Nightmares

by unoservix

Chapter 20: The House of Mirrors

Nightmares
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Chapter 20: The House of Mirrors

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"Well," said Twilight Sparkle, "this isn't what I expected."

Of all the corporeal forms for Trixie's mind to take, a rundown circus was not what Twilight had expected. But ahead of them, under a cloudy, stormy sky, lay the tattered remains of what had once evidently been a big and bustling circus. The tents stood in dilapidated rows, riddled with holes, their colors faded and streaked. Rusted cages, broken ropes, and rotting wood lay everywhere. The spirit of decay hung over everything like a fog.

Twilight glanced over at Trixie. "So, uh, explanation?"

Trixie blanched. "You think I know what this is all about?"

"It's your mind."

"That doesn't mean I get it." She frowned. "The princesses did say it was going to be crazy in here. Which is all the more reason to kick this blasted Nightmare out."

Twilight looked ahead to the rotting circus. "That's true. So, uh," she looked around and her eyes fell on a fading, crumbling construct surrounded by disintegrating hearts, "where to first?"

Trixie followed Twilight's gaze and shivered. "We are not going in there."

"That means that's probably where she's hiding," Twilight warned.

"Then we'll burn the thing down and flush her out, but we are not going into a rotting tunnel of love to search for an evil spirit of darkness. There is absolutely no way that can end well." She looked around and settled on a row of rusting cages. "Let's start there."

Twilight cringed. "At the freak show?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

"...no."

Together they picked their way through tarnished metal cages, some of them hanging open, all of them strewn with bones. With a tendril of magic, Twilight lifted up the skull of something that looked like a cross between a walrus and a manticore. "Um...well, this is nice."

"Ugh. Where on earth did my subconscious get such a macabre taste for décor?"

Twilight set the skull back down and turned back towards Trixie. "The princesses did say that these are all symbols," she said. "That we shouldn't take any of this stuff at face value. It represents things." Trixie looked away awkwardly. "But that means we're going to have to be honest with each other." She waved a hoof at the rest of the tattered circus. "We're going to have to be if we want to get through this and find that stupid Nightmare."

Trixie closed her eyes. "I...don't know. Honestly. I, um..." She looked around again and shuddered at the sight of the abandoned cages and the white bones inside. "I got my start in my performing career at a circus. But I have no idea what 'dead freak show exhibits' are supposed to mean."

Twilight levitated another skull. "Probably not something flattering, I'd wager."

"Even my own subconscious is out to get me."

They picked over another cage, this one containing the sprawling skeleton of something reptilian. "It's like whoever was in charge of this place just left one day..." Twilight started. Trixie blinked in surprise; Twilight glanced back at her questioningly. "What is it?"

"Like...they were abandoned..."

"Yeah, like—" Twilight stopped as the gears clicked into place in her mind, and she turned around to give Trixie a hug. "Like that..."

"I-It's okay—"

"No it's not."

"Well, it makes sense," Trixie said with a sad sigh. "An abandoned circus. Something that somepony decided they didn't want anymore—"

"Don't talk like that," Twilight interrupted.

"It's true, isn't it?" Trixie retorted. "Wasn't I abandoned, by the very same ponies who were supposed to take care of me, just like these things?" She glared down at the bones. "I thought we had to be honest."

They both jumped as something behind them came down with a crash—and a board fell down from a faded sign hanging over another torn tent. Twilight and Trixie peered down at it.

"The house of mirrors," read Twilight.

They shared a look. "Maybe the tunnel of love would've been safer after all," Trixie grumbled.

"We have to go into one of these tents. Nightmare Storm isn't going to just come to us," Twilight glanced around, "and if this place really is supposed to symbolize you and we're supposed to confront your deepest issues, then we're going to have to actually go confront stuff."

Trixie pouted. "How come the issues can't come to us and be confronted out here?"

"Well, I'll be with you," Twilight said with a smile. "Does that help?"

"One can hope."

They peered ahead into the darkness—and Twilight immediately wrapped her tail up together with Trixie's. "What are you doing?" the blue unicorn asked.

"I just know the instant we go in there, Nightmare Storm will try to separate us. And I'm not wandering around inside a house of mirrors in your mind by myself."

Trixie scowled back. "If you bolt and take my tail with you, I'll never forgive you."

Together they advanced into the shadowy hall. The mirrors were all smudged, cracked, broken, riddled with fractures everywhere; cobwebs hung from the ceiling and dust coated everything. The mirrors reflected nothing, which made the maze easy to navigate—but only after they'd lost sight of the entrance did the reflections start to clear up and the blurred, smudged forms of the two ponies start to become visible.

"If I recall correctly," Twilight said, "the house of mirrors is supposed to show you weird, distorted, funny versions of yourself. And it's supposed to be disorienting and confusing to navigate. So if this is a symbol..."

"...we'll be in here forever," groaned Trixie.

The mirrors began to clear up and show warped and distorted reflections of Twilight and Trixie as they made their way through the maze. Twilight glanced off to her left and arched an eyebrow at the sight of herself stretched out into an oblong shape, with her head and her tail pinched into tiny little vestigial growths on either end of her body.

"If there's supposed to be symbolism in all this, you'll have to explain to me why I look like a whale in most of these mirrors."

Trixie blinked. "Oh, wow, you do." She frowned. "And here I thought Pinkie Pie would've been the whale-like one."

They moved on and the mirrors got clearer—but the reflections stayed as indistinct as ever. Twilight and Trixie rounded a corner—and then the mirrors shifted again.

"What's going on now...?" Trixie started.

Twilight blinked in surprise as one of the mirrors next to her flickered—and then Fluttershy appeared, cowering and trembling. "F-Fluttershy?" The apparition looked up in surprise, seized up in terror, and then vanished. "What...?"

"She ain't one of us!" cried Applejack's voice; Twilight and Trixie spun around to find themselves staring down a hulking image of an angry Applejack.

