The Mare in the Magic Hat

by Impossible Numbers

Part II: In Which Trixie Faces the King's Judgement

Of course, I haven’t really just been captured by a bunch of foals, Trixie thought desperately. This is clearly nothing but a childish prank.

All around her, the threads of the net bounced her up and down with every flap her captors took. She hung – rather ignominiously, the critic in her head thought – from a long vine supported at each end between two flying pegasus fillies. They both had green face paint on them, giving them the tribal look of a “cowponies and buffalo” game gone wrong. More to the point, neither of them looked in the mood to let her go.

The caravan of foals pushed ahead of her and marched in her wake. In both directions were angry, scowling faces along the lines of their two pegasine comrades.

“Ha, ha, ha,” she said gamely, in the special manner of any adult trying to humour a far-too-dedicated child actor. “Yes, you have captured I, the Grrrreat and Powerful Trrrrixie! Well done! You know, not many have managed to ensnare the fine magician unawares… and you are no exception! You passed the test! Very droll, and all that! Now let me out.”

They continued marching through the forest. Having left the road long ago, she started wondering if her caravan was just going to sit in the rain until she got back. Assuming, of course, she got back.

Pah! Of course I shall. One does not think such paranoid thoughts when one is a master at the art of escapology.

Provided I’m the one setting up the trap, you mean?

“This is all very clever,” she said, “but you don’t have to pretend anymore. It’s a good game, whatever it is. Fair play.”

A few faces before and behind her scowled all the harder. Disappointingly, no one spontaneously said, “All right, joke’s over. You’re a good sport, Miss Trixie. Here’s a few bits for your trouble.”

Their adornments – such as they were, being mostly twigs and leaves – must have been scavenged from the forest floor; even as she watched, the ferns they waded through had the same spiky design as the ones wrapped around that earth filly’s head and used by that unicorn colt as a neckerchief and woven into the skirt of the pegasus… Filly? Colt? Hard to tell on the one with the eyelashes but the square muzzle.

“What is it, money?” Trixie fumbled through her coat pockets. “I’ve got a shiny penny somewhere. A full pocket of the things, in fact. Get yourself some nice clothes, if you know where the nearest charity shop is. It’ll be my treat.”

One of the pegasi carrying her chose that moment to stick out a tongue at her.

Trixie’s patience, already crumbling under the constant bouncing of the net, fell to pieces utterly. The last time she’d been on the wrong end of a protruding tongue, she’d been too busy wiping tomato off her face and trying not to slip on the splattered juice across the stage. And there’d been laughing. And booing. And hisses.

Admittedly, that was some time ago, but when you stare at the abyss and the abyss tosses fruit at you, the memory of the depths comes surging back like a dark tidal wave.

She glared at the surrounding columns of blackened bark and spongy moss. “Seriously, this isn’t funny now! I know you’re out there! Tell your fillies and colts to unhand me this instant, or I swear by the Eight Points of the Royal Compass Ploy, you’ll live to regret this! Don’t you know who I am!? Of all the shoddy, unfriendly receptions I’ve had in my entire life –”

They entered a clearing. Trixie’s jaw stopped in mid-complaint.

Where once the forest had been soaked with shadows and squelched underfoot, now it opened to a near-heavenly glow that drummed with each synchronized step. The marching foals spread out before her, and emerging from the forest around them were little huts. Each one sagged with the weight of greenery squishing itself on top like moss-covered boulders, bulging out and staring with empty sockets which presumably stood in for windows and doors. Torches burned on the tops of poles, bathing the scene in unnatural hues.

More feral foals surged out of their dens, ants swarming around a prize catch. Trixie tried to keep her outer extremities away from them, a tricky feat in an all-encompassing net while little hooves prodded her and little voices jabbered and whooped in excitement.

Everywhere she looked, they had everything: A line of vines, each supporting little leaf-woven vials like grotesque Hearth’s Warming decorations.

“Oh dear,” she said.

A pile of kindling, over which a skewer lay waiting to be turned on a spit.

“Oh my,” she whispered.

A lone colt, his horn aglow while he tied flint axe-heads to smooth poles of black wood.

“Oh no,” she squeaked.

