Trixie Searches For Magic

by MagicS

The Hero Has Arrived

The last mountains of the east were a treacherous grouping of high peaks that spiked towards the sky like the teeth of a dragon. They created a labyrinth of narrow valleys, passes, cliffs, and canyons that made it impossibly treacherous for any creature on foot to travel through alone unless they were already well familiar with the mountains. At the peaks that tapered off into near needle-like points huge birds of prey made their nests and at the bottoms of the lowest canyons massive stone worms carved out new caves. And between them all manner of other beasts called these remote mountains their home. No sane pony, griffon, yak, or anything else would choose to live here. These mountains were a terror that the denizens of East Glade almost never entered, they created a constant threat and fear in the villagers hearts that one day the monsters living inside of them would come out.

“Goliath!”

A cheer rang out from deep within the mountains. To find the source one would have to travel through the twisting canyons and unclimbable rock walls while avoiding the beasts hiding just out of sight, waiting for the perfect moment to strike any unaware traveler. Deeper and deeper into the center of these mountains that were even more dangerous than the rest of the far east.

“Goliath!”

Again, louder now. The cheer had come from a small plateau in the heart of the mountains that had been cleared of any predators. Now it was filled with dozens of manic ponies and griffons that looked grimier and scarier than they would look even if they had been lost in the Everfree Forest for a month. It was true that no sane creature would live here.

“Goliath!”

They raised their hooves and talons and yelled again, the dozens of them surrounded a pyramid of stones twenty feet high that a single gigantic griffon stood on top of. His feathers were a dark brown aside from around his head where they were midnight black. But his plumage was torn and ragged all over his body as if a manticore had just got done chewing him up and spitting him back out. And most noticeably of all about him were his missing wings, the two appendages ended in deformed stumps that extended not more than half a foot from his body.

The gargantuan figure also was holding another badly beaten griffon in his right talon, gripping him by the neck and holding him in the air for all to see.

“Goliath!” The crowd cheered.

“I! Still! Command!” Goliath himself roared, his voice like rocks grinding together. With a heave he tossed the other griffon down the pyramid where he pitifully rolled off the sharp boulders before stopping in a painful heap at the bottom and groaning in pain.

His underlings cheered in wordless honor at his victory.

“He was an idiot to challenge Goliath.” One of the pegasi down below whispered to another griffon comrade as they both looked at the figure of the broken griffon at the bottom of the pyramid.

Like Goliath and the two scouting griffons these two also had missing wings. In fact every griffon and pegasus here had missing wings. Some were left with stumps while others just had painful looking scars along their sides.

Goliath stalked his way down the pyramid of rocks, pouncing off of them halfway down and landing on the ground with a thunderous shake. His band of followers stood quietly now, waiting for what he would do next. But the colossal griffon just stood there. His eyes facing a narrow ravine that led onto a path leading to the plateau from the outside of the mountains.

“Gibble and Gouge are returning.” Goliath said. He chuffed a breath out of his beak and sat before the pyramid. All the while the other griffon who had fought him continued to lie behind him in agony.

The others heeded what Goliath had said and watched the ravine. Sure enough in just a moment they could hear the scrambling of sharp talons over the rocky ground and the two griffons who had been spying on East Glade earlier came out. They hustled across the plateau towards Goliath, the ranks of other griffons and ponies parting to give them a straight path. Both of them were winded but they didn’t slow until they had reached Goliath, upon which they fell to their knees and held their heads low in reverence of their mighty leader.

“And? What of East Glade?” Goliath questioned his newly returned scouts. “Did the monster lay waste to the village like with the other?”

“No, Goliath.” The binocular user raised his head and fervently shook it.

A malicious and hungry smile broke out on Goliath’s face. “Good. Then we can continue using that village for our needs.”

“But there’s something else, sir.” The one who held the Horn of Listening said, daring to speak out of turn.

Goliath’s smile settled back into an intimidating frown and he looked down at the two scouts with an unconcealed impatience. “What?”

“There was a new pony at the village. She must have just arrived yesterday or maybe the day before, I don’t know.” The listener told Goliath.

“And so what?” The larger griffon stared them down. “One more pony is no issue, they’ve been arriving more and more often over the past year.”

