The office of the official representative of the Night Court, wherein resided the official representative of the Night Court and personal portage of Princess Luna herself. Trixie was a very important pony who spent each and every day making very important decisions that affected the lives of each and every citizen of Ponyville, or at least that was how it was supposed to work. In reality most of her job involved being little more than a glorified paper pusher. Trixie despised paperwork, as could be attested by the rather large pile sitting to the side of her desk that she was trying very hard to ignore.
The very, very bored mare sat slouched over her desk, azure coat laid bereft of its usual garb, her head resting lazily sideways against the cool wooden surface and horn aglow in an equally lazy aura as she levitated a paddleball. One-by-one she counted off the steady rhythmic beats, her glassy gaze barely alert enough to track the ball as it stretched to the limits of its tether and rebounded only to be sent sailing forth again by the next strike of the paddle.
She supposed that if she was going to neglect her official duties for the afternoon she should at least be using this time to prepare for her upcoming performance, but she found herself far too bored to work up the motivation. Besides, without so much as an audience of one to amaze, what would be the point?
It was at that moment that she saw ripples spread rhythmically from the center of the glass of water on her desk. Then just as she lifted her head to ponder the meaning of this she heard it, the heavy thud, thud, thud as though some great beast from the depths of the Everfree Forest approached. Finally, with a resounding crash her office door was flung open revealing not some hideous monster, though Trixie might well have preferred such. No, instead her eyes beheld a sight of abject terror second only to the Blazing Queen of the Sun herself, or perhaps just maybe that should be the other way around. Before Trixie stood her good friend and fellow Element of Harmony, Raindrops, eyes full of cold murderous fury.
"Trixie, we need to have a serious talk!"
"What!? I've been in my office all day. Whoever you thought you saw, it wasn't Trixie!" blurted the unicorn in a barely coherent panic.
With that the pegasus's seething rage seemed to abate, replaced by puzzled confusion, "Huh?"
Trixie let out a sigh of relief as she wiped her brow, "Oh thank merciful Luna, you're not here for me."
Raindrops cocked her head slightly with a raised eyebrow before pressing, "Why would I be?"
"Uh, no reason," Trixie stammered while purposely averting her gaze, "Forget I even brought it up."
"Right, I think I will, this time," said the pegasus with the barest edge of an underlying threat, "You're lucky I have bigger cakes to bake."
"So what exactly is this about then?"
"Oh come on!" Raindrops vented, "You've got to have heard about all the chaos Rainbow Dash and that griffin friend of hers have been causing."
"Of course I've heard, but I don't see why you're storming in here like you expect me to do anything about it," Trixe then made a point of using her magic to shuffle through some of the paperwork on her desk as though to remind her friend that she had proper official duties to attend. Letting her eyes read, or at least skim, over a random document she then continued in an officiary tone "Pranks and a bit of petty vandalism are rather beneath the Night Court's jurisdictional interests. Just leave it to the mayor or such."
"Only problem with that is that, as usual, the mayor doesn't seem to want to do a damn thing about it," fumed the pegasus as she rolled her eyes, "I swear, Rainbow Dash isn't the only pony whose continuing job security I don't understand."
Never taking her eyes off the document, though still not having much clue what it said, Trixie tried to again make her position in the matter clear, "I still don't see what you expect me to do about it? My job only lets me break ties in the city council and such, not overrule mayoral decisions."
"Well, Gilda is a griffin, surely that's got to make this a big enough concern to the Night Court."
"So what," Trixie asked as she set down her papers and raised an eyebrow, "you just expect me to contact the griffin ambassador and have her kicked out of Equestria?"
"Sounds like a good plan to me, especially if I get to do the kicking," Raindrops punctuated this by making a bucking motion.
"Unfortunately it's not so simple," the unicorn sighed as she shook her head, "Short of a capital offence it would take weeks for that kind of paper work to go through, and from what I've heard this Gilda is only staying through until the end of tomorrow. Besides, the griffins would only laugh off such a request made over only what little she seems to have actually done"
"LITTLE! They almost ruined all of Carrot Top's leftover winter surplus and it's still weeks until the first of her early spring harvests will be ready for market."
Trixie gave a deep frown at that revelation, "Be that as it may, it is still nothing the griffins would make a fuss over."
