Magic Tricks

by ferret

Trixie Learns the Ropes

Hat Fancy was quite happy to teach Trixie the ways of her horn. She learned quickly, naturally, but it was incredible how much Trixie didn’t know about herself. Even simple spell patterns young foals are taught were alien concepts to Trixie, who just battered through any problem that had arisen for her in the past. He taught her how you could layer magic on top of itself, deduce pathways, circuits and runes that would achieve a more fine tuned, and even a more powerful result than just brute forcing it. His knowledge may have been limited to basic graduate Algebra level, but Trixie’s knowledge had been limited to counting, so it was a severe step up for her.

As Fancy taught her to use her magic, he taught her to use her magic for the stage. Performance under his instruction was a far more challenging subject than connecting some circles with thirty degree angles, probably because he was a master at the performing aspect of his craft. Trixie took to it with enthusiasm though, and strove her best to meet Hat Fancy’s challenges and requirements. Perhaps too much enthusiasm, as she had a tendancy to set stage props on fire, or embed them in the wall in her attempts to float them gently up into the air. She adapted, but her raw, unsophisticated attitude was a constant point of contention for him.

“Trixie, Trixie,” he would say, stopping her from wowing another imaginary audience. “Your magic is beyond compare, but all you’re gonna do is scare them! You have to dazzle them, not terrify them. And you have to know your own limits.”

So Trixie’s next attempt involved several multi-colored soft lights, rather than a burningly bright scale model of the sun. It was much more well received, by his light applause on the soft earth. In that fashion, he slowly and carefully led her to a more subtle and less over-the-top form of stage performance. He kept her from pushing things too far, and kept her from risking that terrible feeling Trixie felt, when Trixie began to lose her audience, and had to improvise trying to win them back.

“You lose control of the situation,” he told her, “And your act is sure to fail. So you gotta always do a little less than what you’re capable of. Do what you know you can do, not what you think they expect. They don’t know what to expect, and if you overstretch yourself then things happen. And if things happen, then you get booed off the stage, or worse!”

He would guide Trixie, telling her what in her act was right and wrong, but she had to be vigilant against this. He would interrupt her mid-cast, telling her she was doing it wrong, or to change directions, or that he wanted a different focus. He’d keep doing that more and more severely, until Trixie failed, and squatted atop that miniature stage on his wagon in miserable confusion. That was when he told her,

“Never listen to the audience. They’ll do everything they can to mess you up, and they don’t got a clue about performing. You gotta make them think you’re listening, that you can do anything they put you up for, but you gotta keep control of the situation yourself. Don’t devate from your act just because the audience doesn’t like it. Work harder on your act, to make ‘em like it! You can pretend like you’re doing what they say, but you’re the one in the spotlight here. You gotta always lead them back to what you intended to do anyways.”

Trixie found this difficult, as Hat Fancy would not be fooled, and he was the only audience she was allowed. She started practicing with the other performers and stagehooves, just magic tricks mostly, sleight of hoof or hat tricks. Really, it was pointless to perform for them, as Trixie used far greater magics when she in her work as a stagehoof was erecting a tent with her sorcery. Or, more often, fixing loose catches and ties far overhead, so that the earth ponies who were erecting the tent didn’t have to climb up there and perform such tedious detail work. But they tolerated her at least, and Trixie did manage to psyche them out slowly but surely, making them less able to predict what she was going to be able to do.

Still, it was frustrating. Too often before her mentor Trixie would lose control, and screw up her act, and the tree prop would be falling over onto the chair, which would clatter into the cage of rabbits, releasing them to run amuck until they could be herded back into their dwellings, and all too often this was topped off by something catching on fire. For all Trixie’s power and prowess at catching things on fire, she had yet to figure out how to use her magic to snuff it out.

The caravan traveled as he taught her. Trixie learned well how to quickly unpack the wagons and set up the tents, and just as quickly take them down again, sometimes in even more a hurry than their approach. There was never a disaster like when she tried to go it alone, but there were some close calls.

Many of these settlements were very isolated from the rest of the world, and had unusual customs and preconceptions that might have been driven out of the greater Equestria in disgust. Having traveled this route before, they knew to avoid the ones where ponies were genuinely hostile to outsiders, but the borderline tolerable ones were simply not optional. The troupe needed food, and supplies, and repairs, and having those things done without regular stops in civilized towns was impossible, and having those things done in civilized towns without a steady stream of bits was even more impossible.

