Trixie and Maud: Heart of Stone

by TheCrimsonDM

chapter One Hundred and Nineteen: Pink for Dinner

“You come here at least once a month to visit her,” The nurse said quietly.

The door to the small room opened up and two mares walked through, though Trixie didn’t see who it was. She was staring blankly at the wall in front of her. The hillside painted on the wall was friendly, and the green carpeted floor reminded her of grass. The blue ceiling was dotted with white happy clouds. The window next to her allowed the sun’s warm rays to shine through.

“I heard about what happened from a friend of mine… I… she used to mean something to me,” the mare replied. She sounded familiar but Trixie couldn’t place who it was. “Can I ask how she’s recovering?”

“It’s been slow progress, at least she’s responding to her name now. Your visits have done a lot to help her get better,” the nurse replied sadly. Trixie wasn’t sure why the nurse was sad, but she heard her name being said and that made her happy.

Trixie turned her head to see the nurse standing next to a white mare that had a really long orange mane. There was a picture of a candle on her flanks. It was just like Trixie’s picture. Only Trixie’s was a picture of a magic wand. The mare looked familiar, only she couldn’t place her.

“Hello, Trixie,” the mare said politely.

Ponies were always so nice to Trixie. It made her feel good. Trixie smiled.

“How are feeling?” the mare asked.

Trixie stared at her for a moment, then blinked.

“She still doesn’t talk very much, Doctor Timequill does a lot of work with a unicorn who specializes in mind magic so that’s how we have pieced together most of her story. She smiles a lot though,” The nurse replied. Trixie liked the nurse, the nurse had pink fur.

“Do you mind if we have a little privacy?” The mare asked.

The nurse shook her head and left quietly. The door was left open behind her. It was always open when there were visitors.

“So, Trixie,” the mare said. Trixie smiled again. “I have some great news to tell you; I fell in love. Do you remember Moondancer? Well it turns out that she’s got her own office, she’s a doctor now.”

Trixie blinked.

“No, she’s not one of your doctors… she’s up… er down in Canterlot. She uses magic to heal ponies,” the mare said.

Trixie liked magic.

“I… well we met up and uh, started talking, then more than talking… so I guess we’re sort of a thing now. We’ve dated a few times and it’s been really nice. She’s one of the few ponies who don’t care about my… scar. She still thinks I’m beautiful,” the mare said.

Trixie saw the scar on the mare’s forehead. It was almost star shaped. It looked like it hurt.

“You know I might not be able to visit here again for awhile. That friend I mentioned to you, she’s in a group called The Seekers of Truth. I’m getting to join, but it requires some intense training. I’m going to be very busy for a few months, and I’m not exactly supposed to leave while I’m being trained… I promise I’ll come to visit you when I’m free,” the mare said.

The mare frowned, and her eyes looked sad. “Trixie, do you understand what I’m saying?” she was quiet for a moment. She looked away. “I guess not… they said you had amnesia, and possible brain damage or something… I guess when that monster hurt you, it did a lot of damage. Or maybe it’s all the other stuff that happened to you. I’m sorry that you had to go through so much.”

Trixie didn’t like seeing her sad. So she reached out with a hoof and gently pushed it against the mare’s forehead. For a moment the mare stared at her. It was difficult, Trixie had to think really, really hard. She remembered how words worked at long last. “S-sorry.”

Tears flowed out of the mare’s eyes. She grabbed Trixie’s hoof and held it to her chest. She was soft. “Trixie, it’s okay. I… I…” She sniffled. “I forgive you.”

Trixie smiled. That made her happy. She wasn’t sure why.

The nurse appeared in the doorway. “Miss, you didn’t sign you name on the sheet. I don’t mean to bother you, so I’ll just sign it for you. You’re name is Candle Light, right?”

The mare nodded. “Y-yeah.” She choked. “I… thank you.”

The nurse shook her head. “She smiles for you and Timequill more than anypony else. I don’t mind helping you out a bit if I can.”

Candle Light looked back at the nurse. “She doesn’t smile for others?”

