Appledashery

by Just Essay

Rock Shack, Baby

“This is it,” Maud droned, trotting around a giant mound of gravel. “This is where Trixie lives.”

“Nnngh...” Rainbow grunted, feeling the strain of Trixie's weight testing Zecora's potion in her legs. “Where?” She gulped, sweating through her turquoise suit. “Behind the tiny, decrepit wooden shack?”

“No. It is the tiny, decrepit wooden shack.”

“Pfft! You've gotta be pulling my leg!”

“Why would I wish to pull your leg?”

“Come on, girl, it's a joke.”

“How is it funny to pull some mare's leg?!”

“Will you stop being so Celestia-damn literal?!”

“But Celestia is a patron alicorn of harmony. She does not curse.”

“Oh, for buck's sake.” WHUD! Rainbow kicked the shack's tiny door open. “There!” Th-thump! She dropped Trixie like a blue ragdoll in the corner of the claustrophobic space. “Home sweet home!” Dusting her hooves off, she trotted back out the door. “Now, if you don't mind, I've got a shard to find.”

Maud stood in the way. “You can't go.”

“Uhhhhh...” Rainbow leaned forward, flexing her wings. “Yes I can. See?” She smirked. “Two can play at that literal game—”

“I can't let you leave yet.” Maud tapped Rainbow's chest lightly.

Fwump! “Gaa-aaie!” Rainbow fell back on her haunches and slid onto the wall, eyes spinning. “Luna's nipple!” she wheezed. “Anypony ever tell you you're stronger than you look?”

“If what I'm about to do doesn't heal Trixie...” Maud wandered to a wall and picked up several jars of multicolored gravel. “...then she'll need somepony to fly into town and fetch a real doctor.”

“Oh, come on!” Rainbow flung her forelimbs in the limp unicorn's direction. “You act as if she deserves my giving a flying feather! Maud, that mare almost single-hoofedly brought my town to ruin with an Ursa Major!”

“Was it an Ursa Major or an Ursa Minor?” Maud droned.

“What difference does it make?!”

Maud knelt by Trixie's side, popping the cork from one bottle after another. “It makes a lot of difference. An Ursa Major is more likely to pulverize an entire town as you're claiming.”

“Erm...”

“Whereas an Ursa Minor's attack would be considered a minor skurmish at best, easily handled by the capable defenses of the Wonderbolts—”

“Do you have an invisible string on you, girl?!” Rainbow frowned. “Cuz I sure as heck don't remember pulling it!”

“I have a habit of talking excessively in order to calm my frazzled nerves,” Maud murmured with dull eyes. “Like right this second.”

“Do you even look at yourself in the goddess-dang mirror?”

“My younger sister says that a little bit of vanity is good for the soul.”

“You've ever tested that out?”

“I can't,” Maud droned, mixing the multi-colored dusts into a fine pile. “She broke all the mirrors in our house. That's why she was sent away.”

“Unnnnnngh...” Rainbow Dash face-hoofed. “Look, are you going to fix Trixie or—”

“Way ahead of you,” Maud said, compacting the dust into a small pill-shaped capsule.

“Oh.” Rainbow blinked. “That was quick.”

“That's what happens when you talk your muzzle off incessantly.”

“Huh?!” Rainbow's jaw dropped. “But you just said—Rnnnngh!” She spun around, folding her forelimbs in a huff.

“Here, Trixie.” Maud slid the capsule into her mouth and forced the mare's jaws closed. “It's rock medicine,” she said. “Made of rocks.”

“Maybe you should help her wash it down with molten metal,” Rainbow grumbled without looking.

“No,” Maud said in a straight tone. “It will work on its own.” A three-and-a-half second blink. “Rock medicine is silly that way.”

“What are you even—?”

“Duaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Trixie's horn flashed, followed by her strobing eye-sockets. She sat up straight, breathing fire, then belching up sparks. Half a minute later, she was slumped back against the wall of her shack, panting with flushed cheeks.

“Trixie.” Maud stared. “Are you alright?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie needs a cigarette,” Trixie wheezed.

“More like an elephant tranquilizer.”

“You!” Trixie seethed, pointing with an angry hoof. “What did you make Trixie sort with her horn?!” She blinked, then flailed her hooves, shouting, “What are you all doing in Trixie's home?!”

“Good. We done here?” Rainbow pulled the saddlebag tighter over her suited shoulders. “Because I sure am!” She frowned. “Last time I bumped elbows with a moron who spoke in the third-pony, I suffered a concussion! Well, I'm not going through that song and dance again!” She tipped an invisible hat and trotted out the shack. “Good day!”

“Uh uh!” Trixie slammed the door shut in front of Rainbow with her magic. “You're not leaving until you pay the Great and Powerful Trixie for personal damages!”

“Trixie.” Maud blinked. “Calm down.”

“Don't tell me not to be angry and hysterical!”

“Excessive passion will not get you anywhere.”