Trixie was making improvements, but still struggling, as they approached the jewel of their travels, Star City. She simply had to be ready by then, to prove herself as a performer, and as a real pony who deserves everything any other pony has, not a twisted monster from the swamp. She had her debut performance two stops before the city, a wise choice as throwing her straight into the glamor of a larger community would have courted disaster. As-is, the damage was... minimized.

It was a calm community of ex-adventurers and their families, the ones who realized that crawling through the Caverns of Travail was more trouble than its worth, and the ones with a bad leg or an eyepatch from some damn fool thing like trying to explore the Umbrine Ruins, where wild magic still crawled about like, and sometimes as living things. Not the sort of place that would be terrified, or hateful. And Trixie had tried her best at it, to be the mare that Hat Fancy wanted her to be.

In retrospect, summoning fireworks in a canvas tent wasn’t the greatest idea Trixie had ever had. She was just so dazzled by the lights, and the performers, and the pegasi swooping through the air like birds of prey, navigating their hurdles and obstacles with the ease of somepony who knows how to make it look easy. When it came her turn to shine, Fancy’s voice sounded so capable, so forceful as he announced,

“And now, a mare fresh from the greatest schools in Canterlot itself, whose sorcery is unmatched by any, except perhaps the princess herself! You may see a young mare, but you will soon see something far greater and more magical than any with a horn have ever conceived! I humbly present to you, Lula the Magnificent!”

Trixie was shaking on her shoes as she did what she rehearsed, tossing the smoke powder and leaping after it, then summoning a gust of wind to sweep it away and reveal her in all her glory. Trixie had a dark blue robe just like a real wizard, though she hadn’t yet gotten herself a wizard hat. She wordlessly summoned forth a glowing bird of pure light, concentrating fiercely to trace the magical patterns in the air that would foment and stabilize such a thing. Creation was high level magic, creation of simple constructs not as high, but Trixie made it look anything but simple.

“Well, hello there, Philomena!” Trixie said in a magically projected voice to the crowd who had grown silent before the brightly glowing spectacle now on stage. She directed her articulated bird construct to appear to flutter down to her raised hoof. Trixie didn’t know the name, but Hat said it was a good send out, so some of the audience might even recognize it, and guess at what she was trying to do. “You look like you would like to greet the audience! But you are so tired, will you ever make it there? Fly!”

The construct went accelerating away from her, growing as it swooped toward the frightened audience, then with a subtle flash of Trixie’s horn it exploded into a thousand light motes, swirling around every pony they swept over like dandelion seeds in a breeze.

“Oh no!” Trixie said, directing attention back to herself. “She didn’t make it! But what’s this?” It was much more difficult to reach the floating bits of solid light from a distance, but Trixie managed it once, and she would manage it again! Her horn glowed, and then double glowed as she engaged the pattern she had learned, drawing the swirling motes together into two bright balls of light, that flash brightly above the audience...

And now there were two constructs swimming through the air above their heads in graceful swirls of motion. The ooooh that swelled from that audience filled Trixie with a hearty confidence that filled up inside her like she was going to burst! She reared up on two legs, and the bird constructs soared back, to each land on her outstretched hooves, announcing “A miracle, fillies and gentlecolts!” And then she was so excited that she just twisted the magic in them to turn them into beautiful shooting stars erupting from her podium to explode through the sky and set the...tent on fire.

It was not easily extinguished, having caught in several places, and considering Trixie’s uncanny ability to make things burn. The acrobats immediately flew to attend it, but not before a rope snapped and the burning canvas started to fall on the audience. Trixie levitated it in her magic, running off the stage towards them so she could exert more power and control, but they were already screaming and pushing each other, running for the exits.

“Everything is under control!” she shouted desperately as the ringmaster came running over to her with rage in his eyes. “Do not be alarmed this is only part of the... magic of... Trixie can fix this! I mean, Lula can fix this!” Thanks to her magically augmented voice most of the audience gave pause, but it was good for the circus, not Trixie here in the slightest.

“Why do you think I said no fireworks?!” Fancy shouted at her, in a thankfully not magically augmented manner.

“Trixie didn’t—they were shooting stars, not fireworks!” she protested in vain. Unthankfully, her voice still was magically augmented. Trixie hastily canceled that, which made the canvas drop again, but she grabbed it in her magic again and lifted the whole thing strongly. But a few among the audience were actually snickering now, as they looked her way. Trixie certainly loves being entertaining, but not like that!

