//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: To Glimpse a Wider World // by Burraku_Pansa //------------------------------// Scootaloo felt the familiar sensation of rough cobblestone on her hooves, heard the cries from a nearby open market, smelled scents of wood and grass and baked goods. “Anypony else feeling a bit creeped out, here? This place is exactly like Ponyville.” Late afternoon on Main Street in Dappleton saw Scootaloo, her friends, Trixie, and their wagon moving towards the center of town. Citizens—most of them earth ponies—moved busily up and down the street, past and into buildings of wood with thatched roofs. A café here, a smithy there, a general store, an inn, a bar, and more, with steady traffic in and out of all. “Ah am noticin’ some similarities,” said Apple Bloom, “ah’ll give ya that.” Trixie chuckled. “Take it from a mare better traveled,” she said. “Show Trixie one village or town made by earth ponies, and she will show you just about all of them. Pegasi mold clouds into whatever they’re wont to and unicorns tend towards erecting towers and palaces, but earth pony stylings are inescapably rustic.” The town square was coming into view, now. Main Street broke and widened into a vast trapezoidal area of smooth stone pathways criss-crossing around and between a small ocean of stalls and performance areas; the Crusaders found their ears filled with the friendly chattering of peddlers and smatterings of applause and whistling. Surrounding buildings seemed to be higher-class versions of their earlier counterparts—more expensive-looking eateries, inviting taverns, clothing shops with garish outfits displayed in the windows, and a great many other attractions. At the far side of the square, a brick building rose above its wood-and-thatch neighbors, with a great clocktower erupting from its top. Simple banners of green and white hung all along the clocktower and on the building’s face, fluttering lazily. Trixie pointed a hoof at the looming mass as she walked. “That will be town hall,” she said, turning to look back at the fillies by the wagon’s side. “It is possible that a post office is within, where you might compose and send those letters home of yours. If not, they will certainly be able to tell Trixie’s company where one is.” Apple Bloom nodded. “S’pose that should be our first stop, then?” “No way!” said Scootaloo. “We’ve been walking for like a whole day. Before anything else, I say we’ve gotta get some food.” Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes and bumped her side against Scootaloo’s. “It hasn’t been more than two hours of walking, and you know it,” she said, her companion grumbling. “And we just ate a late breakfast right before that, too.” Trixie cleared her throat. “Trixie will have you know that that breakfast used up all but the last coppers of her funds. If her charge wants supper for the evening—or a bed of more than grass, for that matter—Trixie’s company shall have to put on a performance.” “What?” said Sweetie Belle. She dashed around to the front of the wagon to walk alongside Trixie. “Weren’t you going to train us first?” Trixie pshawed. “Learn by doing, little one. And you are just about to get the chance; remember the first step to putting on a performance? Find a suitable locale?” Trixie swept her hoof over the marketplace they had just crossed into. “Trixie dares to say her company has just about completed…” No more than a hundred hooflengths away, a trio of earth ponies saddled with packed instruments were walking away from a now-empty patch of the market. Trixie’s eyes darted around. Off to her wagon’s right was a buttercream-colored mare already moving in with a cart full of baked goods. “Miss Trixie?” said Sweetie Belle, looking between Trixie and the other mare. They’d just locked eyes. Trixie was off like a shot, towed wagon shaking wildly and bouncing over the cobblestones. She dodged masterfully through the crowds, only running over a few ponies’ tails and nearly knocking over just a hoofful of stalls. The buttercream mare wasn’t far behind, but the relative care she was taking—moving around groups of ponies instead of forcing them to make way—spelled her defeat. Trixie’s hooves skidded noisily on the smooth stone of the market patch, the wagon behind lifting up into the air and crashing back down. The buttercream mare glared hotly at Trixie, who stuck out her tongue. The moment the mare turned to leave, Trixie sucked in a few desperate breaths. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo emerged from the slowly dispersing sea of legs, and Trixie caught their approach. “Y-yes, this area should do nicely,” she said. A few moments of calm, and she began to unhitch herself from the wagon. “What had Trixie been saying?” The Crusaders looked at one another. “Um,” said Apple Bloom, “those steps ‘a yers, ah think. Are y’all okay, Miss Trixie?” The filly’s eyes were trained on Trixie’s shoulder. Only when Trixie looked down at the ruffled fur of her upper fore leg did she start feeling the sting. She shrugged. “One cannot expect to get very far in Trixie’s line of work without clipping a few carts, and that only comes after one learns to stop crashing. And yes, step the first to putting on a successful show, completed. Step the second: develop a basic plan for the performance.” Out of the harness, she turned to her filly companions. “Alternatively, if you are a particularly skilled improviser, such as Trixie herself, you need only decide on a ‘jumping-off point’, so to speak. Trixie imagines that her company has not had enough experience in show business for that, quite yet?” The girls looked at each other again, frowning. “Not exactly,” said Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo offered, “We used to have a comedy show.” Trixie’s eyes widened, and she smiled approvingly at her charges. “That took a while to put together, though,” Scootaloo continued. “I don’t think we’d be able to do something like that off the top of our heads.” “Not to worry,” said Trixie. “One must learn to walk before learning to gallop, and you’ve taken your first steps already. That was more than Trixie had dared to hope for.” The fillies smiled proudly, Sweetie Belle blushing somewhat. “So,” said Trixie, “Trixie’s company shall form a plan for its performance, this time around. To start off, do any of you have any specific, show-worthy talents?” She pointed a hoof to Scootaloo. “Trixie recalls Apple Bloom saying that you had some measure of talent with ‘tricks’, little Scootella.” “It’s ‘Scootaloo’,” the filly said, sighing. “That’s right, though. Ponies tell me I’m pretty good on a scoo… Oh.” Trixie raised an eyebrow. “‘Oh’?” “Oh!” Sweetie Belle gasped. “That’s right! We didn’t bring her scooter with us when we left Ponyville. It’s back at the clubhouse.” “Alright, then.” Trixie frowned. “Your tricks aren’t applicable, it seems. Anything else?” “Ooh!” Sweetie raised a hoof, smiling widely. “Apple Bloom is really good at making things! She did most of the work on your wagon.” Apple Bloom blushed, but stayed silent, instead turning away and half-heartedly smacking Sweetie Belle’s side with a hoof. Sweetie chuckled. “Ah, yes,” said Trixie, looking to her functional yet haphazardly painted vehicle. “Trixie had almost forgotten to thank you. And she appreciates the work you all put in, of course, but must you have painted it so…”—she cringed slightly—“pink?” Scootaloo grumbled, “Tell me about it…” “Still,” said Trixie, “the work was far more capable than Trixie might have expected.” She turned back to Apple Bloom. “She may have use for you yet. Tell her: are you able to work from a blueprint?” Apple Bloom absentmindedly kicked a rock about with her forehoof. “Um, ah’ve never tried doin’ anypony’s designs but mah own.” Trixie waved a hoof. “Well, Trixie’s company shall just have to wait and see, then. A prestidigitator is no stranger to props, and if you are able to construct them, it would certainly save Trixie’s bits.” Her eyes moved up to the sky, where the sun had passed its apex and was well on its way back down to the horizon. “Trixie fears that more immediate talents are required, however. She intends to put on a show sometime in the next hour. Any more, and Trixie’s company shall be going without room and board for the night.” Sweetie Belle found herself to be the next subject of Trixie’s gaze. “…What?” the filly asked. “The obvious question,” said Trixie, staring intently at Sweetie’s horn. “How skilled are you with magic? As Trixie is sure you are aware, her show relates to magic, predominantly—another magician would not go amiss.” Sweetie Belle’s cheeks flushed in seconds. “Well,” she said, voice cracking, “I—I, well… I can levitate?” “Weight?” pressed Trixie. “Complexity?” “Um, solid things!” Sweetie blurted. “Yeah, solids that don’t have holes in them, and only one or two at a time. And…”—she pressed a hoof to her temple—“I think the biggest thing has been one of my mom’s encyclopedias? The ‘Q’ one. But that was just for a second or two, and then I had to stop for the day.” The corners of Trixie’s mouth snaked up her cheeks. “Yes,” she said, “that will do nicely.” Her horn lit up, and four small pouches—the first a shiny red, the next a sparkling green, and the remaining two a matte black—flew