“This one is different!” Binoculars said. “She’s a unicorn and she wielded magic like we’ve never seen before. No unicorn native to East Glade could do what we saw her doing. She was even able to shoot exploding balls of fire into the sky!” There were a few gasps of fear and widened eyes as the others listening in heard this. A superstitious bunch it seemed.

“That’s not all either...” The horn holder nervously muttered.

Goliath slammed a talon down on the ground between them, earning startled shrieks as the two leapt up. But as much as their instincts were telling them to run away their fear of Goliath was far too great and they merely stood there frozen in fear as their leader growled at them.

“Enough, you miserable cowards. Tell me everything before I make Galleon look good compared to you.” He nodded back at the crumpled up griffon behind him.

“Y-Yes sir!” Both scouts said at once before the one with the horn continued. “I believe I heard her and the villagers saying she was a hero. A traveling hero who’s just come to East Glade.”

There was muttering throughout the ranks of the others now. A pony calling themselves a hero coming out here? And one who can ostensibly use powerful magic? They were worried that such a thing could possibly be true and what it might mean for them if this unicorn was perhaps here for them.

“A hero you say?” Goliath let the words roll around on his tongue for a bit before letting out an impossibly dark and raspy chuckle. “Hahaha… hero? Did East Glade call for her? Maybe they need to be reminded of how things are between us. No pony or griffon or even a dragon will get away with calling themselves a hero here. Let us see how heroic she thinks she is after seeing me.” He looked down at the two scouts and grabbed the Horn of Listening from the one scout, tucking it beneath his stymied appendage on his right side. “Gibble, Gouge, take a group and bring this “hero” to me. But not only that. Be sure East Glade knows that they can’t hope to rid themselves of us, burn a house or two while you’re out there, steal what you want. Just so long as in the end I have that “hero” by the neck.”

---

By next morning The Great and Powerful Trixie had wheeled her wagon to a respectably private distance from the town. Not quite as far as it was when she had first arrived here but still slightly outside the farms that covered the outskirts. It would give her the space she needed from any curious village-dwellers or over-excited children. Funny to think how Vector and Gizzard had been worried that she might not be well received by the villagers but now she had to go out of her way to make sure she wasn’t swamped by them. Such is the life of a peerless performer who captivated all though.

Trixie would still any day choose attention over no attention.

Now she was taking inventory of all her things inside the wagon, she still had a massive amount of fireworks (although she was down one box that she had given to Daylight as a thank you gift for letting her spend the night), but she’d need to get more water from that well or something if she wanted to do another water tank trick. And she wouldn’t be able to just do the same tricks next time she put on a show here if she stayed long enough for that, so she’d have to switch out some of the stuff she used with other tricks in her wagon.

“I really wish Starlight was here.” Trixie said to herself as she held up a framed picture of her best friend, reminding her of the first time they had performed the Moonshot Manticore Mouth Dive together. “Can’t really do something like that here now. Darn, that trick would kill!”

The blue unicorn sighed. “Trixie is kind of losing track of things, I didn’t come here to put on shows in the first place, that’s just a bonus, Discord must know about some kind of magical thing out here right? I should start looking for it and then I can go back to Equestria and rub it in Twilight’s face! And better myself… even though I’m already perfect.”

It didn’t occur to her at this point that wandering off into these mountains alone was probably not the best idea. But then Trixie was never one for really thinking ahead in the first place.

She smirked as she opened up her wagon and stepped out to begin her own little jaunt.

But she didn’t get very far as she first saw Coil and Vector off doing something in the distance around where her wagon had first landed. Curiosity getting the better of her, Trixie decided to saunter over and see what they were up to.

“Excuse, moi. But The Great and Powerful Trixie could not help but notice the two of you here,” She said.

“Oh, hello Trixie,” Vector greeted her with a smile. “We’re just cleaning up everything we had set up to deal with the Nuckelavee.”

“After this I was going to take everything back to my lab.” Coil told her.

“I see.” Her interest already waning, Trixie’s gaze wandered off to the mountains to the east past the ravine. “Hmm, since you’ve been here all your life, Vector, and you seem like the type to research lots of stuff, Coil, maybe you know if there’s any special magic around here?”

The two stallions shared a glance with each other before Coil looked back at Trixie.

“Well I’ve heard about some things but mostly just strange and magical beasts.” The scientist said.

