//------------------------------// // Chapter Ninety Eight: Miscommunication // Story: Trixie and Maud: Heart of Stone // by TheCrimsonDM //------------------------------// HEART OF STONE Chapter Ninety Eight: Miscommunication Written by TheCrimsonDM Holding up a white board, Valiant couldn’t help but grin at Maud for the gift. Trixie wasn’t sure how Maud had come up with the idea of getting a dry erase white board complete with markers for the filly, but Trixie loved the idea. Their little home felt much brighter with the filly smiling. Valiant tapped Maud on the leg, getting her attention.  She showed the white board. A message was written on it. “Thank you.” A smile grew on Maud’s lips, and her eyes lit up. When Maud reached over and hugged Valiant, Trixie felt a warm ball of fuzzy feelings grow inside her. It was simply too nice to see Maud so happy, especially nice considering how much Valiant seemed to enjoy it. Only after Maud pulled away did Trixie dare to break this happy moment with reality. “How did getting work at Sugarcube Corner work out for you, honey?” Trixie asked. Maud stiffened a little. “They are always willing to help…” “I’m sensing a, but,” Trixie said. “But I don’t like the idea of working there. I’m not very good at social engagements,” Maud explained. Sitting down at the kitchen table, Trixie thought about what they could do. Clearly Maud won’t trust me enough to leave me alone again, and to be honest with myself, I don’t trust myself either. I could go with her next time, but dragging Valiant along for the ride wouldn’t be the best idea. If only Twilight was awake, I could ask about how she gets money. Deciding that this conversation could be finished some other time, Trixie changed the topic. “You know I remembered something from my past today. Something… surprisingly good.” Maud stared with a completely blank expression. “What was it?” “I remembered the first time we met,” Trixie said shyly. Maud’s lips curled up slightly. “When Timequill introduced you to me, all I wanted to do was help you. I remember how quiet you were, you were almost as quiet as Valiant, and less talkative.” With a shake of her head, Trixie explained, “Not that, way before then. When I rescued Pinkie Pie from her bullies. You offered to help me get cleaned up… I didn’t exactly have anypony to take care of me, and yet there you were. Even if you scared the filly version of myself a little, you were still there to take care of me. It seems that I’ll always be able to rely on you.” For a long while Maud was silent. Choosing to focus on helping Valiant get dressed up in a dark green sweater and green socks with purple hearts on them. When Valiant was all dressed up for the trip to Timequill’s office, that’s when Maud finally spoke up. “I had forgotten about that. That wasn’t the best time of my life after all,” Maud said. “You had your little sister, and she loved you more than the world, still does,” Trixie admitted. “I think that-“ “No,” Maud interrupted. “I’m sorry, Trixie. But we should drop this now, or else I’ll be breaking one of my promises to you. I’m glad that I could make you feel better, I really am, but I’d prefer it if we don’t discuss it any further. If I remember correctly you promised that you wouldn’t pry into my past.” It took a moment for Trixie to remember that particular promise. After first arriving in Ponyville, after saving Twilight from the leftovers of her experiment, and Scath’s creation. Maud had gotten angry with Trixie, and made Trixie promise to never ask about the darkness in her past. But Trixie had also made Maud promise to not call herself a monster nor to feel bad about what she’d done. I guess she can’t talk about those things without feeling bad… after what happened with Applejack, I won’t even try to pry into Maud’s mind. Besides, Maud’s the one pony that I never want to break my promises to again… With a quivering lip, Trixie felt a pain in her chest. She closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down. “I understand.” Forcing a smile on her face, she opened her eyes and added, “Let’s go talk to Timequill now!” Maud nodded, and looked at Valiant, Trixie followed her gaze. The filly stared with a big round eye at Maud. They quickly helped pack the whiteboard into a filly sized saddlebag just for Valiant and the three of them took off for the hospital. It might not be any fun, but in order to help Valiant heal, Trixie was willing to do