A timber throne, tall enough for a Princess to rest her back against and to spread out her wings too: so many curvy and face-like carvings competed for space that the wood appeared to be haunted by a village of ogres.

Sitting on the throne was a little colt. A twine crown sat askew on his head.

“Oh, come on,” Trixie groaned.

Predictably, the two pegasi – still bearing her – took her over to him, whereupon they stopped a good leap away. Both simply let go.

Trixie hit the hardened earth and fell onto her front. No matter how much she strained against the bonds, she felt her own torso crushing her limbs beneath her. The lost circulation stung all along each leg.

The King – What else, Trixie thought – raised a hoof. Behind her, the mob – Tribe, she corrected – fell silent at once.

One of the earth foals of indeterminate gender leaped between them, bowing to the King. Trixie noticed a couple of unicorn colts either side of her, not so casually hefting little flint spears. The urge to roll her eyes was swiftly countermanded; they were exactly the sort of stiff-backed, thickset foals who’d grow up to lurk in alleyways and dangle innocent victims by their ankles.

“Presenting!” shouted the earth foal. “His Mega Royal Super Awesome Ultra Highness! King of the Trees and Everything! Lord of Good Who Beat Up the Big Pig and Fought a Army! He’s a King! Bow Down Unto Him!”

Somehow, Trixie could actually hear the capital letters slotting into place. She got a kick from one of the unicorn colts.

“Hey, you!” he rumbled. “He said bow down.”

“In point of fact,” Trixie snapped, “I’ve arrived pre-bowed, thank you for nothing. Now get this wretched net off me.”

The colt kicked her again; not that he could do much damage, but it had the effect of a horsefly ignoring the first ten head-flicks and landing anyway.

Helplessly, he shrugged at the King. “She’s not bowing,” he said.

Scowling, the King leaned forwards on his chair. Goodness knew where he’d got the idea of the traditional kingly look from, but the ermine cape, the jewelled sceptre, and the flowing regal beard would’ve looked a lot more imposing if they’d actually been made of the requisite materials and not e.g. from whatever happened to be lying on the ground at the time.

He stroked the fronds of his beard and a couple of spiders fell out. “Fass-kinating,” he said. “She doesn’t want to bow to the King.”

“What are you talking about?” Trixie tried to stand up, met the limits of the net halfway up, and collapsed onto her hocks again. “I can’t do anything else in this ridiculous thing! Listen, if this is some kind of juvenile prank, I’m already bored and tired of it. Take this net off or – so help me – I’ll come over there and make you.”

Even as she burst under the words, however, the rest of her shrank back from the reality slowing dawning on her. Those huts, the lines and spears and vials: all of it looked a little too dedicated to be some kind of playground. Three pegasi flew up to the vials and untangled them from the vine, and then tipped the contents down their throats.

What is that? An excellent way of catching drinking water? A way to moisten whatever treats they’d stuffed inside? And there are dozens of the things up there…

The King whistled at her. “Hey! Over here! You’re supposed to be listening to me!”

Trixie opened her mouth to retort – Hold on. Perhaps playing along with this… charade… will get me out of here faster. Just humour the little blights – and closed it again.

“That’s right.” The King batted his sceptre idly against his other legs, tapping out some random rhythm only he understood. “OK. Now I ask you a question, and you say yes or no if it’s a yes-or-no question, otherwise you gotta say something else. Now, what business have you in my forest, tresserpasser?”

“I think you mean ‘tresspasser’ –” The other colt kicked her. “All right. That’s it. My business is nothing that concerns you foals, understood? I was merely on my way to the next village over from Stonecraft. Anyway, what – pray tell – is it to you whether I come and go as I please? That was a public road.”

“Hmm,” said the King. “You talk funny. What’s your name?”

“My name? You really don’t know who I am?”

“Dummy. That’s why I asked. Who are you, really?”

Right. I’ve had just about enough. Rearing up – and hitting the net and flopping back down again – Trixie cleared her throat.

