//------------------------------// // The Road // Story: Hailstorms and Helping Hooves // by Cosmic Dancer //------------------------------// Chapter Four         Trixie just laid there. He kept his eyes closed, no sun to kiss them if they opened, and enjoyed the bittersweet melancholy of a bleak morning. Twilight wasn’t lying next to him, but Trixie could feel the warmth she left, smell the fleeting aroma of her mane. It was her leaving that roused him to consciousness, starting with Spike beckoning her outside the room. They were whispering now,  just outside the bedroom, voices muffled but betrayed by the slightly open door. Trixie tried to block it out, unconcerned with the early-morning intrigue. He couldn’t. Twilight always told him he had sensitive ears. He flipped over onto his side, straddling the warm impression Twilight had left and pressing his head into the mattress.         Twilight and Spike continued muttering to each other, accompanied by either the folding or unfolding of paper. Trixie couldn’t tell. He was gradually getting more upset, not only at the incessant whispering but at the idea that he and Twilight wouldn’t wake up together the way they normally do. One of the few joys he regularly derived anymore was awaking to the gentle susurrations of morning, opening his eyes to see Twilight sitting up and smiling at him the way she does; and that was only on normal mornings, not like this one. But Spike had gone and ruined it. Trixie tried to banish these thoughts, but they lingered in the back of his mind.         It had to be this morning that Spike decided to wreck, the morning after one of his… Trixie didn’t like to think about those, but Twilight was always especially nice to him the morning after one. For all the trouble he was going through to convince her that he was a big, strong stallion, Trixie loved it when Twilight babied him. She’d wake him with nuzzling and kisses on the horn, those mornings, and cradle his head in her arms as his eyes fluttered open. Then she’d soothe him, stroke his mane and massage his ego with long speeches about how talented and smart he was, and especially how brave he was for living with his various troubles--both real and imagined. And after that, any amount of cuddling and serenading and other acts of affection might occur until, eventually, Twilight would ask him if he was hungry. Regardless to his answer, they’d stride down to the kitchen, Trixie clasped snugly under Twilight’s wing, where he would sit in his chair and watch Twilight prepare him a breakfast to specifically appeal to his sweet tooth. Those mornings, the world was alright with Trixie. But this was not one of those mornings. The wizard flipped back over to his original position, facing the door, when the conversation outside the bedroom ended. Twilight stepped gingerly back into the bedroom, the sound of tiny claws sluggishly stumbling off beyond the door. She slid up next to the still dormant Trixie, and he could feel her gentle breath on his face before being nuzzled a little more firmly than he would’ve liked. He brought his hoof up and draped it over Twilight’s neck, opening his eyes. “I’m awake,” Trixie started to sit up, but Twilight draped her own hoof over his stomach and kissed him once. She levitated up an open letter, hurried words scrawled across it. Trixie ignored it, his mind occupied with more important matters like how Twilight intended to pamper and coddle him that day. “We’re going to the hospital today, Trixie. I’m going to go take my shower, then you can take yours,” Twilight stated, trying to use the same saccharine voice she normally would on a morning like that one, but it was no comfort to Trixie. He thought that the hospital trip, like most things, was about him--and tried to extract more information as his stomach started tying itself in a knot. “W-what about Spike and Starlight?” Trixie eked out in the calmest voice he could muster, terrible thoughts running through his mind that his special somepony had finally had enough of his meltdowns and was putting him on medication.“What about their showers?” He was hoping that Spike had just fallen on some glass or something. “They’re going to stay here, you and I are the only ones who need to go,” Twilight nuzzled Trixie, who was now growing visibly worried. “Rainbow wrote that I need to be there, and Scootaloo likes you--so I thought it might cheer her up if you came,” Trixie had only a moment of relief before the gravity of the statement struck him, his expression now one of abject fear. “Don’t worry, Trixie, I’m sure she’ll be just fine. You’re so sweet to worry,” comforted Twilight, not realizing the truth behind the wizard’s fright. She nuzzled him more gently before retracting and looking him in the eyes caringly. “You do feel well enough to go, don’t you?” “Uh, a-actually, there’s something I have to do in town today--this morning, actually,” Trixie stammered, sitting up and shifting his eyes away from Twilight’s. He tried to slide out of bed and onto his hooves, but Twilight boxed him in with her own. Looking into his eyes again, still caring but a little more stern, she said, “Trixie… Have you forgotten our talk last night? You can’t go to Ponyville unless I’m with you,” Trixie looked away, but Twilight shifted her head to follow his gaze. “If you tell me why you need to go to town, we’ll go together after we leave the hospital…” There was an air about Trixie as if he was going to respond, but he remained silent, and looked straight down to avoid Twilight’s eyes. They spent a couple minutes like that, Twilight leaning over Trixie as he stared down like a dejected child, until she sighed and hugged him. Nestling his head onto her shoulder, Trixie rubbed her side softly and tentatively--he was unsure if Twilight was angry or disappointed, he always found it difficult to read situations like that. Reassured by the sound her breathing, he came to the decision that he’d just ask her. “Are you m-” “I’m going to take my shower now, Trixie,” Twilight slowly slid off of Trixie, stepping back toward the door. “We need to get started early, so you might have to shave a couple hours off of your shower this morning… Were you going to ask me something?” Trixie, not quite able to decipher Twilight’s intent with her statement about his lengthy showers due to an ambiguous (to him) tone and