Lucidity

by Indulgence

Compulsion

‘Sweet Celestia! Please could you just express yourself clearly’ Trixie sighed, swiftly forgetting the cold feeling the creature’s words had sent coursing through her back, submerged beneath both the sweet fruits still displayed before her and her own impatience. ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie is swiftly getting tired of having to beseech you for answers, in many cases prompted directly by you towards the questions she has to ask. If you have something to say just say it, and make a clear explanation of your meaning’ she continued, eyes still caught up in gazing on her reflected self. She stretched one of her new wings to its full impressive span and then the other, enjoying the until then unknown tingle of sensation as her feathered appendages felt their way through the air. Each movement she made, no matter how slight, elicited both mute enthralled awe from her illusory crowd and her own satisfaction, furthered greatly by her audience’s continued reactions.

‘As you wish, there’s no need for aggravation. I thought of all ponies you could appreciate a bit of theatricality, but anyway to business’ the spectral visage acquiesced, still ensconced in the elated rows it had created, an unaffected shrug evident in its tone even though obviously absent in any physicality. ‘Although I am loath to admit it, this place is very much a prison for me and though like any cage it has its gaps between its bars, these do little to make the place bearable. Ultimately I grow bored, the glimpses I am given through the holes in my cell's walls only worsening my condition in showing me the world from which I am withheld. But I digress; you therefore are my way out, my escape. All you have to do is let me into that pretty little head of yours, to share the space if you will, and then we can leave this place together. You’ll of course have my gratitude for this service and with it all the power I have offered. Together we can achieve everything you’ve ever dreamed of, truly becoming “Great and Powerful”, not to mention that we might reap revenge against those that have wronged us both. Fun no?’

Despite its voice remaining pleasant throughout, as if it were merely running the gauntlet of small talk, the words it spoke still involuntarily sent a shiver up Trixie’s spine. She was by no means a little filly, its honeyed tongue therefore falling far short of the deceptive mark, she was well aware of the pact it was asking of her. There were more old mares’ tales than might easily be counted of those who had struck such deals with unknown entities, those that made their home in Tartarus or dwelt in far worse places, inevitably suffering for their transgression and she was in no hurry to count herself amongst their number. At the same time this was not her first encounter with such darker magics, with her latest experiences only ending in disappointment, giving her little reason to place any hope in this demon’s smiles.

‘Come now Trixie, I am no mere item of jewellery and I do not ask you to bankrupt yourself to have me.’

‘You can read m…Trixie’s thoughts?’ she blurted in surprise.

‘No need to when she writes them clear across her face’ it answered. ‘I am aware of your past though, but you shouldn’t be alarmed at this. To judge is others’ domain not mine. I mean I really want us to be friends, so wouldn’t have anything to gain by pointing out your inadequacies, highlighting for example that you’re a talentless showpony from a minor curiosity sideshow who failed and dropped out of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorn’s. I would also try my hardest to contain my surprise that somepony so lacking in any magical abilities such as yourself actually managed to pass the entrance exam to get in in the first place, particularly bearing in mind that you’ve since relied on a mixture of pyrotechnics and simple lies to create your “magic”. No, the fact that you’re a pitiful excuse for a unicorn is really none of my concern.’

‘Trixie is not pitiful!’ the blue unicorn bellowed angrily, feeling each of the blows of its verbal assault, whilst a supporting scene played out before her in the obsidian mirror. At its first strike her twin’s wings had been plucked from her, bursting apart, reduced to being only clouds of feathers which mingled with a rainbow of confetti fired across her stage from unseen sources. In the same moment the delicious alien sensations the appendages had brought with them disappeared too, only to be replaced by the feeling of her trademark hat and cloak materialising in their place. Both accoutrements looked old, frayed at the edges and marred by staining, as much as they looked like a fool’s garb.

‘Of course she isn’t! How silly of me to have forgotten the vast legions of fans more than willing to testify to the contrary. Oh wait a minute, she doesn’t have any!’ Its malevolent grin grew all the wider as it chuckled to itself at her expense. ‘But then again it is an easy mistake to make, after all a crowd is a crowd and laughter is laughter, so who’s to say what the true meaning of either is. Of course it helps little when the subject is herself alone, entirely friendless and without any kin to speak of, therefore being without anypony who could honestly translate it. Joking aside though, let’s be truthful with one another. All you have in any real numbers are enemies, along with their loathing and resultant mirth at your pitiable self.’

‘Shut up!’ The gleeful faces of her twin’s audience turned to snarling expressions, their tightly crowded number becoming an angry hoard baying for blood. Each member of their newly formed mob alternated between silenced laughter and shouting their displeasure, in both cases their gnashing maws dripping with the venom of their hatred, matched in the gleaming daggers of their eyes. Trixie’s own gaze darted from one visage to the next, searching them all in turn for any variation but finding nothing. In this she did however discover fissures forming at the mirror’s edges, cracks breaking gradually inwards across its surface, meanwhile in an instant the entirety of her tormentors disappeared. Her reflection now sat alone in its dishevelled costume, save for the leering creature which loomed closer over her shoulder.

‘Come now Trixie, we both know that you can’t shut out the truth. You wouldn’t be here if that was the case.’ The predator’s azure irises stared out and into her from the crystalline looking glass. ‘I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted us to be friends. Surely only a friend could be so brutally honest about your wretched excuse of an existence, and in any case I only did so to make it clear to you that you had nothing, less than nothing, to lose and everything to gain from my generous offer.’

A background of dilapidation formed behind her twin, filled with the decrepit form of a stagnant caravan, immobile in the setting of a decaying back alley overflowing with rancid rubbish. ‘Buck you!’ Trixie spat back bluntly, unable to rise to more.

‘Okay, let me put it a different way.’ The fault lines still forming across the mirror now fully ruptured towards its centre, splintering all images including the dejected unicorn held within it. It finally shattered, sending outward an explosion of vicious shards, but these dissolved rapidly back into the darkness before striking anything. Revealed now in its absence was a length of rope dropping down suspended from the nothingness of the ceiling and ending in a noose at which the creature reappeared, watching her through its loop. ‘You really don’t have many other options open to you.’