Hat Fancy completely ignored them, like they weren’t even there. He only had eyes for Trixie. Angry eyes. “They set the tent on fire?” Fancy insisted frankly, “They’re fireworks. Now let go, so that Zim can tie off that rope again!”

Trixie glanced up, and the pegasus was gesturing towards the rope held in Trixie’s magic with an exasperated look.

“Right away!” she yelped apologetically, letting her horn flicker out, so Zim could take the rope, and tie it so that it wouldn’t fall again. Her obligation to be present no longer applicable, Trixie looked at Hat Fancy like a cornered animal waiting to be struck, then just bolted for the exit of the tent herself.

---

“Trixie is never performing again!” she shouted out in despair from underneath the strongpony’s wagon. It was nice and dark under there.

“You did alright!” the sound of the ringmaster’s protest reached her, as she was crouched down under there in the dark and dirt. “You just needed a little more refinement. Why didn’t you stick with the original act?”

“Because Trixie got excited!” Trixie said angrily, “Trixie cannot control herself, and she is just a monster! Leave Trixie alone!”

“Look, Trix you’ll get better,” he said in his smooth convincing tones, “It was your first try of course you’re gonna be excited! You didn’t freeze up. You didn’t even flinch when it went wrong. You were actually trying to incorporate that into your act!”

“But you said Trixie shouldn’t do those things!” Trixie protested to him angrily.

“You shouldn’t!” he replied forcefully, “But when it happens, you are quick to think on your hooves! Listen, it wasn’t so bad! So we got to repair the tent, so what? Nopony demanded their money back. We finished the show even without you. Just come outta there already. We can’t even roll out the wagons with you underneath ‘em.”

“T-trixie supposes she could...” Trixie admitted, sulkily crawling out from under the wagon into the bright afternoon sunlight. “Why are you so...” she told him tearfully, “So good to Trixie? Trixie failed, she screwed up! She shouldn’t get your kindness! Why are you still letting her try?”

“Trixie,” he said, putting a hoof on her shoulder, “You are incredible. You could be the best act we have yet. It’s almost a crime that you want to use that talent of yours just to do some rinky dink circus act. You blow stuff up without even trying! You have any idea how useful it could be if you really applied yourself?”

“Trixie doesn’t want to blow stuff up, though,” she insisted. “Trixie just wants to make ponies like her, and to think that it’s okay to be her. Trixie only wants to impress ponies and be the best stage performer who ever lived!”

“...or at least currently living,” she added, a bit discomfitedly.

Trixie continued to perform, and her second performance was neither as hair raising for herself nor the audience, though the rough patches sewn into the tent fabric served as a constant reminder to keep her magic away from the roof. Trixie had been so worried about that, she hadn’t even paid attention to herself, or what the audience was doing. While sometimes a fatal mistake to ignore the audience, here it gave Trixie that mysterious detachment, like her aloof nature simply failed to make the audience impress her at all, as she juggled heavy weights around like toys. This was child’s play to her, and though Trixie was technically still a child, it made what she did look like the easiest thing in the world. And that really is the key to being a good performer.

When she was done, and the stunt ponies had fled backstage, and the lights had gone out, and her horn quiescent, Trixie was glad to see that nothing had gotten so much as scorched. And then the applause began. It honestly startled her, suddenly she was looking forward at an audience who was stomping the floor, just like they did, just like she once did for her mother. They were doing it for her. They were looking at her like somepony incredible, not like somepony scary or intimidating, or monstrous. She didn’t know why she was crying as she smiled, and she was glad her act had no more speaking roles. It wasn’t earth shattering applause, and it died out politely once she had received it, but it was acknowledgement of her existence, in a way Trixie had never before experienced.

She shakily backed off the stage, and went and... hid in a wagon for a while. She was so happy, but so frightened from the experience, her nerves were just shot. Trixie didn’t know how she felt about it. She simply knew that it hadn’t gone wrong, and she was really afraid of even talking to anypony at this point, just shuddering there by herself as she tried to piece together her scattered wits. And for once, she needed this enclosed space around herself. She hated it and she loved it. It felt stable to her, comforting somehow.

It was what she was familiar with.