expression, found discretion to be the better part of valor. “No.” “Oh, well… Okay,” Twilight leaned over to the nervous wizard, giving him a quick nuzzle and a kiss. “Try and get some rest while I’m in the shower, Trixie. I don’t think you get enough sleep,” Twilight gently urged before trotting off and out of the bedroom. Trixie just sat there for a few minutes, no real thoughts running through his head. Wind whistled outside, and Trixie briefly entertained the idea of rocking back and forth before admonishing himself for the mere idea of it. The feelings of security and comfort he derived from the motion unnerved him on a conscious level . Ever since he was a colt, he’d always seen madness depicted in art and literature as a sunken-eyed stallion in a corner, rocking. He hated himself for it, especially when he found himself doing it instinctively. But Twilight never understood, she was always trying to convince him to sit up and rock in front of her, rock with her, saying that it was nothing to be ashamed of--but how would she know? This line of thought inexorably led to the subject of the prior night’s meltdown, and Trixie promptly dropped it. Trixie turned and fell back onto the bed, shrouding himself with the sheet. Now, more appropriately, he began to consider the terrible conundrum he’d allowed to ensnare him. His plan hadn’t quite backfired, yet, and it had actually worked--the problem being that it had worked too well. Night Glider wasn’t meant to put the little filly in the hospital, only rough her up to the point she couldn’t blame it on her scooter--maybe even break her scooter for good measure, but this was too far. Besides, even if that were the case, it wasn’t like Trixie could waltz down to the school house and say, What’re these bruises? No, Twilight had gone and spoiled that, and now it only added to the disarray. Trixie thought for a moment of just scrambling down there to Night Glider’s house and getting beaten while Twilight was in the shower; a battered stallion who fought out of compassion isn’t quite the same as a triumphant hero, but it might work. Trixie came to the decision that it would be counterintuitive to the plan’s primary goal by just making Twilight pity him--besides, Trixie didn’t like getting beaten, even if it was for some midnight delight. Trixie wondered if Twilight would have let him take that shower with her. --- Starlight was trying her best to act like it was just another morning, sitting down in the kitchen and flipping through the old newspaper as if a raving lunatic hadn’t spent half the night shrieking like a tortured animal. Among Spike, Twilight and her family, Trixie’s episodes were something of an open secret; only mentioned through euphemisms in private letters between Twilight and Cadance, or Twilight and her mother. Starlight, though, had no idea what had originated the pained screams that pierced the night prior. This was the first time it had happened since she moved into the castle--for all she knew, she was the only living thing left in the place. The homogeneously grey and dull sky outside the window provided a little comfort, found in the grim normalcy of that particularly depressing winter, but it wasn’t enough to halt the rising fear in her chest. Despite the increasing urge to track down whatever remained of her housemates, Starlight just sat there, eyes transfixed to the newspaper and making no attempt to read it--instead opting to flip through each page until the comfort of the morning rut silenced the clarion call to investigation. To Starlight, it was becoming apparent that the comfort would never come. Hearing the gentle clink of a door opening, Starlight’s eyes snapped over to it. “Twilight, you’re alive!” Starlight almost caught herself, realizing the absurdity of the proclamation just a moment too late. The princess, who was patting her mane with a plush, patterned towel, offered in return an equally amused and bemused expression. Casually walking over to a set of cabinets with a smirk, it took only a moment for Twilight to piece together the statement with the events of the previous night. Halting abruptly, with one hoof on a cabinet’s handle and her smirk gone, she said, “Oh, you mean… Don’t worry about that, Starlight--it was just Trixie. He had a hard time yesterday. Well, I assume he did, anyway,” Twilight turned back to the cabinet, opening it and levitating out a few little bottles until she found the one for which she was presumably searching. Magically examining the contents, and ignoring a shocked Starlight, “And he didn’t take his calcium yesterday.” “Twilight!” exclaimed Starlight, snapping the princess to attention as she slowly paced up to her with a worried and sympathetic look. “That isn’t normal! There’s no excuse for a stallion to scream and-” “Stop, Starlight. You don’t understand,” Twilight shook her head dismissively, turning back to the cabinet and replacing the bottles. Starlight, who was looking on confusedly, started to speak before being cut off by Twilight. “He… Trixie…” Twilight looked up at the cabinet, closing it and letting her eyes linger there. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you about that… that, the other day. Now you’re going to think Trixie’s a freak, and it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have told you-” “Twilight.” “I’m… Listen, it really isn’t his fault. Any of it. Anyway, about what happened… Trixie’s--and don’t mention this to him, just like the other things we’ve talked about, but… Okay,” Twilight turned to Starlight, looking around as she furtively strode up to her, more to avoid looking at the mare than seeing if anyone was around. In a hushed, vulnerable tone, “Trixie’s... He’s, well, he’s--And he’ll tell you otherwise, but he has a… condition, and.... Anyway,” Twilight looked up, at the window, then back down. “There’s a lot to it but… Those tant- meltdowns, I mean. He has those meltdowns because--and he can’t help it, so,” Twilight looked up and into Starlight’s eyes, imploringly. “Don’t...Just…” Twilight looked back down, shutting her eyes and silently chastising herself for the stammering stream of broken sentences. She could feel Starlight’s expectant eyes rolling up and down her, growing more intense with every lost word. “Because he really can’t--his brain can’t process certain stim-” “Twilight, stop,” said Starlight, softly but