Chapter Seven

The Hollow Mare

“Uh, hey? ‘Scuse me?”

The summer sun was warm and low, drawing ripples in the air above the road ahead. A cool, lazy breeze swam this way and that, making the heat more bearable, and the journey a little less daunting. Even so, Trixie’s flanks were shiny with sweat as she trekked along the dirt track down to Manehattan. She felt trapped under the oppressive weight of the caravan’s yoke on her back, and fumed quietly to herself.

On hearing the voice behind her, she drew to a halt, quelling her annoyance and turning with a well-practiced aloofness in her gaze. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is in no mood to sign autographs,” she said, coolly. Her eyes fell upon a palomino earth mare, obviously travel-worn, hitched up to a run-down little cart packed with various bits and pieces. Trixie guessed that she was some kind of peddler or salespony, judging by the price tags attached to many of the pieces of bric-a-brac. She seemed taken aback at the less than warm welcome.

“Why would I want your autograph?” Trixie bridled a little at her tone. The mare pulled up beside her, reaching back into her cart, and pulling out a small wooden box, roughly engraved and detailed with highly-polished brass around the lock and hinges. The unicorn blinked at the sight of it, betraying the slightest hint of surprise. “It’s just… you left this back in Shetlandale. I found it this morning, and I thought; hey, we’re both headed for Manehattan, I may as well try an’ catch up to you, so I can…” her voice tailed off at the sight of Trixie’s impassive stare.

“Oh. Well, thank you,” the sapphire mare said, dismissively. She picked up the box with her magic, glanced briefly at it, and tucked it safely into her saddlebags. Privately, she could not believe that she had left it behind. She had bought it from a market in Las Pegasus almost two years ago, and used it to hold her smaller pieces of magical paraphernalia; cups, dice, wands and cards all had their place in the little box, and she shuddered to think of the state her show would have been in if she had turned up in Manehattan without it.

Then again, perhaps it was unsurprising that she had left certain belongings behind, considering the hurry in which she had packed. It seemed that some towns were more appreciative of the wonders she offered than others.

She stood, waiting for the mare to continue on her way, but she did not move. “Well? Is there something else you wanted?” Trixie enquired, raising a dispassionate eyebrow.

The palomino pony raised an eyebrow, clearly affronted. “What, that’s it?”

“What exactly did you expect?” Trixie snapped, her detached demeanor cracking a little.

“I just—” the mare looked hurt, shocked into silence for a moment, but then shook her head with an angry snort. “You know what? Never mind.” The wheels of her cart creaked as she began to walk briskly off along the road to Manehattan, without looking back.

Trixie bit her lip. Then, almost without meaning to, she called out, “Wait!”

The retreating cart came to a grudging halt, some ten feet ahead of her, and its owner threw a dark look back at her. “What? Am I worthy of your notice now?”

The showmare looked at the floor. “Trixie is…” she tailed off, tracing an awkward circle in the dirt with her hoof. “I’m sorry.”

For a moment, the mare’s expression remained stony. Then, it softened a little, and she smiled sympathetically. “You’ve not had a good day, have you?”

“Had better,” Trixie admitted in a small voice, still hanging her head, remembering the reaction of the crowd with a certain bitterness. Booing was not unheard-of in her career, but she drew the line at tomatoes.

“Guess they didn’t take kindly to your act.” The earth pony had wheeled her cart around, and taken a few steps back towards Trixie. Looking at her without the forced filter of disdain, the mare was undeniably attractive, in spite of her spiky, unkempt mane and the sweaty sheen of her coat. She was by no means traditionally beautiful, but her grey, almond-shaped eyes sparkled with a bright intelligence, and her lips seemed eternally poised to smile.

The unicorn snorted, trying to recover the self-confidence that she had momentarily lost. “You could smell the envy in the air, couldn’t you?”

“You seriously believe that’s the problem?” For a moment, the two ponies met each others’ eyes in silence, and the gaze of the grey-eyed earth mare was strangely searching. She seemed to come to a decision. “No. No, I don’t think you do.”

Trixie shook her head, internally berating herself for being so unable to maintain her persona when talking to this pony. She wanted to reply scathingly, but could see little point. She stayed silent.

Then, with a bizarre suddenness, the other mare smiled. “My name’s Rosemary, by the way.”

