The Revenge of the Powerful Oneby stackChaptersStareFirefliesSmokeAvalancheDragonTaleStareCHAPTER 1: STARE As the words "Ha!, you may have vanquished an Ursa Minor, but you will never have the amazing, show stopping ability of the great and powerful Trixie!" emanated from her mouth, Trixie knew that her pathetic act of bragging behavior was crumpled, and the only thing she could do in that moment was escape from the townsfolk's reprisal and avoid the humiliation she carved on her own. So, in a quick movement, she threw a smoke bomb and immediately turned around and left the town as fast as her legs allowed her. She thought that the town's ponies would follow her, seeking to make her pay for what her scams had caused, which gave her enough motivation to gallop at full speed almost for ten minutes. While running, she realized that she couldn’t stop thinking on the magnificent magical demonstration that Twilight Sparkle had shown back in town, and the embarrassment this made her experience. With this, she set her mind in only one idea. Revenge, but she analyzed the situation a little more carefully, if she was going to take revenge, she should be prepared for anything, she had seen the extraordinary abilities of Twilight, and tried to come up with a coherent explanation on how she got those stupendous powers. “Twilight lives on a library, so maybe she has access to privileged information, such as spells and enchantments of different types", she thought, when suddenly a reliable memory stroke like a lightning, “aha!... now I remember, she is the apprentice of princess Celestia… no wonder where she got those skills!”, she spoke to herself, “what an insult!, to diminish the great and powerful Trixie in such a barbaric way, that sure wasn’t a fair comparison of skills …and now I’m the laugh stock of everypony on that grace forsaken Ponyville!”, she yelled and changed her voice inflection in a derogatory way as she pronounced “Ponyville”. She barely ended that sentence when her front hoofs got jammed in what appeared to be a root popping out of the soil, and due the impulse, flew almost three yards until she crashed on the ground. “Damn earth ponies, looks like they aren’t doing what they should” she said sorely as she got up, Referring to the cleansing of roads. The fall made her cape and hat flew a few yards more, so, with a light movement of her head, the horn popping out her forehead started to glow in a soft pink light, which embraced both, hat and cape, and made them levitate towards the owner and take their respective places. “Looks like they aren’t following me anymore”, she mumbled as realized she hadn’t enough time to analyze her actual surroundings; her surprise was big when she discovered where she was. Her desperate sprint to escape had placed her in a worst case scenario. She was in the Everfree Forest. Trixie was exhausted, and terrified, “I’m so doomed” she thought while walking slowly trough the swampy yet dry soil, fearing the inherent fact that she might encounter with a wildlife’s former member of that fearsome place. She walked a few minutes until a crystalline pond appeared in front of her. A dry, thirsty throat was begging for a gulp of delicious water. She acted by instinct and approached to the pond, slowly reaching the water with her mouth but without stop watching the surroundings. When the cold liquid touched Trixie’s mouth, a greater force made her drink uncontrollably. It was a delight. Suddenly, a hissing, menacing sound assaulted Trixie’s ears, breaking the spell of the refreshing water. She looked around searching for the noise source as a fearful expression was drawn on her face. It sounded again, apparently behind some bushes. Trixie magically grabbed a considerable size rock as she doubtfully approached the source. She was ready to make the first move regardless of what could be behind the bushes. When the head of a chicken came out, for Trixie it wasn’t an unusual event due the fact that ponyville’s economy was propelled mostly for farming activities. “Hmph…to think that such insignificant creature was inspiring terror on me, if you excuse me, I’m busy doing something, so please, get lost”, she said in a cocky presumptuous manner. The creature stood still for a few instants, just staring at the pony, which turned around and left the spot. Then the creature came out completely of the bushes first making the hissing and then roaring in some way, showing to Trixie that it wasn’t a chicken. The begat had a head resembling the one of a chicken except for the sharp teeth and the snake like tongue that could be seen when the creature opened its mouth. The rest of the body was the one of a winged reptile, almost like an adult dragon, but in scale. Trixie lost her breath as the creature stared into her eyes. For some reason she couldn’t move, she was terrified and couldn’t stop thinking that it was destiny teaching a lesson for her despicable behavior. Amazingly, in instants her mind got clear, and calmly, she analyzed the situation. “Whatever this freak is doing to me, it surely has something to do with its glowing eyes” she thought, her horn started to glow and rapidly she took some bindweed branches that were near there, tying and blindfolding the creature. Immediately it started to produce a horrible groan, Trixie was coming back from the trance that the creature’s eyes produced, then she realized of something unbelievable, half of her body was turned into stone. She couldn’t process it entirely before a swarm of chicken headed creatures started to pop out from the surrounding bushes. “Awwww great!, more of these things, this is just lovely!” she said obviously in an ironical way, ”what a glorious way to perish!…with a bunch of freaks staring at you…I feel like a superstar”, she yelled, trying to soften the idea that this was really her end. The transformation was almost done and the only thing that wasn’t stone yet was her face, when suddenly a mysterious pony wearing a hood came out of nowhere sprinkling yellow dust all over the place making the all the monsters fall asleep, the transformation stopped and the stranger pinched Trixie’s nose with something that looked like a golden needle, “hey!”, Trixie yelled. The petrification started to regress. “T-Thank you…that was really close” said Trixie stuttering to the stranger as she turned normal again. “Don’t thank me; we better get going home, before more monsters get here”. Trixie noticed the rhyme in the sentence as she followed the stranger to wherever she was going, at least was better than staying alone on the woods. FirefliesCHAPTER 2: FIREFLIES Trixie had followed the stranger for several minutes trough a path hidden with creepy shaped trees, the moonlight was disappearing as they were going further and Trixie could barely see were she was walking. “Seems that you are familiar with this awful place, may I ask your name?”, Trixie said in a confident and stoic tone while discretely glimpsed at the little space of mare’s leg that her robes didn’t covered completely, she noticed strange marks. The stranger remained in silence for a while, then, she turned around facing Trixie and spoke, “we are near my place, so stay quiet and follow the trace”, she said and turned around again, pointing something with her right hoof. Trixie couldn’t see anything at the direction that the stranger pointed, suddenly, a small dot started to glow followed by hundreds more, they where fireflies and they were making a trace that the stranger was following. Trixie was so amazed that her face couldn’t hide an obvious surprise. As both followed the fireflies, Trixie noticed that they were on complete darkness except for the fluorescent light of the small insects. “You know where are you going, are you?, because if we are lost I’m going to…”, Trixie hadn’t completed the sentence when a light more brighter than the one of the fireflies started to appear in the distance. Both approached quietly. When they were near enough to distinguish something, Trixie was surprised for the rare and picturesque home of the stranger. It was a tree of twisted shape with many bottles filled with colorful liquids hanging from its branches and ornamental masks scattered everywhere. “Now that we are safe, I will tell you my name”, said the stranger calmly, “Zecora they call me and this is my home, feel free to enter and sleep all night long”. “I will, thank you; I’m Trixie by the way”. Both entered to the house. Zecora unveiled her face as she asked, “so tell me young filly, what is your business in this forest, or are you just so silly?”, Trixie was a little surprised by Zecora’s aspect, but didn’t said anything about it and answered the question, ”it’s a long story, but, let’s just say that I’m a magician”. Zecora was clearly thrilled and quickly said, “UHUHU… so here’s another partner in the magic arts, please tell me, is there any knowledge you can grant?”. Trixie stared sadly at the ground. “You see, my knowledge in magic is scarce, I’m more of an entertainer” said Trixie slowly. Zecora remained silent for a moment, then spoke, ”I see, knowledge is what you seek, if you allow me, I can teach you what I know, at a cost very low”. Trixie stared at Zecora with incredulity in her eyes. ”So, what can you teach me, and more important, what do you want in return?”, said Trixie proudly and impolitely. “The properties of plants and herbs I can teach you, to prevent diseases and ailments, and to gain strength from most of them, the only fee you must make to gain this, is to complete all of my training”. Trixie remained quiet, almost like considering the offer. “And what about powerful magic, can you teach me something like that?”, said in a slightly desperate tone. “I don’t think so “, replied Zecora seriously, ”from where I came from, there’s a powerful magic called voodoo, to bad for you that here is called taboo”. A long silence invaded the conversation. Trixie started to remember how Zecora saved her from the chicken headed creatures. “That was amazing, I could barely stand against one of those monsters…if that knowledge can help me to handle situations like those, it might be wise to learn something from this pony”, she thought. “I think we have a deal Zecora, but I’m afraid that I can’t stay here much time, there is something I must do”. “Very well, I’ll teach you what I know, so be careful and start taking note”. “May I ask why you are teaching me for free?”, said Trixie curious. “It’s a tradition of my people that I must obey, to take an apprentice to all my knowledge convey”, said Zecora reassuringly. Trixie smiled slightly. “Ok, tomorrow I’ll start my training, you’ll prove me that my time I’m not wasting”, said Trixie in a cocky way, trying to imitate Zecora’s unique speech. Both laughed confidently as they laid respectively on two improvised hay beds and fell asleep. SmokeCHAPTER 3: SMOKE Her mind was returning from a land of bizarre thoughts and visions as Trixie awakened slowly wearing a flamboyant tousled mane style. “Trixie!, wake up already, I need your help on something!”, Zecora shouted, disturbing Trixie’s habit of staying more time on bed after arousal, but she noticed how Zecora didn’t made a clever rhyme on her sentence and whispered sarcastically, “this must be serious”, using an irony touch on the phrase as she got up. Barely able to walk and her eyes still closing, she managed her way to the door, just to see Zecora staring firmly at the morning sky. “If your training has ‘feng shui’ and ‘inner peace’ garbage, I’m sorry darling but I’m afraid I’m leaving!” Trixie said with inconspicuous anger, clearly she was moody after her nap interruption. “Look above your head, and you shall see a real threat”, said Zecora, returning again to her singular habit. “Fine, fine” Trixie replied as yawned, having finished, Trixie slowly opened her eyes fearing that sunrays might hurt her “20/20” vision; but there was no sunlight at all, an the every day blue sky was replaced by a ditch black, humongous cloud. All Trixie’s sluggishness disappeared instantly, and was replaced with fear. “What in the name of Equestria is this smoke coming from?!” Trixie paused briefly and continued, “is that for what you needed my help, a forest fire?! Buck that!” exclaimed with notorious fear on her words. Zecora looked at Trixie for a moment with a serious expression on her face. “A fire I’m afraid this threat is not, clearly that smoke is from a dragon’s snore”. Trixie was speechless. “D-D-Dragon y-you say?” Trixie said stuttering, suddenly her mind went blank. “Hey…Remember that thing that I needed to do?, well its not done yet and I really need to go back and do it because it needs to be done, so, is not my intention to offend your voodoo traditions but I’m leaving right now!”, said the blue unicorn as she grabbed her hat and cape and tried to leave at full speed. Fear had taken the best of her. Zecora remembered the talk they had last night and asked calmly, “may I ask what is this thing you must do?” Not referring to the excuse but to the only thing that kept Trixie from “waste” time. It worked perfectly. The filly stopped her crazy escape attempt and stared to the ground. “The great and powerful Trixie’s matters are not of your concern”, she said trying to cast away fear and replace it with her usual confident, presumptuous manners. ”Don’t boast about strength because I saved your life from the cockatrices”, said Zecora referring to the chicken headed creatures, she continued. “And since you owe me, I have all the right to ask for your help”. Tension invaded the situation as both remained silently staring at each other. “I tell you what” said Zecora finally. “If you help me to drive away the dragon, I will teach you how to become stronger”. The vague sentence caught Trixie’s total attention, mainly the word “stronger”. Trixie was over analyzing things. “Decisions, decisions…Ok, in one hand, I go with Zecora, intimidate the sleeping beauty and I become ‘stronger’, without forgetting that insignificant life risking factor; and in the other I leave, and stay the same…alive…and without cleaning my name”. Similar thoughts filled Trixie’s mind, suddenly, she glanced at the real source of the smoke. Apparently pride won the battle, and as her fear momentarily vanished and her expressions gained confidence while she approached Zecora, Both realized that the cloud emanating from the tall mountain grew bigger and it was overcasting the team’s sight. Trixie couldn’t avoid asking how two ponies could scare a fully grown dragon. “Alone we can’t, but with this…”, Zecora replied confidently as she grabbed one of the bottles hanging on the house’s branches, and talked again, but Trixie didn’t put much attention on what Zecora said, for her mind was wondering in the many possibilities of this quest. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea after all”, Trixie whispered to herself as the fear grew stronger again. “Let’s go!” Zecora yelled, breaking the trance of Trixie’s fear, in consequence, the blue unicorn started to follow the zebra galloping rampantly to the smoke’s source. As Trixie galloped along, she started to notice that Zecora was wearing her robes and was carrying three bottles, two, filled with water and the one with the blue colored potion. “That potion…What does it do?” said Trixie while galloping, Zecora replied roughly, “shut up, or you’ll be tired soon enough”. “Humph!” Trixie moaned turning her head away and closing her eyes in grievance as she kept up with Zecora’s trot. They had been travelling almost for thirty minutes, when they reached the mountain’s foot, unfortunately, Trixie was too tired to continue, Zecora noticed, and even she could easily go on, she suggested to take a little break before starting climb the mountain. Trixie was relieved, and as she sat on the grass, Zecora gave her one of the water filled bottles and Trixie didn’t hesitated to drink relentlessly. Once her thirst was satisfied, she returned the bottle and asked Zecora if she also had something to eat. “Eat the grass, and your hunger will pass” Zecora replied with mischievousness on her voice. Trixie declined the offer with a frown. “Now that we aren’t running, can you tell me what that potion does? And most important, for what do you need my help?” Trixie inquired. Zecora remained silent a few seconds, probably trying to make a verse to answer, but she gave up, in any case, it was pointless to talk with clever rhymes if she had nothing exceptional or meaningful to say. “This potion tames even the most deadly creatures if smelled…For a short amount of time, the main ingredient for this to work is a plant called poison joke, among other compounds, if we have luck we’ll surely…” “Have enough time to drive away a dragon I presume…So where I fit in this suicidal plan?” Said Trixie, interfering on Zecora’s speech with her characteristic speaking manners. “You will give the potion to the beast in aid of your magic powers…” Trixie didn’t objected at the idea, but her face said it all. “What I gain with helping you? Explain me the ‘strength’ thing”. “…Back home I have a book that can teach you many things, you help me with the dragon affair, and that book gladly to you I will give…” The nebulous phrase filled Trixie’s mind with all sorts of questions, so many that she couldn’t compose a coherent enough to ask. Zecora understood and sighed. She explained calmly to Trixie that the book she was talking about it was called a “Grimoire”, and it was a compendium of magical knowledge, sadly, not being able to wield magic on the most primitive stage, as unicorns do, she couldn’t unlock the full potential of the artifact, than rather being a “normal” book, it counted with magical properties by itself. Trixie’s jaw hanged loosely from its joint. She was totally unaware that something like that existed, being possible that neither Twilight Sparkle or any pony did. An unexpected turn on events had given her the opportunity to improve her magic skills enormously and to increase her knowledge with whatever the Grimoire contained, hopefully, she had a chance to stand against her new nemesis, clean her name, and to prove to everypony and also herself that she was really destined to be the greatest equine who had ever lived…or at least a powerful enough to defeat princess Celestia’s apprentice. Zecora saw the mischievous grin that Trixie portrayed on her face while staring blankly to the ground, and started wondering if offering the artifact to the arrogant unicorn had been a good idea. Zecora didn’t knew for sure, but, as long as Trixie helped to get rid of the dragon, she would hand the artifact as promised. Trixie stood up and said with extreme eagerness, “We have a dragon to meet”. AvalancheCHAPTER 4: AVALANCHE It was a hard to walk path the one that both zebra and unicorn had chosen alike, it was placed in a very declivitous angle and the gravity was wearing of Trixie’s strength. After having travelled halfway to the top, the only thing that moved Trixie’s body, almost like a lifeless marionette, was the solely desire of studying the Grimoire’s contents. What could be inside the pages of the book? she wondered. Obviously, a certain part of the book would have some of Zecora’s knowledge, but what could be on the remaining pages? Hopefully something that could provide a smooth introduction on advanced magic, since Trixie’s only noticeable ability was illusionism, and she wasn’t too talented at that anyway. As they reached a more flat edge to walk on and Trixie’s muscles were pain freed, the Grimoire idea lured Trixie’s mind and the more she thought about it the more started to seem like a scam, “why Zecora would want to willingly give an artifact like that? Having the chance to sell it for a obscene high price, or do more prolific things with such a powerful item ”, Trixie’s tainted mind forced her to think it was a kind of trap, but conjecturing thoughts wasn’t a fond enough habit to come up with a credible explanation for Zecora’s doing. Trixie’s thought process guided her to two possible conclusions. It could be a trap or, a destiny’s gift, either way, the little information on the situation made impossible for Trixie to picture the whole background. She gave up at figuring Zecora’s purpose, and, flattened, asked for the Zebra’s motivation. Zecora remained thoughtful, trying to give an answer to the boastful blue unicorn, starting to talk as a spark of sadness briefly illuminated her face. “The reasons of why I left my home are not of your concern…But …” she said and remained silent for a few instants, exhaled in sign of relief and continued, in a more relaxed manner. “I am no longer in my home country because…I was exiled…and I’m staying in Equestria illegally that is why I live on the forest, hiding, but yet studying the environment, flora and fauna as equal. Sadly the pony folk of that nearby village have made up their minds at thinking that I’m some sort of evil enchantress, and that has made harder for me to request an audience with the ruler of these lands…” Trixie didn’t understood why Zecora needed ponyville in order to legalize her residence in Equestria. That reminded the disgust she felt for that village. “Why do you need those neighing hypocrites to go and see the princess?” Trixie inquired with resentment on her words, completely forgetting about the fact that it would be an unpleasant and nearly impossible task for a wingless equine to reach Canterlot’s castle. “A few weeks ago I saw a flying carriage land in the village’s center, once the passengers stepped out, the carriage returned to that city over the mountains, and I was hoping to ask if they could take me to that city”. Trixie realized that the carriage Zecora had seen was no other than Twilight’s and also, that she was really lucky to have met the zebra before anyone else. While both walked relatively slowly than before, the chilly mountain air started to flow strongly and a peaceful atmosphere started to embrace the surroundings, at least for Trixie. The giant smoke trial was still covering the sky and almost all sun light. The landscape looked really gloomy, but that was how Trixie liked it, instead of having a happy one with the burning sun on her skin. Suddenly, the ears of both, unicorn and zebra, were struck with an unexpected noise. It had been the echo of a voice that screamed something and abruptly stopped before completing the barely distinguishable word. “Did it said…Avalanche!?” Trixie thought loudly as the floor beneath their hooves started to quiver. Both equines looked at each other alarmed, knowing that it was matter of seconds for the mountain walls to bury them alive. With out hesitate; both sprinted forward following the mountains edge path, as the walls started to disintegrate, releasing a massive debris storm. Trixie, hardly able of walking due her muscular fatigue, pushed her strengths to the limit, trying to avoid the gigantic boulders that were threatening their lives. It was almost a miracle that Trixie could keep up with Zecora while running. All of a sudden, a colossal stone was detached from a wall ahead and started to roll downhill, judged by its size, it could easily destroy a great part of the edge in which they were galloping, preventing them from reaching the top. Both noticed this, and rushed to surpass the boulder’s trajectory. For Trixie, the speed they were reaching was unbelievable, she hadn’t run like that in her entire life, but apparently it wasn’t fast enough to surpass the boulder, which crashed on the edge and left an enormously wide gap. Trixie quickly thought in stop, but her speed was too much and she was extremely near of the fall, which left her with only one solution to save her life. Jump hoping to reach the other extreme of the gap. “Ready?” said Zecora instants before jumping, Trixie nodded with determination on her eyes as she impulsed herself with her front legs taking off the ground, and reassuring the jump with her back legs. Zecora landed a few inches away the edge, but Trixie barely reached the border with her front hooves. Apparently the strength that Trixie printed on her jump was not enough to take her body completely to the other side, and holding tightly she screamed for help. Zecora quickly turned around and grabbed the cape of the blue unicorn with her mouth and diligently helped her to step up. Trixie’s heart was pounding harder than ever and the adrenaline flowing trough her veins was making all her body to shake uncontrollably. This was the second time that Zecora had saved her life and she was grateful for that, but didn’t show much gratitude to the zebra, since she was the main reason why Trixie was on that life risking quest. Having passed the rush of that experience, both set their minds again in the goal that kept them together, the dragon. At first Trixie was terrified, dealing with the idea of being roasted by dragon flames, but after the avalanche, she had an epiphany of an inherent quality of life. She could die anywhere at anytime, it didn’t mattered if it was fighting against monsters or being crushed by giant rocks. As obvious as this may seem, Trixie hadn’t bothered to think like that since a long time ago. Her lifestyle travelling from town to town ridiculously feeding her ego had fogged up her mind and her perception of reality had been dancing in clouds picturing herself as a great and powerful magician. The recent events had brought back her hooves to the ground, and if she weren’t so frustrated at her magical incompetence, she might think that her nemesis was unconsciously doing her a favor. They had walked for a few hours, and for Trixie, the top of the mountain seemed to retrocede by every feeble step she advanced, Zecora was exhausted too, but not as much as the blue mare, and both, were holding tightly to the hope that whoever caused the avalanche didn’t do it again, they certainly wouldn’t survive another obstacle like that, at least, not in what was their situation. Deciding to take a break near a lifeless tree, both realized that one of the bottles that Zecora was carrying had broken in the avalanche. Both released an ambiguous exhalation of relief, while discovering that the broken bottle was no other than the one with most of the water. Their thirst wouldn’t be seized, but at least they still had the potion. DragonCHAPTER 5: DRAGON The fatigue had passed but the thirst was still a nuisance; the grey sky poured a bad omen upon the adventurers as they slowly resumed their pace towards the dragon’s lair. Trixie, dusting off her cape and hat, started to wonder what would be the proper approach to a simple but risky plan like the one Zecora had in mind. Trixie’s only participation in the plan was to pour the potion on the reptile’s nose; Zecora would handle the rest, at least that’s how Trixie pictured the strategy. “Its easy… we get in, I pour the thing on the giant nose… from a safe distance of course, Zecora does whatever she’s going to do, we get out and everypony happy…Its easy”. The blue mare had slightly overcome the fear of a taunting death, but as simple as that plan sounded, there were so many variants in the possible derivative events; from being praised as heroes to a rampaging dragon tearing ponyville apart. Trixie realized that they were entering into the Mouth of the Wolf without enough precautions and, depending on her consequent actions rested the wellbeing of many creatures; certainly a big responsibility for such an individualistic pony. Trixie tried to ask Zecora if she had a “plan B” of some sort, but her attempt clogged with the unpleasant feeling of hot air flowing trough her thirsty and dry throat, that immediately made a panting sound, almost like coughing. Both remained silent during the remaining path. A few hours passed while the pair reached the mountain’s peak, Trixie was expecting to see a dragon size entrance to an ominous cave and a smoke curtain hiding a devilish beast, waiting for victims to roast in pursuit of amusement; but what the landscape pictured was tranquilizing yet baffling for the unicorn. It was a flat wall with a considerably smaller hole than the one Trixie imagined, the smoke wasn’t coming out from that entrance, but the unicorn could still see the black trial of smoke pouring out of the mountain, but from the opposite side. Soon, Trixie understood why Zecora lead the way behind the cave. “Is better if we take this beast with a surprise, this will give us the advantage, I think it is the most wise”, Said Zecora reassuring Trixie’s thoughts, whom stared at the zebra with disapproval. “Seriously? You just came up with a rhyme for that?!” Said Trixie with a bit of bitterness and annoyance in her voice and overcoming the displeasure of an irritated throat. To which Zecora answered with a shrug and a particular combination of embarrassment and nervousness depicted on her face. “Let’s go in then”, said Zecora after a long pause, that directed Trixie’s attention into the tunnel ahead of them. It was a small and narrow crack in the wall, in which barely both fitted; walking one behind the other seemed to be the most efficient way to advance. Erosion seemed to be the main cause of the placement of that convenient tunnel, which was a remnant of an antique water stream of some sort. With every step given, the darkness was growing thicker and blocking the team’s sight. Zecora was leading the way, and apparently her eyes were more adaptable than the ones of the mare, who was constantly colliding with several obstacles, mostly, the walls and several stalagmites scattered in the cavern’s course, which seemed to be an intricate labyrinth, or that’s what Trixie’s orientation senses perceived. The blue unicorn again started to carefully study the whole scenario, repeating the words “it’s simple” in her frightened yet eager thoughts. As they advanced further and further into the depths of the darkened cavern, Trixie noticed that her vision capabilities were being restored by a minuscule glow of golden light, coming from what seemed to be the exit of the narrow hall in which they