Pairing
For Trixie, solitude tended to perish easily: the simple act of crossing the border between wild and settled zone could finish it off in a hurry. But the condition also existed in what was effectively a state of near-constant reincarnation. It died, it was reborn at the moment she reached the road again (or, if she'd had a particularly bad time in the last town, somewhat before), and then it would once again offer itself to her as a companion.
When she was hauling the caravan, solitude traveled at her side. It also did so while adding an invisible, intangible weight, and it never took up its own share of the burden.
If she sat on the roof of her rolling residence and tried to orient on the Nightsun, it searched the skies with her. It couldn't comprehend what she was searching for -- but when it came to what her endless travels might have been truly seeking, neither did she.
It was one of the few who would remain on the perpetual journey with her -- even if, just like everypony else, it never truly understood.
Nopony ever understood.
There were multiple vital skills involved in being a traveling performer. Quite a few of them centered on living long enough to reach the next settled zone. A significant leftover concerned what had to be done once she got there.
Here we have a new town, and the first show is going to start soon. Well -- how do you expect ponies to attend the performance if they don't know about it? They're going to need a location, a schedule, and that information needs to be passed on rather quickly because the act of crossing the border started a timer. There's only so long the unicorn can remain in any given settled zone before she has to leave again, and it's just about possible to work out the duration via formula. Determine the local population, figure for how many ponies might attend, recognize that most of them aren't coming back to a second show during the same stay even if she tells everypony that there's at least one new trick in every show, and learn to spot when local interest has been tapped out. Ideally, at least one day before it actually happens.
So start by learning about the place...
Ideally, she would have a few facts memorized before crossing the border. Check the results from the last census, which could be done at any library (and in order to save time, the check for the current town would have been made in the previous one). That provided population. If she was lucky, there would be a map available, and those were vital. Trixie didn't just need to memorize the layout of streets in a hurry, along with finding a good place to deploy the stage and, if at all possible, locating a chemist's shop. (This part didn't always work out.)
She had to work out regional hoof and air traffic flow patterns. Quickly. Because it paid to advertise and if she wanted to collect any income at all, then it really paid to put the one-sheet broadside posters in places where ponies would actually see them.
She would also need broadsides. And while a print shop was generally easier to find than a place which distilled fine acids on request, paying for creation of the posters was an extra expense -- while the wait time for the results could easily consume two days. Accordingly, Trixie carried a small, easily-dismantled printing press in (and under) the caravan. She also had a couple of engraved plates to carry the central images: arranging letters and numbers allowed her to customize for location and showtime. The press was somewhat finicky, required significant maintenance, and was still considerably less prone to breakdown than the average wheel.
(The creation of paper was a somewhat chemical process and while Trixie understood it in full, it was also a little too complex and time-consuming to be done on the road. Reams were one more expense added to her supply sheet. Ink, however, could be coaxed out of multiple plants. Trixie had worked out methods for extracting a vibrancy of hue which only existed in her broadsheets, and hadn't sold any of the processes because she was convinced that nopony in the printing industry wanted to repeatedly fight their way to the best stabilizer. The source of the compound-laden saliva fought back.)
Place the broadsides: something she tended to do deep under Moon when her insomnia was at its peak (and entering a new settled zone tended to set it off anyway): it gave her a reason to be moving around, a chance to learn some of the streets through direct experience, and she personally believed it wasn't a good ideas for the advertiser to be seen planting the advertising. Rest, as much as she could. And on the next day, if there was an audience waiting outside... fascinate, show off, enchant (in several senses), deal with any hecklers and there were still times when she just about had to deal with them in advance...
On a good day, there would be income. Applause was always welcome. Bits kicked towards the stage kept her alive. And after the shows were over, if she still couldn't sleep -- there would be a chance to enjoy the benefits of civilization.
Resupply. Restock. Also, go out and find the town's nightlife. Kick the party tree in a few strategic places and see what she could get to tumble down from a high branch. When it came to interpony relationships, she could easily make -- well, not friends. Acquaintances. Those curious enough about the road life to spend a night in speaking with her, although Trixie knew what most of them wanted there: enough horror stories about travel to reinforce their belief that staying in one place was always the right call to make.