“Trixie,” mumbled the showmare. “Although, I guess you had that worked out already.”

Rosemary giggled. “Self-deprecation? From you?” She sucked in air between her teeth with an appraising whistle. “Better be careful; make sure you keep that act up. Somepony might see behind the scenes.”

Her words touched a nerve. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is no mere act!” Trixie retorted, suddenly finding this odd, insightful mare to be quite infuriating. She had intended for her expression to appear aloof, but she feared it may simply have come off as wounded.

It’s no use, she thought to herself, with a slight sense of resignation. She can see right through me, can’t she?

Clearly she can’t, returned a second, more irate line of reasoning. You are the Great and Powerful Trixie, and if she is too blind or foolish to see that greatness, then you should hardly mistake that for insight. Somehow, though, the voice sounded weaker than usual; its arguments were somehow feebler. Its arrogant superiority seemed suddenly almost childish.

In any case, Rosemary seemed hardly convinced. She was smirking quite broadly. “If you say so,” she replied, shaking her head in obvious amusement.

“Are you mocking me?” exclaimed Trixie.

“’Course not,” returned the quite unruffled earth pony. “It’s not you I’m mocking.” Grinning at how wrong-footed her words had made the showmare, she jerked her head along the road. “You headed for Manehattan?”

Trixie nodded, not quite able to form a vocal response.

Rosemary shrugged. “Well then, mind if I tag along? I’m on my way there as well, and… well, you know. Road seems shorter with two, doesn’t it?”

The unicorn sniffed, feigning a non-committal attitude. Somehow though, she wanted to learn more about this bizarre pony, this frustrating mare who saw so easily behind her well-oiled persona. In a strange way, Rosemary seemed almost to know her. Privately, she found the idea of letting that connection slip away to be strangely terrifying.

“Alright then,” she replied, not without a certain forced aloofness. She could not quite meet the other mare’s eyes.

Then, quite suddenly, the world fell into perfect darkness. With a whinny of fright, Trixie stumbled backwards, immersed on all sides by inky, absolute blackness. She was no longer trapped within the harness of her caravan. In some indefinable way, she felt suddenly older and weaker; more cynical and somehow more clear-headed. The ground beneath her was not dirt, but a hard, smooth surface that rang like glass when her hooves struck down upon it.

“Rosemary?” she called out, looking wildly around into the nothingness, her voice echoing strangely. No response came.

For a few more moments, she stood, unseeing, frozen with a strange sense of dread.

“It’s happening again.” The sudden voice rang from everywhere and nowhere, cool and detached.

“Who…?” the question died on the unicorn’s lips, at the sight of a horn flaring ahead of her, spinning a hovering ball of light that floated along in its conjuror’s wake, bathing her face with a strange, lilac luminescence. Trixie’s face. The unicorn reared back a little, as she looked into the eyes of herself. But, somehow, it was not like looking into a mirror. This Trixie’s coat was smooth and glossy, her eyes burning with an arrogant self-confidence. She wore a silken hat and cloak that billowed lazily out behind her despite the absence of so much as a breeze.

“Let’s find ourselves some more tasteful scenery,” said the other Trixie, her tone one of boredom. Her horn flared, and suddenly they were perched at the summit of a steep cliff-face, watching iron-grey waves crash and shatter into silver spray against the rocks, hundreds of feet beneath them. The sea seemed to stretch away into eternity, and the cliff stretched out in a uniform crescent, as far as the eye could see on either side of them. The wind shrieked, but seemed not to touch the unicorns.

Trixie was suddenly aware of how shabby she looked compared to her twin, vaguely aware that her winter coat was rough and unkempt, that she was stained with mud, and her eyes were worn and shadowed. She wondered momentarily why her coat was so thick; she could have sworn it had been midsummer moments before, and yet somehow, she did not question the matter.

“She’s just another Rosemary.” The aloof mare’s voice was low and patronizing. “Remember Rosemary? She was jealous of you; she left you in the dust. This one will do exactly the same, when she begins to understand your power. Our power.”

Trixie turned, her eyes flaring angrily. “And who the hell are you?”

“I’m the Great and Powerful Trixie. I’m the one you could so easily be; the most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria.”

Her horn suddenly flared, a wave of lavender magic rippling along its length. A single spark hovered at the tip, and then detached itself, hovering in the air. It pulsed once, a blinding pinprick of sudden light.

