//------------------------------// // Trixie: Taint // Story: Game of Worlds // by DualThrone //------------------------------// “Breakfast! Come an’ get it while it’s hot!” The Great and Powerful Trixie (“Mare of Mystery, Enchantment, and Awe-Inspiring Magical Mysticism”) startled a little at the youthful, drawling, filly voice that appeared to originate roughly two inches from her and did her very best to glare without opening her eyes. “The Great And Powerful Trixie warns you that when she opens her eyes, she had best be able to see the sun,” she grumbled. The grouchy statement just drew a giggle and a little hoof poking her through the sheets. “If ya don’t want ta get up with the hens, ya shouldn’ta fallen for an Apple,” Applebloom informed her cheerfully. “Now git up, ‘less ya wanna eat Granny’s apple flapjacks cold.” If the mouth-watering smell of said pancakes hadn’t chosen that exactly instant to attest to the truth of the little filly’s statement, Trixie wasn’t sure what she would have done. But her nose didn’t lie: there were, indeed, hot apple pancakes just coming off the griddle and with those pancakes always came a nice, big, warm pitcher of shockingly good zapapple syrup. Trixie sighed to herself, did her very best to gather her showpony dignity, and opened her eyes. As expected, the sun hadn’t risen; less expected was Applebloom’s bright filly eyes no more than an inch away from her face. All in all, Trixie thought she handled the situation well; instead of doing something untoward to the Apple filly’s mane, she picked the little pony up and deposited her on the other side of the room, making a point of dropping her just a little high so Applebloom had to stumble to catch herself. “The Great and Powerful Trixie…” “Yer usin’ third pony again.” Applebloom interrupted. Trixie sighed again, closed her eyes, and rubbed between them with a hoof. “Trixie… um… I didn’t mean to. Thank you for reminding her… I mean, me.” “No problem,” the filly replied brightly. “Big Mac’s waitin’ on ya.” Trixie yawned. “Tell him I’ll… mm… be right along,” she said as she rolled out of the bed and felt the aged, solid timbers of the Apple family farmhouse under her hooves. She started rolling her shoulders and tilting her head back and forth, going through the well-practiced motions of limbering up, when her head caught up to her habit and she stopped. This wasn’t her old wagon, she wasn’t sleeping on a bare pad on the hard wood, and she could still faintly smell the earthy scent of her Big Mac on her coat from spending the night cradled in his hooves. Her Big Mac. Checking that Applebloom had disappeared and that there was no possible threat to her image as the pompous, showy, indifferent Great and Powerful Trixie, Trixie let herself grin in a way that she knew quite well was irredeemably silly. Her Big Mac. She savored the words in her head, words she’d honestly never believed that she’d utter, even in her own mind. It seemed just yesterday that she was nothing to these ponies, nothing but a petty, mean, boastful showmare that had gotten shown up by the town librarian. And then the town librarian had shown up in the dive Trixie was staying in after her humiliation. The earnest, slightly socially awkward, almost painfully humble lavender unicorn… who, without Trixie realizing it, became her first genuine friend, even if the friendship was initially very strained. It had been partly to vindicate Twilight’s earnest belief that Trixie could be much more than a showmare living out of a wagon that had led Trixie to seek out the legendary beast that turned out to be the Guardian. Somehow, dying was the best thing that had ever happened to her. “Trixie?” The blue showmare was startled out of her reminiscing by a certain rumbly voice belonging to the only pony she didn’t mind seeing her standing there with a silly smile on her face. “Sorry, dear,” she said as she trotted over to the tall, solid stallion and learned up to give him a quick kiss. “Just… thinking back.” “What ‘bout?” He asked as he leaned down to nuzzle her cheek “You’ll think it’s silly,” she demurred. “Eeenope,” he replied with a smile. “Just thinking… it’s morbid, I know, but dying was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” she told him, shaking her head in amusement at how utterly bizarre the sentiment sounded. As usual, her stallion had very little to say to this; also as usual, he said quite a bit without a word, and what he was saying now was that he was worried about her. She gave him another kiss. “Don’t worry, Macintosh… I’m fine, honest.” “Don’t normally talk ‘bout bein’ dead when yer fine,” he pointed out, the worried look persisting. The point hit home and Trixie sighed. “You’re right. I’m