Chapter 6:
Accidents
Cloud after cloud met its untimely demise as Rainbow Dash bucked them into oblivion. They were torn to shreds by her powerful kicks, exploding in an un-satisfying ‘poof’.
“Man, I can’t believe I got stuck with cloud duty... again. This is, like, the nine-hundredth day in a row I’ve had to do it.” She kicked at another cloud, causing it to burst and release what little water it had stored inside. As it rained down on some poor, unsuspecting pony Rainbow crossed her fore-hooves. “This sucks. I just wanna go home and read Daring Do.”
She scowled, setting her sights on another cloud just a little ahead of her. Her body became streamlined as she straightened out, her wings flapping faster and faster. Wind whistled in her ears as she tore across the sky, making a beeline for the scared little cloud.
Nearer and nearer she drew, finally flipping herself around just before impact so that her hind legs would tear through the cloud with all the force of a hurricane. Despite what most ponies thought, clouds were not, in fact, soft and fluffy. Clouds are nothing more than a mass of liquid droplets that are light enough to float above the ground. So, when Rainbow tore through the cloud, the only thing she felt was a slight dampness from the moisture.
“Gah! I’m so sick of clearing out these dumb clouds,” she said after coming to a stop shortly after mutilating another helpless cloud. “Man, weather duty is the worst. I just want to go on an adventure, like Daring Do.”
At that exact moment, a voice called from below.
“Rainbow Dash, is that you?”
She looked down. Twilight was standing, eyes upturned, with Spike on the path below. “Oh, hey, Twilight!”
“Can you come down here for a minute, Dash? I need to talk to you about something.” Twilight was shouting, but Rainbow could barely hear her.
“What was that? I can’t hear you,” she yelled back.
Twilight frowned. “Come. Down. Here,” she said, jabbing her hoof first at Rainbow, then at the ground.
“Ohhh, okay!” Rainbow said, nodding. Twilight tracked her movements as she descended towards the ground.
Rainbow’s wings curled up as she touched the ground, folding themselves tight against her sides. “What’s up, Twilight? Did ya need something?”
Twilight’s horn glowed as she pulled out Trixie’s letters and showed them to Rainbow. “Know anything about these?” she asked, her voice only a little more accusatory than she intended.
“Uhh... no?” Rainbow responded after a second. She squinted at the letters, cocking her head to the side. “Should I?”
A tiny sigh escaped Twilight’s lips. “Maybe you know something about this?” she said as she brought out the change-of-address forms she had borrowed from the post office. “Hmm?” Her eyebrows raised. “Recognize this?”
Rainbow’s eyes widened. “I, uhh. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Twi. I mean, those just look like forms or something. I don’t really know that much about filling out forms and stuff,” she chuckled, giving a nervous smile. “I’m just a weather-mare. No form filling-out-type stuff here, no siree.”
“Oh really? Then, would you like to tell me why my address was changed from the library to your house?” Twilight’s eyes hardened. Her gaze narrowed.
“Nope, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Rainbow shook her head vigorously. “I told you I—”
Twilight cut her off. “All right, enough playing dumb. You’re not fooling anypony.”
Spike wagged his finger at Rainbow. “Yeah, we’ve already been to the post office, and we saw that you changed the address.”
“And,” Twilight added, “I have a pretty good idea why.”
Rainbow sighed. “All right, fine. Ya caught me.” She threw her hooves up. “But it wasn’t my idea to change your address.”
“Wait,” said Twilight, confused. “It wasn’t your idea?”
“Well, not exactly.” Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Uhh, well, maybe it’d be better if I just start from the beginning?” Rainbow Dash put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “It all started almost a year ago. Waaaay back when I got that first letter.” Twilight brushed her hoof off. Dash didn’t notice. “Well, I didn’t really ‘get’ it like most people ‘get’ their mail.”
Spike’s lip curled into a frown. “I don’t like where this is headed.”