from her mane and tail and came to rest in the air beside her head. “Trixie judges that now is the perfect opportunity for a crash course on the usage of mana marbles.” - - - - - A gentle breeze blew through Dappleton’s square. The town hall’s banners fluttered lazily about, and all of the townsponies present felt themselves buffeted by the cool air. This breeze had ever brought light scents of wood and grass and tempting meals, but now a stronger smell rode above the others. One periwinkle mare, engaged in purchasing ingredients for her dinner, caught the unmistakable smell of fresh laundry. She turned, intrigued, and tried to find its source. A pair of brown stallions watching a jester juggle suddenly found the scent of hot, cheesy bread tickling their nostrils, and turned as well. The jester herself caught a whiff of what smelled oddly like her daughter’s mane, and after retrieving the juggling clubs that had just landed squarely on her head, she, too, turned. There was a mess of pinks and reds and whites in the shape of a wagon. From its bottom there protruded one half of a foldable dinner table, bare for only a moment—blue flames sparked across its surface from nowhere and began rising upwards, devoid of smoke but roaring loudly. A few seconds and they had gained enough height to reach past the wagon’s roof, but the hiss and crackle then became muffled, and the flames shrunk immediately back down to the table before winking out entirely. In their place stood a blue unicorn in full Canterlotian magician’s regalia. “A fine afternoon, Dappleton!” called Trixie to the gathered and gathering crowd. “Yes, a time unapproachably fitting for the Great and Powerful Trixie to beg you bear witness to her wonders. Observe with all the attention you can muster”—she reached a hoof beneath her pointed hat and removed the article slowly from her head—“for Trixie has prepared a performance of that most mesmerizing mystery, that long-envied entrancement known only to the most honed of the horned: magia sine magia, the magic without magic!” Trixie’s hat erupted into a deep red blaze which itself soon vanished into nothingness, all without the faintest glow on the showmare’s horn. The watching ponies stood with backs rigid and jaws slack but for a smattering of unicorns throughout that rolled their eyes and made to walk off. Nopony moved, however, once the hat shimmered back into sight and then fell with a soft fwap to the dining table stage. “Um…?” left more than one throat. “Wh-whuh…” Trixie managed. Her eyes darted about the collection of confused faces before her. “Er, the Great and Powerful Trixie deems the denizens of Dappleton deserving of a more desirable demonstration!” Trixie hefted the wizard’s hat once more, tossing it like a discus straight upwards. All eyes tracked the its flight up into the sky— “Waugh!” All eyes jumped right back down to Trixie falling rump-first onto the stage, cape on fire. The flames quickly masked the cape and disappeared along with it, leaving behind one very stunned showmare staring down at her own hooves. Trixie’s hat struck her squarely in the back of the head. “Oof.” The crowd laughed uproariously. Mostly hidden beneath the tablecloth of someone’s nearby book display sat two fillies, the pair of them looking out at the show. Stark unbelief in her voice, Scootaloo asked, “Sweetie Belle, what the hay was that?” “I did the cape after I did the hat,” said the little unicorn, horn aglow and sweat rolling down her forehead. “This was her plan!” “Sweetie, the point was that the hat was supposed to be gone!” Scootaloo whispered sharply. “She probably tossed it up to give you another chance!” Sweetie Belle made a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl. “Okay, but just stop talking! You’re breaking my concentration. Get another two black ones out and I’ll get rid of the stupid hat—and be ready with the yellow one when I ask for it.” Laughter rang in Trixie’s skull, and her eyes searched once more about the faces in her audience—gone was all confusion, supplanted by utter glee. It took her a moment, but Trixie smirked. She stood like a mare with purpose, and shouted with heavy exaggeration, “Does Dappleton doubt the Great and Powerful Trixie? Ha! She knows just the spell to ensnare you simpletons, but”—she moved a hoof to her mouth’s opposite side, as though whispering a secret despite her volume—“she has need of a volunteer, if her oafish audience would care to provide.” Raised hooves and excited yells dominated the scene. Trixie made a show of moving her hoof slowly through the air as though carefully considering different ponies before her, giggling