still… absorbing all of this.” She summoned all of her showpony élan and treated him to a broad smile. “But the apple flapjacks are getting cold and I’m hungry. Maybe…” Big Mac eyed her, contemplated this for a long moment, before ducking his head down and kissing her. “…talk later.” “Eeyup,” she replied, giving him a coquettish look, getting one of affection in return, before she pulled on her trademark cloak and walked to breakfast with Big Mac. Of course, Applebloom was already there and using the mysterious ability to swallow unhealthy amounts of food in a tiny window of time that seemed universal among foals, was already on her last of what had obviously been a healthy stack of flapjacks “Hey y’all!” She greeted cheerfully. “Flapjacks were getting’ cold so Ah took yours, hope y’all dun mind. Granny’s fryin’ up s’more.” “It’s alright, Applebloom. The Great and Powerful Trixie is in a forgiving mood this morning,” Trixie assured her in her best lofty tone. Applebloom giggled. “Now yer just doin’ it deliberately. And ya got bed-head.” “Trixie has no idea what you’re talking about,” the unicorn mare replied, straightening her mane with a touch of magic. “Trixie always talks this way and she is certainly immune to bed-head. Just ask Big Macintosh.” “Eeeeeeeyup,” Big Mac nodded gravely, then proceeded to ruin her act with a light nip on the tip of one of her ears. “Macintosh!” She chided with a totally un-Trixie giggle. “Eeyup,” he acknowledged, then proceeded to do it to her other ear. “Oh, get off, you big oaf,” she chuckled as Granny set down a plate of piping hot apple pancakes and a light smack on her hoof with a previously-invisible wooden spoon when she reached for her fork first. “Sorry. Thank you, Granny,” Trixie said, getting the expected curt nod of approval before the elderly green mare turned around and went back to the kitchen. Trixie then picked up her fork as she levitated the pitcher of zapapple syrup over, giving the flapjacks a generous coating before taking a bite. Ambrosia, as always. “Hey, Miz Lulamoon?” Trixie fought the irrational impulse to look around for her mother. “Applebloom, I’ve been your big brother’s marefriend for six months now,” she told the filly with an amused smirk. “So this would be the… fifteenth…?” “Seventeenth.” “…seventheeth time I’ve told you, you may call me Trixie,” she finished with a smile, taking another bite of the flapjacks. Applebloom paused then said, in the exact same questioning tone. “Hey, Trixie?” Trixie chuckled. “Yes?” “Who was that black dragon Big Mac an’ you were talkin’ to by yer wagon the other day? Some relative o’ Spike?” Trixie hesitated a moment, glancing at Big Mac for confirmation; this turned out to be as much of a mistake as coming right out and telling her that it was none of her business because the filly’s face fell a little. “If it ain’t any o’ mah business…” “Oh, no, nothing like that,” Trixie assured her quickly. “It’s just, um, she’s a… colleague of Twilight Sparkle and what she had to say wasn’t something… rather, it was something important but would be…” “Summat private,” Big Mac summarized. “Oh, OK.” Trixie was in the middle of breathing a relieved sigh when she kept going. “Cuz Sweetie Belle thought she was someone ya owed money to, and Ah said ‘horseapples’…” “‘Bloom…” Big Mac said sternly. “Sorry, Big Mac,” the filly responded, looking contrite. “Ah mean… uh, ‘ponyfeathers’…” She paused to check that this was acceptable before continuing, “cuz Ah know ya’ve been real popular an’ such with yer shows. An’ Ah thought she was a special messenger from Canterlot bringing real bad news, seein’ as how ya looked like someone bucked ya in the gut…” She paused again and looked extremely worried in the way that only a filly could. “Yer family’s alright, right? Cuz they seemed like real great folks when they visited last month.” “Trixie’s… my family is fine, as far as I know,” Trixie assured her. “So what’d Scootaloo think?” “Scoots thought she was comin’ from Princess Celestia with a super-secret mission or somethin’ cuz Twilight and all ‘er best friends were with ‘er,” Applebloom informed her. “An Ah told her ‘she ain’t Rainbow Dash, Scoots’ an’ we had a good laugh. But we had a vote an’ Ah was nominated ta ask ya, if it wasn’t too private-like.” “Summat private,” Big Mac repeated with a shrug. “Oh, OK.” Applebloom looked thoughtful before starting to clear her dishes from the table. The moment she disappeared into the kitchen, Trixie released a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding and looked over at Big Mac. “And Scootaloo just guessed that?” She asked in slight disbelief. Six months of experience with the energetic, blank-flanked fillies who called themselves ‘The Cutie-Mark Crusaders’ had taught her that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree with Sweetie and Applebloom, and she suspected that Scootaloo was just as bright as her two friends, but it was still mildly disconcerting how close to the mark the little pegasus was. “Ain’t lackin’ for smarts, jus’ sense,” he replied with a shrug. With that said, he enthusiastically tucked in to his own considerable stack of apple pancakes, leaving Trixie to finish breakfast eating slowly, thoughtfully, as the mention of Spite brought to mind the short conversation she had with Twilight and the dragoness about the results of her test. “I’m pleased to say that you appear to have power to spare, Trixie,” the dragoness had told her with a broad, disconcertingly toothy, smile. “Not the most abundant personal reserve, of course, but your economy of use is quite impressive.” “Economy of…?” “She means you can do with a small amount of magic what takes most ponies a large amount of magic,” Twilight had explained. “More bang for your buck…” At the wide-eyed looks from Twilight and Trixie, Spite had seemed to blush. “Um… I guess that saying means something entirely different in Equestrian. Anyway, yes, you get more result for your output. You’ve no doubt noticed that you can keep up the use of your magic throughout an entire performance despite having only average reserves?” “I…” Frankly, Trixie had never consciously noticed that keeping up the magical effects, the fireworks, the alterations to her voice, the illusions, and the other magical aspects to her show, had never really drained her. “…had not really noticed. I was always tired after a show, but it was physical tiredness. I’ve not always been the kindest pony or really taken much interest in others so I... didn’t realize that my lack of exhaustion was unusual.” Spite had laughed at that. “Well, it is unusual Miss Lulamoon, at least as unusual as a unicorn with Twilight’s incisive intellect and vast magical reserves. I’m told that Twilight has been tutoring you, at your request, since the demise of the Guardian?” In one of the few times she let herself smile broadly and unreservedly while another pony was there to see it, Trixie beamed. “She has, and you have seen how well she tutors. I used to be unable to do a proper shield spell, or exercise fine control over my hornpower level, or juggle multiple magical spheres at once while constantly throwing them forward and renewing them as they were expended.” Twilight had blushed hard at the praise (which, although Trixie would never admit it, not even to Big Mac, made the lavender mare look quite cute) and Spite had laughed with delight at the reply she’d gotten. “I agree, although you seem to have innovated that amazing flechette on your own. Not deliberately, I know, but having discovered it, you ought to refine it and then wield it. It may be hard to appreciate how powerful it is since it did me no harm, but my accruements are extremely unusual; with anyone, anything else, it would have blown a hole as large as a pony’s head straight through them. And that, Trixie, is where your profession will benefit you immeasurably.” Trixie had given her a mildly confused look. “How would doing stage tricks for crowds benefit me in a fight?” “You pull rabbits out of your hat, saw ponies in half, making castles disappear, and psychically guess which card the volunteer picked,” Spite grinned. “Misdirection, surprise, adept manipulation of the truth, reading the pony so you know how to make them believe in the trick… all of these things make you a stronger fighter. It’s pure serendipity that you already do those things, and get paid and admired for it.” In the present, Trixie smiled to herself around a mouthful of the pancakes. There was something altogether alien about Spite (including her name; who would call a child ‘Spite’?) but for someone who could take a blast at point-blank that could supposedly blast her clean in half, the dragon also seemed… harmless. Harmless, and seemed to have no idea who Trixie was outside of generalities, an ignorance that Trixie suspected was due to the Elements neglecting to mention that they were still getting used to her being a better pony than she’d once been, and a devoted marefriend to Big Mac. The dragon’s confidence aside, she’d had more long, deep, emotional conversations with Big Mac about this topic than in their previous six months combined. Trusting her, Trixie Lulamoon, a traveling showpony with a not-to-long-ago reputation for being a shuckster, a braggart, and just plain mean besides, with the minding of Equestria while the Elements were away? “Yer fixin’ ta start frettin’ again, Trixie,” Big Mac rumbled, accompanying the