//------------------------------// // Chapter Forty One: Major Problems // Story: Trixie and Maud: Heart of Stone // by TheCrimsonDM //------------------------------// HEART OF STONE Chapter Forty One: Major Problems Written by TheCrimsonDM The night sky was beautiful and full of bright colorful stars tonight. The gentle breeze was nice and refreshing. And the Ursa Major was loud and still chasing after Trixie with a blood thirsty drive. Trixie’s legs burned from the strain of running so much, she had been galloping through the town for a full ten minutes. She needed rest, to catch her breath but the Ursa wouldn’t let up. Finally she nearly tripped and couldn’t run anymore. She had to stop or she would die of exhaustion plus get eaten. Trixie stopped and turned around so that her back would be facing several houses and she stood her ground waiting for the Ursa to arrive. The two colts came running around the corner just as Trixie began catching her breath and ran up to her. She couldn’t believe that they had decided to follow her, of all the ponies they could have chosen, they chose to follow the one who was being chased by an Ursa Major. “Get behind me you foals,” Trixie demanded as she heard the loud stomps of the Ursa growing in the distance. The two colts didn’t object as they went behind her, and then she waited. She glanced back at the colts to see if they were actually okay. They looked okay, they might have been staring at Trixie with brain dead expressions but they were okay. That made Trixie wonder what exactly were they looking at, all that they could see from their position was Trixie’s butt…and then Trixie realized why these two were so obsessed with her. Perverted colts. Trixie returned her attention to the sounds of the Ursa as it stomped around the corner of the street and made its way towards Trixie. There had to be something she could do, even though these colts were perverts, they still needed saving. She couldn’t think of any spell she knew that would be powerful enough to even stun the Ursa, and she also remembered that they were surprisingly resilient to illusions. “Great and Powerful Trixie, you gotta vanquish the Ursa,” Snips said. “Yeah vanquish so we can watch,” Snails added. What in the world was wrong with these two ponies, first they stare at her butt all day, then they demand that she fights…for their amusement. These were possibly the two rudest ponies she had ever met in Equestria. “Yeah, it took a lot of trouble to get that thing here,” Snips said. Trixie’s brain might have just had a seizure as she attempted to understand exactly what Snips had just said. It was almost like he had said a bunch of words, that although formed a sentence, couldn’t possibly have come out of any pony’s mouth. She looked at their faces, they weren’t scared they were excited. These colt’s were psychopaths…and Trixie had been hanging out with them all day. No wonder Ponyville hated them. Trixie turned and in a fearful tone said, “wait, you brought this here? Are you out of your little pony minds?” The expressions on the colts faces began turning from excitement to concern. Maybe not psychopaths, but irresponsible was a still a good word for them. Snips then said, “but you’re The Great and Powerful Trixie?” “Yeah remember, you defeated an Ursa Major,” Snails added. These two actually believed her story was real…who could’ve believed it? You needed an ancient magical weapon to actually slay an Ursa, and pretty much any damage other than that was null. Trixie took in a deep breath, maybe if she died first these two would still get a chance to run away. The Ursa Major roared, the force of its voice alone caused Trixie’s hair to get messed up again. Now covered in Ursa saliva, and breathing in its disgusting rotted breath. Trixie prepared herself to die… “Okay,” Trixie said trying to reassure herself. Trixie swallowed air, fear threatening to seize her heart. “Stand back.” Trixie used an Animate Rope spell and commanded a rope to tie up the Ursa Major, she looked back at the colts and said nervously, “piece of cake.” She could only pray that they would run. The rope however was too small, and tied itself around the Ursa’s fingers. The Ursa snapped the rope easily and gave Trixie a confused look, almost as though it was asking her what she thought she was doing. “Aw, come on, Trixie, “Snips said. “Stop goofing around and vanquish it eh,” Snails added. If Trixie was guessing right, Snips was very impressionable, while Snails was exceedingly rude. What was she to do now? She couldn’t think of anything, and she didn’t know of any combat spells that could even touch the Ursa…except. Trixie took in a nervous breath, it was getting hard to breath all of a sudden. With an Ursa threatening to eat her on one front, and two ponies judging her from behind she was beginning to break inside. Trixie summoned forth the only combat spell powerful enough to do anything. Lightning Bolt. A black storm cloud formed over the Ursa. “Well that was