//------------------------------// // Trixie Balances the Books // Story: Magic Tricks // by ferret //------------------------------// Fancy had no idea what he was getting into when he took Trixie on. He saw an opportunity and a need, but even he had not been privvy to that orphanage’s secrets. The unfortunate truth about unfortunate truths that nopony wants to talk about, is that nopony talks about them. Everypony knew that there were terrible stories from that orphanage, but it was an orphanage. That sort of thing was expected, and taken with a grain of salt, since any former orphan would be seeing things through the lens of resentment. Though a few had some idea, the vast majority of ponies knew nothing of what it did to foals. Not until they tried to live with an escapee that is, or a survivor. And then they didn’t want to talk about it. Trixie had... something of a problem with enclosed spaces. It took her a long time to wean herself of this troublesome trait, but trying to sleep in a wagon, even among ponies who were open and welcoming, was a challenge at best. Trixie could not stop thinking about the cramped little dormitory she burned to the ground, or the quarantine wing ...that she burned to the ground. Waking up with a wall in front of your nose was a terrifying experience to Trixie, because it always made her feel like somehow, in some way, they had got her back. She was constantly on edge from her inability to trust that this newfound freedom was anything but ephemeral and temporary. Nopony tried to capture her, or return her to any orphanage, so rationally it was clear she was out of hot water, but the feelings just persisted and persisted. That’s why after the ringmaster escorted her back, and all the ponies except Curled welcomed her back with good cheer, and Trixie had her very first bed to sleep in since her escape from the orphanage, the ponies who so helped her found that Trixie had betrayed them in the night. Trixie escaped their caravan, under the cover of darkness, having gone back on her word, and was fiendishly planning to return to wreaking havoc on their tour route. That’s what they thought, at any rate. In the cover of night, one small unicorn of the name Trixie Lulamoon slinked out from the wagon, with wide eyes bright in the sallow moonlight. They had given Trixie a simple foldable cot to sleep on, nothing even remotely comfortable, and yet with a full belly and weary legs Trixie was sure she would sleep on it for days. But before Trixie’s eyes, the dark boards of the walls and the ceiling turned back and forth between their reality and the fear of cold, unyielding stone. She may have drifted off at one point, but then she was wide awake and filled with panic at the wall in front of her nose. She felt sealed in, trapped, punished, and that’s why she snuck out that night, and many nights hence. Trixie considered taking the cot with her, but there was no way she could have carried the noisy thing without waking up the other two ponies sleeping in the wagon with her. So she snuck out on only her own four feet, and vanished into the wilderness. She stopped a full body length away from the camp, and hid herself within a thicket. Not from the ponies, but from what else might be lurking out here, thinking to prey on any hapless ponies who became separated from their group. In this way, Trixie finally got her sleep, right there on the damp dirt, with the moonlight only barely filtering in through the leaves overhead. The morning came, and with morning came panic. Not Trixie’s panic, but Trixie awoke to shouts from the caravan. “She’s not here!” “I can’t find her anywhere!” “Has anypony seen the filly?” “She ran away!” “Search the area!” “Trixie did not run away!” Trixie shouted, emboldened by the rare sunlight peeking in through the trees. She wiggled out from under the thicket and stomped into the clearing, right up to the ringmaster pony to give him a piece of her mind for accusing her of such a thing. But she only got as far as saying “Trixie does not—” before the ringmaster interrupted, getting in her face and saying to her angrily, “Why did you leave the caravan?! Were you out there all night? It’s not safe out there! What were you thinking, filly?!” He might have said more, if his righteous anger hadn’t shaken Trixie so badly that she curled up with hooves over her head. Trixie knew exactly what it means when her hot temper has once again made an adult caretaker angry. She didn’t run away screaming because, in the orphanage, there was nowhere to run. There were only walls and corners, and even more severe punishments for foals who try. Just curled in on herself Trixie frantically tried to prepare for his rage, saying something like, “Trixie is sorry! Trixie is a bad pony. Trixie will never do it again. Trixie will be a good pony. Please don’t stop her horn again, she didn’t mean any harm!” Master Fancy was certainly nonplussed at her sudden change of face. When the circus came to the orphanage, he had seen neglected foals desperate for a moment of happiness, not... this. Trixie imagines he shrugged helplessly at his associates. None of them knew whether to approach or back away from her, either. In the end it was fifth clown Sue who approached her, not so much because