Seduction Of The Innocent
Chapter 3
Cocoa in the Loco Parentis (Part 1)
If there was only one flaw you could accuse Trixie of having, being a coward was not one of them. Cowardly, maybe, but a genuine coward no. While it was kind of obvious she couldn't walk on water, much less the vapor suspended on air known as the clouds without magical or technological assistance, having literally drowned three times before she was four years of age had done nothing to make her anxious in the presence of dihydrogen monoxide. Trixie just had a natural affinity for water and was unlikely to develop hydrophobia.
In fact, she loved the water so much she could she could feel an approaching rainstorm in her bones, she enjoyed the sound of waves crashing along the beach, she would never feel the effects of motion sickness on a raft, and once she figured out how to float she spent more time bellow the water's surface than above it. Some might dismiss this quirk as a fluke of her biracial heritage, she was clearly half pegasus her coloration being ideal camouflage in air more than land or sea. And, pegasus ponies were noted for having evolved physical traits and habits ideal for military advantage.
However, assuming she found herself in the frozen north, Trixie would not fare as well under harsher conditions unless she wore furs and wool. Otherwise, she would perish barring some unforeseen miracle allowed the unicorn opportunity to spontaneously devolve into a shetland pony of the Komondor variety. Not that the cold was a problem for her. A situation to which the ice blue unicorn would never be exposed to, much less accept, even in the presence of Poison Joak. Her appearance wasn't particularly exotic, even by background pony standards. Her main six colors being mostly within the same family. Even her eyes, while warmer in tone were not a far cry from her cerulean color scheme.
Of course, some could just as easily dismiss her unlearned fear of water to a cognitive disorder rather than a biological advantage. By unicorn standards Trixie was a bit of an air head. It was clear to anyone that took the time to get to know the annoying little guttersnipe that the lights were not all on upstairs; Or, at the very least, arranged in such a way that the design was a bit like a lite-brite screen playing eight bit theater when what you needed was a magna-doodle and a handful of dice. After all, everyone knows it's easier to play beetle when you don't have to put the pegs in the right place.
Naturally, the problem with having to line up all the pegs in the right place before you can take action is detrimental to the game of perfection. Because once you've put the pieces into the slot, made the right connections, if your not as quick when racing the clock, an opportunity will pass you by and pop goes perfection. Sadly, luck was nothing if it wasn't preparation meeting opportunity and circumstance.
Which is indeed unfortunate if you have to wait a couple extra cycles to get the ball rolling when the payoff to the game is much lower. After all, the early bird gets the most worms and has more than his fill, but he second bird is always greedy for hogging all the resources (or asking for more than the others think they need or especially what they deserve). Especially when the early bird went out of his way to enlighten the public about what they're missing. As if they know exactly what everyone needs to sustain their pleasure, or marginal utility, in the long run...
Enter alchemy, the bastard child of economics and prestidigitation, developed simply because not all ponies were blessed with the horn of plenty. The traditional pony counting system was for the most part based on binary, the haves and have nots, which didn't advance much until the waltz was developed based on the three canter measure. This made counting easier because now four bits was a nibble and eight bits was a bite, and any amount of bites with six zeroes behind it was a word, because the number was just so mind bogglingly awesome at the time that it defied logic. Since there were three measures of three, with one measure for each of the three races, this led not only to the creation of a middle class, but the discovery of the magic numeral 9. Arguably the most fantastic number you can find because practically every multiple of said number lead back to nine.
And, so it was, a new religion was formed based on the concept of three. Engineering was advanced by the knowledge of both a pair 'and a spare' and this engineering revelation lead to plumbing and the equally magical numeral 0, which represented an open lock or an empty vessel, and so it was the new calculus developed by earth ponies that gave them a somewhat equal footing with the unicorns when it came to industry. Pegasus' who didn't think in terms of words, or magic, but rather tradition and liberal arts, if not poetry in motion, just borrowed what they perceived as the best of all systems (based entirely on weight, volume, and measure) before throwing away the rest of the fledgeling sciences behind physics out with the bathwater.
Alchemy was heavily invested in Feng Shui, or the harmonization of everything within its surrounding environment. It was a form of magic based on equivalent exchange. As such, the pegasus monetary system was not seen as representing physical goods but frozen energy. Unlike earth ponies who saw fit to convert this energy into material wealth that could be stored as it increased in value, pegasus ponies essentially lived from paycheck to paycheck and developed things like check kiting, loans, and layaway, so they could afford to live at whatever level of luxury they chose. Meanwhile, the unicorns capitalized on the dependency the other pony races needed for stuff both ephemeral and material while simply flooded the market with nonperishable goods in exchange for service.
