“We’ll stick out like a sore hoof if you keep that form, Discord,” Trixie hissed at him, ducking behind what seemed to be a trashed fruit stand. The stand itself was in splinters, the cloth overhead tattered. Why it was on the outskirts of a relative metropolis boggled her mind.
Discord hung near a tree, his snake-like body leaning against it. He picked under his claws. “Maybe I’ll just go in as is, snap my fingers, and they’ll not remember what they had for breakfast.”
The unicorn sighed. “Discord, please. I understand that going in undercover isn’t your thing. But if they catch us, Celestia’s not going to be here to save our hides.”
He flicked away a small mound of dirt from his claws. “Didn’t she say that she would tell the guard not to apprehend us?” He brought his paw in front of his face, turning it and inspecting it from every angle. “It isn’t like she doesn’t have the means; she can teleport letters to each outpost if she so desires.”
“I don’t want to risk it,” she snapped, a cold anxiety settling in her chest. “Even the guards near Canterlot didn’t get the memo. And that was in the same night of my arrest. So, please, Discord! I don’t want to go in alone.”
At that, Discord’s ears perked up. He turned to her, a sly smile stretching across his face. “Oh? Do my ears deceive me! The Great and Powerful Trixie needs poor old Discord? I’m flattered, really!” He snapped his fingers, his former body turning into mist. In its place stood a brown-coated unicorn stallion with lighter-colored stockings. His mane was black, a little longer than it was normally and combed backward. His eyes lacked their yellow tint, but his irises were still bright red. He smirked. “Well, if you insist!”
Trixie let out a long grunt. Hoof hovering and shaking in front of her face, she resisted the urge to facehoof, but the temptation proved to much as she did so with a nice, thick clop. She stood. “C’mon, let’s go,” she sighed, gesturing him to come along.
He giddily trotted up to her side, almost like a schoolchild. She cocked her head to the side. He was more… upbeat than normal. Was he actually sincere when he said that? she thought curiously.
“So, why aren’t you conjuring up a mist screen or something of the like?” Discord asked as they neared an alley. “You’re a fugitive too, after all.”
She laughed nervously, a lump forming in her throat. She crossed one leg over the other. “T-the Great and Powerful Trixie does indeed know how to… how to conjure up a mist screen.” She attempted a smile, but ultimately felt it grow too wide. “B-but, she hasn’t performed in Vanhoover quite as much as Canterlot and Ponyville and Manehattan.” She walked again, forcing herself to relax her stride. “So, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be fine.” She laughed, cutting herself off with a wheezy gasp. Please let me be fine.
The next thing she laid eyes on was a paper tacked up on the wall of the alley, a tad bit bigger than letter paper. She recognized the art as one of the promotional pictures she’d put out for her shows, one with her in full costume, eyes half-lidded, sparks flying from her horn. Except, instead of advertising a show, the caption below was a bounty for fifty thousand bits.
She gulped. She was very not fine.
“Well, that puts a damper on things,” Discord muttered, cantering toward the wanted poster. He eyed it closely. “So, what about that mist screen, O’ Great and Powerful?”
She flashed an immediately wide and awkward smile at the draconequus. “Yes, yes, of course! P-prepare to be amazed!” She lit her horn, closing her eyes and concentrating. She felt the air cool down all around her, her coat getting wetter by the second.
“Yes, I’m amazed, at how bad your acting is until it’s absolutely necessary,” he said flatly. “And you literally just pulled a cloud down from the sky.”
Feeling the sting of defeat, Trixie let her horn dissipate. The cloud drifted backwards and upwards, leaving her coat uncomfortably damp. She kicked at the ground. “Trixie… has yet to learn such tricks.
“Hey!” a voice burst from the opposite side of the alleyway. Two guards burst from the corner, and Trixie scampered behind Discord, hiding behind his hind legs. It wasn’t much, but that was the best she could think of.
“Were you the ones who pulled down the cloud earlier?” A tenor voice demanded.
“Yes,” Discord confirmed after a moment of silence. “I was helping my girlfriend practice magic earlier.”
Heat jumped into Trixie’s cheeks. “Girlf—”
“Don’t worry, honey,” he soothed, the heat turning into a furious flame. “I’ll handle these gentlecolts here.” He turned his head back to the officers. “I’m sorry, she’s terribly shy.”
