Week 16 - Judge Trixie and the Case of the Rummy Moose - A Feghoot Story
When Twilight Sparkle needs to rule on a disputed trade at the Rainbow Falls Trading Exchange, she needs somepony with a certain specialization to make a fair judgement. One set of wings later, the Great and Powerful Trixie is willing to examine the evidence and make a ruling, but will she find out that the case is really more appropriate to be settled by her arch-rival instead?
EqD Prompt: There must always be a princess at the Rainbow Falls Trader Exchange.
16 - Trade Ya!
-or-
Judge Trixie and the Case of the Rummy Moose - A Feghoot Story
“Trixie! Trixie! There you are!”
Trixie snatched up the bag of pine nuts she was trying to trade for a new wagon and stuffed them into her hat, jamming it on top of her head just as Twilight Sparkle came flapping into sight like some terrified purple chicken, complete with flapping wings.
“What?” she snapped. “The Great and Powerful Trixie was in negotiations for a new production of such power and fame that it will propel her to—”
“I need your help, Trixie!” panted Twilight Sparkle as she flopped to a graceless landing, knocking over the wagon seller’s display and causing a small gust of wind that made the decaying window fall out of the proud wagon Trixie had been in negotiations to purchase. “I’ll do anything for you, Trixie, if you’ll just help me this once.”
“Anything?” said Trixie, staring off into space. “Like anything anything, or just anything?”
“Anything anything,” gasped Twilight, still panting from her panic-driven flight.
A deep rumble sounded as Trixie prepared to answer and the stab of hunger pains made her flinch, postponing any plans for ultimate revenge in favor of something a little more practical. “How about lunch?”
Twilight froze. “Lunch? Well, I didn’t think… Well, I had hoped… I suppose a nice quiet romantic lunch at a classy restaurant with dessert and a show afterwards would be a good beginning to spending the afternoon walking along the beach, hoof in hoof while we look for a quiet place to put down a beach towel and explore each other’s most intimate—”
“Lunch!” shouted Trixie in wide-eyed panic. “Just lunch! Food! Maybe something to drink too. Or a lot of somethings to drink to wipe that image out of the Great and Powerful Trixie’s mind.”
“Drink!” The newest Equestrian princess promptly perked up and rounded on Trixie with every speck of her previous enthusiasm. “I’ve got a case in front of the Dispute Court that I can’t resolve by myself, and I need you to sit in on it for me.”
Trixie drew back and arranged her hat, which had begun to slip due to the weight of pine nuts inside. “Only a princess can sit on the Dispute Court, Twilight Sparkle. And since fate decided to give you wings instead of—”
“Wings! That’s it! Hold still.” There was a blinding violet flash as the world seemed to wrap around Trixie in a kaleidoscope of color and sensation, crushing her in a violent embrace as the purple pony princess managed to get her revenge on the Great and Powerful first. She struggled in vain against the power of an alicorn, eventually getting her nose into a weak spot in her cocoon of magic and managing to break free.
“That’s it, Sparkle,” growled Trixie while lighting her horn and rising up into the air on her new wings. “I’m going to… going to… Why am I up here and you’re down there?”
Looking back over her shoulder, Trixie was astonished to see two beautiful butterfly wings spread wide and flapping slowly, reflecting the brilliant sunlight in a cascade of rainbows that glittered and flashed among the appreciative crowd.
“Great! Let’s go!” Twilight rose into the air and darted back in the direction she had come from, followed by a rather dazed temporary princess.
~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~
The cushion that Trixie had been seated on was not really worthy of royalty, and the scepter she had been given looked suspiciously like a curtain rod, but there were a great number of… well, a few dozen ponies out in the audience gazing at Her Temporary Highness with love and admiration… well, curiosity and admiration for Trixie’s Great and Powerful wings. Still, it was a paying job, and nopony was throwing vegetables yet, so it beat Tartarus out of pine nuts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She thumped the rear end of the curtain rod against the stage and nodded to Spike, who was standing by her side in the cutest little page outfit.
“Oy ye, oy ye, let all who have business before the court of the Great and Powerful Princess for a Day Trixie, come forth and present your prepositions.”
“Spike!” Twilight Sparkle poked her nose out from the side of the stage and hissed at her assistant, who had moved in front of Trixie with a long checklist and a quill. “That’s propositions, not prepositions.”
“Aren’t you at least going to wait until after the date, Twilight?” asked Spike with a discreet cough.
“Just… introduce the parties to the case.”
“Well, okay. In the Red corner, weighing in at—”
“Spike!” Twilight poked her nose out of the curtain again and scowled at her assistant. “Follow your script.”
“Sheesh! Allow a guy some leeway.” The little dragon adjusted the list and continued. “The first party in the trading dispute is Monsieur Roué Moose and his wife, Eclair. They came to the Trading Exchange to trade a bottle of their rare Mosalian Rum for some other vintages.”
“Bonjour belles demoiselles.” The tall moose swept into a deep bow at Trixie and doffed his bowler hat while his wife just nodded in agreement.