“Me? You dare to ask me who I am? I am the cape that billows in the storm! I am the smokescreen that explodes on the mirror of life! I… am no less than she, the crafter of miracles, the creator of marvels: the Grrrreat and Powerful Trrrrixie! Not a mare nor a stallion lives who does not tremble in awe at those words! To utter them is to summon a world of wonderment and impossibility! So I ask you in turn, boy –” Cruel as it was, she enjoyed the slight twitch in his limbs at her emphasis “– who are you to presume to question me?”

She hadn’t meant it to explode with the old boastfulness. In truth, she’d tried to keep a lid on such language for years, ever since the… unfortunate incident. But she swore she was getting rashes from the ropes, and in any case her patience had rubbed off somewhere along the journey through the forest. Any foal stupid enough to keep up a joke this long needed no subtlety.

Unfortunately, the King looked no less keen than before. If anything, his irritating kingly face deepened with a solemnity that would’ve worked, if only he’d had a stronger jaw and about twelve years of roughing it in Canterlot.

“In-tressing,” he said. “A bit very wordy, but I thought it was completely a speech, yes. And you know who I am. I’m the King. This is my kingdom, see?”

Trixie followed the sweeping gesture of his stubby limb, which – had it been longer – would’ve encompassed the huts, the silent crowd, the vines, the spit, and the spears.

“School project, is it?” she said sourly.

“What’s a school?” whispered one of the watching foals.

Trixie felt ice creep along her spine. Surely, even that half-street of a village had some kind of learning establishment? She’d been to settler towns you could spit across – and, with the prompting of the locals and much self-disgust, she had done too – and they still had the old-timey schoolmarm somewhere to teach the ABCs and get romantically involved with the nearest sheriff.

Either these foals really were committed to the “undiscovered ponies” role, or some village somewhere had recently lost a part of its youth. Worryingly, she tried to remember if she’d seen so much as a small face back in Stonecraft. Somehow, she couldn’t remember anything but a few mares and stallions scattered here and there…

“Uh,” she said, trying to sound more reasonable in spite of the next kick from one of the colts. “Haven’t you got homes to go back to?”

“Yes. These are our homes,” said the King matter-of-factly. “I built mine in just one day because I’m good at it. I built some others in just one day too.”

“No, I mean your real homes.”

“You’re funny. Su’jects, laugh at the funny mare.”

Little voices gave murmuring chuckles, as though teacher had insisted under pain of detention that everyone applaud the headmaster who’d just wandered in. The ice along her spine began clawing deep between her shoulder blades.

“Look,” said Trixie, trying to back off in a net that kept tangling up her legs, “this has all been an impressively drawn-out experience, but I have prior engagements, and I’m afraid our show-and-tell session will have to be postponed, so if it’s all the same to you –”

With a yelp, she tripped and fell onto her haunches. Up ahead, the King waved a hoof lazily.

Foals surrounded her, in all directions but the one where the King sat on his throne. She didn’t need to turn her head to see all of them; the ring of pricking spearheads pressing against her neck did the job. She didn’t dare turn her head. She didn’t dare move at all.

Chills ran through her body. Even the idea that this was play no longer comforted her. Those flintheads were like knives.

“We found some very in-tressing things in your big wheelie-box-house,” said the King, and as he spoke, other foals came up to him and knelt down to offer –

My crystal ball! My tarot cards! My top hat! My cane! My trick coin box! Get your grubby little paws off my stuff!

“They look like magic,” continued the King.

His kingly frown sharpened when he narrowed his eyes and pouted. On any other day, she would’ve laughed. As it was, she felt the urge stop around the point her neck became a flint collar with a wooden ruff attached.

“Uh…” she said. “Uh…”

“It’s cool stuff,” said the King. “I like this one. I want a cape like this. This looks like a king’s cape.”

Aha. Therein lies a pressure point for one to prise open the heart. School drama club, don’t fail me now.

Trixie ventured a careful nod, dipping her chin without in any way moving her neck. “Treasures for His Royal Majesty!”

The King’s scowl broke into wide-eyed blinking. “What? For me?”

“Oh yes, Your Majesty,” said Trixie, and in her head a little Trixie giggled and tried not to collapse. “Have you heard, Your Majesty – though of course it is naive of me to ask such a silly question! – of the great Princess of the Land of Equestria?”

“Huh? No. You made that up.”