anything. *** Sitting inside of Timequill’s office, this was a feeling that Trixie was all too familiar with. Having Maud and Valiant with her helped distract her a little. With Valiant sitting in between them, Maud and Trixie both looked down at the filly kindly. After everything she’d been through, at least they were able to start healing her now. “So Valiant Heart,” Timequill said gently. “Do you remember me? I’m Doctor Timequill.” The filly nodded. “That’s good. Is it okay if I ask you some questions?” She nodded again. “Good, now if you don’t want to answer any of them you don’t have too. Just tap your hoof down twice if you don’t feel like answering my question.” Timequill gave it a moment before Valiant nodded once more and he relaxed. “Okay, Valiant, my first question is really simple. Do you like living with Trixie and Maud?” He asked. She nodded, and looked at Maud before giving her a weak smile. “I’m glad to hear it. Did you like it in Manehattan?” Timequill asked. The filly didn’t move for a few seconds, and when she finally did, she nodded. Timequill nodded towards Trixie, that was the signal for Trixie to bring out Valiant’s whiteboard and give it to her. Trixie did just that, and Valiant gave Trixie an odd look. “Why don’t you list a few things that you like about Manehattan for me? I’d really like to know what it was like there,” He said kindly. Valiant looked down at the whiteboard in complete silence for a moment, but then she smiled and grabbed the marker in her teeth and began to write. A few times she would pause and work her mouth silently before continuing. Finally she put the marker down and showed the board to Timequill, being right next to Trixie gave her a quick chance to read everything for herself first. “Kity kat. Sueshe. Friends.” Those answers made Timequill smile. Trixie looked back down at Valiant, the filly’s smile was gone again. The poor thing. She lost her cat, and whatever the sueshe was, and she lost her only friends coming here. I’ve got to try harder for her. “You had a kitty?” he asked. Valiant nodded, then looked sad. She wiped away the board clean with a hoof and wrote something else. “She is gone now.” “I’m sorry to hear that,” For a second he stayed quiet. “What about your friends?” A small smile returned to Valiant’s lips, she returned to writing. “They were nice to me. Even when I don’t talk.” “Do you miss them?” he asked. Valiant shook her head. “Why is that?” he asked. Using her hoof to wipe the board clean again, Trixie cringed at the stains getting stuck to the filly’s fur. There was going to be a black mark on her foreleg. “They want me to steel. I dont want to do that.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I’m glad that you didn’t, but I can understand why that’s necessary sometimes. May I ask you to explain what or who Sue She is?” Valiant cocked her head to the side and blinked. For a moment she simply stared at him, with degrading look. Trixie could only assume this was Valiant’s way of calling Timequill stupid, but to be fair, Trixie had no idea what Sue She was either. Valiant let out a huff, and went to writing again. When she was finished she haphazardly stuck the board out towards him. Trixie had just enough time to read it and shake as she realized exactly what she was talking about now. “Sueshe, favorite food. Fish from far away land.” To everyponies surprise, Timequill actually let out a laugh. “Oh, you meant sushi. Okay, now that makes a lot more sense. I hear the neighponese really like their sushi, and that Manehattan has a lot of restaurants that sell it. We don’t have as much fish product here in central Equestria. So I can understand why you would miss it.” Trixie only shivered at the thought of eating fish. For whatever reason that salty pink thing came to mind when she thought about edible fish. She never wanted to try sushi, not if her life depended on it. “What do you like about Ponyville so far?” He asked. Valiant again wiped away the board and wrote down her answer. “family. Warm. Food.” “Family?” Timequill asked, confused. Trixie felt the same way. Valiant nodded and reached out with a hoof to pet Maud, and then Trixie. She looked at Timequill and nodded. Wait… what? But I just saved you… and I even failed at that. How can you say that we are your family? “So you feel like Trixie and Maud are family. Is it because they saved you?” he asked. Valiant replied with the whiteboard. “Trixy said I was her little sister