They reached Star City with great fanfare. It was a beautiful city, a genuine city rather than some ramshackle array of shacks, carved out of the swamp by ponies determined to make their new home a place that ponies can live in. Their success at that, marginal at best. But the tall buildings that rose overhead were something Trixie had only the most vague, wavering memories of.

Trixie hid in the wagon with the other stagehands, rather than presenting herself boldly as they paraded in, like the acrobats and the strongpony and the beastmaster, but she was granted this at least. Trixie didn’t even have her own wagon, and the printed flyers they had were from their home base on the coast, so she was at the moment a reserve act, though one the ringmaster was very enthusiastic about. There was a large cleared out space just outside the city limits for the circus to set up in, and multiple days were planned for performing. This was as close to the big time as you could get this side of the ocean, and Trixie was withers deep in the action.

She was entirely thrilled, but both in a good and a bad way. Trixie wanted to be special, but she didn’t want to be special. She wanted to amaze others, but didn’t want to make them think she was wrong, or dangerous. And in a big city like this, with this many ponies from all over the land, anything she did wrong could end up haunting her career for the rest of her life.

Hat really helped Trixie, giving her pep talks, and teaching her how she should behave on stage, to achieve what both of them wanted. “You’re great at thinking on your hooves,” he told her, “But you have to anticipate these things better, and when something happens, you gotta bring the focus back on what you intended to do.”

She heard him, and she tried, and her act was deliberately placed in the morning slot where there were fewer attendees, and fewer foals. Foals in an audience meant parents, who would be especially worried if anything dangerous or frightening happened, and foals themselves... Trixie had to be strong. She was all grown up now, too old for an orphanage, and too weathered to be terrified at the things that would make little fillies and colts would scream in fear and delight. She had Hat, she had the circus, and she had an incredible life ahead of her, if she could just... stop messing it up.

But when Trixie’s balled lightning got away from her, and started crackling dangerously as she struggled to pull it back from hurtling into the audience, Trixie tried to return to her original act, and she just blanked out right then and there. What was she going to do with this thing? She had summoned it and... laughed about a... thing, and every eye was on her. They were looking at her with fear. She knew they were! She almost hurt them, again! She could hardly control this thing; why did she even think it was a good idea to summon it?

“A-and for her next trick, she will... um...” Trixie said trying to buy time, as her anxiety got worse and worse. She didn’t want to be here. She was too stupid to be here. Lightning is for pegasi, not unicorns! She just turned all her fear into rage, and tore the lighting ball apart, sending it lancing in bolts over her on stage, where it hit... metal rods, yes. Yes that’s right, she was going to hit the lightning rods with the... ball of lightning that Trixie no longer had.

She stood there alone on that stage, saying “Trixie will...” how could she return to her act, if she had nothing to act with? She looked at the audience, and a hissing sound came from the ceiling. Trixie looked up to see the pegasi spraying water on a scorched spot on the tent. She had—a-a-gain she had... what was Trixie doing after the lightning? What new magic was she to unveil? Trixie just couldn’t think!

“This m-mare needs to... go,” Trixie blurted, then just set off every smoke bomb on the podium, running for her life before the smoke even engulfed her, saving her from those judgemental, prying eyes of fear and shame, that could ruin her entire career if everypony in the city learned of what a terrible thing she is.

“Trixie can’t do it,” she sobbed to Hat that night, long after the last act was over. He came trying to convince her, but the only words she could spit at him is, “Trixie can’t perform no matter what she does. All everypony will ever see is a strange creature on stage. Trixie isn’t a pony, she’s just a big pile of angry magic. Even her cutie mark is magic!”

“You can be magic though,” he said to her soothingly, “That’s what ponies want! You can be everything they ever dreamed up! You just can’t ever let them know your full capabilities.”

Trixie sniffled, and looked at him uncomprehendingly, saying, “But then how...?”

“They’ve gotta be surprised,” he said in an enthusiastic bent, “Surprised by everything you do, so you gotta always keep an ace under your hat. If they aren’t astonished, you lost them.”

“But Trixie does surprise them,” Trixie said bitterly, “Trixie scares everypony who watches her act, with things they never expected!”

“Think about it this way,” Hat said, still on a roll with his new idea, whatever it was. “What’s a better act,” he asked Trixie, “The mare who can tap dance, or the mare with no legs, who can tap dance?”