had walked for several minutes, but for Trixie, it felt like an eternity of waiting. Seeing and also taming real a dragon for the first time on her life was a shocking yet exiting task, and also in her case, enormously rewarding. Trixie’s body started to feel the effects of the adrenaline and started to involuntarily accelerate the pace, forcing Zecora to do the same. Every step towards the light made Trixie’s enthusiasm grow stronger. The time had come, the perfect occasion to prove herself worthy and powerful, if she could do this, there wouldn’t be anymore doubts about her capabilities. Although the task of pouring something on a sleeping dragon’s nose from afar was risky rather than challenging, but for Trixie, it was really a big deal; coming from a boastful, mediocre phony with many fears, this slightly mindless and impulsive display of courage and determination was something worth praising. The light was intensifying its brightness as they reached the exit. At first Trixie couldn’t see a thing, the change between light intensity was too abrupt, so much, that she thought they reached the other extreme of the cave, then, Zecora whispered “Are you ready for this?” Trixie was disconcerted, she couldn’t see a thing and started to wonder the worst, “I’m blind?!?” she said with apprehension, Zecora’s words meant that she had the dragon in sight but she only saw an intense white glow; she was paralyzed and so scared that she didn’t realize that she could distinguish her own blinking. Trixie’s mind was being filled with visions of a life with an impediment like that; suddenly she started to mumble in awe. “Oh no…p-p-please…this can’t be real…help me…Ze-Zecora… The great and powerful Trixie is b-blind!” Zecora noticed Trixie’s situation and chuckled as she approached to the motionless mare. “Is that laughter what I hear?! How you dare to laugh at this disastrous situ…” Trixie couldn’t finish the sentence because of the sturdy nudge Zecora gave her, taking off the unicorn’s balance and making her tilt to the left. Trixie was going to complaint, but then, her eyes illustrated the surroundings. “I’m not blind!” Trixie rejoiced with a shout of victory, showing her relatively low self awareness. “Shhhhhhhhhh!” “Ok”, she said whispering, acknowledging her ironical failure at being cautious. Slowly focusing the images, her eyes were returning to normal just to welcome her with an incredible and unexpected glimpse of "paradise”. What was blinding Trixie was a beam of sun light coming from a small hole on the cavern’s ceiling, same that was being reflected on a troublesomely placed shiny tray, resting in what seemed to be…gold. Trixie gasped in astonishment as she scanned the entire scene. From bottom to top, the center of the room was occupied by an exquisite collection of relics, such as swords, crowns, canes, chalices, and other various ornaments, all covered in gold and decorative gems, and scattered around a vast pile of bits; pile which happened to be the divan of a gargantuan red beast. The mare was perplexed; she couldn’t split her bewilderment between the magnificent treasure and the bizarrely magnificent creature. Despite of her obvious interest in the fortune exposed, the dragon dragged more of his attention. Unaware of dragon’s behavior as a species, she approached slowly, carefully trying to make the less sound as possible. Avoiding the disturbance of noise, Trixie glanced at the dragon’s tail, studying curiously its reptile-like skin pattern, noticing how scales seemed to become slim at the tip of the appendix in comparison of the voluminous ones covering the rest of the body; she also noticed a peculiar line of soft red elongated scales travelling across the dragon’s back. It was a morbid delight to contemplate such magnificent yet deadly creature. The dragon snorted stridently liberating a stream of black smoke from its nose, and made the ground tremble for few instants, breaking Trixie’s observation trance and pouring some logic into her actions. She turned around and nodded to Zecora showing her disposition to proceed with the operation; Zecora understood and moved her head aside making a gesture to indicate the path to turn around and face the gigantic lizard. [color=silve r]________________________________________________________________________________ There it was, the humongous face of the red beast; this time Trixie wasn’t distracted by the looks of the lizard, anyway, it wouldn’t be a smart move if she approached and accidentally disturbed the dragon’s sleep. Both were covering behind a boulder emerging from the soil, its size was enough to shelter both equines while kneeling, providing them with a temporarily safe spot if anything went out of control. “Ok Zecora, now tell me how to do this”, Trixie whispered. “Just pour the potion and rub it around the nose holes, make sure that the dragon takes a deep breath before...” Zecora suddenly noticed unclear sounds coming from the distant main entrance of the cave and her words clogged in awe. What could that be? Both thought while covering behind the rock. The noise grew louder; it reassembled a metronome, repeating the same squeaking sound in a regular rhythm. With her curiosity tingling, Trixie couldn’t avoid to peak above the rock to discover what was causing the sound, the responsible was approaching and soon it would be in plain sight. Trixie and Zecora were anxious to see what kind of creature produced such familiar yet uncertain noise, almost like a paper blowout. Gradually, a shape started to emerge among the smoke; it was some kind of deformed creature with the strangest body shape that Trixie had ever seen. From what she could differentiate, the monster had frog-like legs attached to a strangely shaped cubic body. It seemed like its head, if that irregular shape could be called head, was placed in front of the body like any other quadruped, mainly, because it looked like its “tongue” came out when it made the squeaking sound. But there was something that kept bothering both adventurers, and it was some sort of uneven floating formation that followed the body directly from above. It was an unusual sighting. The thick fog of smoke made difficult to see the strange being completely, but it seemed like it was approaching directly to the dragon with an awkward and lumbering pace. But when the creature was near enough of the dragon’s reach, it was clear that this was also an unwanted guest in the cave. As the weird shaped creature squeaked something resembling words, far from Trixie’s tympanic membrane to really understand the creature’s gibberish, the dragon lifted its claw and hit the creature, almost approximating to the same way of ponies to scare away flies. The dragon’s waving limb eventually smashed accurately the fast dodging creature, and propelled it several meters in the air, aiming to land directly to the adventurers hiding place. After the expected abrupt landing of the bizarre creature, it took a wile for Trixie and Zecora to realize that it wasn’t a mythological creature of some sort, but merely a common pink earth pony wearing a shocking yet pointless costume. The pony was wearing some hypnosis pun glasses, a clown nose and a fake mustache, almost covering all her face of unwanted eyes, but this was really the purpose? Trixie thought. The thing resembling a tongue was certainly a paper blowout and Trixie was ashamed of her previous coercion to this chump. The cubic body of the “creature” was conformed by a body-size gift wrapped box, and the frog like legs, barely distinguishable among the smoke, were plain swimming fins, also, the uneven floating form was a bunch of balloons tied to the gift ribbon, nearly all exploded in the crash. As Trixie prepared an insulting speech to show her displeasure to the pink imp, this stood up, unable to see a thing cause of her silly specs, and turned around heading for the exit in a faint way of walk. Trixie was outraged, and as she inhaled to release an impulsive and mindless scream to complaint about the imp’s insolence, she noticed three balloons as the scallywag’s cutie mark. This triggered a recent memory; Trixie wasn’t too good remembering faces, besides the fact that the pink pony was hiding hers pathetically, but she could spot this as one of the pastry chefs working on the ponyville’s bake store. Same that Trixie visited before the Ursa’s attack. Finding a pastry chef possibly trying to do the same as the zebra and unicorn was certainly a peculiar coincidence. Something seemed suspicious about this, but it didn’t mattered. As the pink fellow approached the exit, the reptilian beast awoke with hastiness and it seemed anything but pleased. Trixie knew this was the time to act. In a tremendous display of courage…Or stupidity, Trixie grabbed the potion and sprinted towards the dragon. “Now hideous creature, behold how the great and powerful Trixie subjugates you!” She was already risking her life so a little bit of her habitual presumptuousness was permitted; it wasn’t the right approach though. The dragon showing disregard to the relatively insignificant phony, inhaled a mouthful of air and exhaled a tremendous flare. Trixie’s fears were materializing, but there was no time to regret, just to react. Instinctively, Trixie grabbed her cape with her hoof as she shielded her face with it. “What a fool…now I’m dead for sure”, Trixie’s “last” thoughts were the product of such impulsive and numb action, but something was wrong, few instants passed and she wasn’t combusting in pain as previously pictured. Trixie still heard that flare blowing sound, curiosity made her draw aside her cape and take a glimpse. It was unbelievable what her eyes saw. A semi spherical wall of coins, jewels and ornaments were protecting her from the deadly flames. At first Trixie couldn’t find a rational explanation to this, but, as the seconds went by she realized that she was actually the holder of that golden shield. Apparently the previous motion triggered Trixie’s magic unconsciously, forming that convenient armor. “HAHAHA!” Trixie laughed in ecstasy, bringing enough bewilderment to make the dragon stop its attack. Trixie noticed the halt of the flames, poured out her magic and jumped out the shelter yelling, “Have at you sucker!” throwing the whole potion bottle. The dragon attempted again to melt the blue pest, inhaling deeply to exhale fire, but before the beast could do something, a cracking sound assaulted the ears of the presents. Apparently, Trixie’s throw resulted accurate enough to hit the dragon’s palate, smearing the blue potion through the lizard’s throat. This didn’t kept the dragon from trying to roast the unicorn, but when it exhaled, the fire was replaced by the same black smoke covering the sky. This offered a perfect chance to sneak around and return to where Zecora was hiding. “What you did?” Zecora asked. “I shove the potion in the throat of that prick”, Trixie answered proudly pointing at the dragon with her hoof as she mischievously chuckled, “Now go on, do your domestication thing so we can go for my book”. “The potion doesn’t work like that, I told you to rub it on the nose, not to shove it in the throat!” Zecora answered unpleased. Trixie blanched in terror for her fault as she heard an uncanny familiar voice, consequently the dragon emitted a treacherous roar and its enormous silhouette headed outside. Both followed the reptile, hoping to stop any demonstrations of rampaging destruction. As both reached the exit, their eyes were met with an ambiguously unpleasant vision. There it was the pastry chef plus other four or five ponies, all unknown to Zecora, almost all indistinguishable and for Trixie, except by one. “Twilight…” Trixie whispered in anger. The dragon was about to strike down all the ponies with its fire breath, but, as happened before, instead of fire, a stream of smoke emanated from the dragon’s mouth; it seemed as if the potion had something to do with the loss of the characteristic dragon’s ability. Suddenly a yellow Pegasus emerged from the small crowd and yelled “How dare you”, distracting Trixie from her astounded nemesis. Flying towards the dragon’s face nagging the beast with and unsuitable argument for the situation, the yellow Pegasus was asking for an unpleasant death. That’s when Trixie remembered, that voice was the one that caused the avalanche while ago, an overflow of contradictory feelings flooded Trixie’s mind, wanting to adjust counts with the one that almost killed her, she could deal later with Twilight, humiliation wasn’t worse than death, but she knew her place and it was too soon to act, preferring to stay hidden in the cave. “They need our help!” Zecora interrupted the unsettling thoughts. “No”, replied Trixie with seriousness, “Haven’t you identified that voice yet?” “I know, but still they need us”. Trixie was so surprised by this answer that she couldn’t avoid turning her head and stare at the zebra in astonishment. Trixie’s mind was building the proper answer to depict her annoyance when something unlikely and ridiculous happened. It was the dragon, acting like a pitiful child trying to give justification of its acts to the yellow nagger, the potion miraculously worked. Trixie wasn’t giving too much attention to the dialog between the dragon and the Pegasus, but when the humongous lizard started to cry, she had enough. “It seems that they don’t need us anymore”, Trixie said as she turned around and headed towards the treasure. “A stinky pile of…how dare you boohoohoo…that’s what she needs… she almost killed me…what a jerk…” Trixie grumbled with disdain depicted on her face as she took off her hat and started to fill it with treasure until it lost its original shape, replacing it with an uneven round form. Carrying the booty with her magic, she addressed to Zecora. “The job is done, and my part of the bargain was effectuated…Now I demand my reward”, said Trixie arrogantly. Zecora nodded in acceptance, and both headed to the tunnel where they came from. Luckily, Trixie could step in the tunnel with the hat full of wealth, acknowledging the bigger treat that was expecting her in Zecora’s home. TaleCHAPTER 6: TALE Her mind was returning from a land of bizarre dreams and visions as Trixie awakened slowly wearing a flamboyant tousled mane style. A few months had passed since that dreadful first day of training, now Zecora’s relationship with Trixie was slowly evolving from being simple comrades to true reciprocity between teacher and apprentice. A new set of humble skills had been added to Trixie’s abilities, such as the basics of Equestrian botanic knowledge, potion elaboration and a little bit of beginner alchemy. Trixie was pleased with her improvements. The ingredients filled shelves; the black cauldron and even that obnoxious pile of gold and jewels had become a familiar sighting, but there was something eerie about Trixie’s Grimoire. ________________________________________________________________________________ It was rare to see someone near the mountain’s foot at late