"A-Applejack?!" Twilight exclaimed. "What are you doing—"

The image shuddered once and then the mirror rippled like water—and a dim, flickering Applejack emerged from its surface, eyes boring through Twilight. The purple unicorn turned around in surprise to find Trixie backing away nervously. Twilight looked back towards her friend; Applejack lunged; Twilight squeaked and backed up—as the image passed straight through her and went caroming into Trixie.

"What—what are you doing?!" Twilight cried. "Applejack! Stop!"

Trixie jerked her head to the side as Applejack brought her hooves down with a crash. "I-I don't think this thing is Applejack!"

"Well what is it?!"

"I don't know! You're the genius, you—" Trixie backed up and bucked Applejack up into the air, then sprang back up. "You figure it out!"

Twilight's horn lit up and a cord of magic shot up to restrain the angry earth pony—but nothing happened, and instead Applejack threw herself at Trixie and sent the blue unicorn toppling again.

"Why can't I have any effect on her, but Trixie can...?"

Trixie ducked a furious swipe and shoved her shoulder up into Applejack's chest. "If this is Nightmare Storm's idea of therapy—"

Twilight's eyes sparked. "The Nightmare! Of course! This is her work—"

"Should've just fried her right off the bat," added another voice, and Twilight turned around to find another mirror—and a wiry, menacing Rainbow Dash stepping out from it, eyes fixed on Trixie.

"Completely undignified," sniffed a sneering Rarity, and the white unicorn emerged from yet another mirror.

Twilight looked back at Trixie disbelievingly. "Is this...what you think of my friends, Trixie?"

The blue unicorn backed away as Twilight's three friends advanced, eyes smoldering with contempt. "They didn't exactly make the best first impression, y'know." Applejack charged forward; Trixie rolled to the side. "And this isn't helping!"

"But these aren't my friends!" Twilight wailed. "This is the Nightmare! They would never do this!"

Trixie winced as she locked horns with Rarity. "And how do I know that?" Rainbow Dash barreled into Trixie from above and sent the blue unicorn sprawling. Trixie kicked back with her rear hooves and gained a moment's rest—but then Applejack came crashing down from above and sent her staggering back into Twilight. "If I had my magic, I would've turned all three of these things into cinders by now!"

Twilight turned Trixie around. "You know these aren't my friends, Trixie! They accepted you! They protected you!" She yelped and pushed Trixie aside as Rainbow Dash rocketed towards them; the blue pegasus passed through Twilight harmlessly and turned around for another pass. "Rainbow Dash told you to stay outside the cave so you'd be safe! How could you believe she'd do this to you?!"

Trixie tensed as the three shimmering ponies circled her menacingly. "Well, this isn't exactly helping."

Twilight's eyes shot back and forth between Trixie and the images of her friends. Around and above them, the mirrors shifted and rippled, images flickering in the depths. Pinkie Pie bounced off the walls, Fluttershy shrank from everything, Spike whined and clung, Twilight's friends were twisted into unrecognizable caricatures—literally, even, as their features warped and bent, ballooned and shrank.

She snapped back to reality when Rarity charged through her, a blazing spell at the tip of her horn. Trixie shrieked and scrambled back to avoid a sparkling blue column of light—and just as she did, Rainbow Dash slammed into her from above and pinned her front legs to the ground.

"Trixie!" Twilight screamed; she threw herself towards the fray, but her hooves passed through her friends like they were nothing and the ghostly specters of her friends did not react. Rainbow Dash and Trixie locked gazes, and the blue unicorn trembled at the sight. Twilight stared in shock as her friend glowered down hatefully at Trixie and felt her heart break at the sight—

And then she blinked in surprise as understanding flashed through her mind. Pain, hurt, her friends and Trixie hurting her...

"Trixie, you know that's not Rainbow Dash!" Twilight cried. "She would never do this!"

"Tell that to Rainbow Dash!" Trixie snarled through gritted teeth.

"No! You know this too! You know this about all of my friends! Because you know they would never want to hurt me!"

Rainbow pressed down harder; Trixie ground her teeth in frustration. "Great, we go into my mind and it's all about you?!"

Twilight shook her head. "No, because Rainbow told you that you had to treat me right or she'd kill you or whatever, right?"

"I think she's just invoking the 'kill me' part now anyway!"

"But she would never do that, because that would hurt me! Some other pony might do that, but—"

Twilight and Trixie both fell silent as the images of Twilight's friends shifted again. Twilight looked around at the shifting caricatures of her friends, and then back at the ghostly, furious Applejack. Up close, it wasn't just a scowling image of Applejack from the mirror; the image itself was composed of so many smaller ponies, with that same look of distrust and menace on their face. The mosaic shifted as Applejack shifted. Twilight looked up at an image in a mirror overhead, of a demented Pinkie Pie, and found the same thing: a multitude of noisy, nosy ponies. They were everywhere; every image of her friends composed of so many tiny images of ponies with those same angry or cowering or distrustful expressions. And she recognized all too many of those expressions: the snooty uplifted nose of the Canterlot elite, the distrustful gaze of tight-knit friends regarding a standoffish stranger, the grins of thoughtless ponies reveling in someone else's misfortune.

"Wait, I get it!" Twilight cried, and she whipped around to face Trixie—still with Rainbow Dash pinning her down. "These aren't my friends at all! They're images that you constructed out of all the other ponies you've met before!"

Trixie squirmed against the pressure. "That doesn't seem to be getting this big lug off me!"

"But that's not Rainbow Dash, that's someone else, someone you created! And if you created it—"

Trixie narrowed her eyes. "—then I can destroy it!"

The blue unicorn reared back and bucked her legs upward, sending the ghostly image lurching up into the air. Trixie leapt back to her feet, just in time for Applejack and Rarity to charge at her. Trixie ducked to the side before they could reach her—and then hopped into the air and slammed Rainbow Dash head-on with a hard buck to the head. The shimmering image went flying back and slammed into one of the mirrors—where the image and the mirror both shattered.

Rarity and Applejack vanished, and the mirrors went dark. Trixie slumped down and panted for breath, and Twilight rushed to her side. "Are you okay?"

"I'd better not have to do that again," Trixie gasped.