Getting somepony to buy her a drink was easy.
Going beyond that --
-- Trixie tended to treat her own sex drive as an slow-building itch from an incurable bug bite. It was possible to trot around with the sensation of wanting to do something for a good long while without actually acting on it -- but eventually, you had to scratch. Only it would turn out that the bite was in a place she couldn't actually reach, so it was now a matter of finding somepony who would scratch it for her.
She was rather good at identifying those who wanted to share her bed. And then, unless there was no other choice, she would tell them that she was going to be sharing theirs. The caravan technically had enough sleeping space for two, but the cramped quarters meant sleeping was all they were going to be doing. Additionally, much like her overall lifestyle, Trixie's sexual stylings tended to be unstoppably mobile. Within the caravan, she slept on padding or, during those nights when it had been long enough to forget what the sling support tended to do with her spine, in a hammock. If she'd picked somepony up for sex, then the act was going to take place in their bed, around the bed, possibly the living room if the sofa had enough space, and if the fence around the house could block lines of sight from outside it, then the area under the awning looked good.
(The sky-exposed lawns, while they often looked soft enough, were right out. Pegasi existed.)
She could easily locate those who would make good company for an hour. 'A night' was an option and if things were going exceptionally well, she would consider pushing the total to two. But there was only so long she could stay in any given settled zone. Eventually, all of the interested ponies would have already gathered at the stage, and...
...two years. That was what she'd told herself, when she'd first decided to go on the road. In terms of allowing the desire for visiting entertainment to build up again in her audience, along with just needing time to change up so much of her act as to have what was virtually a brand-new set to premiere upon her return... she could return to any given settled zone after two years.
...almost any given settled zone. She couldn't exactly go back to Ponyville. And she never went home.
(Wherever that was.)
Trixie made acquaintances rather easily. She had to, because a life on the road was a life without friends.
It wasn't as if she didn't see a few familiar faces along the way. Merchants, messengers... her path occasionally crossed the ones followed by other travelers, including a photographer whom she didn't want to run into so much as over. But if it wasn't him, then there was nothing wrong with uniting defenses for an evening: everything she could do to secure the caravan, added to whatever her evening's meet-and-greet could add. The ponies would mutually renew their acquaintance, catch up, share hard-won knowledge of hazards to be avoided-- and then separate again once Sun was raised. Trixie didn't count them as friends. She didn't really think of anyone she met on the road as a friend, and it was 'anyone' because she'd crossed the borders a few times. You couldn't be a friend if you weren't a regular part of their life, and the most time Trixie could ever give anyone was a week. Followed by, if she managed to make it through two additional years of travel, the potential for another week.
At some point, she would always need to leave. Hopefully before she had to.
So she didn't have friends.
She'd told herself that she didn't need them.
She'd... made mistakes. Critical ones. Things nopony should have recovered from.
(She was on probation. She frequently felt that she was supposed to be in prison -- at a minimum. Going after the Amulet didn't entitle her to a second chance. The action seemed to create several suggestions regarding the best way to end the first one.)
And then the pony she'd meant to surpass had begun writing to her.
Dragon-powered correspondence. Spike's sendings could find her anywhere on the road -- although until Twilight had figured out how to seal the flames for a little while, Trixie had needed to reach a post office before sending anything back. Solely talking about magic at first, because -- what else could they talk about? What did they have in common? The winner of the blood lottery and personal student of the Princess, versus a mare who'd reacted to her loss through doing -- all of it.
But they'd just kept writing to each other.
...well, why not? Twilight was a Gifted School graduate and Trixie --
-- she could have attended. She was strong enough for that, at least.
She could.
She just hadn't --
-- each mare provided a fresh perspective on the other's research. They pushed each other and this time, did so without sending Trixie into the freefall plummet of morals and sanity which had an Amulet at the bottom. And after a while...
Your friend mostly in spite of herself,
Trixie Lulamoon
She'd signed off on a scroll that way. Without thinking about it or rather, without thinking about it until roughly one a.m.: the subsequent shockwave had carried her all the way to dawn.
...had she meant it?
