Oh! You Pretty Things

by Cosmic Dancer

Jackals and Saddle Arabians (or, Civilization Phaze III)

Trixie had a line of credit at Blue Amberol’s record store, a music shop in the Unicorn canton of Ponyville, which was actually owned and operated by Blue’s grandson; a pegasus who called himself Moccasin. Trixie, the only customer in the store, was stood at the back ostensibly perusing the latest exhibitions of the no-wave sub-genre of art punk; but really trying to work up the courage to speak to Moccasin (about an order he had placed for a foreign record).

Though Trixie had spent many years developing his charismatic persona as a stage magician, and trained every conversational mannerism to transmit that commanding, mesmeric quality with which he was born, Yisrach made certain Trixie would never forget his every action was just that: part of an act. So now, before every social interaction (save those shared with ponies especially close to him) Trixie had to work himself into his arrogating stage persona, which the world over knew as ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie.’ This is what Trixie was doing, while Moccasin read some magazine behind the counter; Trixie was performing any number idiomatic, mental rituals to convince himself he truly was the apple of everypony’s eye.

Satisfied he had attained the state, or donned the mask, Trixie trotted proudly up to the counter.

Moccasin set aside the magazine. “Hey, Trix, that album you ordered came in.”

“Trixie has come to inquire as to the state of his order for-” Trixie began, before catching himself, “Oh.”

“Yeah, lemme get that for you,” Moccasin stepped away from the counter and disappeared into the small back room behind it.

Trixie found it unusual that a pegasus would not only own a store in the Unicorn quarter, but a record store. Unicorns had many ancient, magical techniques for capturing audial and visual phenomena, and invented almost all ‘non-magical’ methods of doing the same; so most industries pertaining to music were monopolized by unicorns. It would have been difficult for a pegasus to run a store specializing in records (even Trixie had to admit unicorns were the most clannish of the three tribes).

The most probable explanation was that Blue Amberol himself was a unicorn, and that his pegasus grandson, Moccasin, was the result of what unicorns called ‘miscegenation’.

“Here you go, Trix,” Moccasin had emerged with a shrink-wrapped record in hoof and presented it to Trixie. “I got a demo of it for the store. It’s… pretty gnarly,” Moccasin, like most stallions around town, thought he was a friend of Trixie’s.

“Oh, yes. When Trixie first heard it, he was made to recall the sonorist movement of composers in Whorlsaw. Very experimental,” said Trixie, knowing Moccasin would take this as an invitation to begin a conversation about music (and it wasn’t), so he continued. “Trixie would have you charge this to the store’s credit; or, ‘put it on his tab,’ as it were.”

“Sure thing, bud,” Moccasin, smirking, jotted down an invoice while Trixie examined the album’s artwork. “How has the wizard business been?” asked the pegasus, making small talk as he filled out the little slip of paper.

“Oh, it’s fascinating,” answered Trixie, wondering if Moccasin would understand the wordplay.

“Is it lucrative?” asked Moccasin, nonchalantly.

“If you mean monetarily, then no,” Trixie saw the pegasus’s mouth contort into some kind of smirk, and wondered if the pun finally struck him.

Moccasin kept his eyes down, looking at the invoice, and asked, trying not to laugh, “So, uh, did you spend all of your allowance? The one that Twilight gives you?”

“Who told you that about me?” asked Trixie. He would forgive Moccasin for that trespass, as the pegasus intended it as an innocent gibe between friends; but more than once, and he would have to be punished.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Moccasin handed the receipt to Trixie, who snatched it from his hoof with magic and secreted it away in a pocket.

“I can believe a lot of things; just tell me who told you that,” Trixie, though he entertained a more-or-less good reputation among the other stallions of Ponyville, had to suffer many jokes and teasing by them over his living arrangement with Twilight.

(Among the salt-of-the-earth, working class stallions of Ponyville, it was seen as very peculiar for a grown stallion, even if he were unemployed [like Trixie], to be financially supported by a mare. Especially so if that mare were the stallion’s girlfriend. So, it was only natural that Trixie had to tolerate many ‘friendly’ japes about his mode of living. Most commonly, the other stallions would tease Trixie by calling him ‘Mister Twilight’ or, more derisively, ‘Missus Twilight’.)