“Oh no, Your Majesty. Equestria is very real” – I can’t believe I’ve just had to say that; what is going on here? – “and it lies beyond your forest realm. For you see, I am merely a subject from that beautiful country, a royal subject sent by none other than the greatest and fairest Princess you would ever lay your royal eyes on.”

“Wow, yeah?” His voice shot up with beaming curiosity; evidently, he was informed enough to know where a princess would fit in the grand scheme of things. “What’s her name?”

“Why, no less than the mellifluous Celestia, of course.” The pricking flints loosened around her neck; one or two voices murmured in interest. “Yes! Princess Celestia of the Land of Equestria! Naturally, she has heard of the magnificence of your kingdom and is impressed by what she hears. She is keen to make your acquaintance, Your Majesty, but – Princess as she is – I fear she cannot meet you in person. Alas! Calamnity, calumnity! Such is the world we live in!”

No mistaking it this time: the King leaned forwards so far he should’ve toppled out of his chair. All but two of the spears around her rose away from her throat, and now she could wave her limbs and dart her hooves here and there to make a point. Only the two colts-who-would-grow-up-to-lurk-in-alleyways remained unmoved.

“As her humble but skilled court magician,” she continued, trying not to roll on the ground laughing, “I naturally volunteered to be her envoy – her messenger,” she added, feeling “envoy” was a bit advanced for someone who was still at the waddling stage of leg development – “and forth have I brought: the gifts of royalty, destined for royalty!”

“Liar,” muttered a pegasus filly. “You were nowhere near us.”

“A terrible tragedy! Humble as I am, I was soon lost amid the strange and unnatural trees of the road, and had no choice but to throw myself on the lifeline of fate.”

“We jumped you easy,” said one of the colts, smirking at her.

“I was under orders not to attack anyone,” said Trixie through gritted teeth.

“We stole-ed all the gifts and things,” said an earth colt.

“And whose fault was that?” snapped Trixie.

“Weeelllll, you can’t be much of a magician reeeaaallly,” said an earth filly, “if we jumped you and stole-ed your –”

“Excuse me, little madam! Nobody asked you!”

The ring of foals rushed backwards; she hadn’t liked that “not much of a magician” crack.

“Fass-kinating,” said the King, and all about the clearing, the foals crept back into the ring formation to surround her. “Your story is heared by all here. Now I must think it over if it is true or if it is not true. Thinks… Thinks…”

They all stared at him as he stroked his beard, which dropped a pebble, a bit of webbing, and an earwig that scurried down the throne. Trixie noticed that he in turn was staring at the prizes pinched from the caravan.

Taking her time, she extended a foreleg as far as it would go. She almost reached a full stretch before the net’s vines strained against the back of her cannon. So there’s some give, at least. Good. Now, if I try to move the joints at the end rather than the whole leg… ah, there we go, just like your standard straightjacket escape act… It’ll look a bit silly, but I think the boat’s sailed on that front…

Unfortunately, one of the offering foals chose that moment to become curious. She peered down at her little box and nudged the lid up to get a peep inside, resembling – as it turned out – Pandora the Nosy Parker of pegasine antiquity, who’d done something similar just before making the world a considerably less cheerful place to live in.

Faint blue wisps curled about her muzzle. She sneezed.

Trixie’s special blue powder spilled out and hit the ground. A bang later, the King vanished behind a bush of smoke.

Foals screamed all around her. Trixie’s annoyance at this waste of smokescreen jumped backwards in shock under the noise. Unicorns snorted in alarm, pegasi darted into the sky like startled birds, and earth foals reared and gave a series of squealing neighs.

“What’s wrong!?” she shouted over the noise. “Don’t panic! It’s just a bit of smoke!”

On reflex, her ears pressed hard against her head as though ducking for cover. Her heart was sinking. She wasn’t used to such loud cries, except for the squeals of foalish delight, and that sound hadn’t crossed her ears in years.

By the time the smoke faded away and the King emerged coughing and spluttering, the spears encircled her utterly. Except, this time, none came so much as a foot towards her. Scowls were replaced by wide eyes, and mouths twisted in an attempt to crawl around to the backs of their owners’ heads.