Twilight thought of her as a friend.
(It was why she was here.)
Trixie didn't have friends...
...keep moving. The caravan had to be pulled to its next destination. She had real trouble staying in one place for very long and no matter what Rarity was probably longing to say, it wasn't because she had arrest warrants chasing her.
The past, under one of the other hooves, kept catching up.
When it came to news coverage... in the weeks following the Amulet, there didn't seem to have really been any. Part of that could probably be credited to the shield and spells which Trix -- which the Amulet had placed around Ponyville. The resonance of avoidance was a good way to keep outside ponies from investigating. And when it came to what had happened after it had all fallen apart... Trixie suspected that the palace had done everything possible to cover up events, largely because the Princess didn't want the population to know the Amulet existed.
So the tales hadn't traveled.
Those who'd lived through the events, however...
Relatively few ponies traveled regularly. Some would visit family in another settled zone, and there was something of a tourist industry -- but the vast majority stayed home. They were born in a given settled zone, they might consider moving to another, and -- that was it. Spending nearly all of their lives in one, perhaps two places. So traveling to the most distant corners of Equestria was a good way to try and ensure nopony you'd -- 'met' -- close to the capital would ever see you again.
Except that they had.
Twice so far. On two occasions, Trixie had gone out on stage, looked out at the audience, and a furious Ponyville accent would start to scream --
-- she... couldn't explain herself.
Even if the words existed, she couldn't explain. Who would ever believe her?
The first time had seen the traveler escorted away by the local police, because he hadn't been all that clear regarding what he was screaming about and once he'd crossed the kicked objects line from produce into rocks, that was it. The second incident had ended when Trixie abandoned the settled zone, less than a day after she'd come in.
If the tales did fully spread --
-- if they crossed borders --
-- keep moving. Stay ahead. Run faster than rumor.
But her path always led back to the road. Alone with her own thoughts.
With her memories.
Remembering the distortions of the Amulet.
She couldn't gallop away from herself.
In Truedawn...
Trixie had traveled across most of Equestria, along with going a fair distance beyond. She was familiar with just about every accent which the continent had to offer (although it would have been nice to stop hearing the designer's for a few days), and so recognized that the community was, in fact, trying to create its own.
It hadn't reached the point where she would have no longer been able to pick out the originals.
She was hearing just about the whole of a nation -- or rather, at least two nations: one earth pony still had the half-clacks of teeth which indicated a childhood spent in Protocera. But there was a rather noticeable absence in the audio map. She hadn't heard Ponyville.
Trixie didn't understand the gap. Simultaneously, she wasn't complaining: to have a Ponyville native here -- the consequences would have been immediate. It was possible that any such pony (and they might still be lurking in Truedawn, just out out of sight) would have come to the southern hemisphere well before Twilight's arrival, but...
...she also didn't understand how the Bearers could truly believe that they wouldn't be spotted. Fluttershy had the fur dye -- but if you knew what the pegasus looked like, then it was all too easy to spot everything under the green. All it took was for one native to have been in the right pre-Truedawn place to see a headline with accompanying picture, and then memory would inevitably kick down the door at exactly the wrong moment. Or to have seen them rather more directly, because the group had traveled across a good part of the continent.
For that matter, Trixie kept waiting for one of the locals to say -- well, something. She traveled more than anypony, her hues maintained their birth colors, her mark wasn't hidden...
...ponies talked to her. Casually chatted, everywhere she went. Tried to find out if she wanted to work on this project or that. None of them had addressed Trixie by her birth name.
(They barely used her assigned name at all.)
Apparently nopony in Truedawn had ever been at one of her shows. (She didn't want to believe that she'd failed to leave any degree of impression.) But with the Bearers -- it felt as if somepony had to be capable of identifying them. And all she could do was wait for it to happen.
But for now, she was learning the paths and byways of the town. It was good to know exactly where every street went, although the prospect of memorizing fast exit routes was more than slightly hampered by the existence of the shield.
And of course, she had tour guides. Whether she wanted them or not.
Her group had already been out to the farming area. Trixie had used the little harvesting session to inspect whatever she could, generally while nopony was looking. And now that they were back in town...
