Trixie Has A Problem

by Navi

Chapter 4

“Would ya quit ya bellyachin’? And stop clamberin’ all over the place, I got those rags offa ya back at that treehouse, so ya’ve no excuse to be blunderin’ about!” the man yelled as he tugged Trixie along by a thick, tight rope wrapped around and digging into her snout. She thrashed and screamed as much and as hard as she could and had been doing so ever since she’d been kidnapped from the library. Many townsfolk raised eyebrows but did not even stop to question the ruckus, all they saw were a dishevelled man and a disobedient unicorn trying to make their way along the road, stopping every so often as he wore himself out pulling Trixie along.

“If ya don’t play nice, I’ll trim ya legs and throw ya in a cart if I have to, don’t think I won’t,” he growled, huffing as he crouched down face to face with Trixie who had planted her flanks on the floor, splaying her legs out to make it as difficult as possible to be moved. Her ears pinned back and she quivered, unsure of what to do. Whining and whinnying as loud as she could did not concern other people, and neither did it bring Twilight running to save her. Facing such a stern threat, Trixie winced and submitted with reluctance to the man’s demands, raising to her hooves and doing her best to keep up with him, fearful that he might tug and throw her off of her balance. She wasn’t an expert at walking as a four-legged creature just yet, but the stranger didn’t care, he was in a hurry, but for what Trixie had no clue.

She felt a deep, swelling anxiety that grew with each step she took away from the town, her eyes bubbling with a few gentle tears as they reached the edge of Ponyville and carried on into the fields, the path lined with a long, worn fence. Trixie’s desperation was clear as she steeled herself, trying to formulate a way to use the surroundings, anything at all to distract or subdue her abductor long enough to make a getaway and gallop back to the safety of Twilight’s home. She considered head-butting him against the fence and following up with a kick to buy some time, playing up again so he’d stop to tell her off, then smacking him in the face with her hooves, or even whimpering like a dog in an attempt to appeal to his humanity. None of these ideas seemed plausible at all, she thought to herself. She just didn’t have the necessary control over her own body to pull any of it off, nor did the man seem to have any shred of mercy in his cold, entombed heart.

“C’mon ya mongrel.” He tugged viciously as Trixie’s thoughts slowed her for a brief moment. She collapsed to the floor again at the unexpected yank and the man’s patience had been tested for the last time. Without indication, he ripped some of the loose, rotten wood from an adjacent fence post and beat her over the head with it, a crackle sounding as a fissure splintered through Trixie’s horn. The unicorn let out a terrifying wail of agony and slammed the floor with her hooves, unable to take the punishment. Her horn exploded with the purple ether she had always manipulated as a human and threw the man into the fence and down into a muddy ditch between the path and the field.

Realising she had a chance at freedom, Trixie flung herself up and turned to flee, but the immense throbbing pain emanating from her forehead was just as strong as her will to survive. Her front legs buckled as she clamped her teeth together, gritting them to try and bear the torment. Trotting a few steps, she was forced to stop as the sensation crippled her, bringing her down to her knees once more.

A sharp twinge rippled through Trixie’s body as something snapped shut around her horn, squeezing the already sensitive extension, and her legs gave way beneath her. She tried to use the waves of pulsating anguish to release another burst from her horn, but a few sparks popping and whizzing around it was all she could muster.

“You lil’ monster, I oughta let you cark it, but since we’re so close to the ladies farm up the way, ya’ll be worth more alive than dead, an’ I think I can ‘andle ya crap for a lil’ bit longer.” The man, his clothes drenched with soggy muck, grasped the bondage and gave a pull, crushing Trixie’s snout with it as he pulled her to her hooves. She had given up by this point, too distracted by the shock of the breakage in her horn to have any semblance of clear thought. With a whimper, a few tears rolled onto her blue furry cheeks, she thought at her worst that she was cruel, but Trixie could not comprehend or believe that someone could be as malevolent as this stranger was to her. She may have been just a unicorn, but he had beaten her, she was in agony, and he didn’t care at all.

