Trixie sat in her well-furnished apartment, examining her fancy new purple cloak and hat. She lifted an apple from the bowl in front of her and moved to polish it against her mauve jacket, but then thought better of it and tossed it aside. “Queasy, polish this!”
A sickly green glow caught the apple midair, then lowered it in front of the frowning face of the former changeling queen, Chrysalis. Her narrow eyes unblinking, she rubbed the apple against the sleeve of her black jacket and presented it back to the unicorn on a platter.
“Ah, thank you, Queasy!” Trixie said, picking up the apple and taking a large bite out of it.
“At your service, milady,” Chrysalis said, failing to hide her venom. “And don’t call me Queasy.”
Trixie waved her hoof absently and swallowed. “It’s an affectionate nickname! Queen Chrysalis, to Queasy! You’re the best valet a newly rich mare could have, so it’s only natural I’d be friendly! Oh, polish this.”
Chrysalis caught a small trophy in her magic. It was a participation trophy for a school talent show. With a groan, she rubbed it with her sleeves.
The noble pony got up and walked to a wall mounted calendar and almost looked at it, but instead closed her eyes and said, “What’s today’s itinerary?”
Chrysalis walked over and looked at the calendar herself. “We are to have lunch at the Rich Ponies Club—”
“The Rich Ponies Club!” Trixie exclaimed. “That really shows I’ve made it! I’ll get to dine with rich ponies, do what rich ponies do! And I’m sure you’ll have fun too, Queasy.”
Chrysalis groaned. “Looking forward to it.”
Chrysalis drove Trixie to a large and attractive building—or rather pretended to hold reins while a taxi pony pulled their carriage and Trixie nodded in satisfaction. Situated in between other more homely buildings endemic to Ponyville, the Rich Ponies Club stood tall with well-carved wooden features decorating its outside.
Not waiting for Chrysalis to pay the taxi pony, Trixie hopped off and rushed inside, diving through and announcing, “The Great and Rich and Powerful Trixie the Rich has arrived!”
The inside was well furnished with plush couches and various busts and pottery. Exactly one pony sat there.
“Ah, hello there, Miss Trixie!” said the pony, a familiar sight to all of Ponyville: Filthy Rich. He put away his newspaper and approached the door. “Come in, come in, and welcome to the venerable status of Rich Pony!”
Trixie danced in glee. “Yes, I am Trixie the Rich! Great and Rich and Powerful and Rich!”
Filthy Rich nodded. “Yes, you said as much.” Chrysalis walked in with a sulk and he added, “Your servant can stay in that room over there.”
Trixie gasped conspiratorially. “Ooh, you know what servants do there, don’t you? Valets and butlers gather and share secrets about their masters, maybe even writing everything down in a secret journal, which could get stolen and lead to shenanigans. May even be a chance for you to let yourself be a bit nasty again.” She waved a hoof and made a cat noise. “Now go on, this is your adventure too, Queasy.”
Chrysalis grumbled and walked into the indicated room. There was no one else in there.
“Now you can leave your hat and cloak over—or not, I guess,” Filthy said as Trixie walked right past the stand he pointed at.
“Trixie doesn’t abide by the old rules society forces on the rich,” the unicorn said serenely.
He laughed politely. “Well, I suppose you were never one to part with those. In any case, it’s nice to finally have someone else here.” He laughed again, more forced. “After all, the only other rich family in this town is the Silvers, and they stopped coming here ages ago. And it’s so lonely at home, after I split up with Spoiled—should’ve done it ages before then, mind, so no regrets there—” his voice broke a bit “—and, oh Celestia, I barely even see my sweet little Diamond anymore, ever since she left and started dating—”
Trixie blithely interrupted, “Yes yes, enough of that, time to talk about Trixie!”
“How did it come to this?” Chrysalis said to herself, sawing her twisted horn across the top of a counter. “The new changeling justice system set to judge me was ripe for exploitation. I placed changelings sympathetic to me on their panels. I was meant to be free! I was meant to be queen again!”
