Taking A Job For Granite

by xjuggernaughtx


Rockupational Training - An Interlude into Trixie's Past

Rockupational Training – An Interlude into Trixie’s Past

 

 
For a moment, Trixie considered just bolting from the farm and never looking back. It’s not so far to Las Pegasus! she thought. I’d have to get a new cart, of course, but I could start over. I could get a mane dye and take a new stage name, and—
 
Humble cleared his throat. Whipping her eyes back to him, she saw that he was holding his hat up to block the mid-day sun. “You’ve got the look of a filly that’s thinkin’ about runnin’, and I’d say it’s goin’ to be a hot day for it,” he said, squinting up at the sun. “Besides,” he continued, locking eyes with her, “ain’t you done enough runnin’ already?”
 
Sighing, Trixie slowly sat near the farmer, hanging her head. “Yeah,” she whispered quietly. “I’m pretty tired. I’m tired of everything.” Pawing at the loose dirt between them, Trixie drew a wand with stars shooting out of it. “I was a prodigy, you know?” Trixie glanced up Humble, smiling bitterly. “They’d never seen a filly with such potential. My mother and father were so very proud. You’ve probably never heard of Muleiard, but it’s very prestigious art academy. Only the best of the best get invited to attend. I’d never been so happy as the day that letter arrived.
 
“A few weeks later, they sent a carriage and away I went, waving back to mother and father.” Trixie said, adding a filly to hold her sketched wand. “My mother was crying, but I was too excited to be sad. The truth is, I couldn’t wait to be away from that boring small town. I wanted excitement and fame! I wanted to be somepony!”
 
“Oh, it was rigorous there,” she said, smiling. “Far more challenging than anything I’d experienced before. I’ll admit that I was a little surprised that they moved me so quickly from the Entertainment Magic Studies to the more liberal arts, but I assumed it was because my magical superiority was so obvious.” Trixie added a stage and an audience of delighted faces to her sketch. “Once I settled into my new classes, though, I couldn’t get enough! They taught me how to act and to dance. I was instructed on projection and stage presence. It was all that I’d ever dreamed of!”
 
Tearing up, Trixie slashed her hoof across the drawing, destroying it. “Then one day, I was called into the dean’s office. I had no idea of what I might have done wrong, but when I got there, it was packed with guards, teachers, and plenty of other ponies I’d never seen before. The dean asked me to have a seat.”
 
“Have you ever known true pain, Humble?” she asked, glancing up to note his growing concern. “I hadn’t until that day. Not really. But that day, the day they told me about the fire, I truly understood what it meant to hurt.”
 
“You mean your parents—” Humble gasped.
 
“Yes,” Trixie cut in quickly. I’ve got to keep talking or I’ll never be able to do this. Tears began cascading down her cheeks, landing on her ruined drawing, and for the first time since her fillyhood, she didn’t try to stop them. “They told me that there’d been a fire at our house, and that both my mother and father had been killed. My mother had been trapped under a falling wall and father refused to leave her. They say he fought until the end, but the fire had escalated quickly, trapping him inside.” Trixie’s voice began to shake. “By the time the fireponies arrived, it was an inferno.”
 
“Trixie, that’s a terrible burden for so young a filly,” Humble said, patting her hoof with his own. “Life takes cruel turns, sometimes.”
 
“Yes, I thought so, too, but that wasn’t the end. I was about to learn how cruel life could really be,” Trixie said, rubbing her tears away with the back of her hoof. “Muleiard has a special fund set up for just such occurrences, but apparently I was the first filly that had ever actually needed it. I was to be the first ‘Ward of Muleiard’,” she said, sitting up straight and pressing a hoof to her heart while closing her eyes solemnly. “Oh, it was my choice, of course, but what was a young filly with stars in her eyes going to say? I’d just lost my parents. How could I lose my dreams, as well?
 
