//------------------------------//
// I'm Going Slightly Mad 
// Story: It's a Kind of Magic 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
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Celestia’s sun had, at last, risen in the east, as Luna’s moon set in the west. The birds sang merrily in their trees, willow-tit-willow-tit-willow and so forth; the ponies set up their market stalls, Caramel hailing Golden Harvest and Big Macintosh as they trotted past; the dew dried slowly from the grass; an alabaster unicorn trotted alongside a towering purple dragon.
“You know,” Spike said at length, “I always heard it was the stallion who walked the mare home.”
Rarity smiled up at her drakefriend— her drakefriend, she could still scarcely credit it— and said, “Well, darling, I’ve never held much in the way of tradition anyway. You know me, always innovating! Besides, I wanted to talk to Twilight about Sweetie’s progression in magical skills.”
Spike chuckled. “Speaking of, shouldn’t we have waited until she was actually awake before we left? I don’t doubt that she can take care of herself for a half-hour, but—”
“Darling, it’s the weekend. She’ll sleep until noon if I let her. I’m sure I’ll be home well in time to cook breakfast.”
“Right. Okay. Sure.” Spike grinned. “Have I mentioned how beautiful you look this morning?”
“About three times, yes.”
“Well, it’s worth mentioning again.”
The fashionista smiled broadly. “Oh, you are sweet.”
“You know what else is sweet?”
“What?” Rarity asked, blushing
“Pancakes,” Spike said, sniffing the air. “I believe Twilight’s been cooking.”
“Mm, lovely,” Rarity agreed. “Perhaps we can discuss Sweetie over breakfast, then.”
“By all means,” Spike said gallantly, sweeping a claw up in the direction of the castle’s front doors. “Let’s see if we can’t find the kitchen.”


***

Twilight nursed a cup of coffee quietly while Trixie perused the newspaper. “Trixie still has misgivings about this plan.”
“Don’t worry. I know my friends. They’ll warm up to you soon enough. Discord was far worse than anything you did, and now he and Fluttershy take tea every week. Starlight tried to erase us from history, and I took her on as my personal student. Sunset Shimmer— well, never mind that now. It might be a little rocky at first, but I promise, soon you’ll be one of the gang.”
“Sunset Shimmer?”
“A story for another day,” Twilight said. “Anyway, the important thing is that you make a good first impression. Er, fourth impression.”
At that moment, the kitchen door swung open. “Surprise, darling,” Rarity sang.
Trixie’s eyes went wide. “DRAGON!” she screamed, diving under the table and knocking over a chair. The chair fell backwards into the counter, knocking over a saltshaker. The shaker rolled backwards onto the thaumic mixer, which started up, knocking over the jar of spoons. The jar tipped onto the spatula for the pancakes. One pancake went flying through the air and landed with a moist ‘smack!’ on Rarity’s gobsmacked face.
Twilight blinked. “...Fifth impression.”