The moment flashed before her eyes. Changelings arguing amongst themselves as Trixie took the stand, and instead of testifying about her attack on the changeling hive—the attack that turned so many of them into colorful monstrosities—that unicorn talked about a “television series” she watched in that strange other world. This series told a story about a "man" that was forced to become another’s butler by the justice system of that dimension, whereupon comedic shenanigans would occur for a hundred stories afterward. So enamored were the judge changelings by this idea that, disregarding all promises made to their rightful queen, they determined this would be an appropriate punishment.
And so it was. Chrysalis became Trixie’s servant, and if Trixie left a negative review or other creatures disapproved of her behavior, then she would turn right back into stone and rejoin her place alongside Tirek and Cozy Glow.
Chrysalis wanted to kill her so badly. She wanted to kill Filthy Rich, she wanted to kill that taxi pony, she wanted to—
Trixie opened the door and tossed a sphere at the changeling, “Queasy, polish this!”
Chrysalis instinctively caught it. It was an ornament, like one you’d place on a Hearth’s Warming tree. By the time she looked back at her employer for an explanation, there was nothing there but a swinging door. With a guttural yell, she shattered the ornament against the ground. Then, having nothing else to do and having no desire to cook, she opened a fridge and nibbled on some cold bread.
Eventually, they arrived at the hour that Trixie had arbitrarily decided was their time to leave, so Chrysalis did the good servant minimum of cleaning up after herself before stepping back into the main room.
“And so, by calling her a valet instead of a butler, that means there’s no way she can kill me,” said Trixie.
“Now see, I hadn’t considered how dangerous butlers could be,” said Filthy, honestly astounded. “Perhaps I oughta give Randolph a title change. Though he’d probably want a change in salary. Actually, valet’s the wrong term, ain’t it? After all, it’s specifically a male servant for a stallion.”
Trixie tilted her head. “Weird, why would that be what that means? What’s the right term then?”
“Well if you don’t want to call her a butler, and you want a fancier title than servant, then as the de facto head of your household staff, she’d be the majordomo.”
Trixie stuck her tongue out. “Eugh, no, I want to be nice to her. If I call her a major, she’d be reminded of when she led an army of changelings and she’d get all mopey.”
Unimpressed by Trixie’s niceness, Chrysalis coughed. “Milady, it is time.”
Trixie shot up. “Ah yes, my very full social calendar! It was good talking to you, Rich Pony, and I’ll make sure to do what you asked.”
“I’d appreciate it, Miss Trixie. It was wonderful talking to you!”
Trixie waved as she and Chrysalis walked out, and then her face switched to disgust as soon as the door closed behind them. “Alright, time for Trixie to take a bath and get that old fogey stench off of her.”
Back at her new apartment, Trixie spent much of the afternoon laying on her couch and kicking her hooves. “Ugh, is there really nothing else to do?”
Chrysalis looked again at the calendar, which listed no other events for the rest of the day. “You have to actually make plans if you want things to do. What would you normally do?”
Trixie pulled at her eyelids. “Normally I’d be planning a show, or hanging out with Starlight, or going to work as school counselor—a job that Trixie never quit, she now realizes—but I’m a rich pony now, and I need to do rich pony things otherwise what’s even the point?” She rolled over. “If this was a story, I’d have a nagging aunt trying to get me hitched and the threat of financial ruin to make things exciting.”
Chrysalis tilted her head. “Your current lifestyle is entirely funded by loans, so you’re already under threat of financial ruin.”
Trixie shot up. “Those loans are under Twilight Sparkle’s name, it’s not like I’m in any risk. Though that reminds me, I did actually do something to make things a bit more exciting. We’re in charge of setting up the Hearth’s Warming tree in front of City Hall for tonight’s Aych-Dub Eve Eve celebrations!”
Chrysalis’s eyes widened. “What? Since when?”
“Oh, Rich Pony was in charge of it but I asked him so he gave it to me instead.”
“And when exactly should we be setting up this tree?”
Trixie lazily glanced at the clock. “Oh, huh, we’re already half an hour past when he said we should be there.”