with a veiled austerity. “You can’t keep making excuses for him,” Starlight plead, standing straight and slightly shaking her head with each word. Twilight looked up gently, eyes wide and her face devoid of emotion; motionless but belying great animation in her heart. “You don’t have to hide it from me, Twilight. I’ve only spent a few weeks living here, but I know how he is, I know how he acts. If he was angry and started getting violent, just tell me; don’t make up these stories about-” “No, Starlight, you stop,” commanded Twilight with a sternness she usually only reserved for Trixie. The princess stood up, an inch or so taller than Starlight (which she accentuated to add a little more gravity to her words). “I misjudged you, Starlight,” Twilight shifted her weight to her front hooves, looking up and away as she delivered the castigation. In this, her Canterlot upbringing was clearly evident, as she drew on her own memories of her mother’s scoldings and Trixie’s egotistical speeches to recreate their poses. “Clearly, I’ve been failing as your teacher if you can’t even forgive ponies for actions and circumstances beyond their-” “Are you serious?” burst Starlight, somewhere between a loud question and a jarring shout, with extreme disbelief in her eyes. The outburst shocked Twilight out of her posturing, and she looked on with apprehension as Starlight continued. “You’re always doing this! You’re always defending Trixie for this ab-appalling behavior, and he never stops. I’ve seen the way he speaks to you and Spike when he’s mad, and the way he-” Starlight’s voice got a little less intense, gradually, and Twilight relaxed before attempting to interrupt--but Starlight got a second wind halfway through the tirade and started to shout again. “And it’s, oh! Oh! It’s only- I’ve only been here for two and a half weeks, and he’s already threatened to kill himself! Twice! Twilight, that is not normal! But you’re trying to tell me that-” Starlight kept listing her examples of the wizard’s ‘appalling behavior’, her volume once again starting to fall gradually. Twilight, who had been silent until Trixie’s regular and melodramatic threats of suicide had been brought up, tried to interject. “Well, we all deal with sadness in our own way, Starlight,” said Twilight, half joking. While they terrified her at first, after almost three years of Trixie’s suicide threats she’d caught on that they were mostly just cruel practical jokes he liked to play. They usually consisted of him taking off his cape or sash and wrapping it around his neck after either Twilight or Spike didn’t indulge one of his narcissistic notions, then he’d stand on a chair and look up for a rafter that wasn’t there. Starlight hadn’t yet realized that he only did it because he thought it was funny. Of course, Twilight could recall a couple occasions when his threats were more than just humor. Starlight, surprisingly having heard Twilight’s statement over her own tirade, took it as Twilight just trying to defend another one of Trixie’s destructive behaviors. This, it seemed, broke her, as she could only look at Twilight with a look of shock and disbelief. Eventually she just shook her head and they both went on about her morning in the kitchen. After about ten minutes, they had both seemed to have separately and silently put the short spat behind them, and Starlight casually asked, “Oh! I, uh, I need to talk to Spike about something, is he awake yet?” “Hm? Yes, he’s still asleep in his bedroom- wait,” Twilight reached out to the mare, who was strangely moving out of the kitchen even after having heard that Spike was still asleep. “There’s something I need to ask you about,” said Twilight, disregarding Starlight’s sudden nervousness as residual discomfort from the earlier spat. “Do you remember how I told you about Cheerilee, the schoolteacher, helping me organize the fair?” Starlight nodded her head. “You didn’t tell Trixie about it did you? Or Spike?” “No, why?” Starlight was backing away toward the door, facing Twilight who was looking away in thought. “It’s just something strange that Trixie mentioned last night. He said something about how she was helping me, but I don’t remember telling… Starlight?” Twilight brought her eyes to the swaying door, Starlight nowhere to be seen. Twilight didn’t mind, she’d gotten her information. It was always something Trixie did when he lied; he’d lace in a little bit of truth. Twilight wasn’t sure if the magician did it intentionally, as a way to weave in and out of his story with a common line, or if he was just a bad liar. Twilight, while feeling Trixie to be one of the more cunning ponies she’d ever known, was of the opinion that the latter was the truth of the matter. Of course, it was entirely possible that she had just left some note from Cheerilee on the dresser and Trixie had seen it and extrapolated that they were working together. But what she couldn’t explain was why he kept mentioning the schoolhouse, even when she had ousted him as lying. It could’ve just been Cheerilee on his mind, but Twilight thought there was a deeper connection. At any rate, all Twilight had to do was wait for the truth to show itself up in Trixie’s conversation. While it might have hurt her to know that Trixie was lying, it was always an amusing spectacle--and Twilight even thought it was a little cute, the way he’d get so nervous and trip over his words. Intelligent enough to catch himself making a mistake, but not before he’d make it. He’d figure out the traps Twilight would lay in conversation to catch him lying, but still fall for them, and after two or three times he get annoyed and stamp his hooves and storm off. Twilight smiled just thinking about it. --- At around the time a pony of sound mind would be calmly admitting defeat and examining his own shortcomings, Beatrix Lulamoon was in his study rifling through his desk and bookshelves, unshaven, his hair sopping wet, and a yellow toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. He was searching for magical papyrus, hoping that he might’ve misplaced even a single sheet during one his impotent rages or just out of ignorance. Magical inscription was one of the first, most basic tasks that students of Celestia’s School learned, and Trixie was never very skilled at it. He had the knowledge, but not the ability. His levitation was too unwieldy, not precise