Twilight looked around as their surroundings shifted; the mirrors were dark now, greased over, too smudged to show reflections. The air was stilled in the wake of battle. "Those images were all made of smaller images, of all these other mean and nasty ponies," she said quietly. "And when you met my friends, you assumed that they were no different from all those other ponies—because as far as you were concerned, they weren't." She looked back down at Trixie. "Right?"

Trixie looked away. "We are being honest here," she said, "so, can you blame me? The first thing I knew of them was that they challenged me, publicly. And the next thing I knew of them was that most of them wished you hadn't saved me. Can you really tell me that they accept me? That they'll forget about what happened at my show? That they accept me even with this blasted Nightmare? That they're any different?"

Twilight looked back at Trixie. "But my friends didn't like you at first because you were so...well, arrogant."

Trixie arched an eyebrow. "Arrogant?"

"Yes. Like you felt like the first thing you had to do was prove that you're better than everypony else."

"Well don't I?" Trixie waved a hoof testily at the darkness around them. "If I don't, then no one will accept me!" Tears welled up at the corner of her eyes. "Just like my parents didn't accept me when I wasn't better than everyone else!"

"But I accept you."

Trixie looked back down on the ground. "I know," she mumbled. "That's what makes you different."

Twilight looked back up sadly at the darkened mirrors. "But those things still aren't my friends," she said. "I know that. And...well, I hope I can show you that too." She shook her head. "I guess Pinkie was right. You really didn't have any friends."

Trixie glared. "I have plenty of friends!" Twilight stared skeptically at her and her glare began to wither. "...well, fine, so I didn't. So what?"

"Well," Twilight said, and put her front leg around Trixie's shoulders, "you have friends now. And they won't judge you for your magic skills or your past or anything. I will make sure of it." She smiled. "I know what it's like to think you don't need friends. And then you get some friends and look back and wonder how you could have ever been so silly." Her smile fell. "You just need to, y'know, be nicer to them."

"Wonderful, we go into my mind and you lecture at me," Trixie grumbled.

The mirrors shifted again, and a pathway forward opened itself up as one of them vanished in a cloud of dust. Twilight and Trixie shared a skeptical glance, but continued on. The mirrors moved; between them, the two unicorns could see flashes of the ruined circus around them: the sagging high-wire, the broken trapeze, the bones of an elephant slumped on a pedestal, the empty, rotting bleachers. Twilight shivered at the sight. If this was supposed to be some kind of physical manifestation of how Trixie felt, abandoned by her own parents and left to decay, then she felt her heart break at the thought—and she felt her spine stiffen with resolve to show her that she was not like this circus.

Light broke through one of the mirrors as Twilight and Trixie rounded a corner, and the two ponies emerged from the tent with a sigh. "That's it?" Trixie muttered. "I was expecting more..."

Twilight stopped short as she took in their surroundings. They were back in the decaying circus—but now that circus was surrounded by gray, lifeless skyscrapers. Under a sickly, stormy sky, a massive, dilapidated city stretched above and around them—and from the looks of it, it was as abandoned as the circus.

Twilight looked over at Trixie. "Wh-Where are we now?"

Trixie looked around for herself and blinked. "No idea. Why?"

Silence descended over them for a moment as Twilight turned her eyes back towards the city. "You...said you liked traveling, right?"

Trixie cringed. "Are we actually going to have that conversation again, Twilight?"

"N-No, but..." The purple unicorn shook her head. "I was just...wondering, why you like it so much." She shuffled her hooves awkwardly. "I mean, I don't travel much—"

"I can tell."

Twilight's ears went flat. "I guess if we stick around in here long enough, we'll find out, huh?"

"If you must know," Trixie sighed, "traveling is how I make my living. I go where the work is. And whenever I leave a place, I usually have to give it a long time before I can come back." She glanced over and found Twilight smiling wryly. "Wipe that stupid look off your face, bookworm."

"Hey, the Great and Repentant Trixie might be a big hit."

Trixie did not look amused. "Besides," she muttered, "the more I travel around, the less likely it is that anyone will really get to know me."

Twilight blinked. "Would that be bad?"

"Of course it would! How am I supposed to be the Great and Powerful Trixie if everyone knows how weak and pathetic I really am?" Twilight winced, and Trixie scowled at the sight. "You wanted honesty, bookworm, so here it is. And if I didn't say that," she waved a hoof at their surroundings contemptuously, "the Nightmare would."

Twilight frowned and shook her head. "If the Great and Powerful Trixie is so weak and pathetic, how did she overpower the Nightmare—twice? And how did she master it enough to save my life? And why did she agree to let me in here, where I would see all of her fears and weaknesses?" She sat back as Trixie pouted. "Maybe it's not really hatred of me that's keeping the Nightmare alive."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"My research never said who the Nightmare's host had to hate. Just that the hate had to be there. And," she shrugged, "now that I think of it, maybe every Nightmare's host has a bit of hate for themselves."

"Great, we go into my mind and you play psychologist too."

"This would be the time for it."

Trixie crossed her front legs and scowled. "And to think I don't even get the satisfaction of being a historical novelty."

Twilight looked around as Trixie pouted. The ghostly city towered around them, but their immediate surroundings were still the circus—and yet now, the tents were closed, the bones were gone, the cages rusted shut—and only one opening was possible. "What's in there, I wonder...?"

Together, tails wrapped up tight, the two unicorns delved into the darkness. Twilight's horn flickered to life and cast a soothing pink glow over everything—and then the light from outside vanished as the tent swept shut.

"That can't be a good sign," Trixie murmured.

Twilight turned around, horn flashing brighter. "The ground is of her choosing, but she can't control everything in here."

They started forward together—and then the blackness seemed to envelop even the light from Twilight's horn. The two unicorns pressed together closer in fear—until the darkness shuddered apart, like a candle flame in the wind, and they found themselves surrounded by broken seats and wooden benches, all before tattered curtains, hanging over a cracked and crumbling stage.

Twilight found Trixie grimacing in fear and pulled her closer for another badly-needed hug. "Bad memories, huh?"