There was a deep, deafening roar from below them. It sounded as if the world were wrenching itself in two, and Trixie spun around to see something rising from the angry ocean below; something enormous. For a moment, the boiling spray made it impossible to tell what it was, but then the ramparts cleared the foam, and Trixie saw that it was a great circular tower, made of a white and luminous marble, rising from the whirlpool that its passage had created.

It grew like a tree, shooting skywards until it was taller than Canterlot’s tallest tower; taller even than the mountain upon which Canterlot stood. Then it halted, its upper floors invisible through the granite-grey clouds, shining an almost blinding alabaster sheen, even in the dim and cloudy sunlight.

Trixie stared at the surreal construct for a few moments, but shook her head, meeting her double’s eyes, unimpressed. “I spent half my life pretending to be you. It made me hurt ponies I care about. It nearly killed me. I… I can’t go on.” She sighed, and her gaze was almost pleading. “Let me go. Please just let me go; I’ve outgrown you. I… I think I’m falling in love again.” Her eyes hardened. “You aren’t going to make me ruin it this time.”

The pony she had tried for so long to be was advancing on her, but she stood her ground, gesturing to the white tower, her voice rising angrily now. “Nopony has magic that powerful! You know what that is?” She stabbed a hoof at the tower again. “That’s a party trick; an illusion. I dealt in them for years, and you’re not going to convince me that you can move mountains anymore than I can. You are me, and I’m wiser now. I’ve tried to be you, I’ve tried to do great things; I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t.”

Her double took another step closer, and for a moment she thought that the overbearing mare was going to strike her, but instead she felt soft forelegs drape themselves almost sensually over her shoulders. The smoothly conditioned fur of the other made her own overgrown coat feel wiry and rough. Her double’s voice whispered close to her ear, suddenly warm and silken. “You’re a complicated pony, aren’t you, Trixie?” She felt the Great and Powerful Trixie’s grip tighten around her. Quite suddenly, a wet, heated sensation wormed into her ear with caressing care, and she realized with a hot surge of anger that it was the other Trixie’s tongue. “Don’t do that,” she said, quietly. “You know why. Just… don’t.”

“You shouldn’t have let me know your mind so intimately, should you?” Her twin’s tongue withdrew, and her muzzle moved down from Trixie’s ear, nuzzling up against her nose. “You’ve hated yourself for so many years, but that’s not the only thing holding you back, is it? You can never fall in love. Even with all that hate, you’ve only ever been in love with one pony.” With a sudden force, she pressed her lips hard and aggressively against Trixie’s, taking the unkempt mare by complete surprise. Trixie felt her eyes widen, and her muscles locked up until her double released her. “You’ve only ever been in love with yourself.”

Before Trixie could stop her, and before she could so much as work out whether or not she wanted to stop her, the hateful unicorn was kissing her again. The sensation of her own fetlocks stroking her back, and of her own lips playing out both roles in the fight for submission that their kiss had become, was deeply bizarre. She could not honestly say that she disliked the experience, but the whole affair made her deeply uncomfortable nevertheless. Not quite enough to make her break away, though.

She could feel her twin’s lips bowed in a sneer against her own, and quite suddenly, she saw the pony for who she really was.

Trixie felt an odd rush of euphoria, and pulled away from the kiss, grinning a devious grin. She saw this facet of her clearly now; she did not need this mare to be a part of her. She was everything this weak, inadequate, embittered unicorn could ever hope to be, and more. Her faith in this part of her had broken when her magic had failed her in Ponyville; this mare did not exist, and they both knew it. Trixie knew that she had already won, and all that remained was a matter of banishment. Had she not been so angry, she might have felt pity for this powerless creature. “You know something?” She was smiling, but her voice was deadly.

For the briefest of instants, she felt as if her double looked a little taken aback. The balance of power had shifted minutely between them, and Trixie wasted no time in pressing the advantage. With a cobra’s strike, she reengaged the Great and Powerful Trixie in a fresh kiss, messy and ill-structured this time, taking enormous pleasure in the sense of invasion, just as this part of her had spent so many years invading and degrading her.

