Cutting Ties

by fic Write Off

Standing in My Shadow

For my final act, I’ve decided to tell the truth.

It’s all I have left to do now.

Happiness tends to come in small, if bubbly, packages before moving on while sadness likes to heap on more and more tragedy until a pony breaks. Sadness loves nothing more than watching a pony be torn apart by sorrow so it can steal the scraps away and prevent the poor soul from ever being whole again. This morning I found out that everything I know is a lie, but I didn’t have the good fortune to find the world swept out from under me; that would’ve been far too kind for sadness’ taste. At least then I’d have had the protection of shock and denial. But no. Things don’t work that way. They never do.

Instead, I uncovered one kernel of truth at a time in a near-perfect order. Each horrible discovery was still within the realm of possibility, denying me the chance to pretend what was happening couldn’t possibly be real. Each awful breakthrough left me unable to move anywhere but further down the spiral of depression that fate had so carefully crafted for me.

Listen to me waxing poetic about my suffering, as if I’m some sort of cataclysmically unfortunate martyr for my own innocence! That’s not my intent at all, and the fact that my words are arranged in a way that dares to suggest I deserve pity is only indicative of my own selfishness.

I can’t accept that the world is this cruel. I can’t. What exactly I did in the beginning is still a mystery, but I choose to believe I did something unspeakable. I choose to believe that somehow, all my suffering is due to my own mistakes and that I deserve nothing less than the crumbling house of cards that was my life I find collapsing around me. The whole succession of them, because as I’m well aware now... this isn’t the first. I have to believe that it’s always my fault because it’s the only line of thought that leaves me anywhere to run but straight into another precariously constructed house and a fresh case of hopelessly believing things will work out this time.

It’s always, always the same. I’m a bright-eyed and multi-talented mare with a promising future, but some invisible force guides me into situations I where I can’t win. Coincidence or misfortune or just plain bad luck rears its ugly head and forces me to stain myself with the blood of my chance at happiness. I choose the lesser of two evils, but it’s still evil enough to condemn me to a life of torment. I realize my fate is sealed. I perhaps even realize that this isn’t the first time. I tell myself that it wasn’t my fault and that I just need another chance, and I’m foolish enough to believe that lie. I am always the unknowing architect of my own labyrinth of despair. My past actions are always at fault for the murder of my future, no matter how innocent and benign they were at the time. I don’t know what awful, inequine, and unforgivable sin I committed to earn the construction of this prison, but by the very nature of my always inescapable scenarios of despair I know for certain that I am to blame.

I have tried and failed enough times that I should have realized the truth long ago. I have nopony but myself to chide for refusing to see the answer. The only place for me to run where I won’t trip over my own misguided attempts at salvation... the only way out of this pit of suffering I’ve dug for myself... is to find the courage - or the cowardice - to sever that last and most sacred bond. I’ve given up my appearance, my name, my trade, my friends, and even my memories. But it’s never enough to separate me from my sins. It never sloughs enough weight off of my soul to allow me to outrun my past because I’m always still tied to it by that one slim thread. My cursed, foul core - the essence which casts the shadow in which all of me must stand to avoid being lost to the infinite void of nonexistence - must be forsaken. I cannot escape what I am except by stepping out into the brilliant, blinding light of the gloriously radiant pool of beauty that is everything I am not. There is no cure for a shadow but to remove what stands in the way of the light.

I’m going to take up one last and finally literal knife so that I can cut down the unholy thing that is preventing happiness from reaching this one dark patch. This one scorched acre, blighted by my presence into refusing to allow the sprouting of even a single seed of joy without the roots thereof strangling the life out of much more promising - and deserving - beings. But before I do, it’s only right that I lay bare what details I know for certain so that when my body is found alongside this missive, any creature with the incredible misfortune required to have interacted with me will know where to cast their undying umbrage. Who to blame for all the wrongs they have suffered. They deserve at least that much solace, even if I’m too selfish to prolong my suffering in an attempt to provide them with the relief they deserve.