“Well obviously the second would be better,” Trixie said, “Because she’s doing something incredible—”

“But all she’s doing is tap dancing!” the ringmaster exclaimed. “Anypony could do that!”

“Not a pony without any legs!” Trixie countered.

“That’s the thing though,” he said earnestly, “You only think she doesn’t have legs. Does she? Does she have something else? You don’t know! All she has to do is make the audience think she’s crippled, and suddenly anything easy for her to do becomes incredible in their eyes!”

“But... but you’re right!” Trixie shot back accusingly, “It is only tap-dancing. Why would it suddenly be an incredible act?”

“Because nopony expects it!” he crowed. “She surprises the audience, astonishes them with her skill, and everypony remembers her as amazing. The ordinary tap dancer gets maybe a ‘nice,’ at best. But the mare defying their expectations and surprising them? She blows their little pony minds!

“And that’s what you gotta do,” Hat continued, tapping Trixie’s chest with his You aren’t a mare of magic. You’re just an ordinary pony, to them. You know it ain’t true, but that’s what they gotta see. Then when you whip out your best tricks, they’ll be astonished that an ordinary pony could do such things. That’s how you get your name on the map.

“If you go into it claiming you can do anything, they just keep testing you until they find the one thing you can’t do. You gotta do that though, because half of them wanna see a mare who can do something amazing, and the other half wanna prove that you can’t do anything amazing. But here’s the trick. Claim you can do amazing things, but then fail them right away. Prove yourself wrong, and them right. You fall on your face in the first step, ponies conclude you’re a loser. Then you can wow them, by proving them wrong again and again. And since they already concluded, they won’t keep testing you. They’ll just sit back and think, ‘Wow, that mare was something special.’

“So Trixie should... say she can be very magical, then pretend to be less magical, until their guard is down?”

“You got it! You don’t just want to be a magician, you want to be a performer, and any good performer always keeps that ace in their hat. They feign weakness or failure, then blow ponies’ minds once their guard is down, and ponies’ll never get wise to that.

Trixie hesitated still, and Hat looked at her figure long and hard, then his face brightened, and he said “Listen, I got an idea. Wait here I’m gonna go get some stage makeup.”

He returned with some body paint, a fine bristled applicator, and using these simple tools, Hat Fancy effectively changed the very course of Trixie’s destiny. Trixie felt strange as she watched him. She felt strange, because it was such an innocent activity, but she felt like it had far greater implications. She felt strange, because nopony ever touched her there at all, and now here he was this amazing stallion, using a delicate brush to draw a long, slim line on each side of her hindquarters. She felt strange, because it should have upset her. It should have scared her, and made her flail away until he stopped coming after her. Trixie gulped nervously. She felt strange because, it wasn’t that she was scared, it was that she wasn’t sure she wanted him to stop.

Soon her rump looked... odd is the best possible way to describe it. Her shooting star, that immense event that shaped her life forevermore, now had a stick coming out of it. Nothing elaborate, just a long thin line.

“It’s a wand,” he explained. “Like earth pony magicians use to do tricks. That way when ponies see you on stage, they won’t see you as some big pile of dangerous magic. They’ll just see a performer, a true performer whose mark tells her that she’s there not to do incredible things, but just to perform a few harmless tricks.

“That’s when you wow them,” he said, his face enticingly close, as he spoke in that gorgeous voice quietly, seriously. “They think all you got is a wand, but what you got underneath is a shining star.”

Trixie isn’t sure why she kissed him, then. Oh, who is Trixie kidding, of course she’s sure. Fancy was a performer, and even when he wasn’t trying, every inch of him oozed charisma, from his silky voice to his gorgeously slim jaw, to his piercingly blue, but welcoming eyes. He had just complimented her in the best way Trixie can possibly conceive of, and stroked her ego like a purring kitten. He worked patiently and closely with her, put up with her quirks and failings, and saved her from a life of suffering, drudgery, and possibly even death. It didn’t hurt that her hindquarters were still tingling from the gentle touches he made, to save her from her own terrible destiny.

So of course she kissed him. Trixie had never even thought of kissing anypony before that, but she simply couldn’t not kiss him. Just as thanks, was her addled thought, as she kissed him quickly, then pulled back in tremendous insecurity. “T-thank you,” she said awkwardly to his wide eyed, surprised face, wondering what in Tartarus possessed her to do something so stupid like that. That’s when he kissed her back. And his kiss wasn’t insecure, or awkward at all. Trixie felt like she was drowning from the sheer power and intensity of it, flowing through her like lava in her veins. Yet another of Hat Fancy’s many talents: he was an amazing kisser.