“I just know that weird stuff happens in these mountains.” Vector shrugged. “Sorry, but growing up here you kind of learn to not get too curious about things.”

Trixie frowned. That’s not exactly what she wanted to hear. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is lucky that she is no normal pony then. She will surely be able to conquer and explore any part of these lands that she wishes, no beast is a match for Trixie. I have even effortlessly defeated Ursa Majors in the past.” That familiar lie came ever so easy to her.

“That’s quite impressive, those bears grow to quite the size,” Coil said, his eyes glowing with wonder.

The magician coughed. “Yes, yes they do. Either way I have decided that I will search through those mountains over there and uncover whatever hidden secrets they might have!” She pointed to the eastern mountain range.

Vector paled and his face dropped in horror. “W-Wait, those mountains?!” He pointed along with her.

Trixie raised an eyebrow at his sudden change in behavior. “That’s what Trixie said.”

“That’s a bad idea.” Vector warned, shaking his head. “There’s worse than just monsters up in those mountains.”

“What do you mean?” Trixie was puzzled.

Before Vector could respond a shadow passed overhead. The three looked up to see Gizzard gliding down in a wide circle above their heads, making sure he made his descent slowly to make it easier on his old wings and legs. He still was panting hard as he came to a stop, skidding across the dirt and almost tumbling onto his face.

“Gizzard? What’s the matter?” Vector asked as he steadied the sheriff.

The old griffon had to huff and wheeze a few times before he could catch his breath. “I… be-because… the Nuckelavee is gone, I started flying my normal rounds again...” He finally took a deep breath and calmed himself down. “We’ve got a problem. I saw some of Goliath’s minions coming down from the mountains.”

“You could see them?” Vector asked, looking into Gizzard’s faded eyes.

“Yes I could see them! My vision isn’t that awful yet!” The old griffon angrily barked at him.

“But why?” Coil interrupted. “They’ve been mostly leaving us alone for the past few months.”

“I don’t-” Vector started before suddenly stopping, and all three of the others turned to stare at Trixie.

The showpony’s eyes shifted between the three of them as she furrowed her brow in annoyance. “I feel like I’m missing out on something here.”

“It must be because they saw Trixie. That’s the only thing that’s changed.” Coil muttered, stroking his chin.

“Okay so who is they? Who’s Goliath? Can someone please answer Trixie?” She angrily asked them.

“Goliath is an evil griffon that leads a band of pillagers up in the mountains to the east.” Vector started telling her. “For the most part he leaves East Glade alone as long as we give him food from our farms and other stuff every now and then. But sometimes he’ll just attack and terrorize us out of the blue too. We’ve never really been able to stand up to him...”

Now this was normally the time when Trixie would run off to find Twilight or Starlight to deal with things. But for obvious reasons that option was unavailable. And furthermore her ego and the respect and admiration she had been getting from the villagers of East Glade was filling her mind with a lot of silly notions. She really didn’t want anyone to find out how much of a fraud she was.

“An evil griffon who terrorizes your village you say?” Trixie puffed up her chest. “The Great and Powerful Trixie will not stand for such a thing! I shall help you.”

The Great and Powerful Trixie was starting to believe her own lies.

“Thank you, Trixie!” Vector said, nearly hugging her before catching himself. “But whatever we do we should start running back to the village now, they might already be in danger!”

Meanwhile, shortly before Gizzard had made his way to those three, Gibble had spotted him with his binoculars while he and Gouge led their party of ten others down the mountain pass towards East Glade. With a dozen ragged and dangerous ponies and griffons in total they were more than confident they could handle the task given to them by Goliath. The villagers of East Glade never put up a fight and just how much could this “hero” really do?

Gibble lowered his binoculars and turned to Gouge. “That was Gizzard and he definitely saw us too.”

“That old bag of feathers should just kick the bucket already,” Gouge said. “He’ll probably try and stop us or something, instead of using their bridge let’s go north up the ravine a bit and cross over on our own.”

“Right.” Gibble agreed.

Their band slunk along the outer edges of the eastern mountains, running parallel with the ravine before Gibble and Gouge had decided they had made enough distance and cut over to the ravine, by now out of view of any village dwellers. The ravine itself though was thirty feet wide and impossible for any of them to jump over, down a hundred feet below a raging river streamed forth towards the ocean, the ravine curving eastwards only slightly further north from where they were.

