Trix of the Trade - Chapter 29

>You are Anon.
>High up on a lofty balcony, you stare down at the post-party terror that is Manehatten. You can see even the specks of ponies are sluggish.
>And as are you. You wouldn’t dare tell yourself that you weren’t.
>You down the fourth or fifth cup of tea this morning. It isn’t coffee but it’s really doing the trick. Two hours ago, you were ready to curl up and die. Now, you just want to curl up and sleep for a very long time.
>You push yourself away from the railing as the clinking of hooves approaches you from behind.
>Turning around, you get another good look into Princess Celestia’s beautiful hotel room. However, it seems to be mostly obscured by the princess herself. Which, of course, isn’t a problem.
“Ugh, you were right.”
>”I know.” She says playfully.
“You didn’t even let me specify…”
>Her eyebrows perk, only just a little.
“Hehah… well, the tea, I mean. I don’t like the idea of leaf water and it’s pretty bad. But, this is great! I feel like… well, it still tastes kinda bad. But I feel better.”
>Celestia chuckles.
>”If my own tea isn’t good enough for you, I don’t think anything would change your mind.”
“Mmhm. So, any good hangover stories you want to share?”
>”I have hundreds. None of which shall pass these lips as long as I remain a princess.”
“Not even if you tell just me?”
>”I have a reputation to uphold. To everyone. But, feel free to be honored that I’ve told you that this Princess might have a wild streak.”
“’Honored’, huh? Sounds a lot like—“
>”Your friend Trixie? You two seemed much closer than before. It’s good to see you’ve found a pony who’s so fond of you.”
>You let out a throaty chuckle and take another sip of your tea.
>”Is something funny?”
“No. But, Trixie and I… fond is a weird way to describe it.”
>”I think so. You may not see it, but she’s awfully affectionate of you.”
“She does a crap job of showing it.”
>”She isn’t so good at that, I’ve noticed. But what do you think? How close are you to her?”
>Alright, this is getting a little too personal for your taste.
“I think you already know the answer, don’t you? Doesn’t really matter.”
>”I want to hear what you think about your relationship with Trixie.”
“Strained, mostly. Can we stop talking about her?”
>”One more question.”
>You nod while drinking the last of the tea in your cup.
>”Why do you seem so nervous to talk to her?”
>The question stutters your thoughts momentarily, but you set the tea cup on a nearby table and gaze into Celestia’s soft, pink eyes.
>Her prying reminds you of a mother both concerned and curious for her child. The feeling invokes and momentary sting of nostalgia.
>Eager to change the subject, you break her gaze and glance outside the window.
“I’m not. Just… tired.”
>Celestia just stares at you with the same look and it’s killing you.
“Enough about my night. How was yours?”

>You are Trixie. After leaving those six harlots in the hotel, you tried flagging down a taxi but despite the sizeable bag of money dangling around your chest, they passed by you without a second glance.
>The traffic on and off the street were insanely busy. The clogged traffic and the ponies who may or may not look wealthier than you are, despite the bag of money you’re carrying.
>You have no patience for this, and as soon as an opening shows itself, you gallop across the street and to wherever you remember your wagon being last. You hope it’s still there…
>Looking up to get a sense of direction only makes you dizzy, and you vision forward is blocked by the ponies stumbling around in their post-party daze. Their sickly faces make you feel ill from the night before, and remind you of the company you kept.
>The last place you need to be is inside your mind, right now.
>It’s a short trot to where you think you need to go, where you start recognizing buildings and shots. You remember passing the area on your walk to the park, you think.
>Coming to another intersection, you look down the road to your right and see the park itself, which means your cart should be right up the road.
>Excited at the idea of some good news, you hope, you gallop up the road.
>You reach the intersection where you and Anonymous had your… ‘moment’ last night, and your heart sinks. The wagon isn’t there.
>But then you notice it parked off to the side, and call yourself an idiot under your breath.
