“Now you wait just one cotton-pickin’ minute,” the orange earth pony – Applejack – objected, pointing a hoof at Trixie. “Ah don’t know where y’all think you can just change the way things have been for centuries, but here in Ponyville, the Longest Night is an Apple family night.”
“Not this year,” Trixie objected, staring at the hoof pointed at her and wondering when the last time she heard such a thick country drawl was. Less than an hour ago, she had been chatting pleasantly with Carrot Top over a simple lunch the earth pony had prepared for her and Lyra. Now, she felt like she was involved in a physical wrestling match – a wrestling match that could go south real fast, given that the entire Apple clan, it seemed, was just in the next room of the Apple’s surprisingly modestly-sized estate. “I like apples as much as the next pony, but the thought of eating just apples, all day? No. I like a little variety to my festivals.”
“And just what gives you the right?” Applejack demanded, leaning forward threateningly.
Trixie straightened herself. “Not what,” she clarified, “who. Her Majesty, Luna Equestris, Shepherd of the Moon, Caretaker of the Sun, Mistress of the Star Beasts, Sovereign of the Three Tribes, Ruler of Equestria, my mentor, and your Princess,” it was Trixie’s turn to jab a hoof at the obstinate pony. “As her appointed festival overseer, I have final say as to what can go into the catering. And what I say is that there’s going to be not just apples, but carrots, and grapes, and pears, and celery, and broccoli, and baked goods that don’t have apples in them, and anything else anypony wants.”
Applejack fumed. “Well,” the pony said, tipping her Stetson hat over her eyes. “Y’all may be able to say what you want in. But the plain simple truth, consarn it, is that the other farms ain’t got the stockpiles.” Applejack beamed as though in victory, tapping a hoof firmly on the wooden floor of the living area they were in, probably to indicate the expansive storehouse that lay beneath their hooves. “We’ve been preparin’ all year. Got a special horde saved since the last harvest, carefully preserved to be up to the finest Apple standards and usin’ only the best apples we could buck.” Applejack’s smile turned back into an icy glare, significantly colder than even the weather outside. “Nopony else’ll be able to match the quality. They just pile up their stock and freeze ‘em and hope for the best.”
“I’m sure they’ll be able to dig out something,” Trixie insisted.
“And you think Her Majesty, Princess Luna Equestris, Shepherd of the Moon, and so on and so forth, will be okay with just any ol’ thing that’s been ‘dug out?’”
Trixie blinked a few times at that. The earth pony, unfortunately, had her there. For an immortal alicorn– or perhaps because she was an immortal alicorn – the Princess was an extremely picky eater. It was her one major flaw.
“Now look,” Applejack said, her tone changing from anger to a more conciliatory one. “Ah’m sure y’all came here with the best of intentions. But mah family runnin’ the Longest Night is just the way things’ve been done around here, the way things’ll always get done. We need them sales to keep Sweet Apple Acres up n’ runnin’ smoothly. We can’t have other farms just cuttin’ into our profits.”
Trixie’s eyes widened a little at that. “The Apple Trust has a near-complete monopoly on apples in all of Equestria!” she exclaimed. She jabbed a hoof past Applejack, at the living area where the rest of the Apple clan, plus Lyra, were waiting, and probably listening in on every word. “How could you possibly – ”
“It’s a farm thing,” Applejack interrupted. “Ah don’t expect a fancy Canterlot mare – ”
“I’m actually from Neigh Orleans.”
“Well, Ah’m sorry for mah assumption. But Ah don’t expect any city mare to understand the delicate situation the Apple clan is in. Farms are always on the edge of disaster. One blight could ruin a whole harvest season. Darn near did back when Ah was just a little filly, a blight that spread to almost every apple farm in the country. If’n it weren’t for a goodly bit of foresight and savin’ for that very predicament, why, the entire Apple Trust might have gone under.”