Sue was a comforting pony, or a mare, but because she was one of two unicorns they had, and certainly the smarter, more sensible one. “Trixie, huh?” Sue said, poking the blue ball of fur that Trixie had reduced herself to. “We can’t stop your horn,” she said in a dully uninterested voice. “You blew up our only horn suppressor.” It certainly took a unicorn to understand that Trixie’s self esteem was secondary to the safety of her horn. She uncurled enough to look at this Sue in the barest of comprehension. “Trixie is ...safe?” Trixie asked. Sue didn’t answer, or react to that. The pale grey unicorn merely turned and walked back around the crowd, leaving Trixie facing the ringmaster, the two acrobats, and a cream colored stagehoof. And no more horn suppressors. “Trixie is safe!” Trixie proclaimed aggressively, climbing to her hooves and looking at the ringmaster in defiance. “You cannot hurt Trixie, and she will leave forever if you try to! And maybe even burn down your stupid wagons, too!” “Nopony is trying to hurt you, Trixie,” the ringmaster said with a careful hoof lift. “We were just afraid you had gotten hurt, or had run away.” “Well, Trixie didn’t, so you aren’t supposed to punish her,” the insolent Trixie persisted. “And you can’t punish anypony else either, since only Trixie ran away. Trixie will... will magic you, if you do that!” “The hay was happening at that orphanage?” muttered a pegasus acrobat, a bright red stallion with a blue mane, not to Trixie but to his associate, a pale blue pegasus mare with a bright red mane. The mare just shrugged at him, while Trixie asked him in confusion, “Were you asking Trixie that?” “No, but we probably should,” the ringmaster stated in his stead, looking down at Trixie thoughtfully. Trixie felt a bit on the spot at that. The ringmaster seemed to have a talent for putting ponies on the spot, or the spotlight on ponies as it were. What happened? What could she tell them had happened? Did they already know? “It burned down?” she attempted to answer, finding herself shrugging as much as the pegasus had, albeit without the wings for emphasis. “I didn’t do it.” Trixie made sure to specify. Trixie rather doubts anypony, anywhere, ever, seriously believed that. Nevertheless Hat gave her the okay, and everypony was glad to conclude it was a false alarm. Trixie promised it wouldn’t happen again and she would sleep normally the next night, but... she didn’t. And the night after that, once again Trixie was crying herself to sleep in the thorny thicket she’d adopted, not from sadness but from anger at herself for being unable to fulfill her promises, and not consciously understanding why she couldn’t. Trixie’s sleeping problems were a troublesome issue for quite a while, because the ringmaster couldn’t get it through his head that Trixie needed to do this, and she wasn’t doing it just to defy his authority. But eventually, Hat Fancy personally oversaw her sleeping situation, meaning that he declared that this had gone far enough, and that he was going to watch Trixie himself, and that she had to sleep with him tonight, in his wagon, right next to his bed. He was a cunning pony, and even though Trixie had thought he was laying in his bed sleeping, it was a mere ruse with pillows. When Trixie crept out of his wagon, he was standing out there already, fully awake to anticipate her. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked the startled filly in a disapproving tone. He might have been taken aback by Trixie’s reaction of harried, wild eyed fear, rather than one of guilt and indulgence that one would expect from a disobedient filly. But before he could respond, Trixie’s cauldron boiled over, and everything just poured out of her at once. “I can’t I–I can’t go back in there. Y-you cannot stop Trixie! You can’t l-lock her away! Trixie cannot sleep—you don’t understand. Trixie cannot sleep in there! There’s nothing in there. There is nothing!” “You’re right,” he said backing up a step at her strident voice. “I don’t understand.” “It’s all your fault!” she squealed in sudden anger, “You and your stupid circus, coming every single year, and then leaving. Leaving! You put all these t-t-thoughts in my head and Trixie can’t just live anymore a-a-and she sees herself in the mirror and she does stupid things, because of you! She j-j-just wanted a chance and you can’t do this to her. Trixie will never go into that room again! You’ll have to kill her first! Trixie will burn herself alive if you try to! Just let Trixie go. She can’t stay in there any longer!” Trixie just ran then, and didn’t stop until she was hidden in her thicket, her hiding place, her self imposed prison. Given the choice between torment and danger, Trixie chose danger, and in her life she had not had many opportunities for a third choice. There she sat, trying to stop the crying and be quiet so nothing would come eat her. But what did come was a pony, a unicorn levitating something large behind himself. He set up the folding cot outside Trixie’s thicket and climbed up on it, settling down to sleep. “What are you doing?” Trixie asked from within the dirty bushes. “I said you were going to sleep with me tonight,” he responded. “I’m a pony of my word.” “Just l-l-leave Trixie alone,” Trixie said