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"Laidies and gentlecolts!" the voice of the announcer echoed across the auditorium. "I present to you, the amazing Midwintersday sisters!"
The curtains rose, revealing four blue earth ponies standing as tough frozen in time, dramatically backlit by a variety of colorful spotlights. The lights danced around for a while before finally illuminating each pony with a warm white light. Once the scene was set, the ponies began acting out the opening skit with their usual ease. Three of the ponies, looking well-groomed and ready for a show looked over to the fourth, who was still wearing a bathrobe.
"Nice Midwintersday!" one of the performers exclaimed. "The show is starting, and you still haven't gotten ready."
"Are you sure, Stormy?" she asked, then looked towards the crowd with feigned surprise. "Ooops, you're right, hi audience!"
"HIIIII!" a storm of yells came from the crowd, consisting mostly of young fillies and their parents.
"Oh, how embarrasing!" Nice exclaimed. "Calm, fetch me the screen, I don't wanna be seen changing outfits in public, it'd be embarrasing.
The two performers brought up a lavishly decorated screen and Nice took one step behind it. Before even a secnd had passed, she was out on the other side wearing a purple robe and an enormous hat.
"Now I can greet the audience properly," she said and bowed politely, catching the hat with a hoof. She then let the hat roll back to audience applause.
Most of the audience would probably not apprechiate the many subtle touches of this opening skit, the young fillies probably saw it as just an exciting clothes-changing trick. In reality, it was a very self-aware nod to the history of performing magicians. In the past it was very common for earth pony magicians to cheat by switching places with their identical unicorn sister using just this sort of trick. Nowadays it was so widely known that nopony but the youngest would ever get fooled by it, hence why she removed the hat afterwards to show that she was indeed an earth pony.
The funny part is, the trick was exactly the same, Nice would simply switch places with one of her sisters, Cool Midwintersday,who's had plently of time to change clothes while the attention was focused on the other sisters. It would've been a very transparent trick to use on it's own, but by playing with expectations like that, they managed to turn something anypony with a twin sister could do into a pretty amusing opening performance.
"Nice", or rather Cool passing herself off as Nice played the part of a bumbling magician, intentionally tripping over her own cape and "flubbing" simple tricks in a way that made them more exciting and the audience loved it.
It was a character they could relate to and connect to much better than the traditional image of a stern, slick earth pony magician who did everything effordlessly as tough she had unicorn help (which she sometimes had.)
The sisters would act as straight mares and assistants for most of the trick, but there was one trick they had discovered worked best with a member of the audience.
"Allright, for this trick, I'm gonna need a volunteer," the Midwintersday sister announced. "Can I see some hooves?"
A dozen hooves rose into the air and Cool picked one belonging to a shy orange pony.
"Come up on stage, dear. What's your name?"
"Abigail Jacqueline," the shy filly replied.
"What a nice name!" Cool repled and produced a tarot card deck, a piece of paper and an enveope from under her cape.
"I want you to pick a card, any card, and then write it's name down and put it in the enelope. You do know the name of the tarot card, do you?"
"Yes I do, Auntie Orange taught me," Abigail said, beaming with pride.
Cool briefly went trough the name for the benefit of the audience anyway, fulfilling the shows educational quota, then held up the deck to Abigail. She looked at the cards for a while and then, with great concentration, wrote down 'DEATH" in her mouthwriting, trained to be as neat as an earth pony could make it. It had always been her favorite card, ever since Uncle Orange had explained its true meaning to her. It wasn't really about death, it was about change, about becoming somepony new. She really liked that idea. She put the paper in the envelope and licked it close.
Cool Midwintersday shuffled the deck and did a few mystical motions over it, then she drew one of the cards and held it up proudly.
"Is this the card you chose?" she asked, displaying THE FOOL.
"Nope," Abigail said with a little smirk.
"Oh, okay, is this the one?"
"Nope!"
"How about this?"
The audience laughed uproarishly and the bit went on until it was milked for all its worh, then Cool threw her hooves into the air and exclaimed:
"I give up, just open the envlope!"
Abigail did so and discovered to her surprise that along with her note was also a card, DEATH. She held it up to the audience and they stomped their hooves in apprechation.
"That was amazing, Abigail!" Cool exclaimed. "And for that, I dub you honorary magician. She gave Abagail a medallion, just a little trinket with their logotype on it and the orange filly looked like she'd explode with delight.
* * *
When Cool Midwintersday entered the lounge, her ears still reeling from the stomping and shrill yells, she found to her delight that the manager had taken the initiative to present them with a fruit bowl. It was nothing fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but to her weary showmare mind, it was nothing short of a cornucopia. Except... half of it had already been eaten by her sisters, who smiled at her from the sofa.
"Hey, save some of that for the star of the show!" Cool ordered with a smirk, all while fumbling to remove the robe.
"You need some help with that, dear?" her sister asked and before Cool could even reply she jumped off the sofa and started to unfasten the tricky buckle holding her sisters stage outfit up..
"Thank you, Nice. I wish the outfit was less off a hassle, but it needs to look difficult to get on, or else the trick won't work!" Once free from it, Cool tossed the hat and robe expertly onto a coathanger.
"Thank you, Nice. I wish the outfit was less off a hassle, but it needs to look difficult to get on, or else the trick won't work!" Once free from the robe, Cool tossed the hat and robe expertly onto a coathanger.
"Anyway, haven't you forgotten that I'm Nice Midwintersday? I'm the star of the show, you just play me."
Cool Midwinterday had already dived into the fruitbowl, however, and didn't hear a word of what her sister had said, leaving it to the others to repond.
"But she did the legwork, didn't she? Also, last week, I played you," Calm reminded her.
"Yeah, and the week before that, I was Nice Midwintersday," Stormy concurred. "And the week before that, you actually played yourself, only it was Cool who was announced as you. Don't get cocky on us just because we used your name for the character." Nice Midwintersday stifled a giggle with her hoof.
"I'm just teasing y'all," she said with smile and turned to her sister, who was still raiding the fruit bowl. "Cool, you're a better Nice Midwintersday than I'll ever be,you really gave that filly something she'll remember. Frankly, I don't even know why I'm part of this group when I'm such a terrible actress." Cool looked up from the fruit bowl and glanced over to her sister.
"What are you talking about?" she said. "You thought up half the tricks we use, you rocked the opening skit, if it wasn't for you, this whole group would fall apart. We don't want you to get cocky, but that doesn't mean you have to put on an air of false modesty"
"I'm not being falsely modest," Nice replied, surprisingly heartfelt. "I... I don't know what I'd be doing if I didn't have y'all. I just hope it lasts."
The three sisters nodded along, they knew full well what her sister was reffering to. Earth pony magicians had begun to fall out of favor, there had been too many frauds lately and ponies where more drawn to unicorn magicians, under the presumption that at least they where honest about using unicorn magic in their performances. Every day it became harder to find a place to perform in, which meant longer and longer travels between the cities that would hire them.
Perhaps there was some providence in how the young orange filly had chosen the card DEATH, it certainly served as a reminder that their time in the spotlight was finite, that over time even the memories would fade. But the glow of a hundred of little fillies' smiles didn't was away that easily and, for now at least, the time on the road with next to no sleep and terrible unheated food seemed worth it for the privilegue of being in the buisness of making ponies happy.
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