a dud eh,” said Snails sounding very unimpressed. “yeah, come on. Where’s all the cool explosions and smoke and stuff like earlier, ya know,” Snips added. Trixie’s horn was beginning to throb in pain from the over taxation of magic, and these two colts ignorance of magic was not helping her any. Suddenly the lightning bolt struck out and hit the Ursa’s flank. A black scorch mark the length of a pony was left from the lightning’s impact. That lightning bolt would have killed most any pony, and certainly done damage to any flesh and blood monster. But Trixie had forgotten that Ursa’s are not flesh and blood, nor are they susceptible to most forms of magic, or weaponry. The Ursa opened its mouth revealing it’s sharp jagged teeth before roaring again. Trixie knew she had just bucked up big time, but at least she could now lead the monster away from the colts. “uh oh,” were the last words out of Trixie’s mouth before she charged forward underneath the Ursa’s legs. If the colts stayed put, or turned and fled the other direction then they would be safe. Trixie looked behind herself only to see the colts still following her, were these colts trying to get themselves killed? As Trixie ran she turned and looked at the colts and shouted, “why are you still following me? You should run away and be safe. I am trying to distract the beast, and you are ruining my efforts to save you. Stop ruining my efforts to save you.” Snips yelled, “we want to see it when you defeat the Ursa Major.” Snails added, “yeah, it will be a show eh.” Trixie continued darting in between buildings the colts close behind her, as the Ursa was chasing them. After a short chase Trixie had to stop again, she was exhausted and out of breath and the Ursa was finally losing interest in them. It began attacking random buildings around the town. Trixie heard Twilight ask, “what’s going on?” Snips proudly explained, “we brought an Ursa to town.” Twilight shouted, “YOU WHAT!” Snails said, “don’t worry, The Great and Powerful Trixie will vanquish it.” Trixie turned and faced Twilight. she was feeling conflicted, these colts stupidity was far beyond acceptable parameters and Twilight was surely going to judge her no matter how this turned out in the end. Trixie finally realized that these two colts needed to be told very bluntly, and directly. “I can’t.” Snails shouted, “WHAT?” Trixie explained, “well I can’t, I never have, no one can vanquish an Ursa Major, I just made the whole story up to make me look better.” It was better to say that then to explain she was borrowing it from her father. Snails then said, “made it up?” Trixie couldn’t meet Twilight’s eyes, she was admitting defeat in front of Twilight and it felt shameful. If Twilight had not been here, then this wouldn’t feel so bad, but Twilight Sparkle was going to somehow make Trixie feel guilty for telling stories…that was practically all Trixie could really do, and now she was beginning to feel ashamed of her special talent. The moonlight was suddenly eclipsed by the Ursa as it stood, bearing its full height against all of Ponyville. The moon could be seen through its face, but the light did not reach past its body. The Ursa dropped back down to all fours and began walking towards Trixie, a mass of ponies all seemed to have gathered around her. They must have all come to see the fall of Trixie. As the Ursa approached Twilight walked towards it, her horn glowing. A simple music spell began playing a soft melody causing the Ursa to wobble back and forth, Trixie recognized this spell. It was a level zero cantrip and it was actually working as a lullaby. Trixie was confused however by why there was an overglow to Twilight’s magic, was she really exerting that much energy to simply play music. A second overglow covered Twilight’s horn, and then a third. Whatever Twilight was doing, it was going to put her horn out for a week. Trixie stopped watching Twilight just in time to notice the Ursa Major beginning to fall on her. Trixie flinched in fear and watched as the Ursa stopped falling, and then was lifted into the air by a light purple aura. A water tower was then set into its mouth and Trixie watched as the Ursa began sucking on it like a bottle. The Ursa was then lifted over the town and back into the Everfree Forest. Just as Twilight’s horn began to spark Twilight released her magic and nearly collapsed from exhaustion. The entire town suddenly burst out into cheers for Twilight Sparkle, leaving Trixie enough time to examine her currant standing. Trixie had no home, no wagon, was deeply in debt now…and everypony was cheering for her ex-friend. Trixie felt like charging up a spell to unleash on Twilight but stopped as something felt very wrong around her...she could swear that somepony was watching her. Trixie listened in on Twilight talking to her friends. It sounded like Twilight was afraid that her friends would hate her because she was good at magic, reasonable considering their behavior. But when they began bad mouthing