"My professional career started on one of those," Trixie said quietly. "I had to put on little shows on the outskirts of the circuses at first, but then I started getting space on the stage."

Twilight frowned at the stage. "What's the Nightmare trying to accomplish here? Is she trying to drive us apart?" She blinked. "Wait, of course she is—because our being together is what weakens her..."

Trixie arched an eyebrow. "Then why isn't she actually splitting us apart, and making us go through this whole thing on our own?"

Twilight cringed as dark memories drifted back. "Discord did that to us when he returned," she explained, "but Nightmare Storm must want us to see these things together."

"So that we'll fight over it," Trixie finished. "So that we'll hate each other."

The two unicorns shared a look, and then another hug. Twilight allowed herself a smile; surely the Nightmare wouldn't like that.

Together, they ventured forward again, towards the stage—and then the stage rattled as cracked, smudged mirrors came crashing down onto it from the darkness, sending the two ponies skittering back in fright. The wooden benches snapped themselves out of the ground and bent themselves into new shapes in midair. Twilight and Trixie clung to each other as thunderous fireworks detonated in the darkness above, the mirrors shifted and whirled, and white smoke swirled over the stage.

And then, as abruptly as the display began, the smoke parted to reveal a bleached equine skeleton in a tattered tuxedo, a rotted carnation pinned to its lapel, and a battered top hat on its bony head.

Twilight looked over at Trixie. "Um, and this is...?"

Trixie flinched at the sight. "I recognize that outfit. That was the magician who gave me my first shot at a stage show. He wore a carnation on his jacket." She grimaced. "Except he also had, you know, flesh."

On stage, the skeletal magician produced a wand from nowhere and swung it theatrically in the air—and then the mirrors around them both settled down again, completely silent, and the reflections began to materialize once more. Twilight and Trixie shared a nervous glance—and Twilight noticed her own reflection beginning to fade from view completely, leaving only Trixie, in all the weird shapes the mirrors had to offer.

"I guess this is where we find out how you see yourself," Twilight said, "seeing as how I'm disappearing."

Trixie grimaced. "Great."

Around them, the mirrors slowly came into focus. Every bizarre angle and distortion flickered through the glass—but as they moved forward, Twilight began to notice the reflections slowly work their way back towards something resembling the truth. And then they warped again.

Twilight and Trixie found themselves on stage inside an open space, surrounded on all sides by smudged, cracked glass—with flickering images of the blue unicorn in every pane. The Great and Powerful Trixie stood on a stage, humiliating a row of other ponies with dazzling mastery of the arcane arts. Twilight frowned—because her show had never been that spectacular. And she had never been this cruel to its hecklers, either. The ponies on stage were pelted with garbage from the crowd; Trixie laughed in their faces and gloried in their humiliation.

At Twilight's side, Trixie cringed. "What? Don't tell me you've never had mean, vengeful fantasies."

"No, but they never got that mean."

Another mirror rippled as its image came to life, and Twilight arched an eyebrow at the sight of the Great and Powerful Trixie, cape billowing heroically in the wind, as she fended off not an Ursa Minor, but a huge, snarling, razor-toothed Ursa Major—and not just an Ursa Major, but a manticore, a hydra, a dragon, and a pack of timber wolves too, all at the same time. And then it changed again, to show the Great and Powerful Trixie gallantly deflecting a landslide with her magic alone. And another image, of the Great and Powerful Trixie striding down the streets of Canterlot and disdainfully accepting the bows of its citizens, as though she were Princess Celestia herself.

Trixie followed her gaze and rolled her eyes. "What? I'm allowed to have my heroic fantasies."

"I didn't say you weren't."

But among the shifting images, one of them, wedged way in the back, caught Twilight's eye. And this Trixie was not great and powerful. This one was a scared little filly in the middle of a big city, looking up fearfully at the soaring buildings and the older, taller, disinterested ponies around her. She was alone—quivering with fright. A chilling wind swept out, as though from the mirrors themselves.

Twilight looked over at Trixie, to find her looking down at the floor with shame. "Yes, I know, you think that one is the real me."

"I-Is it?"

"What do you think?"

Twilight looked back at the frightened filly in the mirror. "Well, you had a pretty good reason to be scared," she said.

The filly in front of them moved on, to a room filled with other foals—and overseen by one exhausted-looking older mare. At least the blue filly had an ability to use magic, but no one paid attention to it—at least until she put on a show, with a hat and a cape made of paper.

"That's actually incredibly adorable," Twilight said with a smile.

Trixie's face flashed red. "Glad you're taking this so seriously."

"No, really, that is pretty much the cutest thing I have ever seen."

"Well keep watching, bookworm, it gets cuter."

None of the other ponies paid attention to the show—until the little blue filly started to get more flamboyant, more showy, and more arrogant. And even then it came at the expense of one of her peers. Twilight cringed as the little filly grew, and so did her magical abilities—and her capacity for embarrassing the other foals.

But now they were paying attention to her, and instead of cold wind, the mirrors began to radiate a dry, uncomfortable warmth. Trixie snorted in annoyance. "Makes sense, doesn't it."

"I guess..."

"I know," Trixie growled, "all you can see is that scared little filly we saw first." She closed her eyes. "Can you blame me?"

Twilight pulled her closer for a hug. "I guess not."

"I thought if I was a star, ponies would like me. And then they didn't. And since they didn't like me, they would want to hurt me, and I would have to keep them at a distance. And," she waved a hoof disgustedly at the flickering Trixies around them, "well, you can see how that turned out." She glanced over bitterly at Twilight. "So here I am, the Great and Powerful Trixie, deep down a neurotic, lonely wreck. As long as we're being honest."

Twilight kissed her. "And as long as we are being honest," she said, "all I see under this big tough exterior is a pony who just wants to be loved."

"Oh, wonderful, my clever deceptions don't work on you."

"If they did, I'd think you're as much of a jerk as Rainbow Dash does."

Trixie looked back bleakly at the little filly putting on magic shows in her orphanage and demanding attention with her showiness—and winning attention, but never any friends. "I'm glad we can take this wonderfully informative trip through my psyche, but I must point out that we aren't actually finding the Nightmare."