observation with a soft I’m-here-for-you nuzzle. Trixie took in a deep breath and let it out, leaning a little into the nuzzle. “I think I shall be fretting for a long time, Macintosh,” she admitted. “Oh, I know I’m not doing this by myself, not by a long ways. I have you, and our families, and all the other ponies of Equestria, and I have no doubt that Princess Celestia will put her hoof in as well. But…” “…they dun ask any of them other folks,” Big Mac smiled, giving the same answer he had the last four times she’d fretted, the unhurried cadence of his voice never changing. “Jus’ keep up the drills Miz Sparkle worked up for ya an’ dun worry about the rest.” For some reason, the mention of the drills immediately brought to her mind’s eye the image of an extremely earnest lavender alicorn simultaneously explaining the drills to her, demonstrating them to her… and at the same time, making a detailed checklist for each one. Trixie giggled lightly at the mental image, thinking of the exactingly organized, carefully-stapled, precisely-written drill checklists currently laid out in a dresser drawer of her wagon, ready to be used on an every-other-day basis. “Yes, the drills… Twilight sure loves her checklists.” “No kiddin’!” Applebloom said from the other side of the table as she picked up the butter and syrup. “Spike says she jus’ about loses her mind without some sorta organizational thing.” Even the stoic Big Mac had to chuckle at that. “Eeyup.” “Y’all done?” Applebloom hitched a big innocent filly smile on her face. “Ah’ll take care o’ yer plates if ya want.” The filly's intent was utterly transparent and Trixie laughed with a touch of fondness. “Nice try, ‘Bloom. Trixie invented the art of buttering a pony up to get something from them.” She smiled at the filly. “You could just ask.” Applebloom eyed her before grinning. “Well, me an’ the other Crusaders were thinkin’, since yer around right now, that it’d be the perfect time ta try fer showpony cutie marks.” Trixie let her smile drop and she treated the bright yellow filly to an absolutely deadpan look. “I heard about the talent show.” Applebloom suddenly found her hooves very interesting. “Oh, heh… ya did, didja?” “Yes, I did.” Trixie kept the deadpan look fixed on her. “Clearly an effort in desperate need of professional help.” The filly looked crestfallen. “Oh, well…” Trixie had to struggle not to ruin the effect by smiling too early. “I seem to recall that there’s a professional showpony in Ponyville right now named Trixie Lulamoon…” Applebloom furrowed her brow. “Uh, yer talkin’ in…” The light visible dawned and a grin split her face. “Really?” “A wise pony once told me that eventually, you learn everything everypony else can teach you and if you want to become better, you teach somepony else.” That the ‘wise pony’ was the perennially insane Pinkie Pie, apparently in the middle of some sort of psychotic break that made her briefly Twilight-level smart and mildly normal, was something Trixie vowed to never admit to anyone, lest they think her insane. “Besides, I’m told that Sweetie Belle didn’t do the music, Scootaloo didn’t do the dances, and you didn’t do set design.” Applebloom looked perplexed. “Well, yeah. Why?” “I’ll explain later,” she promised. “In the meantime, let me help you with the dishes.” “Ah said Ah’d do them…” “If you do them, it’d be like you gave me something in exchange,” Trixie smiled as she enveloped her and Big Mac’s plates in her magic. “Paying me for my skills is something strangers do, not family.” Applebloom beamed. “Yer great, Trixie.” “There’s a reason the wagon says ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie’,” Trixie pointed out with a smile as she followed Applebloom to the kitchen. ><>< Trixie had never entirely understood why Rarity seemed so emotionally fragile and prone to overly dramatic displays of distress, especially after she revealed that she was also an assassin named “Jade” who had proven quite capable of taking on an alicorn by herself. She had not understood, that is, until right this moment as she watched a performance train wreck hurtling down the tracks. It wasn’t that the performers were unskilled—quite the opposite, in fact—but they were mismatched to an extreme that threw Trixie’s showpony soul into seizures of exquisite agony. The set designer was the choreographer and while Applebloom had thrown herself into the task with the almost supernatural industriousness that seemed to flow in the blood of the Apple family, there were only so many dance moves that could go with—shudder—kung-fu. The choreographer was determinedly belting out a melody that could only generously be called ‘music’, Scootaloo’s occasional pirouettes and moves in time with the