"WHY IN THE GATES OF TARTARUS NOT?"
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"The horror, the horror!" cried a pale earth pony with a rose colored mane and matching cutie mark.
"This is awful!" wailed a pink earth pony whose blond mane was held in place by a lily that matched her own cutie mark.
"A disaster, a horrible, horrible disaster!" concluded a third earth pony with a lime colored mane and sporting another flower themed cutie mark.
The object of the trio's distress was a fenced in and immaculately maintained flower garden. More specifically it was one particular flower in that garden, or to be even more precise it was what currently sat perched atop that flower. A single solitary caterpillar that was munching on the petals, blissfully unaware of the panic it was inciting.
"Quick, get it off before it lays any eggs!"
"Wait, aren't caterpillars too young to lay eggs!"
"That's not important, it might still have brothers and sisters waiting to hatch!"
"We have to check each and every flower, stat!"
As the three mares began to run about in ever mounting panic, they were observed by a pair of watchful eyes from a nearby rooftop.
Gilda scratched her head, "So that's it?"
Sitting next to her, Rainbow Dash shrugged, "Yeah, I guess those three are a little on the easy side. Maybe we should try something a bit more exciting," she than smiled and pointed to the sky, "Last one to that cloud is a rotten egg."
The griffin's response was little more than to take a readied stance before Dash gave a quick three count and they were off.
As the pair of speedsters rocketed through the base to emerge on the other side, Rainbow struck a dramatic pose and gave a celebratory cry, "Yes! Rainbow Dash wins again, and the crowd goes wild!" she gloated, then proceeded to cup her hooves to the side of her mouth as she imitated the roar of an applauding audience "Woo-hoo … Way to go Dash … We love you Rainbow!"
Gilda gave a dismissive wave, "Cha' right, I was way ahead!"
"No way! I'm the fastest pegasus in all Equestria." insisted Rainbow with a pointed stare as she swished a hoof through the air as though holding an imaginary action figure of herself in flight.
"Too bad for you I ain't no pegasus," came the griffin's reply as she sat herself down atop the cloud, "You might be the fastest flier in this little nowheresville, but compared to me you might as well be in ssllooww mmmoootttiiiooonnn," and further emphasized her point by imitating Dash's gesture, only far more slowly.
The pegasus sat down directly opposite her rival and made fierce eye contact, "You're the one who's the slo'mo and if there was somepony else here to keep you honest I could prove it."
"Hey, I'm the most honest griffin in town"
"Gilda?" Rainbow began in slight questioning tone as she tilted her head, "you're the only griffin in town."
"My point exactly," she said with a wide grin.
The two then reclined on the cloud and laughed off the aftermath of their friendly quarrel.
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"Alright, I get it, no help from the Griffin Empires," Raindrops rubbed her temples, trying to make sure her head wouldn't explode from all the sociopolitical inanities Trixie had been going over for what felt like the past few days, "There's still got to be something to do about this. We can't just let them get away this. If I hadn't been there to help fast dry everything, Carrot Top could have gone bankrupt."
Trixie sighed, "Is it really all that bad? First off, unless she let her Element get the better of her, Carrot Top should still have plenty of reward money left over from our mutual heroics to tide her over the worst of this."
"Well yeah, but she shouldn't have to use that to clean up Rainbow Dash's mess."
"You didn't wait for me to finish," scolded the unicorn, "Second, it seems one of the better things my predecessor did with his time in this office was to have Rainbow Dash officially classified as an untamable force of nature. So as it turns out any and all damages she causes whether intentionally from pranks, or accidental while training qualify for disaster relief funding as per the Equestrian Environmental Defense Act of 174." Trixie was quite proud of her ability to convey a degree of expertise on the subject, even if technically she hadn't known that little detail until Cheerilee had come in to file a claim for the cleanup costs at the schoolhouse. She wasn't sure where the school teacher picked up such freaky encyclopedic knowledge of the Equestrian legal code, but it certainly came in handy some times.
Raindrops though was merely flabbergasted, "What really? How does that even — never mind, I think I've heard enough legal and political technicalities for one day. Still this has got to be a pretty serious level of damage. I mean, it's not just Carrot Top, Rainbow Dash and Gilda have practically been turning the whole town upside down."