They kept offering her snacks. Extremely sugary stuff: ten minutes of feeling as if you'd had the kind of full meal which would let you take on the day, followed by three hours of wondering exactly how long the post-sweetness crash could keep going. She carefully, politely refused, over and over. She was going to need actual food, and it certainly wasn't going to come from that one cafe. The most likely possibility was that she'd wind up scrounging something. Trixie was good at sourcing food. She didn't really understand farming, but acquiring edibles in safety was another travel skill. In the wild zones, half of the plants would be trying to eat you first.
But at the moment, there were four ponies with her, eager to answer any trivial questions she might have about the center of town as the miniherd moved underneath a fast-darkening sky --
-- she stopped, hooves coming to a halt on uneven streets: the rest of the group paused in concert. Looked up towards the shield, and spotted the blackening clouds moving in from the west.
"You don't look startled," the nearest stallion said: a pegasus named Yliner. (She'd already noticed that his wings never managed to sit in a true rest position.) With a smile -- the standard smile -- he added, "I guess that's part of being an -- explorer, right?"
She nodded.
"Because usually when we get new arrivals," Yliner continued, "it'll be the first time they've been off the weather schedule." With a soft laugh, "I spent more than a week checking the side of my bathroom mirror. Like it was just going to appear! And some ponies, when they're dealing with wild weather for the first time..." A little more gently, "They don't take it well. We try to get them through it."
Another nod.
It would have been easy for Trixie to say something back. She was good at talking. Stage patter. Getting the audience going. She had also found herself in possession of a near mark-level talent for having her mouth write vouchers which her horn couldn't cash.
Let them talk. See what they say...
But now Yliner was just watching the clouds close in and if one Truedawn resident was doing something, then the other three in the group had to join in. Five total sets of eyes, all looking up.
Trixie brought her gaze back down. Just for variety.
"Believe it or not," the pegasus finally went on, "this is the dry season."
"Well," one of the mares giggled, "the drier one..."
It made him laugh. "Yeah. Most of the rain is mid-autumn through early spring. But it usually doesn't stay completely clear for more than a day or two." He examined the overcast sky. "I know it looks bad, but I'm pretty sure this one's just going to be a spritzer --"
-- he stopped. The smile twitched around the edges, and the left hip seemed to hitch inwards.
"Are you okay?" Trixie quickly asked.
"It's nothing," he immediately reassured her.
The clouds continued to thicken. Darkness billowed overhead, and night tried to close in without benefit of Moon.
"You must stay pretty dry under here, though," the performer cued.
"Oh, absolutely!" declared a significant amount of pride. "If we had to treat the wood on the homes to deal with this much rain..."
I know a few treatments. Along with sealing techniques. A mobile home had a significant need for weatherproofing and when you mostly lived on the road, getting pegasi to recharge fading wonders wasn't a common option. "That reminds me," Trixie carefully said. "Is there a chemist's shop?"
Yliner immediately shook his head. "Nopony's really taken an interest. I can add it to the list, though."
Please don't. Under the one hoof, it would have helped to know she could acquire certain materials -- but under one of the others, given the low-to-absent standards on just about everything in Truedawn, keeping the locals away from the more unstable compounds felt like a really good idea. Besides, if it came down to an emergency, she knew how to kick a few things together --
"Usually, if we need something for science," Yliner added, "we just ask --"
He stopped talking.
The silence instantly caught Trixie's attention. There was just about always somepony talking in the group, because giving anypony a moment for quiet thought just wasn't welcoming enough. The fact that he'd spontaneously shut up was worthy of note --
-- his wings didn't flare out to full span. They merely twitched, and dulled feathers rustled. But then he stepped back, moving away from her at the same moment when the rest of the miniherd retreated. Careful, casual hoofsteps which took them out of Trixie's immediate vicinity, creating a zone of silent privacy -- doing so in the exact instant when she heard another set of hooves moving in.
In time, it would become possible to identify the new arrival just from the sound of her hoofsteps. The four-beat of keratin was distinctly regulated.
The lilac unicorn came to a stop about half a body length away from Trixie, silently standing on the left.