The valet’s eye twitched. “And what happens if we don’t do this?”
“Rich Pony said something about it reflecting badly on him, and we really shouldn’t make him look bad. Something about burying ponies for less.” Trixie thought for a moment. “We should probably go.”
Chrysalis was already out the door.
Trixie and Chrysalis looked at the completely bare tree in front of city hall.
“Hmm. Trixie failed to consider that we would have to provide our own decorations,” said the financially precarious unicorn.
“I can’t believe this,” said the valet, rubbing her forehead.
“Can’t you transform into the decorations? You’re a changeling, after all.”
“I’m not turning into decorations.”
“Not even tinsel?”
“Least of all tinsel.”
“Well I’m not going to walk into a store like a pleb!”
Chrysalis gasped. “You aren’t implying that someone of my stature should walk into a store!”
Her benefactor sighed benevolently. “Trixie tries to be gentle with you, Queasy, but I must remind you that you are my valet and thus you are exactly of the stature to walk into a store! How the hay have you been getting our food if you aren’t doing that?”
“I’ve been ordering other ponies to deliver to our apartment, as is natural of a queen.”
“Ordering other ponies… ordering other ponies! That’s it! We’ll get somepony else to gather ornaments!”
Chrysalis looked past Trixie. “Or, we can cut out the middle-mare.”
A large white pegasus stallion in a too-small sweater daintily pushed a cart full of ornaments and other decorations. With an excited grin, Trixie dashed in front of him. “The Great and Rich and Powerful Trixie greets you, lesser pony!”
The bulky pony reared back. “Ahh! My wallet’s empty, so don’t even try it!”
Trixie waved her hoof. “No need to worry, I have plenty of money, so we won’t rob you.”
“It’s actually the rich ponies that do most of the robbing,” the pegasus said fearfully.
“True that, but Trixie is a new kind of rich pony. One that will give you great sums of money for that cart you have there!”
The pegasus settled down. “Oh, that isn’t so bad.”
“I’ll give you…” Trixie tapped her chin and her eyes lit up. “A cartful of bits!”
Chrysalis interjected. “Milady, I don’t—”
“Deal!” shouted the pegasus.
Trixie slid up to Chrysalis. “You can walk into banks, right?”
The bulky pony dumped his ornaments next to the Hearth’s Warming tree and eagerly accepted the pile of gold bits magically lifted into his cart. With a flutter of his tiny wings, he exclaimed, “Now I can quit one of my jobs!” and sped off.
Trixie checked her expensive pocket watch. “Well would you look at that, we still have time to spare before this is supposed to be done.”
“Mere minutes. We’ll have to hurry to decorate this,” Chrysalis responded.
Trixie looked at her expectantly. Chrysalis sighed and magically decorated the tree by herself.
The former queen worked in a trance, pulling objects randomly off the floor and placing them on the branches haphazardly, saving a glittering star for the very top. When she finally finished and took a step back, she wasn’t too impressed by what she saw, but it seemed to match the gaudy appearance of the rest of the town, at least.
Trixie nodded. “Good, good, looking good. Now we just need to put on the Rich family heirloom ornament.”
Chrysalis blinked twice. “The what?”
“You know, that priceless one of a kind ornament I had you polish earlier. When I convinced Rich Pony that I should handle decorating the tree, he gave it to me to take care of. He said he’d sue me into oblivion if I lost or wrecked it. He was laughing when he said this, but he was serious. I’m pretty sure he’s going mad. But anyway, that’s why I gave it to you.”
Chrysalis paused. “The ornament that you gave me in the Rich Pony Club.”
“Yes, that. Where is it?”
“It’s in the Rich Pony Club, in pieces.”
Trixie approached Chrysalis serenely. “Queasy.” She reared up, grabbed the changeling’s shoulders, and shook her violently. “I’m going to get sued, Queasy! This is a real problem! Not a ha ha problem! A ‘I could go to the sun when Twilight Sparkle notices I’m paying for lawyers with her money’ problem!”