enough for the accurate writing that spell inscription necessitated--back when he was a colt, and even as a grown stallion, he’d usually have Twilight do it for him (after ruining several sheets in deluded attempts to do it himself). But, even if he had a sheet,that couldn’t be the case this time. His plan, to correct the course of that week’s first failing scheme, was to inscribe a spell on a scroll and use it to bypass Twilight’s control over his spellcasting. This spell, which Trixie planned to inscribe, was the enchantment Modify Memory. While he was an arrogant, foppish, gamboling idiot, Beatrix Lulamoon was willing to accept a few truths about the world and his place in it. He understood that Twilight was at least marginally better at magic than he (no matter how much she insisted that he was a genius), and as such considered himself the second best mage in Equestria. But, he also knew that there was at least one school of magic in which he was superior to Twilight: Enchantment. To illustrate this point, let us look back and see that where Twilight Sparkle graduated from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns with very advanced marks in Conjuration and Transmutation and above average marks in every other subject, Beatrix Lulamoon graduated with extraordinary marks in Enchantment, average marks in Illusion, and below average marks in every other subject. The school of magic Enchantment was generally divided into two disciplines: the application of magical effects to objects, and the application of magical effects to organisms. The former being easily enough understood as turning twigs into wands and swords into magical swords; the latter being a little more difficult to explain, but easily enough understood as hypnosis and all its derivatives, from making somepony fall asleep to total mind control. Some unicorn enchanters were rumored to be so advanced in their knowledge that they could utter a single word and instantly kill another living thing. Some of these rumors were even centered on Beatrix himself, and he noticed that even when Twilight granted him ‘total’ use of his magic, he could still some restraints in place. He didn’t mind, though; the idea that she had to limit his powers, real or imagined, made him feel great and powerful in a way that he seldom did anymore. Twilight was always capable of making him feel that way, even when they were children in school together. While it was her job to make sure he passed the other subjects, she’d always encourage him to follow his passion for Enchanting and Illusion. In fact, she was a willing test subject for many of his spells and enchanting experiments, until a particularly tempestuous incident the year they both turned thirteen and Night Light, Twilight’s father, forbade them from it thereafter. Trixie assumed that, after so much time turning his study and laboratory upside down looking for a blank sheet of papyrus, it was getting about time for he and Twilight to leave for the hospital. What a shame, he thought, that he could have convinced Scootaloo herself of the lies he told about her--if only he had some papyri on which to inscribe Modify Memory, cleaning up yesterday’s mess would be so much easier. But Twilight would be stepping through the door any minute and that’d be it. Of course, he had no way of knowing if any time had passed as the sun was obscured by a dingy blanket of grey clouds, and the only clock Trixie kept in his tower had been broken months before in one of his rages. Twilight would’ve replaced it if he had told her, but he was afraid of disappointing his special somepony. She was the only pony in the world who could make him feel guilty like that, after his mother passed away. The door to the wizard’s study slowly opened, and Trixie braced himself before realizing that it wasn’t Twilight coming to hurry him, but Spike with a worried expression waving him over. Trixie, his interest piqued, trotted over to the dragonling who was hiding behind the door. “I thought you’d still be asleep,” casually stated Trixie, until he saw Spike’s expression grow more worried and Spike motion him to lean down and stay quiet. “I need you to come to my room,” implored Spike, desperately. Trixie, bemused and barely concerned, nodded and followed the whelp down the hall. He noticed Spike wasn’t dragging his feet the way he normally did in the morning, but stepping deliberately and with stealth the wizard wouldn’t expect of a child, even a dragonling. A couple minutes later, Trixie was stood over Spike’s damp, slightly discolored bed with disgust on his face and apprehension in his posture. Spike was stood closer to him than what he’d consider normal, and being awfully silent. His toothbrush still sticking out from his mouth, Trixie said, “I, uh, I don’t know why you’d come to me with this instead of Twilight, Sp-” “You can’t tell Twilight!” Spike blurted out, catching himself before it became a yell. Trixie raised an eyebrow. “And why can’t I?” “Because she’d- Well, y’know, she’d start asking questions and I--I mean, I know she means well, but… A-and, besides, Twilight told me that when you were a colt, you’d wet your b-” “Well, she lied to you!” Trixie shouted, Spike prompting him to quiet down. “Wh-? F-fine, just… Well, we don’t have any servants, so you’re just going to have to clean these yourself if you don’t want Starlight or Twilight finding out,” Trixie explained with a harshness he didn’t realize was in his tone, noting that Spike grew a little more worried at the mention of Starlight’s name. “So just replace these and hide them somewhere until everypony’s asleep, then head down and take care of it. And don’t drink anything before you go to sleep, if you can help it,” Trixie turned around, starting to head for the door. “Or you could wear diapers like the baby you are- Oh! Maybe Big Mac has some you could borrow! Ha!” “Heh, y-yeah--well, could you help me wash them, at least for to-” “No.” “Oh, w-well- Hey, wait!” Spike ran up to the stallion, who was almost out the door. Trixie spun around. “What?” “I-is Starlight making breakfast downstairs?” “How should I know?” “Uh, w-what are you and Twilight doing today?” Spike was visibly getting more worried, and Trixie was getting more intrigued than annoyed. “We’re… going to the hospital, to see Scootaloo. Her father be- Uh, I mean,” Trixie shouldn’t have