That night, Fancy taught Trixie something she only knew of in whispers and rumors, something that had very little to do with kissing. And say what you will about Trixie’s age, Fancy’s troubled character, or his actions henceforth, but Trixie has never once regretted what she did that night. While it hurt her first, he patiently guided her and eased her into it, until she’d opened her heart (among other things), and her body was ready to welcome him. Everything beyond was pure bliss. Her insecurity, her lack of experience, he neither judged nor punished her for it, gently guiding her as always where she needed it, by what he knew from his past marefriends, and then just letting instinct and passion take its course.

To say Trixie was enamoured of Hat Fancy after she woke up from that incredible night is somewhat like saying rose water has a slight odor to it, or the surface of the sun is just a tad warm. Perhaps not as strongly as that may imply, but when Trixie awoke with him there, for the very first time since joining the circus, she hadn’t been afraid to sleep surrounded by walls. When he told her they needed to be discreet about it, and she shouldn’t tell anypony else what they did, she agreed as eagerly as she would have agreed to jump off a bridge at his suggestion. Her adour certainly cooled over the day that followed, but Trixie felt nothing less than a thrilling, forbidden bliss, at the memory of what they’d done, and also at the secrecy of it.

Trixie had vaguely known herself capable of such things, as a mare growing slowly into her own, but to actually experience it was beyond par. She wasn’t even sure if half the rumors she heard about colts and fillies even applied to what they’d done. There wasn’t any sort of courting, that she was consciously aware of at least. There wasn’t any thought in her mind or his for settling down, or living in a cottage, like she had been told ponies did, long ago in story books read to her in front of a warm fire. Trixie had no idea how what she’d done would necessarily result in wedding bells in her future. It seemed like two totally independent things, because that’s what it was. Trixie should have realized. If she had known the consequences of what she’d done. If she had read more, and learned more...

But instead, Trixie found herself waiting the next night with a drunken giddiness, to slip into his wagon, that he might show her more of the tricks he’d learned, or perhaps exhaustively review some of the ones they’d covered the previous night. Trixie is, if nothing else, very passionate at what she does.

Hat Fancy must have been mortified that first day, afraid that his status as a stallion would put an end to his greatest money maker. But even by the second time, he had a plan. He insisted on using protection from thenceforth, while never quite revealing to Trixie the reason for these odd machinations. An ace in his hat, if you will. Were Trixie to betray him, she certainly wouldn’t help his enemies very much if she ignorantly employed what he taught her, until she was just another lonely outlands mare swollen up like a watermelon. That first, magical night was certainly enough to do it, but Trixie luckily dodged that particular responsibility, and would never again have an opportunity to bear his foals.

Trixie remains undecided whether that makes her feel glad or melancholy, because Fancy didn’t deserve what happened to him, and... if she could have preserved some part of him, Trixie might have been willing to go through the pain and hardship that accompanies such things. Though considering the eventual result of this for Trixie, every part of him would have most certainly been lost to the world.

Author's Note:

I was kind of reluctant to upload this chapter. I hope I don’t lose readers, but with a whole 2 dozen of them, I clearly have nothing to worry about. I think my 7% popularity rating speaks for itself. This story is sure to win the hearts of all, just like Trixie juggling four unstoppered jars full of nitro glycerin. It’s a good thing my writing is so popular, considering it’s my greatest skill in life, greater than any other talent, career or occupation.

Comments

[ferret]

6920105
Really, the only thing that lasted for Trixie was the orphanage. I think things lasting is the least of her worries. She's past the point of certain death though, for an abandoned child, so she should be able to avoid dying, at least.

6923873
Well, the exact times don't really play into her dramatic narrative, but I guess it couldn't hurt to point them out. Trixie learned to write letters at age 5. A year or so later was the Sonic Rainboom. She spent another year-ish, half in the wilderness, and half living off a town's food stores. And she was at the orphanage for almost 4 years, but they didn't tell her what date it was. Trixie isn't sure exactly what year she was born in.

Many of them do see her as their adoptive daughter. Others... it's complicated.

6928429

It's not all downhill, but I don't know how wise I am. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to know you have to go up before you can go down. Trixie's lowest point is probably when she arrives at Ponyville, so she's still got a few... trials ahead of her.