***

Twilight had gotten Trixie onto the sofa with a glass of warm milk to relax her nerves. Spike and Rarity had waited in the kitchen, very patiently under the circumstances. But now, they both wanted answers.
“Uh, good morning,” Twilight said, smiling weakly as she reentered the kitchen. “Please, help yourself to some pancakes.”
“I appreciate the thought, darling,” Rarity said coolly, “but I’ve already had quite enough.”
“...Right. You know she didn’t do that on purpose?”
“Well, that much is obvious,” Rarity agreed. “Little Miss Egomania would scarcely found a plan on hiding under a table.”
Twilight frowned. “Rarity, that’s—”
“Not very nice? Perhaps. But when has she been nice to anypony in this town, hm?”
“Rarity. She arrived last night hoping to talk to Starlight. She was willing to walk all the way to Canterlot, in that weather. Surely you can’t hate her that much?”
Rarity pursed her lips. “A trick. It was—”
“She broke down in tears,” Twilight said stiffly. “She couldn’t stop crying. She actually forgot to refer to herself in the third pony.”
Rarity worried at her lower lip. “Well… that may be…”
“I’m going to take her in,” Twilight said firmly. “She’ll be my new student or… or… we’ll work something out.”
“Take her in? Live with her?” Rarity asked, incredulous. “After everything she did?”
“How long ago were you saying that about Discord? Or Starlight?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.
“One of them betrayed us to Tirek, and the other tried to mind-control us, and those are just the worst parts of what they did after ‘reforming,’” Rarity retorted. “Spike, how do you feel about all of this? About sharing a roof with Trixie?”
The dragon looked up from his massive pile of topaz-encrusted pancakes. “Huh? Uh, okay, I guess. I mean, this way, we can keep an eye on her, right?”
Rarity frowned. “Hmph. Well, I suppose it’s your own business to whom you extend invitations, Twilight,” she said in a tone that implied exactly the reverse. “Just do remember how things have gone in the past while she’s been around, won’t you?”
Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but by the time she had thought of something to say, the kitchen door was swinging on its hinges. Spike took another bite of pancake, watching Twilight meditatively. “You really think this is a good idea?” he asked.
She sighed, slouching against the cabinets. “I wish I knew, Spike,” she said quietly. “I know that there’s good in her. She helped save us from the Changelings once, let’s not forget that…”
“But she’s still Trixie,” Spike said. “That tends to wear on a lot of nerves around here.”
“Ugh.” Twilight buried her face in her hooves. “I can do this, Spike. I’m the actual Princess of Friendship.”
Spike frowned. “Was that title ever actually, like… made official? Like, you’re a princess, but was it actually ever said ‘of Friendship’ or ‘of Magic’?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. The important thing is, that’s what I am, and that means that I am going to help Trixie intergrate into Ponyville even if it kills me.”
Spike grimaced and Twilight winced. “I tempted fate, didn’t I.”
“Kinda, yeah.”
Twilight groaned and curled up into the fetal position.


***

Trixie paced up and down the library. The fluffy white bathrobe, much the worse for wear with sweat and mucus, lay discarded on the floor. Her horn was glowing softly, but she wasn't actually casting anything. Her mind was moving far too quickly for that. What would happen now? Rarity would speak her piece, and perhaps Spike would as well, and Twilight would listen. Of course she would listen, and remember, and she would change her mind. And then Trixie would be kicked back out on her flank. She had been so close! So very, very close to… something.
Not that it mattered now. She would, at the least, appeal to Sparkle for help moving her wagon out of the mud it had settled in. Perhaps she would mention that it would enable her to leave town more quickly.