Trixie found that hard to believe – not the nation-wide apple blight, as she had vague memories of that back before she had become Princess Luna’s protégé; rather, that it had ever seriously cut into the Apple Trust’s coffers. Even if it was true, with their near-total monopoly on apples, the Trust would have been in a better position than any other apple-farming family to recover from the blight. If anything, it had probably driven their last true competition out of business.
Trixie let out a sigh. This Applejack was as stubborn as a mule. She wasn’t going to change her mind anytime soon, no matter what tack she took. “Fine,” Trixie conceded at length. “Fine. I’ll just…pack a lunch or bring my own snacks or something to the Longest Night.”
Applejack beamed at her victory. “Ah don’t think we’ll disappoint, Miss Trixie. Never have. This ain’t the first time Princess Luna has had the Longest Night in Ponyville and she’s come away smilin’ like a school filly every time.”
Trixie nodded. “Fine,” she repeated, as the two trotted out of the room they had been in and into the living room. Trixie made a conscious effort to keep her eyes on the floor and ignore a significant number of glares she was getting from the rest of the Apple clan for what she’d said during the overheard conversation. “Thanks for the food, I guess. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot to do.”
She made her way over to Lyra, who was already putting her Gatsby cap and wool cloak back on and was standing near the door. The door was blocked, however, by a small filly with a red mane and a straw-colored coat. She was glaring at Trixie, and stuck her tongue out in a very pointed and determined fashion, blowing a raspberry at the unicorn.
“Applebloom!” Applejack’s voice objected.
“But sis…!” the small filly objected strongly. “We can’t just let ‘er go just like that after – ”
“Applebloom, yes we can,” the orange mare explained, trotting over to the filly and scooting her out of the way of the door. Lyra and Trixie both gave polite good-byes, and left as quickly as possible.
The two were silent for several minutes as they trudged along the snow-bordered dirt path, before Lyra looked over to Trixie. “Was that filly going to suggest getting you tarred and feathered?” she asked.
“Of course not,” Trixie answered, doing nothing to keep the bitterness from her voice. “She was going to suggest I be lynched.”
“Ah,” Lyra said, nodding sagely. She sighed a moment later. “Look, you tried. And I’m not going to lie, I was not expecting that from you. I think it’s great and all that you were trying to get that carrot farmer a place in the Longest Night, but that’s just not how things happen in Ponyville.”
Trixie made a face. “I wasn’t doing it for her,” she responded. “I mean, okay, yeah, it’d be great for her business and from the looks of things she needed it, but I wasn’t doing it for her. I was doing it for me.” She looked to Lyra. “I mean, try to imagine eating an apple that hasn’t been chopped up, mixed with broccoli and alfalfa seeds and poppy seeds, drenched in butter – and I mean a whole stick of butter, real butter, not that fake stuff they have nowadays – and bread crumbs, and then the whole thing fried up.” Trixie grinned at her own recipe. “Ooh, and with eggs. Two eggs, scrambled and mixed in.”
Lyra blinked a few times at the thoroughly bizarre-sounding dish. “I’m…having an easy time imagining not eating an apple like that, actually.”
“Huh,” Trixie replied, honestly surprised. “That doesn’t sound delicious?”
“No.”
“Huh.”
There was a drawn-out silence between the two, before Lyra finally broke it. “So now where?” she asked.
“Well, after that fiasco, I’m in the mood for something easy,” Trixie responded. “So I guess…weather patrol? If you can find it.”
Lyra mumbled something under her breath at Trixie’s last comment, which Trixie chose to ignore. “Back to town…” the mint-green unicorn proclaimed, as the two began trotting back towards Ponyville proper.
---
“Rainbow Dash, if you don’t get your polychromatic flank in here in – oh, hello there – in five minutes, then I’m going to quit and take the entire team with me!” The jasmine-coated, blue-maned pegasus with three drops of water for a cutie mark shouted at the top of her lungs after throwing open the door to the weather patrol station just as Trixie was about to knock on it. She had only barely been able to dodge out of the way of being killed by blunt force trauma from the door.