“Bring up the harpoon and rope.” Gibble said to the other marauders.

From in back came a wingless pegasus carrying a large metal harpoon with a thick rope attached to it. He gave it to Gouge who quickly heaved the harpoon with startling strength across the width of the ravine. The sharp end impacted into the ground on the other side and stuck there, with a few tugs of the rope Gouge was sure it was secure.

“Alright, tie this down over here and we can head across.” Gouge said to the others.

It was a simple enough affair, the ponies and griffons used the rope to climb or shimmy across and by leaving it up like this they’d even have a second escape route if the villagers tried cutting them off from the bridge or something. Gibble and Gouge didn’t think they’d have the guts to try anything of the sort though.

And now this attack party had a straight path to attacking the village and finding the hero. The farms on this outer edge of the village happened to have a few rows of corn and that made it easy for the evildoers to sneak down them and begin their assault before any of the villagers could see them. Normally they’d probably just steal some corn and other food and be done with things, but not today.

“Just attack whoever we see first and cause a ruckus, bring that unicorn to us.” Gibble whispered to the others as they quickly made their way through the corn.

And at that moment Daylight Gleam was standing outside her small shack that happened to sit at the northern edge of the village. And about to have a very unfortunate turn of events. She was holding the box of fireworks Trixie had given her with her magic and looking at the thing with mild annoyance.

“What am I going to do with fireworks?” She sighed. “I can’t just get rid of them though… I’ll give them to the mayor’s kids.”

The white unicorn shrugged and started to walk into town when a sudden rustling behind her caught her attention. Looking over her shoulder she saw Gibble jumping at her just in time to let out a small shriek before he fell on her, knocking her to the ground and putting a grungy talon over her mouth. She lost control of her magic and the box of fireworks tumbled to the ground with her while the rest of the attackers came out. Gouge picked up the box she had dropped while Daylight glared at the griffon holding her down, she could blast him with her magic and that’d take care of him real quick but she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to deal with all the others.

“Where’s the new pony? The one calling themself a hero? We’re taking her back to Goliath and if you help us get her maybe we’ll just take your stuff instead of burning your house down with it.” Gibble threatened and slowly moved his talon so she could speak.

“What are these anyways?” Gouge asked as he opened up the box and looked at the fireworks inside.

Daylight turned her glare to him. “Those are fireworks, be careful, they explode.” And then she shifted her eyes back to Gibble. “I don’t know where Trixie is and I don’t know why Goliath wants her. She just randomly showed up literally out of the blue. You don’t need to worry about her.”

“That’s for us to decide.” Gibble growled at her. “So Trixie huh? At least we know her name.”

Gouge meanwhile was holding and inspecting one of the fireworks. “So these are fireworks? They explode? Are these the things she was firing into the sky with her magic? That’s incredible.”

The white unicorn resisted the urge to roll her eyes at their ignorance.

Gibble leaned down to peer deeper into her eyes, trying his hardest to intimidate her before telling her what was going to happen to now. “Guess what? You get to be our hostage, so long as this Trixie comes quietly nothing bad will happen to you or East Glade, got it?”

She was about to tell him where he could shove his suggestion when they were interrupted.

“Ahhhh!” A village griffon screamed.

Daylight, Gibble, and the others all looked up to see a female griffon that had been walking through the village who happened to chance across their little encounter. She screamed in terror and ran off, yelling how Goliath was attacking East Glade.

“Did none of you decide on who the lookout was?” Gibble asked the others in exasperation.

“Uhh...” The others shuffled about awkwardly. “Well it’s not like you told us to do that.”

“It’s obvious that you should!” Gibble yelled.

Since they were all distracted Daylight took the opportunity to get out of this situation. Her horn lit up and she blasted Gibble point-blank with a bright blue beam of magic, completely knocking him off of her. The unicorn quickly got up and ran deeper into the town, following the screaming griffon.

“Ugh!” Gibble groaned as he landed hard on his back, rubbing his face in pain.

“Should we get her?” Gouge asked as he walked up to his comrade, safely holding the box of fireworks tucked under one arm.

Gibble stood back up and shook his face. “No, forget her for now. That hero’s gonna come now anyways so tear this place apart! Grab anything that isn’t bolted down!”