Lumbering along, her head hung low as she dragged her hooves through the dirt path that became more sodden and filthy the farther she travelled it, and despite his short fuse, the man mustered enough endurance to lug Trixie all the way to their destination.

“Bloody finally, this place sure is out the back o’ Bourke,” he grumbled, resting against a gated entrance at the side of the path which lead out onto a long, wide dirt trail. Having stopped, Trixie looked up to see where they were and observed that the dirt track stretched away from them, winding through rolling fields that were filled to the brim with trees laden with shining crimson apples and at the very end, a bright red farmhouse sat on the highest of the surrounding hills, two barns and a small sectioned garden encompassing it.

“Howdy, how can ah help ya there?” a voice that Trixie found just a smidgen familiar called as its owner, a stocky, young female farmhand with a thick southern accent, had noticed the two resting at the gate and moved over to greet them, clutching a heavy basket of fresh picked apples under an arm as she leant against the fence. “Oh, it’s y’all again, how’ve you been, Slick?”

“Depends, ‘ow do I look?” Presenting himself with a gesture across his body, his clothes caked in hardening soil, Slick smirked and raised an eyebrow as the girl giggled in response. “Haha, I’m dandy, Applejack. Though I had a struggle gettin’ this one ‘ere to play ball.”

“Ah’d think so, y’all got yerself a unicorn there, least ya got that magic lock on it.” Applejack gave Slick’s clothes another look and let out another snicker. “Though not soon enough by the look of things.”

“You got that right. This one’s a cheeky dipstick, encha?” Slick smiled and ruffled Trixie’s mane, avoiding her horn so that she did not yelp whilst his piercing leer commanded her compliance. Looking back up at him, the unicorn grumbled and grimaced at his false innocence, though wanted to let out a whimper as a plea for help, seeing Applejack had bought into his ruse.

“So,” he continued, “I saw the advert on the board back in town, got yerself a brand new ranch, ey? Lookin’ to fill it with some new animals too? Well, maybe ol’ Slick can help you out with that.” Applejack let a quiet snort out in response to this, grinning as though she had heard this kind of smooth talking a thousand times.

“How much is y’alls’ ‘help’ gonna dent ma pockets?” Gritting her teeth through her smile and lowering her eyelids, Applejack leant in closer to Slick as they conversed. It wasn’t a sign of affection, not from either party, but it was just a body language custom for these kinds of people to appear happy whilst knowing in full that the other was doing their best to rip them off.

Trixie pivoted her head to look back along the road towards Ponyville, ignoring the two country folk as they exchanged ludicrous offers, and began to fill with a glimmer of hope as a brand new idea formed in her head. Sooner or later, Twilight was going to return to the library and notice that she was gone and then set about getting everybody she knew involved in a search with desperate haste. It wouldn’t be long before she was rescued, Trixie was sure of it, after all, Applejack was one of Twilight’s closest friends, and though Trixie only knew this in passing, she knew that it must be about to pay off and be her saviour.

“Y’all are crazy! Five hundred bits?” Applejack cried.

“It’s a unicorn AJ, had to catch her in the Everfree myself! Ya think I’m gonna take a pittance for her? Not to mention there’s the cost of the magic lock as well… and I know exactly why you’ve got yerself into this business too! There’s a lot of snob wallers in Canterlot with deep enough pockets to shell out for horse, especially unicorn, so don’t think I won’t trek over there and make myself a small fortune an’ cut you out of it.” Laying a stroke across Applejacks hand, Slick’s forked tongue did it’s best to persuade her, but she refused to have any of it.

“Ya might be able to charm the skin offa snake, an’ ah might be a lil’ bit thick, but ah am not a complete fool, y’all can ferget it.”

“Four fifty and I’m scammin’ myself,” he butted in hastily, despite his short rant, in actuality Slick dreaded attempting to haul Trixie on to the big city to sell her. With the slyest smirk she had ever let creep across her face, Applejack could tell that her freelance friend was frantic about something to be rid of the unicorn. Withdrawing from the fence, she turned and took a few slow steps away.