miserably. He said nothing, but rather lay there silently on his back, looking up at the drizzly clouds overhead, dampening both their coats, and certainly not doing anything healthy for the cot he slept on. “They put Trixie in a room,” came Trixie’s voice. Trixie found it hard to believe it was her saying it. It felt like somepony else was saying it. But she kept breaking the quiet night with her voice. “They put Trixie on punishment,” she said. “There was n-nothing in there. They even put the food through the slot, so the door never has to open. She has to stay in there, whenever they think Trixie is going to r-run away. They put her in, because they found out she was going to join the circus, a-about a week before you came.” She couldn’t see him in the darkness through the leaves, but she heard his smooth voice ask eventually, “How long did this... punishment last?” That made Trixie pause. Hadn’t she told him? “About a week before you came?” she tried telling him. “Trixie doesn’t know exactly. It’s hard to remember days after a while in there.” “Did you know when they were going to let you out?” he asked in a tone that suggested he already knew the answer was no. “Trixie doesn’t know. Trixie escaped in... in the fire. She supposes they would let the foals out, a-after the circus had left and you were too far away to catch up with. Maybe... three weeks? It depends on how bad you were.” The wind whispered through the bracken, chilling the moisture on Trixie’s back and haunches. She wondered if the moon was out tonight, so hard to tell with this rotten weather constantly dumped on them. “The foals?” he asked quietly. “Any foals caught trying to escape—r-run away I mean. We’re not supposed to call it escaping.” If Trixie had know more about Hat Fancy’s resolve and temperament she might have been more hesitant to fuel the flames. But sadly, all she knew was he was a pony asking questions, and she was very tired, cold and wet, and just wanted to sleep right now. He didn’t ask any more questions though, and for the rest of the night Trixie slept, as well as she ever did. When she awoke in the morning, the cot outside the thicket was empty, damp all over with morning dew just like everything else. She didn’t know if he had spent the night with her, only that he was there in with the wagons when she awoke, waking ponies up, ordering ponies around, getting them ready to roll into the next town. Trixie was already more familiar with their waking routine than when she first came, because in the time since she’d joined, the circus had performed at her very first town. The very town that Trixie had been snatched from, by the two pegasi in this troupe. Trixie was utterly forbidden to perform even one single act, but she didn’t feel slighted for some reason, because the ringmaster assured her that she would receive the training she needed, and when she did perform, her act would be truly spectacular. So Trixie didn’t mind biding her time, and was grateful for it in the end, because if there is anything more entertaining than watching the circus perform, it’s watching the circus perform from backstage. You get to see the performers setting up. Psyching themselves up for running in. You get to see their real pony selves, even dolled up with ridiculous amounts of clown makeup. You get to see that amazing transformation by which they adopt their stage persona, and go from being ordinary ponies, to being something that is both more than a pony, and less than a pony. You get to see the after-act jitters, in which the thunderous applause fails to convince the acrobats that they didn’t flub their act. Truly, spectating from behind the scenes is a rare and blessed act. Though it would be rendered completely moot if it wasn’t rare, and many ponies don’t like seeing the ugly, dirty, trash talking meat behind their shiny performers, but it always gave Trixie a sort of visceral satisfaction. It made her feel more of a part of the action, and less of a spectator, even when she wasn’t the one on center stage, performing. So yes, Trixie began her illustrious career in performance and art, as a stagehoof. She helped with the secret affairs, lifting poles and planting stakes, moving curtains, unpacking wagons, repacking them. Simple tasks for one of her talents, albeit exhausting on the horn after a long day of it, but tasks so very appreciated by everypony involved. It was Trixie’s first experience since her... cutie mark, with ponies who genuinely appreciated her presence, and it was a very addicting feeling. After that night in the thicket, it was stagehoofs in fact, who Trixie saw setting up a tent especially for her. Not for an act, but as a cover for the rain. Hat Fancy had the brilliant idea that if Trixie could not sleep in a wagon, she could at least sleep in the circle, with open air on all sides of her to ease her troubled psyche. As she lay in her lumpy cot that still got damp with morning dew, with a broad, solid canvas top preventing the rain from soaking her to the bone, and the lantern light of the circus wagons glowing pleasantly right beside her, Trixie could not stop thinking about Master Fancy, about everything he had done for her. Truly he was a very special pony, the nicest pony she had ever met, who didn’t