The Equestrian Monomyth - Book 2 - Complexs of Disharmony

"Dashie. How are you doing?" Asked Twilight.

Slowly, Rainbow Dash's head come out from beneath the blanket, which was being pulled by my marefriend, as Rainbow Dash herself doesn't even bothered in doing so. Only then, Rainbow Dash reacted: "No, Twilight. Please, leave me." She covered her head again, speaking with a sobbing voice.

"What's happening, my student? Why you don't want to talk to your master?" I joyfully asked her.

"Please, Gus, it isn't funny. Really, go away. Leave me alone." She replied from under the blanket.

"You're getting me worried, Dashie." Pleaded Twilight. "Please, talk to us. It breaks my heart seeing you like that."

Rainbow Dash hesitated in speaking for a while, and finally spoke with a sad voice: "Fluttershy was just here, trying to cheer me up and I... I yelled to her. Ohhhh! I'm such a terrible friend!" She then started to sob "First... (sniff) first, I let that bucking gryphoon (sniff) to get away with his felony and then... (sniff) and then, my best friend come to see me, and... and... (sniff) I just..." She couldn't continue speaking, and started to cry.

"Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey. What's that, Rainbow Dash? How's that the strongest mare and faster flier in Equestria could be crying like a little filly that has lost her doll? Come on!" I told her, a bit upset. "That's not the Rainbow Dash I know and respect!"

The crying stopped, indicating that I was in the right track:

"That's right! Seeing you crying like that just makes me to regret being your teacher! It's a shame and a waste to taught somepony that's no more than bluffing and rubbish!" The blanket started to tremble, and Twilight looked at me with concern, quickly shooking her head, silently asking me to stop, but I knew what I was doing. "Aha! But what I was expecting?! A miracle? No! Just a crying baby, that loses with the bad guys and then mistreats her friends just because she's too...!"

"Stooooop!" Rainbow Dash came out from under the blanket, with tearful eyes. "Please stop... I can't take anymore of this..."

"Do you want me to stop?" I pointed myself.

"Yes, please..." She pleaded.

"And what will you do to make me stop?"

"Anything! I'll do anything you ask, I swear!" She assured, still sobbing.

"What about a sparring?" I asked with sharpened eyes and a impishly smile, raising a fist.

Rainbow Dash opened wide her eyes and muzzle, and then she stood on her four hooves on the mattress and started to defy me: "Come on! When you want, where you want! I'm gonna buck your lights out!"

"Shhh. Silence! You're bothering the rest of the patients!" Nurse Redheart scolded us.

"Ha! That's the spirit! When you get fully recovered, we'll have our sparring." I told Dashie, smirking.

"Then I'm gonna get well in no time! You'll see then, you bucking worm." Said Dashie with sharpened eyes and smiling too, returning back to the bed.

When Twilight and I come out from the hospital, she couldn't stop but asking me: "Wow, that was just... awesome! How did you managed to cheer her so fast? Normally it requires months, if not years, for a pony in that depressed state to fully recover. And sometimes he or she never recovers at all!"

"That's called inverse psychology." I explained her. "When a patient is in that state, if you start with just the pitiful speech: 'please, get well, do an effort, is for your own good' etcetera, the patient only gets worse just because she CAN'T. She can't do any of these things. Can't get well, can't do the effort, and it doesn't matter if it's for her own good. Simply she can't."

"Wow." Said Twilight, amazed. "And just when I tought I knew everything about you... Can you taught me how it's done?"

"Of course, love. Just be careful. It can heal, but, if misused, it can destroy too."

"Don't worry, love. I'll be careful. Now, let's check on Flutters. That what Dashie said, left me worried."

"Whoa! You're right!"

When we arrived to Fluttershy's cottage, we got surprised to find it with several reinforcements in the walls, door and windows. I knocked the door.

"Go away, you big huge meanie! There's nothing to eat here! Go awaaaaaay! Heeeeelp! Anypony heeeeeelp!" We could hear Fluttershy's voice from inside the house.

"Flutters, it's us Twilight and Gus! Open up!" Twilight announced.

"Ow. I... humm... just a moment..."

We heard several metallic frictions behind the door, and finally it half opened, and Fluttershy looked cautiously to outside: "Oh, thanks to Celestia, it's really you AHHHHHHHHHHH!" She screamed and closed the door.