“Only when she hears her name. Most of the time I don’t think she’s… here. When you two are around though, she makes an effort to communicate,” The nurse said.

“Will she get better?” Candle Light asked. Her voice was really sad.

“We can only hope. Even if she comes back, she’ll never be… wholly there though,” The nurse said.

Candle Light shook a little. “I’ve been here before. It took years of therapy before I came out of my shell. I have faith that she can recover… I have too.”

The nurse nodded.

Trixie shot out of bed so quickly that she gave herself whiplash and cringed at the pain. The bedroom was dark, but even with the faint light of the moon shining through the curtains she could see Maud and Valiant next to her. Her thoughts however drifted back to the dream, or memory that she had.

Candle Light came to me when I was broken… she… forgave me. She cared enough to visit, several times, and talk to me. I barely remember any of it. What I can remember still feels like a dream. I just can’t believe that after what I did to her, she came to visit me.

It looked like sleep was off the table. Trixie shuffled out of bed, looked at the clock. It told her that it was two thirty in the morning. It was only four and a half hours before she usually got up anyway, so she shuffled out the door to take care of morning business and made coffee. If she was lucky there would be leftover’s from last night’s dinner. Even if Pinkie Pie had yet to join them for dinner again, after Maud’s explosion the month before, Trixie still set out a plate for her. She couldn’t help but feel that Pinkie needed to be there.

Between the gala which was just around the corner, the memory she had regained, and her thoughts being drawn to the issues of the war. Trixie found it difficult to focus on her coffee, so she did what anypony would in this circumstance. She drank the coffee faster and found the little wooden box containing her medicine.

Even if Maud did prefer to have prior knowledge before Trixie took her medication, and for good reason, Trixie wasn’t exactly beholden to any rules. When stressed out about things she couldn’t change, it helped her relax a great deal. Too bad it made the entire house smell like a skunk.

While she smoked, drank more coffee, and eat some breakfast, some breakfast being half a pot of soup and a loaf of bread, she pondered the situation. Twilight was still upset with Spike and had yet to forgive him. Pinkie Pie had refused to come back to the family dinners, and spent far less time at the house than Trixie liked.

She couldn’t help but to glance at one of the empty bedrooms. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had imagined what it would have been like to have Pinkie Pie living with them. She specifically saved one of the empty rooms as a guest room, and on occasion Applejack and Pinkie Pie had stayed in it. She wanted to have Pinkie Pie move in… though that might have been unfair to her. Pinkie Pie had a huge loft, her own bathroom, kitchen, and apparently some secret basements or something.

“I couldn’t ask her to move into a tiny bedroom, just because I like having her around,” Trixie said to herself quietly. “I’ve never really had a sister before… maybe I’m just being selfish.”

“No you’re not,” Maud said.

Trixie looked up and watched Maud take a seat next to her. She held her hoof out. Trixie stared at her hoof, looked up into Maud’s eyes and then back down at her hoof. “OH!”

Trixie quickly hoofed the pipe to Maud and gave a tiny laugh. “Sorry, I’m just trying to figure things out.”

Maud put the pipe in her mouth. “This doesn’t help you think.”

“No but it makes me stop worrying so much,” Trixie looked down at the pot in front of her. She stuck her muzzle into it and ate greedily.

“That’s,” Maud said. She exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. “Gross. Get your muzzle out of there.”

Trixie pulled away, food clung to her fur in messy clumps.

“Get a rag and cle-“ Maud began.

Trixie’s tongue whipped out, and cleanly wiped off the food from muzzle in one circular motion. A moment later she pulled a blue hair out of her mouth. Messy, but delicious.

“I knew you could do things with your tongue,” Maud said with a sly smile. “But that’s just amazing.”

“I have a long tongue?” Trixie suggested.

Maud let out another blue smoky breath. “Kid’s asleep. Bathroom’s empty. I’m hot, and you have a long tongue.”

“Trixie can do this,” Trixie said with an even bigger grin.