Trixie briefly considered how it would have looked from the outside. The only two nude (or mostly so, as Starlight had saddlebags), visibly marked mares in a settled zone where everypony else kept their hips constantly covered. The performer had spotted how some of Truedawn's residents reacted to her own icon, and quickly wondered whether the rest of the group might have retreated simply because they didn't want to deal with that much nausea in one place.
But the thought was immediately discarded. She knew why they were being given space.
The storm began, and the sound of it made Trixie look up. She saw water hitting the shield, and once it made contact...
Shield: a solidified expression of a unicorn corona. Which meant that when it came to liquids, the reaction was just like that of an active field.
Water fell onto the shield. Then it began to twist its way along the surface, quickly forming a madmare's map of tiny rivers and tributaries. Rivulets met, merged, divided again, tried to flow left and right and made a game attempt at going up the slope before gravity got a word in. It was like watching a living, clear demonstration of flow through the thousands of tiny blood vessels which lay just beneath the skin.
Trixie watched. The new arrival gazed up, regarded the same display.
Both of them held the position for several breaths,
"It's not random," Starlight calmly said, with a raised head seeming to address the storm.
"You'll have to narrow that down," Trixie evenly replied.
"For 'it', you mean."
Trixie nodded.
"Interesting," Starlight considered. "Most ponies would have begun to guess. You want clarification."
"Yes." Still looking up.
It was easy to make acquaintances most of the time, and Truedawn provided camouflage for the most frequent opening gambit. All you had to do was smile, smile...
"The movement of liquids along a field," Starlight clarified. "There are aspects of a casting which can influence the route."
Trixie blinked. "You've isolated the control factors?"
"To a degree," the other unicorn calmly replied. "It's easier to suggest large-scale flow patterns than small ones, and enforcing every route along a casting of that size... not yet. The managed area has to be predetermined and regularly reinforced." Which was immediately followed by, "You sounded curious."
"Personally," Trixie told her, "I'm sick of shaping my corona into a crude mug, dipping it into a clean river, and watching nearly all of my drink flow along the outside..."
Starlight nodded. Both unicorn mares lowered their heads, looked at each other. And for Trixie, who'd needed to learn how to read an audience...
Starlight's body language wasn't. There were times when her reactions came in two beats behind, or simply looked at the cadance dictated by the tablature and decided they wanted no part of it. (Trixie had also needed to figure out how to rig a gramophone to get musical stings during a performance.) And when it came to eye contact, the other mare initially seemed to be regarding the place where Trixie just happened to be.
Pupils focused.
"This stage won't take very long," Starlight told her. "It can't. I need to go take care of something, and that has to be done today. But it won't become critical for some time. I felt that there was a better use for the intermediary period. Something worthwhile." From just about anypony else, there might have been a pause. "You."
Trixie was almost flattered. Somepony felt she was worth their time. For a performer in more normal circumstances, it would have worked out to a compliment.
"I'm worthwhile?" It emerged with half the lilt of a tease, along with a sudden urge to look around and make sure Rarity wasn't in a geographical position to disagree.
"Extremely."
Starlight's horn ignited. The right saddlebag opened, and the battered notebook emerged. Turned itself to a fresh page, as ink bottle and quill got into position.
"I've never met a marked innovator," the lilac unicorn evenly stated. "Given the frequency charts for talents, I could reasonably expect several decades to pass before encountering another. This is a circumstance which should not be allowed to go to waste --"
Trixie's entire body had frozen at the sixth word.
"Innovator," a surprisingly dry mouth forced out. "How did you --"
Starlight shifted position, with every limb moving as if it was being operated from a slight distance. Came to a stop in front of Trixie, about a standard tail length away, and then nodded towards the performer's exposed mark.
"The lost channeling device," the mare said. "I recognized it immediately. In mark iconography, representing the means by which new magic enters the world. Accompanied by what I currently believe to be a fairly stylized crescent Moon. I'm currently uncertain as to the influence there. Of course, when dealing with mark iconography, your own interpretations of such things become important --"
"-- you," Trixie carefully cut in, forcing her voice to remain steady, "just worked out what my talent was. From my mark."