The first thing I remember is an orphanage. I had parents, and that was enough to earn the ire of my fellow foals. That I had known the love of a mother and father, however briefly, blinded them with rage and prevented me from forming friendships. I did little but cry.

My name was Razzle Dazzle, and the fire that consumed the Hoofington House Orphanage was my fault. The only other survivor was a colt named Calm Breeze. He did not know the truth, and I couldn’t tell him. My memory of what happened is hazy at best, but the fact that I was to blame for the accident is, and always was, crystal clear.

The two of us were moved to another pathetically ineffective cradle for young ponies without the nourishing warmth of parents. I lied. I told all the other fillies and colts that I’d never been fortunate enough to be cared for by ponies who loved me. I thought that if I didn’t repeat the mistake of making them jealous, I could have friends. I cried while I told them this. Though my words were false, my tears were not. I was ostracized for this. The kind little colt who lived through the blazing inferno I unwittingly unleashed upon dozens of innocent foals cocked his head and asked why I was saying something that wasn’t true.

The hatred focused upon me by unloved children who knew not the love of parents, but only the bitter jealousy of being unfairly denied them where much less virtuous ponies were not, was magnified tenfold by the fact that such a disingenuous and vile creature as myself had the gall to lie about it.

I ran away. Happiness among those who loathed everything about me was an impossibility, and so I tried to make a fresh start. I made up a new name for myself. I undertook the arduous trek to Canterlot and became an overly precocious urchin, skittering about the seedier streets of the city and subsisting on what scraps I could scrounge from the forgotten corners of the lowest rung of society.

By carefully selecting what I presented as the truth, I was able to make friends. Life on the street is difficult, to be sure, but not entirely miserable. From time to time, my friends and I found entertainment in the theater or a concert hall. We were never meant to be granted entry, but always found a way. Faux-normalcy provides intense comfort to the lost.

I earned my cutie mark. An arrow that bends in the middle and points in the wrong direction, but with a dotted arrow continuing straight on. I tricked a security guard into letting my friends and I into a show. That’s my talent - misleading others. As abhorrent as it is that deception is my calling, it was appropriate at the time. The show was a magician performing a variety of illusions. For a few minutes, I felt good about myself. Stage magic is a kind of deception, and it’s perfectly respectable.

One of my friends, Sunbeam, was selected to go on stage as a volunteer for the finale. We all encouraged her and cheered and smiled. We thought... we thought it was an occasion to celebrate.

My name was Foggy, and I was to blame for the accident that claimed Sunbeam’s life. I lied and cheated to “earn” our way into the show, and to mock me for the sincerity with which I believed my duplicitous nature could ever be honorable I was made complicit in the death of a dear friend.

There were other names. Other lives. After every tragedy, I abandoned the scene of the crime and tried to start again. I never gave up hope that the next time, I wouldn’t ruin everything. I learned enough magic to make use of my horn in hiding the past. I could change my mane or my coat so that ponies wouldn’t recognize me. Specializing in obscuring the truth, I could even muddle with my memories. I was reckless and merciless in doing so. I used the only thing I was good at to keep the spectre of myself from haunting me.

But I failed again and again. Somehow, I always came back. The magician Sunbeam went on stage with wouldn’t have been in Canterlot at all if the orphanage his sister ran hadn’t burned down.

So I tried harder. I scrubbed away more and more until I could barely recognize myself. I even developed a skill no other pony could boast of having. My powers of deceit were so great, I could completely mask even my cutie mark.

The mare you’ve found now was the result of my latest endeavor at finding happiness. I had gone further than erasing myself and invented new memories out of whole cloth. I had parents, but I didn’t get along with them so never spoke to them. I was rude and pompous, but only to mask the sensitive soul inside. The one detail that leaked through was my naive belief that deception in the form of magic was noble.

I became a travelling showmare with an attitude problem. I was rightfully put in my place by the locals and ran off, greatly upset by the ordeal. I decided that at such a low point, it was understandable to want to see one’s parents. So this morning I went back to find an empty house and no sign I had ever lived there. I hadn’t. I had only been lying to myself.