A long time ago.” “So you really love Trixie don’t you?” He asked. “I love Mud too.” Trixie facehoofed. Maud has an A in it. Trixie looked over and saw Maud smiling, the fact that Maud had to wipe a hoof at her eyes was a clear indication of how much her lover enjoyed the filly’s sentiment. Timequill looked at Trixie, there was something about the look he gave her. Something that told her that he was going to need to speak with her privately after this session was through. After that he returned to his questions. Those were easy enough to answer. Valiant liked the fireplace, and the cuddles. She enjoyed getting free food. And when the last set of questions focused around the other fillies in ponyville, Trixie was a bit surprised to learn that Valiant thought they were weird and talked far too much. Valiant also added that they were too happy, and that only untrustworthy or drunk ponies were that happy. Before they left the hospital, since they were already there, Trixie had Maud take Valiant to get her eye checked out. Which gave her the distraction needed to talk to Timequill alone. She had not forgotten that look he gave her, and the seriousness in it. Sitting in his chair, Timequill had a fresh cup of coffee sitting next to him. The coffee machine in the corner was still steaming. He offered a cup of coffee for her, but hard as it was, Trixie refused the offer. Her curiosity was getting to her again. “Alright, Trixie. Do you know why I asked you in here?” He asked, his tone serious. Trixie shook her head and he let out a small sigh. “That’s okay. We need to talk about Valiant and your plans to find her a good home. Have you gotten anywhere in that regard?” “No, not really. I wanted to let her stay with Applejack, but she was scared of my cousin. Honestly if she’s afraid of every adult mare out there, I won’t know what to do,” Trixie admitted. A small smile grew on his lips. “You know she’s already found a family here. One that she thinks is perfect.” “Oh really? But how? She’s hardly met anypony other than me and…” Trixie stopped dead short. Her mind kicked into overdrive and it suddenly dawned on her why Timequill had wanted to talk to her. “Me and Maud? Are you serious? We’re terrible for her. We can’t even keep our relationship from falling apart.” “Honestly, Trixie. I can’t think of any mares more qualified than you or Maud. You understand her pain, and Maud’s love would be good for her. You two could make this work,” Timequill admitted. “In the past few weeks alone I’ve seen you grow up, and become stronger than I have ever seen you before. Besides the longer Valiant stays with you two the harder it will be for her to leave, there is no telling how much harder it could be for her to heal. She’s lived on her own before, I don’t think that running away would bother her at all. “So I ask of you, Trixie. Will you at least consider the option of adopting her yourselves?” Timequill asked, his tone sensitive. She lowered her head. It was impossible for her to say no to this. If Valiant had already decided to stay with them then taking that away from her now would be disastrous. However Trixie knew that she and Maud were not in a good healthy place for a filly to actually be… theirs. at the very least, Trixie wanted to try and find out what happened to Valiant’s parents. Now that she thought about it, it was possible that the filly’s mom was looking for her, perhaps she lost her child? No, that’s not it. Val is too damaged and self reliant to have simply gotten lost. “Timequill, I don’t think that us adopting her is a good idea, you make a good point though she shouldn’t stay with us much longer. I know how much she cares about us, but I care about her too. I don’t want her to witness the crap I go through on a daily basis, right now we’ve been taking a break from the madness, and the drama. Sadly it’s just a break, it’s going to come back soon, and when it does it will be horrible,” Trixie said. “I understand your concern. I did not mean to push this on you or upset you, Trixie. If you truly feel that you can find a better home for her soon, then that’s how we should proceed. It’s just that the faster you find a new home, the better she’ll adjust to it,” Timequill said. “Even if we found a new home for her, do you really think she would just run away?” Trixie asked. “Yes I do. She’d most likely run straight to you as well. From my sessions with her, I get the feeling that she doesn’t