Gosh, we never knew that! in the most sarcastic way possible.

"By 'inconveniencing', do you mean you tried to kill my boyfriend several times on his birthday." Maud Pie clarified. She was down to 3 now, though.

"I-don't-really-want-him-dead!!!" Trixie squirmed nervously, wincing from her bruises. "I suppose I became less reasonable as the day went on. Maud, you're always with him, and I've felt like I can't talk to you without dealing with... his erm... eccentricities... and when he mocked my performance I was quite simply fed up! And so, I spited him at the theater, I sent a legion of morons after him at GalactaStick, I tried to drop a chandelier on him which was probably double his body weight... aaand I tried to murder him by leaving him alone in the most dangerous forest in Equestria in the middle of the night."

"Technically," Mud Briar began, and Trixie's jaw clenched while Maud's eyes flitted to look towards him, "Under Equestrian federal law - yazinga! - it would likely have been found as ponyslaughter. Murder is premeditated and planned out with clear intention or malice aforethought. Ponyslaughter is impromptu, caused by sudden anger, sufficient provocation, or gross negligence."

She hissed and sat up. "Technically it can still be murder" -- but she stopped, as not only did Maud's eyes sharpen slightly, but Trixie groaned in pain and laid back down -- "b-birthday boy," she coughed weakly.

"I'm pretty sure the chandelier thing would've counted as murder," Maud said, "It was pretty premeditated."

She saw Mud Briar smile - that stupid smile that made her want to swing a baseball bat at his mouth. "Very well, the chandelier incident is accepted as attempted murder. But technically, my birthday ended at midnight approximately forty-five seconds --"

Before Trixie could respond, Maud turned very sharply and looked right at Mud Briar, who stopped in mid-sentence, blinked, yazinga'd, and pulled his covers up higher. "Mud Briar." Maud said sternly. "I haven't said anything all day. Because it was your birthday. But I should have said this much sooner. I think you should stop teasing Trixie. She has been trying to kill you for the last sixteen hours and both of you got h-hurt because of it." Her voice cracked slightly. She was definitely distraught.

Trixie blinked in shock. "... T... T-teasing..?"

"Y-you're absolutely right, of course," Mud Briar stammered. "P-Provoking Trixie is so easy as to be dull..."

Trixie sat back up, grunting in pain. "You've been doing it on purpose?!" Maud simply blinked.

"... S-so easy in fact," Mud Briar continued, blinking in fear at Maud's face, "That while doing so these past few minutes - yazinga! - I, I have decided on how best to articulate my sentiments in regards to her recent behavior."

Trixie glared at him.

"Thank you." he wheezed.

Trixie jumped right out of bed. "Whaaaat?!" Then she made an ungodly sound of pain, and Starlight had to help her back onto her cot.

"Whaat?" Starlight and Sunburst slurred, confused.

"What." Maud added in.

"While I continue to enjoy horticulture and pedantry, my favorite two activities of course... " Mud Briar sniffed, "... even they can become rather boring with sufficient repetition, and I have come to accept that at times my affection for the latter crosses the line, so to speak, from endearing to rather annoying. Yazinga! My keen mind requires a constant supply of new experiences and stimulations. My birthday has been - was, technically - a very exciting day and night, and if not for you, I would not have acquired a one-of-a-kind specimen of the Bright-Faced Moonflower. This Bright-Faced Flu, which-technically-is-not-a-form-of-influenza, is a small price to pay for all of this. Thank you, Trixie. You are a good friend. Yazinga!"

Everyone was shocked into silence for several seconds.

"She tried to kill you at least three times." Maud pointed out. "You found the flower by pure serendipity."

"Y... You... You're welcome..?" Trixie forced out, utterly bewildered.

"Yeah! Right. Okay, I'll lead this one." Starlight passed everyone a mug. Trixie did not get one, as she was a broken mare on a cot. "To our good friend, Trixie, who has helped us so much and made us so much happier every time she's recklessly endangered our lives!"

Mud Briar smiled. "To our good friend Trixie, who is rarely correct either technically or ethically, but is always reliable to make things interesting."

Maud glanced around and blinked. "To our good friend Trixie, the back-stabbing Bitch of Cadenza IV." Trixie could guarantee that only Maud would be permitted to call her that ever again.

Sunburst blushed at Maud's toast. "T-to our good friend Trixie, wh-who really rocks that GalactaStick outfit!"

Trixie groaned up at the ceiling. "To the Great and Powerful Trixie, the mare of a thousand stories, none of them favorable to her," she deadpanned.

"If someone could pass me my vitamins," Mud Briar asked, and Trixie saw in slow motion as Starlight magically seized a jar of multi-colored pills. Strangely peanut-shaped pills.

She sat up sharply and pointed. "TRIXIE-POISONED-THOOOSE!" The Bruised and Exhausted Trixie cried - though of course that was not possible - and passed out on her cot as the others looked on in alarm.

"In... In her sleep?!" Starlight questioned, pulling the jar open and examining the vitamins in a panic.

"Mmm, sure did, Princess, and Trixie would do it again, too..." Trixie was mumbling in her sleep, smiling contentedly.