//------------------------------// // Chapter 110 - Raid // Story: Trixie's Forest Retreat // by crowscrowcrow //------------------------------// Out of the many possible ways Trixie had imagined this scenario going down, very few realistic ones of them had included Twilight literally being snout to snout with her in a flash. And none had accounted for the mad look in the unicorn’s wide, unevenly-twitching eyes. It unnerved Trixie to be this close to the mare right now. Although Trixie was going to take full credit for accurately predicting that Twilight’s spell would be teleportation, she would put off celebrating her own genius for the moment. Right now, she didn’t dare indulge in a single distraction. Who would have thought that stealing a magic book could get Twilight to act like that? This was turning out to be a much more dangerous plan than Trixie had originally thought. Swallowing nervously, Trixie asked, “Where is what? Twilight, are you feeling alright?” As she spoke, she very briefly looked past the furious mare, and toward the faithful saddlebags that were still propped up against the doorframe. To her chagrin, Twilight didn’t appear to have noticed the gesture. This wasn't quite the Twilight she had expected to deal with. Yes, she figured Twilight might be angry and accuse her, but she didn't think she'd be... well... unstable. Could she even be reasoned with like this? Still, Trixie had little choice but to stick to her original plan. If Twilight thought she knew where the book was, then she was sure to waste no time with little formalities like illegal searches. All Trixie had to do was to make sure it was the wrong place, then use that against her. Strands of Twilight’s mane stuck up at different, frizzled angles. And with the way Twilight clenched her jaw, Trixie could almost hear Twilight’s teeth grinding together like millstones. “The book! I know you took it!” Twilight made a vague gesture towards the front door as though to indicate where Trixie stole it. “Where is it? How did you even do it?!” It was a little bit funny to hear that question. Trixie had asked herself that same question several times afterwards. Sheer luck maybe. A dark night, a dark cat suit, and an open window was all it took. Upon returning, Trixie’d wrapped the book up in the black fabric, and hidden it in the closet, along with the books she didn’t want Fluttershy to see. It was the best she could possibly have done on short notice, or so she told herself. Upon hearing the word ‘book’, Trixie looked towards the saddlebags that stood by the front door, allowing her eyes to linger for just a moment, then quickly pulled her gaze back to Twilight. “You lost the book? How did you—Wait! You’re blaming Trixie for this? It was in your house!” Twilight glanced behind her for a split second after she noticed Trixie’s eyes wander, but immediately locked eyes with her again. “Don’t you play innocent with me. You’re the only one that knew I had it! You’ve already told me you stole the book once, so what would stop you from doing it again? Of course you are the first suspect!” In hindsight, that really had been the worst possible cover story. Trixie rolled her eyes. She was going to have to work with it. “As if Trixie would be dumb enough to tell you she has a history of stealing books, right before stealing a book! What do you take Trixie for? Any sane pony would have made up a different story if they were going to do that.” Very briefly, she glanced back toward the bags again. Twilight clearly noticed, but stopped herself from looking this time. “That might have been convincing, but you don’t exactly have a history of making well-thought-out decisions, Trixie.” The self-righteous little know-it-all. Trixie gritted her teeth. Twilight couldn’t be merely referring to the ursa if she spoke of multiple decisions. It was clear to Trixie that, after she’d left the library, Twilight must have spoken to somepony about her. The hospital staff? Applejack? Dash? Somepony more damning? She had to bite her tongue to stop herself from saying something foolish. She glanced past Twilight towards the bags again. Trixie had no way of telling how much Twilight truly knew. Except that, for all her posturing, they wouldn’t be talking like this if Twilight was actually convinced she was dangerous. Though Twilight looked ready to end Trixie the moment she gave her a reason. A distraction. That’s what was needed. Something to throw Twilight off beat, to make her doubt further. It wasn’t hard to make herself look scared, or rather, allow herself to show it. “Twilight, please. Trixie has nothing to do with this. Trixie even has an alibi. Trixie swears she was merely enjoying her beauty's sleep until you interrupted by nearly breaking the door down!” "Beauty sleep?” Twilight glanced around before pointing a hoof towards the couch. "No, Trixie, I don't think I interrupted your sleep at all. I don't see any blankets or pillows out, so you clearly weren't sleeping last night, now were you?" “No, not beauty sleep, Twilight, her 'beauty's' sleep.” Giving Twilight a more mischievous look, Trixie briefly glanced up the stairs. “Trixie was with Fluttershy. All night.” It took a moment for the gears to turn in the little nerd’s head, but then her demeanor cracked. “W-what?” She gave a nervous look up the stairs, and her eyes lingered briefly while a blush shone through on her cheeks. “S-so when you say