The next hour or so was spent in the restroom, doors closed with a towel pressed up tightly to the bottom seem of the door. By the time they were done, the bathroom was filled with so much smoke that they couldn’t see two feet in front of them. Although that hardly mattered, because two writhing bodies only needed touch to experience pure ecstasy.

Later on, despite the cold, they had to open up the window in the bathroom. It was a good thing that Valiant slept for another couple of hours, because she would have wound up taking care of Trixie and Maud. Or just being upset that they somehow made their way into the living room, only to roll around on the couch in much the same manner as they had on the bathroom floor.

Only it was a lot softer.

When that was done, they cuddled and fell asleep. Only to wake up a half hour later to one of Trixie’s worst fears; Valiant stood behind them with a mop in one hoof, and her whiteboard in the others.

Before Trixie could open her mouth, Valiant shoved the mop into her chest. Trixie fiddled with the mob before grabbing it. The filly jerked her head toward the hall and the bathroom that was open. It slowly but surely dawned on her.

“Oh… we uh… we left a mess in there didn’t we?” Trixie asked.

Valiant nodded, turned tail and trotted away. She flicked her tail in annoyance before getting to the fridge. Trixie watched as the filly opened the fridge, climbed up some of the shelves to reach the top shelf and grabbed Trixie’s slice of chocolate cake.

“H-hey,” Trixie complained as she rolled out of bed and hit the floor. Ow.

With a bit of effort she pushed herself up off the floor and trotted to the table where Valiant was already eating the cake. Trixie growled. Then she saw the whiteboard and the blood drained from her face.

That’s when Trixie noticed that the filly’s side was damp, as though it had recently washed herself. Trixie couldn’t help but to feel utterly disgusting and guilty. With mop in hoof, and head lowered she walked to the bathroom to clean up. She looked back only long enough to see Valiant slowly licking the icing off the top of it with her eyes closed and an evil grin.

“S-sorry,” Trixie said.

Valiant did the mature thing, and took a bite of the cake before doing her best impersonation of one of Trixie’s sensual moans.

Without another word, Trixie went into the bathroom and got to work mopping the floor. It wasn’t nearly as bad as Valiant made it out to be, but it was still gross. They had accidently left a number of… incriminating things in the bathroom as well.

The whole time Trixie worked on cleaning, she could only try her best to ignore the way Valiant chose to make fun of her. It didn’t work, but she tired her darndest. Eventually she was done cleaning, washed her hooves, and made her way back into the kitchen. Maud was still asleep, Trixie could see her on the couch with her legs flopped over the side.

Then why was Valiant looking more upset than she had before?

“Hey, Val… uh, I’m really sorry about that. I know we discussed it, and it was wrong of me…” Trixie said in an attempt to apologize.

Valiant was ignoring her and staring at the corner. She’d taken her eye patch off at some point and was scowling at something. With her mouth covered in chocolate cake, she ended up getting crumbs all over her whiteboard as she wrote a message and showed it to the empty wall. Trixie blinked and walked around to read it.

Trixie looked at the empty wall, and then back to Valiant. “Um… who are you writing to?”

Valiant erased the board, and wrote something new before showing it to Trixie.

Trixie blinked, sat down and thought for a moment. Valiant replaced her eye patch and began licking the plate clean. She just had to rub it in. It occurred to Trixie though, that Valiant was about six years old, and seemed to have a decent imagination. Maud had already mentioned that the filly had an imaginary friend named Rubble.

“Oh, was that Rubble?” Trixie asked.

Valiant wrote something else.

“Okay, well uh, you both have a point,” Trixie said.

That remark received a glare from the filly that told Trixie that she was wrong for even suggesting that Valiant wasn’t one hundred percent correct. So Trixie tried to explain, “When two ponies love each other, they do what me and Maud do. Yes, it’s… a bit gross when you think about it logically. And leaving a mess behind is actually really gross, and I’m sorry about that. At the same time it is sweet, it’s actually really-“

“SHHHH!” Valiant shushed her with a hoof over her lips. She wrote something on the board.