“It was, uh,” Moccasin scanned the street outside through the store’s massive display window. “It was Big Mac,” he whispered.

“Oh, that cros-” Trixie started, but reined himself in before a scene could be made. “Well, don’t you worry; I know--Trixie knows many secrets Big Mac would like to hide,” Trixie, of course, knew none of Big Mac’s secrets. Though he did entertain many suspicions about Mac’s lifestyle preferences.

“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad,” said Moccasin, familiar as anypony with Trixie’s antics and how far he was willing to take them.

“Trixie alone will decide the severity of lies promulgated against his name,” spake the great and powerful Trixie.

“Oh, please. Trixie, you make fun of other ponies more than anyone in town, and I know a lot of times you think you’re being funny, but you’re really just being mean,” Moccasin managed to say this is a congenial way, so as to not draw Trixie’s ire, himself. But, he wasn’t entirely correct in saying this, as Trixie knew full well that he was the only pony who found his cruel mocking humorous, even if he (poorly) hid it under the guise of affable ribbing.

“Trixie hears enough of that at home, he doesn’t need it at the record store,” said Trixie after a pause, his lips curling into a grin.

Moccasin laughed, “I guess you have a point. How is Twilight, anyway? Has she told her folks about you? Your relationship, I mean.”

“Twilight is with Trixie, so of course, she’s doing very well. A very lucky mare. And yes, she has refrained from informing her family of her relationship with Trixie,” answered the unicorn. Twilight’s reason for not telling her parents and brother about she and Trixie lay in a fear that Celestia might reconsider the terms of both Trixie’s reformation and Twilight’s apprenticeship to her (Celestia) if she ever caught wind of their relationship. Even so, Trixie frequently ‘chose’ to forget this.

“I’m sorry, man. Do they not like you?” asked Moccasin, without tact.

“Twilight’s family was very fond of Trixie when he was a child, going to school with Twilight. That may have changed when Trixie used his baleful and terrible magics to assail Canterlot a-little-less-than a year ago, but who can say?” Trixie began. “I suppose, uh, Trixie supposes that they themselves could say whether or not they dislike him, but that’s a difficult question to ask. Shining Armor, Twilight’s older brother, was Captain of the Royal Guard during that conflict, and still holds that position.”

“So he would have a personal vendetta against you, is what you’re saying?” Moccasin caught on.

“Yes, it is suspected,” affirmed Trixie. “If any of this reaches the point of absurdity, though, Trixie has a plan to force Twilight to admit her love for him.”

“Oh yeah?”

“‘Yeah,’ indeed. Twilight can sometimes, when it comes to her Trixie, be very jealous over other mares eyeing him, he’s noticed,” spoke Trixie, his smirk now a satisfied grin. In a world where seventy-five percent of all births are female, most mares felt a need to protect their lone right to a stallion’s affection; and this commingled poorly with Twilight’s immense capacity for worry and pedanticism. “And the Canterlot Canticle runs a biannual poll for Equestria’s most eligible bachelor.”

“Oh, no,” said Moccasin, smiling enthusiastically.

“Oh, yes,” Trixie had done worse things in his life, but he had no real intention of pulling such an asinine stunt. While it did injure him, emotionally, that Twilight hid their relationship from her family (and almost everypony else in Canterlot), he loved Twilight far too much to subject her to even a fraction of the embarrassment and pain such an action would precipitate. But playing pretend with an idiot in a record shop never hurt anyone. “And Trixie is a very beautiful, sensitive stallion; and also a convicted felon. What mare could resist? Besides, he has many connections in printed media who could rig a poll for him.”

“Geez, Trixie. You are insane, and I love you for it,” Moccasin echoed a sentiment held by most ponies in Ponyville. “And, you, uh… y’know, you are a very handsome stallion.”

“Yes, well, um, thank you. I’m going to go listen to my record, now. Goodbye,” Trixie left record shop and started on his way back to the Golden Oak Library.