Gripping her image around the neck, she wormed her tongue into the surprised unicorn’s mouth, drawing a low, sweet whimper from between her lips before pulling away as quickly as she had reinitiated the connection. “I don’t need you.” She kissed her again; this time, the action was angry, and she sucked painfully hard on the mare’s tongue as she pulled away. “I don’t want you.” Another kiss, longer this time, almost a tender caress against her own now-unresisting lips. Her double’s eyes were wide and close to submissive. “I don’t love you, and you know the best part?” Her words were a hiss, and she smirked, reveling in finally being able to direct her well-practiced cruelty against one who truly deserved it.

“What?” murmured the Great and Powerful Trixie, and her gaze was loving; almost enamoured, leaning forward, the better to taste her counterpart’s anger.

“You don’t exist. I don’t believe in you.” With extreme tenderness, Trixie kissed her caped twin one final time, feeling a low moan drag itself between her lips, and snaking the tip of her tongue into the mouth of the mare who had hurt her so badly, for so much of her life.

Then, without warning, she bit down as hard as she could on her double’s lower lip.

Hot blood flooded into her mouth, the taste sickening and metallic but more delicious than anything else in the world, and the unicorn let out a scream, fighting to escape from Trixie’s clamped jaws. Trixie’s smile was wide and feral, and she held on as her so-called Great and Powerful self shook her head like a wounded dog, trying desperately to dislodge her, her yells interspersed with throaty moans and bursts of sharp, unhinged laughter.

Then, she felt her twin’s hoof hit her hard in the chest, and she broke away, blood dribbling down her chin.

Her rear hoof slipped as she stumbled backwards, and she felt the ground fall away below her. Before she knew what was happening, before she could stop herself, she tumbled over the edge of the cliff.

For an instant, she felt that horrible nothingness of falling rise in her chest, saw her bloodied enemy, cowed and defeated, watching her fall with a slavish, wide-eyed infatuation, and then she was gone. The cliff-face was rushing past her, the rocks below racing up to greet her.

The wind was screaming, blood pumping in her ears; she was dimly aware of the spray whipping at her, a voice shouting her name, then her eyelids shot open, and she awoke with an anguished yell.

“Trixie? Trixie!”

Her thrashing beneath the covers suddenly ceased, and she lay there, sweating and shaking, her breathing harsh and ragged. The first thing she felt was considerable pain, and the warmth of a thick liquid flowing down her face and neck.

Then, her brain finally succeeded in making sense of the world around her, and she remembered where she was.

She remembered the previous night; Fluttershy cooking dinner, their conversation, their embrace and mutual reassurance. She remembered the impasse that they had reached; Fluttershy had insisted that Trixie took her bed, but Trixie had insisted she could not allow her host to sleep on the sofa after all she had done already.

She remembered the blushing compromise they had reached, neither honestly wanting to make the suggestion, but both of them privately knowing that it was the best solution to their situation. She remembered the peace, warmth, and quiet. She remembered how they had fallen asleep on opposite sides of Fluttershy’s expansive bed, facing one another, their unspoken arrangement leaving each within a foreleg’s easy reach of the other. She remembered drifting away in a warm, comfortable silence.

She also realized that she had bitten down hard on her own lip in the throes of the dream, and that the duvet was stained burgundy with her blood. It was still nighttime, but the first slivers of a purple-orange sun could be seen breaching the horizon outside the window. This, however, failed to command her attention for long. Fluttershy had gripped her by the shoulders, kneeling over her, and was staring down at her with an expression of barely-contained panic. “Wh-what’s the matter? Was it a bad dream? Did… did you bite yourself?”

Trixie, however, found that she was laughing. Her teeth had sunk hard into her lower lip, also slicing a jagged gash into the skin of her chin, and the pain was horrible, but it was nothing compared to the relief that she felt. Seizing a glass of water from the bedside table with her magic, she spat out a foamy wad of blood, to free her mouth and allow herself to speak. “She’s gone,” she managed to pant out, blood dripping down her chin as she spoke. “I’ve won… Fluttershy, she’s gone for good this time.” She felt the laughter rising in her chest again, but was suddenly far more aware of her situation, of the mess she was making, and of the horrified, fearful expression on the timid pegasus’s face.