As the thieves got to work, Trixie, Vector, Coil, and Gizzard were close to the one bridge that East Glade had made that went over the ravine and connected the village to the east mountains. Beyond it was a simple carrot and turnip farm and nothing else after that but flat wilderness and gray dirt until one reached the foothills of the mountains. They had decided to not worry the other villagers, that was Vector and Gizzard’s decision, and instead had decided to face Goliath’s approaching forces on their own. Trixie being here was a big reassurance to them. Despite that sentiment possibly being a very wrong one to have.

“I don’t see anyone,” Coil said to Gizzard.

“Look, they were coming this way, I’m telling ya,” Gizzard snapped at him.

“Perhaps they all ran away when they saw The Great and Powerful Trixie?” Trixie smugly put forth. But then quickly thought to herself: Actually I kind of hope that’s what happened.

“We can hope so.” Vector said. “But I wouldn’t count on it. Goliath scares his lackeys more than anyone else.”

“Are they planning something? I’ve never considered Goliath’s group to be smart but he’s not exactly stupid either,” Coil said.

Almost immediately after those words left his mouth the four of them heard the screaming.

Vector’s ears perked up and he turned his head to the noise. “That’s coming from the north side of East Glade! They must have snuck over there somehow, let’s go!”

He ran off with the three others right behind him. Trixie was… in-between excited and worried. The screaming had gotten her mind to start catching up with her earlier declarations and she was beginning to remember that despite her bluster she was not exactly much of a hero. Better than most ponies? Of course. But a hero like the Twilight and Starlight she normally relied on for serious things? Nope. She was hoping that whatever threats there were to this village they wouldn’t be enough to test her fraudulent claims.

And if they were she could just run away. No skin off her bones.

While they were running through the village a bunch of other villagers were panicking, the screaming griffon had spread the word and Trixie could see Gabriel trying to calm everyone down and Senax shepherding the other merponies to safety. They had to take care not to trample anyone else while they moved against the crowd, and Trixie almost ran head first into Daylight Gleam.

“Daylight!” Coil said upon seeing the mare. “What’s going on?!”

“It’s just some of Goliath’s stupid thugs! They came right from the north farm and attacked me. They’re here for Trixie!” She said, her eyes darting to the magician.

“Then Trixie shall deal with them herself!” She said instantly without even thinking about it.

That tendency to speak before thinking (and sometimes never thinking after) could and has caused some problems for her.

Daylight was about to sarcastically respond when a pillar of flame shot up from the far northern end of the village, causing most of the other villagers to scream in terror and run away even faster while the five others stared at the new beacon. A simple nod between them was enough for them to run off towards the chaos.

As they got there...

“Well. My house is on fire. That’s great. That’s what I wanted to happen today.” Daylight flatly stared at the burning building and the long plume of smoke heading up into the sky.

While that was happening every other thug aside from Gibble and Gouge were busy yanking out stalks of corn or rummaging through pilfered chests from the nearby houses to see what they could grab from East Glade on this most latest of outings. The two lead griffons were standing beside Daylight’s burning house, right in front of the short way leading back to the farm.

“So you’re the hero we saw,” Gouge said to Trixie. In all honesty he was a little worried but not nearly as worried as he would be if they had to go back to Goliath empty handed, so he was doing a decent job of hiding his fear.

“You’ll be coming with us. Goliath wants to show you and East Glade what happens to “heroes” who think they can challenge him.” Gibble snickered.

Trixie raised a confused eyebrow at the two of them. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has no idea what you’re talking about but she is here to defend the good people of East Glade. So stop what you’re doing right now!” She pointed her hoof at the griffons. The other thugs behind them actually did happen to stop what they were doing, now realizing their target was here.

Do I sound heroic enough? Is Vector and everyone else going to buy it? She thought.

“Or how about this?” Gibble said. “You hurry up and come with us right now and we don’t beat all of you black and blue. If you hadn’t noticed it’s twelve against four. I’m not even counting the old guy.”

Gizzard growled at him and stepped forward but was held back by Vector.

“There is no way we’re letting anything like that happen,” Daylight Gleam said. “I may not have been here for too long but I’m not letting you have your way with East Glade and I’m certainly not letting Trixie fall into Goliath’s clutches.”