“I was flying around Ponyville, y’know, being my usual awesome self, when I ‘accidentally’ ran into Ditzy.”
“What do you mean, ‘accidentally’?” said Twilight, her gaze narrowing.
“I was trying out a new stunt. Sometimes there’s casualties.” She shrugged. “But that’s just how it is bein’ me. I live a life of danger.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Well, what happened after that?”
Rainbow put a hoof to her chin. “I guess that was when she dropped the mailbag, which totally wasn’t my fault by the way.” Twilight gave her a look that said, “Mmhmm”, but Rainbow ignored her and continued with her recollection. “Anyway, I was helping her pick up all the mail and I found a letter addressed to you,” she said, pointing at Twilight. “So, when I saw that I decided, ‘Hey, I’ll just deliver this to Twilight myself.’ so I told Ditzy to not worry about it.”
Twilight nodded. “Okay, then what?”
“I may have, ‘accidentally’, opened the letter, completely by mistake. I definitely was not trying to read your mail,” she said, waving her hooves from side to side. “So, since it was lying there, and someone had to read it, I read it. It was really...” her voice trailed off as she struggled to find the right word. “Mean,” she finally landed on. “It was really mean.”
“But,” Twilight began. “These letters weren’t mean at all.” She showed Rainbow the letters she had received earlier that morning. As Rainbow quickly read through them, her expression became more and more puzzled.
“Wait, this isn’t anything like the letter I read,” she said. She looked up at Twilight. “She was just a big jerk, so I figured that you didn’t need to see it.”
“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said calmly, but with a terseness that caught the other pony off-guard. "You can’t just hide mail from other ponies. They—I—have a right to know who’s sending them letters, no matter how mean they may be.”
Rainbow made a pouty face. “I know. I was just so angry at that stupid jerk for being such a... well, jerk, that I couldn’t let you read it.”
“I know your heart was in the right place, Dash, but it’s still wrong.”
A soft sigh escaped Rainbow’s lips. “I’m sorry, Twi. But, at least I have all the other letters!” she said, suddenly excited.
“Oh, right!” Twilight said, becoming equally excited. “But, wait. You still never explained how you got all those letters after the first one. “
Embarrassed, Rainbow blushed. “Heheh, well, I asked Ditzy if there was any way I could get all these letters instead of you, and she suggested that I change your address to mine. I mean, it’s not like you get any mail from the regular post office anyway. I figured, what’s the big deal?”
“They just let you change my address without even asking why?”
She nodded. “Yep, they didn’t really ask any questions. It kinda seemed like they didn’t know if they were supposed to ask me anything.”
Spike laughed. “Oh man, I guess that dude wasn’t kidding when he said they rarely had ponies changing their information.”
“Wait, how come I got these two letters today, then?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe someone just messed up? It kinda seems like the mail service here ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Twilight pulled a notepad and quill from her saddlebag and started writing. The feather was a flurry of motion, dancing across the page like leaf in the wind.
“What’cha writing, Twi?” said Rainbow, craning her neck to see the notepad.
“I’m writing myself a note.” she said, not looking up from her writing, “to remember to talk to the postmaster about their methods. This is just negligence that I can’t ignore.”
Rainbow waited for her to finish. Once she had put away the quill and notepad in her saddlebag, she said, “Anyway, I gotta finish clearing out these dumb clouds.” She jabbed a hoof towards the sky. “But, when I’m done, I’ll show you all the rest of the letters.”
A silly grin spread across Twilight’s face. “Oh! I can help you with that.”
Dash looked at her quizzically.
“I’ve been practicing a new spell,” she said, rubbing her fore-hooves together. Rainbow watched as Twilight’s horn filled with violet-hued magic. Twilight clenched her eyes shut and bit her lip. A bolt of violet light shot towards the nearest cloud in a jagged streak. Upon impact, it dissipated the cloud into vapor with a quiet hiss. She smiled triumphantly. “It’s a heat spell,” she explained. “I just raised the temperature of the cloud so it’s molecular density would decrease, causing the molecules to become more spread apart, which, in turn, would cause the cloud to turn into gas and disappear.”