Chrysalis pushed her away. “How was I supposed to know that ornament was important! You just threw it at me without saying anything!”
“I told you to polish it! That means it’s important!” Trixie groaned. “I’m supposed to be the hapless employer and you’re supposed to be the clever servant that gets me out of trouble! Why are you getting Trixie in trouble?!”
Chrysalis started back, slowly exposing her teeth. “Wait, is that what this is? Are we acting out some foalish story for your own amusement?”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “Of course! Why else would I want to be rich?”
The changeling’s rage broke at this question. “W-What?”
“Actual rich creatures suck! They hoard their money and are so lonely that they take over newspapers and countries and social media companies (Other Me told me what those are but I don’t remember) just to force creatures to like them. All while pushing their beliefs on everyone else. But that’s not what rich creatures are like in stories. They get into wacky shenanigans with their servants. Or get killed by them, if the servants are butlers. That’s why Trixie wanted to be a rich pony from out of the stories.”
Chrysalis seethed. “I am queen of what was once a powerful nation! You dare tell me I suck?!”
Trixie waved dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, temporarily disgraced millionaire, we’ve all heard it. Cry me a river! You sucked as a queen, and you aren’t even that anymore!”
With bare fangs, Chrysalis said, “Perhaps turning back to stone won’t be so back if—”
“Now isn’t that a fine looking tree!” said a pony with a gray mane, the still-mayor Mayor Mare.
As the mare approached, Trixie and Chrysalis instantly stood at attention.
Mayor Mare continued, “I must say, I was surprised when I heard who’d be decorating the tree instead of the Riches, but you’ve done a wonderful job, Trixie.”
“The Great and Rich and Powerful Trixie, actually,” the aforementioned corrected.
“And you too, Chrysalis! I’m happy your reformation is going well.”
The changeling made a vague affirmative noise while keeping her lips sealed.
“Well I’ll go ahead and turn on the Hearth’s Warming lights. Oh, come to think of it, you don’t seem to have any lights on the tree.”
With a flick of Trixie’s horn, several sparklers lit up on the tree. “You were saying?” said the magician as her valet looked up in surprise.
The mayor laughed. “Oh, pardon me. I should have expected as much from you, Tr—Great and Rich and Powerful Trixie. Though, uh, is that safe?”
Trixie turned her head to look at the flammable sparks spilling from the tree. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Well, in any case, I hope both of you enjoy the festivities!”
Mayor Mare walked away, leaving the rich pony and her valet alone again.
Trixie chose to speak first. “Look—”
“I’ll be making my leave for tonight,” said Chrysalis. “Festivals don’t agree with me.”
“Oh, yes, of course. As former—” she turned aside and said to herself “—(current?)—” and continued aloud “—school counselor, I know you shouldn’t force yourself to be social. And—”
“Goodbye,” Chrysalis said simply, and walked away.
Trixie stood a moment, then waved as the changeling disappeared down the street.
Trixie sat on a bench near the tree, watching as families and friends strolled by.
“There goes Lil’ Cheese, running off to something,” she said to herself. “And there’s Twilight Sparkle and Rarity, flaunting those brats of theirs. Well, I suppose I should thank them for distracting Sparkle from my money trick.”
Starlight Glimmer approached but Trixie successfully fended her off, as she was committing to a bit and having her best friend there would defeat the point.
“Ugh, I’m so lonely,” Trixie said, sulking. “No friends, no valet. Nothing to bring meaning to the festive season.”
“Yeah, nothing more isolating than being rich.”
“No wonder that old—Gah!”
Trixie looked up to find Filthy Rich chomping on a sugar cookie. “That old what?”
Trixie shot up and swung her leg. “That old mayor puts us rich ponies in charge of the decorations!”
“Oh, haha, Mayor Mare ain’t as old as her mane might make you think, Miss Trixie. Now that tree there is looking mighty swell, huh?”
“Yup! And as the Great and Rich and Powerful Trixie predicted, it isn’t on fire yet!”