afternoon, but there they were, descending at a sluggish pace, showing the physical exhaustion that the journey had caused. “Felling well my young pupil? I hope you are ready to get on your duty”, Zecora rhymed poorly but humorously. “I guess so, The Great and Powerful Trixie cannot refuse such an opportunity to learn something advantageous, but first, I need a well deserved rest, don’t you think?” replied the blue unicorn, with a barely distinguishable grin while magically levitating her gold filled hat. The sun was disappearing in the horizon as both entered the Everfree forest, reminding Trixie with her previous encounter with the Cockatrices, and coating fear into her thoughts. She wasn’t aware of the vast diversity of deadly creatures living in that forest, but she had heard a few rumors before, rumors in which she founded her worries. “Tell me more about the…Grimoire”, said Trixie inquiring unexpectedly, but she wasn’t met with an immediate answer. Zecora took her time to respond and finally said, “Wait until we arrive home, and you shall see the mighty tome, don’t despair or taunt while we’re heading there, you soon will see this bargain was more than fair”. The shocking meaning of the rhyme restored some hope on Trixie; she couldn’t wait to learn some advanced alteration and elemental spells, the most familiar magic schools to Trixie…And almost every filly in all of Equestria. The path felt shorter than Trixie imagined and, luckily, both arrived to Zecora’s hut in ease. Eagerness was taking over Trixie’s body as they crossed the hut’s old wood door, rushing trough the entire scene looking for what she thought the book would look like, a huge tome with leather paste and seemingly yellow pages, but nothing resembling that came on sight. Zecora chuckled at Trixie’s hastening and said, “Patience is bliss, too bad you don’t have this, now time for your reward, I hope you use it ‘wisely’ afterwards”. The zebra approached to one of the most crowded shelves, and carefully moved several potion bottles, just teasing Trixie’s anticipation, then, it finally appeared. Slightly smaller and different than Trixie imagined, Zecora produced the book pulling it out with her mouth; without hesitation, the excited unicorn magicked out the book from Zecora’s jaws and stared alertly analyzing the tome. It sure had a peculiar yet pleasing appearance, offering to Trixie that rewarding sensation of authenticity. With golden ornaments adorning the four angles of the dark blue leather paste, it was placed, in what seemed to be the front cover, an unknown symbol to Trixie, carved profoundly in the paste, presumably for embellishment purposes. The curious symbol dragged certain attention from Trixie, who asked, “These marks, what do they mean?” Zecora, unable to answer, made a slight shrug as she ironically said, “I don’t know”. Deviating from the previous matters, Trixie began to wonder many things regarding to the book’s usage. “Can you explain me more about this artifact?” the magician asked. “What do you want to know?” that common yet vague way to answer tilted Trixie’s memory, who after a short pause continued the conversation in a tenser way. “Well…First of all I want you to tell me where did you found this and why do you want to give it to me”, an eyebrow raised in doubt. “I want to give it to you because you helped me with the dragon, as I promised”, said Zecora slightly confused by Trixie’s redundant question, “as for the place where I found the tome, I guess I just got lucky…” “Seriously?” anger and disbelief sprout from Trixie’s mouth, “At least give me some details!” Now it was somewhat clear why Trixie hadn’t opened the book to see its contents; she wasn’t sure of what she would find there or if she could trust the zebra, even after all they went trough. Acknowledging Zecora’s superiority as an alchemist, the idea of getting sedated and becoming an experimentation subject, just by sniffing some strange powder hidden inside the book was luring her volatile and unstable imagination, even while she had a slight advantage in spell casting. “Some needs are quite hard to satisfy when you are living in exile… you must take what you need from others who don’t, and hope you’re doing the right thing”, she paused to see the unicorn, which was clearly indifferent to her morale message, and seemed to want a concrete answer right away. The zebra sighted and with calm depicted on her expressions, started to describe how she found such useful item. “Many years ago when I was young and naive, Adimu, my village, was the place to be. With friends and family, it sure was a happy home. Although we were a small community surrounded by savannah, we were well connected to the surrounding villages and the vast plains of our country offered a great variety of things to do in order to improve our lives. There were beast and monsters sharing the land and living among us, so it was the job of the ‘warrior’s brigade’ to ensure the village security. I wasn’t suited for that kind of job, and being gatherer, as many other occupations in Adimu, required hard training and demanded huge efforts for a young filly like me, so, at a young age I enrolled with my aunt Busara, hoping to avoid tedious obligations, unfortunately for me, that kind of thinking didn’t suited my aunt’s purposes, and I ended up learning some of the things that you’ll learn with me…” An occasional yawn from the bored listener interrupted the barely ongoing story. “Could you please skip it to the part when you get the book?” The contradictory reaction of the mare drew a frown on Zecora’s face. “You wanted details, now be quiet and listen!” Trixie had a long and exhausting day, and wasn’t in the mood to start an argument on how pointless to her the story was, yet, she wanted to know everything to ensure the honest traits of the zebra, her unjustified previous actions were enough to keep her quiet and slightly ashamed as Zecora continued her tale. “…Like I was saying, with time, my aunt’s knowledge grew fond on me and I found how useful it was to deal with many problems in daily life, cure injuries and preparing medicines to treat the ill, creating potions capable to enhance physical endurance or formulating tonics capable to tame or sedate ferocious beasts, as the one you used today, made me feel important and helpful to my community…” Trixie, who was comfortlessly resting in the floor, discreetly relocated her attention from Zecora’s tale into her thoughts; to her, it seemed more like motivational self promotion rather than a relevant anecdote, inevitably beginning to wonder if the zebra was intentionally trying to rationalize her “apprentice” tradition, which slowly started to seem like some sort of scam to the paranoiac unicorn. A few hours of story telling passed while Trixie, with the closed book aside, inconspicuously goofed around with her magic, making miniature whirlwinds with dust particles, when suddenly, some words caught back her full attention. “…The owner of the book …At first we couldn’t understand his tongue, but he taught us the same tongue we’re speaking in, right after he appeared; needless to say, at that time no one in the village had seen some one like him. ” “Hold on, what do you mean by ‘some one like him’ and ‘right after’?” Trixie interrupted. “He was a unicorn, the first I had seen in my life, probably as well as the other villagers. He spoke at us gently and calmly but when he realized that we couldn’t understand his language, his horn started to glow intensely and suddenly, we found ourselves talking and understanding this tongue… As you might suspect, he did that amazing deed in aid of the Grimoire next to you, but at that time I wasn’t aware of that”. Trixie’s eyes widened in amazement. The unicorn told us that he was there looking for some sort of artifact, from what I can recall, he said something about a rarely shaped stone; but using a black parka and giving us such amazing gift was suspicious enough to gain an audience with the chief of our tribe, Ade. Being a righteous leader, he spoke privately with the stranger as a guest instead of a threatening foe”. The zebra paused for a moment. But short time passed and the strange visitor left the village in a rush, we asked the chief what happened but…he only said, ‘Everything will be fine as long he never comes back…’ A few years passed and the villagers slowly forgot the strange incident and the language that came across, except by me, this sparked my curiosity about the origins of the stranger and I wished for his return in order to satisfy my doubts. But one fateful night, almost as a sign, the unicorn appeared again, but not in a friendly way as before, but in a blast of rampaging destruction.” Trixie, who was bored and somnolent instants before, now was certainly intrigued and fairly interested on the story. “At first we couldn’t tell what was happening. It was night already and the starry sky was leading everyone to their homes, the peaceful night rewarded us after a busy day. But then, a booming noise alerted us all. The blazing explosion causing the uproar was so big that could be seen from a few miles away, naturally, many of us got ready to fight the upcoming fire, being these common yet extremely dangerous threats, disseminating quickly due to our dry home place, but no one noticed that the explosion was coming from the nearest village until it was too late. When some of the warriors left rapidly to help the endangered people, what seemed to be a small ball of fire emerged from the destroyed village. At first I thought it was debris from the blast, but soon I noticed that it wasn’t entirely fire and it was heading rapidly towards Adimu.” The illusionist was bursting in eagerness hoping to hear a detailed description of the Grimoire capabilities, but due the tragic nature of the story, she remained silent. "It was him, the bearer of the Grimoire, he descended upon the village as a ‘fallen star’ and a burst of flames emanated from him as he landed, consuming the nearer sheds and driving away a crowd of terrified zebras.” “Zebras?” Trixie interrupted. “The ones of my kind”, Zecora reassured and continued narrating. “I ran and hid with my aunt, but he was tearing apart everything and everyone who opposed in his way trough the village. I was shocked; the sound of cracking wood and cries of mercy became louder. Then, he shattered the door and grabbed my aunt by the neck, choking her with his greyish magic…” The zebra paused and stared gloomily at the unicorn, who felt the weight of the memory. Grief slightly invaded the atmosphere as the Zecora continued. “He noticed me, but didn’t seem to care, he was talking to my aunt and I barely understood what they were saying, when suddenly, she threw Usingizi powders at the slaughterer.” “Usin...gi…zi?” Trixie doubtfully interrupted. “Remember the yellow dust I sprinkled at the Cockatrices when I saved you?” Zecora asked, and reassured with, “The one that knocked them out.” “I remember”, said Trixie allowing the zebra to continue. “Well, my aunt was free and the evil doer had passed out; when he fell to the ground I saw how a rectangular figure fell out from his coat, it was the book… and my aunt grabbed it. Luckily enough, the few warriors that went to the other village to help, returned safely and held captive the unconscious unicorn, waiting for further punishment in the hooves of the few that survived the disaster.” Trixie finally understood why Zecora was willingly giving the book, rather than a reward for her bravery or the accomplishment of her promise, it was a way of getting rid of a painful memory, passing the book to someone “trustworthy”… Nevertheless, Trixie was aware of some “flaws” in Zecora’s tale, even that there wasn’t any reason to think that the story was made up, there was something that kept bothering her, mainly the fact of being considered responsible enough to wield the artifact that nearly killed the zebra. “Wait!” Trixie thought, “What happened next? How Zecora got the Grimoire from her aunt? How did she knew that the book was the power source of the unicorn? Why does she live in exile? How did she found Equestria if she didn’t knew from where was the unicorn?” Her doubts were strong enough to make a frown on her face. Zecora noticed this and kept narrating the anecdote, which took an unexpected twist. “Being an outcaste was not my decision, nor the ones of Adimu… It was the book that kept me far from home.” Trixie was slightly surprised by the words of the narrator, and couldn’t avoid to ask, “so…it has consciousness or what?” “…I don’t now”, Answered Zecora, “but one day when my aunt wasn’t around I found the book, and I opened it to peek into its contents… A strong light blinded me, and I lose consciousness… Next thing I know, I’m in the middle of a desert with the book besides me and without the slightest idea on how to return to Adimu. I eventually reached a strange town called Appleloosa, it was inhabited by ponies, where everyone spoke the language that the unicorn taught me; so I hadn’t many problems expressing myself, but for some strange reason many avoided me, and those who didn’t, told me some gibberish about buffalos and stuff about being a spy…” Trixie patiently waited for the story to come to and end; Zecora described how she discovered new and amazing things like the railroad that was in current construction or the electricity, ovens and other inventions she had never heard of… But gradually, as the hours passed and the narration became irrelevant again, Trixie lost the interest and ended deprived of hearing how Zecora made it to Equestria and settled her home in the Everfree forest, but most important, how she discovered to use the book, or how she knew so much about it. ________________________________________________________________________________ “Trixie!” The zebra yelled, “Prepare the cauldron and set the ingredients for the healing brew!” “Ok!” Replied Trixie, while magically igniting a fire and pulling the chunky black pot in top of it, and said, “Are we making some? Because we still have two bottles of it.” “It’s not for us, I’m going to… How did you said it was called?... Ponyville?” Trixie was shocked, “Why are you going to Ponyville!?” She anxiously asked. “I’ve been thinking to go and try to sell some of the potions we’ve been making trough the week, hoping to gain some… Acknowledgement… Allowing me to see the Princess… Would you please lend me some of your gold? In case I need to pay something. The magician was alarmed; this was threatening the surprise factor on her plans. “Why would you like to go there? Hehehe”, she asked, forgetting the obvious fact that it was the nearest and easiest to reach populated zone around there. “You can come with me if you like, I understand you have unfinished businesses right there, don’t you?” The blue mare deviated the subject of the conversation, knowing that she couldn’t change Zecora’s mind, and said, “How many bottles?” Referring to the healing potion. The zebra chuckled and started to crush some herbs in the mortar on the table.