I, uh, interrupted…?" "Trixie was enjoying watching Fluttershy sleep, she wrinkles her nose in the cutest little way. And it' s so sweet how she curls up to Trixie and takes her in her hooves. Just between you and Trixie, she's even been a little rambunctious a few times, using her wings to—" "N-never mind! I don’t want to know!” Twilight said, pulling her ears down with her hooves. Trixie gave a sly smile as she watched Twilight lose her composure. “Will that be all? Trixie would really like to get back to bed. But, if you like, we could ask Fluttershy to support Trixie’s story?” She motioned toward the staircase. “N-no. No that’s fine. I think I’ll, uh…” Twilight trailed off, and although her face was practically on fire, it was easy to tell she was thinking over what she’d just learned. With any luck, Twilight might just be too flustered to stick around. Unfortunately, she regained some of her previous confidence, straightening herself up as she shook her head. “No. That… won’t be necessary. You could have slipped out while she was asleep. So her testimony wouldn’t be convincing. You had all night after all.” Of course that would have been too easy. Trixie thought, though she was not truly disappointed. She’d still achieved her original goal. Twilight was plenty distracted, and looked much less frightening than before when she could have passed for somepony that had escaped from a mental institution. While she pretended to think of an answer, Trixie made sure to take a moment to cast her gaze past Twilight, and settle on her saddlebags again for just a moment. There wasn’t any real need to provide a workable defense, but merely to sow the wrong suspicion. Taking her silence for defeat, Twilight actually appeared to improve a little now that she established herself as in control. “I knew it. Now then.” Twilight turned away from Trixie and faced the doorway. After a moment, a glow enveloped the saddlebags by the door as Twilight drew the bags in. “I have a feeling I know what’s inside these.” Trixie flashed a victorious smirk, but quickly dressed a distressed face overtop of it. “Hey! Those are Trixie’s! You can’t just rifle through Trixie’s things! Put it down!” she snapped. Paying her no heed, Twilight dumped the contents of the bags onto the floor. Out tumbled a supply of oats and hay, a canteen, a rolled up parchment, and a small half-full sack that jingled as it hit the floor. That last one surprised Trixie, as she was sure the sack was supposed to be empty. But, there was no trace of the book that Twilight so clearly believed had to be in there, even as she shook the bags a few more times, it yielded only some sand and a few animal hairs. The confident look on Twilight’s face quickly turned to confusion, then she peered in the saddlebags as though she wasn't convinced they had actually emptied. “Wait, that’s it?” Although Trixie knew from the start the book wouldn’t be in there, she was as confused as Twilight was when the pile on the floor missed something important. She scanned over the scattered items with the same fervor as Twilight. Where is Trixie’s cloak? After the timberwolves tore her cloak to tatters, she couldn’t bring herself to look at it. The sight of the shredded cloth was too painful, not only because of how precious it was to her, but because it dragged up the agonizing memories of how she’d stupidly put Fluttershy in danger, and everything that followed. She’d stored the cloak away. At least until she was well enough to fix it again, if she even could. It should have been in there. Where else could it be, and how long had it been missing? When was the last time she looked at it? She couldn’t recall. Trixie tried to force down the on setting feeling of panic. Despite her efforts, her breathing became ragged, and her chest felt as though it was shrinking. She tried to remember that odd breathing exercise Fluttershy walked her through. She pictured the large intensely focused blue eyes that had been so impossible to look away from while she regulated her breathing as best she could. She didn’t have much time to think on it, Twilight demanded her attention. “Looks like I got here just in time. You already have supplies ready and waiting to go for your escape! When were you planning on leaving? A day? An hour? You’d have gotten away with it too, but you didn’t count on my new spare-emergency-time schedule, did you?” Twilight had a look of smug victory about her. The type of look that could only come when a crazy idea had paid off in spite of the neighsayers. Trixie looked at Twilight with genuine confusion. This wasn’t right, Twilight was supposed to be ashamed she was wrong. Instead, she seemed to be more... vehement to prove that she was right. The rapid-fire questions bounced off Trixie’s skull while she gave Twilight a unfocused look. Now that she mentioned it, Trixie had seen Twilight make some harebrained attempt at planning a schedule that would incorporate random unpredictable emergencies, but that was only a day ago, and it was insane. “You actually made one? By Luna, it’s no wonder you’ve gone mad!” “Don’t change the subject!” Twilight snapped. “You’re caught red-hooved! Now why don’t you just make it easy on yourself and tell me where the book is? It’s of no value to you anyway. If you could read it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Trixie glared at Twilight and poked the mare’s chest with her hoof. “Those bags are for when