Trixie let out a sigh of defeat. There was no arguing with Valiant, ever. This filly should go into politics, she’d never lose a debate. Trixie shrugged, went back to Maud, cuddled in and tried to back to sleep. Valiant jumped onto the couch, found her place in between the two of them and rubbed her dirty face off all over Maud’s hair. Snorted, and then closed her eyes. She was asleep before too long. After that, Trixie joined her in the wonderful land of sleep.

Once the day got started it became very much official. It was going to be another one of those days. First she and Maud had a very interesting conversation about possibly starting Valiant into school soon. It was left undecided for now, but Trixie had the feeling Maud would bring it up again.

Trixie also found herself increasingly bothered by the fact that Pinkie wasn’t coming over for dinner. Sure Maud exploded on her that one time, but that was a while back. Pinkie couldn’t seriously be upset still. Could she?

Thankfully with Valiant having eaten the final piece of chocolate cake, Trixie had a very good reason to visit Sugarcube Corner that day. Only an hour or so after the little store opened Trixie made her way into it. Magician’s cloak and hat on, she walked in with style and grace. Until she saw Candle Light sitting at one of the tables talking to Pinkie Pie.

For one very long moment Trixie stood still, her mouth hung open, and her eyes unblinking. What were they talking about? Was it something about Twilight? Or worse yet about Trixie?

Trixie blew a breath of hot air, and shook her mane, and steeled herself. She trotted over to the table. When Candle Light smiled at her, Trixie’s heart rose. Then she saw the scar left on the mare’s forehead and was reminded forcefully of how she had gotten her friend hurt, more than that, she ruined her. Whatever smile Trixie could have been wearing died before she even reached the table.

“Candle Light, Pinkie Pie,” Trixie said.

“Good morning,” Candle Light said kindly.

“Morning, sis,” Pinkie Pie said. She frowned in concentration for a moment before grinning from ear to ear. “OH! You’re here for cake! Okay, I’ll be right back.”

“Wa-“ Trixie called out, but the pink pony had already galloped into the kitchen. “-it…” Trixie finished lamely.

“She’s quite energetic isn’t she? Reminds me of Lyra,” Candle Light said.

“Yeah but Lyra isn’t that smart,” Trixie said as she took a seat. “The other day I saw Pinkie flying around town with some kind of propeller hat. Somepony was hanging off of her legs and throwing cake at the ponies below.”

“Um… what?” Candle Light asked.

“I don’t know, I didn’t ask. On days like that, I go back inside and spend the rest of the day pretending to the best of my ability that we live in normal lives, inside a normal town, full of normal ponies,” Trixie said.

There was silence for a moment.

“Can I ask you something?” Trixie said.

“Sure.”

“I…” Trixie tried to speak, to find the words she wanted, but it was hard. She should have been able to do this, to talk about this. Reliving an old memory from the time she was a broken mess was difficult to accept, harder still to talk about. If she couldn’t talk about it, the great and powerful Trixie probably could. “Why did you visit Trixie when she was in the hospital?”

Candle Light stared at her for a moment, her eyes serious and her lips pursed. “I’m not sure what you mean. I wasn’t here after you defeated the ursa minor, so I couldn’t visit you.”

“Trixie means when you visited her after she tried to commit sui- er when she was nearly slain by the dreaded ursa major. Trixie was a broken mess, why did you visit her?” Trixie asked.

Candle Light let out a sigh. “I was hoping you wouldn’t remember. At first I was just worried you were going to die, and I wanted to at least say good bye. When I got there it was even worse. You were healing well from the injuries but you were… somepony called you a vegetable. I don’t like that term but it was… it wasn’t you. It was just a body.”

Trixie had to look away, she couldn’t face Candle Light while she spoke. “Then why did you come back?”

“Because in that first visit when I sat next to you, and I stroked your hoof, you smiled,” Candle Light said. “The doctors told me that you had never shown any emotion, but you smiled for me… Trixie, you smiled for me. I helped you smile. I brought you out of that horrible place you were in. Even if it was just a little bit, I wanted nothing more than to see you get better.”

