This was largely written before season three, and then Magic Duel came along, so I never finished it. Think of it as a trip down memory lane—back before Sombra or alicorn Twilight.
The Many Faces of a Showpony
Admiral Biscuit
8.12.2012
The six Element bearers were gathered at the Ponyville library. Rarity and Fluttershy were seated side-by-side on cushions, Twilight Sparkle paced around making sure everypony’s teacups were full, and the other three were stretched out on the floor.
“I’m worried about Trixie,” Twilight said bluntly. “I was too busy thinking about how everypony would hate me for showing off with my magic—and then, with the Ursa . . . things happened so fast. But we shouldn’t have let her run off like that. Her caravan was destroyed, and I bet everything she owns was in it.”
“It’s her own fault for being such a boastful creature,” Rarity said with her nose up. Emergency treatment had returned her mane to its former glory, but she kept glancing at it, afraid it might turn back.
“What if she’s hurt?” Fluttershy looked down at the floor. “Um, maybe we should try to find her.”
Twilight stamped her hoof on the floor. “I have been. I even asked Zecora to keep an eye out in the Everfree Forest, but nopony has seen her since she ran away.”
“I was gonna go after her,” Rainbow remarked.
“I should have let you.”
“I don’t get it.” Pinkie stood up and walked over to Twilight. “I mean, she is a boasty-meany-meany-pants. But she’s also a grown mare. She’s able to take care of herself!”
“Is she?” Twilight frowned.
• • •
Trixie finally stopped running. It was the middle of the day, so she had been running since the middle of the night. She gasped for breath as she sat down on the hard-packed dirt trail before her legs could collapse under her. Her sides were dripping sweat and her heart was racing. She was trembling not just from exertion, but because she was still terrified of the Ursa Minor, as well as the powerful unicorn which had done what she could not, banished it from Ponyville.
“Trixie has lost . . . everything,” she panted, sudden tears forming in her eyes. “Trixie doesn’t know . . . what she will do. . . .”
She sat on the path, until her heart slowed down, then unsteadily got to her feet. She nibbled at a little grass, then began walking again, talking to herself as she went.
“Trixie will go to Canterlot. Perhaps Trixie can find work there. There are many ponies in Canterlot who will like Trixie.” She glanced at the castle, visible off in the distance. “Canterlot is very far, and Trixie does not know how she will survive until she gets there. Her magic is not very strong.”
Trixie walked throughout the day, occasionally pausing to graze or drink from the small streams that crisscrossed Equestria. As the sun set, she stopped at a small clearing and began gathering evergreen branches. “These will be Trixie’s bed,” she said to nopony in particular. “Not as comfortable as Trixie’s wagon, but they will have to do.” She laid them out, then sat down on top of them and set her head between her hooves. “If only Trixie had not been such a show-off.”
Three days later, Trixie finally made it to Canterlot. Her coat was shaggy and sweat-stained, and her mane was tangled and full of sticks and leaves. She tried shop after shop, looking for work, but nopony wanted her help. She begged and pleaded strangers for a place to stay, but everypony ignored her. She finally found a narrow alley and slept next to a dumpster.
Weeks passed, as Trixie tried and failed to find a job, any job. Nopony wanted to hire a filthy, smelly, boastful unicorn. She had come to think of the alley as her home. Every night, she went back by the dumpster, her belly growling with hunger. She knew that one night, she would fall asleep and simply wouldn’t wake up. . . .
• • •
“Whoa, Twilight, that’s getting’ pretty morbid,” Applejack said. “Ah mean, it’s only been one night since she left, an Ah don’t figure she’d be completely lackin’ in every kinda job skill.”
“Quite so,” Rarity commented. “She is a showmare, and distasteful and uncultured though she may be, Trixie no doubt knows how to sell herself.” She paused to fluff her mane. “In fact. . . .”
• • •
Trixie looked at the garish neon sign in distaste. Had it really come down to this? “Trixie is a showmare,” she reminded herself, “and this is only for a little while.” She pushed open the doors, and what small, shriveled sense of self-worth she had left vanished as she stepped up to the smarmy stallion waiting behind the hideous velvet ropes.
“Trixie would like a job,” she said, tossing her mane back. “Trixie will work all hours, and Trixie cleans up nicely.”
He looked her over thoughtfully, and licked his lips. “Very good. Dressing rooms are in the back, twenty percent of your tips go to the house, costumes come out of your pay, show starts at six pm sharp and runs ‘till midnight—two am on Saturday—or until the Guards shut us down.”
An hour later, she stepped unsteadily on stage. “Aaaand, here for her first time, Trixie! Give her a big round of applause, folks! A unicorn from the great city of Manehatten, she likes dressing up and getting dirty!”