"Actually, I've been over the books, and apparently Rainbow Dash caused quite a bit more property damage that time she volunteered to help Buttercry with the annual bunny census." This bit of info Trixie could actually take full credit for. The event had happened before she ever came to ponyville, but she'd run across it in the files while compiling her report to the Bureau of Animal Affairs in regards to all the burrows that got flooded during Winter Wrap-Up.
"Fluttershy."
"Beg pardon." Trixie queried as she was shaken out her prideful reverie.
"Her name," Raindrops stressed, "the pegasus that normally handles all those overly time consuming animal surveys, it's Fluttershy."
"Whatever," intoned the unicorn in a dismissive rasp, "My point is that all of this is nothing, just one more crazy week in the craziness capital of Equestria. Come next week there will be some other catastrophe or zany antics and everypony will forget about all this like it never even happened."
Raindrops was now thoroughly incensed and completely fed up with Trixie's continued unwillingness to take this matter seriously, "You know what, fine! I knew it would be a mistake coming here. If you aren't going to help then I'll just do what I should have done in the first place and handle things personally," with that the pegasus stormed out of Trixie's office, nearly slamming her hooves through the floor boards as she marched. She paused on her way out only long enough to slam the door behind her, so hard it rattled in its hinges.
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Rainbow Dash yawned while reclining on the cloud, then snapped her eyes open as she leapt to her hooves, "Hey, think you can follow this trick?"
The lounging griffin raised her head from her folded arms, "In my sleep," she declared with a somewhat lazy boast, "but how 'bout we try another prank first before I embarrass you again?"
"I dunno know 'G'," replied Rainbow as she scratched the back of her mane, "I think the town might be just about pranked out by now."
"So we go out'a town. I saw this timid little thing at a cottage over by the Everfree," the griffin smiled with conspiratorial anticipation as she rubbed the palms of her talons together, "Bet'cha we could scare her real good."
"Hey yeah we could — wait," Dash's enthusiasm quickly drained as she realized, "you don't mean Fluttershy?"
"How should I know? All ponies look the same to me, each as lame as the next," then catching herself, she hastily added with a clenched grin, "except you Dash. You're special."
"Don't I know it!" beamed the ego stroked pegasus as she struck a confident pose, a single hoof pointed to her own chest, seemingly to have focused solely on the flattery and oblivious to Gilda's carelessly aimed insult.
"Right, so about the prank?"
The pride seemed to drain from Rainbow's face as uncertainty filled the pegasus's eyes "I don't know. Fluttershy's a pretty fragile thing under the best of circumstances. Besides, I thought we were done with easy."
"Nothing wrong with easy, long as it ain't boring,"
"I don't really think it'd be such a good —"
"Aw, come on Dash! I swear that butterball looked like she'd be scared of her own shadow. We could probably get her to literally jump out'a her own skin. Just imagine the —"
"I said no! Fluttershy is off limits, and that's final!"
Silence hung in there air from the outburst's aftermath before finally, "Oh, I get it. You're sweet on her," the griffin batted her eyelashes as she made the closest approximation her beak could to a pucker. She then proceeded to lightly elbow her companion in the ribs while waggling her brows as she added, "Never new ya swung that way Dash."
"Wait, what, no, It's not like that, I …" Dash stammered defensively, anger rising to her cheeks as she shoved Gilda away, "We just go back a long way and, and …" Rainbow struggled to find the words to explain to her coolest friend why she was being so protective of such a decidedly uncool pony.
Gilda's eyes went wide just before a baleful grin spread across her face, "Wow, I was only joking there, but you really are like so totally crushing on her."
"Just drop it," groaned the pegasus as she looked away in a huff.
The griffin took in a purposely deep breath before proceeding to mockingly sing, "Dashie and her girlfriend sitin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I — OW!" The foalish tease was cut off abruptly by a lightning fast hoof jab in the arm.
"I said DROP IT!"
As Gilda tried to rub the pain out of her now aching bicep she gave Dash an appraising stare. A brief tension hung in the air, but then the griffin relaxed as she sighed, "Fine, it's dropped. But what now?"
Rainbow rubbed her chin in thought, then, "I got it! There's still at least one good prank left in this, and boy does she ever deserve it."
