Pokey's Holiday (or Trixie's adventures in Bureaucracy land)

by Talon and Thorn

Weekend - Drinks and a lesson

Saturday

Saturday was normally the day Trixie did the majority of her shopping and any chores that she couldn’t get Pokey to do for her. To that end she only slept in for a few hours before making a quick mental list of the food she would need for the next week and setting out into town to get it.

By the time she got there the market had been open for several hours and was packed with other ponies with the same idea. Trixie was jostled from side to side as she wandered from stand to stand looking for the items on her list. The blue mare liked the shopping system in Ponyville much better than Canterlot, the market in the smaller town had a lot more opportunity for haggling and Trixie considered herself an expert haggler. It was the same as putting on a show really. Her home town of Neigh Orleans had a similar system and she remembered many happy hours shopping with her uncle, she had loved to watch the older stallion argue with the vendors over the price of some item or another.

After an hour or so Trixie’s saddlebags were full of all the items on her list and still had a few bits left from the week’s grocery budget. She wandered around a few of the more luxury stores around the town centre, Carousel Boutique and Amethyst Star’s Fine Jewellers didn’t have much interest for her but she did spend a while browsing the newly opened collectables store but nothing caught her fancy. Finally she stopped off at quills and sofas, she had been considering getting some new furniture for the residency but the prices seemed a bit steep so she ended up buying a pack of new quills from Lyra’s dad instead, in preparation for the work due in the week ahead.

After returning home and packing away her purchases she realised she had been putting off cleaning the house for too long. Cleaning always made her grateful she had been born a unicorn and was able to use her telekinesis to clean the floors and bathrooms rather than having to hold the brush using her mouth like an earth pony.

It was getting late by the time she had finished and she had a quick shower, which messed up the bathroom again. It just didn’t make sense cleaning sometimes. Then she set out for the evening, she was due to have drinks with some of her friends.

****

“Ok, girls tonight is the night,” announced Cheerilee, she Trixie, Carrot Top and Raindrops were drinking together at her sisters bar. The night was young but already the place was starting to fill up. “Tonight, I break my dry spell,” she continued. “Tonight I find myself a stallion. I did all my grading and lesson plans last night, so tonight is all about me.” She looked around at her friends, “Carrot Top, you’re my wingmare if Mr Right has a friend keep him busy while I work my Black Cherry Magic. If you want him, he’s yours, if not just keep him out of the way.” The orange mare saluted. “Trixie...”

“I will point and laugh when you strike out like last time.”

“That was a one off, I had no way of knowing he didn’t like mares.”

“The fact he was kissing another stallion when you saw him might have been a hint.”

“Hey, stallion on stallion is hot.” announced Cheerilee with a wink, Trixie shuddered, “Raindrops..”

“I’ll keep out of the way and not scare anyone off,” said the yellow mare morosely.

“Droppy, I was going to say have fun.” replied Cheerilee resting her head on her hooves and staring up at the pegasus, her eyes wide.

“Ok, I’ll see what I can do.” replied Raindrops trying to look cheerful, “And please don’t call me Droppy.”

Cheerilee scanned the bar for a likely date, her eyes alighted on a pair of earth pony stallions drinking at a table on the far wall. One was light blue with a red mane worn long while the other was jet black with a light green and blue striped mane done in spikes. The latter caught her eye and nodded in her direction raising his glass before looking away. He’s cocky, she thought, I like that, and they're not making out. I won't make that mistake again. I think I’ve seen them working up at the Trust, it’s hard to tell from over here but they're probably ripped. I think I’ve found my target for the night. “Ok girls, wish me luck, I’m going in. Carrot you’re with me.”

The two mares trotted over to the table, Cheerilee putting a little extra swing in her hips as she went. “Hi, guys,” she said with a smile, “Is anyone sitting here?”

“No ma'am,” said the black stallion with an accent, “Would you and your friend care to join us, Miss...”

“Call me Cheerilee and this is Carrot Top,” inside her head she was cheering.

“They call me Tugger and this here is Ditch Digger.”

“Hi” said the other stallion shyly.

“Can I buy you ladies a drink?”

“That would be very nice Tugger.”

“And maybe you could do me a favour in return?”

Cheerilee gave a naughty grin as she sat down, “And what type of favour would that be? Nothing that would get me in trouble?”

“No ma’am, I’d like you to introduce me to your yellow friend over there, she sure is hot.”

****

“I’m going to die an old mare,” sobbed Cheerilee into the latest of a long line of drinks, “No one will find my body for days and when they do I’ll have been eaten by my fish.”

“I don’t think that’s likely,” said Trixie. Behind them Carrot top had been having an avid conversation with Ditch about carrot farming for over an hour, they really seemed to have hit it off. In the corner Raindrops was laughing at a joke Tugger had just told her, they were standing very close to each other now. “How are they going to get out of their tanks to get to your corpse?”

“They’d find a way, fish are smarter than they seem.”

Berry Punch wandered over and looked at her sister slumped over the bar, “She strike out again?” Trixie nodded, “When she sobers up tell her she owes me twenty bits.”

Invigorated by this example of sisterly love Trixie decided it was best to take Cheerilee home for the night and levitated the drink earth pony onto her back, staggering slightly under the weight as she made for the door.

The cool night air quickly sobered up Cheerilee and she made most of the journey to her home under her own power, only occasionally needing to rely on Trixie to keep her upright. The pink mare remained somewhat maudlin during the journey frequently bemoaning her single status. Trixie remained quiet and tried to ignore her friend's whining.