“I can’t remember any of that,” Trixie said. “I mean I had a dream last night, where you came to visit me and I apologized about your scar. You cried and forgave me. But at the time I didn’t understand why.”

“You remember that?” Candle Light asked, clearly taken aback. “That should be impossible, the doctors said that even if you… if you came back you were going to be different. Things like that should be impossible to remember, right?”

“I don’t know,” Trixie admitted. “But you helped me when I was in trouble. For that I thank you.”

Candle shook her head. “I was there before, and somepony came to visit me. At the time I didn’t know it, but it turns out that Moondancer came to visit me quite a lot. When I finally pulled myself out of that dark place, Moondancer was there by my side and taking care of me. It meant the world to me. I just wanted to do the same for you.”

Things were quiet for a moment before she asked. “How did you get better though? It should have been impossible for you to heal from that entirely.”

“Lots of physical exercise, hiking and stuff with Maud while we collected geologic samples. There was also… uh… this moment I had when I first came back to being me,” Trixie said. She looked around and lowered her voice. “I saw myself. I spoke with myself, and she told me what I could become and only what I had to do to achieve it.”

“Really?” Candle Light asked.

“Yeah, you see she was an alicorn, and she had this light blue crown that only stood out a few shades from her fur. She was so kind, and gentle, and humble. It was strange. She said that she had healed me, as best she could, but that she wasn’t particularly skilled in healing magic, or something. Also she mentioned how I was surrounded by darkness, the dark choices of my past, the things that had influenced me, and stuff… she told me that I could rise above it,” Trixie said.

“That’s… crazy,” Candle Light said.

“I actually asked her how she became an alicorn. She told me some cryptic nonsense and smiled at me. She vanished after that, and the nurses came running in, they looked like they had seen a ghost when they saw me sitting up, talking, and quite alert,” Trixie said. “I think that my subconscious was telling me how I should live my life. I’ve tried, but it’s hard.”

“You’ve never told anypony about this?” She asked.

Trixie shook her head. “Of course not. I was already a prisoner inside a mental hospital, I wasn’t going to start talking about hallucinations of me being an alicorn.”

Candle Light frowned, put a hoof to her chin and stayed silent.

A pink face leaned over in front of her and caught her attention. Pinkie Pie sat next to the table with a silly grin. “Was she the princess of humility by any chance?”

Trixie opened her mouth and not much more. How did she know what my alicorn hallucination called herself?

“Becauuuuuse, if she was,” Pinkie Pie said with a wink. “Maybe there was more to it than you think? Candle Light, did you ever meet a different version of yourself?”

The mare’s white face went pale as she stared at Pinkie Pie. “O-of course not. That would be… insane.”

“Not if it was when our universe nearly collided with another one,” Pinkie Pie said. “What did you see?”

“I…” Candle Light shook her head. “If something like that ever did happen to me, and I am not saying that it has… then I would have seen a dangerously powerful unicorn, one who burned all things in her wake. Obsessed with fire and destruction...”

“Hmm, it would seem that your alternate self is evil. Sad, mine is too… well okay, mine is actually just really sad, but she’s also really dangerous,” Pinkie Pie said. “I didn’t get to meet her, but I did see the reports of our other world selves. Hoo boy, if me and my friends ever went to the dark side, we’d be nationwide terrorist of the most extreme level.”

Trixie stared at Pinkie Pie. She was talking about other worlds, different universes, and alternate selves. Honestly, Pinkie Pie sounded completely nuts. But she was a close friend of Twilight’s and so that sort of thing might not be too out of the question. Trixie shook the insanity out of her head. Multiple universes were just too much to deal with.

“Pinkie Pie,” Trixie said. “As punishment for listening in on our conversation, and for making Trixie feel confused, you are hereby sentenced to having dinner with Trixie’s family tonight.”

Pinkie Pie opened her mouth, stopped, then spoke. “If it’s a royal punishment I can’t exactly say no… Alright, I’ll… um… I’ll go. Just make sure Maud knows way ahead of time, like, go home and tell her that I’m joining tonight… okay?”