“Fluttershy, I…” Her words were thick and hard to distinguish through her rapidly-swelling lip. Suddenly she was back to earth again, and felt guilt gnawing at her insides for putting this mare through yet more fear and trouble. “I’m so sorry, I’ll just… I’ll clean this up, I—”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Fluttershy cut across her, firmly, regaining her composure with obvious effort. “You need antiseptic, and you need to let me clean you up.” Trixie looked guiltily away, but the pegasus caught her foreleg. “Look at me.” She waited until the unicorn’s unwilling eyes met her own. “This isn’t your fault, Trixie.”

The sapphire mare tried to speak, but the words were lost in a groan of pain when she tried to form them. Fluttershy nodded sympathetically. “Wait here. I won’t be a minute.”

“Ow…”

“Shh, it’s okay.” Fluttershy was gently sponging the worst of the blood from Trixie’s chin. Her chest was still flecked red, as was the duvet, but both could wait. “You don’t need stitches; it looks a lot worse than it is. See? It’s clotting already.” Trixie recognized the voice as the one Fluttershy had employed when looking after her badger friend; it was the one she used for those afraid, and in need.

“I’m sorry,” Trixie whispered again, words muffled by the soft sponge dabbing at her lip.

“I know you are.” The pegasus sounded almost exasperated. “You don’t need to be. I’m looking after you because I want to.”

“You hardly know me. I hardly know me,” Trixie stressed, kneading her forehead with a hoof. “Why trust me?”

“I…” Fluttershy faltered, apparently struggling with a concept she found difficult to express. “I know you better than you do,” she said, at length. “It’s like I said; you’re somepony like me, and I know what that means.” Her tone suddenly became serious, as she uncorked a brown glass bottle, and dapped a few drops of a sharp-smelling liquid onto a piece of cotton wool. “I need to put on some antiseptic,” she said, meeting Trixie’s eyes, steadily. “This is going to hurt, okay?”

Before Trixie had the chance to reply, Fluttershy had dabbed the liquid onto the unicorn’s injured mouth.

Trixie let out an insuppressible yell of pain, which tailed off into a hiss as she clenched her teeth reflexively together; she tried her best to put on a brave face, but it felt for all the world as if the kindly pegasus had tipped acid into the cut. “Sorry,” said Fluttershy, almost pleadingly. Eyes watering, the unicorn waited for the burning to recede, doing her utmost not to pull away. When the discomfort had faded to a tolerable level, she blinked the moisture from her eyes, and found Fluttershy giving her an appraising look. “You’re braver than most of the animals I have in here,” she said with a small smile. “Angel wouldn’t speak to me for a week after I disinfected a cut on his paw with that stuff.”

Trixie returned the grin, sheepishly. Speaking was thankfully easier now, although her lip still throbbed angrily. “I don’t normally have bad dreams,” she said, quietly. “Certainly not that bad, anyway.”

Fluttershy had fallen to sponging her neck and chest, the warm water comforting as it washed away the blood. Despite her guilt and pain, despite the unpleasantness of the meeting with that facet of herself, Trixie could not help but feel a sense of satisfaction. Her so-called Great and Powerful persona had dominated her for so long, but in Ponyville, The Great and Powerful Trixie had found herself to be just as magically lacking as the mare beneath the mask. Trixie’s faith in her act had broken forever, and yet somehow, some vestiges had hung on, digging like thorns in the back of her mind, trying, however ineffectually, to drag her back to the life that had destroyed her.

Tonight had been the final blow in that battle. Trixie had won; she had accepted herself, accepted her own limits, and now she could focus on her own recovery. She had lost her faith in her arrogant self, and she had broken out of the stasis that had kept her trapped and without healing in the Everfree. But what kind of recovery could she find? Beneath the mask, who was she? She knew that, even with Fluttershy’s guidance, settling into herself would take time. It would be a struggle in its own right, and she was glad that there was somepony by her side who she knew, somehow, that she could trust.

“Who’s Rosemary?” Fluttershy asked, suddenly.

“Huh?” Trixie looked down sharply, taken aback.

The pegasus flushed. “You… you mentioned the name. While you were sleeping, before you started thrashing about.” She shook her head, still pink in the face. “I’m sorry, if you’re tired… you don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”

Trixie sighed; so much for giving herself time to prepare, it seemed. On the other hand, she felt as if she owed Fluttershy as good an explanation as she could give, considering the trouble that the delicate mare was going through on her behalf.

