Letters From a Little Princess Monster

by Georg


64 - Goodbye Summer, Hello New Friends - Part One

Letters From a Little Princess Monster
Goodbye Summer, Hello New Friends - Part One


The last two weeks on the road had seemed to be like a year to Trixie, a year spent between mortal terror, stupefying boredom, and unexpected friendship. Now that she was back in Ponyville, she was tired, frazzled, aching, and numb from the train ride, but on the good side, she was finally home.

Home. It was a strange place for Trixie. Part of her heart still considered Neigh Orleans and the little room in Grand-Père Presto’s house there to be the center of the universe, the pivot point around which the whole world rotated, but she had not returned to that precious place in ages. It had changed while she had been in Celestia’s school, and to return to the place it was now would forever change the way she remembered it. Then again, Trixie’s own life had changed a few months ago with the addition of a little alicorn friend who adored her, five special friends who at least marginally tolerated her, and a town… who had appointed her temporary mayor, now that Trixie was thinking of it.

Must be something crazy-making in the water. Hydra pee, maybe. Or Pinkie’s Special Frosting.

Still, if Home was a strange concept for Trixie, Ponyville was the strange town it belonged in. Anyplace that would voluntarily give Trixie any kind of authority over the populace was one step from an open-air asylum, but when Trixie lifted her heavy head up to look around town on her slow path from the train station, nothing appeared to be exploding, on fire, or flooded. Even the scaffolding over the Town Hall was all put away until the next time it got blown up or burned down, and the normal hyperalertness of the populace to high-speed scooters had faded with the beginning of the school year. It was a very quiet and normal day for the town, which only made Trixie more edgy when she opened the door to her library/house and peeked inside.

“Hey, Mayor Trixie!” The lanky form of Lyra emerged into the sunlit center of the library tree with several books floating behind her. “Good to see you back again. Your secretary, Pokey Pierce, has been keeping your mayoral duties under control and Pinkie Pie is up on the filing at Town Hall, so you don’t have to fight through the backlog. And I’ve been reshelving since you and Spike took off. Where did you two and Rarity go for so long? Honeymooning?”

Trixie looked back. “Who are you and what have you done with Lyra?”

Raising one eyebrow, Lyra let the books she was carrying settle down onto the checkout desk, then sat down next to them. “Okay, I’ll admit. I haven’t been very nice to you since school, when I caught you copying off my—”

“I was just looking over your shoulder,” protested Trixie. “You know I don’t do musical quadratic derivatives very well, and I forgot the notation to use for negative imaginary eighteenth notes.” Despite herself, Trixie sat down in front of her former friend and took a deep breath. “It was only a little copying. I’m sorry you got in trouble. And lost your scholarship,” added Trixie when Lyra raised that accusatory eyebrow again. “And whatever I’ve done since then to you and your marefriend.”

“Bon Bon is my friend,” qualified Lyra almost instantly.

“She’s a mare,” came a familiar voice from behind the bookshelf. It startled Trixie just the smallest amount, because school was supposed to be in session, and Twilight Sparkle outside of a classroom was a lot like… Trixie without a hoof in her mouth.

“Hello, Menace.” After a quick glance at Lyra, who looked perfectly comfortable with the situation, Trixie continued, “Aren’t you supposed to be in school today?”

“Elections.” There was a rustling behind the bookshelf again and a single sheet of paper floated over to Trixie. ‘Vote for Pip’ was splashed across the top in large letters with a crayon drawing of a colt’s face below it, and tiny little letters⁽*⁾ at the bottom of the page. “Too much. Writing a report instead.”
(*)The above was paid for by the Pipsqueak for Class President political action committee. Rumble, Campaign Treasurer.

“Ah. Yes. One of those.” Trixie took a breath, which unfortunately included entirely too much of her own stench from two weeks in the desert without the benefit of a bathtub. When they had gotten off the train, Rarity had headed straight for the Ponyville Spa regardless of paths, back yards, or fences, while Trixie had decided to use her own brand-new bathtub for that purpose. That way, Trixie would be able to soak as long as she wanted, or until the next town-destroying disaster swept in.

Whatever was going on with Twilight now was more important than a bath, and Trixie tried to craft her words with caution. “Lyra is right, Menace. Just because Bon Bon is a mare and a friend, doesn’t mean she’s a marefriend. Or marefriend. Or whatever.”

Switching topics to something a little less uncomfortable, Trixie continued, “So, did anything exciting happen while I was in the Dragonlands with Spike and Rarity?”