“Good thing too. Wouldn’t do if my priceless family heirloom got scorched. I’d sue if that happened. I’d—haha—I swear to Celestia and Twilight and all the princesses. That’s history right there! That’s family! Practically the only bit of family left at home. If that was gone, then, hoo boy, you don’t want to see what’d happen. Now where is that little fella anyway?”
Trixie turned aside. “(My stars, I was hoping he wasn’t serious before, but he really is going mad.)”
“I heard that. I ain’t gonna deny it. I have enough money to get therapy, but also enough money to do other things instead. Like sue. Don’t test me, Miss Trixie. Where. Is. The. Ornament?”
Enough sweat poured down Trixie’s face to put out the sparklers. “Well, uh, I’m sure you can find it right over…” Trixie vaguely waved her hoof all over the tree.
“Now let’s see,” Filthy Rich said as he turned away, his eyes seeking across the branches.
Trixie eyed her purse, loaded with coins. She tested its weight. It’d suffice. She lifted the purse overhead with her magic and then…
“There it is!” Filthy Rich said gleefully. “Took a bit to find, accounting for those sparklers flashing.” He pulled off what was, in fact, the ornament he gave Trixie all those hours ago.
Trixie blinked then quickly composed herself. “Yes, there it is, in a place of honor! Exactly as you requested.”
Filthy gently held the ornament in his hoof and, after a moment’s pause, sighed. “You know, I say this is a family heirloom, but it’s actually from my own foalhood. I was hoping to pass it on to my daughter, but I’m sure everypony knows how that turned out.”
Trixie didn’t know how that turned out, but chose not to interrupt.
Filthy continued, “There’s a lot of memories here, but that’s a stage of my life that’s long passed. I really will go mad if I don’t move on. So, you know what? I’m moving on right now!”
Filthy smashed the ornament against the ground, where it said, “Oof.”
As Filthy stared at the intact ornament in confusion, Trixie jumped in. “Wow, they really made them sturdier back in the day, huh?”
Filthy laughed, a much lighter laugh than the ones before. “I suppose they did. Tell you what, Miss Trixie, you can keep this remarkably sturdy decoration for your own household. Meanwhile, I’ll make things better in my life the best way I know how!”
“Reconnecting with your daugh—”
“Buying a newspaper company!”
Trixie nodded. “Yes, that.”
With his heart starting to heal, Filthy Rich walked back into the festivities.
After a few moments, Trixie said, “He’s gone now.”
With that, the ornament flashed in green flame and transformed into the unicorn’s changeling valet. With a smirk, she said, “I hope that suffices for your ‘servant saving their hapless employer’ story.”
Trixie nodded. “Indeed it does. So you ended up turning into an ornament after all.”
“Unfortunately, yes. I went back to the Rich Pony Club in a failed attempt to put it back together, but I was far too effective at destroying it.”
“Queasy, I really have to th—”
“Make no mistake, I simply decided I’d rather not get petrified again just because of a negative performance review. And once again, don’t call me Queasy.”
Trixie laughed. “Yes, of course. I’ll have to come up with another friendly nickname. Now come, it’s been a long day, let’s head home.”
“Certainly, milady.”
The crowds cleared out as they approached their apartment and Trixie released a groan. “I can’t believe I spent my Hearth’s Warming Eve Eve making that fool happy. Doesn’t Ponyville have anything else to offer for rich pony shenanigans?”
Chrysalis said nothing as the snow fell gently around them. She reflected on Filthy’s earlier ranting, which uncomfortably clung onto her mind. What was she feeling? It couldn’t be empathy, could it?
Lighting up, Trixie put her hooves together. “Of course! The other kind of fictional rich creature! The sexy kind! We’re going on an adventure to find lost treasure!” She winked. “You’ll protect me from the dangers, of course.”
Dismissing her cloudy thoughts, Chrysalis sighed. “Of course.”
Hooves energetically crunching through the snow echoed against the festive ringing of fire alarms.
And thus, The Great and Rich and Powerful Trixie’s adventures continued.
Author's Note
Trixie would give up the adventuring idea after realizing how much research she'd have to do.
