//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: With Good Intentions // by Hustlin Tom //------------------------------// Trixie groaned softly to herself when she saw sunlight through the lids of her eyes. She unconsciously turned over, drawing the covers surrounding her closer, and fully intended to return to the beautiful embrace of sleep. Her brain, however, had other plans. Her memories of what had happened to her the previous day began to reconstruct themselves in her mind’s eye. The Diamond Dogs. The stallion whose house she was sleeping in. The one who had scared her attackers off, and whose identity she did not know. She groaned to herself again, and slowly her eyes opened. The two windows to her left were letting the rising sun’s light through, shining into the room with far too much illumination for her liking, the closest window shining over her bed, and the other on the opposite end of the room, revealing a fireplace and mantel there. A painting was mounted on the wall between the two windows: a jagged coastline with a raging storm hanging in the background, while tidal waves crashed against a volcanic beachfront. There was no doubt in Trixie’s mind that the subject matter of the piece was the Furia Ocean. The showmare climbed out of bed, then shook herself a little to finally get all of Luna’s sweet dreams out of her head. She walked over to a mirror on the right side of the room, and glanced into it. Her mane was a complete mess, most likely from tossing and turning in her sleep. There was no comb nearby, and she didn't have the patience at the moment to spend the time properly stylizing it. She reached up into her mane with her magic and pulled it back into a ponytail, then searched the surrounding room with her gaze for something to hold it back with. Sighing in frustration, she relented to the situation, and forced her hair into a frumpy looking bun. So close to being back to a civilized state, and yet so far, she thought to herself, this is easily a new low. She then opened the bedroom door and ventured out into the dark hallway. Using the light coming from under her doorway she could see a small stand further down the hall, upon which a candle sat. After enchanting the tip of her horn with a small point of light, she glanced down one end of the hallway, and then the other. Her curiosity was piqued as she continued to fully wake up: this house was the largest she had ever seen. Even through the cloud of emotions and adrenaline from the night previous she remembered the scale of the mansion, and how massive it had appeared from the outside. She ventured to her right down the hall and quickly discovered three other bedrooms and even a servant’s quarters, all of the furniture within covered by large dust shrouds but containing nothing interesting for her trouble. Surely, she reasoned to herself, there was no better way to get to know somepony than to explore their home. Besides, he probably wouldn’t mind; hopefully. From what Trixie could tell with her cursory glance over the rooms was that the stallion had plenty of money but certainly no sense of style for it. Trotting towards the opposite end of the hall at a disinterested pace, she proceeded down a flight of stairs to her right that led towards the center of the manor and turned into yet another hallway. “I swear this house is almost as compacted as Labyrinth,” she mumbled to herself. She walked down the hall towards the window at the front of the house and tried the door at the very end. Finding it to be unlocked, she stepped in and closed the door after. The room she had walked into was obviously the old stallion’s study she realized. Three gigantic bookcases took up almost the entirety of the opposite wall, each filled to the brim with all different kinds of books. The western wall to the left, brightened by a large window on the eastern side of the room, also had two smaller bookcases, each serving as a boundary for a map of the entire nation of Equestria and for the neighboring nations. On the eastern side of the room sat a large desk behind which was an awaiting revolving chair. On the desk sat a sealed ink well and a dip pen, as well as some small device made out of cast iron. It had a piston arm that was held in place by some sort of sprocket so that when the arm was moved by the mechanism it was attached to it would rise and fall in a steady rhythm. As she came over to examine it, she experimentally moved the arm with her magic, allowing it to pump itself for a few cycles under the influence of her spell, then let it go. It spun on its own momentum for one, then two cycles, but it lost what little energy remained in it in the middle of its third cycle, and came back to its rest position. “What an odd little machine,” she thought aloud, then she started to search around the rest of the room for something that might attract her interest. Her eyes scanned to the left at the nearest book shelf, gliding over the various titles without actually seeing most of them. It wasn’t until she