“Lost in my despair, I began to struggle through my classes,” Trixie continued, her voice filling with shame. “Where once I’d breezed through every test, I now fought for even an average grade.” Trixie stood and began to pace. She felt like a raw, exposed nerve, and each word sent a new jolt of pain through her body. “Nopony at Muleiard would be so crass as to come out and say it, but I could read the signs. The staff was beginning to feel that I was a waste of time. I was moved into new, smaller quarters at the edge of the campus. Where once I was given as much instruction as I requested, suddenly I began encountering teachers with full schedules. They did nothing as the other foals worked to block me out of key positions.”
 
“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” Humble said, scratching behind his ear. “The other foals managed that how, exactly?”
 
“Muleiard is a very interesting academy,” Trixie said, her mouth curling into a bitter sneer. “‘Total preparation for the real world of entertainment’. They must have told us that ten times a day. You see, when a play is being cast or a symphony is planned, the students are left to work the roles and positions out for themselves. It’s a group exercise that’s supposed to foster a team mentality. The show must come first, and you are expected to display the ability to step up or step aside. No director should ever have to tell you that you are wrong for the role.”
 
“But that’s… that’s…” Humble sputtered. “You can’t saddle young’uns with that sort of responsibility! They lack perspective!”
 
“You can at Muleiard,” Trixie answered, smiling sadly. “We were gifted! We were treated as special and expected to be special. If you were merely exceptional, you moved to the back of the class and were forgotten.” Humble shook his head in disgust.
 
“That’s what happened to me!” Trixie said through gritted teeth. After all these years, the memories still burn! she thought. “I’d cry myself to sleep, and in my dreams, my parents would die over and over again.  I’d wake from an hour or two of rest and I’d be a wreck for the rest of the day, which made me cry even harder when I returned to my solitary dorm room. I was cracking and everypony knew it.

It finally came to a head in my advanced acting course. I was stumbling through a scene, and the other ponies began snickering, then outright laughing. They didn’t even try to hide it, and eventually they drowned me out entirely. Finally, I just stood there, in the spotlight, as the laughter rolled over me.” Humble winced as Trixie’s cheeks flamed with embarrassment, but her unfocused eyes told him that her mind was far away. “Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I ran to the instructor.” Trixie’s eyes refocused on Humble and her voice began to shake as she struggled to maintain control of her emotions. “B-but, he was l-laughing, too! Oh, not as hard or as loud, but he wasn’t hiding it. He suggested that maybe I should just take the rest of the day off.”
 
Humble cocked his head to the side, tapping on his chin with his hoof. “Well, I can’t say I care for his behavior none, but it might be that a break would be just the thing. No shame in that, I’d say.”
 
“Humble, this is Muleiard!” Trixie snarled, causing the farmer to jump. “Taking a break is tantamount to academic suicide! The show must go on! Foals that need to take a break are dismissed!” Trixie’s furious eyes bored into Humble for a moment before she dropped his gaze and slowly lowered herself back into a sitting position. “Telling me to take a break was his way of letting me know that Muleiard was no longer interested in me.”
 
“So I did the only thing I could do,” Trixie continued, her voice taking on a hard edge. “I pushed it all down. I forgot about my parents and my sadness. I pushed it all away and I began to excel again. But it was too late. The other students had seen blood in the water, and they banded together to block me, no matter how much better I was for the roles.” Trixie slammed a hoof into the ground, fuming. “In truth, they probably were waiting for the opportunity! When I arrived, I made quite a stir. I’m sure they were quite jealous. After my amazing performance in my first year and receiving my cutie mark on stage, I must have seemed invincible.
 
“Since I was given the worst roles, I worked to steal every performance!” Trixie said, as her horn began to shine. Humble watched as translucent images of a younger Trixie filled the air. Often there were several dozen foals on stage, and she was always in the background, but he found his eyes irresistibly returning to her. “If I was to strike the triangle only once in the entire symphonic movement, well, I made sure to strike it with flair! If I was given as assignment as a Background Pony #3 in the new play, I made sure the audience knew I was there somehow. That’s the thing about Muleiard, each performance is in front of a live outside audience. That way they always know that the reaction is genuine.” Humble jumped as Trixie suddenly rose, clenching a hoof in front of her and twisting her mouth into something halfway between a snarl and a grin. “They tried to tear me down, but the audience was the one thing my classmates couldn’t control, and I was winning the crowd over with each outing!” Above Trixie, the audiences silently rose to their feet, slamming their hooves together with gusto when she came out to take a bow. “Rave reviews were pouring in, and grudgingly, I was given better and better roles!”
 