believe there is much safety in the world, and to her, you and Maud are the safest things she has,” Timequill explained. “So it isn’t a question of if she’ll run away, but rather when.” “We can take care of her for now… but when the drama starts I’ll need to find another home for her. The very near future is going to become increasingly dangerous and hostile for me, I haven’t told Maud yet, but things are about to kick up and get serious,” Trixie explained. “I can feel it.” “That sounds bad,” he replied. “I’ve learned to trust you on your gut feelings. You’ve always had that about you. Maybe you picked it up from your father. Did you know he used to have dreams of the future?” Trixie shook her head, but in all honesty it didn’t really surprise her. It actually made a whole lot of sense. “Anyway, you will need to talk to Maud about this. If Maud loses her now, I’m afraid that it could hurt Maud. She’s very fragile when it comes to this,” Timequill explained. “What do you mean?” Trixie asked. Timequill’s eyes widened a bit. “You mean she hasn’t… hmm.” He scratched his chin, that’s when Trixie noticed that the fur on his chin had grown out by a bit. It looked like he was trying to grow a beard. “You and Maud need to have a talk about her past, and why she cares so much for Valiant. I won’t intervene anymore than that.” With a frown and a sigh, Trixie got up and left. “Okay, I’ll consider the thing about Valiant… I won’t tell Maud until I’ve made my decision. And I’ll also try to get Maud to open up, but she’s been really tight lipped lately. I don’t want to break our promise.” Timequill gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m sure that Maud will tell you eventually. She loves you Trixie, though I suppose you already knew that.” With that Trixie left to rejoin Maud and Valiant. She had a lot to think about now, and she really didn’t want to bring anything up yet, Trixie could wait until the time was right. Even if her curiosity was lighting fires in her mind. *** Later that day, the trio got home, only to find company waiting for them. A group of ponies, mostly foals, were lying around the outside of Trixie’s stage wagon. Most of them were making small talk to each other, a few of them were napping, and all of them looked extremely bored. Pinkie Pie sat on top of the stage and to the few who were paying attention she was attempting to do tricks to entertain them. A table cloth was tied around Pinkie’s neck and hung back like a cape as she tied animal shaped balloons together. Snips and Snails looked at the road, and consequently Trixie, Maud, and Valiant Heart. They stood up excitedly and shouted in unison, “TRIXIE’S BACK!” That got everypony's attention. Valiant straightened up on Maud’s back, and watched with guarded eyes as the foals and ponies all stood up. Maud didn’t fare much better. Trixie let out a sigh. I forgot about my fans… Sweetie Belle trotted up alongside Snips and Snails. Before the two colts could even open their mouths Sweetie asked in an ear piercing tone, “Yay, we can finally hear what happens next. How did the Mistress and Spike’s first kiss go? Did she reject him? Did they fall in love? What happened?” “Actually,” Trixie said shyly. “It turns out that the Mistress bit him in response.” “WHAT?” the filly shrieked. “But, why? Does she hate him that badly?” Trixie rolled her eyes. “Do you want to find out in conversation, or in story?” Sweetie Belle shrunk back and replied lamely, “In story…” “Good,” Trixie said with a wink. She raised her voice for everypony to hear. “Everypony gather around the stage, I’ll start in just a moment.” Trixie eyed Pinkie Pie for a moment. “And Pinkie take off that table cloth, you look ridiculous.” Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. “I was the improvised entertainer while you were gone. So I wore an improvised cape. Haha.” Looking back at Maud and Valiant, Trixie smiled. “You two want to watch from behind the curtains?” Maud looked at Valiant, they exchanged looks, and both looked at Trixie before nodding in unison. Trixie felt her smile waver a bit. Okay, that’s kinda creepy… did they get psychic powers too? Setting up the show took almost no time at all. Better yet, the ponies that had stuck around all enjoyed it, far more than Trixie had expected. This time, Trixie didn’t pull any punches and even added a few magic tricks to liven things up. She smiled and told the ponies that she’d be retelling this episode again