under her breath as she saw each one’s expression rise and fall in turn. Finally, her hoof angled down towards the front row, and Trixie said, “You, little one!” Apple Bloom, surrounded by fillies and colts who had flocked to the front for a better view, pointed to herself. “Me?” She let out a great gasp. Trixie rolled her eyes. “Yes, you. Now come along,” she said, beckoning with a hoof. “Up, up.” Trixie looked back to the audience as Apple Bloom leapt and scrambled up onto the stage. “Trixie would ask that you all take heed: make no attempt to emulate the Great and Powerful Trixie, for magic inherently holds dangers at the best of times, with even the simplest spells. What follows is no simple spell.” Gasps and whispering now mingled with the crowd’s chuckling; even Apple Bloom couldn’t resist the urge to gulp. The filly stepped over to center stage by Trixie and turned to face out. There seemed to be so many ponies, all looking right at her. A strange feeling—anxiety and pride in the same heartbeat—filled her chest. Red flames, same as before, engulfed a corner of the stage, and in their place a moment later was a sizable cloth. Trixie trotted over—as dramatically as she could with only two steps of table to cover—and picked it up by two corners, standing up on her hind legs in the process. Back to center she went, swishing and waving the cloth through the air. She settled it in front of Apple Bloom, hiding the filly from the neck down. “Prepare yourselves,” said Trixie. She tore the cloth away from Apple Bloom and then slowly settled it back in place. “One!” She tore it away again and then let it flutter back to cover her assistant. “Two!” she said, and some members of the audience called the word as well. Trixie tore the cloth back one more time, and she started to let it fall back in front of Apple Bloom—but before it stopped settling, she leapt a step forward and yanked the cloth to herself. “Three!” she and most of the audience shouted. Apple Bloom… was Apple Bloom. She looked down at herself, eyebrow raised. She turned to Trixie, and— “Ah!” She jumped away, wobbling where she landed on the edge of the stage. Trixie let the cloth fall away from herself, and sounds of shock rose up from the crowd. She looked down with exaggeratedly wide eyes—down at her body which, from her neck to her knees and everything in between, was less a body and more a length of rope. Rope in her signature blues and whites, seemingly coiled out of her thinned limbs and tail as they twisted up into it. She looked back to the audience, eyes still bugged out. “Yes, friends,” she said, picking the cloth up again, “leave magic to the professionals.” Trixie covered herself, and after a resounding pop, she let it fall away once more to reveal her normal body, unharmed. The first to snicker was Apple Bloom, the sound like the fatal crack in a dam, and the unease fell away for a torrent of laughter from the gathered ponies to follow. While the crowd carried on, Trixie walked to Apple Bloom’s edge of the stage and whispered in her ear. A pat on the head, then the filly smiled, took a little bow, and hopped down from the stage. “Ho ho!” yelled Trixie over the din, and she swept a hoof through the air. “Laugh you may, Dappleton. Ho and ho again! But Trixie is not done yet!” - - - - - Only after the final generous audience members had made their donations did the Crusaders approach Trixie. The magician—hair a little singed, coat a little blackened, but brandishing a radiant grin—was moving bits from her hat to a mid-size pouch. On noticing the fillies’ approach, she bowed low to them in a way that could almost have been called graceful in spite of how overblown it was. “So, the comedy show you mentioned…” said Trixie, looking to Scootaloo. “Trixie guesses it that it was not originally meant to be funny?” The filly gave a forced laugh and rubbed a hoof through her mane. Sweetie Belle stepped forward. “Miss Trixie, I’m sorry the show went the way it did.” Raising an eyebrow, Trixie said, “Did little Apple Bloom not relay Trixie’s message, after Trixie jumped in front of the rope trick?” “No, she did,” said Sweetie, “and I did my best to mess up in funny ways after that.” She rubbed one forehoof along the other. “I’m just sorry we had to do that at all. You had a good plan, and I blew it.” “Don’tcha worry, Sweetie.” Apple Bloom pat Sweetie on the back. “The show went over great!” “Indeed,” said Trixie, smiling down at Sweetie. “Patent pending Trixie Trick of the Trade: in the end, a show is to be measured as no more or less successful than how it was received by the audience. Which, in turn…”—she bounced the pouch of