“D-don’t worry about it,” a baritone voice said, presumably his partner. “Look, it’s not allowed to tamper with the weather system. We have pegasi that control that, after all.” Beat. “We’ll let you off with a warning this time. Just don’t do it again.”
One of the officers walked forward, and Trixie grabbed Discord’s tail to put it in front of her face. She only saw his hooves when he stopped. “Good luck with practicing magic,” he said, with a kind-hearted tenor. “I know what it feels like to be a late bloomer in that department.” He sighed. “Don’t worry though, you’ll soon get the hang of it!”
“River,” the baritone called out. “We need to get going. Boss’ll kill us if we’re not on post.”
“Right, I just got ahead of myself. You can go on ahead, I’ll catch up to you later.”
“Don’t take too long.” His hoofsteps decrescendoed as he walked out of the alleyway.
“Now,” River said, “Trixie Lulamoon, was it?”
Trixie’s heart froze. He got too close. She opened her mouth, to deny it, change the subject, anything!... but the words clung in her throat.
“I see.” River turned around, looking back at her. “Now, I’m a merciful stallion, so I’ll only tell you this once: go back home.”
The unicorn blinked. His tone went from warm and kind hearted to cold and slimy. Shivers tingled down her spine.
His eyes fell on Discord. “But I’m actually impressed with that charade you were doing. A job well done!” He scanned him over. “A tornado cutie mark, huh? That’s uncommon. Though I am sensing an intense magical aura around you.” His eyes narrowed. “Whoever you are, I will extend the same offer to you: go back home, and I won’t have to throw you in the clink. Are we understood?”
“Yes,” the draconequus-turned-pony grunted, his voice muffled through grit teeth.
He gave a slight smile that could’ve been warm, but was perverse and corrupt. “I’m glad that we’ve come to an agreement.” He walked to the end of the alleyway, waving his hoof at them. “Well, goodbye. I do hope we won’t have to see each other again.”
They stood in silence until his tail was around the corner. “Sweet Celestia,” Discord sighed, “he was sharp.” He rubbed the nape of his neck with a hoof. “You can come out now. Unless you like the view back there.”
The blush returned in full force, and she jumped out from behind him. “T-the Chaste and Virtuous Trixie is no peeping tom!” she exclaimed, sweat tracing down the back of her ear. Was it that hot? And why were her back legs so stiff?
“Says the mare in heat.”
“Do you want another urethral abrasion?”
“Still stings from last time, so no.” He sighed once more. “But we shouldn’t let that guard get the better of us. We just need to lay low for right now, get you some clothes so people don’t recognize you.” He glanced at her with a questioning raised eyebrow. “How much money do you have on you right now?”
She closed her eyes. “Somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred. I could definitely grab a shirt with this, but not anything fancier than that.”
“Something that’d cover your flank…” He stroked his chin with a hoof, frowning. “Perhaps a onesie is the way to go?”
“I can’t think of any casual onesies,” Trixie blurted. “Unless you want to get me lingerie or a swimsuit. In addition to pads.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that last part,” he mumbled, and the unicorn rolled her eyes. “T-shirt it is, then. A beanie may also help.”
“Just don’t call me Starlight,” Trixie sighed, a gross feeling entering in her chest. She really, really didn’t want to have to wear a beanie. The only hat that she could stand was her witch’s hat, but she mostly wore that out of a combination of nostalgia and devotion to her costume. However, it would help conceal her identity further.
“Well, I can’t quite call you Trixie, can I?” Discord’s body shimmered, his whole build changing to an even more masculine version of himself, minus the socks and his previous cutie mark. His coat also went a shade lighter.
Trixie’s heart skipped a beat, her whole body screaming with want. She brought her tail near. “Y-you’re just teasing Trixie, aren’t you?” she stammered, struggling against her hormone-filled mind.
The draconequus-turned-hunk shrugged. “Well, if I am to be a pony for a while, I might as well be sexy.” He gestured to her saddlebags. “Toss me your coin purse.”
She nodded in agreement, finding it much easier to control her senses if she never made eye contact with him. She unlatched her saddlebags, and slowly put out her coin purse. A yellowish aura caught it—a sort of faux-pony-magic, she presumed—and he put it in his own saddlebags that popped out of the ether. “I’ll be back,” he said, his voice a bit lower than usual. “You lie low for right now. Feel free to cut off the dick of any stallion that approaches you.”