known yet that Scootaloo’s father had anything to do with it, and he realized it just too late. He could only hope Spike didn’t notice, and he probably didn’t, because the dragonling’s expression had gone from worry to panic. “W-what are you doing today?” “C-could I come with you to the hospital?” Spike was trying his best to appear calm and ask coolly, but Trixie saw through it. His eyes darted to the wet bed, then back to Spike, and his expression softened. “Spike, are you sure there’s nothing that you want to talk to Twilight about?” “...” “Okay… Well, I have to go finish getting ready to leave,” Trixie left the room. After he left Spike’s room, Trixie spent a little time considering whether he ought to head back to his tower and continue his hopeless search for an unadulterated scroll or return to the bedroom and at least try and look presentable before Twilight found him. Rubbing his bristly neck, he decided the latter option to be the wiser of the two, and trotted down the hall toward Twilight’s bedroom and the nearby bathroom. Taking him by surprise, Twilight quickly emerged from a hallway perpendicular, those repulsive calcium tablets floating next to her, and Trixie’s toothbrush poked her cheek. “Eep! Wh- Trixie! You haven’t even shaved! Why is- ah!” Twilight ran her hoof over the stallion’s wet, curly white mane. “You’re going to catch pneumonia!” Twilight sighed and grabbed Trixie by the arm, dragging him over to their bedroom as the door to the bathroom swung open and a folded towel levitated toward them. “Hold still,” Twilight sat him on the foot of the bed before stepping over to her modest closet, the towel flying onto his head and starting to violently twist around, drying his mane. Trixie took out his tooth brush, trying not to choke on it. “Twi- ugh! Twilight! Is this really necessary?!” asked Trixie, maneuvering his head to avoid the scraping oscillations of the towel. “Well, it clearly is, Trixie, seeing as how you refuse to get ready like a big colt,” Twilight stepped out of the closet holding one of Trixie’s thicker, fur lined capes. She always kept a few of Trixie’s clothes in her closet, mostly for situations like this one, or if she ever wanted to smell the faint vanilla-like aroma Trixie always gave off. Rarity had once speculated that she did it to bolster the appearance of the closet itself, make it seem like she a wardrobe one might actually expect of a princess. Trixie’s ostentatious and over designed robes and capes stood in stark contrast to Twilight’s simple and unassuming garments, and existed in greater quantity. Only her gala dresses really stood out in the collection, Twilight having hid her coronation dress from Trixie. He’d put enchantments on almost all of her clothing in different little experiments of his, and she didn’t mind most of the time. She was just happy he was finding constructive ways of using his free time (which he had in excess). Having few ponies willing to put up with his various quirks and proclivities, in addition to his general disdain for society, Trixie had many empty hours to fill. If he wasn’t enchanting Twilight’s dresses and jewelry, he was usually performing bizarre and incomprehensible experiments like replacing a lizard’s blood with cola. Twilight often worried about his lack of sociability, even when she knew the reason (not that she could bring it up to him). The great irony of their love was that Twilight was the princess of friendship, and Trixie had no friends. The towel stopped attacking Trixie and fell limp on the floor, Twilight kicking it away before levitating his toothbrush out of his hoof and into his mouth. After quickly going once over Trixie’s teeth, and making him gag, the yellow plastic instrument flew back out and toward its place in the bathroom. Twilight, rearing up, wrapped the cloak around him and started fastening it around his neck with her hooves. Trixie took this opportunity to notice that her expression had lightened and smiled at her. Glancing up, she smiled back and gave him a little kiss. “This was the cloak I asked you to wear yesterday, to town. But you didn’t.” “I didn’t want to come up here and get it after what… well…” Twilight looked back up at Trixie, a little more sympathy in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Trixie,” she said, nuzzling his bristly face. “It’s okay. And, uh, actually--what you said earlier this morning about… going to town for what I needed…” “Yes?” Twilight was nearly finished fastening the garish cloak; Trixie couldn’t understand why Twilight was always insisting on doing things with her hooves instead of magic. “I’ve, um, I’ve seemed to have run out of some supplies for my work. So, if we could head to town and get, uh, magic ink and maybe some stationary and, well, things of that nature in general, then that would… be nice.” “‘Things of that nature’, huh? You mean like magic papyrus, so you can inscribe a spell scroll and cast magic even when I’ve said you can’t?” Twilight finished fastening Trixie’s cape and looked up, directly into his eyes with a smirk. Trixie’s eyes darted down and his head followed, hanging. “Y-yes.” “I don’t think so, sweetie,” Twilight kissed him on the forehead, hugging him quickly before pulling him off the bed and onto his hooves. She grabbed the bottle of vitamins off of the bed where she left it, magically unscrewing the cap. “Take your calcium, Trixie, you need it for exocytosis.” “I don’t know what that is, and I don’t want to take them, they’re chalky,” said Trixie, weaving around a floating white pill Twilight was trying to feed him. It was a special privilege, she had, to hear Trixie admit when he didn’t know something--even after his years of practice for faking as if he knew everything. “Take it now and I’ll get you some of those children’s gummy vitamins when we’re at the hospital,” Twilight nuzzled his prickly, unshaven neck, and shook the bottle for emphasis. “WelI… I do like those… Will you get me the orange flavored ones?” asked Trixie. Twilight nodded with a smile. “Okay, but don’t think they sell vitamins at hospitals, Twilight,” Trixie had stopping dodging the tablet, having plucked it from the air, and was holding it in front of his mouth. “Actually they added a, uh, well… auxillary pharmacy, I guess, where they do sell supplements and little things like that,” explained Twilight, the two starting