"Flutters, what's happening?!" Asked Twilight, concerned.

"It's the raincoat! The raincoaaaaaaat! They're coming for meeeeee! They're going to eat meeeeeee!" Fluttershy screamed from inside her cottage.

"Flutters, nopon... I mean, nothing is gonna eat you! Open up!" Repeated Twilight.

"Nooooooo! The raincoat is theeeeeereeeee at my doooooor, waiting for eating meeeeeee!" Fluttershy screamed again, frightened to death. "Heeeeeelp! Anypony heeeeeelp!"

Twilight looked at me: "Love, take out that raincoat, damn it!"

"Ah. Ok." I did so.

Twilight then knocked the door again: "Flutters, the raincoat is gone already, open up!"

Inside Fluttershy's cottage was like to be inside a sauna. I don't know how she can stand such heat. Angel surely not, as I didn't see him anywhere.

"Damn it, Flutters, there's an infernal hot in here." Twilight complained, cleaning the sweat in her forehead with a foreleg.

"Yeah, why you don't open a window?" I said, opening one.

"No!" Screamed Fluttershy, closing it again and pushing her loin against it, with a horrified expresion: "The monsters are going to enter! They're going to enter while I'm sleeping, and they're going to eat me!"

"Flutters, there aren't any monster left. We destroyed them all." I assured her.

"Yeah? How can you be so sure, huh? How can you be so sure?! I've seen them... watching me among the treeeeees." Her voice trembled in fear. "Haunting me... waiting to catch me off guaaaaaard..."

Twilight looked at me: "It looks that she needs of your 'magic' too." She tilted her head.

I then kneeled to Fluttershy: "Flutters, if there were any monster left, they'll had eaten you long ago."

"Ow... humm... Wait! Are you saying... that if there are any monsters outside, they can eat me anytime?!" Fluttershy started to hyperventilate and move nervously, in the beginning of a panic attack.

"Well... yes. That's exactly what I said." I confirmed her suspicions.

"Eeeek!" Fluttershy fell catatonic, loinside to the ground and the four legs straight up.

I looked to Twilight, opening my arms: "Looks that it's a tough case!"

I sincerely don't know what to do in this case. It wasn't a matter of beating up some nasty monster, so all my strenght was pretty useless. I needed something else to counterfeit Fluttershy's paranoia. But what?

Twilight and me stayed on her cottage, doing some than other thing, until Fluttershy recovered conciousness.

"Alright, Flutters. Now I want you to imagine that I'm a big monster that comes to eat you..." I started telling her.

"Eeeek!"

Catatonic.

"Flutters, now I'm gonna take out the raincoat, nice and easy..."

"Eeeek!"

Catatonic.

"Flutters, now we were gonna take you to the forest, where you can see that all those eyes..."

"Eeeek!"

Catatonic.

"...aren't real..."

Twilight hoofpalmed: "Love, this isn't working! At it's nightfall already! We have to think on something else!"

Fluttershy recovered conciousness from the nth time, and looked outside: "AHHHHHHHH! It's nightfaaaaaaall! The giant bat is going to eat meeeeee!" She ran upstairs and locked in her room.

Twilight gave me a furious look, and, with clenched teeth, raised a foreleg to hit me yet again, but she changed her mind, and just sat on her haunches, turning her head and angrily snorting.

We had to sleep in her cottage...

At least, it was fun... for me, as Fluttershy spent the night trying to cuddle with us and Twilight pushing her away. Oh God! That was fun!

Finally, just before I fell sleep, I saw them having some sort of argument, and Fluttershy stopped trying to sleep wit us.

I don't know how Twilight managed to do it, but the next morning Fluttershy just can't wait for us to leave, and we were walking back to Twilight's home, I mean, our home. Twilight remained scowled all the way, and I decided to tease her a bit:

"You know, love? I've been thinking, and maybe I should move to Flutters' cottage."

"What are you talking about, my love? Can you imagine the four of us there, Flutters, Spike, you and me? There's not enough space!"

"No, I mean, to move just myself..."

"What?!!" Twilight stopped short, straighten her four legs, in a jealousy attack. That's so damned funny!

"No." She denied with her head.

"Why not? It will be easier, and in the case that we have an argument and break up, Flutters can..."

