A Great and Powerful Argument
Over the course of the rest of the week, I followed something like a routine. Every morning I’d get up and get the morning paper to read over breakfast. Unfortunately, I was a heavy sleeper, and woke up too late to see Scootaloo go by to deliver it personally. I hadn’t received any letters yet, so I didn’t see Derpy go by, either. It didn’t matter much. Even at home, I was usually the one who never got any mail. I didn’t even have anypony’s address, so how could we correspond that way anyway?
Then, with everypony else occupied during cider season, I took that time to pop by Trixie’s and visit her in the morning on those days, see how she was getting on. On Tuesday, she was pleasant enough in her way. She was no longer bitter and condescending, and spoke very freely with me. She had heard about my stunt yesterday and found it very amusing, even going so far as to tell me parts of the song I had sung she knew. I’ll admit, my cheeks burned when I realized it was a parody of ‘I Feel Pretty’, but I thanked God that it hadn’t been the original I had sung. If it had been…
That was beside the point, however. As the week passed, I couldn’t help but notice that something seemed…off about her. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it had something to do with how she looked. It didn’t become apparent until Wednesday, when I definitely saw that something was not right with the show-mare. She seemed…tired, less active than normal. The energetic spark that shone whenever she praised herself seemed to have dulled, like a light losing battery power. She seemed more lethargic, like the fire was going out of her.
I had no clue what to make of it. All I knew was that, as the week passed, she was less talkative, more inclined to simply lie on her bed while I sat beside her. I didn’t let it show, but I was getting more and more concerned for her. If it kept up, who knows what could happen to her? She might never want to come out again, and she’d just stay there in that dusty, cramped wagon, never to try and reclaim the fame she had lost, to try and make amends for her past mistakes…
I was still brooding over this as I exited the woods that Wednesday. I’d have to tell her eventually. She needed someone to put their foot down about how she was acting. She needed an intervention…
As I was nearing home, however, I noticed something odd next door. The door to the adjacent house, the one inhabited by the nameless pony, was ajar. Through the crack, I could just see an eye of forget-me-not blue peering out, looking straight at me. Whoever it was seemed to notice that I had observed them, and the door snapped shut.
This odd occurrence gave me pause. I never had taken the time to find out who my mystery neighbor was. I had contented myself with saying that they didn’t want visitors, and just wanted to be left alone. Still, it had been rude of me to ignore their presence completely. Well, why not? It was never too late to be neighborly.
I went over and knocked at the door.
No one answered.
“Hello?” I called.
Still, no one answered.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I continued. “I just thought we might have a chat, as neighbors, you know.”
The silence persisted.
“…Well,” I said, uncomfortably, “I guess you’re busy. Maybe next time, then?”
Once more, I was greeted by no sound at all, so I just stepped away.
I had just barely turned around, however, when I bumped into someone right behind me. Stumbling back, I saw that the pony I had just rammed into was Cheerilee.
“Oh my gosh! Cheerilee, I’m sorry! I didn’t notice you there!”
“Oh, it’s quite all right,” said Cheerilee, a hoof to the side of her head, but smiling. “I guess I shouldn’t have snuck up like that. How are you?”
“Can’t complain, given the little episode I had on Monday. You?”
“Very well, thank you. I was hoping to find you here, actually. I have a request for you.”
“A request?”
“Yes. We were supposed to have a guest speaker tomorrow, but he told me he would be unable to attend after all. I was wondering, perhaps, if you would like to take his place, perhaps answer some questions about the human world as you know it.”
For the briefest moment, I felt a twinge of nervousness pass through my body. Speak in front of an entire class of foals? Me? I was terrible at public speeches!…Then again, I had helped Twilight earn extra credit with her questions about humans…Could it work twice? Not only that, but Cheerilee was very kind, and it would have been rude of me to refuse point-blank.
“Well,” I said, “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. I just don’t want to fill your students’ minds with the wrong ideas.”
“Oh, there’s no need to worry about that,” said Cheerilee. “Just do the best you can. What harm can it do?”
(Plenty, I thought to myself. Ironmane would find an excuse to call it a problem if he found out…)
But even as I thought this, I felt a rising resentment against Ironmane. Who cares what he thought? He wasn’t the boss of me, even if I was his charge!
“You know what, Cheerilee?” I said, smiling confidently. “I will visit your class tomorrow.”
“Wonderful!” said Cheerilee, elated. “I knew you would! How does noon sound? It’s right after lunch.”