StareCHAPTER 1: STARE As the words "Ha!, you may have vanquished an Ursa Minor, but you will never have the amazing, show stopping ability of the great and powerful Trixie!" emanated from her mouth, Trixie knew that her pathetic act of bragging behavior was crumpled, and the only thing she could do in that moment was escape from the townsfolk's reprisal and avoid the humiliation she carved on her own. So, in a quick movement, she threw a smoke bomb and immediately turned around and left the town as fast as her legs allowed her. She thought that the town's ponies would follow her, seeking to make her pay for what her scams had caused, which gave her enough motivation to gallop at full speed almost for ten minutes. While running, she realized that she couldn’t stop thinking on the magnificent magical demonstration that Twilight Sparkle had shown back in town, and the embarrassment this made her experience. With this, she set her mind in only one idea. Revenge, but she analyzed the situation a little more carefully, if she was going to take revenge, she should be prepared for anything, she had seen the extraordinary abilities of Twilight, and tried to come up with a coherent explanation on how she got those stupendous powers. “Twilight lives on a library, so maybe she has access to privileged information, such as spells and enchantments of different types", she thought, when suddenly a reliable memory stroke like a lightning, “aha!... now I remember, she is the apprentice of princess Celestia… no wonder where she got those skills!”, she spoke to herself, “what an insult!, to diminish the great and powerful Trixie in such a barbaric way, that sure wasn’t a fair comparison of skills …and now I’m the laugh stock of everypony on that grace forsaken Ponyville!”, she yelled and changed her voice inflection in a derogatory way as she pronounced “Ponyville”. She barely ended that sentence when her front hoofs got jammed in what appeared to be a root popping out of the soil, and due the impulse, flew almost three yards until she crashed on the ground. “Damn earth ponies, looks like they aren’t doing what they should” she said sorely as she got up, Referring to the cleansing of roads. The fall made her cape and hat flew a few yards more, so, with a light movement of her head, the horn popping out her forehead started to glow in a soft pink light, which embraced both, hat and cape, and made them levitate towards the owner and take their respective places. “Looks like they aren’t following me anymore”, she mumbled as realized she hadn’t enough time to analyze her actual surroundings; her surprise was big when she discovered where she was. Her desperate sprint to escape had placed her in a worst case scenario. She was in the Everfree Forest. Trixie was exhausted, and terrified, “I’m so doomed” she thought while walking slowly trough the swampy yet dry soil, fearing the inherent fact that she might encounter with a wildlife’s former member of that fearsome place. She walked a few minutes until a crystalline pond appeared in front of her. A dry, thirsty throat was begging for a gulp of delicious water. She acted by instinct and approached to the pond, slowly reaching the water with her mouth but without stop watching the surroundings. When the cold liquid touched Trixie’s mouth, a greater force made her drink uncontrollably. It was a delight. Suddenly, a hissing, menacing sound assaulted Trixie’s ears, breaking the spell of the refreshing water. She looked around searching for the noise source as a fearful expression was drawn on her face. It sounded again, apparently behind some bushes. Trixie magically grabbed a considerable size rock as she doubtfully approached the source. She was ready to make the first move regardless of what could be behind the bushes. When the head of a chicken came out, for Trixie it wasn’t an unusual event due the fact that ponyville’s economy was propelled mostly for farming activities. “Hmph…to think that such insignificant creature was inspiring terror on me, if you excuse me, I’m busy doing something, so please, get lost”, she said in a cocky presumptuous manner. The creature stood still for a few instants, just staring at the pony, which turned around and left the spot. Then the creature came out completely of the bushes first making the hissing and then roaring in some way, showing to Trixie that it wasn’t a chicken. The begat had a head resembling the one of a chicken except for the sharp teeth and the snake like tongue that could be seen when the creature opened its mouth. The rest of the body was the one of a winged reptile, almost like an adult dragon, but in scale. Trixie lost her breath as the creature stared into her eyes. For some reason she couldn’t move, she was terrified and couldn’t stop thinking that it was destiny teaching a lesson for her despicable behavior. Amazingly, in instants her mind got clear, and calmly, she analyzed the situation. “Whatever this freak is doing to me, it surely has something to do with its glowing eyes” she thought, her horn started to glow and rapidly she took some bindweed branches that were near there, tying and blindfolding the creature. Immediately it started to produce a horrible groan, Trixie was coming back from the trance that the creature’s eyes produced, then she realized of something unbelievable, half of her body was turned into stone. She couldn’t process it entirely before a swarm of chicken headed creatures started to pop out from the surrounding bushes. “Awwww great!, more of these things, this is just lovely!” she said obviously in an ironical way, ”what a glorious way to perish!…with a bunch of freaks staring at you…I feel like a superstar”, she yelled, trying to soften the idea that this was really her end. The transformation was almost done and the only thing that wasn’t stone yet was her face, when suddenly a mysterious pony wearing a hood came out of nowhere sprinkling yellow dust all over the place making the all the monsters fall asleep, the transformation stopped and the stranger pinched Trixie’s nose with something that looked like a golden needle, “hey!”, Trixie yelled. The petrification started to regress. “T-Thank you…that was really close” said Trixie stuttering to the stranger as she turned normal again. “Don’t thank me; we better get going home, before more monsters get here”. Trixie noticed the rhyme in the sentence as she followed the stranger to wherever she was going, at least was better than staying alone on the woods.
FirefliesCHAPTER 2: FIREFLIES Trixie had followed the stranger for several minutes trough a path hidden with creepy shaped trees, the moonlight was disappearing as they were going further and Trixie could barely see were she was walking. “Seems that you are familiar with this awful place, may I ask your name?”, Trixie said in a confident and stoic tone while discretely glimpsed at the little space of mare’s leg that her robes didn’t covered completely, she noticed strange marks. The stranger remained in silence for a while, then, she turned around facing Trixie and spoke, “we are near my place, so stay quiet and follow the trace”, she said and turned around again, pointing something with her right hoof. Trixie couldn’t see anything at the direction that the stranger pointed, suddenly, a small dot started to glow followed by hundreds more, they where fireflies and they were making a trace that the stranger was following. Trixie was so amazed that her face couldn’t hide an obvious surprise. As both followed the fireflies, Trixie noticed that they were on complete darkness except for the fluorescent light of the small insects. “You know where are you going, are you?, because if we are lost I’m going to…”, Trixie hadn’t completed the sentence when a light more brighter than the one of the fireflies started to appear in the distance. Both approached quietly. When they were near enough to distinguish something, Trixie was surprised for the rare and picturesque home of the stranger. It was a tree of twisted shape with many bottles filled with colorful liquids hanging from its branches and ornamental masks scattered everywhere. “Now that we are safe, I will tell you my name”, said the stranger calmly, “Zecora they call me and this is my home, feel free to enter and sleep all night long”. “I will, thank you; I’m Trixie by the way”. Both entered to the house. Zecora unveiled her face as she asked, “so tell me young filly, what is your business in this forest, or are you just so silly?”, Trixie was a little surprised by Zecora’s aspect, but didn’t said anything about it and answered the question, ”it’s a long story, but, let’s just say that I’m a magician”. Zecora was clearly thrilled and quickly said, “UHUHU… so here’s another partner in the magic arts, please tell me, is there any knowledge you can grant?”. Trixie stared sadly at the ground. “You see, my knowledge in magic is scarce, I’m more of an entertainer” said Trixie slowly. Zecora remained silent for a moment, then spoke, ”I see, knowledge is what you seek, if you allow me, I can teach you what I know, at a cost very low”. Trixie stared at Zecora with incredulity in her eyes. ”So, what can you teach me, and more important, what do you want in return?”, said Trixie proudly and impolitely. “The properties of plants and herbs I can teach you, to prevent diseases and ailments, and to gain strength from most of them, the only fee you must make to gain this, is to complete all of my training”. Trixie remained quiet, almost like considering the offer. “And what about powerful magic, can you teach me something like that?”, said in a slightly desperate tone. “I don’t think so “, replied Zecora seriously, ”from where I came from, there’s a powerful magic called voodoo, to bad for you that here is called taboo”. A long silence invaded the conversation. Trixie started to remember how Zecora saved her from the chicken headed creatures. “That was amazing, I could barely stand against one of those monsters…if that knowledge can help me to handle situations like those, it might be wise to learn something from this pony”, she thought. “I think we have a deal Zecora, but I’m afraid that I can’t stay here much time, there is something I must do”. “Very well, I’ll teach you what I know, so be careful and start taking note”. “May I ask why you are teaching me for free?”, said Trixie curious. “It’s a tradition of my people that I must obey, to take an apprentice to all my knowledge convey”, said Zecora reassuringly. Trixie smiled slightly. “Ok, tomorrow I’ll start my training, you’ll prove me that my time I’m not wasting”, said Trixie in a cocky way, trying to imitate Zecora’s unique speech. Both laughed confidently as they laid respectively on two improvised hay beds and fell asleep.
SmokeCHAPTER 3: SMOKE Her mind was returning from a land of bizarre thoughts and visions as Trixie awakened slowly wearing a flamboyant tousled mane style. “Trixie!, wake up already, I need your help on something!”, Zecora shouted, disturbing Trixie’s habit of staying more time on bed after arousal, but she noticed how Zecora didn’t made a clever rhyme on her sentence and whispered sarcastically, “this must be serious”, using an irony touch on the phrase as she got up. Barely able to walk and her eyes still closing, she managed her way to the door, just to see Zecora staring firmly at the morning sky. “If your training has ‘feng shui’ and ‘inner peace’ garbage, I’m sorry darling but I’m afraid I’m leaving!” Trixie said with inconspicuous anger, clearly she was moody after her nap interruption. “Look above your head, and you shall see a real threat”, said Zecora, returning again to her singular habit. “Fine, fine” Trixie replied as yawned, having finished, Trixie slowly opened her eyes fearing that sunrays might hurt her “20/20” vision; but there was no sunlight at all, an the every day blue sky was replaced by a ditch black, humongous cloud. All Trixie’s sluggishness disappeared instantly, and was replaced with fear. “What in the name of Equestria is this smoke coming from?!” Trixie paused briefly and continued, “is that for what you needed my help, a forest fire?! Buck that!” exclaimed with notorious fear on her words. Zecora looked at Trixie for a moment with a serious expression on her face. “A fire I’m afraid this threat is not, clearly that smoke is from a dragon’s snore”. Trixie was speechless. “D-D-Dragon y-you say?” Trixie said stuttering, suddenly her mind went blank. “Hey…Remember that thing that I needed to do?, well its not done yet and I really need to go back and do it because it needs to be done, so, is not my intention to offend your voodoo traditions but I’m leaving right now!”, said the blue unicorn as she grabbed her hat and cape and tried to leave at full speed. Fear had taken the best of her. Zecora remembered the talk they had last night and asked calmly, “may I ask what is this thing you must do?” Not referring to the excuse but to the only thing that kept Trixie from “waste” time. It worked perfectly. The filly stopped her crazy escape attempt and stared to the ground. “The great and powerful Trixie’s matters are not of your concern”, she said trying to cast away fear and replace it with her usual confident, presumptuous manners. ”Don’t boast about strength because I saved your life from the cockatrices”, said Zecora referring to the chicken headed creatures, she continued. “And since you owe me, I have all the right to ask for your help”. Tension invaded the situation as both remained silently staring at each other. “I tell you what” said Zecora finally. “If you help me to drive away the dragon, I will teach you how to become stronger”. The vague sentence caught Trixie’s total attention, mainly the word “stronger”. Trixie was over analyzing things. “Decisions, decisions…Ok, in one hand, I go with Zecora, intimidate the sleeping beauty and I become ‘stronger’, without forgetting that insignificant life risking factor; and in the other I leave, and stay the same…alive…and without cleaning my name”. Similar thoughts filled Trixie’s mind, suddenly, she glanced at the real source of the smoke. Apparently pride won the battle, and as her fear momentarily vanished and her expressions gained confidence while she approached Zecora, Both realized that the cloud emanating from the tall mountain grew bigger and it was overcasting the team’s sight. Trixie couldn’t avoid asking how two ponies could scare a fully grown dragon. “Alone we can’t, but with this…”, Zecora replied confidently as she grabbed one of the bottles hanging on the house’s branches, and talked again, but Trixie didn’t put much attention on what Zecora said, for her mind was wondering in the many possibilities of this quest. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea after all”, Trixie whispered to herself as the fear grew stronger again. “Let’s go!” Zecora yelled, breaking the trance of Trixie’s fear, in consequence, the blue unicorn started to follow the zebra galloping rampantly to the smoke’s source. As Trixie galloped along, she started to notice that Zecora was wearing her robes and was carrying three bottles, two, filled with water and the one with the blue colored potion. “That potion…What does it do?” said Trixie while galloping, Zecora replied roughly, “shut up, or you’ll be tired soon enough”. “Humph!” Trixie moaned turning her head away and closing her eyes in grievance as she kept up with Zecora’s trot. They had been travelling almost for thirty minutes, when they reached the mountain’s foot, unfortunately, Trixie was too tired to continue, Zecora noticed, and even she could easily go on, she suggested to take a little break before starting climb the mountain. Trixie was relieved, and as she sat on the grass, Zecora gave her one of the water filled bottles and Trixie didn’t hesitated to drink relentlessly. Once her thirst was satisfied, she returned the bottle and asked Zecora if she also had something to eat. “Eat the grass, and your hunger will pass” Zecora replied with mischievousness on her voice. Trixie declined the offer with a frown. “Now that we aren’t running, can you tell me what that potion does? And most important, for what do you need my help?” Trixie inquired. Zecora remained silent a few seconds, probably trying to make a verse to answer, but she gave up, in any case, it was pointless to talk with clever rhymes if she had nothing exceptional or meaningful to say. “This potion tames even the most deadly creatures if smelled…For a short amount of time, the main ingredient for this to work is a plant called poison joke, among other compounds, if we have luck we’ll surely…” “Have enough time to drive away a dragon I presume…So where I fit in this suicidal plan?” Said Trixie, interfering on Zecora’s speech with her characteristic speaking manners. “You will give the potion to the beast in aid of your magic powers…” Trixie didn’t objected at the idea, but her face said it all. “What I gain with helping you? Explain me the ‘strength’ thing”. “…Back home I have a book that can teach you many things, you help me with the dragon affair, and that book gladly to you I will give…” The nebulous phrase filled Trixie’s mind with all sorts of questions, so many that she couldn’t compose a coherent enough to ask. Zecora understood and sighed. She explained calmly to Trixie that the book she was talking about it was called a “Grimoire”, and it was a compendium of magical knowledge, sadly, not being able to wield magic on the most primitive stage, as unicorns do, she couldn’t unlock the full potential of the artifact, than rather being a “normal” book, it counted with magical properties by itself. Trixie’s jaw hanged loosely from its joint. She was totally unaware that something like that existed, being possible that neither Twilight Sparkle or any pony did. An unexpected turn on events had given her the opportunity to improve her magic skills enormously and to increase her knowledge with whatever the Grimoire contained, hopefully, she had a chance to stand against her new nemesis, clean her name, and to prove to everypony and also herself that she was really destined to be the greatest equine who had ever lived…or at least a powerful enough to defeat princess Celestia’s apprentice. Zecora saw the mischievous grin that Trixie portrayed on her face while staring blankly to the ground, and started wondering if offering the artifact to the arrogant unicorn had been a good idea. Zecora didn’t knew for sure, but, as long as Trixie helped to get rid of the dragon, she would hand the artifact as promised. Trixie stood up and said with extreme eagerness, “We have a dragon to meet”.
AvalancheCHAPTER 4: AVALANCHE It was a hard to walk path the one that both zebra and unicorn had chosen alike, it was placed in a very declivitous angle and the gravity was wearing of Trixie’s strength. After having travelled halfway to the top, the only thing that moved Trixie’s body, almost like a lifeless marionette, was the solely desire of studying the Grimoire’s contents. What could be inside the pages of the book? she wondered. Obviously, a certain part of the book would have some of Zecora’s knowledge, but what could be on the remaining pages? Hopefully something that could provide a smooth introduction on advanced magic, since Trixie’s only noticeable ability was illusionism, and she wasn’t too talented at that anyway. As they reached a more flat edge to walk on and Trixie’s muscles were pain freed, the Grimoire idea lured Trixie’s mind and the more she thought about it the more started to seem like a scam, “why Zecora would want to willingly give an artifact like that? Having the chance to sell it for a obscene high price, or do more prolific things with such a powerful item ”, Trixie’s tainted mind forced her to think it was a kind of trap, but conjecturing thoughts wasn’t a fond enough habit to come up with a credible explanation for Zecora’s doing. Trixie’s thought process guided her to two possible conclusions. It could be a trap or, a destiny’s gift, either way, the little information on the situation made impossible for Trixie to picture the whole background. She gave up at figuring Zecora’s purpose, and, flattened, asked for the Zebra’s motivation. Zecora remained thoughtful, trying to give an answer to the boastful blue unicorn, starting to talk as a spark of sadness briefly illuminated her face. “The reasons of why I left my home are not of your concern…But …” she said and remained silent for a few instants, exhaled in sign of relief and continued, in a more relaxed manner. “I am no longer in my home country because…I was exiled…and I’m staying in Equestria illegally that is why I live on the forest, hiding, but yet studying the environment, flora and fauna as equal. Sadly the pony folk of that nearby village have made up their minds at thinking that I’m some sort of evil enchantress, and that has made harder for me to request an audience with the ruler of these lands…” Trixie didn’t understood why Zecora needed ponyville in order to legalize her residence in Equestria. That reminded the disgust she felt for that village. “Why do you need those neighing hypocrites to go and see the princess?” Trixie inquired with resentment on her words, completely forgetting about the fact that it would be an unpleasant and nearly impossible task for a wingless equine to reach Canterlot’s castle. “A few weeks ago I saw a flying carriage land in the village’s center, once the passengers stepped out, the carriage returned to that city over the mountains, and I was hoping to ask if they could take me to that city”. Trixie realized that the carriage Zecora had seen was no other than Twilight’s and also, that she was really lucky to have met the zebra before anyone else. While both walked relatively slowly than before, the chilly mountain air started to flow strongly and a peaceful atmosphere started to embrace the surroundings, at least for Trixie. The giant smoke trial was still covering the sky and almost all sun light. The landscape looked really gloomy, but that was how Trixie liked it, instead of having a happy one with the burning sun on her skin. Suddenly, the ears of both, unicorn and zebra, were struck with an unexpected noise. It had been the echo of a voice that screamed something and abruptly stopped before completing the barely distinguishable word. “Did it said…Avalanche!?” Trixie thought loudly as the floor beneath their hooves started to quiver. Both equines looked at each other alarmed, knowing that it was matter of seconds for the mountain walls to bury them alive. With out hesitate; both sprinted forward following the mountains edge path, as the walls started to disintegrate, releasing a massive debris storm. Trixie, hardly able of walking due her muscular fatigue, pushed her strengths to the limit, trying to avoid the gigantic boulders that were threatening their lives. It was almost a miracle that Trixie could keep up with Zecora while running. All of a sudden, a colossal stone was detached from a wall ahead and started to roll downhill, judged by its size, it could easily destroy a great part of the edge in which they were galloping, preventing them from reaching the top. Both noticed this, and rushed to surpass the boulder’s trajectory. For Trixie, the speed they were reaching was unbelievable, she hadn’t run like that in her entire life, but apparently it wasn’t fast enough to surpass the boulder, which crashed on the edge and left an enormously wide gap. Trixie quickly thought in stop, but her speed was too much and she was extremely near of the fall, which left her with only one solution to save her life. Jump hoping to reach the other extreme of the gap. “Ready?” said Zecora instants before jumping, Trixie nodded with determination on her eyes as she impulsed herself with her front legs taking off the ground, and reassuring the jump with her back legs. Zecora landed a few inches away the edge, but Trixie barely reached the border with her front hooves. Apparently the strength that Trixie printed on her jump was not enough to take her body completely to the other side, and holding tightly she screamed for help. Zecora quickly turned around and grabbed the cape of the blue unicorn with her mouth and diligently helped her to step up. Trixie’s heart was pounding harder than ever and the adrenaline flowing trough her veins was making all her body to shake uncontrollably. This was the second time that Zecora had saved her life and she was grateful for that, but didn’t show much gratitude to the zebra, since she was the main reason why Trixie was on that life risking quest. Having passed the rush of that experience, both set their minds again in the goal that kept them together, the dragon. At first Trixie was terrified, dealing with the idea of being roasted by dragon flames, but after the avalanche, she had an epiphany of an inherent quality of life. She could die anywhere at anytime, it didn’t mattered if it was fighting against monsters or being crushed by giant rocks. As obvious as this may seem, Trixie hadn’t bothered to think like that since a long time ago. Her lifestyle travelling from town to town ridiculously feeding her ego had fogged up her mind and her perception of reality had been dancing in clouds picturing herself as a great and powerful magician. The recent events had brought back her hooves to the ground, and if she weren’t so frustrated at her magical incompetence, she might think that her nemesis was unconsciously doing her a favor. They had walked for a few hours, and for Trixie, the top of the mountain seemed to retrocede by every feeble step she advanced, Zecora was exhausted too, but not as much as the blue mare, and both, were holding tightly to the hope that whoever caused the avalanche didn’t do it again, they certainly wouldn’t survive another obstacle like that, at least, not in what was their situation. Deciding to take a break near a lifeless tree, both realized that one of the bottles that Zecora was carrying had broken in the avalanche. Both released an ambiguous exhalation of relief, while discovering that the broken bottle was no other than the one with most of the water. Their thirst wouldn’t be seized, but at least they still had the potion.
DragonCHAPTER 5: DRAGON The fatigue had passed but the thirst was still a nuisance; the grey sky poured a bad omen upon the adventurers as they slowly resumed their pace towards the dragon’s lair. Trixie, dusting off her cape and hat, started to wonder what would be the proper approach to a simple but risky plan like the one Zecora had in mind. Trixie’s only participation in the plan was to pour the potion on the reptile’s nose; Zecora would handle the rest, at least that’s how Trixie pictured the strategy. “Its easy… we get in, I pour the thing on the giant nose… from a safe distance of course, Zecora does whatever she’s going to do, we get out and everypony happy…Its easy”. The blue mare had slightly overcome the fear of a taunting death, but as simple as that plan sounded, there were so many variants in the possible derivative events; from being praised as heroes to a rampaging dragon tearing ponyville apart. Trixie realized that they were entering into the Mouth of the Wolf without enough precautions and, depending on her consequent actions rested the wellbeing of many creatures; certainly a big responsibility for such an individualistic pony. Trixie tried to ask Zecora if she had a “plan B” of some sort, but her attempt clogged with the unpleasant feeling of hot air flowing trough her thirsty and dry throat, that immediately made a panting sound, almost like coughing. Both remained silent during the remaining path. A few hours passed while the pair reached the mountain’s peak, Trixie was expecting to see a dragon size entrance to an ominous cave and a smoke curtain hiding a devilish beast, waiting for victims to roast in pursuit of amusement; but what the landscape pictured was tranquilizing yet baffling for the unicorn. It was a flat wall with a considerably smaller hole than the one Trixie imagined, the smoke wasn’t coming out from that entrance, but the unicorn could still see the black trial of smoke pouring out of the mountain, but from the opposite side. Soon, Trixie understood why Zecora lead the way behind the cave. “Is better if we take this beast with a surprise, this will give us the advantage, I think it is the most wise”, Said Zecora reassuring Trixie’s thoughts, whom stared at the zebra with disapproval. “Seriously? You just came up with a rhyme for that?!” Said Trixie with a bit of bitterness and annoyance in her voice and overcoming the displeasure of an irritated throat. To which Zecora answered with a shrug and a particular combination of embarrassment and nervousness depicted on her face. “Let’s go in then”, said Zecora after a long pause, that directed Trixie’s attention into the tunnel ahead of them. It was a small and narrow crack in the wall, in which barely both fitted; walking one behind the other seemed to be the most efficient way to advance. Erosion seemed to be the main cause of the placement of that convenient tunnel, which was a remnant of an antique water stream of some sort. With every step given, the darkness was growing thicker and blocking the team’s sight. Zecora was leading the way, and apparently her eyes were more adaptable than the ones of the mare, who was constantly colliding with several obstacles, mostly, the walls and several stalagmites scattered in the cavern’s course, which seemed to be an intricate labyrinth, or that’s what Trixie’s orientation senses perceived. The blue unicorn again started to carefully study the whole scenario, repeating the words “it’s simple” in her frightened yet eager thoughts. As they advanced further and further into the depths of the darkened cavern, Trixie noticed that her vision capabilities were being restored by a minuscule glow of golden light, coming from what seemed to be the exit of the narrow hall in which they had walked for several minutes, but for