bits with her magic, and a warm, metal jangling rung out—“is to be measured in the money. Nearly eighty bits, fillies, in the gold alone!” “That’s her!” came a nearby voice. Trixie and the Crusaders turned. Across the path was a pair of local guardsponies, decked out in green-white cloaks and sets of unadorned, full-length iron boots. Beside them, pointing at Trixie, was a mare—the buttercream mare from earlier. The mare said, “She took my place and put on a performance without displaying a permit!” The guards advanced, sternness in their gaze. “A further lesson, fillies,” Trixie whispered to the girls. “Wherever your travels take you, you may only plead ignorance once, and even that will do you no good if you lack the talent to sell it.” - - - - - A sigh, and a shuffling of papers. “And you say…” His voice was gruff. Unamused, but distinctively more tired than annoyed. “You claim, rather, that this is what you do for a living?” It was a drab office. Interior design was not one of Trixie’s strong points, but this much she could tell. The carpeting was brown, with spots of browner brown. Coffee, her nose told her. Brick walls, but unpainted, empty but for another of the green and white town flags hung up, but even that seemed to be coated in a layer of dust. In fact, the only pristine—almost unused, was Trixie’s impression of it—thing in the room seemed to be the brass nameplate stand sitting on the stallion’s desk. ‘Tough Call’. The state of the room didn’t seem to bother the fillies, who were at a corner table giggling over the letters they were writing. Except Scootaloo, Trixie noticed. That little one had finished her letter rather quickly and seemed to be trying hard not to look as though she was listening in. “Quite right, Mr. Call. Trixie has been a travelling magician for upwards of thirteen years,” said Trixie as she looked back, a little frown upon her face. Her eyes hovered on the papers by Tough Call’s hooves. “It was an honest mistake. You see, Trixie has just taken on new apprentices, and in her company’s collective excitement, proper—” “In your excitement,” said Tough Call, “you failed not only to register your group’s arrival and intentions, but you even managed not to notice any of the clearly displayed permits at your neighbors’ sales and performance stations?” “Once more, quite right.” Trixie’s frown deepened. “And Trixie apologizes for the attempt to excuse her actions and the actions of her company.” A half-cold smile on his face, Tough Call chuckled. He motioned to the Crusaders. “I assure you I’d be hard pressed to lay any blame on them, Miss Lulamoon.” Scootaloo snickered, and Trixie’s frown grew deeper still. “Regardless,” said the stallion, drawing himself up in his seat, “there are three types of ponies who don’t purchase a permit: the ignorant, the poor, and the criminal.” He gazed firmly at Trixie, and the mare nearly flinched. “You don’t have to stand there and convince me which type you are, because the beautiful part is that the punishment is the same in all three cases.” Looking off, Trixie clicked her tongue. Tough Call lifted a scroll out from behind the desk and unfurled it, moving his nameplate over as a paperweight. It was a pricing sheet. “You will purchase a day permit retroactively”—his free hoof pointed to the day permit, valued at ten bits—“at twice the usual price. If you can’t afford it, it’s an hour in the stocks for each bit’s worth of difference. Any additional permits can be purchased at their normal prices.” Trixie let out a grumble-laced breath. She levitated her coin pouch out, but stopped midway through loosening the strings as her eyes roved over the sheet. “Why,” she asked, glaring up at Tough Call, “is a month permit only three times as much as a day?” He just smiled, in a way Trixie might have mistaken for sincerity. “No way to attract outside business…” Trixie quickly measured out thirty bits. “Ha,” said Tough Call, retrieving two slips of paper from a drawer, dating them with a nearby quill, and passing them over. “And yet your money says you’ll be with us for more than just the single day.” Trixie snatched the permits out of the air and made for the door. “Come along, fillies.” Sweetie Belle stuffed her letter into an envelope and licked it closed, and the girls quickly dropped their envelopes off on Tough Call’s desk. “Thank you, sir,” said Sweetie. “Have a nice stay,” he said, waving only to the Crusaders. He looked up to Trixie, and any warmth left his face. “Keep out of trouble.” The door creaked open. “Hey Trixie,” said Scootaloo as the group made its way out, “does this mean you ‘lacked the talent to sell it’?” “Shut up.”