The two unicorns stared, wide-eyed, at the pegasus, frozen in place. The pegasus, for her part, had her gray-blue eyes focused intently on the winter sky, as she breathed deeply, apparently waiting for somepony named Rainbow Dash.
“Um,” Lyra said at length, breaking the silence. “Hi.”
“Hello,” the pegasus repeated, not breaking eye contact with the sky. “What are you here for?”
Lyra turned to Trixie, who cleared her throat a little. “My name is Trixie,” she said. “I’m the new representative of Luna’s Night Court to Ponyville – ”
“And the festival overseer?” the pegasus guessed.
“Yes,” Trixie responded. “I just thought I’d stop by and see how the weather patrol is doing.” She looked up at the wintery sky, which was marred by a few cirrus clouds but otherwise was a clear, perfect blue. “…and everything seems to be just fine, actually.”
The pegasus blinked a few times, tearing her eyes away from the sky and glaring at Trixie. “Fine?” she demanded. “Fine?”
“Well, there’s a few clouds,” Trixie admitted, “but you’ve got two days to clear them, and I don’t imagine it’ll be very hard to keep new ones from forming…”
The pegasus leaned forward. “Are you serious?” she demanded, then looked to Lyra, wings fluttering in agitation. “Is she serious? Everything isn’t fine! There’s a storm building over the Everfree right now, probably coming this way, and our weather manager has disappeared! Again!” She paused a moment. “I’m Raindrops, by the way. Hi.”
The pegasus turned around and stomped inside the tall spire near Ponyville’s center that was the weather patrol station, the tallest structure in Ponyville. She didn’t close the door behind her, so Trixie decided to take that as an invitation to enter, with Lyra following. Inside, the tower was mostly hollow space, with various pegasi flitting about in the upper levels, looking over charts and maps and plans that were plastered across the building’s inner walls. All in all, there were maybe two dozen pegasi in the station, all of them looking extraordinarily busy and none of them looking particularly coordinated. Trixie heard several statements along the lines of ‘all our plans ruined,’ ‘it would be just before the Longest Night that this happens,’ and, most commonly, ‘where in the Princess' name is Rainbow Dash?’
“So,” Trixie said, as she trotted up next to Raindrops before the pegasi could fly straight up and away. “Why are you making a storm in the Everfree Forest if it’s going to be such a problem?”
Raindrops’ eyes widened at that. “Why are we…” she began, then shook her mane. “Right. New here. We don’t make the weather in the Everfree.”
“Then who does?”
“Nopony does. The Everfree just does what the Everfree wants.”
Trixie blinked a few times as she tried to wrap her mind around that one. “The…weather just happens on its own?” she asked.
Raindrops whickered in annoyance. “Don’t know why. Best us weather ponies can do is deal with it as it rolls over us. Good news is that once it leaves the Everfree’s airspace, we can work it again. The bad news, of course, being that until it does, there isn’t a thing we can do about it, meaning some very large storms can build up.” Raindrops gestured half-heartedly to the Ponyvillian weather team. “You’re looking at the most over-worked, under-appreciated ponies in Equestria.”
Trixie couldn’t help but notice a slight tug at the corner of Raindrops’ lips as she said that – if forced to hazard a guess, the unicorn would have ventured that Raindrops, despite her complaining, enjoyed the job and the challenge it presented. The unicorn trotted over to one wall, where a map of the Everfree forest had been set up, and a weather diagram the likes of which Trixie had never seen before placed next to it. The diagram made mention of air pressure, humidity, average temperature, and something called “forecasts” of the Everfree Forest’s upcoming weather. Their diagram also made it pretty clear that it was all just a bunch of guesswork.
“That’s useless now,” Raindrops answered as she came up alongside Trixie, reaching up a hoof and tearing down the weather diagram, tossing it into a nearby garbage bin. “The Everfree looked like it was going to be pretty quiet. Then this heat wave came out of nowhere a few days ago and started messing up everything. Hot air from the Everfree is mixing with the cold air from the rest of Equestria. Might be a thunderstorm, a blizzard, tornado, hurricane, I don’t know what’s brewing in there, but it’s going to be arriving soon. If we’re lucky, it won’t hit until after the Longest Night has passed.” She paused a moment, considering her own words. “But we’re not lucky.”