Trixie, it felt like an eternity of waiting. Seeing and also taming real a dragon for the first time on her life was a shocking yet exiting task, and also in her case, enormously rewarding. Trixie’s body started to feel the effects of the adrenaline and started to involuntarily accelerate the pace, forcing Zecora to do the same. Every step towards the light made Trixie’s enthusiasm grow stronger. The time had come, the perfect occasion to prove herself worthy and powerful, if she could do this, there wouldn’t be anymore doubts about her capabilities. Although the task of pouring something on a sleeping dragon’s nose from afar was risky rather than challenging, but for Trixie, it was really a big deal; coming from a boastful, mediocre phony with many fears, this slightly mindless and impulsive display of courage and determination was something worth praising. The light was intensifying its brightness as they reached the exit. At first Trixie couldn’t see a thing, the change between light intensity was too abrupt, so much, that she thought they reached the other extreme of the cave, then, Zecora whispered “Are you ready for this?” Trixie was disconcerted, she couldn’t see a thing and started to wonder the worst, “I’m blind?!?” she said with apprehension, Zecora’s words meant that she had the dragon in sight but she only saw an intense white glow; she was paralyzed and so scared that she didn’t realize that she could distinguish her own blinking. Trixie’s mind was being filled with visions of a life with an impediment like that; suddenly she started to mumble in awe. “Oh no…p-p-please…this can’t be real…help me…Ze-Zecora… The great and powerful Trixie is b-blind!” Zecora noticed Trixie’s situation and chuckled as she approached to the motionless mare. “Is that laughter what I hear?! How you dare to laugh at this disastrous situ…” Trixie couldn’t finish the sentence because of the sturdy nudge Zecora gave her, taking off the unicorn’s balance and making her tilt to the left. Trixie was going to complaint, but then, her eyes illustrated the surroundings. “I’m not blind!” Trixie rejoiced with a shout of victory, showing her relatively low self awareness. “Shhhhhhhhhh!” “Ok”, she said whispering, acknowledging her ironical failure at being cautious. Slowly focusing the images, her eyes were returning to normal just to welcome her with an incredible and unexpected glimpse of "paradise”. What was blinding Trixie was a beam of sun light coming from a small hole on the cavern’s ceiling, same that was being reflected on a troublesomely placed shiny tray, resting in what seemed to be…gold. Trixie gasped in astonishment as she scanned the entire scene. From bottom to top, the center of the room was occupied by an exquisite collection of relics, such as swords, crowns, canes, chalices, and other various ornaments, all covered in gold and decorative gems, and scattered around a vast pile of bits; pile which happened to be the divan of a gargantuan red beast. The mare was perplexed; she couldn’t split her bewilderment between the magnificent treasure and the bizarrely magnificent creature. Despite of her obvious interest in the fortune exposed, the dragon dragged more of his attention. Unaware of dragon’s behavior as a species, she approached slowly, carefully trying to make the less sound as possible. Avoiding the disturbance of noise, Trixie glanced at the dragon’s tail, studying curiously its reptile-like skin pattern, noticing how scales seemed to become slim at the tip of the appendix in comparison of the voluminous ones covering the rest of the body; she also noticed a peculiar line of soft red elongated scales travelling across the dragon’s back. It was a morbid delight to contemplate such magnificent yet deadly creature. The dragon snorted stridently liberating a stream of black smoke from its nose, and made the ground tremble for few instants, breaking Trixie’s observation trance and pouring some logic into her actions. She turned around and nodded to Zecora showing her disposition to proceed with the operation; Zecora understood and moved her head aside making a gesture to indicate the path to turn around and face the gigantic lizard. [color=silve r]________________________________________________________________________________ There it was, the humongous face of the red beast; this time Trixie wasn’t distracted by the looks of the lizard, anyway, it wouldn’t be a smart move if she approached and accidentally disturbed the dragon’s sleep. Both were covering behind a boulder emerging from the soil, its size was enough to shelter both equines while kneeling, providing them with a temporarily safe spot if anything went out of control. “Ok Zecora, now tell me how to do this”, Trixie whispered. “Just pour the potion and rub it around the nose holes, make sure that the dragon takes a deep breath before...” Zecora suddenly noticed unclear sounds coming from the distant main entrance of the cave and her words clogged in awe. What could that be? Both thought while covering behind the rock. The noise grew louder; it reassembled a metronome, repeating the same squeaking sound in a regular rhythm. With her curiosity tingling, Trixie couldn’t avoid to peak above the rock to discover what was causing the sound, the responsible was approaching and soon it would be in plain sight. Trixie and Zecora were anxious to see what kind of creature produced such familiar yet uncertain noise, almost like a paper blowout. Gradually, a shape started to emerge among the smoke; it was some kind of deformed creature with the strangest body shape that Trixie had ever seen. From what she could differentiate, the monster had frog-like legs attached to a strangely shaped cubic body. It seemed like its head, if that irregular shape could be called head, was placed in front of the body like any other quadruped, mainly, because it looked like its “tongue” came out when it made the squeaking sound. But there was something that kept bothering both adventurers, and it was some sort of uneven floating formation that followed the body directly from above. It was an unusual sighting. The thick fog of smoke made difficult to see the strange being completely, but it seemed like it was approaching directly to the dragon with an awkward and lumbering pace. But when the creature was near enough of the dragon’s reach, it was clear that this was also an unwanted guest in the cave. As the weird shaped creature squeaked something resembling words, far from Trixie’s tympanic membrane to really understand the creature’s gibberish, the dragon lifted its claw and hit the creature, almost approximating to the same way of ponies to scare away flies. The dragon’s waving limb eventually smashed accurately the fast dodging creature, and propelled it several meters in the air, aiming to land directly to the adventurers hiding place. After the expected abrupt landing of the bizarre creature, it took a wile for Trixie and Zecora to realize that it wasn’t a mythological creature of some sort, but merely a common pink earth pony wearing a shocking yet pointless costume. The pony was wearing some hypnosis pun glasses, a clown nose and a fake mustache, almost covering all her face of unwanted eyes, but this was really the purpose? Trixie thought. The thing resembling a tongue was certainly a paper blowout and Trixie was ashamed of her previous coercion to this chump. The cubic body of the “creature” was conformed by a body-size gift wrapped box, and the frog like legs, barely distinguishable among the smoke, were plain swimming fins, also, the uneven floating form was a bunch of balloons tied to the gift ribbon, nearly all exploded in the crash. As Trixie prepared an insulting speech to show her displeasure to the pink imp, this stood up, unable to see a thing cause of her silly specs, and turned around heading for the exit in a faint way of walk. Trixie was outraged, and as she inhaled to release an impulsive and mindless scream to complaint about the imp’s insolence, she noticed three balloons as the scallywag’s cutie mark. This triggered a recent memory; Trixie wasn’t too good remembering faces, besides the fact that the pink pony was hiding hers pathetically, but she could spot this as one of the pastry chefs working on the ponyville’s bake store. Same that Trixie visited before the Ursa’s attack. Finding a pastry chef possibly trying to do the same as the zebra and unicorn was certainly a peculiar coincidence. Something seemed suspicious about this, but it didn’t mattered. As the pink fellow approached the exit, the reptilian beast awoke with hastiness and it seemed anything but pleased. Trixie knew this was the time to act. In a tremendous display of courage…Or stupidity, Trixie grabbed the potion and sprinted towards the dragon. “Now hideous creature, behold how the great and powerful Trixie subjugates you!” She was already risking her life so a little bit of her habitual presumptuousness was permitted; it wasn’t the right approach though. The dragon showing disregard to the relatively insignificant phony, inhaled a mouthful of air and exhaled a tremendous flare. Trixie’s fears were materializing, but there was no time to regret, just to react. Instinctively, Trixie grabbed her cape with her hoof as she shielded her face with it. “What a fool…now I’m dead for sure”, Trixie’s “last” thoughts were the product of such impulsive and numb action, but something was wrong, few instants passed and she wasn’t combusting in pain as previously pictured. Trixie still heard that flare blowing sound, curiosity made her draw aside her cape and take a glimpse. It was unbelievable what her eyes saw. A semi spherical wall of coins, jewels and ornaments were protecting her from the deadly flames. At first Trixie couldn’t find a rational explanation to this, but, as the seconds went by she realized that she was actually the holder of that golden shield. Apparently the previous motion triggered Trixie’s magic unconsciously, forming that convenient armor. “HAHAHA!” Trixie laughed in ecstasy, bringing enough bewilderment to make the dragon stop its attack. Trixie noticed the halt of the flames, poured out her magic and jumped out the shelter yelling, “Have at you sucker!” throwing the whole potion bottle. The dragon attempted again to melt the blue pest, inhaling deeply to exhale fire, but before the beast could do something, a cracking sound assaulted the ears of the presents. Apparently, Trixie’s throw resulted accurate enough to hit the dragon’s palate, smearing the blue potion through the lizard’s throat. This didn’t kept the dragon from trying to roast the unicorn, but when it exhaled, the fire was replaced by the same black smoke covering the sky. This offered a perfect chance to sneak around and return to where Zecora was hiding. “What you did?” Zecora asked. “I shove the potion in the throat of that prick”, Trixie answered proudly pointing at the dragon with her hoof as she mischievously chuckled, “Now go on, do your domestication thing so we can go for my book”. “The potion doesn’t work like that, I told you to rub it on the nose, not to shove it in the throat!” Zecora answered unpleased. Trixie blanched in terror for her fault as she heard an uncanny familiar voice, consequently the dragon emitted a treacherous roar and its enormous silhouette headed outside. Both followed the reptile, hoping to stop any demonstrations of rampaging destruction. As both reached the exit, their eyes were met with an ambiguously unpleasant vision. There it was the pastry chef plus other four or five ponies, all unknown to Zecora, almost all indistinguishable and for Trixie, except by one. “Twilight…” Trixie whispered in anger. The dragon was about to strike down all the ponies with its fire breath, but, as happened before, instead of fire, a stream of smoke emanated from the dragon’s mouth; it seemed as if the potion had something to do with the loss of the characteristic dragon’s ability. Suddenly a yellow Pegasus emerged from the small crowd and yelled “How dare you”, distracting Trixie from her astounded nemesis. Flying towards the dragon’s face nagging the beast with and unsuitable argument for the situation, the yellow Pegasus was asking for an unpleasant death. That’s when Trixie remembered, that voice was the one that caused the avalanche while ago, an overflow of contradictory feelings flooded Trixie’s mind, wanting to adjust counts with the one that almost killed her, she could deal later with Twilight, humiliation wasn’t worse than death, but she knew her place and it was too soon to act, preferring to stay hidden in the cave. “They need our help!” Zecora interrupted the unsettling thoughts. “No”, replied Trixie with seriousness, “Haven’t you identified that voice yet?” “I know, but still they need us”. Trixie was so surprised by this answer that she couldn’t avoid turning her head and stare at the zebra in astonishment. Trixie’s mind was building the proper answer to depict her annoyance when something unlikely and ridiculous happened. It was the dragon, acting like a pitiful child trying to give justification of its acts to the yellow nagger, the potion miraculously worked. Trixie wasn’t giving too much attention to the dialog between the dragon and the Pegasus, but when the humongous lizard started to cry, she had enough. “It seems that they don’t need us anymore”, Trixie said as she turned around and headed towards the treasure. “A stinky pile of…how dare you boohoohoo…that’s what she needs… she almost killed me…what a jerk…” Trixie grumbled with disdain depicted on her face as she took off her hat and started to fill it with treasure until it lost its original shape, replacing it with an uneven round form. Carrying the booty with her magic, she addressed to Zecora. “The job is done, and my part of the bargain was effectuated…Now I demand my reward”, said Trixie arrogantly. Zecora nodded in acceptance, and both headed to the tunnel where they came from. Luckily, Trixie could step in the tunnel with the hat full of wealth, acknowledging the bigger treat that was expecting her in Zecora’s home.