tomorrow, and then she’d finish it later that night. She gave out times for the ponies to show up for each showing and told them to spread the word. As the crowed departed, one filly in particular stayed behind. Sweetie Belle hadn’t left yet, but she hadn’t said why she stayed either. Instead she just stood around awkwardly glancing up at Trixie every now and then. After a few minutes Trixie decided that Sweetie Belle was being weird and wanted answers. “Did you need some help, Sweetie Belle?” Trixie asked, she thought back to another one of her fans who had been a little shy before. “Magic lessons or an autograph?” Sweetie blinked. “W-what?” “Which one do you want?” Trixie asked. “I just wanted to know if it was okay to play with Valiant Heart? I won’t be annoying this time… is it okay?” She asked in a tiny squeaky voice. Valiant Heart hobbled out on her three good legs, the whiteboard was hanging from her mouth. “I’d like that. Can we play inside?”  “Sure you can.” Trixie said. She looked back at Sweetie Belle. “Please don’t break anything.” With a nod and a giggle, Sweetie Belle joined Valiant Heart and offered a supporting shoulder as they walked to the house. Maud joined by Trixie’s side and only after the two fillies disappeared inside did Maud speak up. “That was impressive, Trixie. I’m proud of you,” She said. “For letting Sweetie Belle in our home, or for the show?” Trixie asked. “Both.” “Well that’s good because I feel proud… Look, honey, we need to talk about something,” Trixie said, her heart quickly sank as she realized what she needed to do. “What is it?” Maud asked. With a sigh, Trixie explained, “The longer we keep her, the more attached she will become, to us, to her friends… everything.” “W-w-what are you saying,” Maud said, her voice fragile and meek. Trixie looked into Maud’s beautiful eyes. A lump formed in Trixie’s throat. She didn’t want to say this, she really didn’t but she knew that she had to get it out now or else it would hurt even worse later on. “I’m saying we either need to find her a new family soon, one that will take better care of her than we ever could. Or we ad-” Maud growled. “Are you suggesting that I am not good enough to take care of her?” With spikes of fear being plunged into her heart at Maud’s sudden change, Trixie took a step back. “N-n-no. I’m saying that we go through a lot of hardships and drama.” “No, you go through a lot of hardships and drama. I’m a good mommy! It’s not my fault that you won’t just stay home and be good,” Maud said bitterly. Trixie took another step back. “Maud, why are you so angry? What did I do?” “What haven’t you done?” Maud retorted. Her eyes narrowed on Trixie. Maud stepped forward, and Trixie took another step back, and as she reached the end of the stage, her hoof felt nothing but air. “Maud, I’m sorry. Please forgive me,” Trixie begged. The memory of being flung across the room like some kind of child’s toy came back vividly. “I know you are. You always are. But being sorry doesn’t change what you did. Being sorry doesn’t change what you will do. And being sorry doesn’t change what happened to me,” Maud stated. Fear curled up into a little ball after digging itself a nice little hole in Trixie’s chest. Without warning, Trixie leapt back off the stage and into the snow. She galloped down the road. Maud was pissed, Trixie had never seen Maud get so mad at her before. The worst part was that she could hear Maud giving chase behind her. It wouldn’t take much for the gray pony to catch up, to catch up and hurt her. Maud was shouting something at her, but Trixie could only focus on the sound of her hoofs beating into the hard earth with the knowledge that it wasn’t enough. Inspiration hit her, and she recalled a little spell that Scath had once used to escape Trixie. The purple aura that surrounded Trixie became dark, and her fur melted away into a moving blackness, her body melted into a shadow, and raced across the earth under the snow and sailed faster than she could possibly control. She continued on like this until she eventually realized that there were no sounds of hooves trailing behind her. She canceled the spell and in an instant popped up from the earth like a pop out book and returned to her original pony shape. Her clothes were missing though. She looked around shakily. Her heart was pounding hard and her short breaths were all she could draw. She was inside a barn with Applejack staring at her wide-eyed.