Rainbow’s eyes glazed over. “Well, uhh... okay then. Cool stuff, Twi. Really cool stuff... I guess.”
Oblivious, Twilight took the compliment happily. “Isn’t it? I’ve been waiting for a chance to try it in the field. I’m just glad it worked so well.”
“Uh huh. Anyway, since you’re magic is so cool and all, maybe we could hurry up and get this done.” Her wings unfurled as she said, “I gotta get home to read that Daring Do book. That thing ain’t gonna read itself.” A moment later, she had taken to the sky. A few seconds later, and she had already destroyed three clouds.
Between her and Twilight, they were able to finish after just a few minutes. Once they were done, Rainbow hovered back down to earth. As her hooves touched dirt, she said, “All right, let’s go look at those letters.”
Twilight nodded quickly. “Let’s.”
“And then I can finally read my book...”
***
“Gah! I’m never gonna get to read this stupid book!” Rainbow threw herself onto her bed dramatically, causing it to bounce up and down.
“Maybe if you helped me look, then this wouldn’t take so long.” Spike and Twilight were digging through a pile of letters that had been stuffed into a box in Rainbow’s closet.
“There’s, like, a million letters,” she complained. “It’s gonna take forever to read them all.”
“There are not a million letters, Rainbow.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “It looks like there’s only, maybe, thirty or forty, roughly. And besides, we don’t have to read them all, I just want the oldest one.”
“How am I supposed to know which one’s the oldest! It’s not like I have some kinda age-guessing superpower.” Rainbow rolled over, her voice becoming muffled in the sheets. “Mmm mhm mhhhmm hhmm mhm.”
“Well too bad. You created this mess, Dash. You’re going to at least help me fix it,” she said as she tore open another envelope.
Spike grabbed Twilight’s hoof suddenly. “Wait, Twilight. I think I found something.”
“What is it, Spike?”
“This one says, ‘September twenty-ninth, one-thousand’,” he said, holding up an unfolded letter. Twilight snatched the letter with her magic, pulling it towards herself.
“Hmm.” Her eyes shot back and forth as she scanned the letter. She did a double-take at one part, and then put her hoof on one particular word. “Oh, this doesn’t look good.”
The bed squeaked as Rainbow rolled back over. “Uh oh. That sounds like bad news, Twi. What’s it say?”
Twilight re-read the letter before answering. “I’m not sure exactly, but I know what we have to do.”
Spike and Rainbow Dash asked in unison, “What?”
“We’re going to Emerald Falls,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Hold on,” said Rainbow, as she held up a hoof. “Emerald Falls? Where’s that?”
“It’s a little town just north of here. I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of it.” Twilight’s horn began to glow as she filled the room with her magic. All the letters bounced into her saddlebag, becoming smaller as they did. One by one they hopped in, until the bag was filled to the brim. As Twilight buckled it shut, making sure the strap was as tight as possible, she continued, “They like to keep to themselves mostly. I’m pretty sure it’s not even on most maps.”
“So,” Rainbow began, drawing out the ‘o’. “What’s in Emerald Falls?”
“I don’t know, but I know that Trixie passed through there and I know we need to find out why.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because." She paused "Her life may be in danger.”
So yeah... canon can eat it. Don't worry, this story is going to stay on track for what I originally planned, without any interference from new canon. No matter how awesome said canon may be.
Again, thanks to all the awesome people who are reading this. Honestly, without you guys, this story would be nothing. If I hadn't gotten the amazing response I did on the first chapter, then I likely would've just let this die a slow, agonizing death. So, seriously, from the bottom of my heart... thanks.
~alexmagnet
1722986
Yeah that's what sucks. Canon changes. One wayward line and a fanfic could not make absolute perfect sense. But it's still early enough.
