//------------------------------// // Depression // Story: The Five Stages of Grief with Trixie Lulamoon // by Curly Q //------------------------------// The full moon completes its descent, at last making contact with the lip of the horizon, impossibly far to the west. Opposite the silver sphere rises its golden counterpart, gently ushering away the cloak of night. One sister retires, another rises, and dawn breaks over the smoking ruin of Ponyville, for the third time that season. A diminutive purple alicorn pauses in her direction of Carousel Boutique’s reconstruction to squint and shield her eyes with a foreleg as the first rays of morning drape themselves adoringly along her soft frame. Few ponies on this green earth can claim the affection of Twilight Sparkle in the way she esteems regal Princess Celestia (though certain cyan pegasi have more than a few things to write about the subject under cover of multiple psuedonyms, with giggling oversight from particular alabaster unicorns). And as much as the newest of alicorns has come to admire Luna, the sunrise is a point of deeply rooted comfort for Celestia’s faithful student, a quiet assurance that no matter how far apart destiny may take them both, the Sun will always embrace Twilight in a warm blanket of love. That said, this is a rare and spoilt kind of morning, one that leaves the youngest of the four Princesses with an oily serpent twisting within her stomach. Duty calls to her, a promise that she had made at the conclusion of last night’s turmoil, and it sickens her to think of what she must attend to. A measure of bitterness creeps into her demeanor, a scowl crosses her face that expresses the rising outrage that anything could take from her that special moment of security come the dawning of the sun. It isn’t enough that her entire schedule has been thrown off for weeks. It isn’t enough that she and her friends were called to face down their oldest and greatest enemy once again, one that had learned well from its previous mistakes. It isn’t enough that after all the kind attempts to reach out to that despicable mare are answered with spit in her eye. Trixie has to rob her of the sunrise, too. One moment of pettiness. She feels it is her right as the wronged party, as a princess, to let herself taste bitterness for one moment. And then she shuts her eyes, draws a hoof to her breast, and exhales the tribulations that have vexed her since the wee hours of the morning in emulation of her much wiser sister-in-law. “Time for a break, everypony,” she announces, drawing the attention of her volunteers, “You’ve all be working very hard and I think some breakfast is called for, right?” There are murmurs of agreement from the assembled equine. “I’m glad you think so,” Twilight continues, “Let’s say we meet back here in one hour, and knock this thing out before midmorning. Call it a royal command.” Her team of diligent workponies bow respectfully, gratefully before her, and then break off into sections, all heading towards the families and meals that await them, in whatever form they may be. Twilight’s leaderly smile fades as her thoughts turn once more to her duty, yet as she turns towards the smoking branches of her own home, images of the soft, feather-stuffed mattress contained within creep into the forefront of her mind. A wrap of fatigue curls around, eyelids growing heavy. Ironically enough, it is the sudden drooping of her head that jars her awake, gravity acting as a savvy enough alarm clock to keep her on point. With another sigh she turns towards the retreating duo of Time Turner and Ditzy Doo, both trotting towards the gaping hole currently providing entryway into Sugarcube Corner, and sluggishly trails after them. “Coffee first,” she yawns to nopony in particular, “Then Trixie.” As it happens, her friends would rather she just stick with “coffee”. “Twilight, dear,” Rarity huffs without glancing up from the reapplication of her makeup via a compact, “You know that I adore your commitment to a promise, but I do have to ask, ‘Why bother?’.” The alicorn doesn’t answer immediately, instead taking a long drag from the oaken liquid pooling within her cup. Ah, coffee; the source of all her power. “You saw how bad she was after we got the Nightmare out, Rarity,” the princess at last answers, licking delectable wisps of the hallowed beverage off her lips, “Something’s gone out of Trixie and whatever’s left is hurting pretty badly.” “Y’all ask me,” growls Applejack, nursing the charred brim of her character stetson, “I say let ‘er hurt some.” “Applejack!” squeaks Fluttershy, “That’s not very nice!” “Nah ve’y nithe?” splutters Rainbow Dash over the mummified slug of her scorched tongue, “Sh’ p’actic’ly des’toyed ‘onythille!” A moment of silence passes as the rest of them attempt to decipher the pegasus’s injured jargle. “Destroyed Ponyville!” Pinkie Pie squeals with a delighted hop, “I won! I won! Wait. What did I win?” “Yeah, Flutters!” Applejack continues, “An’ even ignorin’ all th’ havoc she wreaked ‘fore she sold her s- er, Rainbow’s soul t’ th’ Nightmare, think ‘bout all th’ other times she’s done made our lives mis’rable!” “That doesn’t mean we should make her suffer, AJ,” Twilight interjects, “Nopony is beyond a second chance.” “What about a third chance?” Rarity grumbles, “She only smashed my home and workplace.” “An’ burnt mah hat,” Applejack grouses. “Th’ee sol’ mah sole ‘oo thah Nigh’rare!” Rainbow hisses. “She. Burnt. Mah. Hat,” Applejack seethes. “Not to mention turning all the cakes the Cakes had baked into hungry cake golems and forcing us to