“And your weather manager has disappeared at a time like this?” Trixie asked incredulously.
Raindrops’ almost-smile disappeared, replaced by a rather firm frown as her wings sagged. “Rainbow Dash. She just up and disappeared after her last shift.”
“Disappeared?” Lyra asked. Trixie jumped, having forgotten that her fellow unicorn was nearby, but Raindrops seemed to take the mint-green pony’s appearance in easy stride.
“Pop. Gone. I’m not worried, she does it all the time, but she has a real knack for picking the worst possible times.” Raindrops shook her mane. “She’s the fastest flier in Equestria. She brags about that a lot, but I’ve seen her move and it’s the stars-sworn truth. When the Everfree storm hits, we’ll need her.” Once again, Raindrops considered her own words. “Not that she’ll be there. Without her here leading us, Cloud Kicker’s the one in charge, but…” she pointed a hoof upwards. Flitting about from one pony and one station to the next was a pegasus mare with a gray coat and yellow mane and tail, looking incredibly frazzled and talking incoherently to each pony she met. Raindrops watched her impassively for a few moments. “She doesn’t take pressure well,” the pegasus said.
Lyra and Trixie looked between each other, the latter beginning to suspect that Raindrops’ name and cutie mark didn’t simply represent a talent for making precipitation. “Well,” Trixie said, tipping her hat a little. “You have a lot of work to do. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thanks. We’ll do what we can for the festival, just…” Raindrops offered a resigned shrug. “No promises.”
The two unicorns made their way from the weather station, Trixie wearing a grimace that would have done Raindrops proud. “So…” she said. “Nothing but apples in a few days, plus we might all die in a blizzard or get sucked up in a tornado or struck by lightning. This is shaping up nicely.”
Lyra frowned herself. “Yeah, I’m not liking this job very much,” the pony said. “I think I’d rather of just had the Longest Night come and have it all collapse around me, rather than see it falling to pieces ahead of time.”
Trixie glared at Lyra, but to her surprise the other unicorn offered a somewhat-playful bump with one shoulder. “Calm down,” the unicorn insisted. “It’s not your fault.”
“No, but as the overseer I’m going to be blamed for it,” Trixie pointed out, sighing. “I wonder if Luna knew that everything was going to the sun and back here and sent me here because of it.”
“That seems mean,” Lyra said, making a face at the thought of the Princess being so needlessly cruel. Despite the implications, however, it didn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility; if anything, it fit right in with the stories of the political sniping and shadowy games that was the food and drink of the Night Court of Luna.
“She was…less than happy with me the last time we spoke.” Trixie said. “After the ice palace thing we got into an argument about how I’m not taking my studies seriously anymore, and I said it’s because none of it mattered.” She looked to Lyra. “I mean, you’ve got a musical education and a direction you want your life to move in. Me? All I had to look forward to was another year of the same stuff. It was getting old.”
“So you think that Princess Luna set you up to fail?” Lyra asked.
“Wouldn’t put it past her.” Trixie mulled this thought over for a few minutes, then shook her mane. “Whatever. Let’s just move on to decorations. It’s supposed to be overseen by some unicorn pony named Rarity.”
Lyra’s trotting faltered a moment at that. “Ugh,” she groaned, turning down a path with Trixie in tow. She began chanting a number to herself, a large, round number that was, coincidentally, the payment she was receiving from Luna to serve as Trixie’s escort.
“So you know her,” Trixie guessed.
Lyra ground her teeth together. “Yes,” she declared.
---
“No,” the white unicorn said in a firm voice, “no, no, no! You simply cannot wear that ensemble around town anymore!”
Trixie’s eyes were wide as she reared up on her hind legs, using a hoof to try and fend off her attacker. “I like my hat and cape!”