seem to ask anything in return but simple honest effort. The stagehoofs were... also the ones who discovered Trixie’s other little problem from her foal years. As the circus brought cheer to the various townships, and neared the big city that was to be a major destination for them, Trixie’s responsibilities grew. As she became more trusted to be reliable and surprisingly competent, they treated her as more than a filly with nothing to her name other than cutie mark and a horn. So it shouldn’t have surprised her, when Calamity Bill hoofed her a bag of marks, and a piece of paper. “You can carry goods, right?” he said in that cagey Bronco accent of his. “Go find whatever this town has for a tack and supply. There’s a treat in it for you, if you can get back before lunch.” So Trixie was more than happy to scurry around town, and find some pony who knew where the supply store was. She made sure to get things that she was sure would be invaluable to the circus’s wagon repairs, as well as this really impressive looking tool sash, that she thought Bill would really like. And she returned triumphantly before supper, to complete and utter failure. “Nails?!” he said, lifting the box out of her discarded saddlebags. “We got plenty of nails already. Those weren’t even on the list!” “List?” Trixie asked cluelessly. “Yeah, the list I gave you, with everything on it we need!” he stated in hot frustration. “You did at least get weather sealant, did ya?” “Um...maybe?” Trixie said embarassed, backing away slowly from his tirade over her triumphantly delivered saddlebags. “What the hay is all this stuff?” he asked in consternation, pulling his head out of her saddlebags and staring at her accusingly. “Did you even look at the list?” “Trixie doesn’t remember seeing any list,” she admitted abashedly. “Then what’s this right here?!” he shouted, pulling out the piece of paper that he had... given to her. “Oh, tha-a-a-at list,” Trixie said, with a broad smile. “Must have forgot about it. Trixie t-thought you would tell somepony, if you needed anything.” “Then why would I have given ya a list?” he asked, looking at her strangely. Trixie continued to smile, but felt her ears starting to wilt. This was just like when anyfoal at the orphanage found out, in the rare opportunities they had to do so. How was Trixie going to get out of this one now? “Just go get yer supper,” he said, tossing the list over his shoulder and waving her off with a hoof. “I’ll see what I can do with this... stuff.” Well, it looks like Trixie didn’t have to get out of this one! She wasn’t the most receptive to questioning in her mood at the time, and he also needed a good amount of time himself to think on the subject. So he didn’t interrogate her, nor did Trixie reject his offer of reprieve. She was quite willing to canter off to the fire pit, to see what sort of goodies over there might include tasty food, and not dreadfully embarassing innocent looking pieces of paper. Trixie wasn’t out of hot water yet, though. Bill never bothered her again, but another evening, another stagehoof by the name of Mary Contrary came bothering after her out of the blue. “Hey yo Trixie, get ya tail over to my trailer,” Mary said, and to Trixie’s grave embarassment, she was unaware that Mary was a more educated mare than she was. In fact, Trixie didn’t know that Mary had quite a collection of books she had picked up from here and there, mostly memoirs that townsponies were vainly trying to publish, or travel guides. Lots of travel guides. It may have been a casual hobby of hers, but it did put her in a good position to clomp her yellow furred butt into her little wagon, while Trixie waited outside uncertainly, and then stick her orange maned head out of her little wagon. Grasped skillfully in Mary’s teeth something that made Trixie shrink back in revulsion. A book. Mary spat the book onto her hoof saying, “Here ya go, don’t be shy. Bill was tellin’ me you might have learnin’ problems. I wanna see how far you are, before we look into trying to teach ya.” Trixie didn’t think Mary had a malicious bone in her body, so she took the book warily, asking, “And what is Trixie supposed to do with this?” Mary blinked at her, then exclaimed, “What else are ya gonna do with a book? Go on, let’s see what you got!” Trixie still hesitated. Mary couldn’t be serious. It was so humiliating! Why would ponies care if Trixie could do... that?! “Didn’t they teach you anything at that orphanage?” Mary inquired with a raised eyebrow. “Fine,” Trixie sighed in defeat. “But Trixie doesn’t see why this is so important.” Trixie lifted the book up in her hoof, and carefully nestled it behind her horn, balancing it on her head. Then she brought her fourth hoof down, and stood there, looking at Mary with piercing eyes, uncertainly but also confidently. Now let’s see what Mary thought of her. Trixie could keep this up all day! Mary was clearly impressed. Trixie would even go so far to say that she was staring in speechless amazement at Trixie’s mastery of book balancery. “I meant ya should read it!” Mary exclaimed loudly, as if that was obvious or something. “They taught Trixie how to balance them, not how to read them!” Trixie protested, sitting on her haunches and crossing her hooves. Still not losing