>Before entering, you take a deep breath and hope he’s here. You almost knock, then laugh to yourself. It’s your wagon.
>Still, you’re nervous to enter. There’s no time for it, however. You hold your breath and open the door.

>It’s a mess. A colossal wreck. Empty alcohol bottles, wrappers for all sorts of things and some of your stuff is scattered across the floor.
>Is that why you’re grinding your teeth in anger? Of course not. It’s Vinyl Scratch sitting at the table, fiddling with one of her stupid instruments.
>She hasn’t noticed you yet, so you subtly let her know she isn’t alone by heavily dropping your cash bag on the floor..
“What are you doing here?!”
>”Huh?” She turns to look at you. Her eyebrows pop up from behind her glasses. “Oh, hey. Have fun last night? I sure did. Man, get something running through your veins and you become a party animal.
“You drugged me! I should get the guards to throw you away in a cell for… for a hundred years.”
>”Uh huh, you also gonna tell them you drugged Rainbow Dash, or am I going to have to?”
>You feel sweat form on your brow. You hadn’t actually planned on telling the guards, but you can’t believe you willingly drugged someone. You’re far above that sort of thing.
>”Listen, I know you wanted me to help you but it sounds like all you wanted was an interesting lay. And, trust me, Anon sure was interesting.”
“W-… what?!”
>”But you probably haven’t lezzed out before, and now you have. Good enough for you, right?”
“What are you—“
>”You’re messed up, you know? You’re like, the most ungrateful, meanest, most selfish pony I’ve met. So my first impression was, ‘Hm, she must screw the shit out of Anon to keep him around.’ But nah.” You try to force out a response, just to shut her up. But you can’t. “Then Pinkie approaches me, and tells me you need help with your ‘love’ problem. Like, heck yeah I’m down. So, here’s the solution to your problem.” She taps a key on the keyboard in front of her, emitting a single note. “Finally. I swear, never lend your friends an instrument. Ahem,” She then plays a short, victorious tune. “The solution to get him away from you!”
“What?!”
>”Wait, can you hear me? Because you just keep saying ‘what’ now.”
“Why are you doing this? And, and I don’t… love isn’t right. I only… really like… why are you even doing this?”
>”Look, you and Anonymous have an incredibly poisonous history. Seen it a million times, it’ll only go down in flames. You probably wouldn’t like me telling you to cut it off and leave him, so I’m doing it for you.”
“Are you insane?! This doesn’t help me at all! And I’m not going to let you just take him away!”
>”Too late! Hah, last night I offered him a job. Less travel, more pay, and he’d get to meet all sorts of cool ponies, instead of the gross ones you find going to magic shows and junk.”
>Sweet FUCKING Celestia you’re mad. Your vision has blurred and you can’t stand still anymore. You have a burning desire to either run away forever or just cave that smug ugly face in.
>”And also, we’d have lots of sex. Did I mention that we had a ton of sex last night? Hot, sweaty, human sex. It was gre—“
>Your horn instantly alights and grabs the table under her. You lift it as hard as you can, throwing her keyboard, slamming it against her chin and clearing a path for you to charge her.
>You leap onto her before she can recover from the hit and pin her to the wall, clumsily swinging your hooves at her face.
>She swears under her breath as you make contact a few times and slides down the wall. She then uses her back leg to kick your back hooves out from under you.
>You hit the floor and immediately roll onto her, but she already pushes you up and out of range to hit her. It doesn’t stop you from trying to hit her.
“You stupid, fat, ugly slut! You weren’t trying to help me at all.”
>”Yeah, no shit!” Vinyl frees one of her hind legs and delivers a swift kick to your gut, causing you to lose your breath and topple over.
>She pushes you away, and gets back onto her hooves.
>”Maybe I just wanted you to get a taste of your own medicine for once.”
>For just a moment, you focus your magic and use it to fling Vinyl across the room.