Trixie is better! You can’t just say it’s proof that Trixie was going to run! What do you know about Trixie? Nothing!” Trixie bit her lip. That last comment had gotten away from her, and she could only hope Twilight wouldn’t look too closely at it. She could read the book just fine, but Twilight had clearly decided the lack of resistance had to mean Trixie didn’t know any spells she could use to defend herself with against little miss royal student. Annoyingly, Twilight was probably right about that. Trixie knew she didn’t stand a chance against her. Not when she was injured, and it wasn’t even sure if she would when her recovery was complete either. Trixie hated to admit it, but Twilight’s magic power was too much. As infuriating as being looked down upon was, she couldn’t think of anything good to say. There was one small silver lining to it all though, this had to mean Twilight had discarded the possibility that Trixie had anything to do with dark magic. Initially, Twilight had clearly been in a panic when she still considered it possible that some evil wizard was living with Fluttershy. Her relief upon seeing Fluttershy unharmed made it clear she honestly thought the ‘evil Trixie’ might have hurt her. But now, any real sign of worry was gone from Twilight’s face, and every passing moment she grew more assured that Trixie was merely a cheeky thief. Trixie felt a swell of anger bubble inside her at the mere notion, but suppressed it. Staring Twilight right in the eye, Trixie spoke up as confidently as she could manage, “Trixie did nothing wrong.” “You expect me to just take your word for it?” Twilight said, returning the glare. During the following staring competition between the two of them, Twilight actually appeared to improve a little now that she obviously considered herself in control of the situation. Where before the look in her eyes could be described as unhinged, now it held some kernel of sympathy. She took a step back, giving each of them both some breathing room. “Look, Trixie, I get it now.” That was exceedingly unlikely, but there was no harm in humoring her. “Do you now?” Twilight nodded. “You’re a magician. You showed us a lot of great tricks. But, you wanted to know more than tricks, right? So, when I told you about how powerful the spells in the book might be, you took it. I’m sure you didn’t actually mean any harm, but you really didn’t think about the consequences again, did you?” Tricks?! Trixie kept silent, yet she felt her blood turn to hot lead. It was the second time Twilight referred to her magic that way, but this time the fool showed no intention of stopping. “I suspect that you thought that you could learn some new tricks from the book now that you knew it was actually about spells. You probably didn’t even consider that you couldn’t read it, or maybe you thought it would be easy to undo the illusion. That’s why you stole it, right? It wasn’t really malice, you just wanted to study real magic.” “Real magic?” Trixie all but hissed through her clenched teeth. A warning, dangerous tone seeped into her voice, like a snake’s rattler. Twilight was treating her like a common criminal without so much as a trial. Not only that, but she mocked her ability, like she was some crippled unicorn to be pitied! Trixie felt her muscles tensing. The whole thing had to be some pathetically transparent attempt to make the Great and Collected Trixie lose her cool. Despite knowing this, her temples throbbed. She had to be strong. Twilight's ruse was never going to work. In a painfully oblivious manner, Twilight started to speak again, her tone making Trixie think of the way an adult spoke to a child. “You’re really smart Trixie. You know a lot of different fragments of advanced magic theory. But, we spent a whole afternoon talking magic, and it’s obvious you are self-taught, or poorly homeschooled I guess... Anyway. If you just give back the book, not only will I forget any of this ever happened, but I’ll help you study. We’ll fill in all those gaps, and then I’m sure you’ll have no problem with actually using advanced spells, not just simple tricks.” There was no doubt about it. Twilight had to be taunting her. No pony was that socially inept. If she truly had any intention of helping Trixie, surely she would have offered it when they’d just shared an afternoon as friends. Or at least, Trixie had fooled herself into thinking that maybe they were, or could be. It was a trick. It had to be. Twilight just wanted her to confess and take Dash and Fluttershy away from her! Her malicious mockery of Trixie complete, Twilight smiled smugly as she extended her hoof toward Trixie. “What do you say?” From the shocked look that came over Twilight’s face, it was clear to Trixie that she’d utterly failed to hide her anger. Her whole body felt as though it was burning on the inside while she bared her gritted teeth at Twilight. “You! You insufferable, arrogant, bloated fool! The Great and Powerful Trixie is twice the magician you are! How dare you come in here and accuse Trixie! Call her a thief! Degrade Trixie’s mastery of the arcane to mere trickery!? It’s not even theft, it’s not your book! You stole it!” She shook on her hooves with indignation. Taken aback, Twilight took a hurried step away from Trixie. Trixie took some satisfaction in the look of panic on the mare’s face. “W-what? No. I didn’t steal it, Trixie. I’m sorry if I upset you.” Weakness. It set something