"NOOOOO!!" Twilight raised her forelegs, screaming so funnyly scared, that it made me to laugh aloud. Then, she started to cry: "Why are you doing this to meeeee? You don't love me anymooooore?"

"I'm joking, my love, come on." I extended my arms to her, and she jumped to them.

"Please don't do jokes like that anymooooore. Pleaaaaase-eh-eh-eh!" She cried.

Alright. Once is enough.

I carried her from there, and I happened to see a gathering of ponies in front of a lettersign. It reads: 'Royal contest to look for a place as a Celestia's ponial adjutant'. 'Ponial'...? Ah! I think that's the equivalent to 'personal'.

"Hey, love. Look at this. It seems you were right. It haven't passed merely two days and Celestia is already looking for a replacement for you."

"See? I told you." Then, she stared to the royal guards that were explaining the crowd about the contest's rules. "I don't get it. Why Celestia is so obsessive about some gryphonic decorative lightstones? It doesn't make any sense."

I looked to my marefriend, smirking "So, that was what you were doing at the Gryphoon Empire, huh? Just playing with decorative little lights?"

Twilight looked at me, smiling: "I can't confirm or deny anything."

We both laughed and I resumed walking back to our library home.

"Love." Said Twilight. "Now that we were talking about decorations and travels and so, I can't help but recalling that showmare. What was her name?
Trix? No, Trixie. Trixie was."

I made a 'doubtful' gesture: "I've never heard of her."

"That's right. Me neither, for a while, and I don't know why, but I'm feeling a bit worried about her."

"How so? I believe that Equestria is quite safe to wander around nowadays."

"Yeah, I know. Is just... I believe she could be in trouble. She left the town pretty rejected and mistreated... and I know that this isn't very scientific to say, but I have this hunch, that she might need our help."

"A hunch? Seriously? Are we gonna embark in a search for an unknown mare, that might or not be in trouble, and might or not need our help, being left so little for our wedding... for a hunch?"

"Please, love. I just... I just wanna to put all my stuff in order, ok?"

I looked her, worried: "Geez, love. You're talking like you were gonna die."

Twilight didn't answered. She just gave me a sad smile.

I smiled too, and gave her a peck in the forehead and in the muzzle: "All right. Let's go for this Trixie girl."

It was night time, and the storm roared strongly, and the lightnings crossed the sky over the shabby abandoned shack, making the blue coated and white maned mare curled in it's interior, to shiver in terror. She then coughed, as her time wandering in the open as a homeless had driven her to get a strong cold.

She looked to her ragged star cape, and to her crumpled conical star hat. Oh! She has lost everything! Everything! Now she was the laughingstock of Equestria! Nopony wanted to see her shows, ans nopony wanted to give her a job either. She had tried everything. Everything. Even the rock farming. Nothing. A tear slipped in her cheek, as she was sadly looking to the falling rain. She coughed again. Well, at least she was dry...

In that moment, the roof of the shack crumbled, getting her as much wet as she could be, and a strong wind gust took her hat far, far away. She didn't moved anyway, only swore her bad luck. She had given up. She was done.

"The great and powerful Trixie... is going to die... (sniff) lonely and forgotten... (sniff) in the middle of nowhere..." She sobbed, with a crying voice.

The next day, the morning light illuminated Trixie coughing even worse, loinside to the ground and breathing with difficulty, as the last night's rain had turned her cold into a severe pneumonia. The fever was already blurring her understanding. Breathing had already turned into a struggle, one that she was losing bit to bit, as she really didn't want to fight anymore. She wanted all to end. She looked to the sky, where the vultures were already flying around, expecting her to stop breathing. She smiled: They weren't the spectators she would want at her final moments, but at least she had spectators for her final act. If only she could start over, like nothing had happened. Other life, on the body of another pony, so nopony could recognize her, she'll maybe give it another shot. But that was nonsense. There was only one Trixie, and she was going to die shortly. Finally, she coughed a last time, and her conciousness faded into the nothingness...

