Pennington's Trix

by Pennington Inkwell

Mornings

When morning came, Trixie found herself awoken by birdsong and the light of the morning sun. She yawned as her eyes cracked open, sitting up in her bed with a smile. For the first time in weeks, she felt well-rested. She took a moment to realize that something was different.

She had woken up in a bed. Not a park bench, not an alleyway. An actual bed.

All at once, the events of the previous night came back to her memory. The rain, how cold she had been, how desperate she had been... The pony who had opened his door and let her in.

She shook her head and slowly climbed out of the bed, making the sheets as neatly as she could. Trixie does not leave a mess... She would not wish to incur more of a debt than she already owes!

She looked around the dusty room, now in the full light of day, and let out a long sigh. "This filthy room is hardly fitting for a mare was great and powerful as Trixie!" With a quick thought, the opened the window and began to work her magic, making the morning breeze cycle through the room and pick up the dust, then whisk it away to the outside. As the room became clean, her pride still refused to let her find the bare room acceptable. With a long sigh, she rolled her eyes. "It will have to do. Trixie is leaving, anyway."

Semi-content, Trixie exited the room, quickly finding herself in Pennington's "living space." Trixie can hardly see how anypony could live in a place like this...

The room was filled with cheap furniture, with large cushions filled with Trixie could only imagine was cheap stuffing. A large desk sat in the back corner, and seemed to be the only piece worth anything. The rest looked as if it had been rescued from some kind of dump and stitched and stapled back together. As she continued to look around, she did notice a nice-looking television, though, like the bedroom, it was dusty and looked underused.

Trixie's nose curled up in slight distaste for Pennington's accommodations. Well, I suppose that it is a good thing that Trixie is leaving... Though Trixie supposes she should thank Pennington for letting her stay for the night.

She looked around for Pennington's bedroom, but there didn't seem to be any other room except for the one that she had come out of and the hallway downstairs. She blinked in confusion, then shook her head. "He must have his room downstairs." With a confident nod to herself, Trixie opened the door to the hallway and trotted down the stairwell. There were no lights in the hallway, but seeing the stairs in the semi-darkness was an easy feat for the great and powerful-

"Waugh!" Trixie cried out as she went to place her hoof on the next stair and met nothing there. For a heart-stopping moment, her hoof plummeted into inky blackness. When it finally collided with the floor, Trixie placed more weight on it than she had first intended, and she felt a small stab of pain shoot through it. She ignored it after she had caught herself, though she did check to make sure no one had seen her stumble.

Unperturbed, she continued on her way, walking quietly past Pennington's study and into the next room.

She hadn't gotten a good look into Pennington's kitchen the night before. Now, she wished that she hadn't.

Pennington's kitchen was a disgusting mess of "instant ramen" soup. In a nightmarish cacophony of Styrofoam cups and dried noodles, with the remains of dozens of previous microwave meals scattered across every available surface. She gaped in shock as she saw half-eaten meals everywhere and white foam cups with metal spoons leaning against the rims. There was a sink with several more spoons sitting at the bottom, all obviously unwashed and greasy. The room had a smell to it, as well, one that Trixie recognized from the few times that she had brought herself low enough to actually eat the pre-packaged soup. It was a smell of hay and salt, the flavor of the soup and its main ingredient. As she spun around, trying to comprehend how a single stallion could make such a disgusting mess, she noticed that there was one place that was clean: Pennington seemed to take good care of his microwave. It had the only clean surface in the kitchen, and had a near-polished black surface that Trixie could see her own reflection in, and through the transparent door, she could see that the inside was spotless, as well.

"Trixie! It's good to see that you're awake..." Trixie jumped out of fear when Pennington suddenly appeared in the door. "I would have cleaned up if I knew that I was going to have company..."

Trixie was unsure of how to respond. Pennington had large, dark bags under his eyes, and the white-and-lavender orbs were bloodshot. His words were slow and slightly slurred, as if he had just woken up only seconds before.