music hinting at her real showpony skill. And the singer’s set design… Sweetie Belle was just as much an artist as her fabulous dressmaker sister but she was born to sing, not design sets. The train wreck finally, mercifully, skidded to a halt and Trixie took a deep breath and trotted over to the three fillies. “Do you want me to be nice or honest?” “They’re mutually exclusive?” “In the world of performance, yes they are,” she told them confidently. “Critics who’re nice to you are rarely the critics who’re honest with you. The first make you feel better but don’t make you a better showpony; the second make you feel horrible but they tell you what you did wrong so you can do it right.” “Jus’ be honest then, Trixie,” Applebloom replied instantly. “Ya ain’t gonna be jus’ plain mean cuz Big Mac’ll give ya one of them stern, disapprovin’ looks he’s good at, but he’s right behind ya if yer honest.” Trixie gave the filly a serious nod, remembering such looks from Big Mac on those occasions when she’d indulged the petty, mean, boastful side she’d initially shown to Ponyville. “Then honestly, girls, that performance was all wrong,” she said. “You have a singer who didn’t sing, a dancer who didn’t dance, and a builder who didn’t build. Instead, the singer built, the dancer sang, and the builder danced.” The three of them looked blankly at her and then at each other before their looks descended into various types of hurt. “You didn’t like the scenery?” Sweetie Belle inquired in a small voice. “It was like seeing Rarity sell her dress shop and buck apples, Sweetie,” Trixie replied, trying to insert an edge of kindness in her tone. “Your sister makes dresses, and she makes dresses better than anypony I’ve heard of. Apple-bucking is just all wrong for her. Similarly, scenery-building is just all wrong for you because you have a voice that, with a little bit of voice-coaching would make Sapphire Shores envious.” Sweetie blushed a little. “R…really? Better than… Sapphire?” “Why not?” Trixie smiled broadly to her. “Anypony who’s ever heard you sing would swear up and down that your special talent is song… and Trixie has heard you sing.” “Well, that can’t be her special talent… she sings all the time and she’s still blank-flank,” Scootaloo pointed out. Trixie shrugged. “Who knows how cutie-marks work? I just know that until I believed, without doubt, without hesitation, without fear that I, Trixie Lulamoon, had a special talent for doing magic tricks to delight and amaze ponies, I was a blank-flank too.” She gave Sweetie a reassuring look. “I’m sure that if you got up on stage and sang from your heart and heard the adoration of your listeners, you’d know what anypony who hears you knows: you sing like your sister makes dresses.” “So what ‘bout us two?” Applebloom asked. “Ya called me a builder and Scoots a dancer. Ah’m not much of a…” “Eh-hem… clubhouse?” Applebloom stopped with her mouth still open before she gave Trixie a sheepish look. “Point taken.” “And before you ask, Scootaloo, you’re going to stand there and tell me that a little filly who does, on the ground and with a scooter, what Rainbow Dash does in the air with her wings isn’t a dancer?” Scootaloo looked slightly bashful. “Um… well…” “Trixie is pleased to hear it.” Trixie smiled at the three of them. “‘Bloom asked me to help you be showponies so here’s my advice in short: Sweetie should handle music, Scootaloo should do the dances, and Applebloom should do the building of things. It’ll make your performance…” She gave Scootaloo a look. “…at least twenty percent cooler.” Scootaloo picked up on her idol’s catchphrase instantly and grinned widely. “Yeah!” Trixie matched her grin. “You know, I might even have an idea of where you can put this into…” “Trixie!” Hearing the familiar, although totally unexpected, of Twilight Sparkle’s live-in companion and magical assistant, Trixie stopped and turned to watch the small purple dragon jogging through the grass, clearly out of breath. “Spike?” Trixie blinked, feeling an icy dread seize her heart, fearing that the terrible things that Spite and Twilight had warned her about were already showing themselves. “Is something wrong at the library?” “N… no… not… really…” Spike panted, doubling over and looking completely spent. “Just… had to run all over… looking for you…” “Why?” The question came from Applebloom as she and the other Cutie Mark Crusaders trotted around Trixie and stopped to look curious at the heavily-breathing reptile. Spike held up a claw indicating that he’d answer in a moment before finally catching his breath and standing up straight. “Because somepony wanted Twilight’s help but she’s gone and told me to take any issues to Trixie until she got back.” He gave