"Is she still alive? Yes?! Oh, thanks to Celestia...! Damn! She's so pale and emaciated! She must have suffered a lot. I feel so guilty." The words, as an echo, resonated in Trixie's ears. She hardly could open her eyes, looking surprised to a strange hairless monkey that was doing who knows what with her. But that voice. She could swear she has heared it before. Trixie turned her head, to see the other pony: She was a purple unicorn, with a straight two colored mane and tail. Trixie clenched her eyes, as she recognized her at once. That was HER, the cause of all her misfortune. And now, she doesn't let her even die? Until when she was going to mess with her business?

"Why?" Trixie asked with a coughing voice. "Why you don't let Trixie die? Please, let Trixie die..."

"Shhh. Take this soup, girl, while is still hot." I told her, putting a bowl with a tasty vegetable soup and a spoon to her reach.

Trixie fully opened her eyes, hesitating, but ultimately, her grunting stomach sweeped all her doubts, and she simply sit in the bed, and taking the bowl with her forelegs, she started to drink the soup directly from it, not even minding the spoon.

"Take it easy, Trix, or you might get burned!" Said Twilight smiling joyfully, closing her eyes.

Trixie drank all the soup, and then she stood looking straight to me, then to Twilight:

"This is the Tartarus?"

"No, Trix! I don't think that in the Tartarus you get welcomed with a hot soup and a confy bed!" Giggled Twilight.

Trixie stared to the now empty bowl:

"Why? Why save Trixie? Nopony wants Trixie. Everypony hates her... Why...?" She sadly asked.

Twilight looked at me, silently pleading to me to say something that made sense.

"Trixie, we're very mad with you because what you did in Ponyville..." I started. Twilight just rolled the eyes and shooked the head, figuring out to where I was going, and then walked away and started to twist the rest of the soup with a ladle.

"... and we want you to know, than that's not what a showmare does!" I continued, waving my finger with a fake angered face. "What you did there is proper just from bluffers, rubbishs, worthless, inepts, useless, unfitting, undesirables..." Trixie's head and ears were progresively drooping down with every word, until she couldn't stand anymore:

"Then kill Trixieeee!!" She screamed, heartbroken. "For Celestia's sake, just kill Trixieeeeeee!" She cried.

"You want me to kill you?" I pointed to myself, then to her.

"Yeeeeees!" Affirmed Trixie.

"And what will you do for me to kill you?"

"I'll do whatever you ask! Whatever!" She cried.

"Will you present yourself as Celestia's new adjutant?"

"Yes...! What?!" Trixie shooked her head, perplexed, when I presented before her the Royal Edict announcement. She took the papier with her forelegs and read it: "Is this a joke?" She asked, confused.

"It isn't!" Twilight turned her head to Trixie, smiling. Then she approached to the showmare with yet another bowl of soup held with her magic: "I've recently quit my job as Celestia's adjutant, and I want to recommend you for the place!"

"Me? Why me? Why Trixie? All what Trixie has done is to lie and to fake and..."

"Trixie, it requires a lot of study and magickal training to do all that spectacles you do." Said Twilight. "Besides, I think that writing friendship reports won't be quite a challenge for you."

"What? Writing friendship reports? That's all you do?" Asked Trixie to Twilight, perplexed.

"And arranging meetings, organizing books, preparing schedules... Mostly paperwork. My former job's contract really doesn't include fighting monsters or preventing disasters, I do that quite voluntary. You know? You don't have to do any of that, so I'll be quite relieved if you take the job instead. That way, I'll have more time and less pressure to... fighting monsters and prevent disasters." Explained Twilight.

Trixie opened her muzzle, happily surprised: "Seriously?! You want Trixie... to take you old job?!" She pointed herself with a foreleg and her face brightened. "What Trixie have to do?!"

"Oh, it's easy. Celestia will give you a chore to perform, and if you do it before the deadline... You're in!"

"Ahhhhhhh!" Happily screamed Trixie, clapping her forehooves. "That's it?! Trixie can't believe it!" But then she got worried. "But surely there will be a lot of aspirants to the place. How Trixie is going to perform better than all of them?"

"Oh, don't worry! You'll have advantage!" Twilight winked. "I'm gonna give you all the information you need to pass. This time, the task consist in manipulate a bunch of magickal lightstones. I even gonna taught you with the spell I developed to do so. It's still incomplete but I'm sure you're smart enough to get it finished. Just don't tell anypony what I did, specially Celestia."

"Ohhhh." Trixie got joyfully amazed. "You can bet Trixie won't..."