"A rare event for you," Starlight considered. "Given the scarcity of both talent and icon. Your shock is unsurprising." Another not-pause. "I didn't intend to cause offense --"
"-- you didn't." Shock, however...
"Good." Two beats, and then a shrug. "I study. Mark iconography is a fascinating topic. One seldom finds a science which can operate under seemingly subjective rules. And with your talent..." The quill dipped itself in the ink. "I heard you introduce yourself as 'Casta'. That would be correct?"
Trixie nodded.
Writing began. "It's surprisingly sensible to have an innovator as part of an exploration team," Starlight decided. "As exploring what would have come across as a new part of the world would almost have to lead into new magic. I would propose that somepony decided you were the best-suited to comprehend whatever was found." The quill lifted, left a small gap, started on a fresh sentence. "There are some who would argue that your most natural home would be a laboratory. But in my experience, the world itself provides the place for study. Do you solely travel as part of exploration duties?"
"No," Trixie carefully admitted. "I've always tried to get out there. I spend most of my time on the road. Or going where there aren't any." Because that last part would have been expected --
"You've left Equestria before? I ask because there is certainly sufficient wild zones remaining to be explored within the borders."
"A few times. For civilized areas -- Mazein was the most recent."
"Pundamilia Makazi?" Starlight inquired. "Protocera?"
"Very briefly, and for about a moon."
The lilac unicorn nodded. and then didn't so much change topics as casually wrench a new one on top of the old. "'Casta'," she considered. "I haven't read any articles written by somepony of that name. Where do you publish?"
Immediately, as her mind scrambled past a thorn-shrouded thicket of questions about just how much Starlight delved into thaumatological research journals, "I don't."
"A marked innovator," the Truedawn resident neutrally said, "who doesn't publish."
"Because there's no point."
Starlight blinked. She had to do that occasionally. Dust got on the corneas.
"Explain."
All around the pair, pony ears tilted away from the discussion. Above them, the rain pattered. Invisible veins, filled with the clear blood of the world, flowed along the shield. Darkness moved above them, twisted and warped into fractal shapes.
The performer had been trying to come up with a plausible lie. But there were times when the truth was easier.
"You can't get feel from words," Trixie said. "Or diagrams, or even pictures showing corona layering around a horn and arrows pointing to where the angles are distorting. If I really want to show somepony a new working, then that's exactly what it has to be: showing them. Otherwise, I'm just passing along theories. And if I do that too much, then somepony might be able to follow them all the way to the end and demonstrate in public first. Then they get the credit, and I just --"
-- there were already enough falsehoods being corona-juggled. She didn't need to add any more to the mix. So she'd intended to provide a portion of truth.
She wasn't sure she'd intended to give up that much of it, and finding that her head had dipped at the very end came as a complete surprise --
-- tingling turquoise touched her chin, raised her head again.
"Something which has happened before," Starlight deduced. "And so you no longer consider submitting for publication."
The performer was silent.
"You've been to various places within the shield dome," the other mare continued. "Including our agricultural section. And you know that the rain remains on the exterior of the working. What did you think of the moisture collectors?"
"They aren't wonders," Trixie promptly said. "I got close enough to get a good look at one. There's no copper. You can't channel the thaums for pegasus magic without it."
Starlight silently nodded.
"So I thought -- solar stills," the performer added.
This time, the blink felt sincere.
"An explorer would know how to do that..." Starlight thoughtfully considered. "You've made them?"
"I've been in the desert." Dig a hole -- which was actually the hardest part, as ponies weren't naturally suited to the activity. Make it onto a conical shape, with a hollow at the very bottom. Place something smooth all around the edges, made of a substance which wouldn't absorb water. Plant a mug in the bottom hollow and wait. The long-term results would keep a solo traveler alive. "But yours are elevated. That can influence how much you get. And given what you just told me about the shield..."
Starlight's ears rotated all the way forward. Trixie thought.
"Humidity is a pegasus domain," she cautiously began.
"It's not so much crossing the border into their territory," Starlight told her, "as seeing where the lines aren't drawn. Continue, please."
She did.