Trixie for her show persona, whatever feelings of depression, or sorrow she could be feeling right now gave way to pure unbridled anger. None of those loud mouthed ponies made even the slightest of attempts to stop the Ursa, they all left Trixie and those colts to die. Only Twilight actually tried to do anything. Twilight continued talking to her friends for a bit and Trixie felt her blood boiling with rage. A pink pony standing next to her said, “pfft, those guys are kinda mean sometimes. I didn’t think Trixie’s show was all that bad, the lights were really pretty, oh and floaty, got to mention floaty.” Trixie looked at the pink pony, she looked familiar somehow, but she knew for a fact that she had never met the pony before. Trixie opened her mouth to thank the pony for her kind words, even if they hadn’t been directly targeted towards her when the pink pony added, “but you gotta follow the group. And I always do what my friends are doing, and think what they are thinking.” Trixie wanted to face hoof at the pink pony for being a zombie, she didn’t’ know who the pink pony was talking to but considering the large amounts of ponies around her…it could be anypony. Trixie was beginning to worry about the debt she was in thanks to wagon now. The pink pony then turned and looked directly at Trixie and said, “you know there is a rock farm south of here, I hear they are hiring for extra help right about now. Maybe you could get a job with them.” It was very disturbing that the pink one would say that just at the right time. “That wasn’t an Ursa Major, it was a baby, an Ursa Minor,” Twilight explained to her friends. Trixie opened her mouth and said in surprise, “that was just a baby?” “And it wasn’t rampaging, it was just cranky because someone woke it up,” Twilight explained while glaring at Snips and Snails. At least those two would get there punishment, but Trixie was not convinced that the Ursa was not rampaging. Trixie noticed that the pink pony suddenly appeared next to Snips and Snails…but how did she move that far, that quick…and why? Trixie ignored the pink one’s teleporting abilities and focused instead on her anger. Twilight had been giving Trixie judgmental looks the entire time she was talking about the Ursa. Twilight still herald herself as being better than Trixie, well she couldn’t just let Twilight get away with that now could she. Trixie marched up to Twilight and began saying, “ha you may have vanquished an Ursa Minor, but you will never have the amazing, show stopping ability of The Great and Powerful Trixie.” Trixie then used a smoke spell and galloped away like the magicians of old. Trixie heard Rainbow Dash make some kind of rude comment before Twilight stopped her saying, “just let her go, maybe someday she will learn her lesson.” *** Trixie continued galloping until she was a safe distance from the town, then she finally collapsed by the side of the road. Tears were streaming down her face, her anger was gone and now she was filled with pain. “What lesson, all I learned in Ponyville was that no matter how hard you try to make ponies laugh, and smile. You will still be accosted, judged and then run off by the more popular ponies. It’s not fair, all I wanted was to make Fluttershy happy, and everypony ruined it. Those stupid kids actually found an Ursa, and Twilight judged me for it? How come nopony ever thought about how I must feel, I got attacked on stage, I lost my home to a monster, and then I was judged by a stupid mean cruel purple unicorn.” Trixie broke down and began sobbing into her legs along the side of the road. There was nothing she could do now, everything she had, plus some that she didn’t was placed into that wagon. Her dream was now over, and all because some ponies couldn’t distinguish reality from magic shows. After lying there for a nearly ten minutes Trixie began to wonder if she might’ve been a little too mean in her humiliation of the ponies. Despite how rude they were, or how they hurt Fluttershy…she might have gone overboard…at least when it came to Rarity’s hair. Rainbow Dash and apple pony deserved there treatment. “Trixie, are you okay?” asked a familiar voice. Trixie looked up to see Princess Luna staring back at her. Luna looked down with gentle eyes before saying, “Trixie, this is simply a memory, you are dreaming. You need to wake up.” Trixie looked up at Luna and began to remember that all these things had already happened, they were over, even if the pain felt fresh, it was still old pain. Trixie stood up and asked, “so am I having a lucid dream? Does that mean I can do anything that I want to?” Luna gave a kind smile to Trixie and said, “yes, you are, and you can. But you really should wake up, you nee-“ Trixie stomped her hoof and made Luna vanish in a poof of smoke. If Trixie was having a lucid dream, and she wasn’t suffering from a terribly broken heart at the moment, then it was time to have a good dream, for the first time in…ever since she first came back to Ponyville.