“Sounds perfect!” I said. “I’ll be there.”
“Thank you, Dave! Oh, this is going to be fantastic! I’d heard about your talk with Twilight on the same subject. It’s what gave me the idea, in fact! Well, see you tomorrow!”
“Bye!” I said, and Cheerilee trotted off, looking joyful.
“Right, then,” I said, more to myself. “I’d better devote my time into getting my facts straight. I don’t want those colts and fillies running away with any false ideas, even if I’d never want that in the first place.”
And I went back into my house to prepare.
***
I didn’t visit Trixie that Thursday morning, but decided it was best to give her a little space. I didn’t want her to feel smothered. I forgot to mention that she had been rather moody yesterday, actually. I had made the very merest mention of the possibility of her going out, and her tone had become flinty when she responded that she ‘wasn’t in the mood to think about it’. She needed time to herself, so I gave it to her.
At a quarter to noon, I arrived at the Ponyville schoolhouse, and could hear the excited chatter of the foals as they played and ate their lunch. Once more, I was reminded of my more carefree boyhood days, although they hadn’t always made me eager to remember them. I had been a weird, excitable kid back then, sensitive and overly-influenced by the cartoons I watched back then. The other kids had given me something like a wide berth whenever I acted like this, and couldn’t blame them. I always felt a guilty knot twist in the pit of my gut in thinking about what they must have thought of me today…
None of the other kids seemed to have noticed me come to the schoolyard, and I entered Cheerilee’s classroom undetected. Many rows of little desks and chairs filled the center of the room, and I wondered just how many students she taught at once, and if she was the only teacher in Ponyville at all.
She was sitting at her desk, a stack of papers to her left, and she was writing small notes on one in front of her with a red pen clutched in her teeth. As she finished and stacked it on top, she caught sight of me.
“Ah! Hello, Dave. You’re early.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said. “I always liked being early for class. Helps me pick out a good seat, you know.”
“Oh, of course,” said Cheerilee, genially. “Lunch will be wrapping up any minute now, so you shouldn’t have long to wait.”
Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, the school bell rang, and the noise and tumult of the students returning filled the air. They filed into the class and sat at their desks, where their attention finally caught on my presence. All of them stared, but only Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo looked thrilled to see me. They waved energetically, and I waved back. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had become rather stony-faced, evidently suspicious of what I was doing here.
“Class,” said Cheerilee, “I know I said Mr. Le Grande would be visiting from the Griffin Kingdom to speak about his homeland, but unfortunately, he is tied up with a particularly tricky baking project, and is unable to attend. So, instead, I have called upon Mr. Dave to talk about a few things about where he comes from.”
“Hello, kids,” I said, smiling.
A few of the colts and fillies said “Hello,” albeit nervously.
“Now, don’t be shy,” said Cheerilee. “Does anypony have any questions for him?”
“Anything about humans?” I supplied, hopefully.
For a while, no one spoke or moved.
“No? Not yet?” I asked. “Well, let me start us off, then. I’m not sure how much of you know, but I’m not exactly an ‘Equestrian’ human. That means I’m not from Equestria, or even from any of the lands it has as neighbors. I’m from a completely different world altogether.”
Many fillies and colts ‘Oooh’ed at this.
“Now, with that in mind, does anypony have any questions about what there is where I come from?” I asked, looking around.
Finally, somepony did raise their hoof: a filly sitting behind Apple Bloom. She was a pale, whitish color with a curly, poofy red mane and wearing thick glasses.
“Yes? Miss, er…”
“Twitht, Mithter Dave,” said the filly, with a prominent lisp. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon smirked at each other unpleasantly.
“Ah, yes, Twist,” I said. “You have a question?”
“What do humanth eat? Do they have candy like we do where you come from?”
From where I stood, I could just barely make out her cutie mark: a pair of candy canes crossed over one another.
“Why, yes we do,” I said, “nearly all, if I’m not mistaken, the same kinds you ponies enjoy. I'm quite fond of Bon Bon's Bonbons, actually.”
Twist beamed.
“Anypony else?”
Another pony, seeming to have gained courage from Twist’s question, raised his hoof. He was a chubby gray colt with a black mane, a cutie mark of a knife and fork on his flank.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Truffle Shuffle, Mr. Dave,” he said. “What do humans like to do for fun?”