“Yes, I’m sure they’re fine if you want to cry out circus attraction,” Rarity proclaimed as she closed in, horn glowing as she levitated measuring tape, scissors and fabric. “But if you’re to be our new noble representative of the Night Court – ”
“Princess Luna didn’t ennoble me!”
“I mean noble as a metaphor, darling. Gallant, upright, dignified, all these things and more which you most certainly are not while wearing those rags!”
Trixie leapt backwards – no easy feat when standing on only two legs – and let her own horn glow beneath her hat, calling up a solid blue bubble of arcane energy around herself just as the measuring tape held by Rarity lunged. It smacked harmlessly against Trixie’s impromptu shield.
“These aren’t rags!” Trixie proclaimed. “And they match my coat and eyes perfectly! And they’re both enchanted several times over making them worth more than their weight in gold!” Trixie paused, then let out a long sigh as she remembered a few details about the shield spell she had cast. “And you can’t hear me because this bubble is airtight. Great.”
Rarity was still poised on the other side of the shield, talking fervently to Lyra as the musician tried to calm down the fashion designer, but the white unicorn’s eyes hadn’t left their death-lock on Trixie’s own. At a guess, Trixie supposed that she had about five minutes of air inside the bubble, and briefly entertained the idea of letting herself suffocate before remembering that wouldn’t work: as soon as she lost consciousness, the spell would fail, and she would be helpless while Rarity would be free to do things to her – horrible, unspeakable things. Like try and put her in something frilly – or, Luna forbid, a dress.
Trixie still waited until the air began to get stale before letting her shield spell fade away. Rarity didn’t lunge immediately, which Trixie took as a good sign. “I’m. Not here. For a makeover,” the blue unicorn said, slowly and determinedly. “I’m here. To see. How the decorations. Are coming.”
Rarity pouted. “Well, of course they’re coming along just magnificently, darling,” the pony said. Her horn glowed once more, and Trixie flinched, but the other unicorn had merely grabbed an overly large sketchbook, which she opened to a page and presented to Trixie. Inside of it, she had used pencils of various colors to sketch out a remarkably detailed picture of Ponyville’s town hall, the large auditorium of which would be hosting the opening ceremonies of the Longest Night. The auditorium had been bedecked in various banners, curtains, tassels, and other fineries, with stalls set up along the edges to provide food and drinks for the ponies. The stage, meanwhile, was dominated by the flag of Equestria hanging down from its center: a stylized, eight-armed blue sun, with a darker crescent moon inside of it with horns pointing downwards, and tucked between the horns of the moon a single white star.
It was a beautiful drawing. It was, however, just a drawing. Trixie looked to Rarity, eyebrow raised. “That’s nice,” she said. “But how far along with this are you?”
“Oh, just about finished of course!” Rarity said, floating the sketch away. “In fact I shall be putting the finishing touches on it later tonight. You could stop by then, if you like, say around sundown? Or you could come by tomorrow, perhaps, and we could spend the midday together?”
Trixie debated whether she’d rather be trapped outside or trapped with Rarity during the midday, and found both thoughts equally unpleasant. “Tomorrow,” she said, “but probably after midday. Say around two o’clock.”
The white unicorn pouted a little. “Very well, Miss Trixie,” she said. “I’ll see you then.”
Trixie turned to leave, but stopped when she heard Rarity add, “and I’ll be sure to bring some…emergency fashion supplies with me. You can keep the clown suit if you really want, but eyes, a mane, and a coat like yours really shouldn’t be wasted by someone in your position!”
Trixie’s eyes were slightly larger than dinner plates as she fled the Carousel Boutique, Rarity’s home and store, at a full gallop. Lyra caught up only with some effort as Trixie stopped at a tree outside that she had ducked and hid behind, albeit not very well.
“And now you know,” Lyra said with a laugh.
Trixie glared at Lyra. “You…” she hissed. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
“Maybe a little,” Lyra laughed, pulling down the brim of her Gatsby. While Rarity had made a few comments about her own choice of dress, she had been entirely focused on Trixie when she had learned who the blue unicorn was and what she was doing in Ponyville. “Lighten up, Trixie. Rarity at least seems to have all decorations in perfect – oh, hi Cheerilee!”