TaleCHAPTER 6: TALE Her mind was returning from a land of bizarre dreams and visions as Trixie awakened slowly wearing a flamboyant tousled mane style. A few months had passed since that dreadful first day of training, now Zecora’s relationship with Trixie was slowly evolving from being simple comrades to true reciprocity between teacher and apprentice. A new set of humble skills had been added to Trixie’s abilities, such as the basics of Equestrian botanic knowledge, potion elaboration and a little bit of beginner alchemy. Trixie was pleased with her improvements. The ingredients filled shelves; the black cauldron and even that obnoxious pile of gold and jewels had become a familiar sighting, but there was something eerie about Trixie’s Grimoire. ________________________________________________________________________________ It was rare to see someone near the mountain’s foot at late afternoon, but there they were, descending at a sluggish pace, showing the physical exhaustion that the journey had caused. “Felling well my young pupil? I hope you are ready to get on your duty”, Zecora rhymed poorly but humorously. “I guess so, The Great and Powerful Trixie cannot refuse such an opportunity to learn something advantageous, but first, I need a well deserved rest, don’t you think?” replied the blue unicorn, with a barely distinguishable grin while magically levitating her gold filled hat. The sun was disappearing in the horizon as both entered the Everfree forest, reminding Trixie with her previous encounter with the Cockatrices, and coating fear into her thoughts. She wasn’t aware of the vast diversity of deadly creatures living in that forest, but she had heard a few rumors before, rumors in which she founded her worries. “Tell me more about the…Grimoire”, said Trixie inquiring unexpectedly, but she wasn’t met with an immediate answer. Zecora took her time to respond and finally said, “Wait until we arrive home, and you shall see the mighty tome, don’t despair or taunt while we’re heading there, you soon will see this bargain was more than fair”. The shocking meaning of the rhyme restored some hope on Trixie; she couldn’t wait to learn some advanced alteration and elemental spells, the most familiar magic schools to Trixie…And almost every filly in all of Equestria. The path felt shorter than Trixie imagined and, luckily, both arrived to Zecora’s hut in ease. Eagerness was taking over Trixie’s body as they crossed the hut’s old wood door, rushing trough the entire scene looking for what she thought the book would look like, a huge tome with leather paste and seemingly yellow pages, but nothing resembling that came on sight. Zecora chuckled at Trixie’s hastening and said, “Patience is bliss, too bad you don’t have this, now time for your reward, I hope you use it ‘wisely’ afterwards”. The zebra approached to one of the most crowded shelves, and carefully moved several potion bottles, just teasing Trixie’s anticipation, then, it finally appeared. Slightly smaller and different than Trixie imagined, Zecora produced the book pulling it out with her mouth; without hesitation, the excited unicorn magicked out the book from Zecora’s jaws and stared alertly analyzing the tome. It sure had a peculiar yet pleasing appearance, offering to Trixie that rewarding sensation of authenticity. With golden ornaments adorning the four angles of the dark blue leather paste, it was placed, in what seemed to be the front cover, an unknown symbol to Trixie, carved profoundly in the paste, presumably for embellishment purposes. The curious symbol dragged certain attention from Trixie, who asked, “These marks, what do they mean?” Zecora, unable to answer, made a slight shrug as she ironically said, “I don’t know”. Deviating from the previous matters, Trixie began to wonder many things regarding to the book’s usage. “Can you explain me more about this artifact?” the magician asked. “What do you want to know?” that common yet vague way to answer tilted Trixie’s memory, who after a short pause continued the conversation in a tenser way. “Well…First of all I want you to tell me where did you found this and why do you want to give it to me”, an eyebrow raised in doubt. “I want to give it to you because you helped me with the dragon, as I promised”, said Zecora slightly confused by Trixie’s redundant question, “as for the place where I found the tome, I guess I just got lucky…” “Seriously?” anger and disbelief sprout from Trixie’s mouth, “At least give me some details!” Now it was somewhat clear why Trixie hadn’t opened the book to see its contents; she wasn’t sure of what she would find there or if she could trust the zebra, even after all they went trough. Acknowledging Zecora’s superiority as an alchemist, the idea of getting sedated and becoming an experimentation subject, just by sniffing some strange powder hidden inside the book was luring her volatile and unstable imagination, even while she had a slight advantage in spell casting. “Some needs are quite hard to satisfy when you are living in exile… you must take what you need from others who don’t, and hope you’re doing the right thing”, she paused to see the unicorn, which was clearly indifferent to her morale message, and seemed to want a concrete answer right away. The zebra sighted and with calm depicted on her expressions, started to describe how she found such useful item. “Many years ago when I was young and naive, Adimu, my village, was the place to be. With friends and family, it sure was a happy home. Although we were a small community surrounded by savannah, we were well connected to the surrounding villages and the vast plains of our country offered a great variety of things to do in order to improve our lives. There were beast and monsters sharing the land and living among us, so it was the job of the ‘warrior’s brigade’ to ensure the village security. I wasn’t suited for that kind of job, and being gatherer, as many other occupations in Adimu, required hard training and demanded huge efforts for a young filly like me, so, at a young age I enrolled with my aunt Busara, hoping to avoid tedious obligations, unfortunately for me, that kind of thinking didn’t suited my aunt’s purposes, and I ended up learning some of the things that you’ll learn with me…” An occasional yawn from the bored listener interrupted the barely ongoing story. “Could you please skip it to the part when you get the book?” The contradictory reaction of the mare drew a frown on Zecora’s face. “You wanted details, now be quiet and listen!” Trixie had a long and exhausting day, and wasn’t in the mood to start an argument on how pointless to her the story was, yet, she wanted to know everything to ensure the honest traits of the zebra, her unjustified previous actions were enough to keep her quiet and slightly ashamed as Zecora continued her tale. “…Like I was saying, with time, my aunt’s knowledge grew fond on me and I found how useful it was to deal with many problems in daily life, cure injuries and preparing medicines to treat the ill, creating potions capable to enhance physical endurance or formulating tonics capable to tame or sedate ferocious beasts, as the one you used today, made me feel important and helpful to my community…” Trixie, who was comfortlessly resting in the floor, discreetly relocated her attention from Zecora’s tale into her thoughts; to her, it seemed more like motivational self promotion rather than a relevant anecdote, inevitably beginning to wonder if the zebra was intentionally trying to rationalize her “apprentice” tradition, which slowly started to seem like some sort of scam to the paranoiac unicorn. A few hours of story telling passed while Trixie, with the closed book aside, inconspicuously goofed around with her magic, making miniature whirlwinds with dust particles, when suddenly, some words caught back her full attention. “…The owner of the book …At first we couldn’t understand his tongue, but he taught us the same tongue we’re speaking in, right after he appeared; needless to say, at that time no one in the village had seen some one like him. ” “Hold on, what do you mean by ‘some one like him’ and ‘right after’?” Trixie interrupted. “He was a unicorn, the first I had seen in my life, probably as well as the other villagers. He spoke at us gently and calmly but when he realized that we couldn’t understand his language, his horn started to glow intensely and suddenly, we found ourselves talking and understanding this tongue… As you might suspect, he did that amazing deed in aid of the Grimoire next to you, but at that time I wasn’t aware of that”. Trixie’s eyes widened in amazement. The unicorn told us that he was there looking for some sort of artifact, from what I can recall, he said something about a rarely shaped stone; but using a black parka and giving us such amazing gift was suspicious enough to gain an audience with the chief of our tribe, Ade. Being a righteous leader, he spoke privately with the stranger as a guest instead of a threatening foe”. The zebra paused for a moment. But short time passed and the strange visitor left the village in a rush, we asked the chief what happened but…he only said, ‘Everything will be fine as long he never comes back…’ A few years passed and the villagers slowly forgot the strange incident and the language that came across, except by me, this sparked my curiosity about the origins of the stranger and I wished for his return in order to satisfy my doubts. But one fateful night, almost as a sign, the unicorn appeared again, but not in a friendly way as before, but in a blast of rampaging destruction.” Trixie, who was bored and somnolent instants before, now was certainly intrigued and fairly interested on the story. “At first we couldn’t tell what was happening. It was night already and the starry sky was leading everyone to their homes, the peaceful night rewarded us after a busy day. But then, a booming noise alerted us all. The blazing explosion causing the uproar was so big that could be seen from a few miles away, naturally, many of us got ready to fight the upcoming fire, being these common yet extremely dangerous threats, disseminating quickly due to our dry home place, but no one noticed that the explosion was coming from the nearest village until it was too late. When some of the warriors left rapidly to help the endangered people, what seemed to be a small ball of fire emerged from the destroyed village. At first I thought it was debris from the blast, but soon I noticed that it wasn’t entirely fire and it was heading rapidly towards Adimu.” The illusionist was bursting in eagerness hoping to hear a detailed description of the Grimoire capabilities, but due the tragic nature of the story, she remained silent. "It was him, the bearer of the Grimoire, he descended upon the village as a ‘fallen star’ and a burst of flames emanated from him as he landed, consuming the nearer sheds and driving away a crowd of terrified zebras.” “Zebras?” Trixie interrupted. “The ones of my kind”, Zecora reassured and continued narrating. “I ran and hid with my aunt, but he was tearing apart everything and everyone who opposed in his way trough the village. I was shocked; the sound of cracking wood and cries of mercy became louder. Then, he shattered the door and grabbed my aunt by the neck, choking her with his greyish magic…” The zebra paused and stared gloomily at the unicorn, who felt the weight of the memory. Grief slightly invaded the atmosphere as the Zecora continued. “He noticed me, but didn’t seem to care, he was talking to my aunt and I barely understood what they were saying, when suddenly, she threw Usingizi powders at the slaughterer.” “Usin...gi…zi?” Trixie doubtfully interrupted. “Remember the yellow dust I sprinkled at the Cockatrices when I saved you?” Zecora asked, and reassured with, “The one that knocked them out.” “I remember”, said Trixie allowing the zebra to continue. “Well, my aunt was free and the evil doer had passed out; when he fell to the ground I saw how a rectangular figure fell out from his coat, it was the book… and my aunt grabbed it. Luckily enough, the few warriors that went to the other village to help, returned safely and held captive the unconscious unicorn, waiting for further punishment in the hooves of the few that survived the disaster.” Trixie finally understood why Zecora was willingly giving the book, rather than a reward for her bravery or the accomplishment of her promise, it was a way of getting rid of a painful memory, passing the book to someone “trustworthy”… Nevertheless, Trixie was aware of some “flaws” in Zecora’s tale, even that there wasn’t any reason to think that the story was made up, there was something that kept bothering her, mainly the fact of being considered responsible enough to wield the artifact that nearly killed the zebra. “Wait!” Trixie thought, “What happened next? How Zecora got the Grimoire from her aunt? How did she knew that the book was the power source of the unicorn? Why does she live in exile? How did she found Equestria if she didn’t knew from where was the unicorn?” Her doubts were strong enough to make a frown on her face. Zecora noticed this and kept narrating the anecdote, which took an unexpected twist. “Being an outcaste was not my decision, nor the ones of Adimu… It was the book that kept me far from home.” Trixie was slightly surprised by the words of the narrator, and couldn’t avoid to ask, “so…it has consciousness or what?” “…I don’t now”, Answered Zecora, “but one day when my aunt wasn’t around I found the book, and I opened it to peek into its contents… A strong light blinded me, and I lose consciousness… Next thing I know, I’m in the middle of a desert with the book besides me and without the slightest idea on how to return to Adimu. I eventually reached a strange town called Appleloosa, it was inhabited by ponies, where everyone spoke the language that the unicorn taught me; so I hadn’t many problems expressing myself, but for some strange reason many avoided me, and those who didn’t, told me some gibberish about buffalos and stuff about being a spy…” Trixie patiently waited for the story to come to and end; Zecora described how she discovered new and amazing things like the railroad that was in current construction or the electricity, ovens and other inventions she had never heard of… But gradually, as the hours passed and the narration became irrelevant again, Trixie lost the interest and ended deprived of hearing how Zecora made it to Equestria and settled her home in the Everfree forest, but most important, how she discovered to use the book, or how she knew so much about it. ________________________________________________________________________________ “Trixie!” The zebra yelled, “Prepare the cauldron and set the ingredients for the healing brew!” “Ok!” Replied Trixie, while magically igniting a fire and pulling the chunky black pot in top of it, and said, “Are we making some? Because we still have two bottles of it.” “It’s not for us, I’m going to… How did you said it was called?... Ponyville?” Trixie was shocked, “Why are you going to Ponyville!?” She anxiously asked. “I’ve been thinking to go and try to sell some of the potions we’ve been making trough the week, hoping to gain some… Acknowledgement… Allowing me to see the Princess… Would you please lend me some of your gold? In case I need to pay something. The magician was alarmed; this was threatening the surprise factor on her plans. “Why would you like to go there? Hehehe”, she asked, forgetting the obvious fact that it was the nearest and easiest to reach populated zone around there. “You can come with me if you like, I understand you have unfinished businesses right there, don’t you?” The blue mare deviated the subject of the conversation, knowing that she couldn’t change Zecora’s mind, and said, “How many bottles?” Referring to the healing potion. The zebra chuckled and started to crush some herbs in the mortar on the table.