“Bonjour indeed,” replied Trixie. “Are you perhaps a Prench-Caneighdian?”
The moose recoiled. “Nay, beautiful princess. I am a proud native of Equestria, as is my wife, a proud buffalo of the Stampeding Pathways tribe. In our native tongue, my name is Sprints Lightly Over Forest Scrub and my squaw is Deep Waters.”
“Squaw?” asked Trixie with an inquisitive tilt to her head.
“Ugg,” replied Eclair.
“Although I speak over fourteen languages, I’m afraid my squaw does not speak Equestrian, Princess. Our native tongue is not the focus of our dispute, though. Please proceed.”
“Right!” said Spike. “In the blue corner—”
“Spike!”
“Okay, okay. The other party to the dispute is the Hoot brothers, Fern and Feg, and their wives.” Two male unicorns stepped forward with a pair of female buffalo at their sides, each with a bottle carried under one crooked foreleg.
“Good afternoon, Princess Trixie,” said Fern. “What beautiful wings you have today.”
“They really bring out the color in your cheeks,” said Feg. “Perhaps after the trial is over, we can all get together and share a few drinks. Our wives make the most delicious rum in all of Equestria. Far better than that swill that the moose’s wife makes.”
Both female buffalo grunted once and looked at Trixie.
“I object, Your Highness!” shouted Roué. “My wife’s rum is exactly twice as good as the inferior product these two hucksters traded for, fair and square, and now they want to back out of the deal after drinking half of the bottle. I will never be able to trade just a half bottle of my excellent rum, particularly after they drank out of it.”
Both Fern and Feg promptly clutched a hoof to their chest and protested, “Your Highness! We would never drink directly out of a bottle. Our mother would never allow it. And to prove it, we brought our mother to the trial. Say hello, mother.”
A rather shaggy stallion wearing a blue dress and a bonnet staggered out onto the stage wearing high-heeled shoes. “These are my sons, and they are honest and above reproach,” he announced in a loud and off-key voice. “Now where’s my twenty bits.”
“Ah-HA!” shouted Twilight, bursting out of the side of the stage to point an accusing hoof at the moose. “Obviously you are lying about these fine upstanding Equestrian citizens, or you would have brought your mother as a character witness too! Trixie, you should cancel the trade.”
“Actually,” said Fern, holding up one hoof. “We’re native Equestrians too. That’s why we married buffalo. Plus they make excellent rum.”
Trixie shook her head and took the announcement sheet from Spike before turning to the two parties in the dispute. “It says here that Mister Moose there put up one bottle of his wife’s best rum in trade, is that correct?”
The female buffalo by the moose grunted in a generally affirmative way.
“And that you two gentlecolts,” continued Trixie, “had each of your wives put up a bottle of their rum in trade too, correct?”
The two buffalo grunted, also sounding vaguely affirmative.
“And now you want me to cancel the trade because the Hoot brothers claim the single bottle of rum they received was an inferior product, correct?”
Both Fern and Feg grunted once, then rapidly nodded. “Yes, Your Highness.”
“Well, I see only one way to solve this problem,” declared Trixie. “I’m going to need to see the trading materials in question, and a glass.”
~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~
Five minutes later, Trixie sat before a table with three bottles and a single glass. With exceeding care, she poured a small sample of the first bottle and drank it down. After writing her comments on a small tablet, she then proceeded to the second bottle and repeated the process.
And then the third.
And then back to the first.
And then a few times back and forth between the second and the third.
Then a long, solid examination of the first bottle again.
And then…
~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~
“The Great and Powerful Princess Trixie has come to a conclusion.” Trixie paused with one hoof in the air, contemplating the way the light from her wings reflected off it in little gold and red sparkles.
“Um. Trixie? They’re waiting.” Spike tapped Trixie on the upraised hoof until the judge shook herself out of her contemplative state and looked back out into the audience. “A conclusion,” she repeated.
“Yes,” cried Twilight Sparkle, bouncing up and down at the side of the stage. “I knew you would find in favor of those nice stallions and their mother.”
“Don’t be silly, Twilight.” Trixie shook her head and sighed. “As a librarian, you should know that you can’t judge a crook by his mother.”
“Oh,” said Twilight. “You’re right. Well, what about the case? Which of two had the best rum?”
“It’s not merely which of the buffalo mares makes the best rum, Twilight,” started Trixie. “Mister Moose’s wife has to make rum twice as good as the Hoot brother’s wives in order for the trade to be all right and correct. It’s a simple mathematical equation that should be right down your alley.”
Standing up in a slow and somewhat unsteady fashion, Trixie faced the crowd and announced, “It is the judgement of me, the Great and Powerful Princess Trixie, that the trade conducted between Roué the Moose and the Hoot brothers is fair and right, due to the rum adhering to the Ponyhagorean Theorem.”
“I understand now,” said Twilight Sparkle. “In this right trade angle, the rum of the squaw of the hyperglot moose is equal to the rums of the squaws of the other two guys.”