Meet Trixie, Tia!
Today started off rather boring and normal (which probably should have gave Celestia much warning that something bad was going to happen soon), though that soon changed during Celestia's lunch hour. She was eating a very enjoyable lunch in the dining room, when a scroll appeared by her, with an automated female voice speaking out, alerting her to the sudden scroll received. "You got a letter!"
Oh, a letter! The redundant thought came from Celestia, who smiled fondly at the sudden mail she received. Quickly, she grabbed hold of it before it could spill into her tomato soup, and tucked it neatly underneath her left wing to read later. At least that's something to look forward to, once I've finished up lunch here. Who knows what I've been sent?
"Drop the scroll harder and faster than Octavia dropping her bass when she's drunk, Princess!" A voice called out, and Celestia turned her head around to see Ditzy Do and Blossomforth glaring at her, both of them senior members of Pegex and, of course, wanting to scan the scroll sent to her, as was their duty when concerned about all things related to mail sent throughout Equestria. Celestia, however, had no intention of having her private mail sent to her from her student of all ponies getting searched through, and she stuck her tongue out at the two pegasai. While such a thing was very rude to the ponies that it was aimed at, Celestia felt like it was an appropriate gesture in this situation. She didn't like having her mail read.
"I think not! This is from my student; I'm sure there's no ill intent within the scroll! Besides, you can't make me." Celestia got up from her chair, and tried to walk away, when she was suddenly surrounded by twenty pegasai, all of them affiliated with Pegex. ...Why was it a good idea to militarize the mail system, again? And cross-trained with ninjas, of all pony combat experts?! I'm going to have a word with Bluey.
"Be as that may be," Blossomforth said, circling around Celestia, "I, as well as every other pegasus in Pegex has been trained to view every letter, scroll, package and other forms of sent mail to be a potential threat to you and Equestria. This includes personal mail, as stated within our codex, and I am not going to be the reason that you suffered from a sudden magical trap because I failed to scan the letter for any signs of magical tampering. I ask kindly, again, to hoof over the letter, without any sudden movements."
It was then that Celestia sneezed, quite loudly and suddenly. This was counted as a sudden movement, and immediately, Celestia found herself drowning in a sea of pegasai determined to grab at the letter from her.
One very satisfying (if suddenly turned hectic) lunch later, Celestia was somewhat contentedly (after all, one could not be truly content after being tickle-tortured by pegasai and then having your private mail searched for threats) laying down on her bed, having, for once, actually finish all her paperwork without dumping it on her sister, Chrys, or Moonie (which was an amazing feat in itself). Now, she was eager to read the letter that Twilight had sent her; it was a fairly large scroll, as well, so it promised to be a rather large friendship report. Or, a lot of charts and a bunch of rambling about some new discovery that Twilight made; while Celestia enjoyed responding to Twilight's latter letters, she always had to add 'please, send discoveries to the scientists of Canterlot' at the end of her reply. After all, she didn't really want to read a few hours worth about a new discovery that her student made; that was for the scientists to discuss, and she really didn't want to be weighed down with more work, trying to figure out what her student sent her and what she could possibly say that made her sound intelligent.
Let's see what I got in store for me this time...
Dear Princess Celestia,
I've made a new friend recently! Well, I think. You see, she's...Still a bit hostile towards me. That's okay, though! We're all trying our best to make sure she fits right in Ponyville, even if she caused a few problems for us. Meet Trixie, Tia! A showmare with a talent for doing lots of unbelievable tricks! She came by one day, asking if she could borrow my phone to make a call, so, of course, I let her in and let her use the phone! We talked for a bit after she made her call, and it turns out we have quite a few things in common! We both enjoy reading books, writing is the devil (thank goodness I have Spike to write for me!), we both love the Warrior cat series, and like our tea with two sugar-cubes and cinnamon!
Ponyville has had trouble with Trixie in the past, but we've dealt with whatever trouble came our way quickly. Apparently, she has a rivalry with me! I suppose that isn't too hard to believe; I did show her up a few times, and generally, unicorns do get sensitive when comparing magical power with one another, but it's still a bit hard to think that somepony considers me as their rival. I swear, I don't mean to one-up you in any way, shape or form! She understands my concern, though; she calmed me down by saying she only had a friendly rivalry with me (after the incident with the alicorn amulet), so that's good.
I'm not exactly sure how to describe her personality; she takes some of the best and worst qualities of my friends all together, and then some. She's...Err, as rude and out-going as Rainbow Dash, has a keen eye for detail like Rarity when it comes to her work, has the same determination in working hard just like Applejack to improve her magic, gets excited and bouncy like Pinkie Pie over pocky (based on one of the letters you've told me warning me away from Canterlot and saying why, I'm sure Trixie will get along with Moonie and Lulu!), and has an extremely shy side like Fluttershy! As for some of her personal quirks, she seems to speak in third-pony (though, only in public; in private company among friends, she speaks just like any other pony). I'm not exactly sure what to make of her; she's a lot different from any pony I've met. Trixie doesn't have a place to stay at in Ponyville, so I, naturally, offered to let her sleep in the library! In hindsight, though, it probably wasn't a very logical idea. Unfortunately, there's no guest bedrooms (I live in a tree meant for one librarian, one!), so we have to share the bed together. It's pretty awkward! Especially when Trixie suddenly hugged me like a teddy bear. I thought I was going to die from lack of air, but thankfully, that didn't happen! Sheesh, who knew she was going to be so clingy.