reached the third row down that she found something that caught her eye, and it was certainly something she would not have expected to have found. Walking slowly over, she telekinetically grabbed ahold of the royal blue tome that had the focus of her attention, and brought it down to read the front cover. “Advanced Magical Theory: First Edition,” she murmured to herself. She furrowed her brows slightly as she thought to herself, “What possible need could an earth pony have with books on magic?” “I find them quite inspirational,” the stallion’s voice declared from behind her. Trixie, startled by his sudden presence, fidgeted as she whirled to look in the direction he had spoken from. He stood in the doorframe for a moment, chuckling almost inaudibly at his own stealth. He was now wearing a dark grey turtleneck, and he had cut his mane shorter since the previous night. It hadn’t been by any means long to begin with, but now there was clearly reason to take pride in appearances: there was a guest in his home, after all. “Understanding magic is good for more than just unicorns,” he said as he walked into the room, “and it certainly is good for more than just learning how to cast lights or pick things up.” A quick rush of paranoia filled Trixie, and she looked at him suspiciously, “Were you watching me?” “No more than the last few seconds or so,” he replied, “I was coming to offer you a small breakfast if you were interested.” “Oh,” she exclaimed softly, looking away for a moment out of embarrassment before returning her eyes to him. She breathed in, puffed up her chest, and smiled in a haughty manner, “Then Trixie humbly accepts your invitation!” He arched an eyebrow and smirked a little, “I graciously invite you to my dining room, then, seeing as my kitchen needs to be tidied up. Oh,” he pointed back to the odd device on his desk, “if you were still curious, that’s a miniature heat engine, by the way.” “I’m afraid it’s not much,” her host declared a few minutes later as he scooped up a ladle full of whole grain oatmeal and let it slowly flow into an awaiting bowl, “but it’s the best I had to offer given my limited capability.” She eyed the bowl with desire and replied breathlessly, “Trixie has been living on grass and whatever she could scrounge up from around her: this will be a feast by comparison.” They each took a seat at the table after being served, and enjoyed their meal, each in their own way. After a few minutes of simply eating their food, the old stallion was first to break the silence, “There is something about yesterday that I find myself curious about.” Trixie had been about to guide a spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth, but his words made her stop. “Which is?” she asked. “You went to the Diamond Dogs and offered them some sort of proposition,” he began, all while idly stirring his spoon through the porridge in his bowl, “their race almost exclusively deals in one commodity: gems. You went to them to try and arrange a partnership of sorts, and presumably you offered to split the profits on your venture equally.” She looked at him with half veiled surprise before returning to her confident façade, sarcastically firing back, “Who are you, Sherclop Holmes?” The old stallion’s mouth twitched in a small smile, “I prefer to think of myself more like Mycrop, though with a more pronounced sense of personal application.” “What exactly is it you’re trying to get at?” The earth pony looked at her pointedly, “It’s simple really: why? Why did you risk so much for such an improbable venture?” Trixie put her hoof down on the table top as she leaned closer to the stallion, glaring angrily at him, “Look, I thought I had them convinced but they double-crossed me. I was completely out of money and I was desperate, but you have no idea what that’s like, do you?” The earth pony arched an eyebrow, then cocked his head as he thought to himself. “I suppose that’s true,” he finally said. “I have no money and no home,” Trixie kept going as all of her pent up feelings began to flow, and her angry face began to waver, “I can’t even start over again because everypony thinks I’m a hack! If I’m not laughed away from any town I go to, I’m run out of every performance!” She looked down into her half-finished bowl, her eyes filling up with stinging tears even as she grimaced in anger, “I am the most hated pony in Equestria, and it’s all thanks to Twilight Sparkle and her stupid friends.” The stallion straightened his glasses and then brought his hooves up in front of his face, resting his forelegs on the table. He processed the information he’d been given, and he thought back to his dossier on the mare before. She had potential. Perhaps there was something that could be done. A test of some sort was necessary to prove his hypothesis correct, but first her self-pity had to be dispensed with. “I’ve certainly had my share of dark times, whether you may think otherwise because of this opulence,” he declared, attracting the mare’s gaze up from her own world, “and I certainly