“O-“ Trixie started.

“And I’m inviting Fluttershy,” Pinkie Pie interrupted.

That took the words out of Trixie’s mouth. Pinkie Pie smiled and trotted away. “I’ll bring something delish to eat too. It’ll be a feast.”

Candle Light coughed nervously. “I take it that this was not exactly what you had planned?”

Trixie shook her head. “There might be some fireworks… Fluttershy’s not entirely welcomed in our home…”

“She seems kind, and afraid, surely she’s not-“ Candle Light started.

“Fluttershy nearly killed me after I slayed what she thought was a defenseless ursa minor,” Trixie said. “And now she’s coming to dinner.”

“I can’t believe this,” Maud said, bitter resentment tinted her voice. “You actually agreed to this?”

“I wasn’t given much of a choice, but seeing as how Fluttershy and Pinkie have been… close for a couple of months, we are going to have to be friends with her,” Trixie said. She didn’t hate Fluttershy, even after the savage beating she endured; she just couldn’t bring herself to hate her. But hate is not the same thing as fear.

They stood at the front door, dinner was already finished, and Valiant Heart was sitting at the table on a luckily acquired booster seat and drawing with crayons. Trixie dared to say that it almost looked like the picture of a cat… if cats were shaped like beans and had only two legs… and were purple with red stripes.

“I don’t want her in my house or near my wife, or my child,” Maud said in a quiet voice so that Valiant wouldn’t hear.

“I know, but Pinkie really wants us to try and be friends. Don’t you think it’s worth it for your sister? I mean what are you going to do if they get married?” Trixie asked.

Maud didn’t reply.

There was a quiet knock on the other side of the door not a moment later. Trixie hopped forward and grabbed the handle with her magic. The door swung open and revealed Pinkie Pie looking happier than ever, and Fluttershy standing next to her with her head hung so low that she actually appeared shorter then Pinkie Pie.

“Hiya, Trixie, Maud,” Pinkie Pie said. She giggled a little. “This is going to be so much fun!”

“Hello, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy,” Trixie said as she stepped away from the door. “Please come in and take a seat. Dinner will be served shortly.”

The couple entered and took their seats at the table. Valiant Heart looked up from her drawing saw Pinkie Pie and showed the picture off to her, pride glistening in her eyes. Pinkie Pie whistled. Fluttershy made a ‘daww’ sound.

“That’s a cute whatever it is,” Pinkie Pie said.

Valiant frowned at her.

“It’s a kitty,” Fluttershy said. “And it’s a wonderful kitty. I have a few drawings like that framed and hung above my bed.”

“Yeah you do,” Pinkie Pie said. “That’s weird.”

“It’s not weird, the pony that drew them for me is very sweet and I wanted to be able to remember them always,” Fluttershy said, in the kind of tone a parent would use to explain something to their child.

Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. “Like I said. W-e-i-red.”

Trixie shut and locked the door before going to take a seat at the table. Maud had already begun to set some kind of casserole on the table, along with a large bowl of steamed veggies. Which must have been what made Pinkie Pie pull a pan of cornbread out of… Trixie pretended that it was there the whole time and she simply didn’t see it. She was getting good at pretending reality still functioned whenever Pinkie Pie was around.

“You made cornbread?” Maud asked.

Fluttershy looked away from the table, but Pinkie Pie smiled wider and said, “Yeppers.”

Maud gave her a flat look that could have meant anything from disbelief to disapproval. Somehow Trixie felt like it wasn’t a good look whatever the case was. A couple of minutes passed as Maud got some of the food on everyponies plates and they sat down together. The silence went on for some time.

“So…” Pinkie Pie said, looking down at her plate. “Thanks for inviting us to dinner. Right, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy was shaking ever so slightly. “Y-yes, t-thank you for allowing me into your home.”

It was hard for Trixie to feel anything but sympathy for Fluttershy as she watched how nervous and scared she was. Clearly Fluttershy didn’t want to intrude on Trixie’s home anymore than Maud wanted her there. Pinkie Pie was setting this up, and likely just hoping that it would all work out.

