Luna and Trixie met in the royal bedroom of the Princess of the Night. Luna sat down on her bed, Trixie sitting on the floor, looking giddy. “We cannot do this for thee often,” Luna said.
“Trixie knows... Trixie still wants to try...” said Trixie. Luna lit up her horn, a blue haze coming off it and hitting Trixie in the head. The blue unicorn fell over, instantly unconscious. Luna then closed her eyes and a beam of light fired from her horn to Trixie's head.
(***)
Luna and Trixie were now standing in a hallway full of doors. The hall appeared to continue on forever, both behind and in front of them. Trixie danced happily. “Let's see Twilight beat this!” she said. “Trixie is in the dream-scape!” She looked back and forth a few times. “So... which door, which door?”
“Come child, we'll get to him,” she moved forward, her mane flowing behind her. She smiled watching the excitement of the magician turned bard.
Trixie gave a quick practice tune as they went alone, “I'll tell you a tale of reason and woe, in all of the world you reap what you sow...”
“Thee really do not have to warm up thy voice, tis the dream world, thy lungs are not really there. Thy body here is just a projection,” Luna explained.
Trixie cleared her throat. “Trixie knows, just like Trixie talking about herself in third person, force of habit,”
Luna smiled and chuckled. “We wouldn't know anything about a force of habit.” Luna stopped at a door, lit up her horn and it opened. The two ponies walked into the room behind the door. Inside there was a room with a large carpet over a hardwood floor and a fire place. A small reddish brown colt sat in front of the fire. When he looked in their direction he got up and ran to Luna and jumped up, hugging her immediately. Luna held him for a while and then let go, the colt immediately then jumped to hug Trixie. Trixie closed her eyes and embraced him. She pulled away and set him down.
“This is one of the reasons Trixie changed her career. A story teller can be so much more personal than just a performer.” The colt looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Hmm... you thought Trixie was still a magician right?” he nodded. “That's how Trixie became famous, when there was a confrontation between her and Twilight years ago. But the official stories got derailed more and more from the truth as time passed. Trixie can sing for you the tale of what really happened, would you like that?” The colt nodded enthusiastically. Trixie waved for him to go a small distance away and he obeyed.
Luna stood a few feet away as well. Trixie closed her eyes. Part of the room started to change. Around Trixie the floor disappeared as well as the walls around her, the area for a moment going black and blank. Then under her blue wooden boards appeared and a red curtain appeared behind her. She smiled, opening her eyes.
Trixie began to sing and perform. Her dance was a few simple steps, swaying side to side, spinning and tapping her hooves to a subtle beat that she spoke along with. Her singing was more speaking in rhythm with a few words of a melodious tune spread here and there.
“Trixie, the mare of the show, her story begins as a child back at ten. She loved the art of deceiving the eye, making things that are not, appear that they are. A love for real magic was always there, but more a fascination with how to make it appear.” Trixie slammed her hooves down on the stage, fireworks erupting around her as she swished her hair around her head. The head of a manticore, made of smoke, appeared behind her and roared, shaking the entire dream room.
“As Trixie grew, three years went by, her cutie mark appeared and she found the love of her town as she could make them see magic, magic that even powerful unicorns could not make. For a few bits, an earth pony could see a whole house float on command, or see the whole stage disappear and reappear behind him-” The stage under Trixie, and Trixie herself, disappeared and suddenly appeared behind the colt, Trixie continuing to perform as if nothing had happened as her audience followed her.
“Trixie fell in love with her show, becoming the mare for the show, the mare of the show, and for a time, so did the world love the show. Creatures made of light danced on the stage,” a bear made of lights started to dance next to Trixie, moving like a ballerina, spinning and twirling, even wearing a goofy tootoo. “and projections of light and reflections of mirrors made any illusion possible. The children laughed and their parents ooed and awed. But as the world moved on, she did not, not seeing that things had changed, and she too needed to change. In a town far away, a real magic user had come, ponies were seeing real magic, magic was not a show, and so, they began to shun the show.”
“Over time, Trixie's illusion that she still had an audience fell apart. Fewer and fewer ponies came to her show, and her tricks became less and less to look upon. Eventually even she conceded, to herself, in the dark, the show... was a side show. She became angry at this Twilight pony, destroying her show. She packed her bags and journeyed across the land, looking for a new following, but she was laughed at, told to get off the stage, told that when magic is real, who needs a show? Sad and resentful, she traveled to the home of Twilight to perform there, to show that this pony's magic was not enough to out show her shows. Who was this Twilight? Did she not know? Trixie was the mare of the show, how dare she be showed up!” The room rumbled as Trixie's voice started to sound otherworldly. The effect stopped suddenly on the next verse however.