Lyra’s gaze had turned to a magenta earth pony with pink hair, wearing a warm-looking wool cloak and cap ensemble. The pony paused at the sight of Lyra, before a wide grin split her features. “Lyra!” she exclaimed, trotting up to the unicorn as Lyra did likewise. “When did you get back in Ponyville?”
“A few hours ago,” Lyra admitted as the two nuzzled affectionately, clearly old friends. “I’m showing Trixie here around town. Oh,” Lyra took a step away from Cheerilee, pointing to Trixie. “Cheerilee, this is Trixie. She’s going to be the representative of Luna’s Night Court to Ponyville.” She held out a hoof when Cheerilee started to bow respectfully. “Don’t do that, she isn’t a noble and enjoys seeing ponies do that way too much.”
Trixie pouted slightly, but found herself doing it mostly for show rather than putting any actual feeling behind it. “Trixie,” Lyra continued, “this is Cheerilee. She’s my second-oldest friend here in Ponyville and she’s studying to be a school teacher.”
Cheerilee’s smile dropped at that, and she looked down. “Oh,” she said in a low voice. “I guess you didn’t hear I’m not studying for that anymore.”
Lyra blinked a few times. “I – I’m sorry,” she said, looking mortified. “I didn’t – ”
“Because I graduated and run Ponyville’s elementary school now!” Cheerilee exclaimed, smile returning with full force, beaming like the stars.
Lyra and Cheerilee both made sounds at that which were just inside Trixie’s range of hearing but well inside her audio pain threshold. She put her hooves to her ears as she waited for the two friends to stop squealing with joy and prancing around each other. “Congratulations,” Trixie ventured at the first opportunity.
Cheerilee offered a polite nod at that, but turned back to Lyra, clearly intent on catching up with her old friend. “So have you seen BonBon yet?”
Lyra shook her head, and one of Trixie’s eyebrows raised as she noticed Lyra’s smile shifted from ‘joy at seeing an old friend’ to ‘embarrassed yet wistful,’ and also began to blush a color that matched Cheerilee’s coat. Trixie decided to mentally file that away as ‘interesting’ as she watched the two.
“I’ve been dragging Trixie around town,” Lyra said, gesturing to her companion. “And it’s been three years since I saw her, I mean really had a chance to see her, not just a quick weekend visit, and I don’t want to just show up and – ”
Lyra was interrupted by Cheerilee putting a hoof on her shoulder. Her own smile had shifted to be warm and caring. “Stop avoiding her,” she advised. “She’s been waiting long enough.”
Lyra blinked at that, before nodding fervently. “Right,” she said. “No problem.”
“Anyway,” Cheerilee said, pointing a hoof past Lyra and at the Carousel Boutique. “I’ve got an appointment to keep about the decorations.” Her voice betrayed no love lost for Rarity, something else which Trixie decided to file away as ‘interesting.’ “I’ll see you around, Lyra. But not before you’ve seen BonBon!” She turned to Trixie. “And you too, Representative,” she said, offering a deep, overtly formal bow before taking off.
Trixie blinked a few times. “Ha,” she said, turning around to get ready to trot to her next destination. “I got my bow in spite of your best – stars above!” The exclamation came as she found herself face-to-face – noses touching, even – with a blue-eyed, pink-coated pony who seemed to be staring into her soul. Trixie stumbled backwards, and thankfully the pink pony didn’t move.
Trixie stared at the pony. “Um – ” she began. The pink pony let out a gigantic gasp, then suddenly sped off, running away at speeds Trixie thought only pegasi were capable of pulling and quickly disappearing into Ponyville.
The blue unicorn blinked, trying to force her heart to stop attempting to burst from her chest at the shock she had just received. She noticed Lyra was staring at her, her own eyes wide but with a look of bitter defeat on her face.
“I’m sorry,” the unicorn apologized as though telling Trixie that her aunt and uncle had died. “I’m so, so sorry.”