“No.”

“Really?” Trixie transferred her puzzled gaze from the bookshelf concealing Twilight Sparkle to the innocent-appearing unicorn standing in front of it. “Lyra, do you know of any disasters going on right now that would keep me from going into the bathroom and taking an eight hour bubble bath?”

“Not a thing.” Lyra lit up her horn and projected an odd appendage made out of green magic floating between them. “The zebra shamans out on Stargazing Hill are still there—” she folded down one finger and continued to fold them down as she checked off points “—and just as cryptic as ever, Sweetie Belle’s dragon egg hasn’t hatched, the books from the old creepy castle all barely fit onto the shelves in here and don’t ask me how that works, Summer Wrap-Up is on schedule for next week, the library spiders are just about done eating all of the bark beetles, and the mind-swap spell between Scootaloo and Diamond Tiara shows no signs of swapping back. That’s about it. Oh, and I’ve been covering for your magic lessons with Twilight, which works fairly well if I stay on one side of the bookshelf while she stays on the other.”

“So, she’s still having visual memory issues?” Trixie concentrated, trying to remember what she had been reading on the train. “Her visual signals are triggering metaplasticity in neuronal allocation in her brain, but repeated exposure to the stimulus is reducing… something I can’t remember right now. It was in the book I lost in the Dragonlands,” she added with a wince, thinking about just how much it was going to cost to replace.

Twilight Sparkle’s stubby purple nose poked out from around the bookshelf, followed in a few moments by just enough of her head to use one eye to look at Lyra. And then, after a very long time, the rest of her head emerged to look at the subject with both eyes. “Trixie’s right. Can look at you without running. Still see fire. Falling stones. Afraid. But less.” Twilight took a few short, shallow breaths. “No hugs,” she added.

Ever so slowly, Lyra nodded back. “I think Trixie and I both are going to remember that day pretty much forever.”

“It wasn’t all bad,” pointed out Trixie despite a sincere desire to just crawl under her new bed upstairs and hide from the memories. “I met my first real friend that day. I don’t think Spike ever would have hatched if you hadn’t poured so much magic into his egg. Oh, Spike! He’s bringing a friend back from the Dragonlands, and I need to make sure—”

Whatever Trixie was about to say was cut off as a huge dragon, fully ten times the size of any pony, stuck her head through the library doorway.

~ ~ ~ ~

The lessons in school about voting did not make sense, but Monster had found many things in her new life that did not make sense at first glance, including Trixie. Some of the concepts and processes became clear and obvious under closer examination, while others simply remained confounding and totally without reason, also like Trixie.

Voting was dumb. When it was only Monster and mom in their forest home, it was quite simple (and lyrical) to know which zebra in the house was right. The expansion of that concept into governing a larger collection of ponies like a town or a smaller collection like a school class got strange quickly.

It made a little more sense when Pokey Pierce had shown Monster around the rebuilt Town Hall, although reluctantly and carrying a fire extinguisher in his magic. No one single pony could make all the decisions that needed to be made for the street construction, zoning, hiring, safety inspections, and evaluating government contracts all by themselves. Even an alicorn like Celestia would have been overloaded, but the Mayor had magic ponies called staff who she delegated to their tasks much the same way that Silver Certificate had the bank employees handle the legal and taxation tasks for the 5F1C Lemonade Consortium.

Much in the same way, a Class President handled tasks that Miss Cheerilee was too busy to deal with, but rather than the sensible process of picking the most qualified little pony like Silver Certificate had done, there was a class election.

That concept did not make any sense at all to Monster.

After all, the most popular student would inevitably get elected to the position, regardless of their qualifications or talents. Last year, that had been Diamond Tiara. The year before, it had been Diamond Tiara. The year before that, none of her friends had been in school including Diamond Tiara, so it really did not matter, but with two data points, it was fairly easy to draw a line.

There was probably an intersection between the sets of Popular and Competent, and to be honest, the tasks assigned to a Class President were not that difficult, but it still irked Monster, and worse, gave her a wriggly feeling in the bottom of her stomach and made her wingpits sweat.

As an alicorn, someday Monster would be expected to do far more than tell which ponies were allowed to beat the erasers and how many copies of the Foal Free Press needed printing. Princess Twilight Sparkle would wear a crown and live in Canterlot, ruling over the same ponies she now called friends. Or worse, she would be taken to Zebrica as the stars prophesied, where she would somehow bring harmony to the spirits when she could not even bring harmony to her own mind yet.