Her legs gave out and she flumped to the floor. What next, she wondered. Where could she go? What could she do? There was still Starlight Glimmer, of course. Perhaps she could ingratiate herself with King Thorax’s hive. She could go back to the rock farm. Discord she ruled out more or less immediately. And yet, none of those options appealed to her. There was something about Ponyville that made her want to stay, some strange emotion that compelled her…
The door to the library swung open on quiet hinges, but Trixie’s ears were very sharp. She inhaled, then rose to her hooves. Large green eyes studied her, wary and curious all at once. “...Spike, is it not?”
“Trixie.”
“So. You are Sparkle’s emissary, then.” She stifled a pain in the pit of her stomach. Very well. Trixie brought no luggage. She will be gone as soon as her wagon is recovered.”
The dragon blinked. “Uh.”
Trixie scowled. “What else? What other task has that albicant hussy talked your mistress into? Don’t give any thought to Trixie’s feelings, she’s sure.”
Spike’s eyes went narrow. “Hey, there’s no call for that kind of language.”
She sneered. “You will pardon Trixie for not thinking the best of a mare who wishes no more than to see Trixie’s behind crossing over the Ponyville border. A wish which is—”
“Not granted,” Spike interrupted, his voice as smooth and hard as his scales, his emerald-green eyes fixed on Trixie.
The magician blinked. “Come again? Trixie thought that Rarity wanted her gone.”
“Yeah. She said as much,” Spike said neutrally. “Twilight listened, then said that she was going to keep you as long as you wanted to stay. You’re getting my old job, by the way, but keep your hooves off my old room.”
“But…” Trixie trailed off.
“Are you seriously complaining about this?”
“No! No. Trixie is not complaining, no. She is, however, somewhat… confused? Rarity is Spark— Twilight’s friend, is she not?”
Spike cocked his head. “Yyyeah? Her friend, my marefriend, element of Generosity…”
“And Spar— Twilight chose to listen to Trixie over her?”
“Apparently,” Spike said, in a tone that could cut glass.
Trixie looked lost. Spike regarded her perhaps a little less coolly than before. “You really have no idea what you’re doing, do you.”
“...Not really,” Trixie admitted. “But Trixie thinks that she would like to keep doing it.”
The dragon let out a slight ‘hrm. It was a thoughtful sound, as though he had just read a peculiar factoid in an encyclopedia. “Twilight said I shouldn’t ask why you came here unless you wanted to talk about it. Do you want to talk about it?”
She thought about that. Talking to Twilight had, oddly enough, lightened the load on her shoulders. Maybe it was a princess power or something. Maybe it was just a Twilight thing. Or maybe, just maybe, it was a ‘friend’ thing. (Wait. Was Twilight her friend now? When had that happened, exactly?) But oh, it had hurt like pulling an ingrown hoof, protracted and agonizing. “Not yet,” she said simply.
Spike nodded once. “Twilight’s up airing out a guest room,” he replied, as though the question and answer had never occurred. “She’ll be up there for a little while, and she asked me to take you around town.”
Trixie went very pale and still. “I…. what… I, no, she can’t, I…”
He frowned. “Trixie?”
“I haven’t prepared!” the unicorn said shrilly, not quite screaming, but getting close. “I, I haven’t figured out how to greet them, or how to apologize, or the proper order to go in. Should I visit the mayor first? It never does to be on the bad side of local authority, Trixie has discovered that the hard way. Should she visit those she was kinder to, or those she was crueller towards? Snips and Snails! I, but, can’t, I!” She twitched once, and vanished in a puff of smoke.
Spike blinked slowly. “Huh. Introducing an antisocial, skittish unicorn to Ponyville. It’s deja vu all over again.”