her a sheepish look. “Twilight is sort of the… Ponyville problem-solver.” Trixie chuckled. “Of course she is. Mare couldn’t leave a vexing problem alone if it killed her.” Spike looked relieved. “So you don’t mind?” “Twilight Sparkle did ask me to watch over Equestria for her while she was away and I did agree,” Trixie answered before glancing at the CMC. “Sorry, girls; it sounds like somepony just can’t do without the assistance of the Great and Powerful Trixie.” “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Sweetie waved off the apology with a hoof in an exact imitation of her older sister’s mannerisms. “Thanks for the advice.” “You’re welcome.” Trixie gave Spike an expectant look and he turned and started back towards the town. “So, what’s this problem that needs the talented touch of the Great and Powerful Trixie?” ><>< “…and it’s happening with an entire section of the fields,” Carrot Top said, her face tight with distress. “An entire quarter of the crop, ruined!” Trixie tentatively reached out and patted the mare on the shoulder as she tried to reconcile Spike running all over town looking for her with what appeared to be a serious, although ordinary, problem. She’d expected that he’d take her back to the library before telling her what it was all about but the mare with the problem was right next door to Sweet Apple Acres and they were now standing at her gate, talking. “Has this… happened before?” She asked. Carrot shook her head. “No, not even close. I typically don’t lose more than a pound out of every thirty to disease, animals, or other causes. The last time I can remember this kind of… loss…” She paused, screwing up her face. “No, let me correct that… I’ve never experienced this kind of crop failure, nor has my family in my lifetime. I mean, I remember grandmother Danver mentioning a major failure when she was a filly but…” Trixie internally debated what to do. On one hoof, massive crop failures weren't exactly supernatural; even a lifelong showpony knew that much. It seemed like a lean year for Carrot Top and her family but the only thing Trixie could think of to do about that was to comfort the poor mare and send her on her way. At the same time… “Given the general pattern Evils like to follow, they’re most likely going to try something very dangerous but also very subtle,” Spite’s voice echoed from her memory. “By now, even the most stupid agent of the Void knows that both Princesses are aware of them and there are very, very few Evils permitted under the rules of the Game with the power to survive the displeasure of either one.” Spite had also briefly explained the nature of the Void to her, relating that its energies were toxic to life itself and Trixie couldn't shake the sinking feeling that such a large part of Carrot’s farm being affected at the same time tracked uncomfortably closely with what Spite had warned. With that in mind, Trixie decided that the best thing to do at the moment would be to borrow a page from the data-obsessed mare that had tutored her and learn more facts before she jumped to conclusions. “And you said it was an entire… section of your fields, a full quarter of the crop.” “Yes.” “What… happened, exactly?” Carrot opened her mouth, probably to emphasize for the fifth or sixth time that it was a crop failure, before Trixie hurriedly clarified. “I mean, what form does the failure take? Just… dead plants? The carrots rotting in the ground? Holes chewed through them?” “Yes, yes, and no,” Carrot replied. “The tops are withered and dead, turned almost black in fact, and the carrots are withered and rotting like they’d been left too long in the root cellar. But carrots never wither when they rot. It’s like a… dry rot.” “Did you happen to bring one? Carrot smiled humorlessly. “No, but I’ve got about twenty acres of examples for you.” Trxie thought about this and nodded. “That might be better, actually, helping us narrow it down when we do a Twilight and spend a week obsessing over every book ever written on the subject of crop failures and plant diseases.” Carrot and Spike both eyed her. “Disparaging Twilight Sparkle…” “Disparaging?” Trixie shook her head emphatically. “Never! Twilight Sparkle is a wonderful pony, good enough to have been kind to me when I had treated her and her friends horribly. But if you know Twilight, and I know her at least reasonably well, you know that that is how she conducts research.” “She has a point.” Spike admitted. “Although… Trixie, are you seriously going to try and pull one of Twi’s research sessions?” Trixie laughed. “Hay no! I don’t think a Twilight Sparkle research session can be survived by anypony but Twilight Sparkle. Well… perhaps her Aunt Luna, Trixie has heard that she’s