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

“Four fourty.”

“Done!” Before she could even think of backing out, Slick had grasped and shook Applejack’s hand, sealing the deal with a verbal contract, and threw the rope imprisoning Trixie into her free palm.

“I’ll be in the bar in town when yer ready to come and cough up,” he cackled, taking to the road and shooting out of sight as fast as he could. When it came to trading big money with big prices, folks didn’t hand it over straight away. Nobody except the elites of Canterlot would carry that kind of coin out and about on their person. Knowing this was the case, Applejack had about a week to get back to Slick with the money, because as something that she had not revealed to him, the new ranch had taken most of the bits out of her and her family’s savings. It didn’t matter, she thought to herself, as they were about to move on a large herd of cattle through the barn, and there were already big business offers flying their way for a stake of the goods.

“C’mon then lil’ missy.” Applejack gave a tender tug on the rope and garnered Trixie’s attention, the unicorn looking up with a face of utter dread and torment. She did not expect her treatment to improve, she was just an animal to people now, and the thought of this horrible truth began to get to her again, her eyes welling and body weakening as she let out a whimper.

“Ohh?” The farm girl responded in a most unexpected way. “What’s wrong sugarcube?” Applejack’s entire demeanour shifted, she bent a knee to come to level with Trixie and put a soothing hand to the unicorn’s neck, giving gentle circular rubs as she ruffled her mane. Trixie was flabbergasted for a moment, distracted by how sincere someone was finally being to her, as well as by the pleasing feeling of being petted, even if it was a patronising experience.

“Was that mean ol’ dirtbag treatin’ ya somethin’ awful?” Applejack smiled, cocking her head and laying her hand onto Trixie’s snout. Continuing to stroke her, she slipped the makeshift muzzle off and gasped at the sight of the grooves hard worn into Trixie’s skin. The unicorn was presented with her best opportunity yet and played her role as the terrified little pony with perfection, scuffling into Applejack’s arms and nuzzling her whilst letting out helpless whines and squeaks, the cowgirl heaping buckets of sympathy out as the two embraced.

“Ya sure are a friendly lil’ girl, aren’t ya?” Tickling Trixie’s chin, Applejack rose to her legs and beckoned the unicorn along as Trixie followed, with pleasure, by her side as they traipsed across the rough, hardened driveway towards the farmhouse. It wasn’t long before they had gotten to the second fence surrounding the home, entered through it, and stopped just beside the front door as Applejack went inside to inform her brother, Big Macintosh, of their newest purchase. Trixie raised her eyebrow at being referred to as a ‘purchase’, but forced herself to shake the feeling off, remembering for the time being what she was.

After a short conversation indoors that Trixie was unable to hear, being forced to wait outside with Winona who had begun to grow increasingly fascinated with the strange pony with a spike on its forehead, Applejack and Big Mac both left the house and stood before Trixie.

“It’s a mighty shame,” Applejack griped, flicking her cowboy hat up with the tip of her finger.

“Now AJ, we can’t afford to drop a single number from the herd, we need to make as much as we can on our first season’s sales to secure ourselves for future ones.” With a surprising amount of business intellect about his words, Big Mac solidified his stance on a matter unknown to Trixie, who was sitting on her flanks in front of the two, looking back and forth between them with an expression of pure curiosity. “She’s a unicorn too, that zing in her will fetch a real nice sum, s’not every day one gets dumped on yer doorstep fer such a good price.”

“Yeah yeah okay… well if yer so certain, y’all can help me get her loaded in the barn, then we can get started.” With reluctance, Applejack gave in to her brother. It was clear to Trixie that something was wrong, the farm girl seemed to be arguing to keep her out of the barn, and now that she had given up and agreed to put her in there, a sickening pit opened wide in her stomach.