1722986 You keep cranking 'em out we'll keep eatin 'em up.
Wait Twilight, maybe you should read the next few letters before you run off to- and she's already gone
I understand that she's flustered or something, but isn't that letter nearly a year old? If her life was in danger something would have happened by now and Trixie wouldn't have been able to send the rest of the letters.
Though Trixie probably could use some help right now. With the Wendigos and all.
1723061
Keep in mind, Twilight already read the most recent letter, and she knows Trixie's still safe... for now. What she doesn't know, is for how long that will hold true, hence the urgency.
Watching the new episode, before the intro song, I immediatly thought of this story.
1722986
You could probably reword as an AU and get away with it - for an example, what if Trixie found peace instead of returning and fighting or somethin
you know honestly you have this set up to where you could have it cross with cannon slightly since you never mentioned what trixie is looking for, and it could very well be that alicorn amulet thingy,
Ah, glad to see an update, the story is very good!
But I did notice a few typos you might wanna fix. >_>
Great work! And about the canon thing. It can work in your advantage, you could say that Trixie heard about that "Item" she had in the newest episode and decided to look for it. Even though her reasons for having it were infact, bad, but again this is fanfiction.
Hope that was helpful, and thank you for continuing the story!
As a former representitive of the United States Postal Service, I can tell you that it is a felony to misdirect, destroy, or open and read someone else's mail.
Good thing Twilight likes Rainbow.
1723252 1723195
typos
Derp... yeah, I'm sure I missed a few. I'll run through again and try to kill the rest of them.
Regarding canon:
While that is a somewhat enticing idea, it's not really what I had in mind, nor is it what I want to do. I already know where I want this to go, and where I want it to go is not somewhere that follows canon, and bending the story to fit with canon will only hurt it, in this case and my opinion. For all intents and purposes, this fic will be operating off pre-Magic Duel canon and will stay that way for the forseeable future.
Either way, I'm glad you guys are enjoying it.
~alexmagnet
Hey Twilight! Take the train, that way you can read all the rest of those letters on the way....
1723335 Hmm...now that I think deeper on my comment, I see what you mean. It's always better to go on originality, than match canon.
Best to future updates, will be waiting eagerly for more!
1722986
New canon kinda funky, but no questioning the Faust Almighty.
The one thing I got from that episode, now Twi breaks 4th wall.
I'm really, really liking this so far. :) Trixie getting over herself and making friends with Twiligjht always seemed like the best possible end to the arc and I love all the stories that do it.
The mystery deepens. I'm really liking this story, been awhile since I've seen one of these types done(be it pony or otherwise) so well.
I don't worry about the canon, your story works just fine on it's own. I'm looking forward to seeing where Trixie's letters start going from enemies to frienemies to friends.
Oh man, I just love the feeling you get when you’re right about something! Not only did I manage to foresee Rainbow’s actions before they happened, I actually was right with Derpy’s involvement. Well, am I awesome or not?
To the chapter proper –it’s more or less what I was expecting. Twi confronting Rainbow, her admitting to her “crime” (however you look at this, opening and reading someone else’s mail is illegal ), all that done pretty darn well in my opinion. Now we need to know what exactly is Trixie looking for in the north and why dose Twilight think she’s in mortal danger (aside from the obvious [caught*wendigos*caught]). Keep ‘em commin’
Rainbow actually had all but the first letter? I'm shocked (I thought she would have ripped them all up). I know Trixie gets to the next town at least because she hasn't sent the letter yet. In any event, I look forward to the next chapter of this series.
Ugh, don't tell me yesterdays episode was the Trixie episode. I managed to miss Babs seed and now I need to make sure I don't see Trixie's episode.
It probably killed off at least a third of the Trixie fic ideas.
I can still see this story working within the canon in part. Just in canon she never went to the bar, so instead she never wrote the letters to Twilight which eventually made Trixie believe Twilight was her friend. So it is an alternate outcome.