blow them all up before I could even throw one birthday party where we got to eat the guest of honor!” wails Pinkie, “Not. ONE! SINGLE! CAKEPONY!” Twilight blinks. So does everypony else. “An’ she burnt mah hat!” Applejack roars, angrily hurling her tattered inheritance onto the table, “Twi, I know that you an’ Flutters try t’see th’ good in everypony, but there’re jes’ some thin’s y’ cain’t forgive!” Twilight sighs, sipping away last of her coffee and with it the last of her precious moments away from business. “I’m sorry that you feel that way, Applejack. And I know that Trixie has done very reprehensible things. But I think that somehow I started this, if what she said last night has any weight to it. I don’t expect you to forgive her, but I have to try. I have to try and make this right.” There’s grumbling and irate sighs (some kind of raspberry on Rainbow Dash’s part), but no actual resistance as Twilight stands and proceeds out through the hole. Down the ruined streets she trudges, scorched buildings and beleaguered, impromptu repairponies hard at work rebuilding their homes. It’s familiar work, an old routine, but to recall Trixie’s (or Nightmare Glamour’s, rather) snarling visage, standing amidst the burning wreckage, accusing the princess of driving her to such lengths, chills the alicorn’s blood. The bitterness returns, arguing that she and Trixie weren’t friends, that she was not responsible for the dark thoughts that trouble the amateur magician, and once again it is disregarded just as swiftly. As she approaches the Golden Oaks library, sans the northern wall and a good chunk of the reference section, Twilight sighs once more. She’s been doing that a lot today. It is her responsibility. As a princess, as a fellow practitioner of magic, as a pony, Trixie needs a friend right now to soothe her haunted mind. Twilight is many things: a sorceress, a student, somewhat neurotic, often irritable, possessed of an insatiable curiosity of all things academic, and most recently: an alicorn. But never, in any way shape or form, has she been, nor will she ever be, cruel. She enters through the door, in spite of the hole, to preserve some semblance of normalcy. It’s a hard image to keep up, in light of the madness that had possessed her… her what? Nemesis? Headache? Responsibility? It’s far too early to be thinking about this. Regardless, Twilight crosses the book-strewn floor to the shut door barring entryway to the reading room. She knocks politely. Waits. Silence. “Trixie?” calls the alicorn, “It’s Twilight. I’m here to check on you, like I promised. May I come in?” More silence. The purple pony interprets the lack of objection as consent, and opens the door. Darkness envelops her, the room a dim cavern wreathed in dust. Through the shuttered blinds lilts a few rays of her mentor’s fiery charge, faintly depicting the silhouette of a table, and the unicorn whose head is draped piteously upon it. A feeble lavender glow briefly illuminates Trixie and the dead look on her face, the tired bags under her eyes, and the cracker that slides between her crumb-covered lips. The princess takes a step forward, jumping slightly as something crunches beneath her hoof, an investigation revealing the floor to be littered with crumpled wrappers and bags. The alicorn huffs. “I see you found my pantry,” Twilight grumbles. “I needed comfort food,” Trixie grunts, a line of magic shoving another cracker into her overstuffed maw. “Speaking in the first person, are we?” “Third person pronouns are for winners.” Well. That isn’t a good sign. A plastic bag crinkles as Trixie continues rooting for more confections. “This can’t go on forever, you know,” Twilight points out. “Says you,” the unicorn snaps, “There’s nothing but anguish outside. Why should I leave?” Crinkle. “Oh do not tell me that you’re out of peanut butter crackers!” Twilight sighs. Again. “Because that. Now, look at me…” Defiant to the end, Trixie remains slumped where she is, until a pink shimmer encases the whole of her blue form. She squawks as she is buoyed upward and inelegantly deposited in front of her ruler. Like an insolent foal, she pointedly avoids making eye contact with the alicorn, a nuisance the Princess ultimately abides. So with Trixie there in front of her, Twilight… wonders what to do next. Unease flickers within her, a scathing comment on how unprepared she is bobbing around in her mind. Okay. No plan. What would Princess Celestia do? Her horn lights again, teleporting in a silken cloth from the next room. Tentatively, awkwardly, she touches the sheet to the unicorn’s muzzle, scrubbing away the muck and crumbs that have taken root there. The motion does finally get Trixie to look at her, she focusing on Twilight with a pointed and sharp glare. Our heroine winces, but continues her grooming of the other mare, noting the stained, matted trails of fur leading down from her eyes. She should say something. “Sometimes,” she begins, and fights not to immediately bite off her tongue. Really? That’s how she’s going to approach this? “Sometimes…” Yep. “…our archnemeses get made into Princesses. And it isn’t fair. But these things happen. And the best we can do is just accept that it did in fact happen and move on to greener pastures.” The young alicorn is fully aware of how much hostility could ever be packed into one deadpan stare. She’s getting one of the most ferocious right now. And she’s also aware that she deserves it. But, all those letters to the Princess can’t have been for nothing so she delves back into her reserve of fortune cookie lessons accumulated