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Raindrops glowered as she trudged down the street, kicking at the occasional pebble along her path. Normally at least one of the genial residents of Ponyville might try to console a pony in such a foul mood, but all seemed to give Raindrops a wide berth, even Pinkie Pie. She wasn't happy that she'd earned something of a reputation that rightly deserved such distancing, but right now she appreciated it.
When she had left the representative's residency she had been ready to rush off, to bring all of her pent up frustrations out on Rainbow Dash and that so-called griffin friend of hers. As her search for the pranksters had dragged on though, she had taken time to think. Were her friends right? Was she really just taking the matter too personally? Sure Trixie might just be dismissing it all because she hadn't been victimized, but even Carrot Top had told Raindrops not to act too rashly.
And Trixie had been somewhat correct; antics like this were regrettably all too common in Ponyville. Raindrops had lived through worse before, and would probably see worse still in the future. So why should she treat this time any different? Besides, it was only one more day. Still …
She came to a halt, looked to the sky, and let out a roar of pure frustration. The citizens around her paused in their daily routines to take note, but quickly enough resumed minding their own business.
Raindrops was about to continue with her brooding march when she heard a shout calling to her. Turning to find the source she saw Trixie rushing down the street towards her, a box levitated alongside the unicorn.
The unicorn slowed to a halt as she approached, then pantingly spoke "Raindrops … there you are … this is awful … simply dreadful … I don't know how she did it … but —" Trixie was cut off by her own need to hack and wheeze as she fought to catch her breath.
"What happened, are you okay? What's with that box?"
"No, I most certainly am not okay! As for the box? Well, just see for yourself."
As Trixie used her magic to open the box and levitate out its contents, Raindrops had to suppress a fit of laughter. There hanging in the air in front of her was The Great & Powerful Trixie's hat and cape, except instead of their usual violet shade, they were now each a tie-dyed rainbow of colors.
"I don't know how she got ahold of them, but when my hat and cape were delivered from the cleaners they were like, like this."
"Well that certainly looks like about as blatant a calling card as I can imagine. Funny though, I didn't even know the cleaners did delivery."
"Nor did I. When I discovered this heinous act, my first suspicion was that Rainbow Dash had simply tricked the cleaners into handing over my garments before delivering them herself, but unless she has ability to change her mane purple, coat orange, and magically shrink to about half her size it certainly wasn't her who came knocking at my door."
"Well that explains everything, this is definitely Dash's hoofwork."
"What, you mean she really can …?" Trixie trailed off as she tried to process the half-interpreted revelation, then rapidly shook her head as if to manually clear her mind and restore focus, "Never mind, not important. What matters now is that I'm finally convinced that something must be done about this situation."
"What ever happened to just waiting it all out? Besides, can't you just magic your cloths back to normal?"
"That was before those hooligans made this personal, and it doesn't matter how easily rectified the situation is. This has become a matter of principle. No one pulls a fast one on The Great & Powerful Trixie and gets away with it. Now then, my dear Raindrops, I need your help. Trixie has a plan."
First up, I'd like to give a special shout-out to LDLUYAB who proofed this chapter, and boy did it really needed the proofing. If you all found this chapter a smoother read than the preceding two, that's to whom all thanks is owed, so give 'em some love.
Now on a personal front, I'm somewhat impressed with myself. I finished this about a day ahead of my original schedule, and after losing most of two days while I tried to catch up with paperwork at the office.
Anyway, for your continued reading pleasure I present the next installment in my humble attempt at writing. Hope you all enjoy/enjoyed it. Also, now that I've pinned down the continuity placement for this story, I went back and made some minor expansions to the early dialog in Ch.1. It's nothing that changes anything, just meant to add continuity and context.
Usefully Links For a Deeper Understanding of Details In This Chapter:
-- The Map!; post #38 or so: for more information on griffin society and culture.
-- Rainbow Dash: The Living Disaster!; post #1: for more information regarding how obscure Equestrian legal codes apply to this situation.
Fact: Bored Trixie ignoring her official duties is in no way serving as a proxy for me, her stage performance is in no way a proxy for this story, and the paddleball is in no way a proxy for me goofing off and writing a Twilight Sparkle "villain" song. Anyone who says otherwise is a dirty liar. Well, maybe that last one is true a little.