The mirrors parted—and there stood the skeletal magician, a sickly green glow emanating from his horn, levitating his wand with his magic. Twilight and Trixie stared at him inquisitively—and then they yelped in fright as knives materialized over the magician's head, and all of them went flying straight at Trixie. The blue unicorn ducked beneath them and backed away in fright.

"O-Okay, what is all this about?!" Trixie cried.

Twilight threw herself between them, horn lit up. "Leave her alone—!"

The magician lunged forward and passed straight through her, just like the images from the mirrors. Trixie backed up and gave it a hard buck to the jaw, hard enough to send its skull flying off—but the magician's skeleton shuddered, the skull floated back up to its proper place, and it adjusted its hat with a hint of annoyance.

Trixie paled. "Of all the times for that trick to stop working!"

Twilight watched with a feeling of mounting helplessness in her chest. Another test where she couldn't step in... "Trixie, what could this possibly be about? Did this guy teach you how to do magic?"

The magician flung another set of knives that sent Trixie skittering back. "N-No! Yes! Sort of!" She ducked behind one of the mirrors; the magician smashed through it with a bony hoof. "He just taught me a couple of tricks and told me to go out there and do my best—!"

With a flash of white smoke, the magician vanished—and then reappeared behind Trixie, seizing her with a cord of magic. The blue unicorn wrenched herself out of its grip and backed up next to Twilight.

"And did you?" Twilight asked.

"...the hay is that supposed to mean?!"

The magician threw yet more knives; both ponies ducked, even if they would only harm one. "I'm just trying to figure out what this stuff means! Did he test you or challenge you or something—"

Trixie perked up in recognition. "He...he did, yes, I did some magic tricks for him and he wasn't impressed with the magic, but he liked the performance—" She yelped and threw herself to the ground to dodge a fourth barrage of knives. "But he didn't use any bloody knives!"

Twilight cringed as her mind bubbled over with explanations and possibilities; high-speed psychoanalysis was way too taxing. "The Nightmare's trying to drive us apart—but how is this supposed to help—" She looked up to find the skeleton conjuring more knives with its magic—its magic— "Wait! I get it!"

Trixie took cover behind a mirror—only for the magician to fling the mirror aside with a flick of its head and its glowing horn. "Oh good, the genius came back!"

"He's a magician—which means he's a performer—which means this isn't really magic! It's a magic show! And once you figure out the trick—"

"—then it's not magic anymore!" Trixie cried, and she leapt back onto her feet. The skeletal magician reared up and hurled a knife at her chest. "It's just tricks!"

The knife disappeared in a flash; the magician lurched back as though it had been kicked, and then with a puff of smoke, it too vanished. The mirrors splintered, the images in them faded away, and the stage went dark.

Twilight looked towards the mirrors and back at the darkened stage in confusion. "Err...is that it?" She looked back at Trixie, and felt her throat tighten at the blue unicorn's sad and bitter expression. "Trixie..."

"So what was the point of all that, huh?" She waved a hoof at the scene behind them. "What was I supposed to take from all that? That I'm just a fake, like that skeleton?"

Twilight swallowed. "Did...did you think you were?" Trixie flinched, and Twilight gave her yet another hug. "We have to be honest, Trixie. Did you really think you were just a fake, or something?"

Trixie closed her eyes. "Sometimes. I guess. I don't know." She glanced up sadly at the stage. "More so lately, I suppose. Since I haven't had my magic, and all I could do was lie around and mope." She shrugged. "I guess that means I really hate myself after all, huh. Since I never was that good at magic, and a magician who can't do magic very well must be a fake—"

Twilight put a hoof on Trixie's chin and turned her head to look her in the eye. "Trixie, if you found it in yourself to call up the Nightmare's influence, and then master it with the strength of your will, enough to save me from Inferno, then you are definitely not a fake magician."

Trixie arched an eyebrow. "How does that work?"

"Look, just because you don't have skill and knowledge doesn't mean you're fake. You can gain skill. You can learn knowledge. But will," she put a hoof over Trixie's chest, "you can't learn that. And you've already got it."

The blue unicorn looked down at Twilight's hoof, and then cast one more unhappy look at the empty stage. "Well, either way," she said, "once I get my magic back, I won't be fake. I'll be real. I know that much."

At that, the mirrors shifted and darkened again, and another pathway opened up. Both ponies blinked in surprise.

"Did you do that?" Twilight asked.

"Wait, do self-affirmative declarative sentences make this thing go faster?" Trixie added. She reared back. "Hey Nightmare, I'm awesome! And amazing! And completely one hundred percent satisfied with the direction of my life!"

Nothing happened. Trixie scowled and Twilight smiled nervously. "It was worth a shot."

"It's only worth a shot if it works," grumbled Trixie.

Together, they emerged back into the light—and discovered that once again, the surroundings had shifted. Gone was the towering, empty city; now it was a dark, dead forest. The skyscrapers gave way to the lifeless husks of trees, like winter without the snow. Twilight shivered at the sight, and looked over at Trixie—who was completely unfazed.

"You know," the blue unicorn said with a cocked eyebrow, "travel's good for the soul. Get out, see the world more." She paused at Twilight's uncomfortable look. "But I guess there's no sense having this conversation again, huh."

"We could work something out," Twilight offered, and immediately her mind set to work trying to figure out exactly how that would work. "Maybe we could work out a route..."

She fell silent and looked around at the world around them again. Some things stayed constant, but other things were always shifting. The trappings of the circus, the images of performance and magic, those were always there...but every time she looked, something was different about the backdrop. An empty plain, a city, a forest...

"I told you," Trixie said, "I go where opportunity takes me. And opportunity doesn't follow routes."

Twilight hung her head. "I know."

Trixie sniffed. "Let's just get this over with."

