Chapter 1
Before
A life on the road can be hard on foal. And a small foal was exactly what Trixie Lulamoon was in the early days. Growing up with nomadic gypsies throughout her youth she learned early, and learned well – the open road was not glamorous. And it was not safe. Perils lay fraught even on stable ground – hidden pitfalls and sinkholes could trap an unsuspecting pony for hours; poisonous ivies could set you itching and feverish for days; and the inevitable criminal element of bandits and highway-ponies could do irreparable damage to both supplies and oneself.
Despite the hardships of travelling on the road with the small camp, Trixie loved the road. She loved the travel, the sights of new places, the reassuring rumble of supply carts, and the sweet scents of hard-packed earth and roadside heather. However, growing up in the small caravan laid the foundation for many questions. Why was she the only one with a horn? No other pony in the group had one. When she had asked the caravan elder, Spanglehoof Shortflank, the answer had been vague and unsatisfying. And even though she knew she was loved, she grew up feeling as if she were an outsider.
She wanted acknowledgement more than anything.
The caravan traded woven cloths and small carved trinkets and wooden jewellery for food and other supplies, and so the young foal decided to dedicate herself to the works of crafts-ponies. She was determined to become the best there was, to have it shine from the cutie mark she would surely earn within the next few summers. Trixie was sure – she belonged with the travelling group of Earth ponies. She knew this deep in her bones, and one day, she knew, so would they.
Her adopted family would one day look at her, and see her as part of the caravan, as an esteemed and essential piece of their way of life, instead of as they saw her now. As a cuckoo egg in an already full nest.
Trixie’s early attempts at craftsmanship were dismal. She had no sense of the weight and grain of the wood for carving, and lacked the precise touch and colour sense for weaving. She wouldn’t give in, however. No matter how the elders would only smile blandly at her fumbling attempts as if to say, we can see you’re trying.
Trixie wanted to do more than try. She wanted to succeed.
Magic manifests differently in unicorns – some start by levitating objects when they are small, others set fire to thatch roofs when they get upset. Trixie didn’t do either of these things.
She wanted so badly to show her (adopted) family that she belonged. And so her magic lashed out, shattering a large chunk of driftwood four other ponies had been meticulously carving. The splinters flew in all directions with a loud cracking noise, digging deep into the ponies’ around the piece’s forelegs.
And scratching a long bloody trail across Shortflank’s left eye.
The nomadic ponies weren’t angry with Trixie. They were well travelled, and understood the dangers of the First Magic a unicorn set loose. They were understanding, and they were kind.
But Trixie was not. She had scarred her Elder, the pony she loved most. Her desire to be one of them had hurt her friends and her family. No matter what Shortflank or the others said to console their youngest member, Trixie was caught is a downward spiral of all her own hopes and fears taking shape and shattering in her mind’s eye.
She had hurt them. And, more than anything, she was afraid she would hurt them again.
That night, her cutie mark blazed itself onto her flank – a glittering star-wand against a crescent moon. Oh, Celestia, she cried. Why does this hurt so?
Her talent did not lie with those of her family. Her mark throbbed with self-loathing. Magic, she thought. Magic, and the Moon. The herald of night. The symbol of the living Nightmare Goddess herself.
Terrified of herself, the young Trixie took the only option available in her juvenile mind.
She ventured away from the caravan, and left the road.
The forests north of Foal Mountain seem sparse and inviting during the long hours of the day – birds sing, and sunbeams stream in between the branches like in a fairy-tale.
The forests are cold at night. Cool and dark. The owls and rats scamper about, making chitters and screeches that can feed the most strident of ponies’ imagination into unimaginable horrors. That first night – without even a blanket to stave of the northern night air – was the hardest.
Having only manifested her magic earlier that day, Trixie knew no spells to warm herself. And that her First Magic had been explosive, she was also tired. Her eyelids lay heavy on her face. Her horn ached like a week-old bruise. Her flank throbbed where the mark lay, pulsing like a heartbeat and reminding her of her shame. Tired, and vulnerable, and afraid was how she spent that first night; too frightened to give into exhaustion and sleep; too ashamed to turn back – even if she could find her way.