to walk toward the door. “While we’re there, maybe we could get you some of those bandaids with cartoons on them,” giggled Twilight, her snickering stopping the same time Trixie did. Still smirking, she looked over to see her special somepony staring at her and pouting the way he did when she’d tease him. “I’m sorry, Trixie, I won’t make fun. Come on, take your calcium and we’ll get you the gummies,” she said, pecking the wizard’s cheek as his petulant expression melted into one of subtle contentment. They both walked out of the bedroom. “Now, exocytosis is the movement of macromolecules out of the cell; this happens because-...” --- They’d only been walking a few minutes, Trixie tucked under Twilight’s wing, striding unevenly like a single organism. Spike wasn’t with them. They were taking the road outside of town to the hospital. Twilight knew why, and she hoped Trixie had enough self-awareness to understand. The sky was a sea of light grey, clouds occasionally breaking to allow beams of sunlight to grace the fields bordering the lonely dirt road. The two ponies had been silent for the short time they’d been travelling it, Twilight gazing at the frosty green waves of grass with a grin, a wing clasping her special somepony snugly against her side. She was trying to keep her mind off of Scootaloo and what might’ve happened to her until she could at least get to the hospital and hear the truth. Trixie, who was staring down the cold stretch of land before them, was struggling to keep Twilight’s pace--his twisted legs paining him more than the day prior, but Twilight didn’t seem to notice. She’d only glance at his blank face, smiling at him and never looking down at his hooves. Ponies who didn’t know Trixie would mistake his dead stare for either studied contempt or abject stupidity, but Twilight knew it to only be his neutral expression, and found a kind of comfort in it. It brought out his more delicate features and presented them as a kind of innocence, she thought. Of course, most of Trixie’s features were delicate--there was nothing especially masculine about him but his actions. He was a beautiful stallion. Some mares disliked it in their significant others, but Twilight admired that special kind of feminine quality in a stallion’s appearance, and it abounded in Trixie. In his face, in his body, and especially in his clothing. The first thing anyone intimately familiar with the house Lulamoon would notice about Trixie was his apparel. While dour and austere garb was ubiquitous in his family’s taste, black and deep red affairs with simple cuts being the norm, Trixie would dress himself in vibrant blues and pinks, high collared cloaks and whimsical tunics--what would be expected from a member of a more magical and outspoken house of nobility, like Twilight’s, not a scion of the militant and secretive Lulamoons. Why he did it, out of wish or rebellion (maybe just taste), was just as much a mystery to Twilight as anyone else. The only thing that might be considered really masculine about his appearance were his hypnotic eyes, Twilight being one of the few ponies who had the privilege of regularly seeing them head-on. His appearance aside, there was some femininity about Trixie that Twilight found more concerning than attractive; mostly because of the way it conflicted with his general behavior and beliefs. For instance, you wouldn’t expect a pony who regularly espoused the tenets of fascism and social repression to skip like a filly whenever he was happy, but Trixie did. You wouldn’t expect a stallion who, when Flurry Heart needed her diaper changed when Shining Armor was in town, insisted that Twilight was ‘the mare, so she should be the one doing that type of thing’ to prance about singing love songs whenever Twilight paid him a little extra attention on any given day. A mare might expect her stallion to be fine with her seeing him get ready in the morning, but whenever Twilight walked in on Trixie applying his fruity perfumes and oils (which took at least an hour) after one of his candlelit baths, she’d be screamed at in a high baritenor voice to get out. While Twilight normally felt that many of these discrepancies should be ascribed to Trixie’s general lack of social comprehension and misunderstanding of societal expectations, it was times like that when she wondered if Trixie’s mother’s imposed transvestism had really only been as harmful as the schoolyard bullying it precipitated. The truth was that it was likely some combination of the two, but Twilight found the problem all the more confusing for the fact that Trixie considered himself the epitome of masculinity. In the end, it didn’t matter to Twilight how Trixie conformed to their society’s ideals of femininity and masculinity, because she loved him and he loved her. Whenever they’d talk about Trixie and their relationship, Cadance would always say to Twilight that she could tell Trixie and Twilight loved each other even when they were children and she was babysitting them. Cadance would say that she knew they loved each other before they did. Twilight, while knowing she’d always say this, still found comfort in the statement. After all, Cadance was the princess of love (and the only pony Twilight could confide all the details of her relationship with Trixie in), so she should know. That having been said, Twilight would sometimes wonder if she knew that she would end up with Trixie, even when she was ten years old. Twilight wasn’t sure if she’d say Trixie was her first friend, but definitely the first non-familial pony she enjoyed having around. They didn’t speak much, reciprocally at least, for the first couple of years they knew one another. Their average day, from around the time they were nine to ten or eleven years old, consisted of Trixie following Twilight home so she could help him study like the professors asked; they would study together for about an hour and a half, then they’d eat a snack that either Twilight’s mother or Cadance had prepared for them. After their snack, Twilight and Trixie would spend an hour or so conversing and playing, their ‘conversations’ being Twilight delivering long speeches about whatever book she’d just read while Trixie listened quietly, and occasionally she could coax Trixie into shyly delivering his own quiet monologues about some minutiae of advanced Enchanting or Illusion. Trixie