“No,” she said, quietly. “No, it’s fine. I’m not tired now, and you deserve to know.” She let out a low sigh, wondering quite where to begin. “This could take a while,” she warned Fluttershy, who smiled wanly.

“We’ve got all morning.”

“I guess.” Trixie fell silent for a few moments, looking out at the silhouetted trees outside the window, and thinking. Fluttershy was taping a thin piece of lightweight bandage over her chin, encroaching onto her lower lip, as she waited for the unicorn’s story. “It started a few years back, just as things were getting worse for me,” she began at length, her voice a little muffled behind the protective gauze. “I’d just put on a show in Shetlandale, but it didn’t go over too well…”

By the time her story came to a close, the sun had risen in earnest, and its weak, wintry light was dappling the room. Fluttershy had dragged the bloodstained duvet into the kitchen to be washed, and the two of them had curled up on the bed again, lying together under a spare blanket to defeat the morning’s chill, as Trixie spoke.

She told Fluttershy of their meeting, of the ease with which Rosemary had seen through her act, and of their travels together. She explained how she had come to rely on the mare’s presence, how her unwavering belief that there was more to Trixie than mere arrogance had eventually forced the showmare’s assumed identity to crumble. She told the silent pegasus of how they had wandered together as lovers, and how the Great and Powerful Trixie had been relegated, for a time at least, to precisely what she had begun life as; an act.

Of course, it had not been enough. It had not lasted. As her story entered its final stages, Trixie reached out to take Fluttershy’s hoof between her own, holding it close to her chest, and drawing a certain comfort from the gentle mare’s proximity. She explained, her voice growing a little weaker, how her act had fought back, resurgent like a tumour, and had once again begun to subsume her personality. She recalled the way that it had changed tack so effortlessly, and had quietly convinced her that Rosemary would never stay with a mare capable only of magic tricks, but that surely nopony could resist the allure of the most powerful unicorn in Equestria. Once more, her act had stealthily become her life, and in the end, even the eternally-optimistic Rosemary had to concede that there was little left of the mare she had fallen for.

“…So, that was it. She left, and I can’t really blame her. I watched her walk away, and I guess that was it for me. The Great and Powerful Trixie was clever; she saw how weak I’d become, how much I needed comfort, and she went straight back to her old arguments; she told me that I didn’t need Rosemary, that I’d never needed her. I didn’t question her; it would have been too painful to admit that losing Rosemary was nopony’s fault but mine. It was just so much easier to blame her, and tell myself that she left because she was jealous.”

She shook her head, her voice unsteady. “I loved her, I really did. She believed in me, right from the minute she saw me. Ponies like her… they don’t lose faith easily. They give you chance after chance after chance, and look at what I managed to do. I made her give up on me. Tell me, Fluttershy; how could I have faced up to that? She spent nearly two years trusting me, believing she could change me, and I let her down.”

The unicorn let out a low sigh. “She was like you, in a way; she saw right through me, she was never taken in by the act, not even for a second. She recognized the mask for what it was. I guess that was why I—” she broke off, cheeks colouring with embarrassment. “Anyway,” she continued, steering herself hastily towards a different topic. “I’m just glad I came to Ponyville that day. Celestia knows what I’d be doing now if I hadn’t.”

She fell silent. Her story was over, and the sudden absence of her voice in the morning air was oddly disconcerting. She realized that she was still holding Fluttershy’s hoof to her chest, but the pegasus made no attempt to withdraw it. Trixie had not told her of the latter half of her dream, or the reason she had bitten herself; she knew it was all too likely that the mare would think she was quite insane.

You realize she’s trying to rebuild you, right? She’s trying to do the same thing as Rosemary.

Of course I do. But this time I don’t have a mask to hide behind; I don’t have that part of me trying to hold me back. I let Rosemary down, but I won’t do the same to Fluttershy.

“There’s somewhere I want to show you,” Fluttershy murmured suddenly. She stroked her free hoof along the Trixie’s fetlocks in a reassuring gesture, and the unicorn felt her stomach give a sudden squirm, as if she had missed a step on a staircase.

“Hm?” Trixie met her eyes, aware of her lip still aching beneath the protective fabric.