The night changed every rustling leaf into the slither of a thousand poisonous snakes. Each snap of a twig was an Ursa Major sneaking upon its latest snack.
Trixie lay in the hollow of a rotten willow and waited until dawn. And with the first light, she breathed a sigh of relief, let her hind leg go slack, and lost herself to sleep.
When she woke it was evening. And all she could hear was the baying of wolves.
She ran.
Trixie was unable to tell whether she was running in the right direction, but she galloped with all the desperation a foal that had done without food for more than a day could. Sweat foamed up on her shoulders, and her front flank cramped with exhaustion, but still she ran, eyes wide and with panic.
Trixie had spent a life on the road – she had stamina. But she didn’t have experience running through trees. And just as she reached a small clearing, she tripped on a root, flipped over her front, and landed splayed out on her side in front of a group of russet furred wolves that were howling at the moon.
For a moment it seemed as if time had frozen. Trixie scrambled to her feet, ears pressed flat against her skull. The wolves stared.
“Well,” the largest of them snarled, long white – and oh, Celestia those are sharp! – teeth glinting in the light of the setting sun. “This is not something you see every day. A pony, that runs towards us!”
He finished by snapping his jaws at her with a loud clack, and she jumped. The other wolves huffed in laughter.
“Tell, me,” he began, thick saliva dripping from his terrible jaws, “are you alone, or followed by more…”
He paused a moment, noting her horn, then recoiled, growling.
“Magic!” he hissed. The other wolves stepped back as well.
Seeing a chance, and trying with all her remaining courage not to turn and run – I won’t make it if I run – Trixie sold her first show as a performer.
“That’s right,” she sneered, pulling on the mannerisms of every highborn Canterlot snob she had ever seen in her travels. “Magic.” She shook her head, brandishing her horn. Focussing all her will – please let this work! – on her desperation and fear, she nearly jumped she her horn lit up with a silvery glow.
The wolves took a collective step back. I can do this!
“I will give you a warning,” she ground out, every fiber of her being concentrated on keeping her voice from shaking, teeth clenched tight to prevent them chattering in her fear, brow clenched down to prevent her eyes from showing their whites.
One of the wolves braved forward, testing. “A warning,” he scoffed, though his eyes did not leave the magic sparking on her horn. “You’re only a foal. You probably can’t even do any real spells!”
Trixie froze. This was the truth, after all. But she was tired, and hungry, and fed up with being useless. She was going to die, mauled by wolves unless she could sell this. And all that fear, suddenly found itself with nowhere to go and became anger. Fury like she had never felt.
She whipped her horn around to point directly at the wolf that had spoken, eyes narrowed.
“I know all the spells I need!” She hissed through her teeth. And like the driftwood earlier, her magic manifested itself, shattering the trunk of a tree closest to the wolves. Splinters as long and sharp as their teeth rained onto the pack, sticking into their forepaws and muzzles, the concussive force of the exploding tree sending more than one wolf tumbling flat onto their backs.
Trixie stamped her hooves loudly on the ground. “I am the Great and Powerful Trixie!” she snarled, magic sparking from her horn, and shining in her eyes. “Be thankful that on this night, I aimed for the tree instead of you!”
The wolves looked at the young unicorn, livid, and near foaming at the mouth with fury and magic alike. And then they looked at the tree, now pile of kindling. And, almost as one, they turned and fled.
Trixie grinned savagely. The fell for it! She was alive.
She stayed in the clearing until well after moonrise, keeping still and determined, knowing that if the wolves came back she couldn’t ever be what she was – a scared, young foal – in this forest. In order to survive she would have to become something else.
Somepony else.
Not a foal, she thought, just small.
Not new at magic, she decided, the Greatest.
Not afraid, she wished. I can never be afraid again. Oh Celestia, I want to go home.
The sun rose, and Trixie sank into the grasses in the clearing, and grazed. Sated of her hunger, she cried.
It would be the last time.