“Eeyup.” He replied, grabbing a large metal bucket from behind the door and heading over to the barn’s fence gate, taking Trixie by the mane in quite a rough manner and pulling her over to it. It was not cruel, in particular, but very firm, it was clear to Trixie that Big Macintosh would not stand for any trouble from anything, and so lowered her ears, obeying the oversized farm worker’s dominating strength as he led her up to the barn doors, pushed them open with one hand, and took her inside.

The interior of the barn was quite a lot bigger than Trixie could at first see from the outside, extending long into the distance with rows and rows of horses and ponies of all different breeds and colours penned up in small squares lining the sides, sealed off from each other by racks of metal bars and crude wooden panelling. In fact, it seemed less like a barn and more like a warehouse of some kind, Trixie’s hooves clopping against a brand new hard stone floor as she gazed up at the aged eaves and beams that still remained from the obvious conversion that the building had undergone.

Applejack followed in behind them, whistling a few times to rouse the animals as she overtook and headed straight down the central lane towards the end where a large, uncluttered, hay-spattered space opened out into one of the most luscious fields Trixie had ever seen, tended to with such care and affection that it would make a perfect grounds for raising animals of any kind on.

“In you go,” Big Mac interrupted Trixie’s drifting mind, licking her lips to clean it of the drool that had formed from her little animalistic daydream. Her heart began to race again as she saw him indicating for her to enter one of the small pens, and she began to wonder if she should try and make a break for it. The Apple family did not seem like they would beat her if they caught her, least of all Applejack, but the fearfulness from what had happened with Slick earlier had taken stronger than her will to flee, and with her ears pinned down behind her head, Trixie crept low to the ground into the stall with her tail between her legs.

The narrow metal gate slammed shut behind Trixie, nearly catching the tip of her tail, and she began to panic, struggling to move about in her makeshift cage with her wide body, still unable to gauge its size as she caught her snout a few times in the crossbars and in the end, banging her fractured horn against one of the metal rods. She shrieked as it throbbed again, grinding her teeth in distress at the snapshot feeling of the separate chinks in her hardened forehead member scraping against one another like a broken bone grating on itself. Her cry was not heard, as a machine that Trixie’s fellow equines seemed to find familiar started up, gears screeching against one another whilst sections of metal panelling lowering from the roof into the central passageway met the floor. With this creating a lane of new temporary cells, the animals entered a mild frenzy, Applejack taking control of the short craze with authoritative yells of gibberish and whistles from the far end.

The gates of those whose booths were in the central lanes opened and Big Macintosh strolled down behind each of them, using a prong to force their inhabitants into the provisional confinements whilst an automated system locked them in as he continued on to the next. With caution and concentration, Trixie put her two front hooves to the lowest bars and elevated herself above the pen to see the process unfolding, though not knowing what in the world was going on, she felt lucky that she was not in one of the middle lanes for whatever reason it might be. With the centre filled, Big Mac returned to the far end with his sister and Trixie pushed herself higher up, climbing to the next bar and then the next to get a better view.

Trixie threw herself from her perched position and withdrew into the smallest corner of her prison with her pupils dilated, her heart thumping and her body convulsing with tears not of sadness, but of absolute dread erupting from her eyes as a bang echoed through the barn, riling the horses again. They however, were only afraid because of the noise. They did not have the sentient understanding that Trixie did when she saw the occupant of the first cell to be seen to hit the floor, lifeless, as Macintosh tied a rope around its neck and dragged it away.

Comments

[Sadie]

<3 Must read right away!

[Blue_Paladin42]

[hamcon]

So, is Applejack and Big Mac killing horses or something?

[Discorded Q]

OH NOES!

[Silver-Tongue]

Okay, I was NOT expecting this turn of drama. Damn, you've got my heart racing and everything! This story doesn't strike me as 'dark' or a tragedy, so Trixie will likely get out of this, but all the same its got me on edge. Hopefully Trixie can escape without further damage to her body or horn; I can't imagine its safe to use magic with it if its been damage.

... ah. Foreshadowing in Chapter 5 for 'magical outbursts when panicked.' Things are going to get messy, huh? Damn, this Slick bastard should get some sort of comeuppance for lighting the flames to this rising hellfire.