Trixie backed out onto the stage, pulling a small rolling suitcase with her teeth. Her mane and tail were braided and tied with pink bows, and her coat had been oiled until it glistened. She blinked at the spotlights, took a quick glance at the good-for-nothing stallions that were crowding the edge of the stage, then heard a click and an annoying bit of feedback as her song started.
She began dancing to the heavy beat of the music, trying to cover every part of the stage, before she moved back to the center and opened the suitcase. She grabbed out a pink sock, and, swaying slightly with the beat, pulled it over her left forehoof. As the music continued, she moved around the stage for a bit with her single pink sock, then pulled a second pink sock out of her suitcase and—“
• • •
“Ew. Socks.” Rainbow Dash stuck out her tongue at Rarity. “Really? What is wrong with you?”
Rarity narrowed her eyes. “Trixie seems like the kind of unicorn who would wear socks. Anypony who turns my fabulous coiffure into a hideous green. . . .”
“Um, I sometimes wear socks when my hooves are cold, and . . . eep.”
“It isn’t just the socks, it’s that they’re pink and—“
Pinkie Pie glared at Rarity.
“—and pink just isn’t her color,” Rarity finished. “Humph. Some ponies have a warm palette, and some ponies have a cooler palette. Besides, she seems like the kind of pony who’d wear socks for money, for drooling imbecilic—“
“Rarity.” Twilight glared at the unicorn.
“—never-do-well stallions who—“
“Rarity!”
“—when they could be spending their bits and time with—“
“Rarity, focus!” Twilight teleported in front of the rambling unicorn.
“—and . . . oh, I’m sorry, Twilight. I believe I may have gotten just a little bit carried away.”
“I doubt that Trixie is going to return to Canterlot to become an exotic dancer,” Twilight muttered.
Rarity stuck her nose in the air. “It is just as likely as her starving to death in an alley,” she countered.
“Um, girls, please,” Fluttershy whispered. “I don’t see why you think that Trixie will come to an awful end.
“If she’s still in the woods, she’s probably made some new animal friends. Um, she’s not afraid to seek them out—like the Ursa.”
“But Snips and Snails brought the Ursa to Ponyville,” Twilight protested. “Trixie had nothing to do with that. At least, not directly.”
“Maybe she’ll want to learn more about them, now,” Fluttershy continued undaunted. “I used to not know anything about all the cute little animals that lived on the ground, but—” She looked up at the other five ponies, who were all staring at her. “Um, well, maybe she should start with something smaller. Much smaller. If we find her, I could give her a bunny. Everypony likes bunnies.”
“Being along in the woods must be the most boring thing ever. Oh my gosh, I hope she can find her way out. We should put up balloons to show her the way home!” Pinkie grabbed a hoofful of books and yanked them off the shelf. “Good thing I keep a stockpile of balloons handy in case of a balloon-related emergency. We can float them over the forest and guide her back to Ponyville. Oh! I know, I’ll tie a note to the string on each one. . . .”
“The odds of her finding any of those balloons are minuscule, darling. Honestly—”
“Why would she even want to come back to Ponyville?” Rainbow interrupted.
“Silly, because she’s hungry. And some extra-special cupcakes are sure to bring her back, and—I could tie a cupcake to each balloon, and a note!”
Rainbow rolled her eyes.
• • •
Trixie was lying in a cave, just inside the border of the forest, where she’d been for days, ever since the mean ponies in Ponyville had run her out of town. Her belly was grumbling, and she hadn’t had anypony to talk to since she’d fled, except for a bunch of acorns she’d found scattered around a tree, but they weren’t all that fun to talk to because they never talked back because they were just acorns. She’d arranged them in neat rows in front of her, and pretended that they were her audience, giving each one a name.
“Watch and behold as the Magnificent Trixie makes this, um, rock disappear!” She stood on her hind hooves and waved her tattered cape around. Before the amazed eyes—do acorns have eyes?—of the crowd, she tossed the rock over her withers and sent it skidding into the darkness of the cave. Her patter covered the soft clatter of the rock bouncing deeper and deeper into the cave, and she didn’t hear the startled yelp the timberwolf made as the rock collided with its muzzle.
The timberwolf sniffed the rock. Intrigued by the strong scent of unicorn on it, the wolf walked towards the entrance of the cave, hoping to make a new friend. Trixie shared the acorns with him, and they lived happily ever after.
• • •
“Granny says that timberwolves are mighty scary,” Applejack muttered. “Don’t reckon one’s gonna take a shine to nopony. Like as not he’d gobble her right up.”