quite the scholar herself… but I digress. What I need right now is a ‘number-one assistant’ to help me find all the information the Ponyville library has on crop disease and causes of crop failure.” Spike looked at her for a long moment before smiling. “Sure. You take a look at the carrots, I’ll get some books.” “Thanks, Spike,” Trixie gave him a broad smile, watching him turn and jog away with his slightly hopping gait before turning back to Carrot. “When did you first notice the withering?” “Three days ago,” Carrot replied as she turned and started trotting across the field, expertly placing her hooves so that she didn’t tread on any of the newly-planted furrows as she walked through. “Although my cousin Autumn thought the harvest nearby was looking a little… off five days prior.” “Off?” Trixie asked, carefully trying to step in Carrot’s hoofprints as she followed her. “Yup, a bit more wilted than normal.” The mare noticed Trixie’s careful stepping and chuckled. “Miz Lulamoon, you’re not nearly heavy enough to hurt the seedlings by walking on them; it takes them a few weeks to grow to that point. I trot like this out of long habit.” Trixie nodded but still kept her eyes on her hooves. “So you harvested and sold them?” “It is what we farmers do, Trixie,” Carrot deadpanned. “As long as the fruit isn’t damaged, we sell it and ponies buy it with enthusiasm.” She drew up and her eyes shown with the pride the Apple family always exuded when talking about Sweet Apple Acres. “Manechester Table Farm is the largest and most well-regarded carrot-grower in Equestria. Sweet, firm, succulent roots for every pony, every season, for as long as I can remember.” Trixie smiled at her, thinking of the delicious carrots she’d bought and shared with Big Mac the other day when the Elements had come by to ask for her help. “That’s wonderful, Carrot,” she said sincerely. “I can see why you were so upset when you came to ask for help.” Carrot sighed and nodded. “If it was just one farmpony’s misfortune, I might not have asked but with twenty acres worth of carrots suddenly not coming to market… it’ll hurt ponies.” At Trixie’s curious look, she continued. “If we grow fewer carrots, carrots are more expensive to buy and everything that uses carrots becomes more expensive. More expensive means that you can’t have as much of it and when ‘it’ is food…” Trixie nodded a bit more emphatically than she meant to, feeling the brief twinge of remembered hunger pangs from when she was… less than well-off. “Yes, Trixie is… painfully aware of that.” She frowned as she considered the implications of what Carrot was saying. It might not be shadowy horrors slaughtering ponies but destroying food in such large amounts fit Spite’s warning about “subtle but dangerous” uncomfortably well. Done with other crops in other places… “I realize this might be a strange question, but did you notice anyone or anything sort of… lingering around your fields before you discovered the problem?” Carrot stopped and stared at her. “You think somepony might have done this?” “Trixie… I didn’t say that.” Trixie replied carefully, mindful that there was probably a very good reason she was approached privately instead of being announced to everypony. Carrot watched her steadily for several seconds before apparently deciding to let it go, turning to continue to trot. “I haven’t seen anypony strange around the farm but I did see…” She frowned thoughtfully. “I thought it was a bird but it didn’t look quite right.” “Did you tell Fluttershy about it?” Trixie asked. “Well, that’s why I started thinking it didn’t look right,” Carrot replied. “I got a good look at it and described it to her but she didn’t know what it was. And you know Fluttershy… she’s forgotten more animals than anypony else has ever heard of. She thought it could possibly have been a baby roc…” “Excuse me… did you just say ‘a baby rock’?” “I did.” “Oh.” Trixie considered this but, given that this was Fluttershy, she decided that there really must be a bird called a ‘rock’. “Continue then.” “Anyway, Fluttershy thought it might have been a baby roc but it was definitely a wild guess. I do remember her saying that she’s never heard of a bird as I described it that could fly, which this bird definitely did.” Trixie frowned thoughtfully. “Could you describe it to me?” “It had a body about the size of a foal, proportions of one too,” Carrot replied. “Its wings were much larger than it was and looked… skeletal, I guess. Very bony, more like those of a bat than a bird. Its neck seemed very thick and its beak was extremely long and thin, like half again as long as the body. I think it must have seen me watching it because it looked in my direction and took off. The eyes