“Um… are you sure you’re feeling okay, Ditzy…?”
How strange. The sun deep in the sky, the young mare and pegasus nigh arriving at Rusty Oaks Dormitories, a pungent silence so long between them until it was the delinquent young punk who uttered a phrase of compassion. Much against the expectation. Amethyst Star’s voice had evolved from worry, and so, too had her gaze as it probed beneath Miss Doo’s bangs in an attempt to make a connection.
“Hmm!?” Miss Doo perked up. “I… I’m fine, I’m not really sure what you’re talking about, honestly!”
Amethyst Star gave a look of disbelief after that, but reserved her glare for another time.
Only Amy and Miss Doo’s hoofbeats were heard on the stones. Most of the fair’s patrons had either gone home or were still at the Competition for the announcement of the winners. Still, it was getting late. As much had been the reason Miss Doo gave for escorting Amy back to Rusty Oaks early.
Amy stopped in her tracks. “Ditzy…” she sighed.
“Hm? What is it?”
She hesitated. For somepony’s sake. “Rusty Oaks… is the other way.”
“O…o-o-oh! Sorry, I’m kind of an airhead… sometimes!” she returned rather disjointedly. Despite the apparent “cheer” in her voice, Miss Doo’s head was hanging lower than usual. Instead of buzzing to and fro as would a honey bee, she had been rather flat in an attempt to keep focus. Perhaps this is why she was getting lost so easily.
“Ditzy I can make it back by myself, if you want…”
She sputtered “I… oh… but… are you sure? What if you get in trouble, aren’t you worried?”
“I get in trouble all the time. It’s… it’s no big deal.”
“Oh… okay.”
There was a beat of an awkward goodbye.
"Guess I'll see you..." sighed the unicorn.
“Yeah, you, too…!”
Miss Doo turned quietly to leave, her face rising from sadness to shy determination.
Things were ending by the time Miss Doo managed to find her way back to the Competition. Lost, no doubt, flying in circles as she had been. Now, Miss Doo was making her tumbling descent towards the slowly thinning parade of ponies making their way from the Competition to their homes, afterparties, or other elsewheres. She found Trixie. When she landed, (with an excess of her usual shakiness), the showmare’s ears perked up under her hat. She was holding a gleaming object.
“Miss Doo!” Trixie beamed, showing off her small trophy. “Behold; Trixie has won third place! Huzzah~!” She sparkled. “She was not even trying to make waves in this contest, only to build publicity for her upcoming show. And, and, Miss Doo…!” Trixie put away her prize and happily bounced to the tip of her hooves. “The Great and Powerful Trixie was approached after the Competition by one of the most influential ponies in Canterlot! She now has yet another show booked for the future! This time, among the ranks of Canterlot’s infamous high elite! Sensation has never been closer! By year’s end, Miss Doo, Trixie will no longer be eating from a cobbled cart, but a… probably a cart still, but it will be shiny and much more high-end. Regardless, Trixie is scaling up in the world; where have you been with her scribe? She has been needing it dearly!”
Miss Doo shied for a moment. “Oh, um, I’m sorry, I, um… I took Amy home. It’s getting kind of late, you know…?”
“Oh. Well… that’s all good then, she supposes. A young foal like her needs to take responsibility. Her aside, Miss Doo, are you ready to finalize our trip to Canterlot? Perhaps we could celebrate Trixie’s great success! She knows a good doughnut shop that always stays plenty calm, even on nights like this.” Trixie smiled to herself, snapping her hoof. “Fantastic! It’s settled, then! Onward, Miss Doo, for greatness awaits.”
However, it would seem that her hooves had grown heavy. Miss Doo did not “onward”. She lent only a single hoofstep to the stone road. She paused, and took the scribe from her saddlebags. It was working, but she did not seem to notice, as she turned to a place that she had bookmarked earlier by folding over the corner of a page. Her eyes scanned it, or at least they tended to as usual. She undid the mark, which magically smoothed over. Much better. And now, she rose her gaze to the back of Trixie’s head again, with perhaps a bit of something else to be smoothed over.
“Trixie, did you cheat?” blurted the clumsy Miss Doo.
The showmare froze, lending a moment to silence aside from the few hoofbeats of passing ponies. “Well, I never…!” she began, spinning on her hooves. She scolded. “Give me that!” Her magic wriggled the scribe rudely from Miss Doo, leaving her a tad shaken. Trixie continued with a reading spell, quickly absorbing the day’s writings off of the scribe’s pages. Ha. It tickled. “This accursed manuscript…! Oh, how it malfunctions! Again, again it manages to record everything before her utterly stunning performance and does not a thing while Trixie wows her crowd! She swears!” Boof! She slammed the scribe shut. “It has one more chance to impress her, but after that she shall declare it defunct.”
Miss Doo struggled to press again, voice bubbling. “B-b-but did you cheat?”
“Come now, Miss Doo, a sorceress such as herself should never reveal her secrets, don’t you think? Trixie merely did what was necessary to put on a spectacular show,” she coyed, with a wink.
