Now You Don't
When Trixie awoke, she found herself floating in a warm, peaceful fog. Her surroundings were fuzzy and poorly-lit. An incessant chirping kept her from falling back asleep, and she shifted. Motion brought flashes of pain, but she couldn’t scream out. Her awareness gradually faded again, until she shifted and caused herself more pain, and brought herself fully awake. She began to go over what she remembered.
A wonderfully successful show, and a good haul of bits. Meeting with her old mentor. And…
“Sparkle.” Her drugged tongue hissed, her voice muffled.
A glance around gradually revealed a dimmed hospital room. She inwardly cringed, thinking of her funds and how a hospital stay would eat into them. She thought of how worried Starlight must be, with poor Trixie laid up in a hospital bed. Gauze wrapped her arms, and a set of tubes shunted into the frog of one hoof, giving direct access to her bloodstream. She thought of one of Sunset’s lessons when she still attended Celestia’s School. Healing tinctures and something to take the edge off whatever pain would be flowing in, up her arm, pushed around her body by the slow throb of her heart. One of her eyes didn’t seem to want to open, but that was okay. The other saw just as well without it.
She followed the tubing with her good eye, trailing one set up to a tree hanging over her bed. Pouches and a drip-feed. She could almost taste the potion, picking apart what might be setting her body right. There was another tube, a deep and rich red, next to the straw-yellow of the invigorant. This she trailed, up to the base of a glass bottle. The pool of liquid there was fed by another tube, and she followed this one; this one terminated somewhere in the dark mass slumped against her bed. Starlight, so distraught that she would give her own lifeblood to return Trixie to health, and would refuse to leave her side.
Gingerly, she reached out her free hoof and trailed it along the mane nestled against her side. Sweet Starlight, soft Starlight, with her lavender scent cutting the antiseptic tang of the hospital air. Eyes the roaming pony had fallen into, a constant companion of ten years. Hooves that had helped her dig a hole and prepare a pyre for her beloved mother. A horn that had struck the blaze that had freed Felicity Lulamoon from her hydra-ravaged body and returned her to the Aether. A will that had helped poor Trixie limp along through school, had shored up her sorely lacking magical talent with raw power.
Beautiful lavender-violet coat hair. A mane of indigo that she adored, with its sharply defined bangs and single strip of vibrant pink.
Trixie floated in the midst of her fuzziness for several seconds before it clicked. This wasn’t Starlight. This was Sparkle. She felt diseased, knowing Sparkle’s blood was seeping into her veins. The idea was making her claustrophobic. Pity the drugs kept her too sluggish to do anything about it.
The pony stirred from her feeble motions, her expression only barely visible in the gloom. A deep frown carved her face as she stared up at Trixie. Was she crying? Had she, Trixie’s mortal enemy, been distraught over how low she had laid Trixie? No, impossible.
“I’m so sorry. It was my turn to charge the wards and… I got sidetracked and forgot.”
So it was Sparkle’s fault. But what was she apologizing for? What had happened?
“I should have done something. Instead I just shut down and… Starlight had to.”
Sparkle lifted a hoof, trailing tubing, and pointed to the other bed. “She’s being treated for burnout. She might have cracked her horn.”
Trixie pawed at her cannon, trying to reach the leads. Sparkle gently pushed her back down, and when Trixie expected her to smother her or… something, she merely adjusted the pillows and drew the blanket up over Trixie’s bruised barrel. Trixie glowered silently at her, but the damn thing just wouldn’t stop talking.
“I… You have a rare blood type. We weren’t going to get enough of it here in time to s-save you. But Sunset told me. Sunset told me everything. That I could give to you. See, what makes your blood special is inherited from your father.” Sparkle chewed the inside of her lip. “Night Light. We have the same dad, Trixie.”
No. She couldn’t actually be related to Sparkle. Could she?
“Sunset thought it was time for me to know, since you showed up here. The documents would have gotten unsealed soon anyway, when I took my name. She looked out for you, even after you left the School.”
Trixie thought of attending the School. By the way her peers looked at her, treated her, she knew it was expensive. She thought of her mother managing to provide for her, to make birthdays and holidays special- even when a mind sharpened by vigorous lessons knew there shouldn’t be enough.