Oh, and, as I'm having Spike write this letter for me (who is currently gagging at the thought of Trixie hugging me like a teddy bear), Trixie came up and asked who I was sending a letter to. Upon mentioning that it was to you, she had a rather curious look on her face, and then asked if she could make a response to you, once I was done having Spike write whatever it was for me. She also asked that I leave for awhile, as she wanted to relay something private to you. I'm bemused by whatever she intends to say, but I'm sure it doesn't concern me if she's asking me to leave her alone with Spike. I'm not sure what else I can have Spike write for me, so I suppose after the line-break underneath this paragraph, it'll be Trixie speaking, and not me.
P.S: I need more assignments!
Hello, Princess Celestia. I...I'm not sure about any proper way of making this seem like an informal letter to you, but Twilight did mention once that you liked things informal and being referred to as 'Tia' instead of your full title of 'Princess Celestia the first and only solar alicorn of Equestria that has an insatiable appetite for slurpees and other sugary goodness so Faust help you if you dare get in the way', so I'll do just that. I'm...Trixie Lulamoon. I'm not a special pony like Twilight or you, but I'd like to think I was somewhat important, even though I'm just a travelling showmare. Looking up at what Twilight has written, she has more or less described me by comparing my traits to the rest of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, so I suppose I'll skip on describing myself, because that would just be terribly redundant and waste space on the scroll (which has very little room left for Spike to write on).
I also see that she mentioned that she was leaving because I asked her to. There's...A reason for that, and I sincerely hope Spike here can keep a secret from who is effectively his mother. I know that I told Twilight that our rivalry (which was also mentioned; geez, I want to explain some things too, you know!) was friendly, but it's also much, much more than that. Ew! Spike just thought I was going to say that I love your student because of our rivalry! He must have been reading too many mushy, cliche, trashy romance stories. I swear, that genre of books needs to be banned. What, was I going to ask for advice for you on how to deal with Twilight next? Anyway, no, I do not have a romantic interest in your student. I do, however, have another interest in her, and it, of course, relates to that friendly rivalry mentioned earlier.
Every time we interact with each other, we try to one-up each other with little, creative magical tricks (Spike considers it flirting...), not with the intent to embarrass the other, but more of a way to surprise the other with what we can do. Your student can do many things, Tia! She is, however, lacking in creativity; I'm sure you've noticed this in your student at some point, but if not, I'll be blunt. She is terribly unimaginative in how she applies her magic; there's no flair, no sparkles (please don't smite me for making an unintentional pun out of your student's name), and just does everything she can to make an extremely professional show of magic that lacks in style and flair. I was thinking...Do you think you could send her a project that requires the magical prowess of two ponies, and requires for practical magical application as well as creativity?
I realize that it sounds like I'm one of your students asking for an extra-credit assignment...As much as I wish that I was one of your students, I know that's probably well out of my magical power. I just want Twilight to realize that she could do so many amazing things with her magic by putting in just a little more creativity in her spells, because right now she has absolutely little regard to the more creative side of magic. Personally, I wonder if Rarity has ever tried to convince her to be more expressive with her magic, but if she has, I don't think it worked for Twilight.
I understand that this must be a very odd request, and that you're under no obligation to send Twilight sometime 'creative' to do, but I think it would do wonders for her. Just a thought from a friend of hers (wow, it' certainly been a short but eventful journey, from becoming a rivalry that totally, utterly hates her to a rivalry that's mostly just friendly ribbing at one another).
Sincerely, Trixie Lulamoon and Twilight Sparkle (and a tired Spike)
P.S: Spike, here. I don't really have much to say about what Trixie said since most of it is true, but I really do have to be blunt about one thing. You really should have encouraged Twilight to write on her own; I was right in the middle of playing a video game with the Cutie Mark Crusaders when she asked me to take a letter, and then Trixie jumped in with something she had to say, too! It's...Kind of sad, to realize that one of the most powerful unicorns (if not the most powerful unicorn in Equestria right now) can't write to save her life.
P.S.S: Again, this is Spike. As an afterthought, do the Pegex check these letters? Just wondering, because Twilight is beginning to work on magic runes, and her results so far have been...Explosive. I'm worried Twilight will send you a few of these runes one day and some pegasus from Pegex will get hurt from them, causing Pegex to declare an Equestria-wide ponyhunt on Twilight and me.
A thoughtful Celestia set down the scroll beside her, thinking heavily upon Trixie Lulamoon's words. A very interesting letter I have gotten, indeed! Now that I think about it, Twilight Sparkle has never been extremely creative with her work. Or good at writing, but I think that's another matter that requires proper care at a later date, and so is Pegex. Anyway, all of her projects sent back to me have very little in the personal touches that I've come to recognize from my students over the years, and I dare think that she doesn't have any, aside from her frantic insanity that occurs when she believes that she's tardy, which I would not exactly count as a 'nice touch'. I suppose it's certainly better than the coffee stains that Starswirl always had on his reports, but not by much, if at all, actually. I have to say, you are a very observant unicorn, Trixie...
Smiling slightly, she knew just what to do. The answer is quite obvious; I'll have Twilight assist Rarity and Trixie with their work! I'm sure she'll learn the art of creativity from those two, who make their entire living off of it. Who knows? Maybe it'll be a huge success. Reaching over for a quill, Celestia began writing a return letter to Twilight Sparkle and Trixie Lulamoon, jotting down the details of a rather specific assignment for the three unicorns to work together on. Who knows, they might just impress her with something completely unexpected.