“Oh, all sorts of things,” I said. “It really depends on where you live, or what time you lived during. Men like hunting, fishing, building, or watching sporting events. Women are usually more contented with reading, sewing, knitting, cooking, stuff more inclined towards the home. That’s changing, of course, as the years go on. Women are doing more of what men can do, though men aren’t so enthused about doing what women do.”
Several ponies laughed. They were certainly becoming more and more at ease. A little pink unicorn with a darker purple mane raised her hoof now.
“Yes?”
“Ruby Pinch, Mr. Dave,” she said. “Do humans have schools like we do?”
“Ah, another good question,” I said. “We do indeed, Ruby Pinch. I’m not sure how Equestrian education works, but we go from about 6 years old, at kindergarten, through 6 years of elementary school, 2 of middle school, another 4 in high school, and then another 4 through college, by the end of which, we are ready to take on the world as adults.”
Apple Bloom raised her hoof next.
“Yes, Apple Bloom?”
“What kinda stuff do you learn?”
“All sorts. English, math, science, geography, physical education (never a personal favorite of mine, to be honest...)”
This got some laughs from the kids. They seemed to be enjoying the prospect of learning about the human world. Question after question popped up so fast, it was all I could do to keep up with it all.
“Do humans grow their own food?”
“How do humans get around?”
“Can humans grow horns or wings?”
“How long do humans live?”
“What are the dragons like in the human world?”
I was just finishing explaining how, to my knowledge, the only dragons in the human world were komodo dragons, which didn’t breathe fire but were still dangerous, when another hoof raised itself into the air.
It was Diamond Tiara.
“Yes, Diamond Tiara?” I asked, dreading what she was going to ask.
“Can humans do magic?” she asked, a very faint sneer on her face.
“Magic?” I asked. “By which you mean…”
“I mean the magic unicorns can do,” said Diamond Tiara. “Levitation, teleportation, that kind of magic.”
“Well…no,” I said, uncertainly. “Not that kind of magic. Some of us can perform little tricks, though. Sleight of hand, and all that. Card tricks, disappearing acts-”
“Oh, that kind of magic,” said Diamond Tiara, in an increasingly insolent voice. “The kind of magic that one pony kept boasting on about. What was her name again?”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie?” asked Silver Spoon, also sneering.
“Oh yeah, her,” said Diamond Tiara. “Well, if she was so great and powerful, how come she couldn’t even stop an Ursa Minor, a baby?”
“There’s no need for words like that,” I said, calmly, though I felt a hot surge of anger in my veins at her words.
“I’m just saying,” said Diamond Tiara, in a casually defensive voice, “that maybe she made the right choice in leaving when she did. Who wants an old fraud like her skulking around again?”
“That’s enough, Diamond Tiara,” said Cheerilee, reprovingly. “It’s not right to speak of others like that.”
“Yes, Miss Cheerilee,” said Diamond Tiara, humbly, though the malevolent glint was still in her eyes.
(Little brat, I thought.)
How dare she insult Trixie like that? True, she was still in hiding, and had gone into something like a slump, but that was still no way to talk about her like that. Part of me even felt that Diamond Tiara had only asked me about humans performing magic to ensure I had no way of punishing her for acting out of line toward the Crusaders…It’s a horrible thing, being paranoid.
“Shall we proceed, then?” I asked, in a brisker tone. “Ah, yes. Noi, was it? I believe you had another question.”
“Yes, Mr. Dave,” said a little yellow filly with a bushy orange mane. “Do humans get into fights?”
“Ah, good question. Well, I’m afraid there have been some skirmishes in the past. No one’s perfect, you know. It all depends on where you’re from, though. Why, where I come from, for example…”
The rest of the discussion passed without further interruption from the two bratty fillies, though Diamond Tiara’s scorn still haunted my thoughts…
“Let’s give a round of applause for Mr. Dave for visiting us today!” said Cheerilee, when no more questions had been asked.
Everypony clapped their hooves, and I even gave a bit of a bow.
“Thank you for having me, all of you,” I said. “And thank you, Miss Cheerilee.”
Cheerilee smiled and, after I gave another wave to the Crusaders, who were positively beaming, I stepped out of the classroom.