“Well, that’s good, right?” Humble said uncertainly. From the far-away look in the unicorn’s eyes, he wasn’t even sure that she remembered he was there anymore. After a moment, the savage joy left her face, replaced by a angry curl in her lip.
 
“Good?” she spat. “No, that was just the beginning of the fight!” Her mane bristling, Trixie paced as the memories flooded back, the images playing out for Humble above her head. “Outperformed, my classmates just became more underhoofed. I would be given the wrong rehearsal times and then excused from the production for being ‘unprofessional’. A revised version of the script would be distributed to everypony but me, causing me to miss my cues and blocking. Instruments would be ‘lost’ before the performances. Costumes would be created and mine would mysteriously be three sizes too small on opening night.”
 
“Good night, filly!” Humble said, his mouth dropping open. “Is it really worth all that? Surely there were other schools!”
 
“Oh, yes. There are others,” Trixie snarled, pacing even faster as her pulse raced. “Greatly respected across Equestria!” She stopped to stare at Humble, shaking her head. “But they’re not Muleiard! Besides, it wasn’t even about the prestige at that point. It was about proving them wrong!” Trixie said, her mane bristling. “Those students made my life a living hell and the teachers did nothing!” Stopping for a moment, Trixie took a few deep breaths, and then flashed Humble the most cynical of smiles. “You see, if they’d stepped in, that would be an admission that something was wrong, and above all other things, those instructors revere that school! They’d rather let a young filly die on stage than admit their system had any faults!”
 
Humble opened his mouth, but Trixie continued on, unable to stop. The wound had festered within her for so long that the she was unable to stem to tide. “Still, through it all, I fought!” she said, thrusting her chest out proudly. “I never regained my position at the top of the class, but despite everything they tried, I worked my way back into the top ten percent! Newspapers and magazine reviews mentioned me by name as a pony to watch! But it was back to square one with each performance and I had to fight and kick and bite every step of the way.”
 
Trixie glanced up at the floating illusion above them, and concentrated briefly, changing the scene to a school auditorium. Despite himself, Humble’s mouth curled slightly upward as he saw the filly unicorn beaming with happiness in her ceremonial graduation mortarboard and gown. However, Trixie only gave the image the briefest of glances before she dropped her eyes. “Finally, I reached the end of my studies. Graduation from Muleiard is a media event, and all the biggest talent scouts and studio heads show up to snap up the up-and-comers. I was so proud! Despite everything that happened, I hadn’t given up.” Humble reached out in alarm as Trixie sat suddenly, a primal wail of despair erupting from her throat.
 
“I-I was s-so stupid!” she said, breaking into tears. “I r-really thought I’d made it. I’d brought my grades up to top levels! M-my performances were flawless time and time again. I thought I’d really p-proven myself!”
 
Not sure what to do, Humble draped a leg around Trixie’s shoulder and squeezed. She turned toward him, resting her head against his neck. As her body shook, he gently patted her on the back.
 
“Th-they s-skipped my n-n-name, Humble!” Trixie said, nearly screaming. “We were ranked in order of overall grade. I was eleven ponies from the front, but when they got to me, they just called out the name of the pony behind me, and went on from there!” Trixie pulled back, her face frozen in shame and despair. “I was just standing there, like an idiot, in front of the biggest names in entertainment, and the other students were just marching around me as their names were called. Finally, after who knows how many ponies were called, I ran. I ran and I hid in the bathroom and I cried and cried and cried.”
 