Sparkle opened her mouth again, but Trixie was rescued from her inane prattle by the door clicking open. The lights came up, just enough for the white mare who entered to read meters and adjust the flow of chemicals. A cuff was snapped into place around Sparkle’s dock, and she had the decency to blush and try to hold still. The mare clucked slightly and shook her head. With a deft tug of her teeth and quick application of gauze, she jerked the shunt from Sparkle’s hoof.
“It’s been six hours. You can’t give any more, Twilight.”
Confronted by the hydra, Twilight locked up. She couldn’t manage to drag out so much as a squeak, let alone a single thaum of magical power. As she watched one old friend get slammed through her own home, the other stood tall and unleashed a wave of raw magic, pure power that tore at reality.
“I just wanted to help.”
The white mare gave Twilight a brief nuzzle, before helping her limp out of the room. “I know. But Starlight and Trixie need to rest now, and there’s nothing more you can do. A certain pink filly is waiting for you in the visitor room, I think she brought juice and cookies for you.”
The door snapped shut and the lights went back out, leaving Trixie alone with her thoughts and the chirping of the heart monitor next to her. Was it her imagination or was every beep louder? Why was her breath hitching?
She closed her eyes.
A forlorn azure filly sat by herself, holding a book against her chest. The other foals had taken one look at her unadorned state and stuck their noses up. Her Mama had left her in this strange place and said that after passing her test she had to go to school. Trixie had just thought she was doing magic tricks.
A lavender filly edged closer to her, staring at the book. Trixie cleared her throat and ventured a smile. “My name is Trixie, what’s yours?”
The response was quiet, almost fearful. “Twilight. Twilight Sparkle.”
Trixie smiled a little wider and pushed closer. “Do you want to read with me? My Mama reads me this story every night, it’s called The Mare In The Moon.”
The tiny thing nodded faintly and edged closer, close enough that Trixie could smell her lavender shampoo. Was this what a friend was like? Trixie decided she liked it.
Trixie took a deep breath and closed her eyes firmly. She couldn’t manage a single spark. She couldn’t reach out and ground herself in the present. The beeping was getting louder, faster.
New friends joined them. A slow-talking filly from the West they adored. A green filly with a sharp accent, who loved to laugh. A cream one, even smaller and more shy than Twilight. Her Starlight.
A lazy summer afternoon, and a game of baseball. The older mare who had nearly adopted the six fillies trudging across the clipped lawn they’d run and played on. Twilight being taken aside, and then lead home a broken pony.
Noise. A sharp prick. The keening of the monitor slowing, as Trixie began to feel more sleepy. Her eye opened, and she stared across at Starlight sitting up. She was saying something, talking to the ponies that were fussing over Trixie. She slumped back down, her muscles going slack. She was helpless, couldn’t distract herself. Her thoughts ran in circles like a little terrier, snapping at her hooves.
A test. Some demonstration of magic. Trixie tried and tried. She understood the spell, she knew the theory inside and out, backwards and forwards. She just couldn’t manage to will power into the weave.
Looking to her friends to help her. Twilight sitting and staring, her coat mottled. Starlight encouraging her. Betty. Lyra. Moondancer with her nose in a book- but that was just her way. She knew they were laughing at her. She knew she didn’t belong here, she just wanted to keep up.
Sparkle’s blood in her veins. The father Trixie’s mother had never wished to discuss, always telling her “when you’re older”, being Sparkle’s father as well. Trapped in her own mind by injury and chemicals, unable to flee any longer from the truth that had been eating at the center of her ever since she had been expelled. Trixie had always resented her friends for their greater magical talent. Sparkle had ratted her out, but that was just her way- Twilight would sooner give up reading than willfully allow a rule to be broken. Trixie had been the one to come up with the way for Starlight to hide her casting. Trixie had wheedled and cajoled for her to cast a spell for her during an examination.
Staring up at the ceiling as the commotion died down, Trixie wept. Her tongue was thick, and her speech slurred, but that was alright.
“I’m sorry Twilight. I wish I was a better pony.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.045 seconds
Total duration
968 users online
1,618,077 hits today, 2,151,698 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Sometimes the only way to stop running from the truth is breaking your leg.
As for Starlight... I can only hope horns heal in this setting.
9545010
And your other leg. And your back. And your third leg. And a buncha ribs.