Seriously though, I actually did write that whole part before a massive 2,037 page document got dropped into my in-box, but the similarity of circumstance was not lost on me. Probably some sort of karmic justice for inflicting the situation on Trixie in the first place.
I guess Cheerilee's freaky knowledge of the legal code is the parallel to Fluttershy's freaky knowledge of sewing?
690837
That was the notion I was trying to get at. It might not have been intentional on his part, but Blackbelt can be credited for putting the concept in my head.
690892
I got way more excited than I should have when I got to that part of the story. I didn't even know I had made that into a thing, I wrote originally just for the sake of being funny.
Anyway, Trixie and Raindrops teaming up against Gilda and Rainbow Dash (and maybe Scootaloo? Would be funny if Trixie saw Scoots and recognized her) That should be an interesting meetup.
Oh, Dash, Gilda? You two better run! Man, Dash unleashed like this is... kinda scary. Good on Fluttershy still being her 'morality pet', as the saying goes. Boo on Gilda, though. *launches missile at her*
691119
Morality pet, indeed. Though now I'm imagining some freaky Lunaverse version of the "Find a Pet" song along those lines. BTW, no. Despite what my recent reputation might suggest, I am not writing that.
691047
Scoots and Trixie probably won't come up again in my story. It was basically just a one off joke to get Trixie to have a minor mental break. If you feel like it though, please feel more than welcome to work something like that into you own upcoming fic. Also, my assumption would be that Scoots was something of a patsy in all this. Dash probably never told her anything other than to deliver the box.
Oh, and sorry for the secondary notification, accidental deleted the original while responding to striker
I noticed that somepony's name was beneath Trixie's notice. No blistering wonder Fluttershy thinks Trixie hates her....she can't hardly even be asked to remember her name!!!
As for Rainbow Dash being classified as a force of nature, that probably holds true in the Celestiaverse as well.
691263
I'd expect Trixie can't be bothered to remember most pony's names, unless they are in a prominent political position, let alone a hermit who lives past the edge of town and who she only ever met once ── Wait I forgot Trixie's scene in Family Matters, she knew her name then. Whoops, plot whole. Wait, no, keep it together, you can do this Emeral can do this. In all the panic and excitement of that story Trixie's brain was getting an extra jolt of adrenaline that kicked her name recollection ability into high gear. Yes? That makes perfect sense, right?
Anyway, I'd agree that Dash as a registered living disaster would be cool in the maneline too, though I'm uncertain who could have possibly filed such paperwork.
691423
I should think that she had help remembering Fluttershy's name along the way. Said help is slightly angrier at Ditzy than Amethyst is and is currently berating her reflection for the excesses of her misspent youth.
Time for me to finally ask a question I should have asked a while ago. You've said the story is set between Winter Wrap-Up and File Under 'I' for 'Impossible', but where is it set relative to Family Matters? My current storage method for Lunaverse fics involves chronological order, and I don't know whether to place this between The Night After and Family Matters or between Family Matters and File Under 'I' for 'Impossible'.
"What!? I've been in my office all day. Whoever you thought you saw, it wasn't Trixie!"
I am now curious as to whether or not Trixie may have actually done something recently.
691423
She may know Fluttershy's name in "Family Matters" only due to Lyra suggesting that Fluttershy has chickens only a few minutes ago from her perspective.
690837
Cheerilee had an...interesting...time in her teenage years, or whatever the pony equivalent of those is, I think. Suffice to say that she had ample opportunity to learn about the Equestrian legal code.
Oh my. Trixie and Raindrops versus the winged jerks. This should be good.
I really like the idea of RD being a literal registered natural disaster. Of course, there's probably something in the law about the Night Court rep. being empowered to fight and resist natural disasters. Sure, usually that means they hire extra weather patrollers to break up hurricanes, or they set up bucket brigades to put out fires, but I can see Trixie using that mandate to basically outlaw Rainbow Dashiness anywhere in the city limits.
692413: And now I'm seeing a sunglass-wearing Cherilee smoking a cigarette and spraypainting the Manehattan library. "Studying is for squares!"
692260
I could be wrong here, but last time I checked I thought Family Matters was set in Winter, or at least it starts there. Either way, this one comes after that.
692413
Ah, good point, about Fluttershy's name.