One could also create a backstory in which Trixie sells some artifact to get the Alicorn necklace as what she hopes will be a thank you gift. (She has probably learned some stuff about Twilight in the time seeing as Twilight is sorta famous.) But then at some point decides either under duress or unknowing the side effects decides to put it on which undoes the slow internal forgiveness. And in this case, Twilight never receives the last two letters.
this story, i like it! ... ANOTHER!! *smashes random object*
1722986 Good! As awesome as 'Magic Duel' was, I don't want to see it unduly influencing fics. If it fits, it fits. If not, then fine. Anyway, big cliffie! Also, you deserved that chewing-out Dashie. So does the Post Office, too, for that matter.
Hmmmmm.
Now I'm not sure, again. Twi and RD both feel pretty weak here, and I'm barely even noticing Spike at all.
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that you're not really describing any of their dialogue - it's just ponies talking, without any life to it.
Hell. Not a single facial expression was had that day.
The cliffhanger at the end also seems rather forced, to be honest. How would Twilight know that? We haven't had ANY foreshadowing at all so far, and having this ball drop on us now - even though we know Trixie is presently being assaulted by Wendigos - seems rather surreal.
All in all, my reading so far has me thinking a few major things.
1: LIFELESS. Your conversations and descriptions are bland and hasty, to the point where I feel like you don't want us to see them. While this serves to make things simple and short, it also serves to make the reader somewhat starved. Aside from the Trixie in chapter 5, I want much, much more life in the characters all around the table. It would add so much to this fic, in my opinion. Nothing is really wrong about your characters - there just needs to be a lot more of each one of them.
2: RUSHED. Mostly caused by the way the lack of flesh causes the plot to run ahead like a loose train, this is actually rather important. While not as jarring as the character issues, I feel a good number of scenes are just totally wasted. For example, "She showed Rainbow the letters she had received earlier that morning. As Rainbow quickly read through them, her expression became more and more puzzled." While quite sufficient to describe what happens in the scene, it certainly is very barebones. 90% of your small scenes and interactions are completely clear of any sort of hints of anything, because they're just not given any space to have any of it. Thus, if you were to use mechanisms like that as foreshadowing of some kind, it'd stick out like a sore thumb. That's not very good, now is it?
3: SOMEWHAT SLOW TO START. Again, because the characters don't have much flesh to them, this makes the first two chapters a bunch of small questions about what doesn't really seem to be important to anypony, rather than the intriguing introduction to a mystery. Yes, I asked myself questions, but I wasn't all miffed by it. I didn't feel "hooked" by the first chapter, and that's an issue right there. If you can't make a good first impression, you may well never get a second chance.Thus, I'd very much advise you to look over the first chapter and make it more attractive. If you have a first chapter that asks big questions and rolls out interesting characters, then you've succeeded making half of your fic. Really, it's that big.
Other than that, the mechanisms used are very interesting, and the plot itself is fairly innovative. Postal theft? Wendigos? Trixie up in the ice? I might not be jumping in my seat, but I'm sure as hell wondering what's going to happen next. Still, I very much believe you're capable of getting me to jump. A lot. Because this story has potential, and I very well think you can realize it.
Fight on.
//N
1722986
It's pretty irrational to expect a fanfic to stay consistent with canon events that happened after it was written (or plotted out in this case), so don't worry about it. Reasonable people don't expect you to be psychic.
I like that you didn't go into a flashback for this scene, but rather had Dash explain thing to Twilight in realtime. It would have been a little frustrating to set the scene in her flashback mere paragraphs after setting it up for Twilight and Spike's confrontation with her, plus Twilight's reactions and Dash's obliviousness added character to the scene.
1723575
Faust doesn't write anything anymore. She left like, in the beginning of Season 2.
Screw canon! I do it all the time, after all!