“Will do,” Trixie groaned, irritation baking in her heart as Discord galloped down to the end of the alleyway, taking a left. She sat on her haunches. She despised not being able to do anything, and she’d rather not have the thought of disembodied cocks in her brain at that moment.
So ducking behind an abandoned recliner, she rummaged through her saddlebags and tinkered with what she had there. She only had four smoke bomb casings left at her disposal, and even fewer of the canisters to hold them. She started with the canisters, but she quickly fell into a zen state, her hooves moving automatically as her mind wandered.
Starlight, she thought, threading the two halves of the casings together, twisting them until they clicked. Every time her name popped into her head, she constantly reassured herself that she was going to be okay. However, there was still a doubt in the back of her mind, cold but sharp nonetheless, that she might not make it through. The doctors said at the time that she suffered immense internal trauma from falling from a great height. She was hanging onto life by a string.
She fought the stinging in her eyes. She wished from the bottom of her heart that she’d be able to see her awake again. To feel her embrace again. Even to endure her long-winded nerdy talks about magic that she could never understand. She just wanted her.
It took her a moment to realise her cheeks were wet with tears. She shook the thought out of her head in an attempt to keep her composure, but she found that it only half-worked. She switched focus to a third bomb, but this time took spare pepper spray and tampered with the spraying mechanism. She reversed it and aimed it at her hoof, letting go of the button. She stopped as soon as she felt the powdery substance hit her hoof. Great! she thought, but immediately thought better of it when the substance lodged in the back of her throat. She coughed and wheezed, her lungs and throat burning like sin. She quickly put the canister inside the bomb casing before her eyes started stinging and watering like crazy.
“I’m back!” Discord announced, bags hovering before him in midair. He placed them in front of her. She checked through the bags as he continued, “Got you a pretty long shirt that should cover you all the way, a pair of sunglasses to hide your eyes and a beanie. All for less than a hundred bits, too!”
Trixie lit her horn and unraveled the shirt in front of her. It was the typical tourist fare; the white t-shirt and rainbow-colored beanie both had derivatives of “I Heart Vanhoover,” except the highly polarized purplish sunglasses were definitely DJ-Pon3 paraphernalia.
“This is a little tacky,” she mumbled. She was hoping that she wouldn’t stand out at all, but this… fashion sense, if she could even call it that, would definitely turn some heads.
“Hey, for a guy that doesn’t wear clothes that often, I think I did quite well!” he defended, folding his arms in front of his fluffy chest.
The unicorn sighed, sliding on the baggy t-shirt that flowed down to her back knees and the beanie that felt itchy. She put on the DJ-Pon3 glasses, and the world fell nine shades darker. Is this what she sees all the time? she asked herself.
“See?” he pointed out, gesturing at her with his palms facing upward. “Not that bad, right?”
“Heaven forbid Trixie sees herself in a mirror…” she groaned, putting a hoof in front of her muzzle, the thought making her gag. “But do you really think this’ll work?”
Discord tilted his head to either side. “Hmm… about sixty-four percent sure.”
“What’s with the random percentage?”
“Wasn’t quite a seventy,” he explained simply, frowning. “By the way, we might not want to be calling you ‘Trixie’ out in the open. That goes for you, too.”
She let her hoof fall to her chin, nodding. “I was thinking the same thing. What should we call me?”
“Definitely not anyone related to you,” the draconequus pointed out, literally with one claw. “I was thinking something like Starfire, or something that matched your mystical motif.”
“Sounds like something out of a comic book,” Trixie said bluntly. She rubbed her chin. “I’ve heard from a drunkard at a bar that I looked cold as ice though…”
“Glad he didn’t drink you,” he quipped.
She chortled. “That’s exactly what he said, actually. So, maybe Snowfall? Icy Breeze? Frost River…”
“For the sake of getting a move on,” Discord interrupted, “How about we just do Breeze? Could be short for Icy Breeze, just without all of the… edge.”
She puffed out a burst of air. “Fine,” she relented. “Breeze it is.” She turned to face Discord. “So, how’re we going to do this? I mean, we got lucky and stumbled upon Spark last time. I doubt we’re gonna have that luck this time.”
“We could start out by going to the postal service building,” the draconequus suggested, lighting his horn. A map appeared before him, ripped and torn with age. “If this is still accurate, the building should be somewhere around here.” He tapped the location with his hoof. It was toward the southwest of the plaza.