They moved ahead, back into the open air, amid the rusty cages and the tattered tents. Twilight looked around again, looking for another structure with an open door. The mechanics of this place were still all too strange. The Nightmare had great control, but not total control. She knew Trixie's mind better than Trixie herself did, but not completely—and Twilight's own mind remained separate, not merely a passive observer but an interlocutor, one who could untangle the symbols and figure out the puzzles.

But there were still puzzles, and still answers to be had—and her eyes fell at last on another open tent.

Trixie followed Twilight's gaze and cringed. "No. No way. We are not going in there."

"I told you she's probably hiding out there," Twilight sighed.

"Twilight, there is no way it could possibly end well if we go into a rotting, decaying tunnel of love, inside my mind, controlled by a spirit of unfathomable darkness and rage. It just can't."

"It's not like the other places would've gone any better," Twilight said with a shrug, "and we got through those."

Trixie looked back forlornly towards the entrance to the tunnel of love. "I doubt that's what we would find in there."

Twilight looked for herself at the lone tent with open doors, streaked with mud and rain, tattered and crumbling. The shards of a red wooden heart lay at the doorway. "What would we find in there, anyway?"

"Nothing, because we're not going in there. How about we try the concession stands? Or the booth where they have you shoot at wooden ducks or whatever and you win a giant teddy bear? Or—"

"Trixie!" Twilight rolled her eyes. "I'm already here inside your head. What could really be the worst thing that could happen?" She glanced over her shoulder, and found herself unsurprised to see that the tent with the stage inside had vanished behind them. "The mechanics of this place are so weird. Like the Nightmare doesn't have full control. If the Nightmare really wanted to stop us, you'd think she'd be able to just put up a huge wall between us or something." She frowned, and a sick feeling welled in her heart. "Unless she's got something else in mind..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, but there's only one way to find out." And with that, Twilight wrapped her tail back up with Trixie's and pulled the sputtering blue unicorn along.

Together, they picked their way into the crumbling tent. Twilight grimaced at the smell of decay and dust, and lit up her horn to cast some light into the darkness. Everything in the stereotypical carnival tunnel of love was there, except in a state of decay, coated in dust, buttressed with cobwebs, decayed and obliterated almost beyond recognition. A dark canal ran around a corner, out of sight—but where there would have been water and a saccharine little boat in the shape of a swan, here was just a moldering heap of wood and bone-dry flooring.

Trixie turned up her nose at it all. "My love life was not that bad, thank you very much."

Twilight thought about that for a second, and then her face flashed red. "O-Oh, yes, that's—oh, jeez, is that what we'd be seeing in here?! Oh my gosh!"

"What did you think we were going to find in here?!" Trixie squawked.

"I-I don't know! What you think about love? Like, in the abstract?"

"Abstract?!" Trixie buried her face in her hooves. "So that's how I'm supposed to die, huh? From embarrassment?"

Twilight took a moment to compose herself and gave Trixie a warm hug. "Look, I know it will be weird, but we'll make it through."

The ground shook; the two ponies clung to each other in fright as dark shapes rose from the rubble. Trixie scowled at the sight of yet more mirrors and looked up sharply. "Hey Nightmare, you know there are things at a circus besides the funhouse mirrors, right? Like the deep-fried soda?"

Twilight blanched. "Deep-fried what?"

"You've never actually been to a circus, have you?"

"Deep-fried soda?!" Twilight squawked. "Is that—how—why do they—do you actually eat that stuff?!"

Trixie rolled her eyes. "Eat, heck, I lived on carny food for a while. Popcorn, peanuts, cotton candy, they deep-fry everything."

Twilight's jaw dropped in unabated horror. "They deep-fry cotton candy?!"

"Yes, they do. Never eat it, by the way. I did once and..." Trixie trailed off and cringed. "Well, just don't eat it."

They trooped on down the dry canal, through the open spaces between the mirrors—but as they moved forward, Twilight noticed the mirrors getting more densely-packed, and even more confusing. The shapes of herself and Trixie blurred together in some places, stretched far apart in others, and never seemed to make sense—but the solid, unchanging ground beneath their hooves led them on, deeper into the maze...and closer, she hoped, to the Nightmare. How they were going to get rid of the bloody thing was not yet clear, but Twilight would not rest until it was gone.

Trixie glanced over at Twilight and twitched in evident discomfort. "This is humiliating."

"Is it that bad that I get to know you?"

"It is like this," she waved a hoof contemptuously at the foggy mirrors, "when I have absolutely no control over what you see."

Twilight looked away with a frown. "So...you don't trust me?"

Trixie rolled her eyes. "If I didn't trust you, Twilight, we wouldn't even be here. I'm letting you see all my deepest, darkest fears," she glared over at the purple unicorn, "and I expect you to keep them that way."

Twilight smiled back. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."

"...excuse me?"

"Oh, um," Twilight blushed, "it's the, uh, Pinkie Pie Promise."

"The what?"

"It's the highest level of confidence you could possibly attain," Twilight explained with a grin. "When a Pinkie Pie Promise is made, it will be done, no matter what. If she pledges to keep a secret, nothing will ever draw it out of her. And woe betide you if you ever break one. Just making that promise right now means she'll somehow know I made it, through whatever mystical forces govern her crazy existence, and she'll hold me to it forever."

Trixie stared. "You ponies are all crazy."

"Oh, you don't know the half of it." She smiled back at Trixie. "But I promise, your secrets are safe with me, Trixie. I won't tell a soul." She looked up at the mirrors, still reflecting indistinct purple and blue shapes. "I know where I am and what I'm seeing, and I know how much it would hurt you if I ever broke your confidence, and," her smile faded and her gaze shifted towards the ground, "and I can't do anything to hurt you."

Trixie grimaced. "We're not having that 'are you leaving' conversation again, are we?"

"No," Twilight said with a shake of her head, "at this point it would probably be meaningless."

They walked on in silence for a moment, and Trixie looked forward into the darkness. "You really are too nice to deserve all this."

"Wha—?"

Trixie nodded up ahead; Twilight followed her gaze and blinked in surprise as the mirrors began to shift again. But this time it was Trixie that faded away with every step in their reflections—leaving only the shifting, distorted images of Twilight.