from her time in Ponyville and surfaces with another little gem that makes her want to bury her head in the ground. “It’s also important to remember,” she continues nonchalantly, for the alternative is to cry forever, “That we are all lovely, special ponies, and we all have something special to offer. So when… our archnemeses get made into Princesses –” Twilight hopes that the heat rising in her cheeks isn’t visible “- we keep in mind that it isn’t our fault, and is in no way a negative reflection on us.” “How?” The edge on the magician’s words is enough to freeze Twilight solid. At last she looks up from the inanity of her task, meeting the fire in Trixie’s eyes head on. Breathe in. Breathe out. “Because-” “No,” interrupts a seething unicorn, “Shut up. Shut up and listen, for once in your life. Magic is my life. It has been my life since I was a tiny foal. I was the first in my class to get my cutie mark, and when it came, it was for, surprise surprise: magic. I studied at Hoofington University for years to reach the level I was at when I first came to Ponyville. I loved my gift with every fiber of my being, wanted to honor it by becoming the greatest magician the world had ever seen. To that end, regardless of what mistakes I’ve made, how I know I misused it, I dedicated my life to magic. “And then I met you.” Twilight recoils slightly, struggling for any response. She can only choke. “In one second,” Trixie hisses, seething, “You brought my entire world crumbling down around my ears. In one moment you stomped every effort I’d ever made, every minute I’d spent pouring over old tomes and manuals. The second you tossed aside that Ursa Minor, I was nothing more than a footnote in the great legacy of Twilight Sparkle. And that’s all I’ll ever be. “No matter what I do, no matter how hard I apply myself, I will never be as good as you. Never. You are everything I want to be. You have everything I ever dreamed of having. Ponies love you. The Hymn loves you more than any other unicorn in Equestria. The Princesses love you so much that they made you one of them. I’m not your archnemesis. I’ll never be anything more than that one-trick pony you showed not once, but three times now. So don’t tell me that it isn’t a reflection on me. You being a Princess is nothing but a black mark on my record, because it does nothing but remind me of how inadequate I am.” The alicorn is able to choke out the beginning of a reply. “Trixie… I didn’t…” The unicorn laughs, bitter and low, almost a sob. “Of course you didn’t. You were too busy living my dream. You were doing magic I can only ever dream of performing. I hate my cutie mark now, Sparkle. I hate my gift. And without that, what do I have? Tell me: what am I without my magic?” The tears are long since dried up. The shell that calls itself Trixie just stares hollowly into her ruler, imploring her for any sort of validation. Twilight feels sick, meeting that stare. She wants to run. Run and hide under the wing of Princess Celestia. She tries to find that pettiness again, ration out why Trixie’s hopelessness isn’t her fault. She can see the logic, but it rings hollow. Here is a pony that needs her, and she cannot in good conscience abandon her. Twilight reaches up with a hoof, puts it to a sky blue cheek. “You are still one of the single most talented magi I’ve ever seen,” Twilight says, “You – no. Now it’s your turn to shut up. Royal order: stop talking. You said it: your magic is a gift. You wield is more deftly than any other unicorn I’ve ever met. So give yourself credit. Your magic isn’t gone. You haven’t lost your touch. Heck, you nearly ripped Ponyville in half last night! Do you know how many counterspells I had to blow through to keep you from casting those disjunction beams?” “I was channeling the Nightmare. Of course I was powerful.” “The Nightmare doesn’t have any real ability. Everything it has it takes from other ponies. Last night was all you. So pat yourself on the back there.” “Oh joy. I can inspire hordes of angry ponies to dip me in tar and feathers for the rest of my life.” “Well, archnemesis is a step above footnote, isn’t it? Yes you are, don’t contradict me. That said, villain isn’t a healthy place to be. So I’ll tell you what you can be without magic, if you’d like: my friend.” The magician narrows her eyes, and the hoof drops from her face. “The joy has been doubled; finally I can trail along mooning after Princess Sparkle like everypony else.” “That’s not what-” Another sigh, the biggest yet. “Trixie. You don’t want to be the best magician. You want to be appreciated. You want to be loved. Harsh as it is to hear, you have a compulsive need for positive reinforcement. I know; I get like that all the time. But there are much easier ways to get that. I’m willing to show you, if you’ll let me.” Twilight raises her hoof again, this time only at shoulder level, and outstretched in a gesture of peace. Trixie stares at the limb balefully, shying away from it with the air of a suspicious alley cat that’s been kicked one too many times. Yet she’s intrigued. Hopeful. In spite of spite, the lightness in her chest suggests she wants this. “Will there be more peanut butter crackers?” she inquires slowly. Twilight smiles. “Sure.” “Then the Great and Powerful Trixie accepts your offering, Twilight Sparkle. It’s haughty. It’s fussy. It’s snobbish in ways that would make even Rarity grind her teeth in irritation. It refuses to dirty her frog with a plebian hoofshake. It’s everything the old Trixie was and Twilight couldn’t be happier. Everything was going to be fine.