"It's... irrelevant. Trixie- I mean- I was just leaving..." She muttered, blinking quietly as she examined him more closely. Everything about Pennington radiated that he was tired, from his slouched posture to the occasional yawn every few seconds. "Did you... sleep last night?"

"Oh, I got a few hours! I have a deadline coming up for my next book in a few months, and it's a process that I can't afford to waste any time on..." Pennington laughed as he yawned again. "I'll be fine once I have some breakfast..."

Trixie nodded, trying hard not to insult him by not showing her disgust at his kitchen. Even so, she knew that her nose was crinkling up in a disgusted manner. She watched as he walked to a cupboard and pulled out another Styrofoam cup, identical to the ones all around them. He casually moved to the sink and peeled off the top, filling it with water without even needing to look.

"Do you want some?" He looked back to Trixie as he placed the cup in the microwave. "I have plenty of ramen, but I think I have a little cereal, too."

Trixie was about to say no, about to walk out of the door and leave, but a loud growling emanated from her midsection as her stomach lurched. "I really do not like that soup..."

"Cereal it is!" Pennington opened three different cupboards with his magic, finally pulling out a brightly colored box. "I hope that you enjoy Fruity Hoops!"

"That's for little foals!" Trixie cried, doing her best to hold back a smile at his sudden show of immaturity. "This is half sugar!"

"Well, what's the point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes?" Pennington asked with a wink. Almost immediately after, he pressed his hoof against his mouth to stifle a yawn, making him look even more like a foal. At this point, Trixie didn't manage to hold back a small laugh. When the giggle spilled out from beneath her lips, Pennington raised a curious eyebrow, lowering his head and looking up at her to emphasize the action. This made Trixie laugh again, and this time she didn't hold it back, letting the sound pour out of her mouth and out into the air.

"Well, good to see that you've cheered up from last night!" He chirped as he levitated a small carton of milk out of the fridge and into the air. "We don't have to eat in here, in fact, I never do! Why don't you just grab a bowl and follow me?" As the microwave began to ring loudly, Pennington picked up a spoon out of the sink and floated the steaming cup out of the black box. After taking a deep breath of the mist rising from the top, Pennington smiled and happily trotted back into the hallway.

"Come on, we'll eat in my study! After that, we'll see about finding a place for you to pick up a job!" Trixie couldn't help but wonder if his upbeat demeanor was forced or honest. Regardless, she took the milk and followed him. As she walked, Trixie realized that this had been one of the first times that she had genuinely laughed since she had been driven out of Ponyville. Not a spiteful chuckle at how far she had fallen, nor a hopeless laugh of a mare condemned to live on the streets, with pegasi going out of their way to rain on her, but an actual, comfortable, joyful laugh at something that made her happy. While she still felt uncomfortable in the disgusting kitchen, something about Pennington's trusting lack of judgment made her at ease, and she began to wonder if she really wanted to just leave and go back to living on the streets. Her pride told her that she should, of course, but... she felt unsure, now. The laughter seemed to have changed things.

Now, when Pennington wasn't rushing to get her inside, Trixie began to notice things about his study that she hadn't seen the night before. First of all, she saw at least a dozen locks on his door, a thick oak door that wouldn't fall easily to magic or sheer force. Whatever was in his study, he was certainly protective of it.

When she entered the study: she was surrounded by Daring Do. Memorabilia lined the walls on every side, held in place by dozens of books about the same mare, many of which she could see were autographed and labeled "Special Edition." At just above eye level, red yarn stretched over their heads, creating a near-indecipherable web above their heads, held in place by pins in the walls. The pins also held up large numbers of pages of hoof-written scribbles, among which Trixie could see Daring's name repeated several times over. Her eyes flicked upwards as she looked to the roof, which was letting in large amounts of light, and she noticed a large skylight that took up the majority of the ceiling. Gleaming in the space between the skylight and the first plush toys of Daring Do, she saw something that completely and utterly stole her attention. A golden sword. Well, it looked gold, anyway, as if somepony had melted down gold, stirred in silver, and then etched complex swirling patterns into the blade as it cooled. The sword was thinner at the base, then grew to a wickedly curved, wider end that looked as if it could slice off a pony's head in one stroke. All in all, the study seemed a monument to Daring Do and her adventures. When she looked back to her host, he was sitting behind a large desk that appeared to be made out of some kind of darkly stained wood, and sitting in a well-cushioned office chair. His horn was already aglow, scratching a quill across what appeared to be only the newest addition to a massive stack of papers next to him while quietly spooning noodles into his mouth.