"This must be the part where you get to see how I look at you," Trixie said, with an awkward gaze at the floor.

They both came to a stop and Twilight tilted Trixie's chin up to look into her eyes. "Trixie, whatever is in there, I promise, I'm not going to hold it against you."

"Promise, huh?"

"I do." Twilight smiled. "The princess did say not to take everything here at face value, after all."

"Yes, well, we'll see, won't we?"

They continued on together and Twilight steeled herself for the visions ahead. Promise or not, her heart began to beat faster at the thought of finally figuring out just what it was Trixie felt about her—and the fear of what the answer might be began to crawl up her spine.

The images of her were everywhere—and she could hardly recognize herself in any of them. She saw herself immersed in books, but ignoring everything around her—even her friends, even Spike, even Trixie. She saw herself treating Trixie the way she had treated Pinkie while trying to figure out those blasted "Pinkie senses." She saw herself as a bully, wielding the Elements of Harmony over Trixie's head.

"This...this isn't me," she whispered.

Trixie looked at her sadly. "You promised."

"I-I know, but..."

One of the mirrors showed her on the road, as the Great and Powerful Trixie's bumbling, hopeless assistant, the butt of Trixie's jokes, the laughingstock of her comedy act. She flinched at the thought of being Trixie's sidekick.

Trixie noticed her expression and heaved a sigh. "I know."

Twilight smiled back sadly. "I guess you aren't the kind of pony who would look at anyone as an equal."

The two ponies continued ahead another step—and then Twilight blinked at the telltale feeling of magic in the air. She shoved Trixie to the side with a yelp—and not a moment too soon, as a blinding, sparking column of magic came slamming down on the ground between them. Twilight and Trixie scrambled back to their feet ahead of the rippling mirrors—and from their shimmering surface emerged another unicorn with a purple hide and streaked mane.

Trixie scowled. "Well, that's not portentous or anything."

Horn sparking with bright electricity, the ghostly Twilight Sparkle stepped forward with a murderous gleam in her eyes. Twilight's jaw dropped as the ghost's horn flashed dangerously; Trixie jumped aside as it fired a pulsing blast straight towards her.

"We're doing this again, are we?!" Trixie snapped, and she shot a glare at Twilight—the one that had come in with her. "Genius, do your thing!"

"What?!"

"It's another puzzle! Figure it out!" Trixie threw herself to the ground to dodge another blast. "Because I'm getting really tired of this!"

Twilight looked back in disbelief at her ghostly self, and noticed that it had changed; it wasn't quite Twilight Sparkle. This apparition was taller, gaunter, with a longer horn, and eyes flickering red. She threw herself in between the ghost and Trixie—but as usual, the image was unaffected. Orbs of pink light flashed into existence overhead, and bright bolts of lightning came streaking down to send Trixie skittering back in terror.

"This can't be how you see me!" Twilight wailed. She glared up at the darkness above. "It can't be! Not if she took control of you to save me!"

Trixie yelped in fear as the ghostly unicorn seized one of her back legs with a tendril of magic and held her aloft, upside-down, sparks dancing around her. Twilight whipped around, eyes wide in disbelief, as her translucent image stalked forward. Trixie reared back and lashed out with her free back hoof, hard enough to smack the ghostly Twilight in the face and knock the phantom back—and that was enough to weaken the magic and send Trixie tumbling to the floor. She sprang back up and backed away with a frightened squeak, and the ground shook as the ghost gathered power to its horn.

"This must be something about how you see me," Twilight murmured, and wracked her brain for an explanation. "One of...one of those images in the mirrors! You thought I was just here to use you, like a science project or something? You thought I was humiliating you—"

"You were humiliating me!" Trixie barked.

The ghostly Twilight reared back and called down a storm of lightning bolts from overhead; Trixie shrieked and curled into a ball as dark magic rained down around her.

"I'm sorry!" Twilight cried. "I...I just don't understand!"

With a shudder, the ground cracked open around Trixie and flung her into the air; glimmering cords of magic wrapped around her legs and brought her back down to the floor with a crash. The ghostly Twilight stalked forward victoriously, sparks dancing off the end of her horn.

The blue unicorn glowered up at her phantasmal foe. "You must have come from me," she growled, "but I have no idea how..."

"Is this what you were afraid I'd do to you?" Twilight asked. The phantom charged a spell at the tip of its horn. "Trixie!"

"It is!" Trixie clamped her eyes shut. "Of course it is!"

The phantom stopped, as though frozen; Twilight blinked incredulously.

"Y-You thought..." She shook her head. "You still think...you still think I'd do this to you?"

Trixie wriggled against the ghost's crushing grip. "I guess the doubt has never really left me."

"H-How?!" Tears welled in Twilight's eyes. "How could you still think I'd—"

"Well, for all those great big uncomfortable conversations we keep having, you've never exactly told me just why you fell in love with me!" Trixie squirmed as the phantom's grip tightened. "And, you know, doubt kind of does stuff like this!"

The ghostly image of Twilight flashed a furious scowl and flung Trixie to the ground. She struggled back to her feet, but then a wave of magic shoved her onto her back, and the lightning came down around her again. She slowly backed away as the phantom advanced.

"I-I don't know!" Twilight cried.

Her translucent counterpart glowered and launched a blast that singed the end of Trixie's mane. "I don't think that was an acceptable answer!" Trixie shrieked.

Twilight buried her face in her hooves and tried to scrub away the tears. "I—I really don't! I just...I wanted someone who shared my interests, because no one in Ponyville likes magic the way I do!"

Trixie blinked in surprise as Twilight's phantasmal image began to flicker, and the magic began to weaken. The ghost glanced over its shoulder in alarm, and then drove Trixie back into the ground with a shimmering burst of magic.

"A-And I-I've never been in love before," Twilight went on, tears sliding down her cheeks, "and I don't know what to do and I'm so afraid I'll mess up, but I know I have to make you happy, because that's—"

The phantom charged forward and pointed its horn at Trixie's throat; the blue unicorn backed up until she reached the canal wall, and trembled in fear as the ghost's hateful red eyes bored into her.

