3. Beauty is a mystery.
“No, no, nooooo!” Trixie wailed. “This is terrible, too terrible to contemplate!”
She was crouched, scooping the dust and ashes back into the urn she had reassembled from its shards. As soon as she looked at Ditzy, the urn fell apart again.
“Well,” Ditzy said, “I removed the modular wall that started this whole mess. And Time Turner and I are going to have a talk with the museum president about keeping that gap open. So at least this won’t ever happen again ...”
There were tears in Trixie’s eyes as she said, “Thank you, Dizzy, but that’s cold comfort after the losses we’ve already suffered.” She gestured at the pile of pottery and ash on the ground. “Just think of the future generations who will never be able to see this! Think of their deprivation!” She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “And it happened under Trixie’s watch! There’s no way she won’t get fired for that.”
“I’m sorry,” Ditzy said. “Maybe we could put in a good word for you with the head of security?”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “You mean the head of security who Trixie bludgeoned unconscious less than an hour ago?”
“The hospital says he’ll make a full recovery, by the way,” Time Turner said as he approached.
“Wait,” Ditzy said, “that was ...?”
“The same!” Trixie snorted. “Firing is too good for Trixie. No, they’ll fire her, then re-hire her just so they can fire her again!”
“Can they do that?” Time Turner asked.
Ditzy trotted down the hall, further into the region damaged by the chladni. She spared a glance at the remains of Whitemane’s Wooden museum bench. She ran a hoof along one the gashes in the ceiling, then sniffed it. She picked up a scrap of canvas—the largest piece of an obliterated painting—and her eyes widened. A glance at the plaque next to the bare space on the wall confirmed her worst suspicion.
“Darn it!”
Time Turner was soon at her side. “What’s wrong?”
“This is that painting by Blue Rider. What’s left of it.” Ditzy tossed the scrap back onto the debris pile.
“The painting you wanted to see? I’m sorry.”
“Can we save them? Use your special talent to go back ...”
Time Turner scratched the back of his head. “I wish we could, but—”
“Right, right.” Ditzy turned away. “You can only make stable time loops. I’m just ... just...”
Ditzy squinted at the debris. She grabbed the scrap of canvas again and examined its back side.
“Is this what I think it is?” She shoved the scrap into Time Turner’s face.
“Well, it says ‘hi!’, and it’s definitely your writing, Ditzy.”
“Great,” Ditzy said. She was sifting through the debris, grabbing every scrap of canvas she could find. “Because from my perspective, I haven’t written that yet. Aha! You see, Time Turner, this painting ...”
She slapped two scraps onto the floor, next to each other. Each bore half of a signature: not Blue Rider, but Broad Strokes.
“... is a forgery.”
“Oh.” Time Turner said. “So the real painting is presumably fine, but it’s in the hooves of thieves and may never see the light of day again. Kind of a lateral move, if you ask me.”
“But since I wrote something on the back of this forgery, then maybe the original is ... Let me check something.”
Ditzy rushed back up the hall. She passed Trixie, mourning over the remains of Wooden museum bench. Upon reaching the broken urn, Ditzy turned over the shard that had been its bottom. On the underside, clear as day, was the signature of Broad Strokes.
Ditzy rushed back down the hall, stopping at the shattered bench. She dug into the splinters and broken planks.
“What are you doing?!” Trixie grabbed her and telekinetically pulled her away. “Hasn’t it already suffered enough already?”
“Hold that thought.” Ditzy darted across the hall, to the identical, undamaged bench. She poked her head underneath. “Ha-ha! Trixie, take a look at this!”
Trixie followed. “Trixie doesn’t see what could possibly be so important ...” she muttered as she glanced under the bench. Then she stared. Gasping, she took several steps back. “Whitemane’s signature! But ... but that means ...”
Ditzy smiled. “It means that pile of scrap over there is just a bench. And this fine piece, completely undamaged except for a few butt marks, is Art. And that means uurrrk!”
Trixie threw herself at Ditzy, hugging her so tightly the pegasus could barely breathe.
“I’m sorry,” Time Turner said as he trotted up. “Am I interrupting something?”
Trixie glanced between him and Ditzy. Blushing, she jumped back several paces. “Trixie is just so thankful! Dizzy ... she, um ... Trixie isn’t sure what Dizzy just did. But Art was saved and Dizzy was there, so she must have done something!”
“We all did something.” Ditzy said. “And, in an equally true but more important manner, we still need to do that something.”
“Now you’re not making any sense, Dizzy.”
“We’re going to save all the artwork. All three of us. Trixie, I need you to get us a list of the pieces that were vandalized and the dates. Also ...” Ditzy pointed a hoof at the Wooden museum bench. “... the socket wrench that the museum used to bolt that to the floor.”
