//------------------------------// // Chapter 13: The Column // Story: Gusty and Ember // by Tobyc //------------------------------// Chapter 13: The Column After about twenty seconds of awkward silence, Trixie broke it. "Um, if you want to leave that by the door and forget about it until tomorrow... I'm sure it's none of my business, so..." "Well, actually-" started Bon Bon, before putting a hoof to her mouth in panic, realising she'd said too much. Trixie picked up on it. "What? Don't tell me you ordered..." she trailed off, then turned to the package and yanked it out of Lyra's hoof with her telekinesis. She looked around the outside - addressed to Lyra Heartstrings and Bonita Bonet, sent from... the Ponyville schoolhouse? Trixie turned back to Lyra. "Okay, I can see this isn't mine to open, but I don't think we can exactly go back to the movie at this point." After a moment's hesitation, Lyra sighed. Her horn lit up and the package tore open, revealing... a thin newspaper dated nine months ago. Trixie pulled it out and unfolded it. "We were going to ask Ember about this in private first," Bon Bon said, nervously. Trixie soon found the relevant article and read through it in silence. After a minute, she put it down and stared at a confused Ember. She then rolled up the newspaper, floated it over to Ember and smacked her across the muzzle with it. "OW! Trixie, what the-?" Ember ducked as Trixie took another swing. Before she could take a third, the other ponies intervened - Thunderlane grabbed Trixie's horn with his wing to cancel the spell, Bon Bon and Bow moved to restrain her from behind, and Lyra grabbed the newspaper with her telekinesis before it hit the ground. She passed it to Ember, who unfurled it and read the headline aloud: "'The Great and Powerful Trixie's Secrets Revealed'?" "It's all in there, Ember," Trixie said, quietly furious. "Your friendship with Gusty, writing Daring Do and the Amber of the Smooze, basing Sparkler on me. Even down to the Hearthswarming Eve party where you met me." Ember's eyes widened as she started to read through it. "Trixie, I have no explanation for-" "Save it Ember, you were quoted!" Trixie snarled. "I don't care what you were trying to accomplish with this. You swore to me that you hadn't gone public about this and weren't going to without my consent. And now that I know you were lying, any agreement between us is over. Get out!" Ember, stung, didn't move. "Uh, Trixie, this isn't actually-" Bow moved around, stood between them and spoke up. "Ember, if you really think you have any chance of making amends for this, I suggest you leave and come back later another day, with a very good explanation." Struck by Bow's sudden, barely restrained anger, Ember nodded, walked to the doorway and quietly left, struggling to figure out how this had gone so badly. In the awkward silence that followed, Trixie turned off the TV and retreated to her bedroom. *** "Three pre-cutiescent fillies," Ember repeated, bewildered. It was an hour later, and the four of them had only just regrouped at her house. Bon Bon nodded. "They were exposed a few days after this," - she gestured to the article - "by the sister of one of them. They wrote an apology, claiming that they'd been blackmailed to continue churning out gossip, and their editor-in-chief was demoted. Anyway, by that point a lot of their stories were so obviously fabricated that most of us were taking even earlier stories with a grain of salt." "That explains why this one didn't spread to any bigger newspapers. 'The Colt Who Cried Timberwolf,' Ember thought aloud. "But the question remains: where in Tartarus did they get this information?" She picked up the paper again and reread the article, paying close attention to the quotes. After a moment, her eyes widened and Thunderlane picked up on it. "What have you found?" "The letters," Ember whispered, half to herself. She turned to Thunderlane. "After I found out Trixie was missing, I sent out a few dozen letters in hopes of getting in contact with her, addressed to ponies all over Equestria. Gusty's family and friends, my old co-workers and fellow students, my contacts at newspapers in other cities - basically anypony who I could trust to take "For Her Eyes Only" seriously. I can't remember the exact wording, but I'd bet you anything that that's where these quotes came from," she finished, jabbing a hoof at the article. Thunderlane nodded. "Well, if you explain that to Trixie-" He stopped as he saw that Ember was shaking her head vehemently. "Not yet. At this point it sounds like a badly improvised excuse. For one thing, the letters were sent out nearly a year before the article was written. For another, I still don't know how one of them got into these fillies' hooves." "Do you have any suspects? Any contacts in Ponyville?" Lyra asked. "Zecora and Twilight, but not well enough to send either of them letters," Ember muttered, mentally kicking herself over that oversight. She closed her eyes in thought for a moment, then turned to Bon Bon. "The Earth pony, you said her name was Apple Bloom?" Bon Bon nodded. "A member of the Apple family?" Another nod. "Possible connection there, I definitely remember meeting some of them when I was doing research for Amber of the Smooze," she mused. Bon Bon shook her head. "It's a stretch. The last time the Apple Family held any kind of large-scale reunion was over two years ago. Not only had Trixie not shown up in Ponyville yet, Gusty wasn't even dead yet. And I don't remember seeing any non-local family members helping on the farm recently." Ember brushed that aside. "It's a lead. In any case, the only way I'm going to find out is to go to Ponyville and talk to 'Gabby Gums' myself. Their teacher, Miss Cheerilee - do either of you have her home address?" she asked Lyra and Bon Bon, who both nodded. "If I can talk to her tomorrow afternoon, I might be able to arrange-" Thunderlane interrupted. "What? Please tell me you're not talking about spending the night down there - what about Trixie's performance?" Ember turned to him. "Lanie, even I can see that me being there is not going to give Trixie the support that I want to." She sighed. "She said she was ending our arrangement - I hope she doesn't think I'm going to mess with the investment I made for her." "Don't worry. I'll go and see her tomorrow, try and keep her mind on performing," Thunderlane replied with a smile. "And we'll make sure we're in the audience when she goes on," Bon Bon added. Lyra nodded, before staring at her in mild surprise. "What? Everypony Comes to Brick's is one of my favourites." *** Across town, Trixie, unable to sleep, turned away from her tear-stained pillow and reached out with her telekinesis to Daring Do and the Trials of Unity.