“You probably won’t feel up to going out today,” Fluttershy added, hastily, “but if you need to be able to think… I know a place, just outside Ponyville; I always go there if I need to be alone. Remind me about it sometime.” She smiled, but her eyes were saddened by Trixie’s story. “I wish I could do something to get her back for you,” she whispered. “I wish I could say something to make it all hurt a little less, but… thank you. Thank you for telling me that.”

“There wouldn’t be any point in seeing her again,” replied Trixie, heavily. “I failed her, I let her down.”

“You didn’t let her down,” corrected Fluttershy. “The Great and Powerful Trixie was taking you over; you needed her to protect yourself, but she took advantage of that.”

“I was still weak,” Trixie mumbled. “Look at you. You had the same problems with flying as I had with magic, but did you start painting yourself as Fluttershy the Wonderbolt? Of course you didn’t.”

Fluttershy could not suppress a small smile at the comparison, but her reply was perfectly serious. “Every pegasus wants the sky above everything else. It’s a part of us… but I was different. When I saw the ground, when I saw all the creatures, all the colours, all the life…” she let out a drawn-out sigh, eyes sparkling with a sudden insuppressible enthusiasm, and Trixie felt a sudden insane urge to embrace her, laugh along with her, and share in that infectious love of the world that shone out from behind the mare’s eyes.

“I just didn’t need the sky anymore,” Fluttershy continued. “You could have taken my wings then and there, and I wouldn’t have cared.” She breathed the words out, but then her gaze became a little more downcast as she met Trixie’s. “With you, though... you had the same problem, but you couldn’t find the solution that I found. I should probably have been born an earth pony, but you… you’re a unicorn through and through. You want the magic, you want that power and knowledge as much as any unicorn does, but for some reason you can’t reach out and take it.” She looked suddenly thoughtful. “Your cutie mark… what does it represent? Specifically, I mean. Obviously, with the wand, it’s something magical, but what exactly is your talent?”

Trixie grunted out a non-committal sound. This was a topic that she had been purposefully avoiding. “I’m… I’m not sure I can talk anymore right now,” she lied, not meeting the pegasus’s eyes. “My lip’s hurting again.”

Fluttershy was quite clearly not convinced, but she nodded nevertheless, her gaze understanding. “It’s alright,” she replied, smiling reassuringly. She gave the sapphire mare’s hoof a gentle squeeze, and pulled away, climbing out from under the blanket and getting to her hooves. “You’re going to be okay, Trixie. You get some rest, and I’ll make some breakfast.” She began to make her way towards the stairs, leaving the unicorn staring after her, a sudden turmoil raging, half-acknowledged, at the back of her mind.

“I don’t know, alright?” Trixie had not meant to shout, but the words burst impulsively from her before she could help herself. Fluttershy turned, taken aback, in the doorway.

“Know what?”

The unicorn felt hot tears welling up in her eyes. She could not lie to this mare; it was simply not possible. “I don’t know what it means!” The words came out in a rush; she had already admitted to Fluttershy that she did not know who she was, but it was time to be honest about the extent of that confusion. “My cutie mark… I don’t understand it. I don’t know what my special talent is.”

Fluttershy stood in silence for a few moments, her aquamarine gaze pensive. The silence was ringing after Trixie’s outburst. “How… how can you not know?” she asked, softly. She sounded quite taken aback by the revelation, and looked as if she regretted her words the moment they left her lips.

Trixie opened her mouth to speak, but could not quite form words. When she eventually could, they were not the words she had intended. “You… you mentioned a place,” she blurted out, at length. “You mentioned a place where you go to think sometimes. I… I could do with a place like that. Would you mind taking me there? Today?”

“Do you feel strong enough?” Fluttershy asked, a little apprehensively. “I mean… you’ve only had last night to recover, and—”

“I’ll wrap up warm,” Trixie promised. “I’ll be fine.” She grinned wanly, eyes still pricking with moisture a little. She wanted to explain her sudden exclamation, but somehow she could not do so here. She needed to speak without the numbing comfort of a warm bed, and to clear her thoughts of the memory of the taste of her own blood. “The Everfree makes you tougher, I guess.”

The pegasus nodded. “Well, if you’re sure…” She suddenly fixed Trixie with a determined look. “But you’re not going outside without a good breakfast. Doctor’s orders.” She broke into a small, shy smile, which the unicorn could not help but return.

“Yes ma’am,” Trixie murmured, as she watched her friend trot softly from the room.