The locks, his apparent talent for writing, this virtual shrine to Daring Do... I think that it's starting to make sense! Trixie walked straight up to the other side of Pennington's desk and placing a firm hoof on the surface, drawing his attention.

"I know who you are, Pennington!"

"Hm?" Pennington looked up from his work. For a moment, he didn't seem to register what she had said, then the realization came to him. His eyes widened and he paled, then slapped himself in the forehead. "N-no, Trixie! It's not what you think! I just-"

"You're a fanfic writer!" Trixie grinned smugly as Pennington's words fell to a stutter, then stopped entirely. "I have never seen a pony take their fanfictions so seriously, but don't worry, I'm sure they're very good..." She winked at him as he continued to stare at her in disbelief. "And you're not the only one who likes Daring..."

Pennington blinked at her in disbelief, as if it were impossible for him to comprehend how she had come to the conclusion.

"Trixie is more than simply beautiful. She has a brilliant mind, as well!" She brushed a strand of hair from her face in victory as Pennington shook his head.

"Just don't tell anypony, okay? I hate that I use someone else's characters in a story, published or not..." Pennington's face regained some of its color as he went back to work.

Trixie nodded and, seeing no other chairs in the room, laid down on the floor to eat, placing her bowl on the tiled part of the floor and laying on the rug coming out from under the desk. It was a simple matter to pour the cereal and the milk, but when she realized that she didn't have a spoon, she realized that there wasn't much that she could do. All of Pennington's spoons seemed to be laying, unwashed, in the kitchen sink. With a shrug, she lifted the bowl to her lips, doing her best not to slurp. Ordinarily, her pride would never have let her stoop to such measures, but the fact that she had recently been willing to eat almost anything when she was out on the streets (she shuddered involuntarily as she remembered a few of her less dignified meals involving garbage cans) let her put that aside.

"So, what do you do aside from writing fanfictions, Pennington?" She asked quietly before taking another long drink of the cereal.

"Well, I have a few published books, but my real work comes from writing commissions." Pennington look up from his work at her, then back at the scroll that he was working on. Quietly, he put down the quill and walked over to where she was laying, dropping down to the floor next to her. "Ponies who aren't very good at writing come to me and tell me what they want me to write and how long they want it to be. I write it, and then ask them to pay me what I think it's worth."

"I've never heard of a pony doing that..." Trixie glanced down at his cutie mark: two scrolls, each on either side of a large compass rose. "What about the compass on your cutie mark? That looks like Daring Do's cutie mark..."

"Well, sometimes I have to travel to understand what exactly a pony wants me to write about... I've been to Canterlot, Fillydelphia, Appleloosa, Cloudsdale, and even spent a week camping in the Everfree Forest, if you could believe it!" As he laid next to her, Pennington looked straight into Trixie's eyes. Most ponies would have found it odd, but now that she thought about it, Pennington had always been making eye contact with her when he had been speaking. Making eye contact was an important part of the art of misdirection, so Trixie was more than used to having ponies look into her eyes, and she stared straight back. Pennington's eyes were a bright lavender, and Trixie could feel that they were looking for something, as if they could find out everything about her just by staring. It didn't make her uncomfortable, though, and she began trying to find a few answers of her own. The unofficial stare-down had begun.