It hurt to have my past proven fabricated, but it hurt worse to know that I did it to myself. Realizing what I had done pulled down the first card. The modifications I’d made to my memories buckled under the weight of reality and I suffered a cascade of relived nightmares. I didn’t have the good fortune to be swallowed by a tidal wave of anguish and coated in the relative safety of numb shock. I was pulled slowly through each lie and forced to confront the fact that I was a horrible mare who ruined herself every step of the way. No end to my anguish was in sight, and so I made the only righteous decision in my life. I took off galloping back across my life in reverse, hoping against all odds that repentance would bring peace.

I retraced my steps to Ponyville, to apologize for humiliating those mares and bringing destruction upon them. I was not prepared to bear witness to the devastation I had truly wrought. Ruins lay in flames and ponies moaned in agony as all too few medical professionals frantically attended to one bleeding wound after another. There would be many casualties. This was not the result I had seen earlier from the minor heavenly creature that swatted at a few wooden structures. Something much more awful had visited the simple city. In truth, it was me.

My name was Trixie, and I was responsible for provoking the ursa minor that crushed several buildings. One Twilight Sparkle soothed the savage beast and removed it from the area, but even her great magic was not enough to remove my taint from the realm. The incident enraged the father, an ursa major, and very shortly after I left - he arrived. The result was a veritable apocalypse for Ponyville.

Today has been too much for me. I am a broken mare, and there is nothing left for me to do but run away one last time. As I cease dimming the world around me with each breath, I hope only that those who have suffered on my behalf can find some measure of peace in knowing that the villain of the story has been laid to rest.

My name is not important. I am deceit. I am lies. Though any given action I take may appear to be a minor infraction against the rightful way of the world, the consequences are always more dire than they appear. Each act of deception is a terrible seed that, in time, will come to ruinous fruition.

Comments

[Ezn]

undying umbrage

uu: uSE ITALICS FOR EMPHASIS. INSTEAD OF BOLD.
uu: AND REMEMBER NEXT TIME. TO COVER uP YOuR IDIOSYNCRATIC TWO-SPACING.

This was very telly. I suppose that was the specific style you were going for, but I didn't really like it. I'm not the biggest fan of emo waffling. Your prose was technically fine, and you did a better job than most would with the purple bits.

I don't really care for Trixie stories, and while I'll give you points for not having this be about Trixie seeking revenge on Twilight, I'm not sure I can give you points for anything else because I can't find anything to like about this story. It leaves me saying "so what". I feel like this might be better as the introduction to a longer story about Trixie (telly, emotional musing works better as a small part of a long story than it does as a story on its own)... you could go for a Background Pony type of feel.

[TacticalRainboom]

Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor.

I especially loved the repetition. "My name was Razzle Dazzle, and..."

This could've been done better with less telling, but your format prevented you from doing that in a lot of ways. You told a wonderful story with a nice build-up and a really amazing "oh... whoa" moment.

One major complaint.

You should slice like three paragraphs off the intro. That was just too much EMO EMO EMO EMO without getting to the point.

[Pav Feira]

So Author, I know you're not pleased with this one. And yes, there's a lot of telling, emo at the start, and purple prose, and the execution fell a bit flat. However. Don't be too quick to bury the entire thing. I really liked the premise of the main character here! There's a lot of powerful drama to be had in a pony who finds out that their entire life is a stack of lies, especially when they're the dealer. This could be worth revisiting in a second attempt.

Like, not meaning to steal a page from Memento, but you could start at the end. Have the main character head to her parents' house. Then return to Ponyville. Then return to the theater where Sunbeam was. The reader gets to unearth the past along with the main character, and share in her disgust and horror as she learns her own truth.

Or maybe, a scene with Razzle Dazzle, then a scene with Foggy, etc etc. All of these characters/scenes feel unrelated, then you pull the M. Night Shyamalan at the end.

Just saying! The execution may have floundered a bit, but there was a really solid character idea in there, so don't sell yourself short.

[Ezn]

783058
It's funny that you would suggest writing a backwards Trixie fic, because... well, read this.