“Back in my dormroom, I spent the entirety of that long, lonely night replaying it all over and over in my mind,” Trixie said, her voice taking on an ugly edge. “I thought I’d played their little game pretty well, but there they were, changing the rules at the end. It took a few hours in that dark bedroom to get over the initial shock, but when I did…” Humble pulled his head back, squirming under Trixie’s furious glare. “… I got angry! Angrier than I’ve ever been in my life! They needed to pay for what they’d done! They needed to admit they were wrong!”
 
Trixie climbed to her hooves once more, and began pacing. “The next day I marched into the dean’s office and demanded an explanation!” Trixie stopped and rolled a bloodshot eye over to Humble. “Oh, I was steaming mad! I kicked open the door, and it startled his secretary so much that she dropped the coffee mug she’d been filling and she ended up tripping over a potted plant!”
 
Trixie closed her eyes briefly and an office tastefully decorated in burnished teak replaced the graduation ceremony. A dignified-looking brown stallion with a neatly trimmed beard and spectacles sat calmly behind a large and well-organized desk, while the younger Trixie silently screamed at him. “The dean was just sitting there, hooves folded in front of him, like he didn’t have a care in the world!” Trixie said, snarling. “I just tore into him, Humble! I really let him have it! But he just sat there with this look of disappointment that made me want to smack him! Finally, when I’d exhausted my list of complaints, he asked me what I’d really learned at the school.”
 
“Well, I thought that was my opportunity, so I launched into a review of my classes, making sure to indicate how hard I had fought to improve myself and how aggressively I had pursued each and every role, but…”
 
Lines of misery creased Trixie’s face once more as she slumped to the ground. “H-he stood up and leaned over his desk, getting right up into my f-face. He told me that I’d failed to graduate from Muleiard because I hadn’t learned the most important lesson! The lesson that was taught in class after class, year after year. That the show must come first!  He said the instructors hadn’t missed the way that I’d fought for the spotlight, always drawing attention to myself, or how I’d schemed, and yes, cheated my way to larger roles.” Grinding her teeth, Trixie wiped her eyes so furiously that bruises began forming on her cheeks. Humble politely busied himself with inspecting his spotless pipe as the unicorn took a few deep, steadying breaths. “He told me that I was becoming a diva,” she continued after a few moments, “and that kind of behavior proved that I was unsuitable for any production company of merit.”
 
Trixie reached out and grabbed Humble behind the neck, yanking the surprised farmer toward her. “So I asked him what I was expected to do!” she said, yelling into Humble’s face as he tried to scramble backward. However, Trixie’s strength seemed to have magnified, powered by her rage and shame, and he was held fast as his hooves drew deep furrows in the soft dirt. “Was I to allow ponies with half of my talent to box me out of roles out of jealousy? Was I brought into Muleiard to learn to be ‘chimney-sweep #6’?”
 
“He just sighed in disgust and sat down heavily in his chair. Refusing to even look at me again, he reiterated that I’d missed the point entirely! He said that sometimes life in the arts seems unfair, but hard work and team spirit will usually pay off if you have talent. He said that the cream generally rises to the top, and if I had just concentrated on making the performances better as a whole, I would have gotten the roles eventually. Instead, I shunted others aside, stealing the spotlight that they themselves had worked for. He said that is why I didn’t graduate, though given my circumstances and lack of parental guidance, Muleiard was prepared to give me one more year to try and make something of myself.”
 
“Well, uh, I suppose that was somethin’, at least…” Humble said, trailing off as he continued to pry off Trixie’s ironclad grip, but she held firm. She’s drownin’! he thought, studying the desperation in her eyes. She’s drownin’ in memories and I’m the lifeline. Using both hooves, he finally broke her grip, but continued to hold her hoof as she trembled.
 
“I-I couldn’t believe it! Muleiard had betrayed me!” Trixie said, spitting out the school’s name like a curse. “After everything that I’d gone through! After my parents, and the other students and the professors! After all of that, the school itself had betrayed me!”
 
“Well, but that fella was tryin’ to—” Humble began as he patted Trixie’s hoof.
 