As for the line, my personal opinion would be that Trixie is always up to something or another, especially when she's bored. Not always something bad, in fact, usually pretty harmless, though probably nothing she wants Raindrops knowing about either. Even when she hasn't actually been up to something, she is so often enough that immediate denial has become something of an automated response, especially when she is panicking at the sight of being confronted by a pony that seems to have been consumed by a cold murderous fury.
As to which of those above scenarios applies to this specific instance? I'll choose to leave that to the individual reader, or to any author that decides they want to use it as a hook.
692619
An interesting premise, but the codes for dealing with such things weren't really ever meant to be applied to sentient beings. From a strictly legal standpoint, banning Rainbow Dash from ponyville would be like trying to ban a storm that formed over the Everfree, or to use more familiar terms, it would be like trying to repeal the law of gravity or legislate the value of pi.
The previous representative probably had to pull some serious legal shenanigans to get the classification put in place. Probably no overt lies, but plenty of intentionally avoiding or obscuring the specific details. I suppose that since Dash actually is a pony one could try to make laws against her, but doing so would probably only serve to draw attention to the fact that the original laws had been abused in the first place, thus revoking her disaster status, and leaving the citizens of ponyvile stuck with the bills, and no one want's that especial Silver Scroll, think of all that lost MONEY.
Also, you might note that not even Raindrops, who is on the weather team knew about this, and Trixie only knew because of Cheerilee specifically. Despite Dash and Gilda running amok all over town, no one seems else have come to Trixie about it, at least not with financial concerns. It's not important to this story, but the way I see it the mayor normally fields all the complaints against Dash for property damage, files the disaster relief claim on behalf of the city, pays out the minimum to the effected citizens and then puts the rest into the towns coffers, or depending on how cynical you want to be, her own pockets, though I prefer to think that she's only "cheating" the individual citizens for the benefit of the entire town as whole, especial as Cheerilee is implicitly fine with letting her get away with it.
692619
cheerilee during the time in question:
i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q531/ADemonicPresence/cherilee.png
Oh, Scootaloo, would you jump off a cliff if Rainbow Dash told you it would be cool?
693838
What do you think RD's "flying" lessons with the kid consist of?
SCOOTALOO! Y U do that?
The RD being a natural disaster is SOLOL! Trixie should band RD from entering city limits ( What me no be a meniepants anymore?) (She deserves it!)
O yah, the story's great! Lunaverse RULES!
728388
The story might not make it clear, but as I see it Scoots is really just a patsy in all this. This is the first and only time she's been involved in the story, and she doesn't even get name dropped. Rainbow and Gilda are the ones who got Trixie's cloths from the cleaner and dyed them, then they just gave the box to Scoots to deliver it, taking advantage of her always eager to help Dash attitude, and never letting the filly in on the prank.
As for Banning Rainbow from Ponyville? The laws really aren't set up to work that way. I went into more detail on the matter in an earlier post (692747). Maybe, I should put up a blog of authors notes for that part or something.
Other than the annoyance of Gilda automatically jumping on a shipping angle for Dash's friendship with Fluttershy (I'd expect her to eventually use that as a tease, but not jump right to it), this is quite good.
Gilda jumping the shipping angle is supposed to be annoying, so I'm glad it bothered you as much as it did Dash. Matter is resolved though now. According to my interpretation of griffins (as detailed on the Lunaverse boards, post #38 or so), once a griffin backs down they don't ever bring up the subject again.
"Dashie and her girlfriend sitin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I — OW!"
Should it not be marefriend?
WHAT WAS THE YELLOW ONE'S NAME!??!
You used a lowercase p for Ponyville in one part of this
When Trixie starts to refer to herself in the 3rd person, things are gonna get interesting.
*sighs contently* back to doing the Lunaverse. It just feels like home when I come back to live read an episode. Like everypony missed me. Heck, it was su[risenly easy to get eveerypony's voices back.
Onto this eppie. This is what I love about the Lunaverse, the mane 6. Look at Dash, this is what people outside of our group in the mane world see of her. They never see Dash's quiet moments, the moments where she doesn't have her character, or her development. Plus, we also have a Dash who is not close friends with Pinkie, so some of her pranks can come out hurtful and mean. This also a great eppie for Drops, because if you ask my little brother, she didn't get that much character in the first episode.