"I don't know why I'm in love with you," Twilight whimpered, "I just...I just am!"

Trixie tore her eyes away from the ghostly version of Twilight and pointed them towards the real one. "A-And that's why you keep worrying about me leaving—"

"If that's what it takes to make you happy, then fine!" Twilight cried. "Just tell me!"

The phantom flashed; its eyes went wide—and then it dissolved in a puff of light. Trixie leapt to her feet and backed away as the ghostly image of Twilight Sparkle vanished, and she found her place at the real Twilight Sparkle's side—where the purple unicorn was getting back up and staring in surprise at the sight before her.

"Did that...?" She looked back at Trixie. "Does that mean..."

Trixie slumped back tiredly. "I bloody well hope so. I'm getting tired of this."

"No," Twilight said, and put a hoof on Trixie's shoulder, "does that...does that mean you believe me...?"

"Wha—of course I do."

"Really?"

Trixie waved a hoof at the spot where Twilight's menacing apparition had once stood. "It was good enough for your evil twin there, apparently." She looked over at Twilight, at the tears still streaked on her face, at the imploring look in her eyes, and her irritated expression melted away; Twilight squirmed as the look on her face swirled with emotion. "And...the worst part..."

"What is it?"

Trixie looked away with tears trickling down her face. "You're the kind of unicorn my parents would have wanted to have." She looked back at Twilight with bleary eyes. "You really are more powerful than me, and that's the worst part. Because you're what they would have wanted. You're what I wanted to be. To be good enough for them." She shook her head. "And I ran around Equestria putting on magic shows and bragging and telling embellished, made-up stories so that I could be what they wanted. And then I came to Ponyville and I met you, and you were everything that I wanted to be, and then you took me in and showed me so much compassion and fell in love with me, and you were the only one who stood up for me against your friends, and..." She waved a hoof despairingly. "And yet you're still better than me."

Twilight looked back up towards the mirrors, where she saw a thousand images of herself—but none that was truly her. "Then...did you not fall in love with me?"

Trixie groaned and put her head in her hooves. "I don't know."

Twilight pulled Trixie back to her feet and they locked gazes. "Well, however you feel about me," she said, as tears brimmed in her eyes, "don't ever forget that I mean it when I say I love you. I don't care if your parents didn't want you. I do. And I don't care if underneath all the bravado you're a fragile pony who just wants to be loved. Because so am I. I don't know how it happened. I don't know why. I just am. And I want you to be happy," she swallowed the lump in her throat and hugged Trixie, "no matter what it takes."

Trixie sighed. "And that's why I said that you're too nice to deserve all this."

"I don't care. We're going to get your magic back so you can be you again—whether it's with me," Twilight sniffled, "or not."

They shared a kiss for an instant—and then they jerked apart and whirled around at the sound of a furious, earth-shattering, wall-shaking scream. The trappings of the tunnel of love dissolved into darkness; the ground shuddered beneath their hooves; and with a mighty roar, the world shifted again. Twilight and Trixie pressed against each other as the mirrors came down around them—and behind the mirrors, they found themselves under the crumbling big top, in the center ring, surrounded by decaying bleachers. And in the center of it all, sporting a furious scowl, stood Nightmare Storm.

"I don't know what it will take to drive you two insipid creatures apart," she snarled, and her smoky mane thrashed and flailed like an angry, captured beast, "but one way or another, Twilight Sparkle, you will die."

The two unicorns dug their hooves in. "Still not accepting defeat, are you?"

"I have hardly been defeated," Nightmare Storm hissed, and the ground shook again. Twilight and Trixie shared a nervous glance. "Because I am still here—because there is still something, little Trixie, that you hate."

Twilight glowered back. "Give it up already, Nightmare Storm! You've lost!"

The Nightmare's eyes flashed with raw fury. "I assure you, Twilight Sparkle, I have not."

The air trembled, the shadows parted, and the ring lit up at the dreaded footfalls of an Ursa Minor—with the ghostly specter of Trixie on its back.

———

Comments

[RaZz0r]

Oh this is getting better and better i cant wait for the next chapter.
This story really deserves more love then its getting.
Keep up the good work!

[RTStephens]

Well, this was packed with !!$YMB0LY$0M!!

Trixie's mind is a danger-field, and she calls other ponies crazy. I loved all the imagery and how both Twilight and Trixie had to decipher what was going on. Especially since poor Trixie took the brunt of it.

I also liked the reversal with the last challenge. Twilight was the one to poor our her heart for Trixie to overcome that fear. Nice.

Even after all that, Trixie still isn't sure how she really feels. The mind plays tricks on us all...

BUT! Ursa Minor time! Wouldn't be a Trixie story without it!

[Mooncalf]

Wow. I can honestly say that while there are plenty of Twixie shipfics out there, none I've read before go this length to portray the struggle of them getting to terms with the relationship - usually it's just about getting over the antagonism and then skipping ahead to the Warm And Fuzzy Feeling / Happy Ever After Ending. Here, Twilight has a massive workload for a reward that might just up and leave her in the end. It's intriguing, because we have no idea whatsoever how it'll end up.

Can't help but think that Twilight's friends may be doing more damage than they think with their overprotective routine, though, seeing as Trixie are taking them seriously. More motivation for her to pack up and leave Ponyville and its murderous inhabitants when it's all over. I dated a girl for a while whose dad really loved to pull the 'casual threat of bodily harm' thing each and every time I was visiting. He probably thought it was a funny joke. Eventually I decided she wasn't worth the constant discomfort and broke up with her.

Personal anecdotes aside, I was rather glad to see the end of Inferno's mook squad. They were pretty fun, at least Castor, Pollux and Whiplash, but they had it coming, and their trouncing was satisfying after their constant dancing around the protagonists and making them look like fools. Especially Comet. And Lazuli. Oh dear, that was an extremely stupid thing of her to do. Wow.

I am eagerly awaiting the resolution.

[ForSpite]

What the heck, didn't I set aside the 21st chapter of this to read later? Now I return to find it gone.