Trixie smiled and stepped in front of Daylight, motioning her back. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is happy you are so concerned for her, Daylight. But you needn’t be worried. After all I am the hero here and I should be protecting you.” She grinned and pointed her horn at the attackers. “Now feast your eyes on the magic of The Great and Powerful Trrrrixie!”

With a sparkling glow Trixie fired a pinpoint beam of magic at the binoculars hanging around Gibble’s neck, he squawked as the magic hit them and turned his spying tool into an ornate porcelain teacup, which quickly fell to the ground and shattered.

“That was but a warning!” Trixie bluffed. “If you do not retreat now The Great and Powerful Trixie will turn all of you into teacups!”

These rowdy griffons and ponies were ruled by fear, they knew well to listen to their flight-or-fight response from living in these dangerous mountains their whole lives and were superstitious about any strange magic because of all the downright weird things that occurred in this part of the world. Even though that fear of Goliath was ever present in the backs of their minds and usually overruled anything else they couldn’t quash the sudden new fear that erupted in their bodies at seeing a pony use “powerful” magic they had never seen before and threaten them with such a cruel fate. And she held herself so confidently and acted in such a heroic way that they weren’t used to. The denizens of East Glade were pushovers but here this hero was standing up to them.

She scared them. And unlike Goliath she was right there.

So they listened to their instincts and ran away in fear. Even the formerly composed Gouge was broken at this point, he ran with the rest of them, still holding the box of fireworks.

“Wait you morons! Gouge, even you?” Gibble called after them. He glared at Trixie before he had to follow his comrades, lest he become a teacup just like his treasured binoculars.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Daylight muttered. “Is this just my fault for not fighting back against them enough before Trixie got here? Is this karma? If I made a stupid obtuse threat instead of just using normal magic would they have been scared off by me too?”

Trixie and the others though were ignoring her, instead chasing after the fleeing raiders.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie will not allow you to escape so easily!” She called out as they ran.

“Didn’t you say you’d let us retreat?!” Gouged yelled back to her as he ran, the box of fireworks securely tucked under his arm.

“I said you should stop what you’re doing!” She answered. And then she noticed just what it was he was holding and her eyes narrowed at him. “Hey! You stole those fireworks didn’t you?!”

The five good guys chased down the dozen attackers all the way back to the rope they had used to cross the ravine. They were all crowding around the edge of the ravine and fighting amongst themselves to use the rope first. But Trixie had no intention of allowing that.

“I’m not letting you get away with my fireworks!” She fired a spell at Gouge that was intended to stun him.

However her aim was slightly off. The spell impacted the box of fireworks itself. Gouge and the others looked at it as the box began to sizzle and shake, he dropped it out of fear and it hit the ground, bounced once, and then all the fireworks packed away inside shot out of it, spinning and blasting off into the air.

Goliath’s minions shrieked in fear as the fireworks zoomed around them and even Trixie and the others looked on in worry.

Because they hadn’t been set up properly some of the fireworks doubled back around and collided with the ground around the minions, shaking and cracking the earth while the others exploded in midair and showered the thugs with sparks. Finally one last errant missile collided with the ground and exploded with just enough force to cause the whole fiery edge of the ravine to break apart, sending the ponies and griffons standing on it tumbling down and down to the river below.

The five defenders of East Glade looked on with mouths open wide in shock as the sounds of screams turned to splashes.

Trixie, ever aware of appearances, was the quickest to regain her composure. She coughed and raised her hoof into the air in triumph. “H-Huzzah! Trixie is victorious! That was absolutely what I had planned!”

The four others heads slowly turned to her… and then a huge smile broke out on Vector’s face.

“That was amazing! You’ve saved East Glade again!” He grasped her hoof and held it even higher. “Three cheers for The Great and Powerful Trixie, everyone!”

Gizzard and Coil were happy to join in. Daylight quietly cheered as well but she still had that same suspicious gaze on her face that said she knew Trixie perhaps wasn’t as great as she said. But either way they were all happy that at least some kind of hero had been here to save the day.

Comments

[Quinch]

Heh, I was wondering when the stolen box of fireworks would come into play.

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

Trixie accidentally saving the day again made me laugh. So did that "threat."

[redmar]

Now Trixie will have to worry about Goliath himself coming down and testing her claims.