They betrayed me!” Trixie screamed, blowing Humble’s hat backward. Blanching, he quickly snatched it out of the air and plopped it back into place. “It was at that moment that I decided that I didn’t need any other ponies!” Trixie said, curling her other hoof tightly in front of her chest. “My father chose to die with my mother, leaving me all alone!”
 
“Well, here now! Wait a min—” Humble began, his expression hardening again.
 
“In their jealousy, those students did everything in their power to sabotage my success,” Trixie continued, raising her voice, “while the instructors looked the other way! And then, finally, the dean! My last hope!” Trixie whipped her head back up, snarling into Humble’s face. “I was better than the rest of that sad school put together! I could outperform half the instructors in every discipline by my senior year! Well, I’d had enough of other ponies! I decided from that point on, The Great and Powerful Trixie was on her own!
 
“Oh, did I rub their faces in it!” Trixie said, a feral grin spreading across her face. Concentrating, she updated the images that floated above them, illustrating several small town shows inside seedy bars and in darkened public squares. “Instead of playing in the largest, most prestigious halls in Equestria, I took my act on the road, playing for small towns and military garrisons. I went to places that had never seen a real performance, and I really gave them a show!” The illusions shimmered in the air, and Humble muttered disapprovingly at the opulent decadence of the private ballrooms in what looked to be very wealthy estates. “Soon word began to spread and I was invited to the private parties of Equestria’s movers and shakers. Influential ponies with both a curious nature and an influential voice! I made sure to let them know that Muleiard’s had tossed me aside. Some of them even remembered me from the graduation ceremony and couldn’t believe that a pony of such obvious ability had been snubbed. Several of them even withdrew their funding from the institute.”
 
“But the road was hard, Humble,” Trixie said. “While I made a name for myself, it didn’t happen overnight. I was balked at every turn by dishonest promoters, unenlightened hecklers, and rivals from Muleiard that whispered lies in the ears of anyone who would listen!”
 
“Well, what were they sayin’?” Humble asked breathlessly, before shaking his head and settling back into his familiar frown. She’s a crackin’ good storyteller! he though. Here I am tryin’ to give some advice, and I’m getting’ lost in the tale like some wet-nosed schoolcolt.
 
Trixie sat up straight, thrusting her nose into the air and flipping her hair dismissively in that way that set Humble’s teeth on edge whenever he saw it. “They said that the Great and Powerful Trixie hadn’t lived up to Muleiard’s standards. They said that she was an inferior performer!” Trixie narrowed her eyes, a growl rumbling in her chest. “Worst of all, they said that she didn’t graduate!”
 
Humble scratched under his hat, raising an eyebrow. “But, you didn’t grad—”
 
The Great and Powerful Trixie did graduate!” Trixie yelled, her eyes flashing. “She did! Oh, she might not have gotten their precious diploma, but The Great and Powerful Trixie outperformed everypony in that school, and under conditions that they couldn’t begin to bear! That was her diploma!"
 
Maybe it’d be best to just let this play out, Humble thought, rolling his eyes as Trixie shook with rage. Might be that we’ve come through the darkest hours, but she’s still not seen the light.
 
As her breathing began to slow, Trixie scanned Humble’s wary expression and bit her lip. Turning away from his scrutiny, she continued, lowering her ears as she poked at the dirt once more. “Here I thought that I was done with them, but still they followed me, trying again and again to ruin what was left of my life! Muleiard! The great academy! The epicenter of pony cultural education! Look,” Trixie said, scratching a small circle in the soft dirt again with her hoof, “Muleiard believes all the arts are connected. Dancing,” she said, drawing a line from the circle. “Vocal Training,” she continued, drawing another line opposite the first. “Stagecraft. Acting. Classical Instrument. And Entertainment Management and Production.” she finished, drawing a final line. “Muleiard believes that when these traditions are executed at their highest levels, it moves all ponykind forward as a species.” Trixie drew a large circle, connecting all the radial lines. “That’s why this is their symbol.”
 
Humble glanced down at the rough drawing and gasped. In that instant, so many things fell into place. There, scratched in the dirt between them, was a wheel.