***

Rarity marched down the high street. She did not ‘storm’. Ladies do not storm, nor do they sulk. It was a completely justifiable and well-measured response to what was, all told, a really very jarring upset in her world. If anypony had anything to say to the contrary, well, she had a rather powerful bucking kick and extremely good aim.
Indeed, though she was positively exploding on the inside, on the outside, she was the very model of calm and collected. A single hair sprang out of place on her coiffure. Her left eye was twitching erratically. She was fine. Absolutely in control of her faculties.
Cheerilee frowned as her conversational partner at the apple stall fell silent. Not that the farmer wasn’t usually silent, of course, but she had learned over the years that Macintosh Apple had a variety of silences which were, in their own way, more informative than words. There was the companionable silence that told her, “I’m here for you. Talk for as long as you need.” There was the awkward silence which had been on display for weeks after the Love Poison incident, a silence which she had shared. Mac was a sweetheart, but she had eyes on other prospects. As, apparently, did Mac. The farmer had been sweet on the local librarian-cum-princess for some time now. Cheerilee had been the first one they had confided in.
There was the rare stormy silence that accompanied fractured tree trunks and doors which were very nearly slammed, the distant silences which outlined two elder figures now long gone, the awkward stammering silences that occurred in the presence of a certain purple princess. Then there was the “Oh sweet buck, hide me,” silence that was now currently being broadcast like radio static.
She watched, slightly amused, as the hulking farmer tried to shrink behind the stand, and turned to see what the fuss was about. Immediately, she wished that she had just vaulted over the counter and hidden under her larger friend’s barrel. Rarity was on the warpath. Morbid curiosity warred with self preservation, but eventually concern for her friend won out. “Rarity?” Cheerilee called. “Are you alright?”
The unicorn’s head snapped towards the schoolteacher, and suddenly Cheerilee was reminded of the time Ditzy Doo had lent out one of her late husband’s old journals, full as it was of peculiar stories and drawings and there had been some that just seemed to cut right through you like you were as ephemeral as dust… Cheerilee realized that she was thinking in a run-on sentence, and firmly cut herself off with a mental stroke of red ink.
Rarity smiled. It might have been a nice smile, at one point, but it had since been refracted through a kaleidoscope. The unicorn’s pupils were pinpricks. “Why Miss Cheerilee!” she trilled. “I’m perfectly fine, thank you, and how are you today?  And you, Macintosh?”
“Doing well, thank you,” Cheerilee answered.
“Eeyup,” Mac muttered, continuing to try shrinking behind the apple stall.
“Ahahahahahaha!” Rarity’s pleasant laughter was manic. Cheerilee began to regret saying anything at all.
“You know, it’s funny,” Rarity said, her voice like silk rubbing on amber. “I just stopped by Twilight’s castle to see Spike home, such a gentledrake, he kept Sweetie and I company during last night’s downpour. You’ll never guess who wound up staying the night at Twilight’s!”
Cheerilee cocked her head, and Macintosh stopped trying to become one with the apples. This was mainly due to the farmer’s fervent wish to be in the horseshoes of whomever Rarity was about to name.
The unicorn looked from face to face, a maniacal expression of twisted triumph on her features. “I’ll give you a clue,” she said. “She’s Great and Powerful.”
Cheerilee would swear that her heart stopped. “Trixie…”
Mac blinked laconically, but for once Cheerilee didn’t have time to translate. “I need to go,” she said shortly. “Goodbye Mac. Thank you, Rarity.” She trotted away. She would need to visit two houses, and quickly, before their children woke up…
Rarity smiled after the teacher before trotting away herself, tail and ears raised slightly higher in her moment of triumph. Mac frowned, brow creasing. Applejack would need to be informed at the earliest opportunity. Preferably not by somepony who would only make her reaction worse. Their eyes flickered over the market stalls. “Caramel!” he called. “Cover fer me!”
The yellowish stallion gave a brief nod, but Mac paid it no mind. They needed to get to Sweet Apple Acres, pronto.


***

Trixie had been dragged out from under the couch by her tail, kicking and flailing the entire time. Twilight had stepped in for a brief moment some five minutes ago, but after receiving a very long-suffering look from Spike, she left again. The dragon huffed. One major difference between dealing with Trixie and dealing with Twilight? Trixie was a heck of a lot more tenacious about holding on to things. Well. There was one good response to that. He lifted the entire couch into the air, unicorn and all, and exhaled a gout of green flame onto it.
The furnishing was consumed utterly, swirling into ash and dust and green sparks, which settled back on the floor and turned into a couch once more. Trixie suddenly became very aware that her hooves were no longer locked in a death grip around a wooden leg, and she fell silent. Spike held her up to his eye level, gripping her by the tail, her forehooves dangling two feet off the ground. She stared him square in the face, sullen and silent. “Okay. Let’s try this again,” he said firmly. “We’re going into town. Specifically, we’re going to Sugarcube Corner, partly because I doubt anypony will be happier to see you than Pinkie, and partly because I want doughnuts. Do you want doughnuts?”
Trixie hesitated. “...Perhaps,” she admitted.
That was good enough for Spike. “If I set you down, you have to promise you won’t try to hide again. Otherwise, I swear, I will carry you into town like this.”
“Trixie will behave.”
Spike let out a small sigh of relief. “Good. That’s good,” he said, letting her down gently. “You don’t need a plan of attack or whatever if you’re just trying to make friends.”
Trixie flinched, and Spike promptly regretted his choice of words. “Sorry. What I mean is, just be yourself.”
“Trixie once conquered this town and magically tormented its inhabitants for weeks.”
“You also kind of saved Equestria from Chrysalis. I think, on the whole, they balance out.”
Trixie said nothing, but Spike could tell that she was dubious. Curious, really. Her usual blustering self-confidence was cracked in several places. He could almost see through it. Curious indeed.