“Pah-leaze. You had your idea of what she was up to, and I have mine.” Pinkie plopped down on the floor as if that would prove her point.
“Ah ain’t said nothin’ about what she’s doin’ right now. Y’all are the ones comin’ up with one weird idea after another. Ah reckon that she got mighty good at her act by a lotta hard work, an’ Ah reckon she’ll git back on her hooves sooner or later. Ah ain’t gonna assume that just ‘cause she’s unpleasant that she’s gonna go make friends with a buncha acorns, or tart herself up in Las Pegasus, or starve to death in Canterlot. Ah reckon she done fine before she came here.”
“Maybe she just needs to learn to become more awesome. Then everypony would like her. I could find her and teach her how to be awesome, like me.”
• • •
Trixie smiled at the rainbow-maned awesome pony who had become her new best friend after finding her in the scary woods and rescuing her from the terrifying monster. In the weeks since she’d been saved, she’d practiced and practiced until she could run a race almost as fast as her hero could.
She stood at the end of the track, having already galloped a dozen laps. Her sides were heaving from the exertion, and sweat stained her coat. But she was smiling—she had busted all but one of the track records, and she knew that the last was forever out of her reach.
“Trixie is so glad that you showed her the joys of physical competition,” she panted. “She will be able to show everypony else how awesome she is.”
“I got you a ticket to see the Wonderbolts,” Rainbow told her. “They’re performing for a special event in Ponyville, and I got an exclusive ticket. I’ll be flying with them, of course, because I’m the best pegasus in all of Equestria—”
• • •
“Oh, please.” Rarity stomped her hoof. “Your story is a self-aggrandizing masturbatory fantasy that’s even less likely than mine. Even if you did find her, I doubt she’d fall head over hoof for you.”
“What?” Rainbow glared at her. “A friendly competition is hardly self-agrivatig . . . whatever you said. Me and Applejack compete hoof-to-hoof all the time.”
“Which just proves my point,” she said smugly.
Beatrix Lulamoon sat on a cushion in her air-conditioned Canterlot apartment. She sipped at an oat smoothie, her eyes occasionally roving to one of the many posters on the walls surrounding her. Naturally, they were all pictures of her, performing some feat of magic or another.
She sighed. Her mind was tired, and her body was sore. She had just finished a week-long gig in Manehatten, capping off her Summer Sun Celebration tour. It had gone pretty well, except for that . . . incident in Ponyville.
“I suppose the Great and Powerful Trixie may have gotten to depend on her enchanted wagon just a little too much,” she said to nopony in particular. “Good thing I had it insured with Neightionwide, or else I’d be putting up the bits to replace it out of my own saddlebags.” She smiled as she whistled their commercial jingle. The check had arrived yesterday, and she had wasted no time placing an order for a new one at Wagons and Whisks.
“Oh, I had to perform in my old hat and cape, with my old wagon,” she said to a poster of herself. ”Can you imagine? It was simply dreadful.” She smiled. The ponies hadn’t known any different, of course, but it had taken her a week to practice a different routine, and magic up a few items she needed, as well as more than a few bits to replace a few items she either didn’t have the time or skills to make. But the show went off without a hitch, and that’s what showbiz is all about.
Bored, she levitated over a copy of Who’s Who in Equestria, 7547th edition, and began flipping through it to see if she could figure out who the purple unicorn was. Not listed in Ponyville, but then this was an older copy. I really should get a new copy—after that whole Nightmare Moon fiasco, there’ve been a few changes here and there.
She had already identified Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack; in fact, before the show she had anticipated going up against one or more of them. After all, a good showmare prepares well. Suddenly an entry caught her eye:
“Twilight Sparkle, unicorn, protégé of Princess Celestia. Twilight studies advanced magic under the Princess in Canterlot . . . unparalleled magical ability. . . .” Trixie paused. Twilight Sparkle. The name was right, the description fit, and she was old enough now to be living on her own in Ponyville, but why?
She tapped her hoof on the ground a few times, thinking. She had heard that name before. Where? She levitated a stack of magazines over, finally finding one whose front cover boldly declared “Nightmare Moon a threat to Equestrian Society? No more!”
She flipped the magazine open and began reading. “…was defeated by the Elements of Harmony. Twilight Sparkle, bearing the Element of Magic, Rainbow Dash, bearing the Element of Loyalty, Rarity, bearing the Element of Generosity, Applejack. . . .” She stopped, briefly in shock. Then she started to laugh, a rich, deep laugh.
“Beat three of the Element bearers, brought low by the fourth—the single most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria. Not bad, Trixie. Not bad at all.”