“But… but…” Miss Doo’s twisted mouth begged for her next answer, brow furrowing tightly. “That doesn’t mean that you didn’t break the rules! The scribe said that you cheated, but did you? All I can think of is that you used a fake piano or—“
“Heavens no! Her piano was horrendously out of tune, but she repaired it and learned the piece in time for the performance! Ha. Old thing. She has never played before. It had been lazing about in storage for quite awhile…”
“So you… you learned to play piano… and that whole song… in one day?”
“Well… yes. She did. She’d always been meaning to learn it, and she did so quite quickly. With the help of her Wizard record, of course. Though, it also featured the Twelve String Violins, so Trixie had to compensate for that, but she did so quite well, if she would say so herself! The violins were a bit tricky, but she managed to preserve the illusion, no?”
“Oh, so you… you cheated! You did use a recording!”
“Pah!" She waved off the accusation. "It makes no difference, Miss Doo, and it was impossible for anypony to notice. Frankly, it’s surprising her scribe did. But still, Trixie didn’t need to compete, just to—“
“But you got third place! You have somepony else’s trophy, Trixie!” Miss Doo pleaded, “Somepony worked really hard for a long time for that!”
“It doesn’t matter, Miss Doo!” the showmare spat. “It’s just a little meaningless contest between ponies with no talent! Do you really think they care how much work ponies put into their acts? That they know what it’s like to toil for time and time again on the fringes of stardom for a crowd of confused onlookers that don’t understand, let alone care? They wouldn’t recognize a magnificent miracle if it struck their flanks like lightning! Miss Doo, the common pony’s a fetid heap of foolishness!”
She stomped her hoof. “Well I’m a common pony!” she yelled, voice shaking. “I vouched for you, I believed in you, but… Amy, I guess, she was…” She shrank, her voice small and afraid of her own words. “I guess she was right, and you… I thought you were good, but… I mean, I guess that… if you do things like fight with ponies and cheat for no reason… you’re…” A tiny voice hiccuped. “Y-you… you’re a bully. A mean pony who thinks she’s better than everypony else…”
Miss Doo’s ears fell, and so too did her shoulders loosen, heavy with disappointment. It had been a long journey so far. Such an investment would harbor a certain quantity of wear. As the pegasus sighed, hoofbeats sounded from Trixie’s direction, the showmare softly approaching.
“Miss Doo.”
Trixie’s voice was rough. Rough like wind across desert sand. As hot, and as unforgiving. Crooked eyes meekly looked upward, only to find Trixie’s smoldering silhouette staring white-hot spikes down her nose at the little pony beneath them. The showmare’s brow was taught. Nostrils flared. Teeth showed, grit through a scowl. Such was the might of the Great and Powerful.
“Trixie… is better than everypony else.”
Those words of silver, spoken as if no words could be more true. They carried that weight, immane as a planet from the sky to crush the ponies of Equestria. And Trixie was the highest of them all.
“She can fight off thugs, learn music in a single day, defeat that crude, overpowered earth pony with no effort at all and achieve an Omega of six five eight…! She…! She’s amazing, sensational! She’s magical, Miss Doo! And nopony else in Equestria even knows what that means! Nopony!”
Her voice lost traction at the last of her syllables. Like a plume of steam.
“You! You, you’ve… You’ve betrayed her, Miss Doo! Just like everypony else! I never want to see you again!”
Her cape thundered like a storm as she turned around, leaving Miss Doo to cower, crestfallen. Not once did Trixie turn back as the mares parted ways. Slowly was the distance between them made real, never to be closed again. It grew like a shadow in sunset. And soon night would fall, leaving the two heroines alone. They got further and further apart, sight of the other beginning to strain. Apart, at never to be...?
What…?
Wait, no! No! This is no good! This is no good at all!
The scribe, hovering as it had been behind Trixie, flickered and failed to move forward, eventually coming to a stop. Small magical sparks singed from its quill as it struggled to slow down.
Trixie soon took notice, dark eyes revolving in her head to glare at the finicky book. “Again!?” she seethed. “Wretched book; Trixie is your master! Come here this instant!”
Miss Doo looked up, eyes still moist. Though they carried curiosity rather than fear. The scribe still did not budge from its place.
“I said…” she bellowed, gusts bursting through her cape. She increased her Omega beyond precedence, until a spot at the back of her eyes began to glow. And lastly, her teeth ground, tightly, to force her words through a serrated sieve. “COME. HERE. THIS INSTANT!”
The scribe was immediately flooded in Trixie’s aura, sparks flying with its blinding magenta. Embers of magic burned to the floor. Perhaps unbeknownst to her, the Meta was misaligned. Her spell was ineffective, likely due to the distress in her psyche. Of course, this only meant that she had to push even harder.
And she did. It hurt. There was pain in Miss Doo’s eyes as she watched the scribe struggle against Trixie. There was pain in Trixie’s eyes as her magic multiplied its intensity beyond the safety of three zero zero. And the scribe, though its consciousness was theoretical at best, was for all intents and purposes tortured as pages tore from its binding. They tore. A sound not unlike hooves grinding on stone. Leaves plucked from its spine in a violent flurry of magic, mana flowed from control as the last of its awareness drif
“What happened? It just cuts off.”
“…”
“Care to explain?”
“…Sometimes, good stallion, unfortunate events occur and time must be taken to examine what remains.”