Valiant gave out an impatient huff and began eating. She must have gotten sick of everypony acting weird. Trixie agreed and took a bite out of the cornbread. It was actually a lot better than she would have expected, the little bits of corn baked inside of it gave it a wonderful texture and suddenly she found herself eating all of it before she even thought about the casserole.

Fluttershy was squirming and looking quite out of place.

“It’s okay, Flutterpoo,” Pinkie Pie said gently.

Fluttershy nodded, closed her eyes and said something so quietly that Trixie couldn’t hear it. Then she looked at the food and took a bite of the casserole, apparently she had much the same reaction to it as Trixie had to the cornbread. Because she was eating it none stop. Trixie half expected Fluttershy to face plant into her plate like she had the last time there was a large gathering of ponies for dinner. This time she was actually quite modest about how she ate, even if she was eating quite a bit.

“So me and Fluttershy have been having dinner together, like, a lot,” Pinkie Pie said. “And uh, that’s one of the reasons I haven’t been around much. Sorry about that.”

Maud eyed Pinkie Pie, and then took a drink from her glass of wine. “Are you upset about how I treated you?”

Pinkie Pie looked away. “You were right, I wasn’t doing a very good job and Trixie got hurt because of me. I… I understand that now.”

“I still want you here with us,” Maud said. “You’re my little sister.”

Pinkie Pie smiled at that and met Maud’s eyes. “Thanks.”

Maud looked over at Fluttershy, who had all but stopped eating and was watching the two with wide eyes. A tiny breathless sigh escaped Maud’s lips. “Fluttershy, if you want to join us for dinner again… so long as you’re with Pinkie Pie, you’ll be welcomed.”

“T-thank you,” Fluttershy said. She looked near Trixie, but not exactly at Trixie. “I’m really sorry about everything I’ve done. After what happened Pinkie’s convinced me to go and see a therapist about my… issues.”

“That sounds good, how’s that going?” Trixie asked quietly.

“G-good. I um, I learned that I have a few poisonous relationships that I needed to… remove. It hurt but I had to… break off one of my friendships,” Fluttershy said, there was a quiet weight to her words.

Trixie sat up straight. “Who was it?”

Fluttershy met Trixie’s eyes. “Discord.”

That made Trixie gulp. The spirit of chaos was likely to take that news very poorly. “What happened?”

“He agreed, told me that my friendship was most certainly cramping his style and then he put on a leather jacket and rode off into the sunset on this… metal thing with wheels. I was very confused,” Fluttershy said honestly. “He hasn’t bothered me since then.”

Trixie nodded.

“Well with all the things he’s done, I can’t believe it took you this long,” Pinkie Pie said carelessly. She froze, looked around wildly and cleared her throat. “Oops, I didn’t mean to say that one out loud. I uh… I just mean he’s sort of a…”

“Big dumb meanie head?” Fluttershy suggested.

“Yeah, and he also hates Twilight’s guts,” Pinkie Pie said.

“That’s only because she’s an arrogant little-“ Fluttershy cut herself off looked down and said. “I mean, he says ‘it’s only because she’s an arrogant little princess’. Those weren’t my words.”

Well, Trixie thought, at least somepony agrees with me. Too bad it has to be Discord.

“This wasn’t too bad,” Pinkie Pie said. “It’s actually kinda nice getting together like this, right?”

Maud nodded slightly. Both Fluttershy and Trixie agreed with the statement. Valiant wasn’t paying attention, at some point she had found a book and was reading while taking occasional bites of her food. It was all sorts of awkward, but it was nice. Maybe after enough dinners together, the awkwardness would leave, and it would just be nice.

The rest of the night went as smoothly as could be expected, complete with genuine thanks for coming over, and kind farewells. This left Trixie to wash dishes while Maud explained to Valiant that even if it was boring at the table, reading a book and ignoring ponies was rude. Valiant continued reading. Despite how many times they’d explained it Valiant, Maud just didn’t have the heart to actually enforce any rules. For that matter, neither did Trixie.