were… wrong, somehow, too large for its head and appeared to have no eyelids.” “A bird with bat wings, extremely long and thin beak, and overly large eyes,” Trixie summarized. “Yes.” “Could it have been something other than a bird?” “Well, it wasn’t a pegasus or a griffin… wrong proportions and even Princess Luna’s Night Guard have wings that are fuller and more dragon-like than bat-like.” Carrot tilted her head thoughtfully. “I can’t think of anything else and Fluttershy had no suggestions other than ‘roc’.” Trixie furrowed her brow pensively as she contemplated this, following the farmpony forward unconsciously as she did… which meant that when she stepped onto the blackened soil of the ruined acreage, the overwhelming feeling of rotten, corrupt, wrongness would have knocked her off her feet if Carrot hadn’t been there to brace her up. “Trixie! What’s wrong?” She asked. Trixie couldn’t answer her as vertigo struck and she stumbled away, falling to her knees and barely managing to turn her head away before vomiting violently. She tried to rise, another wave of vertigo striking her, her head throbbing in time with the pulsating rhythm of utter wrong radiating from the soil, another wave of bile carrying the contents of her stomach out of her mouth. And suddenly, it was over and Trixie sagged to the ground in relief. “You… couldn’t feel it…?” She managed to gasp, spitting to clear the foul taste of her stomach contents from her mouth. Carrot was silent, prompting Trixie to look up at the other mare, meeting eyes that were rimmed in red from how widely she’d opened them, gaping at Trixie in real and visible fear. “N... no…” She managed. “What… what’s wrong? What just happened?” “Trixie doesn’t know,” Trixie panted, staring at the blackened ground in front of her. “It… it’s magic! Foul, horrible magic… I’ve… I’ve never…” But some small corner of her mind informed her that she had, in fact, felt the tiniest hint of this brand of magic, a foul corrosive corrupt magical energy that had pushed back against the pounding force of the spheres Trixie had thrown at Spite to demonstrate her raw power to the dragoness. A suspicion formed but Trixie immediately quashed it; if she, hardly the most talented of unicorns, could make the connection, Twilight Sparkle would have without effort and if not her, the Princesses. She might have felt the energy before around Spite but Trixie’s intuition with people had yet to fail—and years of showpony experience, playing just the right way to each crowd she came across, depending completely on that instinct to feed her from day to day, told her that Spite did not do this. Which meant quite a few things, each one worse than the last. “I’ve never…” She trailed off and, conscious of Carrot Top still looking fearfully at her, she shakily pushed herself to her hooves. “I’ve never seen anything like this but… I was warned that I might. I… stand back, I need to be sure.” Spite had made it clear that the energy of the Void was toxic and corrosive to living things but had also made it clear that the blade cut both ways: ordinary magic was corrosive and poisonous to anything of the Void, and the light-spheres Twilight had taught her, the ones she’d used in demonstration, were especially powerful when used against anything Evil. Trixie was surprised to find that even with the violent way the tainted land had affected her, magic flowed easily from her horn and coalesced into a gently-glowing ball of light. She didn’t even need to move it forward; immediately, the rays of magical light falling off her ball caused the blackness in the soil to visibly shrink away, acrid smoke rising wherever the light touched it. Emboldened, Trixie took a step forward, thrusting her sphere out in front of her like a lit torch and watched the taint recede rapidly—and keep receding, as if the energy itself somehow sensed that destruction was advancing on it and was trying to flee. Satisfied but fighting a growing sense of dread, Trixie turned to Carrot. “It’s not a disease and not an animal. It’s… a spell, a very horrible spell.” “Somepony… did this?” Carrot asked weakly. “Somepony… or something,” Trixie replied quietly. “I need to find Spike so he can send a letter to the Princess. I… don’t try to walk on it, it hurts.” “I could see,” her companion replied in a small voice. “What could have done this? Who could have done this? Why?” The helpless and frightened undercurrent in the mare’s voice aroused a touch of anger at this unidentified force, this ‘Evil’, that had ruined so much of this innocent pony’s livelihood and she felt her jaw clench ever so slightly. “Trixie does not know… but she will find out.” What she would do about it, though, she couldn't begin to imagine.