The King coughed his last, and whipped a hoof at her.

“Sorc’ry!” he shouted. “I knowed it! I knowed it as soon as I seed all the stuff you had! You’re the evil sorc’ress ogre! The wickedest, most evilest shape-shifter sorc’ress ogre!”

Trixie glanced around at the masks of terror behind rows of spear shafts. “There’s no need whatsoever to be afraid! It’s not sorcery. Haven’t you seen stage magic before?”

“You said you was a magician! We all heared you! I’m the King, and I say she’s guilty! Throw this stuff into the Water! It’s all got bad magic in.”

“Now come on!” Trixie’s voice rose despite her mental attempts at calming it. “Those things are expensive. You can’t really throw it all away. I order you not to throw it away, or… or you’ll feel the back of my hoof!”

The words hardened their faces, returning the scowls. Leaning back, the King edged away from her.

“Please?” she said.

“Then before you’ve done that,” the King said, “throw the sorc’ress ogre in after them!”

“WHAT!?”

“Yes! And tie her up! Make sure she can’t move anything, or else she might swim or magic her way out of there! Just throw her all the way in!”

Trixie spluttered; this was now officially the world’s worst prank. “But I’m not a sorceress ogre, whatever that is! I swear! I really am just a stage magician.”

Behind the spears, more foals closed in. Trixie tried to back away; they had coils of vines drooling in their mouths or levitating by their horns.

“Take her to the Waters!” shouted the King, losing the imperious edge to a notable squeak. “Now! Now! Now! Before she magics us!”

“I’m not – Are you listening to me?”

The foals piled on top of her. On the scale of offensive manoeuvres, they had all the tactical thinking of an avalanche and the sundry strength of thrown pillows, but they swarmed like army ants on a fallen chick. As soon as Trixie pushed away one lot, another group collapsed and pressed her leg onto the ground. By the time she’d untangled one vine, someone flicked her horn sharply – she gritted her teeth at the sting quivering through her head – and more coils tightened across her chest.

Even throwing her whole body against them only bowled a few of them over before she hit her jaw on the ground; she’d barely scrambled and crawled worm-like out of the pile when they swarmed over her again and sat along her back.

Trixie sucked in as much air as she could before they had a chance to cover her nostrils, and held her breath.

What did I do to deserve this? She gagged at a vine stuffed into her mouth like a bridle’s bit. I woke up this morning in a good mood, I did a few Manehattan card tricks, and I got a nice cress sandwich to go. At what point did Fate say, “Hey, I know, let’s re-enact The Lord of the Horseflies; now all I need is a decent pig”?

Under the net, she felt her legs snap together and vines squeeze her skin. As one, the foals drew back. They’d been thorough; even her spine could barely twitch for all the rigid lines running up and down them, and across her torso.

And they were tight. She was still holding her breath, her lungs as billowed as possible, and she felt the burns along her flanks with the effort.

While two pegasi lifted up the net so it fell away, the King hopped off his throne. His leaf-sewn cape flapped about until he landed. He strode forwards, using the sceptre as a cane every other step.

“Any last words?” he said. “Evil sorc’ress ogre? You’ve got to say ‘yes’.”

“Mmnf, mmnf, mmnf-mmnf!” was all Trixie could manage. What on earth has gotten into them? What’s a sorceress ogre? Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to find out?

“Oh yeah.” The King stopped before her. “It’s a bit sad. Those last words aren’t very good. But you are completely evil, so I guess it’s OK. To the Waters!”

That’s just a name, right? Trixie grunted as the foals heaved and carried her aloft. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe it’s just a fancy way of saying they’ll dunk me in a swimming pool, or throw water balloons at me.

Water balloons might be better, right?

---

Comments

[RTStephens]

Lord of the Horseflies

Heh. That's about where my mind was going.

Gotta admit, this isn't what I was expecting going into this. Not a bad thing, as getting the unexpected is a rarity nowadays. I'm curious to know where this is heading.

One thing I wanted to bring up though is why Trixie didn't try using her magic to get her out of this. It doesn't even cross her mind. Even a little telekinesis could have loosened her bonds. Perhaps she was too flabbergasted?

Anyway, onward!