“Are you going to be alright?” asked Trixie as they reached Cheerilee’s door.

“Yeh, I’ll be fine, I’ll probably feel like dirt tomorrow, but maybe I’ll have more luck next week. If nothing else sweet sweet alcohol will always be there for me.”

“Yes, monsieur Bourbon has gotten me through some difficult times.”

“Ah, your secret lover.” they both chuckled, “Well see you on Monday Trixie.”

“See you,” said Trixie waving a hoof as she set course for the residence.

---

Sunday

Trixie awoke at the crack of noon and then decided that there was no reason for her to be up so early and dozed for a few more hours. Fully rested she ate what she charitably decided to call her breakfast before having a long leisurely soak in the bath.

She eventually remembered that Dinky was coming round for a magic lesson in a few hours and spent some time going through her books for a spell she could teach the little unicorn. A spell for turning apples to oranges caught her eye but she decided that it was too complicated for a novice, maybe in a few years Dinky would be skilled enough for it. Trixie finally decided on one of the minor illusions she normally used to create firework effects for her shows. It looked impressive but had no chance of causing damage if it went wrong.

Dinky arrived on time for her lesson and brought a tray of muffins with her as ‘payment’ from Ditzy for her daughters training. The lesson therefore started with levitation practise and Dinky lifted the cakes to her and Trixie’s mouths. Once she had wiped the crumbs off of herself Trixie congratulated Dinky on her improvement, she had only crushed one muffin in her excitement this time.

“Now have you been doing your exercises this week?” asked Trixie.

The little grey filly nodded excitedly, “Yes, Miss Trixie, every night.”

“Good then show the Great and Powerful Trixie what you can do.”

Dinky concentrated and her horn began to glow and then went out before glowing once again flashing in a repeated pattern.

The light spell was one of the easiest for a foal to learn and was good practice at feeding power into there horn and controlling it. However, Trixie had added a degree of difficulty to the exercise by teaching Dinky the Unicornian code, as Luna had previously taught it to her. Apparently before the tribes had united unicorns had used the coded flashing of their horns to communicate over long distances. Almost no one alive still remembered the full code although the guard had their own simplified version. The filly was a quick learner and already she could reliably flash her own name.

“That’s very good Dinky now I’ve got a new trick for you to learn,” the young unicorn sat down watching her teacher closely, “Watch what I do.”

With a whistling sound a stream of light extended from Trixie’s horn into the air, it shot towards the ceiling where it split into a number of flashing stars with a loud popping sound. Her pupil looked very impressed, as well as a little scared.

“Ok, watch me again. The first part is just like lighting your horn but instead of keeping the magic in you throw it away, but you have to keep concentrating to hold it together. When it gets to the roof just let it go.” Trixie demonstrated again. “Now you try.”

Dinky screwed up her face and her horn began to glow, a thin stream of light started to stretch upwards, but as soon as it left the tip it vanished. She tried again and the stream extended maybe half a dozen hooves before silently bursting.

“That’s very good, now try again.”

After about half an hour’s practise the foal could reliably generate the effect although it still often exploded prematurely.

“Miss Trixie,” asked Dinky, “Why doesn’t my spell make a noise like yours? What am I doing wrong?”

“I wondered when you’d ask about that. You see the firework is really two spells cast at once, one makes the light and one the sound.”

Dinky gulped, two spells at once that sounded hard, she thought.

Trixie noticed her pupils apprehension, “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. Eventually you’ll be able to do lots of spells at once. Now listen carefully to the sounds of the firework,” Trixie fired off the spell a few times as demonstration.

“Ok,” now imagine the sound going from your ears to your brain. She created the illusion again. “Now instead of going to your brain have the sound go to your horn and out into the world.” She demonstrated again and thought she heard a quiet echo of the sound from the filly in front of her.

Together the two of them repeated the spell again and again until to the filly’s excitement the bangs created by Dinky’s spell were even louder than Trixie’s and she could repeat them without Trixie’s prompting.

“Ok, now try both spells together.”

Biting her tongue Dinky tried to do as directed but the sound was barely audible and the firework dissolved immediately after leaving her horn. However, after further coaching from Trixie Dinky eventually managed to get both spells to run at once although she couldn’t quite manage to get the sound to synchronize with the image.

“I think that’s enough for today,” announced Trixie looking at the clock, “Your mother will wonder where you’ve gotten to. Keep practising, and I’m sure you can perfect that spell by next week.”

“Thanks Miss Trixie,” said Dinky hugging her teacher’s leg prompting a warm feeling in Trixie’s chest. “I’ll see you next week,” continued the grey unicorn as she pranced out of the door.

Trixie waved goodbye to her pupil and sighed. She enjoyed Dinky’s visits, it felt good to have a foal to look after and teach things to, it always felt a bit maudlin when she left. After a moment she pushed these thoughts and feelings aside to consider some when in the future.

After fixing herself a light supper Trixie admired the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon while writing a few letters to her family back in Neigh Orleans informing them of recent events before going to bed. She read a few chapters of her current book, a detective novel set in her home city, She got a good laugh out of the fact the writer had obviously never visited Neigh Orleans.

Finally sleep overtook Trixie and she dreamt of the Pokeyless week ahead,

Comments

[j-grizz]

The calm before the storm. I will be disappointed if Trixie's window survives the week. Onward.

[PYR0CAT]

I'm just gonna pretend that Tugger looks like that pony right over there.
<-----------------------------

[ShadowLDrago]

Dinky really has a lot of talent, nice.