As she examined his eyes, she noticed a few things. First of all, she could see that the color of his eyes actually moved down a gradient from bright lavender to dark purple as they neared his pupils. She tilted her head slightly, and she could see that he had curiosity. It was puzzling to her why looking into his eyes gave her impressions of different emotions, but she could see his curiosity. It was like a desire to know everything, as if he would just drink in any kind of experience and file it away. As she kept looking, though, she saw something else... secrets. He looked ashamed, as if he had done something wrong.

At this point, Pennington broke away the eye contact, blinking several times and shaking his head.

"I-I'm sorry, I have a bad habit of staring..." He muttered, lifting the cup of soup to his mouth and downing the rest of its contents in a single attempt. He looked slightly shaken, but it quickly passed. "So, what were you doing out there in the rain last night?"

Trixie blinked in surprise. For perhaps the first time in years, she wanted the attention to be on some other pony, but she was wondering more about Pennington. But, she was his guest, so she grudgingly admitted to herself that he deserved answers.

"I... my trailer was smashed by the ursa minor. After that, all of Equestria seemed to know that my story about defeating an ursa major was a lie. I was laughed at, humiliated, and run out of town after town..." Trixie shook her head, refusing to let him see the pain of how low she had come. Her own voice betrayed her, though, wavering without her consent. It was only by sheer will that she kept it from cracking. "I've been living on the streets. It wasn't until last night's storm that I became desperate enough to beg for a place to stay..."

"Well, if it were me, I wouldn't go around bragging about the time that I saw an ursa major... They're nasty." Pennington rolled onto his back, looking up at his skylight. "Terrible breath, they snore like the dickens... And in desperate need of a set of braces."

Trixie's eyes widened. "You- you mean you've actually fought one?" She sat up on her front hooves, looming over him for an answer.

"Fought? No! Oh, definitely not! Run away from? Maybe. Seen? Yes." Pennington talked as if it were an every day occurrence for him to come face-to-face with one of the most dangerous animals on the planet. "The first time I saw one was when I was just a colt. Some pony had checked out every book on ursa majors from the library, and I had to do a story about one for school. So, I had to go into Everfree and find one myself."

A memory stirred deep in the back of Trixie's mind. "When was this... exactly?"

"Well, it wound up being how I got my cutie mark... probably about fifteen, sixteen years ago? No! Fifteen. Fifteen years ago." Pennington raised an eyebrow again. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I started doing magic shows at a young age, in spite of those who would ridicule me for it..." Trixie rolled her eyes. "But when I started telling my story about the ursa major, I actually did a lot of reading on them. I took out every book on them I could find whenever I went to a library in any town... including this one." She gave him a sly grin. "So, it looks as if we may have met before, indirectly..."

Pennington looked confused for a moment, then broke out into a wide grin. "You've got to be kidding me... Right? I mean, this would be an impossible case of serendipity if you were the one who helped me get my cutie mark, and then we somehow met again all of these years later..." He chuckled lightly. "I mean, that's more than just Deus Ex Machina, that's just crazy!"

"Well, then I suppose you're crazy!" Trixie laughed again and laid back down, picking up the cereal and drinking the rest of it. "Because the Great and Powerful Trixie is only brilliant, not crazy!"

"Well, she's the only pony I know who eats cereal without a spoon!" Pennington laughed. "Did you even grab a spoon for yourself?"

Trixie felt her face flush slightly as Pennington finally noticed her lack of a utensil. "Well, it looked like they were all dirty..."

"Oh, I would have gladly washed one for you! Just because I don't have time to clean my kitchen doesn't mean that I can't wash off a spoon now and then!" Pennington rolled his eyes and chuckled. "You know, Trixie, I can't see why anypony would hate you so much... If it doesn't overstep my boundaries, you're pretty, you're nice, and you seem to have a good sense of humor... Everypony says you're self-absorbed, but I just don't see it."

Trixie felt herself blushing again. "Well, I've changed a lot living on the streets... Essentially had the conceitedness beaten out of me."