“Like you're one to talk, Maud!” Trixie barked, pointing at her. “I mean look at you!”

“Excuse me...?” Rainbow poked her head in, glaring into Trixie's face. “'Personal damages?!' Is this some kind of a joke?!”

“The only joke is the one you pulled on Trixie!” The unicorn threw her cloak around herself tighter and upturned her nose. “Coming in all innocent-like with that vomit-stain of a suit, insulting Trixie's eyesight!” She spat. “Just what did you make Trixie's Great and Powerful Horn zap?! I demand answers!”

“Oh no, girl. You're not pulling this scam artist crap on me again!” Rainbow stuck her tongue out. “I saw you do it back in Ponyville, and now I'm once burned—twice pissed!”

“You're from Ponyville?!” Trixie gasped, her pale blue muzzle turning paler. Clearing her throat, she zapped the door open with her horn. “On second thought, Trixie changes her mind! Begone from my domain, now and forever!”

“Oh, so now 'high and mighty' hole in the ground is too good for me?!” Rainbow scowled. “Just who was it who endangered the lives of all my friends without a care for their well-being?! For your information, you earned what you have today, ya melon fudge!”

“How dare you!” Trixie hissed. “It was those two putrid pre-pubescent ponies who summoned the Ursa into town, not Trixie!” The mare sniffled, her lips quivering as she stared with moist eyes. “Poor Trixie—once Great and Powerful—had to build herself up from the dirt! I lost my Great and Powerful magic show, my Great and Powerful hat that my mother gave me, and m-my... Gr-Great and P-Powerful travelling wagon!” She wept into her open hooves. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeee!”

Rainbow sighed, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, well, that still doesn't give you the right to treat all of the Dredgemaners like dirt!”

“Oh yeah?!” Trixie lifted her head, stopping her sobs on a dime. “Fine lot of good they've done for me here! Sticking me into one dead-end job after another! Rock farming?! Pfft! I'd rather dig myself an early grave!”

“Good!” Rainbow Dash snarled. “I hope you rot!”

“Nuts to that and nuts to you!” Trixie stood up proud and tall. “Trixie has learned how to pull herself up by Trixie's bootstraps!”

“HAH!” Rainbow chuckled, pointing at the walls of the run-down shack. “You call this 'boostrap-worthy?!'”

“Scoff if you must at the Great and Powerful Trixie's accomplishments!” Trixie tapped a wall with her hoof. “But I've earned more bits for myself in the last month than I bet you have in an entire year! And after all that hard work and grueling rock farming, Trixie can now boast having this solid roof over her Great and Powerful Head!”

SMASSSSSSSSH! A mass of muscles and feathers burst through the ceiling, plowing into Rainbow Dash and smashing the two of them through the opposite wall. “Hraaaaaaaaugh!”

Trixie blinked. “Awwwwwwww...” She hung her head, ears drooping. “Poo.”

“Oh look.” Maud blinked out the fresh hole in the wall. “A griffon.”

---

Wh-Whump!

Outside, Rainbow felt herself being shoved up against a mound of gravel—amidst a sea of several identical piles. She grunted, squinting through the falling dust. Her pupils shrank. “Y-you!”

“Yessss...” Romulus sneered, his one eye glinting in the gray light of Dredgemane's overcast sky. “So, Madame Firefly, we meet again.” His sharp beak clicked. “If that's your real name!”

“Grnnngh...” Rainbow struggled against his talon-tight grip. “I knew I smelled something rotten since I rolled into this town!”

“You may have rolled into this place, glue stick,” Romulus hissed. Schiiiing! He unsheathed a scimitar, aiming it at the nape of her neck. “But once you've given me what I want, I promise, they'll be shipping you out of here in pieces.”

Rainbow gulped. Hard. “Ponyfeathers.”

Romulus raised his sword high. “Sister, you said it...”

Comments

[Tchernobog]

MAUD TO THE RESCUE!

[RoboRed]

Welp, that answers who the feathery follower was.

[Lightning Bearer]

I think Romulus is about to find out what happens when an unstoppable force meets a stupid object.

Also, considering all those MaudxTrixie comics I've been seeing lately, I wonder if this story's gonna take that route. I'll admit, that ship... works, somehow.

[RainbowJack2000]

“Gaa-aaie!”

Look who's talking.

[Fishberry]

5093978
Unstoppable force, stupid object...

I like you.

[PropMaster]

glue stick

That's an old favorite!

[Phoenix Kitten]

Maud could probably single hoofedly press coal into diamond... beak face there is gonna be paste if she ever works up the... 'anger' to attack him.

[arancaytar]

SMASSSSSSSSH ! A mass of muscles and feathers burst through the ceiling, plowing into Rainbow Dash and smashing the two of them through the opposite wall. “Hraaaaaaaaugh!”

Yeah, you walked into that one. Don't mess with dramatic irony.

[Smakleapp]

“Don't tell me not to be angry and hysterical!”

The Angry and Hysterical Trixie