After
I had forgotten. Trixie sighed to herself. Her boasts had been tested, and she had been found wanting by the bearers of the Elements of Harmony themselves. I had forgotten that this isn’t the forest.
In the woods, no matter how false, any story that made the predators eye you with respect and fear, instead of hunger, was a good story. She had forgotten that ponies weren’t waiting for the right moment to have her for dinner. Ever since that fateful night she had cultivated herself, shaped her mannerisms, and her magic – not strong magic, but flashy – as a shield against the horrors of the north woods and herself.
I am a fool. Inside, I am still that lonely foal, wanting to be acknowledged.
And now, her secret shame – that she couldn’t back up the front she presented – was bared for all of Equestria to see.
I can never take the stage again.
Trixie straightened herself. I will not cry. I will not break. Even though my magic isn’t strong like Twilight’s, for six long years I faced wolves and bears and I did not bend.
“It was wrong of me to lie,” she said aloud, tasting the words. “It was wrong of me to lie to ponies that did not merit it.”
“But I was not wrong to lie when my life depended on it.”
Trixie nodded to herself.
No. Not Trixie, anymore. Trixie was a child, seeking approval, power, and acceptance. Now, she was Beatrix.
“The only acceptance I need is my own. I know who I am,” she tossed her head, star-spangles cloak fluttering behind her. “I am not a foal anymore. I am a unicorn.”
It didn’t matter if her shows would never again have an audience.
The open road called to her to travel, and to perform.
“I am Beatrix,” she shouted out to the sky, grinning. “The Great Actress Beatrix! Let me tell you a tale like you have never heard before!”
Epilogue
It was three weeks later that Beatrix cantered into Dodge City, just east of Appleloosa.
Making her way to the main square of the town to post her flyers for her performance she noted a flash of colour out of the corner of her eye.
A brightly coloured covered wagon sat on the outer ring of the town square.
A wagon she had never hoped to see again.
All her limbs felt frozen, and she couldn’t blink.
In front of the wagon was an earth pony marked with a thin scar across her brow.
The pony lifted her eyes for a moment and their gazes locked. The other pony paled, accidentally knocking over the stand she was settling up as she reared onto her hindquarters in surprise.
“Trixie!” The Earth pony shouted it across the square, eyes glistening with sudden tears.
Beatrix’s eyes were wide. She was paralyzed with shock.
“Elder Spanglehoof!” she choked out, eyes damp, and through tight.
The gypsy pony vaulted over the fallen table and dashed across the square, thrusting her nose up against Beatrix’s brow. Just like when I was little, Beatrix remembered.
“Trixie, child…” the Elder trailed off, tears streaming freely as she whuffled through Beatrix’s mane, assuring herself that her foal had returned to her. “Oh, my dear, sweet Trixie. We searched so long for you. When we heard rumors of a terrifying sorceress ruling the woods we feared the worst!”
Hearing the commotion, the other ponies of the caravan returned to the square. Upon seeing their Elder sobbing, yet smiling in joy, they looked upon the visage of the one unicorn they had hoped to see again above all else.
The pair was surrounded by the nomadic ponies, all whinnying in joy, pressing forelock and muzzle together to reassure themselves that their youngest sister was with them once more.
The reunion lasted well into the afternoon, and that day not a trinket of woven cloth was sold.
As afternoon passed into evening, the earth ponies were finally assured that Trixie – “It’s Beatrix, now,” – was safe and alive and real.
After gathering together for the evening meal, they turned to their wayward unicorn and asked, “Where did you go? What happened?”
For a moment, Beatrix considered lying. She wanted to tell them that her life had been sae and uneventful – that she had found her talent and lived a quietly successful life the past six years.
But these ponies before her were her family. She didn’t have to hide her fears and hopes and dreams from these ponies. And so, very carefully, and with full conviction she turned to each of the gypsies one by one and looked them square in the eye.
“Despite how strange and fantastic this tale may seem,” she began, “I would assure you that every word I am about to speak to you is the truth.”
And, beginning with the fateful night when her cutie mark manifested itself, every word that fell from her lips resounded with the crystalline ring of honesty.
End