Hailstorms and Helping Hooves

by Cosmic Dancer

The Village, part one

Chapter Three

No birds were singing, and cold hung in the air like distrust. Beatrix was down in the base of the tower, preparing for his journey into Ponyville after breakfast. Flasks and beakers bubbled with variegated substances, transferring them to other glassware with twisting tubes by magic light. Amid the alchemical apparatuses, the wizard had furtively hid an absinthe fountain and glass. His inclination toward the wormwood spirit was one of the few proclivities he had picked up from his father, who was often inebriated when Trixie was growing up--but these thoughts were quickly banished. Trixie didn’t like thinking about his father, unless he was justifying himself by blaming Halifax for something.

Beatrix had considered having a glass to start the day and take the edge off his trip into town, but came to the conclusion that his stealthy operations that day would be too delicate to undertake while under the influence. That, and he was afraid Twilight would be able to tell at breakfast. He wasn’t afraid that Twilight would be mad at him; he wasn’t afraid Twilight would do anything, in fact--what concerned him about Twilight seeing him drunk in the morning was much more frightening than anything she could do to him. He was afraid that he would feel guilty.

Beatrix slithered over to a mirror and began styling his mane, looking intensely at himself as he did so. Used to, back on the road, he could have a nip first thing in the morning and feel absolutely delighted with himself. But ever since Twilight was made his warden after his misdeeds in canterlot, she had slowly been shaping him into someone else--reforming him, according to Celestia. While never particularly courageous, there were few things that ever truly frightened Beatrix Lulamoon, and one of them was the idea of being turned into something he wasn’t. And now, Twilight seeing Trixie have just one glass of absinthe could make him hate himself. The thought of it shook him to the core.

Trixie rubbed his smooth face, now simply staring at his reflection. That was one of the first things Twilight had done: she made him shave every morning, just because she thought he looked better that way--and that was before she was even his marefriend. Now he was conditioned to shave each day, Twilight didn’t even have to ask anymore. He tried to eke out some anger at this realization, but was too defeated to even pout about it. Trixie thought back, trying to remember the first thing Twilight had changed about him. It was the very first day she was his guardian, he recalled. They were walking into the Golden Oaks Library together for the first time, Twilight was pointing down to the basement and then told him to take out his earring.

The wizard’s eyes darted up to his left ear, only a pinprick left to testify to fact that he ever even wore an earring. Trixie sighed, sneaking on some jewelry was the least of his worries now. First it’s how he looked, and then Twilight’s telling him what to eat, how to think, why to care--it never ends. It still vexed him, that Twilight would put him on some special diet for whatever reason. Trixie couldn’t even remember what the diet specified, much less why he was on it. Something about glue or something--and he couldn’t eat anything with casein, he remembered that. As much as he loved her, Trixie was getting tired of being treated like a colt. But now he had a plan to remedy that.

Trixie backed away from the mirror and went rooting around in some chests next to his enchanting table, mentally going over his mission in Ponyville that day as part of his plan to have Twilight remember that he was a stallion and not a colt.

Having been conceived in only one day, the plan was actually very simple. He’d find some little filly or colt being abused by their parents and rescue them--but this was difficult to do in Ponyville, as the town was very good at weeding that type of thing out; so his dilemma was finding such a filly or colt. But Trixie was both a magician and a gambler, and always had an ace up his sleeve. He already knew of one little filly in such a compromising position: Scootaloo. He had learned of her situation about a year and a half prior, and (after looking back on his own life) decided that it would be best for the little orange pegasus to stay with her father until she was old enough to move out. Trixie knew that Twilight just wouldn’t understand, and so he took various precautions ever since then to extricate himself from the situation. But now, while still feeling that Scootaloo staying with her father would be best, Trixie was willing to compromise his earlier convictions to convince Twilight of his masculinity and heroism.

The problem with this scheme arose when Trixie realized that he couldn’t just burst into their house one day without Twilight asking how he knew Scootaloo was being abused. Then, if Twilight found out that he knew this going on for years, he’d be worse off than ever before.

And so, I must engineer a scenario that precipitates a particularly severe instance of abuse, such that Scootaloo would be so injured that she couldn’t hide behind her excuses of scooter accidents anymore and it would be readily apparent to everypony that she was beaten. Then while the bureaucrats down at town hall stumble over their red tape, I trot in and save the day. Oh, the thought of it--there I am, standing triumphantly with a battered filly cradled in my hooves, everypony in awe! Especially Twilight! She would- oh! Oh... Twilight…

Trixie grinned like a dolt and thought longingly about Twilight’s slender alicorn figure.

Then I would be set for life.