>She yells in surprise, then in pain as you hear her hit your cabinet of memorabilia.
>”Tfffffffffffffaaaaaagh! Celestia…”
>You focus once more, and aim her towards the door this time. You lose vision of her, but she hits the door frame for sure.
>Finally, you feel like you’re able to breathe again. Not really stand, but you manage to do it anyway.
>Vinyl is up too, limping and halfway out the door.
>You lift her keyboard up magically and throw it at her as hard as you can.
“You forgot this!”
>She turns around just in time to see it, and ducks it. She looks upset that she did, because it makes a huge crashing noise outside.
>”What the buck?! That thing was expensive!”
“Maybe you should have caught it with your face then!”
>You magic the door the slam it shut in Vinyls face. You hear her curse as she trots away to her probably broken keyboard.
>Your heavy breathing refuses to die down as you relish in the almost orgasmic feeling of beating her face in. Magic or not, you kicked her flanks.
>You gulp down the saliva that’s built up in your mouth, then exhale and tilt your head up. You’ve finally calmed down a little, but then you can feel where Vinyl got her hits in. The one in your gut really kills, too.
>But the worst part after the adrenaline fades that you’re finally able to think about what she said.
>Could it be true? It feels absurd that she would have been planning this since Pinkie approached her. And even more so that she would hire Anon away to only spite you.
>And your mind wouldn’t let you forget that she said they screwed each other. As much as you’d like it to.
>You had your suspicions that Anon was sleeping with other mares. It’s not as if you’ll stop him when you two haven’t dedicated yourselves to each other. But with her? It’s… vile, disgusting, vindictive and not something you want to picture. As if you could stop anyway. And she did it only to get under your skin.
>And she did.
>You fall to your rump and lean against the wall, staring aimlessly across the room.
>Could this really be it? As she said, she offered Anon so many things. He would be stupid not to accept them.
>Maybe if you had something over Vinyl, you’d stand a chance. But you’ve treated him like garbage for so long… It has been so long since you’ve been on your own, hasn’t it?
“It’s over, isn’t it?”
>You find yourself muttering to no one.
>You purse your lips and attempt to stop yourself from the tears coming, but your vision is already blurred by the tears forming in your eyes, You quickly try to wipe them away, and scrunch your face. It’s okay to cry, but it’s not okay to be an a blubbering idiot.
>With your eyes clamped shut, you shakily get back on all four hooves. You’re not sure what to do right now. The place is a mess, let’s start with that.
>You glance at the broom closet and find it ironic that there are no brooms inside.
>And you keep staring and staring. You don’t care about the brooms or the irony, really.
>You slowly walk to the door and push it open. You halfway expect everything to be gone, but it’s all still there. Blanket, clothes, the memorabilia you two have collected over your time with each other. He even still has the crooked picture of you on the wall. You linger in his small, cramped room. You soak in his scent and wish he were here, wrapping his arms around you.
>But he isn’t coming back. Not for these pieces of junk.
>You sigh and slip into his bedroll, wrapping yourself in his blanket and quickly dozing off.

>A sharp knock at the wagon door wakes you up. The first thing you notice is the terrible pain in your head. You’ve been knocked down worse, but not by much. You roll out of the blanket and struggle to take it off, but manage to stand up nonetheless.
>You hear the knocking again. A small part of you thinks it’s Anon. But you know it isn’t true. You know he’s probably gone by now. Off with that white whore, enjoying himself. Of course he is, as long as he’s away from you, that’s easy enough.
>A third knock puts a bit more speed in your hooves. You reach the door and pause for a moment, silently wishing that it’s Anon and he wants to leave this city as much as you do.
>You place a hoof on the door, and hear the faint chittering of mares on the other side of the door. You consider not opening the door, but bite your lip and steel yourself anyway.
>You crack open the door, and see a familiar sky blue mare with magenta eyes peek through before you stop.
“What?”