Trixie stood up straight. “The Great and Powerful Trixie will not let you down!” She rushed away.
“As for us,” Ditzy said to Time Turner, “we need to track down this Broad Strokes and commission some forgeries.”
A year ago ...
“Okay, scratch that.” Ditzy shook her head, then met the artist’s disapproving stare. “Don’t think of it as forgery, think of it as art preservation.”
Broad Strokes tilted his threadbare beret back slightly. “Alright, I’m listening.”
Time Turner stepped forward. “Well, we liaise with museum security at the Goggle Heights. We have intel about a vandal who intends to irreparably damage a number of artworks there.”
Broad Strokes rested his stubbled chin in one hoof and said nothing.
“Our best bet is to catch him in the act,” Ditzy said. “Obviously, we don’t want to use the originals as bait.”
Broad Strokes smiled. “You want me to make the bait.” He turned away from Ditzy and Time Turner, sighing. “So why ask a complete nopony like me?”
“Because we’ve seen your work,” Time Turner said. “It’s good. We know you can pull it off.”
“Funny, that.” Broad Strokes turned back around. “You say my work is good, but you want me to copy other artists, so my copies can be destroyed.”
“What if ...” Ditzy shifted on her hooves slightly. “... When this is all over, we could rent you space for an art show in our hometown. And make sure that everypony we know comes to see it.”
“Including ...” Time Turner leaned closer. “... a fashion designer who, this time next year, will be making waves in Canterlot high society. I’m told she’s very good at the old ‘Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ routine.”
Broad Strokes blinked. “Really? You’d do that for me?”
Ditzy nodded.
“Alright! Oh, where is your hometown?”
“Ponyville!”
“... Never heard of it.”
Three weeks ago ...
Ditzy studied the painting. She leaned forward until her eye was mere inches from the canvas. She stepped back a few feet until she could take in its entire scope.
Then she nodded to Time Turner. “Alright, I’m finished.”
Quickly and silently, they wrapped the painting in layers of bubble wrap.
“So,” Time Turner said, “why that painting? Why did you want to see it so much?”
They lifted the wrapped canvas and slid it into the transport crate.
“It reminds me of the inside of a rift,” Ditzy said. “I wonder if Blue Rider could see them.”
As Time Turner latched the crate shut, Ditzy reviewed Trixie’s list.
“I think that’s the last piece,” he said as they loaded the crate on the cart.
“Yep.”
Ditzy pushed the cart to the hlåv, and it rolled a few feet before its wheels sank into the sand. Fortunately, she had entered this dimension much closer to the base of the rock bluff—only a few feet away from the designated storage spot. After unloading the crates, Ditzy slapped a note on the one in front:
don’t open till you-know-when!
She spread a tarp over the crates, and dragged the cart fjoth, back into the museum.
When she found Time Turner, he was about to hang up the ersatz Blue Rider painting. He waited long enough for Ditzy to write “hi!” on the back with a marker.
After the painting went up, Ditzy said, “We didn’t see or hear any guards tonight. Isn’t that a bit odd?”
“Yes, it is. Although ...” Time Turner scratched his chin. “I bet they stepped up their vigilance in response to what we’ve just done.”
One week ago ...
The night was significantly less stormy than advertised.
“One, two, three, push!”
The metal brackets screeched against the floor as Ditzy and Time Turner pushed the bench across the hall.
“Darn it,” Ditzy said. “I hope all these loud noises tonight haven’t damaged our hearing.”
“Maybe we should carry the other one instead?” Time Turner said.
So they carried Whitemane’s Wooden museum bench to the opposite side of the hall, rather than pushing. Before they could bolt either bench to the floor, a voice cried from up the hallway:
“Halt, enemies of Art, or face the wrath of Trixie!”
“And that’s our cue to leave,” Time Turner said.
Ditzy took his hoof, and they disappeared just as Trixie’s hoofsteps echoed around the bend.
Tonight ...
Weighed down with crates, the cart would barely roll in the sand. But with Time Turner’s help, Ditzy managed to get it back from the other dimension, into the Goggle Heights.
“Trixie!” Ditzy called. “You wanna look these over?”
“Trixie just needs another minute!” Trixie attached the final cable to the atrium ceiling. Dispelling her telekinesis, she flinched. But the Sandy Streams mobile held secure. Trixie relaxed.
“Coming!” She cantered over to the cart. The smile fell from her face as she counted the crates. “There’s one missing.”
“But ...” Ditzy glanced between the cart, the list, and Trixie. “We got everything on the list! I checked twice!”
Trixie snatched the list. “Oh dear. It seems Trixie forgot all about Pole Lock’s Composition No. 5.”
Ditzy groaned.
“Great!” Time Turner said. “So now we’ve gotta go through that entire rigamarole again, for one painting! And not even a good one—just a bunch of paint spatters! I could have made that one!”