The cacophony of bubbles and chirps from the wizard’s alchemical laboratory came to an abrupt stop and snapped Trixie out of his lustful daydreams. He stopped searching his chests and containers to step over to a small blue phial, watching the last drops of his special concoction drip into it. It was an integral part of his mission in Ponyville. The potion’s purpose was to fortify certain enzymes and increase his metabolic rates to such a point that he could drink alcohol without becoming intoxicated, at least for a short time. After the last of the elixir trickled into the murky bottle, Trixie corked it and nestled it into one of his bags, then returned to rifling through the chests.

In the dining room

The gentle susurrations of leaves being rustled by the cool morning breeze were supplemented by the soothing sound of snow patting the window glass of the dining hall. The sun peeked out between overbearing clouds just to cast her loving, gentle rays through the bleak morning sky and into the room. Twilight sat at the table, alone. She could hear Starlight and Spike in the kitchen preparing breakfast. Since last night she had grown increasingly concerned about Spike’s changes in behavior. She didn’t mention it to Starlight because she didn’t want to make Starlight feel as if her opinions were unimportant, but Twilight was fairly certain that if dragons did go through puberty, it wouldn’t be at the same age ponies did--and the affects on their behavior would probably be much different based on both biology and culture. But Spike was raised by ponies, so there might be some truth to Starlight’s assumptions.

Starlight wasn’t a very good cook to begin with, but it seemed to Twilight that her new student had begun to enjoy it. How Spike felt about cooking now was just as enigmatic as the whelp himself. Occasionally, Twilight cooked herself but didn’t have any passion for it. She figured that she was the only princess of Equestria that ever did her own cooking. Celestia, Luna, and her sister-in-law Cadance all had their castles staffed with chefs and servants and guards--but Twilight, while the princess of friendship, could only take so much contact with other ponies in a day. The closest thing Twilight had to a staff was her one court wizard, the incomparable Beatrix Lulamoon. The day that they all started living in the castle, she had discussed the idea of having a full staff with Trixie and, to her surprise, he agreed with Twilight. At first, she thought he’d be ecstatic toward the idea of having ponies wait on him day and night; but as she thought about it, it made more sense that he wouldn’t want ponies buzzing around the castle at all hours. Unless he was performing for one, controlling it, Trixie got uncomfortable around crowds.

I wonder what Trixie’s doing, anyway. He’s usually down for breakfast by now.

Twilight would have postulated further on Trixie’s actions that morning, but things were getting to the point she didn’t feel as if she could accurately predict anyone’s actions or motives anymore. With Spike’s mood-swings and Trixie’s odd behavior, it was as if Twilight was fighting a war on two fronts. She tried to take solace in Starlight’s company, but she barely knew her new student and couldn’t really speak earnestly to her, yet.

Maybe I’ll go talk to Rarity or Applejack about this, today. Rarity would probably be the better choice…

The princess leaned over and looked out of the dining room door, trying to see if Trixie was walking down the hall yet. He wasn’t.

He’s probably just looking over some enchanting schematics, I’ll bet. And he did bring that chemistry book to bed with him, last night. That’s it, Trixie’s probably just getting started on another one of his little projects.

Enchantment was one of the few schools of magic, at which, Trixie was better than Twilight. To his credit, Enchantment was also one of the most complex and advanced schools of magic. It confounded everyone who knew anything about Trixie’s skills in the arcane, the way he barely understood even the most basic concepts of any form of spellcasting, but could comprehend the most advanced and esoteric principles of magic with no struggle--and Twilight was no exception. When they were attending Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns together, all the old masters thought that Trixie was some kind of idiot savant and did their best to have his requirements for entry-level classes waived so he wouldn’t face any difficulties on the road to wizardry, but they were mostly rebuffed. That’s when Twilight actually met Trixie: with her being a child prodigy, some senior professor put the two in the same classes and asked her to help the colt pass any way she could (and, at first, she wasn’t very happy about it--but that’s a story for another day).

It’s because of this strange kind of savantism that, whenever Twilight was doting on Trixie in front of her friends or company, she would often say that if Trixie devoted as much time to his studies as she did to hers, he would be twice as good at magic as Twilight. The veracity of this statement (and whether Twilight herself believed it) is questionable, but it’s a theory that Trixie readily accepted. The problem with Trixie’s studies, as Twilight recalled, wasn’t that he didn’t apply himself, but that he would become obsessed with a certain school of magic (like Enchantment or Illusion) and focus solely on that school for months at a time. His studies in other schools didn’t necessarily suffer, but stagnated longer than their teachers would’ve liked--and Twilight was usually the one getting scolded for not having him work harder. Even back when she was a filly, Twilight had her hooves full with Trixie.

Twilight’s reflections on her court wizard were interrupted by the stallion himself trotting into the dining hall, wearing his bags and a scepter looped around his belt where he used to keep a knife. They exchanged looks and smiled before Trixie set down his bags and slid into his chair, next to Twilight. The princess nuzzled him, and he kissed her.