“And we’re diagonal from it right here, correct?” Trixie tapped the far corner of the city map, closest to the river, about northeast of the town.
“Yep.” Discord’s horn grew brighter as the map disappeared once more into the ether. “We just need to weave in and out between road and alley so we can reach our destination.”
“Wouldn’t that look suspicious though?” the unicorn wondered aloud, adjusting her beanie. “Also, who knows what sketchy business happens in the valley further in?”
“Yes, and I’ll handle it,” he answered all at once. “We don’t want to waste any time, especially when it comes to saving the nation from a terrorist.”
Trixie sighed. “Okay. I’m counting on you.”
With that, she followed Discord out onto the street, and immediately caught her breath. She was expecting another metropolitan city like Manehattan, where the city skyline was dirty with old brick structures and square skyscrapers that seemed to surround the inner city.
But this wasn’t the case here. The city looked clean comparatively, white yet rounded skyscrapers dotting the city as a whole. Where there wasn’t any plant life in Manehattan, there was in Vanhoover, actual grass growing on the parking strips and medians. The air, although tinted with humidity and the saltiness of the ocean, smelled and felt much cleaner.
They made their way between road and alley for the majority of the day, the city much bigger than what she had anticipated. As they cut through, passerby regarded them with lifted eyebrows. If it weren’t for her horn, Trixie would’ve pulled her beanie down over her eyes, so at least she couldn’t see their skeptical looks.
However, when they passed through one out of hundreds of streets, a familiar voice hummed by. The owner wasn’t walking, however; but she was bouncing, all four of her hooves clopping loudly against the pavement.
Trixie raised her head, and immediately wished she hadn’t. The pink pony stopped dead in her tracks, her puffy mane jiggling up and down one last time before her mouth opened wide with a huge gasp. “Tri—!”
By that time, the unicorn galloped over to Pinkie Pie, shoving a hoof in her mouth before she could finish the word. She breathed a sigh of relief as her heartbeat slowly went down to manageable levels. Pinkie gave a questioning grunt, and hoof still in her mouth, Trixie pushed her into the next alleyway, making sure they were both out of sight.
Trixie finally took her hoof back, rubbing strings of saliva off onto the concrete below her. Pinkie made a gagging noise, letting her tongue out into the air. “Wowsie! When was the last time you washed your hooves?”
The unicorn gave one last tentative swipe of her hooves against the ground. “That doesn’t matter. What’re you doing here?”
“Well, I was asked to organize a birthday party for one of my cousins! She’s such a cutie, only yay high, and—”
She gave a big gasp as Discord walked into the alleyway. “And you brought your boyfriend along with you, too? Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve thrown together a Happy Lovie-Dovie Party for you!”
“Pinkie—” the draconequus started.
“Oh! You even told him about dear old me? Aw!” She gathered Trixie into a suffocating deathgrip of a hug. “You’re the bestest friend ever!”
“Pinkie,” he said once more, Trixie barely hearing him over her heart thumping in her ears. He pulled down on his face like a zipper, his true draconic head popping into existence. “It’s me.”
The pink ball of energy went completely silent. She let Trixie go in a snap, and she fell back on her hooves, gasping for air. She then walked over to Discord, lifted a hoof, and slapped him across the face. The sudden attack sent him sprawling onto his flank. “Cheating meaniepants!” she exclaimed.
“Pinkie,” the unicorn breathed, and the party pony’s death glare turned to her, her irises on fire. “Please. We’re not in a relationship.”
Pinkie’s eyes widened, her eyebrows soaring upward. “Then why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Trixie lidded her eyes in a deadpan expression. Good ol’ Pinkie, she thought. Then she let out a sigh. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
The party pony cocked an eyebrow upward. “Well, of course I’m okay! Why wouldn’t I be?”
The unicorn knit her eyebrows. “Because… of the attack on Ponyville?”
Pinkie’s eyes met with hers for a split second, but then they tore away in a relatively carefree manner. Trixie frowned. Did she just ignore me? she thought.
The mare then put her hoof to her nose. “Pew-wee! You guys smell! Here!” A sensitive jolt went up Trixie’s body as she pushed on her flank, her hooves skidding uncomfortably on the pavement, making her shudder. Her other hoof landed on Discord’s chest. “Let’s go to the bathhouse just across the street! I was just headed there anyway!”