Especially since it seems to be getting weirder and weirder...Anyway, another good chapter, as the mystery of the letters is solved, and despite her involvement in events, you somehow managed not to make me want to brohoof RD in the face. Gotta love them good-if-misguided intentions.
you're missing a quotation mark in here
1737960 more precisely, she left at the end of season 1
And there's twilight, jumping to conclusions before she has any of the facts.
'Oh hey, this one letter indicates she may be doing something life-threatening! let's disregard all of the other letters and go after her!'
It's funny because that actually fits Twilight's personality.
The Elements of Harmony Official Guidebook lists them as windigos, not wendigos.
"Yes, I am, but I think you meant your."
awesome, I cant wait to see what rainbow dash play a part in this
*raises hand*
As nobody seems to have bothered to point this out...
Rainbow redirected the letters after the first one came.
There was zero indication that she would be offering further communication.
Why would she bother with what appeared to be a one-time thing?
Perhaps this is explained in a future chapter, though it seems as though this has been dismissed.
Just thought I should mention it.
Dagnabbit, Dash.
Not saying this is a bad story, far from it, I've waiting for it to be completed for a while now so I could start reading it, but I can't help but point out how incredibly unrealistic the plot device used to create the premise is. Rainbow Dash was able to change Twilight's mailing address, no questions asked? How? The postal workers didn't know any better... Bullshit.
Okay, if Twilight, Spike, Rainbow Dash, and even myself who has had very little interaction with and who doesn't even care about the postal system know that you shouldn't be able to change a mailing address by simply asking with no evidence that all parties involved agree to it, then how do those actually working at the post office not know this? You can't just say it's because they don't have experience with the situation, because, besides common sense, they should have read at least a pamphlet on it, had a rule book to go to, or a senior officer to ask. The only way this could have happened was if those on duty at the time gave no shits about their jobs.
"Hey, strange question here, but can I have Twilight Sparkle's mail brought to my house instead of hers?"
"Um, maybe? I think there are some forms you and her would have to fill out first around here somewhere."
"Uh, that's totally not needed. I already asked her and she said it was cool."
"Hmm... That doesn't sound quite right to me... Ah, buck it, let's just go ahead and do it. What could possibly go wrong, right?"
"I like the way you think, obviously incompetent postal worker, that's my life's motto."
That being said, I can see how an Equestrian postal worker could be this lazy and uncaring. Imagine if you will that you are a pony in the magical land of Equestria, a place where the impossible is a regular day occurrence. Now imagine if, in this amazing world, your cutie mark appears, revealing your destiny to be that of a blue collar postal worker while your friends and family are getting marks in magic, music, the arts, sword fighting, engineering, and other comparatively amazing things. Wouldn't you be a little embittered towards your lot in life and the postal service through extension? I mean, this is almost as bad as getting a cutie mark in dish washing or watching paint dry.
Heck, I'd probably end up smearing unmentionable bodily fluids on that part of the envelopes you lick to seal them before they were sold, just to spite the ponies living better than me.
5139476
Thinking about it further, these ponies have even less excuse for doing such a poor job as the mail system in Equestria is probably far more important than our own here. Equestria doesn't have the internet so, compared to us, a lot of bill payment and business is probably done through the postal system, not to mention just keeping in touch with friends and relatives over long distances, something we predominantly do with facebook and e-mail.
As a result, the professional and social lives of Equestrian citizens lie far more heavily in the hooves of these mail ponies, which means they should feel the need to do their jobs right much more strongly. Also, they should have much more experience with all aspects of their job just for the simple fact that they should be getting a lot of business, and thus practice when compared to our own postal systems.
1722986
It has always been my philosophy that canon may be a useful tool, but when canon interferes with a good story, the story should come first. I know of many outstanding stories on this site that deviate from canon. It pleases me that you chose the story you wanted over a canon which became a conflict.
This is excellent so far, and I know I shall continue to enjoy this fic as I continue reading.