know something about being a national object of hatred.” “Oh please,” she said with a hollow scoff, “how could you compare to the Pitiful and Reviled Trixie?” He brought his hooves down to rest before him, and he gazed at her unflinchingly, “I am Bunsen Burner.” For the first time in her life Trixie was struck speechless, and all she could do was stare at the earth pony. His gaze lingered a little longer, but then he nonchalantly returned to his oatmeal as if nothing were unusual. “You-“ Trixie stammered, “You’re the madpony who tried to subvert the Royal Sisters. You almost kept them from sealing up the hole to the Void.” With each realization her pupils shrank as she consciously became aware of the pony she in the house of, “You almost destroyed Equestria.” The stallion’s own mask cracked, and he looked away from her, his hard face softening. “Yes,” he replied softly, “and I’ll have to live with that until my dying day.” It all made sense now to Trixie: the martial arts training, the tactics, his gadgets and chemicals... There was a part of her that wanted very much to simply stand from her chair and leave the house, never turning back one instant. This feeling was overwhelmed, however, by a sense of confusion as she weighed what she had heard of him versus what he had done for her. “I- Hm,” she finally vocalized as she continued to look in his direction and think to herself intensely. Bunsen Burner looked at her in curiosity, “What is it?” Trixie thought long and hard about her indecisive feelings, “I guess I just thought you would be more…menacing.” “And I would expect the near destroyer of Ponyville to look and act more malevolent as well,” he replied, finishing his verbal parry with a slight smirk. Trixie winced a little, and nodded her head, “OK, point taken: don’t judge a book by its cover.” “Then we would both agree that there is more to each of us than hasty judgment and hear-say may offer,” he declared as he leaned back in his chair, “Your charisma inspired two misguided foals to bring an Ursa Minor to town. My…need to create an ordered system of our nation blinded me to the warnings I was given, and I stood in the path of those who meant to fix the problem.” He now took his own time to stare down at his hooves, “Fortunately, the Princesses and the Elements succeeded in spite of my interference.” The silence returned as they each reflected on their deeds, what had led them there, and where they now stood. After a sharp intake of breath Bunsen Burner clopped his hooves together and looked up, “So! I did not answer your question fairly last night. If there is anything you wish to know about who I am, you may ask away: I owe you that much. There are, however, certain things I cannot tell you due to still binding oaths I’ve taken.” Trixie looked away from him nervously for a moment as the first question echoed through her mind without a moment’s notice, “Last night, when you said that you would kill the Diamond Dogs if they ever came back-“ she then looked him straight in the eye, “did you really mean that?” The old stallion looked at her, almost like he was measuring her response in his own head, but then he simply replied, “Yes, but I hope I don’t have to keep my promise.” A quiet moment filled the room as Trixie struggled with what he had said. She then thought back to something odd that had struck her more recently. Moving her breakfast bowl to the side, she casually placed her forelegs on the table, “When you said that you found books of magic to be ‘inspirational’, what exactly did you mean by that? Are you a Solarian?” Bunsen Burner shook his head, “I am not a Solar Cultist, Classical or Neo.” “Then why would you keep them? You’re not some kind of collector are you?” He removed himself from his chair and walked around the table to collect the dirty dishes, all while wearing a close-lipped smile, “A reasonable guess, but no. The inspiration I take from those books, while certainly good for philosophy’s sake, is primarily towards a more physical and scientific application.” He then walked away with the dishes in hoof back towards the kitchen all while talking over his shoulder, “I create devices that channel the magical aura of other ponies.” Trixie, perplexed but curious, trotted quickly after him to catch up, “So you’re some kind of inventor who dabbles in magic, even though you don’t have any yourself?” “All of the beings from our world have some measure of magic; unicorns are just the most obvious. The best approximate word for what I do would most likely be ‘technomancy’: one who practices magic via technology.” Arriving in the kitchen, still in shambles from the previous night’s brawl, the showmare watched as her host approached a large metal basin full of water that was resting on supports above the tile floor. Beneath it was a small pile of wood surrounded by small rocks. Setting down the bowls nearby, Bunsen Burner also brought over the pot and other utensils he had used to cook their meal. “Why don’t you just use the sink?” Trixie asked as she gestured