And so the pushing continued across the street to a domed building across from them. Pinkie slammed the door behind them, and galloped up to the register. Her hooves soared at the speed of light as she quickly spat out, “Threeponiesprivatebathextrashampooandconditionerokaybye!” She let out the bits on the table from a purse that came from who-knows-where, zoomed back to Trixie and Discord, and shoved them into the shower rooms, slamming the door behind them. In a whip of her hoof, Trixie’s saddlebags flew off, and Pinkie pushed them once more into two nearby shower stalls.
The unicorn blinked the shock away from her eyes. “... What just happened?” she asked dumbfoundedly as Pinkie closed the door behind her, two bottles and a bar of soap sliding underneath the door.
“I’m not quite sure either,” Discord responded, his voice quivering.
“Shower please!” Pinkie exclaimed from another stall. Three squeaks echoed across the walls and tile, the abrupt pitter-patter of water following suit. Trixie shrugged to herself turning the hoof-shaped dial in front of her. The water was cold when it first hit her, but immediately became a Goldilocks temperature that sent jolts of pleasure up her spine. She suppressed a moan behind a hoof.
The draconequus was less reserved. He let out an almost sexual moan, and Trixie swore she heard him shivering. “Oh… yeah, that’s the ticket.”
“Don’t have too much fun in there, Discord,” she joked. “They have to clean the stalls afterward, you know?”
“I’m flattered that you fantasize of me,” he deflected, his tone bleeding with wit. “But I’m afraid you’ll be making a much bigger mess than I am.”
“Oh! Trixie, you’re in heat?” Pinkie asked sympathetically.
“Yeah,” the unicorn sighed. “Fortunately the cramping hasn’t started yet, but I don’t think it’ll be long.”
“Poor girl,” she empathized. “I have products back at my place if you need them.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I came prepared,” she expressed. “I knew it would happen soon, anyway.”
Discord’s stall fell incredibly silent as she picked up the bar of soap with her light-colored aura. She lathered the soap up and spread it across her body, the suds on her body turning dark. She frowned at the disgusting muck and scrubbed even harder.
Altogether, it took fifteen to twenty minutes of scrubbing and shampooing when the water underneath her began to run clear. Her skin felt a bit raw as she rinsed off her coat. When she unlatched the door and walked out of the stall, her reflection greeted her with a cleaner coat than she’d ever managed in her whole life. Her mane hung damp and heavy around her face and neck. She bit her lip as she cut off her thoughts at, Trixie looks sexy.
She glanced toward Discord’s stall. It was the only one left with the water still running. “Discord,” she called. “Are you about ready?”
“Yeah,” the draconequus grunted. “I’ll be just a second, though.”
“Okay,” she responded, blinking the water dripping in her eyes. Suppressing a grunt, she shook off the water from her head down, beads of it flying in all directions. She frowned when she realized her coat poofed up because of it.
It was then that Discord’s stall door opened, assuming his draconic form once again. Inside the doorway, he snapped his fingers, and a pinkish towel materialized in his paw. He snapped it taut behind his back and rubbed the dripping water out of his coat. As he did so, his eyes wandered across the room. “I was wondering what all that noise was,” He gestured to the beads of water running down the wall.
Trixie shrugged, then nodded toward the entrance to the bath. “Shall we go, then?”
“What about the pink one?”
“I’m pretty sure that she finished long before us,” she figured.
The draconequus nodded. “Okay. Then we shall go.”
After sending his towel into non-existence, they walked to the hallway and turned the corner. The bath room opened up before them, about the size of a school classroom. An elaborate chandelier with crystalyne dangles hung above the bath itself, covering the walls in a kaleidoscope of color while lighting the bath below.
Pinkie turned toward them, the bottom of her muzzle wet from blowing bubbles before they entered the room. “Finally!” she exclaimed. “I was wondering how long you guy’s’d be!”
Trixie let out a small laugh, remembering the oddity of their last exchange. “Yeah… we’re clean, at least.”
The earth pony let loose a wide smile that was almost too wide, even for her. She gently splashed the water right next to her with a hoof. “Well, come on in! The water’s fine!”
The magician nodded, nearing the edge and plopping into the water a comfortable distance away from her. Discord did the same, but much farther, plopping his mismatched claws on his lap in a loose cup.