off inside her mind. Trixie rapidly closed the distance between the two of them. If Twilight thought she was getting off easily she had another thing coming, she’d pay. Trixie didn’t know Twilight very well, but there had to be something between their meetings and the stories about her that could be used. It didn’t have to be true, just something that she was insecure about. Something that would hurt. “Oh, of course not. You’re just so special, aren’t you? It’s not wrong if it’s Princess Celestia’s special student doing it! Stealing from or threatening some lower-born pony is simply ‘justice’, isn’t it? What did you do to deserve that fancy scholarship? You probably were just born into some noble family, or plain blind luck! Because it sure isn’t your skill at magic!” “I… what? Huh?” Twilight just stared at her, flabbergasted. It wouldn’t surprise Trixie if this was the first time she’d ever gotten criticism if she just froze up like that. The annoying thing was that it also made it difficult to estimate what, if any, parts got under her skin. After a few moments of what looked suspiciously like actual serious thought being given to her accusation, Twilight shook her head. “Trixie, that doesn’t make any sense. Yes, I was the luckiest filly in the world to get chosen by Princess Celestia, but that doesn’t mean I get special privileges. I still wo—” Just like that, Twilight provided exactly what Trixie needed, something to home-in on. She quickly interrupted with a haughty laugh. “Please! As if you have the first idea what life without royal privilege looks like. You haven’t encountered the first bit of hardship in your life. Not even the consequence of making a tough decision. If you want something you need only send a single letter, and bam! Six tickets to Equestria’s most exclusive event! You’re so used to it you don’t even recognize it anymore. Like that dragon slave of yours.” “He is not!” Twilight yelled, her eyes wide. “Don’t you talk about Spike that way. He’s… he’s my number one assistant,” she said, but her eyes briefly strayed down as though she were already aware of how poor that sounded as a defense. When she met Trixie’s eyes again, her gaze had steeled. “You leave him out of this.” Trixie smirked as she leaned in closer, clashing horns with Twilight. During her illicit adventure, she had made sure the library’s residents were actually asleep, and one especially interesting thing had caught her eye at the time. “You’re ‘assistant’, you say? Is that what we’re calling unpaid labor now? You treat that poor miserable dragon like a dog, and his only recourse is to grumble at you under his breath! Why, Trixie bets you probably have him sleep in a dog bed! You don’t care the least bit about your slave.” By now, Trixie saw the outrage reflected in Twilight’s face. The flared nostrils. The clenched jaw. The dark scowl. That small spark in her eyes of self-questioning uncertainty that fueled the need to fight back and deny. Mirroring Trixie’s own posture, Twilight pushed back against Trixie’s horn. “Spike chooses where he sleeps. I have a whole extra bed and he snubs it! You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just like with the ursa major.” This wasn’t going as great as Trixie had hoped. Not that she had any actual plan when she started. This mare just infuriated her so much! “Well, you! You’re…” she said, drawing a blank. “Oh, uhm, I-I’m sorry. But, uh… I moved… Is that okay, Twilight? There was so much noise, n-not that I’m complaining, but, well… I just thought…” The soft voice drew Trixie’s eyes to the top of the stairs. Fluttershy looked down at the two of them with confusion and guilt written all over her face. Part of Trixie wondered how this entire situation must look to Fluttershy, and another part considered how easily she could turn her against Twilight. "Oh. Hey, Fluttershy. It’s okay now, I’ve got everything under control. I'm sorry, but could you stay there for a moment?" Twilight said, turning her attention back to Trixie. “I just have to make sure Trixie doesn’t try to run, again. I’m sure she has the book somewhere.” Trixie snarled and stood her ground with barely enough room to breathe between the two of them. She refused to back down from that pompous unicorn. “Trixie has the mind to beat that sun worshipping, self-righteous muzzle of yours into the—"A sudden hint of inspiration sparked up in her, that might actually work. They were really close together. Even if Twilight’s magic was insane, Trixie was pretty sure she was much stronger physically than the measly book worm. Meanwhile, Fluttershy quietly crept down the stairs as she kept her ears pinned back. Clearly she didn’t like the atmosphere between them, but she was trying hard to kindly defuse it as she smiled cautiously. "B-books? U-um, well, there's the shelf over there, a-and the one in my room…” Smiling despite herself, Trixie couldn’t take her eyes off the timid creature as she tried to offer her own books, as if they’d make any kind of substitute for the one that was actually missing. It was just so endearing to watch her try. It might actually work too. “…A-and Trixie's are in the c-closet," she mumbled quietly while she pointed it out for Twilight. Trixie’s eyes widened. Her pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks in an instant. Fluttershy knew about the books she’d hidden in there?! Worse, she was telling Twilight about it. Et tu, Fluttershy?