"Well, I'm going to make it my personal goal that you don't wind up back on the streets! Which is why you can stay in that room indefinitely!" Pennington jumped back up onto his hooves, stepping towards the door. "Now, I believe our next order of business is to find you a job somewhere around town?"

Trixie felt a comforting warmth in her chest as the stallion made it sound as easy as running down to the local supermarket. Something about his carefree demeanor, in spite of his secrets and her occasional depression, made her want to stay near the blue unicorn stallion.

"You DO realize that everyone in this town hates me and probably wouldn't give me a job in a thousand years, don't you?" She asked as she rose to her own hooves.

"Oh, come on! If I like you, how bad could you be?" He asked as he pulled open the door and gave a small bow, motioning for her to go first. "Milady..."

"Careful, Pennington Inkwell... I may start to get a big head again if you treat me like that." She smiled coyly as she walked by him.

"I don't believe it..." Pennington raised his hoof to his forehead in disbelief as he and a dejected-looking Trixie walked out of the candy shop. "Even Bon Bon said no! Bon Bon's the sweetest pony I know!" He looked back at Trixie with a shake of his head. "No offense, but you really are hated in Ponyville... All of the business owners around here are a tightly-knit bunch, so I thought that a recommendation from me might at least get them to think about it!"

"Well, it is good to know that the rumors are true..." Trixie's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Is there anywhere else that we haven't tried?"

Pennington cringed at the question, though he had been fully expecting it. "Well, yes... But- I don't know if either of us would be allowed in."

"Hmph! Trixie did not become well-known throughout al of Equestria without entering a few places that she was not supposed to! Where are we going?" She trotted in front of Pennington, making him feel ashamed for his hesitation.

"Sweet Apple Acres, just outside of town..." Pennington, who not only usually did the leading, but often refused to be led by anyone, deferred to Trixie. Uncharacteristically, he was acting nervous, and he knew fully well why. "Are you sure that we have to go there? I mean, I don't think Applejack needs any help! She usually has things covered pretty well. In fact, the Apple family hates to hire any kind of help! We're probably wasting our time..."

At this point, Trixie looked back at him, coming to a stop. "Pennington, are you afraid?"

"What? Scared? Me?" Pennington shook his head, rolling his eyes towards the sky. "Never! I just think that this is a waste of time! A bad idea! A disaster waiting to happen!"

"But, not five minutes ago, you said that all of Ponyville's entrepreneurs were close... Don't you think it's worth a shot?"

Pennington rolled his eyes, knowing that Trixie wasn't going to be catching on to his insinuations any time soon. "Look, Applejack and I have a few... tensions. We've mutually agreed not to like each other."

Trixie blinked, then shook her head. "Well, either way, you said that we would have to try everything, so... We might as well. What harm could it do?" With that, she took off again, walking towards the edge of town.

"Are you serious? You're serious, aren't you?" He asked under his breath before running to catch up. "Trixie! Wait up! You don't know what you're getting into!"

Comments

[Blackthunderaceattorney]

Pen what's your secret "investigation mode activate"
Bit on a serious note good job on the story and keep it up and I can't come up with another clique saying I running on re-run jokes....pun not intended

[Pennington Inkwell]

2258766 Okay, Ace, since I know you in real life, I'm allowed to call you out about this...

I had to read that at least three times before I understood you. Fix your grammar. Nick is bad enough.

img-cache.cdn.gaiaonline.com/9c02ce0ab77f06c4f2ecb1d79a553afd/http://i944.photobucket.com/albums/ad284/Drstine/that-post-gave-me-cancer.jpg

[Spirit Shift]

Well whats the point in growing up if you cant be childish sometimes

thats it youve got both a fav and a follower with this: my favorite quote of all time
also looks like we have a dr who fan as a main character

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

Last time Trixie met AJ, she tied up AJ & stuck an apple in her mouth. This will not end well.

[The Curators Compindium]

"Well, what's the point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes?"