didn’t have a very good grasp on the art of conversation back then, as Twilight recalled, so that was the only way they could speak to each other at first. Griffon culture, having been influenced a great deal by the classical pegasus civilizations since the days of ancient Gryphon, was mostly similar to greater pony culture--but the griffons had an old belief for which there was no pony analogue: a kind of spiritual promise. Twilight thought of a jigsaw puzzle when she’d first had it related to her, but the real concept was a little more complex. The idea, as Twilight recollected, was that every griffon was born with a soul missing a piece, and an extra piece that didn’t fit. And, for every griffon, there was only one other with the matching space and piece, and once they came together, they’d be whole. Twilight didn’t consider herself to be very spiritual beyond the objective mysticism being a sorceress necessitates, but she figured that if griffons and ponies did have such souls, then Trixie was her match. They’d been walking for about twenty minutes now, almost halfway to the hospital, with Twilight intermittently nuzzling Trixie and the stallion himself peering around blankly every few minutes. “Trixie?” asked Twilight. “Do you remember when we were around ten or eleven, and Cadance would fix snacks for us?” Twilight was pressing her cheek against Trixie’s and looking ahead with a gentle grin. “Mhm. After we’d study,” confirmed Trixie, quiet and nearly monotone, more calm after repeated mental assertions that he’d think of a way out of the predicament with Scootaloo’s abuse. A noise he couldn’t identify sounded a few feet ahead in the thicket off the side of the road. “And how we’d build pillow forts and play…? Do you- huh?” Twilight’s dreamy reminiscing was interrupted by Trixie pulling away to go investigate some little sound he’d heard or some shape he saw, like he’d often do during their walks. Satisfied that Trixie was only doing what he normally did, Twilight was ready to return to her memories until she noticed something strange about the way Trixie was moving. While he’d only been back in her life for a few years, she liked to think that she knew all the ways he normally moved. The aforementioned girlish skipping when he was happy, his regular contemplative gait, his thuggish marching when he was upset; the cute way his hooves would turn inward when he was sad or embarrassed, and- “Oh no,” Twilight saw Trixie stumbling over with his hooves pointing out, his knees twisting hideously. He’d only done this a couple of times before, and it always led up to him having some painful injury before he’d stop and return to his natural walk. Twilight hadn’t been able to figure out what triggered it, but she knew it had something to do with his father or brothers. “Trixie, stop that.” “Stop what?” Trixie turned from the motionless thicket to look at Twilight, a little bemused. She looked down at his legs, then back up in his eyes. It only took Trixie a moment to discern what it meant. “I normally walk like this, Twilight. This is how I’ve always walked-” “No, it isn’t,” said Twilight, gentle but stern. “...” Trixie cocked his head a little, actually convicted in his beliefs about his knees and hooves, trying to both calm and convince his concerned mare. “This is how I’ve walked since I was a little colt, I’ve told you about my legs. How my father and Halifax Jr both needed leg braces, but wouldn’t get them for me-” “The first time you told me that story, it was only your grandfather who needed leg braces. How long until your entire family wore leg braces but you, Trixie?” Twilight almost immediately regretted the second sentence, seeing a genuine glint of pain in Trixie’s eyes before they darted away. “Wait, I’m sorry, Trixie. Come on,” Twilight approached Trixie, gently wrapping a hoof around his foreleg and leading him to the side of the road, sitting down with him and rubbing his knees. “I-it’s a… It’s congenital, and my knees-my hooves stick out and...and…” Trixie was stammering, looking down and trying to ignore the feeling of Twilight’s eyes on him. “Shh, Trixie. I know, I know,” shushed Twilight, trying to comfort him. His stuttering quickly dropped into silence, and Twilight nuzzled him. “Trixie, do you remember what happened the last time you did this?” There was a short pause. “Hrrng… We had to… You took...Hrrng…” Trixie’s dejected self-indulgences about his alleged leg defects had not yet been surrendered, but were now morphing into a low boiling contempt. “Your knee popped out and we had to go to the emergency room,” Twilight knew Trixie well enough to see that he was getting annoyed, and tried to keep the little talk as gentle as possible. “Do you remember what the doctor said when she looked at your knees?” softly queried Twilight, realizing that her attempts to be gentle sounded more condescending than anything else. “I’m not going to see any therapist, Twilight,” stated Trixie, sitting up straight and sounding a little harsh as he looked over at Twilight, who was already rubbing his back with a reassuring hoof. “The doctor did tell me to take you to a therapist, but I didn’t because you didn’t want to and I respect your feelings,” It was an old habit she’d picked up when speaking to Trixie; Twilight would always have to clearly convey her emotions with words, because the stallion easily misconstrued statements with more subtle meanings. “But do you remember why she said that you should see a therapist?” Trixie looked back down to the ground, hunching over once again. “She said that you were making it up, and walking that way to hurt yourself,” Twilight grabbed one of Trixie’s forelegs, gently shaking it to emphasize her next point. “Trixie, you’re hurting yourself on purpose. And I know you’re upset, but I can’t just sit by and watch you do it,” Twilight tried her best to deliver this with enough emotion that even Trixie could pick up on it, but he just sat there silently. Twilight sighed, hugging him without another word for about two minutes, until something occurred to her. “Is this about yesterday morning? Oh, Trixie I’m sorry. That was wrong, and I’m sorry I did it. Are you still mad at me? Is that why you’re hurting your knees again?” Twilight stared at the still silent Trixie, never breaking their embrace. He didn’t respond. They sat there for a little while longer. “She was a pegasus,” murmured Trixie. “Hm?”         “The doctor was a pegasus... How should she know what unicorn joints are meant to look like?” Trixie elaborated with a little more impetus. For a reason he couldn’t determine, or didn’t want to, this statement prompted Twilight to sigh.         “Trixie, that doesn’t-... Okay, Trixie, how about this: we’re going to a hospital, we’ll get a unicorn doctor to look at your knees. If he says that there is something wrong, then we’ll forget about this and get it treated-”         “Well, actually only surgery c-”         “But if he tells me that you’re doing this to yourself, causing yourself pain,” Twilight countered, silencing Trixie’s own interjection. “Then you and I are going to have a long talk about this tonight.” Trixie, realizing that the deal had already been struck between Twilight and herself and that he had no say in the matter, only nodded submissively and abandoned the pointless fight. Twilight saw this and returned to rubbing his back for a few moments before they rose to continue the journey. “Sometimes I just don’t understand you, Trixie.”         “Hrrng…” grunted Trixie. The two were now walking, but apart.         “You invent these injuries and illnesses, coming to me for sympathy,” casually tutted Twilight, strangely unaware of the feelings it stirred in the now brooding Trixie, who was making it a point to walk faster than Twilight and stay ahead of her.         “Hrrng-yeah, uh huh,” grunted Trixie, with restrained anger.         “But I’m not allowed to even bring up your real disability, or you start screaming and crying,” Twilight stopped her quiet droning when she saw Trixie wince at the mention of his condition. She trotted up to his side, putting a hoof on his back to slow him down, but he shook it off and moved away. “Trixie, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Twilight tried to comfort him, but there was no point; the wizard forcefully refuted the idea that his subconscious behaviors were even unusual, let alone predicated on any neurological abnormality. It confounded Twilight that her special somepony, who prided himself of being different and used ‘conformist’ as a grievous insult, could be so afraid of himself. She thought it may have been because she referred to it as ‘his disability’, but recalled that whenever she actually said the name of it, Trixie would throw a fit. “It doesn’t mean that you’re inferior in any way, just a little different-”         “Hrrng, yes, Twilight. Thank you, Twilight,” snapped Trixie, gaining speed and once again overtaking Twilight. It amazed her how quickly he could revert from her idealistic and intelligent court wizard to the angry, sulking malcontent that lived in the Golden Oaks’ basement. Twilight was getting a little upset with him, deciding that she’d have to bring this back up later that night when she got to the bottom of his malingering and overall behavior since Shining Armor’s visit. For now, though, she’d let it go.         “Alright, Trixie, I should’ve known that you wouldn’t want to talk about your disability, so we-”         Trixie halted and swung around, facing Twilight. “I-I’m not d-dis-disabled-not disabled--I told you-I told you to nev-It is-is-isn’t a d-d-d-” Trixie’s anger morphed into a painful kind of shame upon hearing his righteous indignation take shape as a stream of stutters and stammers, and turned away from Twilight, who unpredictably chose that day as the one to make a stand on the obviously very sensitive issue.         “Then how do you explain what happened last night?” challenged Twilight, standing firm against the stream of incomprehensible sobbing shouts of protest emanating from the visibly perturbed stallion. “Why do I constantly have to-” Trixie swung back again to face Twilight, his eyes tearing up as he impotently stamped up to the princess and screamed disjointed sentences and word jumbles that seemed to add up to him pathetically asserting his not being disabled. Ordinarily the sight would’ve broken Twilight’s heart, but there was something about that day that spurred her on. It might’ve been Starlight’s speech that morning, or perhaps just the accumulation of her own displeasure with Trixie. “Trixie! Trix- ah! Okay!” She grabbed him by the arm, pulling him back over to the side of the road. “I can see we need to sit down again,” Trixie broke away.         “No! N-no! I-I-you c-can’t-!” By now, the light grey clouds hovering in the cold air had turned several shades darker, enveloping the sky and completely shutting out the sun’s warm rays. A frigid wind rustled the dying grass flanking the road. “I-I’m not d-d-! I don’t-don’t have-!” Every break in the stammering screams was filled by shrieking sobs and guttural gasps for air.         “Trixie, this is ridiculous! I can tell the difference between a meltdown and one of your idiotic tantrums.” Trixie seemed to be hurt by the chastisement, but Twilight found it difficult to discern in the wretched display of stamped hooves and violent head shakings, and started to question her ability to actually tell the difference between a meltdown and one of Trixie’s attention-seeking tantrums.         “I told- I told you to never say that to me! Never say that I- say that I’m disabled!” Trixie, for some reason, stopped stuttering after Twilight’s assertion that she knew he was throwing a tantrum and not having one of his meltdowns like the night prior. She noticed. He was still stammering, of course, but he always did that when he screamed at her.         “Okay, Trixie! Fine! I’m sorry! I-I’m…” Twilight saw that Trixie was already starting to calm down after the ‘apology’. She stepped up and hugged him, thinking that it’d be better to surrender to him now and stop the childish fit before it got out of hand. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way,” said Twilight, caressing Trixie’s mane as he stopped huffing. The comforting, at first only a measure to end the tantrum, became a little more sincere when Twilight felt Trixie’s trembling breaths and wet eyes against her neck. “Shh, It’s okay.” They stood there a little while longer in the embrace, until Twilight asked Trixie if he was ready to keep going. He said yes, and the two started moving forward in the same fashion they were when they began the journey, Trixie under Twilight’s wing as if nothing had happened.