[LordChumley21]

I guess we can add "messed up ideas about love and relationships" to the list. Ooh boy

Also, I haven't really been paying attention but was that Nightmare Moon tag always there?

[Reese]

"limited to basic graduate Algebra level"
Hm. Depending on interpretation, this could mean a wide variety of things about the state of mathematics and the local (probably to where Trixie is telling the story) education system.

"sometimes as living things"
"as, living"?

"wavering memories of"
Something, possibly just a period, appears to be missing after this.

Well, that's not ominous at all. Looks like things will soon be getting grim again. Not that that's especially surprising for this story, of course. :)

7042941
Oh, hm. Glad I decided to look at your comment there and see who you were replying to, because I didn't get a notification.
Anyway, yeah, she should be able to avoid dying... but, am, a: that was kind of a foregone conclusion, unless this took a sudden plot twist into definite AU, and b: that says nothing about all the many, many other bad things that could happen to her.

Let's see, five and one and one and four... Ah. So that would be why Hat Fancy is so very keen to keep it a secret, then.

"Trixie's lowest point is probably when she arrives at Ponyville"
...
Um.
Oh dear.
Lower than any point we've already seen, with all we've seen? And the events in Ponyville... actually made things better for her?!
Once again, oh dear. :)

[ferret]

7043161
Nightmare Moon has always been there. Always.

7043359
Me and commas don't get along. And those numbers were a guesstimate, so she might be a bit older... plus she's joined the circus for the greater part of another half a year now. But yeah he's totally going there.

Lower than any point we've already seen, with all we've seen?

Okay, admittedly as the summary might suggest, the death of her parents was probably the absolute lowest point in her life. But yeah, other than that... not much.

[Reese]

7043862
"Me and commas don't get along."
No problem. :)

"And those numbers were a guesstimate, so she might be a bit older... plus she's joined the circus for the greater part of another half a year now."
Ah, thanks for the clarification.

"But yeah he's totally going there."
And considering that her life between the Rainboom and the circus does not exactly cause the words "getting excellent nutrition" to spring to mind, she might look small for her age, too.

"Okay, admittedly as the summary might suggest, the death of her parents was probably the absolute lowest point in her life. But yeah, other than that... not much."
...Yeah. Oh dear. :)

[Cheer]

I'm on the fence with this chapter. I dunno. I just didn't really like the whole end bits. (You know the ones.) Not for age or anything but it just seemed...off? odd? I don't know. It didn't read right after the whole rest of the story. At least for me.

[ferret]

7044029
I know! Nice things happening to Trixie? What ever happened to all the torture and starvation? I want my money back!

[Cheer]

7046563 eh. Sorta. I'm not against happy. But it went from sad, horrid, sad, hap - fucking. Like. Both in one chapter felt really off. if Trixie had had more time in the limelight and getting better at her craft and then that happened in the next chapter it wouldn't have felt so off. I dunno. Just my two cents

[ferret]

7046658

It's sort of like her rebound. She received solace and kindness for the first time since she was 5, so of course she falls into it, head over heels. It's a common response from abuse victims. Trixie has to learn that being treated with respect is normal, not something special that she should be grateful for, and not something rare that she needs to cling to with desperation. Unfortunately, Trixie is in the company of rough characters, rather than qualified mental health professionals, so they might not always do what's most beneficial to her recovery.

[Starlight Nova]

So I take it that the story was inspired by the cover art picture?

[ferret]

7048774
Among other things, yes.

[Emperor]

Wait, so Trixie isn't going to get pregnant and then dumped out on the side of the road with no bits, no clothes, and half-starved to death while 10 months with foal? I thought this was going to be a tragedy!

I bet she's going to accidentally burn down all of Star City, isn't she?

I hadn't even noticed before that Trixie only had a shooting star for a Cutie Mark. I don't know if it was ever actually mentioned in the text, though, but more likely I skimmed over it in my need for read speed.

7042941 Curse you FIMfiction and your only partially-working system notifications!

[ferret]

7073461
Don't be silly.

I don't know if it was ever actually mentioned in the text

Eh, it wasn't. I probably should have mentioned it more clearly, but I kind of wanted to leave it ambiguous up to this point, let people assume that was her cutie mark all along, get a little surprised when it was actually all part of the act.