“Are you going out, today?” said Twilight, motioning toward the bags with her eyes.

“Yes, I’m going to Ponyville,” Trixie smirked; he had already picked out his lie for Twilight’s next question.

“That’s great, it’ll be good for you. What are you going to do?” Twilight smiled, nuzzling Trixie again.

“Well, I thought about what you said last night, and I’m going to head down to the schoolhouse and see if Cheerilee needs any help until the fair’s over. I didn’t forget that you told me how she’s been helping you organize it,” Trixie said with a self-satisfied smirk, more for his well-crafted fib than helping any overwrought schoolteacher.

Twilight, still smiling, stopped nuzzling Trixie and sat up with an inquisitive look in her eyes. “I don’t remember telling you that Cheerilee was helping us organize the fair,” she said, more bemused than accusational.

“Uh, w-well… Sure you did. The other night when we were talking about… the fair,” stammered Trixie, his smirk becoming more nervous than smug.

Twilight pursed her lips. “Mhm? I don’t really re-”

“A-are you looking forward to our date Friday? Stargazing?” Trixie interjected, a master conversationalist. He had expertly deciphered from their talk in bed last night that there would be a lunar eclipse that Friday, and Twilight wanted to go lay in a field and watch it (along with every other couple in town.) Twilight and Trixie both agreed that the moon looked more orange than pink during lunar eclipses, but it was always promoted as a night for romance, anyway. Trixie thought the entire ordeal was vapid, but Twilight thought it’d be nice to go.

Twilight seemed willing enough to drop the topic of Cheerilee and the fair. “Really, Trixie, it’ll be nice. I promise. It’ll be like the other ponies aren’t even there. I know how you feel in big groups like that,” said the princess, rubbing Trixie’s arm reassuringly.

“Well, you know I try,” Trixie said with a falling tone, sarcastically trying to elicit sympathy. They both grinned at one another, and there was a pause. “So, what’s Starlight cooking? Where’s Spike?”

“Wh-... Oh, I don’t know. She’s just making some fruit salad, I believe. And I think Spike’s helping her. But…” Twilight rested her head on Trixie’s shoulder, looking for comfort. “I don’t know what to think of Spike, anymore.”

“I heard him shouting last night, I meant to ask you about it,” Trixie bent his neck over Twilight’s head and rubbed his cheek against her mane. She nodded in response, the sun’s rays now striking her hair in such a way that it sent Trixie’s heart aflutter. “Mm… I could have a talk with him, if you want me to.”

“No. I don’t think another talk is going to fix anything,” Twilight sighed and extended a wing around Trixie’s back. “I’m going to talk with Rarity today, before it hails. Maybe she’ll know more about what’s happening with Spike… You should try and get in by evening, by the way,” Twilight raised her head. “It’s already snowing, and it’ll hail before dark. Wear your heavy cloak when you leave.”

“I like the cold,” Trixie looked over, smirking with eyes closed.

“Trixie…”

“So you don’t have any idea of what’s going on with Spike? What were you talking about last night that made him yell?” queried Trixie, now resting his head on Twilight’s shoulder.

“I was trying to ask him if anything had gone on with Rarity, or if he was experiencing any new feelings,” Twilight confided in her wizard, hushing her voice in case they could be heard in the kitchen. Upon hearing experiencing any new feelings Trixie gave a few short chuckles. “Don’t laugh at that, Trixie. Things can be confusing for a young-” Twilight was interrupted by Trixie laughing a little harder. “Hmph! Okay, what do you talk to him about when he spends all that time with you?” Twilight asked, a little annoyed.

Trixie spent only a moment in any kind of real thought. “We mainly make fun of Big Macy-”

“Trixie!” Twilight jerked up her shoulder and sent the wizard’s head flying off of it. “How would you like it if somepony made fun of just because you-” Twilight stopped abruptly, catching herself. Trixie, who was laughing hard up until the last few words, now had a sober expression of no real emotion.

“Because I what, Twilight?” asked Trixie.

The kitchen door swung open and Starlight glided out, several bowls of diced and dressed fruit hovering above her. “Time for breakfast!”

Author's Note:

I hope you've all been enjoying Hailstorms and Helping Hooves or, as I call it, Triple H. I wrote this short chapter with the main goal of hammering home an important aspect of Trixie, which I sincerely hope you've all picked up on. It's very important if I expect to paint Trixie in a sympathetic light later on. I've also tried to characterize Twilight a little closer to my vision.

I say, "My vision," as if it's some great work of art. Anyway, in The Village, part two the real drama will begin, and you'll all learn why my AU Trixie is known in some circles as 'history's greatest monster'.