“But you didn’t,” Trixie shot back, “and Pole Lock did! Several times, in fact. That’s why he’s an Artist and you ... Oh. Oh!” Her eyes went wide. She crumpled the list into a ball and threw it straight up. “Of course! We don’t need to save Composition No. 5 at all! Haha!”
“Aaaand why not?” Ditzy asked.
Trixie answered without pausing her celebratory dance. “Because Pole Lock has never been satisfied with old No. 5! Every month or so, he takes it down and completely repaints it. So he’ll be ecstatic about another opportunity to make a new one from scratch!”
“Huh,” was all Ditzy could say.
“Well,” Time Turner said, “that’s pretty odd, but it means less work for us, so I’m not complaining!”
Trixie ran up to envelope both of them in a tight hug. “Thank you so much, both of you! You’ve saved Art, and probably Trixie’s employment as well. Trixie doesn’t know how to repay you!”
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Time Turner said.
“Yeah, all in day’s work,” Ditzy said. “Fighting monsters, saving jobs, saving priceless art, saving Twilight’s favorite museum ...”
Trixie recoiled. “Saving Twilight’s what?”
“Um ...”
“Are you implying Twilight Sparkle likes the Goggle Heights Art Museum? That it is, in fact, her favorite?”
“Um, yes?”
With a burst of telekinesis, Trixie tore off her uniform and threw it on the floor. She stomped the pile of black fabric several times before turning and marching away. “Trixie quits!”
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I wonder if we've got a Chekhov's Gunpony there. That's one thing you really do well.
Always love me some stable time loop shenanigans.
Here's to the continuing adventures of the R.S.S.!
Time travel makes things so much more fun.
5924286 I wasn't sure whether or not you invented the chladni, so I googled it. I had never even heard of this guy before.
5928140
Hehe, while that's true, the whole Star Wars part was a creepy-in-retrospect "wham" moment. I knew the content of the other fic going into this, but the thought still occurred to me. Besides, it's only a little creepy, since it feels more like a "sister-like" friendship than a blood bond.
5929674 To be perfectly honest, at the risk of becoming one of those authors who dictates how to interpret their own stories... In spite of writing about Ditzy and Trixie kissing, I don't think they'd make a very good couple. An entertaining couple, for sure, but not a good match.
5930376
Wait, do you mean couple, as in romantic couple? Because I definitely agree that they could never get together that way. That's why I said it was sister-like, but not the super-close kind. More like the kind that constantly teases and needs to have space from each other, because if they have to spend too much time with each others' quirks, someone might get murdered, but would totally back each other up if things got truly ugly.
5931001 Yeah, not a good romantic couple is what I meant.
5931882
Okay, which was never what I was suggesting in the first place (the other situation thoroughly disproved their compatibility). When I said that I was expecting to see Trixie in the wedding party, I meant as a Bridesmaid—especially since it's pretty obvious Ditzy's gonna get with a certain someone else.
5953599 I like the interpretation of Twi from Bureaucracy Is Magic, where paperwork is a double-edged sword for her. She loves efficient paperwork--just think of all that information, organized in a consistent, logical fashion! But inefficient bureaucracy and redundant paperwork drive her up the wall.
Here's a name for your series: The R.S.S.Verse.
I'm so glad this story came out so well. I often worry that sequels won't live up to the originals. Would definitely like to see more of this universe.
These stories are hilarious, intriguing, and offer a refreshingly interesting new take on the characters. Well done.
This is a nice story. I see RockFarming in the future of Miss Beatrix LulaMoon. Being a Unicorn, she is weak and cannot make rocks and gems grow. The Pie-Family will have to be desperate for labor to hire her.
6156168 I like to think Trixie throws herself into every odd job with enough bloody-minded determination to nearly make up for her lack of talent. Even if she hates the work, she still can't stand the thought of anypony doing a better job than her.
I haven't made up my mind if that's what Trixie was doing in this story, or if she genuinely does love modern art that much.
Argh. Can't believe I missed that this updated thrice over the day you published it.
Still, now that I finally read it, I loved it. Ditzy and Turner make a great team. Time and space tend to. Thank you for this.
Perfected ending line. Enjoyed the read.
Just as I return to look at Alarm Clock, I see this. Fuck. Yes.
Also, I do not care if I was late to the party.
That was - as in the previous stories - a delightful little tale.
7067837 The latter. Destructive interference.
oh dear.
Four stars.
Especially bollocking Pollack.
8189790 Thanks. Glad you like it.
Well that was fun. :)
8334323
Glad you like it.
i am glad i saved reading this story for a rainy day.
You are a SUPERB writer, and wonderful characterizer of Ditzy!
Collab story with FoME when????
You can has review!
I’m enjoying the series so far