Trixie’s eyes fell upon Pinkie, a pit forming in her stomach. Something was off with her, and it nagged her to the core. Her normal antics that were always light and springy felt heavy and downtrodden. It also didn’t help that she completely dismissed her comment about the attack on Ponyville. Could she be in denial? she asked herself.
She pursed her lips. She had to think of something to ease the tension in the air. “So, you mentioned that you were here throwing a party for a relative?” she finally asked Pinkie.
The pink pony nodded with faux excitement. “Yeah! She’s turned four, and she was happy as a clam! Well, as happy as a four-year-old pony-clam in suuuuper-fresh water. She really wants to be a surgeon when she grows up, so we got her an anatomy booklet and a game of Oponation! She loved both of them.”
Trixie couldn’t help but smile. “That’s awesome!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah, right?” Pinkie beamed at her. “That kid is going places. She’ll really make a difference in the world! A world that… really needs it.” She broke her gaze, staring at her reflection in the water.
The unicorn turned to her, sympathy pulling at her to say something. Anything. “Pinkie…”
It was then that hammering hoof-falls filled the corridor behind them, and a split second afterward, armored soldiers galloped out of the hallway and into the bath room. They surrounded the bath area, the unicorns of the party lighting their horns.
Trixie’s heart hammered in her chest, a queasy anxiety filling her stomach. Were we caught? she thought frantically, resisting the urge in her legs to run. How were we caught?
A final stallion appeared from the hallway, walking behind the rest of the armed guard. Her eyes widened as she realized it was the stallion from before—River. “Well now,” he said in his irritatingly calm voice. “Isn’t this quite the find? You just couldn’t resist yourself, could you, Trixie…” His eyes wandered to the draconequus. “... And Discord. My lucky day.”
“Lieutenant River!” another voice cried from the hallway, this time female. She galloped to him, letter in mouth, sealed with the royal crest. “You might want to read this.”
River’s eyebrows creased. “From royalty?” He lit his horn, unraveling the parchment before him. His eyes scanned over the page, before rolling it up again a moment later. “Drat,” he cursed. “It looks like you two are exempt from the travel ban. Something about ‘Select heroes’. It includes Twilight and company as well…” He shrugged. “Anyways, I guess we’ll have to deal with one arrest instead of three this time.”
Trixie furrowed her eyebrows. “One?” she asked.
The lieutenant nodded. His eyes shot past her, to the pink pony beside her. “Pinkamena Dianne Pie. You’re under arrest for the purchase of weapons of terror.”
Pinkie’s eyes widened, her jaw dropping. “... What?” Her voice shook from shock.
“I admit that you almost had us fooled.” River lit his horn and pulled an intricate, black box from a pocket in his uniform. “After all, the mechanism in here is quite subtle. No gunpowder, magnesium, or even arczite. It seems like it was stored, volatile magic. Don’t worry, though, the bomb has been diffused.” He shot a glare at Pinkie. “Does this look familiar to you?”
“N-no!” she stammered. She shot a glance at both Trixie and Discord, her chest pumping up and down rapidly. “Guys… what’s going on?”
Pinkie’s terror ripped the unicorn out of her stupor. She turned, slamming her hoof on the tile on the lip of the bath. “This has to be a mistake! There’s no way that Pinkie would’ve ordered something like that.”
“No way, huh? It was addressed to her, after all” River pulled a note from his bag, folding it out before him. “Pinkamena Dianne Pie is a known sufferer of bipolar disorder. On top of this, when in duress, she undergoes what can only be described as psychotic episodes. Her behavior can be quite unpredictable during these episodes.”
“That’s a load of bull!” Discord spat, standing up. The guards lit their horns in a more intense light. “She was up here celebrating a relative’s birthday party! Why would she be under duress?”
“Maybe the stress of the party got to her?”
“She organizes parties all the time!”
“... Is this… my punishment?” Pinkie’s quivering voice made the whole room go silent. She held her hind legs near her chest. “For not being there… for my friends?”
“Ah, that’s right.” River put the paper away. “You’re close friends to Twilight and company, yes? What happened to them was terrible… I heard that one of them died. That’d be enough to cause a psychotic episode, don’t you think?”
Trixie’s heart plunged into her stomach. “One of them… died?”
He nodded. “Or so the rumors say. Since there hasn’t been any mail transferred since the attack three days ago, that’s all we have to go off of.”
“W-who?” the draconequus stuttered, his voice quiet. “Who’s died?”