the book, of course. “Ya killin’ me, filly!” Mary said in genuine distress. “Ain’t you even know ya ABCs?” Trixie looked aside, mumbling, “Maybe some of them. Why does it matter?” Mary was totally flustered at that point. She opened the door to her wagon, stuttering out, “Look just c-c’mon in and show me what ya... what ya know so far.” Trixie ended up having to mouthwrite what letters she knew, because that’s how she was taught to write them, so that was the easiest method for her to remember. Her clumsy scrawl might have been mostly legible at the age of 5, but after so many years without practice, Trixie was at a loss to remember just about anything of that obscure “letters” thing that her parents had taught her. “Oh!” Trixie said in sudden revelation. “I learned to write my name. Watch me!” Then she grabbed the pencil and got to work. Then... The first letter was easy, two broad strokes, an easy and simple symbol. Trixie kind of... blanked at what the shapes of the other peculiar runes were though. She remembered the first one, and the second one was kind of... humpy. But after that, Trixie was just going by visual memory for the most part. A very old visual memory, from a very young age. The rest of her name turned out to not even be letters, just scribbly gibberish. Her own name, stolen from her by that thief called time. And so, from that day forth Trixie Lulamoon was known as Trlmzo. Eventually Trixie’s determination gave way to hot tears landing on the paper she was trying to write on. She allowed herself to give up then; she just dropped the pencil and cried. There really was no point to continue. It was obvious that Trixie couldn’t figure out something that the other foals seemed to understand so easily, so naturally. Trixie refused to study it for a long time henceforth, in fact, on that very argument. Surely if it were even possible for her to learn to read, then Trixie would have picked up on it already. It was one of those remarkably poor arguments, that anyone who could read would have learned better than to try using in the face of a determined adult pony. Trixie herself was surprised to find it wasn’t quite as ironclad an argument as she had thought it would be. Trixie found herself learning to read anyway, despite her best efforts to remain blissfully ignorant. It was the only way Trixie could get supplies, if the ponies asking refused to tell it to her plainly. No, instead they made a laborious effort to ensure that Trixie knew that this particular collection of shapes meant straps, and this particular collection meant nails, and they refused to tell her which list they were giving her. Some words were easier to remember, like saddle when you turn it upside down it looked like a saddle wrapped around a pony’s barrel, as seen from the side. And bed looks like a bed. Trixie learned the signatures of each performer, though that was paired with a colorful insignia of some sort, which apparantly was not considered part of a word. You certainly do not want to get out the banner for the tightrope walkers when you were searching for the one for D.W. the amazing stunt pony. So for better or worse, Trixie reluctantly learned a few words, and it was so terribly easy to do so, that Trixie began to doubt her own inability to learn. It wasn’t long before Mary had wheedled and cajoled Trixie into regular lessons, not lessons so much as a school teacher would assign, but quiet evenings where Mary had Trixie lay against the curve of her belly, and had Trixie attempt to read for her, correcting Trixie as she did, or offering her prompted suggestions, whenever Trixie got stuck on a word or passage. Trixie picked up reading quickly, for somepony who was completely illiterate. But even more potentious than the amazing freedom that literacy would bring, the ringmaster himself was teaching Trixie how to perform, and how to act. The ringmaster trained Trixie directly, not so much because he was the ringmaster, but because he was the more powerful of the two unicorns in their troupe. Sue was a lovely, plain, sensible mare, but her horn had never given her capabilities or problems beyond how to lift a wig, or whether a door was going to remain open or closed. For all the strangeness of the members of this troupe, many of them were a step removed from the other rejects hiding out in this valley. Sue was one of the ones who came of their own volition, without desperation or thrill guiding them, nor was she born into this sorry land. These circus ponies were not particularly welcomed in the heartland, but they were in no danger there, and had come out here not for sanctuary or adventure, but merely to help the ponies who most needed a little more brightness in their days. Most of them, at any rate. Thus, Sue was an ordinary unicorn, with no drama, or issues. And Hat Fancy appeared to be an ordinary unicorn, with no drama, or issues. No others in the troupe were unicorn born. Exposure and time among those who struggle and feud has a way of changing a pony, even a mere spectator of this mess. But these two weathered it well, one better than the other, and as such, they would be Trixie’s first experience with normal unicorns. You know, that is to say, unicorns who don’t rely on evil deathly sleep spells.