My walk home brought about an unpleasant mixture of emotions. Firstly, I was glad to have rendered a service to Cheerilee, and to have provided a bit of knowledge for her students. On the other hand, Diamond Tiara’s jeers about Trixie made my blood burn. It was infuriating to think that she could get away with that from having wealthy connections, as the Crusaders had told me at our first meeting, but she had a point. Trixie was still lurking in her caravan, unwilling to show herself, allowing bad rumors of her to circulate. If things were going to change, something would have to be done, and I’d have to see them done myself…
I was so deep in these reflections that I almost ran into a pair of ponies as they stepped past. After a second glance, I saw them to be Applejack and Rainbow Dash. The latter was looking ill, but triumphant, the former disapproving.
“I told you!” said Rainbow, in a voice that told me she was intoxicated. “I-hic-told you I could, and you didn’t believe me!”
“All right, all right, so ya did,” said Applejack, “but you could’ve made yourself sick, ya silly filly. What were you thinking?!”
Before Rainbow answered, she turned her bleary eyes on me, and grinned.
“Oh! Dave! It’s-hic-you! How are ya?”
“Pretty good,” I said. “Another day of cider season go well, AJ?”
“One of the best hauls we’ve had in years,” said Applejack, smiling. “Are you still sore about your song and dance on Monday?”
“Well, maybe a little…” I said, feeling a little ashamed that it was partially that that kept me from attending the rest of the season.
“Well, don’t worry about it. We had something today that could rival it.”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“Rainbow,” answered Applejack, nudging the pegasus in the side. “She drank a whole barrel all by herself.”
“What??” I asked, astounded. “A whole barrel?”
“And I didn’t throw up!” said Rainbow, triumphantly, though she swayed on the spot. “Just like I-hic-told ya, Dave! One of my biggest dreams!”
“…Yeah, you did say something about that,” I said, remembering. “Well, congrats, I guess.”
“Thanks! Knew I could do it! Hic!”
She hiccupped and swayed again, Applejack steadying her.
“Come on, sugarcube, let’s get you home,” she said, in a wearied voice. “Ah’ll see ya later, Dave.”
“All right. See ya.”
Applejack and Rainbow stepped past, moving slowly, Rainbow still hiccupping every so often. I couldn’t help but smile at the silly pegasus’s antics, and went home with a lighter heart, but my resolution to talk to Trixie still firm…
***
It was Friday morning, and I had come to visit Trixie as usual. As usual, she didn’t seem much in a mood to talk, and appeared to be content in just having me sit there as she lay on the bed, looking drowsy.
For a while, I sat there, just looking at her, feeling sorry for the once Great and Powerful Trixie, now well on her way to becoming the Lazy and Lethargic Trixie, something Diamond Tiara would have loved to coin as a household phrase…It was no good. I had to say something. I cleared my throat.
“Trixie?”
“Mm?”
“Don’t you think you ought to…you know, do something?”
“Like what?” she mumbled.
“Anything!” I said, in a voice near-desperate. “Get up! Take a walk or a jog! Do something! You can’t spend your whole life lazing around on that bed!”
“I can if I want to,” said Trixie, in a voice both lazy and stubborn. “It’s my bed, my caravan.”
“But look at yourself! You’re getting-”
“Getting what?” asked Trixie, sharply, sitting up and looking at me with a steely eye.
I gulped. I had forgotten how touchy women were about anything to do with appearance, and saw that I had just plunged into an uncomfortable situation. Interventions always seemed to turn ugly that way…
“Getting what?” asked Trixie again, icily.
“W-Well,” I stumbled, trying to choose my words carefully, “you know…you just seem...Well, you’ve been looking really tired lately. I was just worried that-”
I thought I had chosen a safe enough path, but I was wrong. Trixie’s violet eyes flickered.
“You pity me...you think I’m getting weak...”
“No! I never used that word!”
“You intended to!” snapped Trixie. “I know you did! Oh, I can see it in your eyes! You feel pity for Trixie, for the mare who’s sunk so low, trapped in her own caravan!”
“Well, it’s your own fault for letting it happen!” I retorted, angry at being accused like this. “I told you that you can’t just stay locked away in here for the rest of your life! You need exercise, fresh air! You need to get out!”
“Again and again with the same aggravating prattle!” snarled Trixie. She adopted a mocking tone. “‘You need to get out more, Trixie! You can’t stay cooped up in this caravan your whole life! You promised you were going to make an effort, to stop hating Twilight Sparkle, to stop being a pathetic waste of pony life!’”
My mouth fell open in shock.
“I never, for one instant,” I said, heatedly, “called you pathetic or a waste of life!”