“Twilight and her friends booed and hissed, insulting the mare of the show, Trixie trying to show herself better than them all. She looked good, but she knew in her heart, no one was buying her act. She couldn't even look better than those who looked down on her. Trixie hung her head in shame when she left the stage that day.”
“In this sad state, two colts found the mare of the show. They praised her and told her they loved her. They wanted to know her story- so she made up several. She told them lies, lies of how she defeated a bear, a dragon and a mythical beast of tremendous size. She got so wrapped up in their applause, she never thought if her lies had gone further than her show before. She was someone's hero again.” The image of two colts, one tall and gangling the other short and stubby, appeared as projections, dancing beside Trixie. “The mare of the show looked down on the two colts, treated them like idiots, waved off the applause they gave her, the applause she had so longed for, she still treated them like slime. Like they owed her... like she didn't owe them.”
On the stage Trixie hung her head. “Perhaps then it was fate, a misplaced action of those two colts, got their idol in deep trouble. They lead a monster to town for her to fight, thinking to show their hero to the world... Trixie was exposed for the fraud she was, all her illusions were useless in front of a real beast, and in front of all the ponies who had mocked and heckled her... was it really more than she deserved?” the images of the colts disappeared. “Trixie, the mare of the show, fell from grace, her show had died, no longer did she wish to perform, just as well, as she soon found no one wanted to see her show. Ponies believed she had attacked an innocent town for her own pride. The mare of the show seethed with rage,” red smoke welled up around the mare on the stage.
“She swore to have revenge on the ponies who wronged her, not realizing the one guilty of the most wrong was her. She returned to the town of Twilight with a powerful amulet which granted her real magic. No more did she have her show, she was a tool of revenge alone, no longer the mare of the show. When Trixie found that amulet, that was the day, the very minute, the moment the mare of the show died.” A necklace appeared around Trixie's neck, glowing red with the image the head and wings of an alicorn. Then her eyes glowed as well.
“Trixie attacked the town of Twilight for real this time,” images of six ponies, one pink, another blue, another purple, orange, yellow and white appeared, all of them falling to the ground, the projections slowly fading before Trixie's form on the stage as she glared down at them, eyes still glowing. Again Trixie hung her head. “While Trixie was there, the colts met her again, they bowed to her and begged to hear more stories. She told them her stories in exchange to treat them like slaves...” Trixie started to cry. She waved off Luna as she was about to come up to the stage. “For the good of all, Trixie was defeated, humiliated again, deceived into giving up her amulet, the real magic of Twilight then triumphing. Trixie had now been shamed twice, this time, the fault hers and hers alone.” the stage went dark.
The stage stayed dark for almost a full minute. Then a light showed on Trixie's face. “Trixie ran from the town, filled with anger again, she had said she was sorry, but in her heart she had yet to change. Two foals found her, crying into the dirt. She looked up to see they were the same colts as before, the ones she had abused.” The images of the two colts appeared again, this time however, they looked exhausted. “She yelled at them, calling them names, names they should have called her. Stupid, selfish, incompetent, slow, unable to learn- and yet, they still wanted to hear more stories from her. Finally, Trixie fell on her knees to the two ponies she had hurt most, the two who had stood by her, her friends, whose names she had never even bothered to learn. She begged their forgiveness. They did not even acknowledge she had done wrong.”
Beside Trixie, the images of the colts changed, holding their heads high. “Trixie continued to tell them stories, new stories, stories of herself for a time, but after a time, she made them about the other ponies she had hurt, turning her enemies into their heroes. As this time passed for her, she started to use her lights to make the stories come to life, her smoke to make things appear and disappear and her wires to make their toys comes to life and play with each other before the delighted colts. Trixie's joy started to return, the mare of the show was reborn!”
Toys made of light shot off the stage, toy dinosaurs riding on trains, a cow pony running alongside one of the trains even two pony toys that looked like the colts on stage appeared planting a toy flag on a toy moon. “In the cheers and laughs of those two colts, Trixie found her passion again. She wasn't a pony of anger, she was the mare of the show, if the show changed, so would she. She left her friends in tears, but swore not to give up on the show again.” The two projections of the colts both bowed and faded from view.
“Trixie on that day, swore to change. She would never again look down on her fans, she would always believe in the power of the show, she would show the love she had been shown. She would tell stories around the Equestria, and as she traveled, so would the stories those colts loved travel. And so the mare of the show lives on. Once, the Great and Powerful Trixie, now she is the Great and Musical, but always, she is the mare, the mare of the show.”