Thankfully, Cheerilee had assigned her a twenty page paper on elections to keep Monster’s mind off her problems. Likewise, her nightly letters to Princess Luna had helped more than Monster was willing to admit. Both alicorns, large and small, were very much alike while being radically different, much like Celestia and Trixie.

Monster missed Trixie. No matter how hard she worked on her homework or played with her friends, there was a hole in her heart whenever she went over to the library and found it empty. Having Lyra there helped, and it was intriguing to see how their teaching styles differed. Trixie was mercurial, flitting from example to spell with little regard for the written word while Lyra wanted everything written down first before starting on any spell.

Their differences had even shown up in the note that Trixie had written before vanishing. Well, taking the train was not exactly vanishing per se, but when she took the train out of Ponyville, with Spike and without even any luggage, the only evidence of their destination was a scribbled note on the back of a receipt stuck to the outside of the Ponyville Golden Oak Library door.

Be right back.

Rarity’s note was longer, but not by much.

Out of town for a few days in the Dragonlands. Leave any orders with Buttonhook across the street, please. —R

P.S. Sweetie Belle, stay out of the ice cream in the freezer.

Monster had read the note five times while all of her friends were eating ice cream at the Carousel Boutique, but it had not made any more sense. From Spike’s stories, he had been to the Dragonlands once before, and from Trixie’s comments during the telling, she had not liked tagging along and keeping him out of trouble. Dragons, it seemed, were jerks. Worse, they were resistant to unicorn magic, fire, poison, impact, and all kinds of pony offensive abilities used in the defense of a little harmless dragon by a brave unicorn hiding in the bushes to protect him.

Well, that was Trixie’s stated opinion. Sometimes what she did not say was more informative than what she did.

The Dragonlands sounded like a fun place to visit once Monster grew up a little, so there was a positive side to maturing. And she was growing, because it was nearly impossible for Monster to think of herself as the terrified little filly hiding under the cardboard box from several months ago. Although she still had the box. Well, a second box, since the first one had been vaporized. Peep Sprout liked hiding under it and popping out under the noses of startled Ponyville residents while wearing a different changeling disguise every time. And although Monster had stored the box into the Ponyville school, just in case, she had not needed it at all since the school year started.

Monster sighed and rested her chin on the bookshelf inside the library. She missed Trixie. Writing letters to Luna and all of the other ponies she had gotten to know helped Monster handle the endless cascade of new experiences, but curling up with Trixie who knew just what she had been through was soothing. Big problems became little problems with her sharp replies to Monster’s worries. And when she was wrong, even on a large scale, Trixie did not mope and hide from the world. She picked herself back up again and charged nose-first right into the teeth of the problem, ready or not. Trixie planned for the unexpected, because even if it never happened, thinking about what she would do if attacked or an accident happened made her prepared for other things.

Like when ponies visited the library. The first few times Monster had been engrossed in a book when somepony came to the door, she reacted wrong, although not violently. It took several conversations with her friends to realize that the library was supposed to be an open place for ponies other than Trixie and Monster, so locking the door was not an option during business hours, no matter what chapter she was on.

When the library door squeaked⁽*⁾ and Trixie plodded inside, Monster was ecstatically happy, but found herself afraid to say anything. All of the words she had practiced faded away, replaced by the wariness of the Everfree Forest where every unexpected event was a threat. By focusing on her breathing like Cadence had taught her, the tension tying her neck into knots went away just a little, and bit by bit, Trixie’s familiar voice completed the process of relaxation.

Monster liked listening to Trixie talk. And quite thankfully, Trixie liked to talk.

Trixie did not sound upset at all that the problems that were there when she left were still there when she returned, and maybe slightly happy that they had not multiplied. When Trixie talked about that terrible day when Twilight Sparkle had brought the sun down on Canterlot and Monster was born in fire and scars, she actually sounded wistful about the terrifying ordeal.

Then the door to the library slammed open and the head of a giant dragon swept inside, her broad lips curled back over sharp teeth and bright yellow eyes focused directly on Monster.

Monster reacted.


(*)Ponyville residents liked to say they could not afford a bell for the library, but in all honesty, they had simply gotten used to the squeaking door over the last century. When it had been replaced by a modern squeak-free model two weeks ago, Mister Smores of the Doors and Floors Store was convinced by several residents to make a second trip to the library in order to ‘squeakify’ it, just for tradition’s sake.