“Don’t act as if you never thought of me as such!” she retorted, in a voice that was nearly a screech. “Do you think I don’t know what they said to me behind my back, when they were too cowardly to say it to my face? Do you think I don’t know what they were saying after my fall from grace, or what they’re even saying to this day? ‘The Great Disaster, Trixie’! ‘The Weak and Powerless Trixie’! ‘The Lackluster and Boastful Trixie’! I’ve heard them all. You’re not the first!”
“But Trixie, I just said I never-”
“Be quiet!” Trixie interrupted, her eyes blazing with anger, despite the bags beneath them. “I thought you were different, but it seems, once again, I’ve been wrong to place my confidence in another. You’re just like the rest of them, pitying me, thinking I’ve dug myself into a hole I can’t dig out of. Well, I’m going to show all of you! The Great and Powerful Trixie will rise again, greater and more powerful than ever, and it will be without anypony’s help! Not yours, not Twilight Sparkle’s, nopony’s! Now get out.”
“But-”
“Out!”
Her horn blazed with a dangerous glow, and I jumped to my feet, alarmed. She looked murderous…
“…Is this really it, then?” I asked, a tremor in my voice. “After I felt sorry for you, after I tried to be your friend…you’re really going to just chuck me away?”
“I told you, I need nopony’s pity,” Trixie growled, though I couldn’t help noticing a quaver in her voice as well, and an odd gleam in her eyes. “Just go away, please…All you’ve done is remind me why I hate myself…”
The fire in her horn intensified, and I fumbled for the door knob, stumbling backwards onto the grass in front of the caravan steps. The door slammed shut, and all was silent.
For a moment or two, I just lay there, as if stunned. What had just happened? Trixie had gone absolutely berserk! All I did was try to be helpful, and what did she do? Throw me out! I couldn’t believe it! I was only trying to be nice to her, show her the consideration no one else had…Why did she have to be so ungrateful?…
I finally got up and began walking away, casting a rueful glance at the caravan as I went. Well, if all she wanted was to be left alone, then so be it. Let her stay there. If she was going to be a spoiled brat about it, fine!…
I sighed, a moistness coming over my eyes. I hated myself for thinking that, but then again, misery does that to people…
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Congratulations on 50 chapters
This, Two's Company, AND Hands updating within 24 hours? I usually hate wednesdays, but today was okay!
2371208
His name is most common as Teacher's pet.
(Truffle Shuffle is his nickname.)
2372219
I've never heard or seen him called Teacher's Pet, actually. What prompted that name? Him giving Cheerilee a valentine in Hearts and Hooves Day?
So Trixie going back to her old self. I gather this is so you can guide the overall plot back in line with season 3? I do hope that after the alicorn amulet episode she and David can mend that burned bridge Trixie seems all to eager to set on fire repeatedly.
I'm also not the only one who really wants to know who's the mystery pony in that house...
And for the haters of the story itself who say this is boring and nothing dramatic happens. I for one really like it. After reading some grimdark or just plain sad stuff, this "palette cleanser" is just what the doctor ordered to balance things out. Not every human needs to unify Equestria and Changelings/Diamond Dogs/ect or defeat some eldrich horror from the darkverse. [Slice of Life] has it's place among the fiction too.
2375131
I don't really plan to have my story connect with particular episodes. If that were the case, I would start with the Crystal Empire, but I started this between Seasons 2 and 3, and plan to keep it that way, with some things made canon in Season 3 kept in mind. I already have plans for how things go between Dave and Trixie. I'm grateful for your kind comment, though.
This dude cries more then any grown man I've known. He has to be getting sick of it at some point, or getting a little more emotionally stable from all this "stuff" that has been going on.
2372866
No, I was playing the app on android, and I bought him. His name was Teacher's pet. Also, I looked on a roster of all the school fillys on Pony Wiki, and it called him Teacher's pet there too. (But it did say his nickname was Truffle Shuffle, so I'll say you did okie dokie with the name.)
OMG, they have hands too?!
Go jump in a Manticor's nest, Trixie.
I know i'm far behind but i just had to comment at the end you could have had dave turn around and shout 'fine! you don't want my help then you never will until you learn that friends are nothing to be ashamed off! and when you decide to be the bigger pony and face up to everypony, just sit in there and rot for all i care!'
that would be a good ending as trixie would look out the window and be sad to see him go.
I wonder if that mystery neighbor is a Changeling that we saw in Slice Of Life?
My elementary school never extended 4 years, and graduation would be after 11 full years, the last two years optional
. Are you sure this is an actual human school you describe 
?