“There isn’t any substantial evidence to support this mind you,” River said. “But, rumor has it that it’s Fluttershy. She was the most injured out of all of them, after all. It only stands to reason that she’s passed. It’d take a miracle to bring her back.”
Discord went silent and still.
“No…” Trixie whispered. That can’t be!
“But I fear that we’re wasting time.” River nodded toward Pinkie. “Guards, cuff her.”
The earth pony’s terrified expression turned to her. “Trixie! Discord!”
“Pinkie!” Trixie stood. “This can’t be legal! What if she was sent a bomb by the terrorist?”
“Then we’d have to put her somewhere safe anyway,” River responded. “But we have probable cause on her.”
She stomped her hoof. “‘Probable cause,’ my ass! You’re just using her mental illness against her!”
“No! No!” Pinkie screeched as the guards grabbed a hold of her. She flailed, hitting one of the guards square in the jaw. A guard on the side brandished a small, rectangular device and thrusted it into her side. She spasmed, flecks of saliva flying from her mouth before she hit the ground, unconscious.
“Pinkie!” Trixie screamed, holding a hoof over her mouth as they flipped her over on the tile, cuffing her lifeless hooves together. She fought a sudden rush of tears as they draped her over two of the guard’s backs and carried her away. She resisted every temptation to intervene, as much as she’d like to. Her frantic screams echoed in her ears as she sobbed into her hoof, unable to keep the tears back anymore.
Trixie bucked the side of the public bath house, the impulse sending pain up to her neck. “Dammit!” she screamed. “This has got to be a joke!”
“Calm down, Trixie,” Discord soothed, once again in his pony form. “There’s nothing we can do at this point.”
“There’s got to be!” The unicorn lit her horn and unlatched her saddlebag. She brought out the enchanted envelope and a pen.
“What’re you doing?” the draconequus asked.
“I’m writing Opal!” She uncapped the pen. “She has connections! She’ll—”
“Trixie!” He walked in front of her, laying a hoof on her shoulder. “Look at me.”
The unicorn only just realized how hard her heart was pumping. How twisted her stomach felt, now being weighed down with guilt. Reluctance filled her chest.
“Look at me.”
She took a deep breath before looking into his eyes. What she didn’t realize was that they were glazed over, sympathetic.
“Put the letter down.”
“But—”
“We can write Opal about this later,” he said. “But you need to calm down first.”
She huffed out air through her snout. “What’s the use? Aren’t you mad, too?”
Discord nodded. “Of course I am. But we’re not in a position to act rashly. So please. Calm down.”
Her eyes locked to the ground. She slowly let the papers down, reluctance scattering the farther down they went. She had finally put them back into her saddlebags when her eyes started stinging once again. Unable to keep the tears back once more, her chest heaved in sobs.
“Here,” the draconequus whispered. “Come here.” He pulled Trixie into a gentle embrace, the heat of his chest spreading to the ice-cold feeling in hers. She lay her head on his back, nuzzling the base of his neck as her tears flowed freely into his coat.
“I can’t believe…” she started, sniffing through her congestion. “That I’m the one breaking down in tears… when I didn’t even get the worst of it back there.”
“Who says that you’re the only one… crying?” His broken voice rumbled through her chest.
She let out a small laugh, draping a hoof across his back, returning the embrace. It was odd then, that the comforter was now the one that needed to be comforted. But she disregarded the thought.
“Yeah,” the return letter from Opal read. “There’s definitely something wrong with her arrest.”
“So is there anything you can do on your end?” Trixie wrote back.
“There isn’t much. I can try appealing to the Princesses; they’re one of my contacts. However, they’re on a strict travel ban. They’re essentially holed up in their castle. I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you so much.”
“No problem. So you know where two of the bombs are. The one that detonated in Ponyville, and the one that was diffused in Vanhoover. Didn’t you say that there was a final one in the Crystal Empire?”
“Yes. That’s where we’re headed next.”
“Hmm… remember that you’re going to be walking across half the continent. It may have only taken about a day for you to do that on the Friendship Express, but on hoof, you’re looking at a much longer journey.”
“I know… it’s not going to be pleasant.”
“Well, grab as many provisions as you can and warm clothing. It may not be winter, but it still gets frigid in the fall. Just follow the train tracks while you can, they’ll take you straight there.”
“Will do. Thanks again, Opal.”
“No problem. Please stay safe.”