This also put Trixie at a disadvantage as a unicorn, because she wasn't raised to manufacture goods but provide service. She could only guarantee a service if she had the right tools, or had the right tools on hand. Because she had to make, buy, or modify her own tools they were usually very specific and unique, and difficult to manufacture, which increased their value and made them a tempting target for thieves. So, unless she had a back up, or a back up, of her back up, she was at a loss for not only what to do but would have to compensate whoever she was working with for wasting their time.
Chores didn't exactly pay well and, at most, only covered the cost of food and shelter. And, you could forget about charging a non-refundable service fee up front to compensate for the cost of labor, costuming, travel, materials, and other expenses, because that would be 'dishonest.' And, if every business operated like that in the real world, they would be at a distinct disadvantage and the entire economy would just collapse. As a child, getting an allowance to spend as you choose was out of the question, and getting what you wanted from someone taking care of you was like pulling teeth. You could get the tools for what _they_ wanted or expected you to be doing, but you couldn't get what you really needed in an immediate or reasonable time frame, even if you could explain why you needed it or how it would work.
Hell, even wanting something was considered the same as stealing. By the time you got whatever you needed it was already beyond it's usefulness, and one couldn't be expected to perform at their best with tools that didn't even meet professional standards when they were new. Besides, based on the rule of equivalent exchange in order to get something new, something of supposedly equal value had to be taken away. Working for someone else wasn't a possibility at this stage in Trixie's life either (at least not for an eleven year old) because everything earned went to living expenses that weren't usually covered by one's allowance.
In short, getting a job doing something as innocuous as babysitting would mean going without food for a couple of days. Not that she couldn't stand to loose a few pounds, but it was bad enough Trixie had to hear Home Brew complain about the two dollars a day she was spending on lunch, how many slices of bread she used to make a sandwich, or calling her a rat because she snuck an extra marshmallow in her Cocao. It's not like she was being paid a living wage to work at the Cafe, she didn't even get a split of the tips. As far as she was concerned there was just something about Home Brew that made him buggy. And, to think, her life would all come to a head the day some rapist walked into the coffee shop demanding service.
In all fairness it wasn't entirely Trixie's fault she was dead from the neck up. After all, she didn't choose to be born, just like she didn't choose to drown, and she didn't choose to become another one of her mothers abominations. And, it's not like foals get to choose their parents... Well most foals, Trixie was pretty sure she chose Home Brew to be her father. There was just something about his magical aura that resonated with the young unicorn, that stimulated what little spark of life was within her, more so than her mothers magic. Necromancy was great, but illusion magic was much better. Plus, not all illusions relied on magic and her mother had more than enough metta cognitive energy to share with both an emotional vampire and an exiled drone (or whatever the heck Home Brew was).
A major problem with being dead from the neck up was that Trixie very often missed the big picture. She didn't notice the red mist as it entered the Cafe Grandpa through the double glass doors, in much the same way she never noticed that there were nine tables in the cafe, nine stools at the counter, and nine windows in the front of the sweet shoppe. It was just one of those things that went completely unnoticed because she stopped caring about what was there as a result of worrying about what could be. Or, more specifically, something her mother had said about letting Starswirl eat cereal out of her skull if she ever caught her reading passages out of the necronomicon again. Granted, there was no possible way her mother could possibly know about it if she never actually caught her, but that didn't mean she wasn't concerned about it. Especially after that damned pineapple question showed up again on her pop quiz in english followed by a question that made even less sense than the role of the owl and the eggplant in the story.
“What does the fox say...” Trixie muttered to herself as she briefly wondered if she should have wrote up something clever like 'Pow, pow, pow, pa pip, pa pip, pow!' That was close enough, it wasn't like there was an actual fox in the story and the owl hadn't exactly done anything particularly notable.
“Yo Whelp. Who do I have to screw to get a cup of coffee over here?” Came a gravely demonic voice as the crimson red mist coalesced into a being of untold horrors behind the young barista who had a round serving tray carefully balanced on her rear
“EEK!” The reluctant litch shrieked as she made a furtive attempt to hide behind one of the tables. A meaningless action considering Starswirl was standing behind her with a calculated if not mischievous smirk “P-Pwease don't eat me!”