>”Um…” You see Twilight poke her head out from behind Rainbow Dash.
>This is ridiculous. You can hardly stand these ponies when you’re in a good mood. You are far from a good mood.
>”We wanted to—“
>You casually close the door in her face. You want to be alone. With yourself or with Anon. A pillow will be fine, except it won’t.
>Ignoring the knocking and yelling of the Elements, you crawl back into bed and curl up under the blanket.
>But their persistence is unnaturally strong and it feels like hours before the knocking and chatting fade away.
>You hardly get a second to breathe a sigh of relief before the roof hatch is pried open. The sound of hooves stomping against the floor almost lights your fuse, but you feel your lethargy win another battle.
>There’s a knock on your door accompanied by more chittering. You want to get angry at them but you so feel so emotionally dead, you can’t even give a response.
>They open the door anyway.
>”Um… Trixie?” Twilight’s voice calls. “We thought you might want to… um… are you okay?”
“Trixie is fine! She just needs her beauty sleep!” You yell into the pillow.
>”Al… right. Well, we just came by to… Rainbow Dash?”
>”Right!” She steps forward, sounding confident at first but she falters to an apologetic tone.
>”Look, I’m sorry about everything. We all are.”
“Sorry about what?” You shift your body so you can look Rainbow Dash in the eyes.
>”We, uh… found out where Anon was and were thinking of bringing him back with us.”
>A small flicker of excitement ignites in your chest, but you remember that Vinyl is probably already at his side. Or on his cock.
>”But after talking to Twilight, she convinced… me that that wouldn’t be nice, or fair. It’s his choice.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
>”Because… um…”
>”Because,” Rarity steps in. “We all want Anon to come home. But we can’t make the decision for him.”
>”Thing is,” Twilight takes over again. “We’re going to ask Anonymous to return home, with us. He’d have everything he left Ponyville for. We set it all up. A job, a home, everything.”
>As if you weren’t already afraid of him leaving.
>”But if we did this, it wouldn’t be fair to you if you weren’t there. That would be sneaky and… not very nice? I don’t know if I can explain it but it doesn’t feel right. Either way, I want you to be there to, um, provide a counter-argument?”
>A dead silence hang over the seven of you. You honestly can’t believe what you’re hearing.
>”Yeah. Twilight’s idea.” Rainbow Dash blurts out.
>You sit up and stare lazily at the rest of them.
“Not like it matters. That little miss Scratch practically owns him by now. There’s no point in trying.”
>Glances of confusion trade between the Elements. You groan at having to be so blunt.
“They’re… fooling around.”
>”Oooooooh.” Five of them say in unison.
>Fluttershy just mutters, “We’re done for.”

>The elements wasted no time in jumping into action. They didn’t seem to realize how condemned all of you were in this situation. That didn’t stop Rarity from dragging you out of bed to do your hair and force makeup on you, or Rainbow Dash from giving you an actually rather degrading pep-talk. Twilight Sparkle is rolling odds and percentages out with every passing second. Pinkie Pie is hopping around for no particular reason. Applejack is actually trying to comfort you and Fluttershy is nowhere to be seen.
>After the instant beautification, you’re quickly pulled outside and shoved into a taxi. Twilight, Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie squeeze in with you and give orders to the pony pulling the cart.
“Wait, where are we going?”
>”To the tallest hotel in Equestria—The Tower of the Sun and Moon! Or ‘The Tower’, for short.”
“Is that where Anon is?”
>”Yes! He’s with the Princess right now! And if we’re lucky, Vinyl won’t be able to get passed the guards. But I can!”
>The information swirls around in your head for a moment before you settle on these feelings.
“Good. He’d better be ready for what I’m about to tell him.”
>You place your hooves together while the four stare at you, wondering exactly what you mean.
>You’re not too sure, either. But you’re about to say some things you never expected to say to someone else. You need to think of exactly what that is, and fast.