"Little flickers of field," Trixie breathed. "Just enough to catch the humidity. And then the field releases, and the water trickles down..."
And Starlight nodded.
"There are persistent rumors regarding unicorns and weather magic," she said. "One of the more outlandish ones is rather recent. But there have also been those who tried to cast their way through the divisions. Attempts which failed. One of the initial considerations for our crops was, in fact, the use of solar stills. But the moisture collected was insufficient. I simply approached the issue from a different perspective. And you had additional information when contemplating the problem -- but regardless, you worked out what had been done."
A few more lines were jotted down, and then the notebook closed itself. Everything went back into the battered saddlebag --
-- Starlight looked at Trixie.
It was something which went beyond mere focus. The sudden intensity felt like spending an hour straining to hear background music and then having a tuba go off directly in both ears.
There was power in that gaze. Judgment --
-- the local turned away, because she had decided it was time to do something else. Began to move.
"We'll talk again," Starlight offered as she calmly trotted away beneath the blackened sky. "I believe we should both treat it as an opportunity."
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Your interpretation of Trixie is easily my favorite out of any interpretation I have ever encountered.
The fact that we are getting to have a story with her at a center focus, I couldn't be more excited for where this goes.
For over 2,000 years, a standard black ink was made from tannic acid & rust. Tannic acid is used for a LOT of things & should be available in most towns.
I'm sure nothing horrible will come of Starlight having an interest in Trixie
Narrator: Something horrible happened
This is one of the better interpretations of a true psychopath that I think I've ever read. Starlight is SO terrifying every time she appears in a scene, because it's nearly impossible to predict how she'll react or what she'll do.
I also think this 'innovation' version of Trixie and Show!Starlight would have gotten along even better than the canon pairing, heh.
11909686
I thought that the accident was that he used the wrong wrong essence. Didn't he intend to use unicorn essence, but accidentally used earth pony essence instead?
Sometimes, I just want to read a book about you explaining random technical stuff.
11909475
I remember that it was explicitly stated that the hybrids are generally healthier and possess more innate vigor at the very least.
Great lines here.
Ominous yet I also find it very funny somehow. Starlight and Trixie have a great dynamic and it's really too bad Starlight is a bad gal. Trixie deserves so much more! I stan a legend. đ
Thank you for the update, I peripherally understand that it's been a crazy week for the Discord and it was probably very stressful as well. Take care of yourself. Hope everything worked out okay.
Nerd-to-nerd communication is the best kind, especially when it transcends boundaries of alignment. And by golly, do those communicators be nerd.
Loved this chapter, loads of insight to be had!
Has someone in Truedawn encountered the "World's Worst Weatherpony?"
Crud I think Starlight smells a rat. Now will Trixie be able to pass off her discovery?
I quite liked this look at Trixie and her lifestyle.
As for Starlight, I have to chalk it up to her unsettling conversational manner, because it seemed like the moisture collectors topic would have been the perfect opportunity for Trixie to ask *why* they use unicorn magic instead of having any of the Pegasi doing it. Itâs a neat trick to get around the division of talents between the species, but it seems like it should be totally unnecessary thanks to having Pegasi on hand.
A bit alarming that Starlight seemed to reference Rarityâs stint with Rainbowâs cutie mark there, as wellâŚ. If word of that cutie mark switch got out, it would definitely be of interest to her, and it could mean that Trixieâs fear that the Mane Six are too recognizable is right.
I do hope that Trixie isnât talked into âinnovatingâ for Starlight, intentionally or not. Iâm not sure that Trixie could forgive herself for another regret of that magnitude.
You know, if Starlight wasnât⌠who she is, I would almost find the interaction between her and Trixie cute. The number one continuum Twixie shipper is pleased to see the second half get the recognition she deserves. Love the little glimpses into her pre-traveling backstory, also!
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I expect the chemist's shop isn't so much about ink as it is other substances for her shows.
Man, you have made Trixie such a fascinating layered person.
11909932 Yep, that's what I said. He used essence for a while before using the wrong one by accident. I believe it was Fluttershy.
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But Fluttershy was his "oldest." She was the first foal that he needed to use The Exception to save (as far as anypony knew at the time.)