to it. “I’m not sure yet if any of the plumbing was damaged because of our canine friend,” he replied as he also grabbed some lye soap and a set of flint and steel, “so as a precaution I shut off the water last night. I had to go out to a nearby stream to get this.” He then sat down and began to strike flint and steel together near the smaller bits of tinder, but the sparks he wanted were not forthcoming. After a few seconds of watching him struggle, Trixie tapped him on the shoulder, “Here, let me.” She then aimed her horn at the base of the logs. A small pop and one stream of light later and pink mage’s fire began to crackle merrily under the wash basin. After making sure that the flames would stay inside the ring, the earth pony looked at her as he stood up, “Thank you.” She smiled softly, “My pleasure.” “If you wouldn’t mind helping me dry these, I’d appreciate it,” he asked. “Certainly,” Trixie replied as she telekinetically drew a towel by the sink closer to her and then pulled it a little taut by its four corners. As the water began to warm, Bunsen Burner began to dip each piece before vigorously scrubbing it with the lye soap, then dipped it again before passing it over to Trixie who rubbed them down thoroughly before setting it off to the side. “So how did you get your start as a performer,” he asked. Trixie’s magic noticeably wavered before she recovered, and she looked over to her host, “You had all that information about me, and you don’t know that?” “I only know you on paper,” he said as he dipped the next bowl into the water, “I don’t know the living you.” The showmare turned back to her job as she reminisced to herself, “Well, like you knew I was the youngest of three, and I was always looking for attention. Dad was busy, my sisters were busy with their friends, which left me and mother at home. After I found my skill in illusions, mom encouraged me to practice as much as possible. She hoped that one day I could be a famous magician working a circuit in Las Pegasus,” she unconsciously lowered her head, and her toweling off of the dishes became softer, “She didn’t even see my first performance before she passed.” Bunsen Burner’s own washing slowed as well, and imperceptibly his lip twitched. “My apologies,” he declared softly, “I didn’t mean for you to relive that kind of memory.” “It’s alright,” she replied as she waved her hoof at him softly, “We knew it was coming. The pneumonia stuck with her for too long, even in spite of the treatment. A few months after she left I threw everything into a used wagon and set out to see the world.” Her face became full of bitterness as the memory of more recent events passed through her mind. “But that dream is dead now,” she declared as she shakily put down the pot away from her. After a few minutes of silence between the two that saw all the dishes cleaned and put away, Trixie asked in return, “How did you end up in Canterlot?” Bunsen Burner sighed and gazed without sight up at the ceiling, “That is a story that began many, many years ago. It almost feels like it was a previous lifetime. After discovering my proficiency for tinkering I began to show some of the pieces I had made at local fairs, including my heat engine. One day an envoy of the Royal Guard was sent to escort me to Canterlot, where I met Princess Celestia for the first time. After a short talk with her she took me to be her student.” Trixie’s eyes grew wide when she looked toward him next. “You were Celestia’s student?” she asked incredulously, “but you’re-“ “An Earth Pony?” he replied as he looked to her with a small smirk, “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard that from other ponies.” He walked over to the lower cabinets near the sink, and opened them up, looking down into each to check for signs of water damage, “It’s true that Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns is often used to determine candidates for studentship, but pegasi, earth ponies, and even beings from other nations have been chosen in the past. Our relations with Saddle Arabia were cemented when a wealthy merchant’s son, Abd al-Salaam, completed his tutelage and returned home, establishing a kingdom uniting many species and races without ever raising a weapon. Xenophanes Persephone, a Minotaur, was the founder of the Royal Guard we know today, and was the inspiration for the Element of Loyalty. Fairy Flight after her time went on to join the Wonderbolts, and after fifty-five years of service retired from her Admiralty. Unicorns, once again, are most obvious about their skill, but all the other races have their fair share of incredible beings too.” After finding no obvious problems, he trotted back towards the kitchen entrance, gesturing for Trixie to follow, “After nine years of schooling I was released from the Princess and was granted my own title in the Royal Family. For my scientific aptitude I was offered admittance to the Royal Science Division. It was on my first day that I met one of the many ponies who changed my life: Principled Acumen.”