Equestrians pay for hospitals? Are you sure? Nobody in our world does that except the US. I've always thought that Equestria has socialised medicine, just like everywhere else. I can't imagine they have the crazy insurance companies that the US has - Celestia wouldn't allow it. The line "She inwardly cringed, thinking of her funds and how a hospital stay would eat into them." really sticks out.
I like this outcome more that the canon episode~
9545012
It takes more than one broken limb to force the Tenacious and Determined Trixie to have an introspective moment.
9544981
Why?
9545038
How? Whatever. Be an ass.
9545023
Even if it did, Trixie is a teenager who lives on the fringe of society proper.
9545053
Because they would exist?
If according to Word of God Rarity did indeed mean the tracked machine of war when she said "Rainbow won't look like a tank" then the couple instances of "fast like a bullet" probably mean the projectile from a firearm.
Also cannons and tanks exist.
9545055
For those of us outside the US, the idea that money would be on anyone's mind during a medical emergency is kind of shocking. Trixie doesn't even pay rent, so it's not like the loss of income while she's unable to perform is an issue.
9545072
Thank you darling.
9545069
The mind goes weird places when you're drugged, as Trixie demonstrates. Also when you're "I live in a
vantrailer down by the river" poor money tends to be foremost thing on your mind.Also a nation whose nobility class had to be bullied by Sunset and company into opening an orphanage probably wouldn't have socialized medicine.
Yea, she made it! Now I hope both mares can become closer and hopefully Starlight will be alright.
9545081
Hah! Good points.
9545102
The US has no social safety net because many are scared of their government. Equestrians are not scared of their government - they have loved Celestia for a millenia, and they know she provides for them and takes care of them. Even if you believe in social Darwinism, Equestria is a happy fantasy land for children where that lack of concern for others is out of place. Unless you're writing a dark alternative Equestria.
9545066
I assume they’re weapons only unicorns can use then
9545084
It was originally named "Coda". This is better.
9545167
Bit-grips exist.
9545223
It's a long time since the US has been a "beacon of freedom". This may come as a shock to you, but people outside the US value their freedoms too.
9545223
The comments section of a My Little Pony fanfiction is not the place to spout libertarian propaganda please.
In fact, let's just blanket no-politics zone this.
9545204
Yes, I like the current titles.
It seems like Trixie just MIGHT change her opinion of Twilight soon.
Trixie, you're going to put it back together even if we have to break every bone in your body with an angry hydr-
Oh wait, close enough already. Never mind.
9545577
Yeah. TV-Y7 depends on the network and time slot, but morning time slots can't show guns either without editing, like giving them laser noises, unless the scene or show wouldn't make sense without it. The second reason actually lead to the biggest Family-Unfriendly Aesop to ever exist in children's shows.
So does Trixie have any titles or authority in relation (heh, that pun was unintenional) to the house of Sparkle?
9545766
Trixie was born to Felicity Lulamoon and Night Light. Titles such as Dux Everfree are matrilineal. Star Sparkle accepted her as being of her family's blood but Trixie will not inherit any title or power. Just the dispensations from the Sparkle estate/ will.
Damn... Trixie finally knows the truth & the guilt and pain is hitting her hard...
P.S. 2 chapters in 1 day, what a way to make up for the long wait.
9545796
ah, cool then.
Well Trixie... You can indeed be a better pony.
Got no choice now. You'll be in Ponyville for a bit. Git 'er done.
9545066
Rarity clearly meant the tortoise. That wasn't in the show at the time. Or named. Or even at Fluttershy's cottage. Yeah.
I am just going to go way over there now and sut up.
9548634
The Great and Powerful Trixie, magician.
A mare barely alive.
"Gentlecolts, We Can Rebuild Her. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic mare. Trixie will be that mare. Better than she was before. Better. Stronger. Faster."
Kinda surprised Sunset didn’t gaster it out of existence. Least Starlight got to strut her stuff though.
9563334
That's canonically how Big Mac got injured.
In the beginning of Ticket Master Applejack mentions that he had to wear one of Granny's girdles, and he showed up in the next chapter with injured ribs/barrel.
9549800
Not-Psychotic-Doctor: "Or we could just throw healing spells at her and hope she gets better."
Everypony Else: "Nah, we're gonna go with that guy's idea."