I was trotting from home to school on a lovely and warm Saturday morning, which showed how big an impact on my life Candela (my former pony teacher back in Cowwarr) had. It was a weekend, and I was going to school to study.
Turning the corner from the side-street that led to the dormitory and onto the main thoroughfare, I had no warning at all before a rush of pink wings delivered the very image of pony femininity to my side. "Good morning, teacher."
Cadance groaned and reached a wing up to rub her forehead. "What would it take for you to never call me that again?"
"If I told you that," I said, "Shining Armor would freak out. Or maybe get ideas. One or the other."
For a moment Cadance looked to be about to hold her line that she and Shining were just good friends, but I watched her wings slump. "It might actually wake him up. He barely even notices me sometimes."
"He notices, trust me on that." We started walking together to the school. "He pays a lot of attention to you, but I don't know if he realizes exactly how great you two are together. Oh! I have another friend coming today, they don't need to study, but we were going to have lunch and catch up later, and I figured it would be fine if I invited her along for the day."
Shrugging her shoulders, Cadance made a noncommittal noise. "I'm fine with it so long as she doesn't talk too—"
A gray-blue cloud of smoke appeared with a bang, which startled both of us into stopping. As the smoke cleared, Trixie Lulamoon stood triumphant and posing. "Behold! It is I! The Great and Powerful Trixie!"
Something that becoming a pony had caused, that I was not in the least upset about, was a propensity to hug. I bounced forward on autopilot and caught Trixie before she managed another word. Trixie didn't take much hugging before she hugged back. "It's great to see you again, Trixie."
"You ruined my big introduction," Trixie said.
"Do you want to do it again, then?" I leaned back as I spoke. Trixie looked like she was a little upset, but I could see the bright edge come back to her eyes at the suggestion of a do-over.
Pulling free of the hug, Trixie jumped out of sight behind a nearby building's corner. "Pretend you don't notice me."
I cleared my throat. "We are just two simple ponies out on a walk!" Overacting was key, and I knew Trixie would pick up on it.
Cadance, however, was slow on the uptake. "What are you talking ab—"
A loud double-rapport of explosions rang, and a huge cloud of smoke appeared before us. When coughing came from within, however, it was obvious something had gone wrong. While I was still panicking, Cadance spread her wings and gave two big pumps of them.
Coughing and spluttering, Trixie sat in the middle of what had been a smoke cloud a moment ago. "The G-Great and,"—she coughed some more—"Powerful Trixie is here."
I stomped my hooves on the ground in applause, then had to bump Cadance with an elbow to get her to do the same. "That was amazing, Trixie!"
"You two are both crazy," Cadance said.
Trixie and I looked each other in the eyes and nodded at the same time. "Yup!" we both said and laughed.
After Cadance groaned and walked past us a little, Trixie leaned closer. "You said you were getting tutored, but by Princess Mi Amore Cadenza?"
I nodded and started walking after Cadance with Trixie at my side the whole way. "Yeah. Cadance is pretty awesome, though her special somepony is a little dense." As I said it, I watched Trixie's eyebrow rise. "She was actually just asking me for a way to wake him up to the amazing mare who has him in her sights."
"Simple!" Trixie said. "All we need to do is put on a big show. Get him on stage to be the assistant while we pretend the act is going wrong, and then rather than one of us, he saves the princess."
Cadance's ears had been twitching, following our words, but upon hearing the plan she dropped back to walk at our side. "That's actually not a bad plan. How do we do it?"
"It will have to be next week," I said. "I have Sundays with my magic tutor, and with how much I'm improving I don't want to skip even an hour of that."
"Hold on." Trixie narrowed her eyes at me. "You mean to say you're studying Saturday and Sunday, as well as having school all week?" When I nodded, her eyes widened with shock. "You are such an egg-head!"
"You're one to talk," I said. "You beg and plead with an alien to help you get into a school."
"Trixie did not beg and plead!"
I couldn't stop myself, I giggled at her third-person (pony?) slip. "It's so cute when you do that talking-in-the-third-person thing. Working on it for your act?"
Prancing a few steps, Trixie tilted her head to the side. "The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn't have an act. She is too Great and—"
The Great and Powerful Trixie stopped when I booped her on the nose with a poke of my magic. "Come on. Let's head inside."
"The school? How—and why—would you study at the school?" Trixie seemed to dig her hooves in rather than walk the last few steps to the front door.
"How: I asked Princess Celestia. Why: this is better than bothering a dozen Royal Guard to visit Cadance in her rooms, and another dozen on the way out. Also, dorm rooms aren't built with alicorns in mind." I followed Cadance all the way to the door and held it open for Trixie.
"You just asked—" Trixie stared at me, mouth open. "You're in Princess Celestia's class?!"
I rolled my eyes. "Yes. Are you coming in?"
Trixie made a feminine, upward-inflecting grunt that almost caused me to giggle, then she trotted up the stairs and past me.
"What do you think they'll do, anyway? Rope you and drag you into a classroom to learn something on a Saturday?" I followed along until we caught up to Cadance.
All three of us turned into a classroom together. Rather than any kind of usual classroom layout, we used our horns to just push three desks so they faced each other.
Cadance grabbed out the first textbook with her magic and opened it to a bookmarked page. "Okay, recent history first. Let's start with the inflation of costs in Vanhoove—"
"Ugh!" Trixie practically howled in disgust. "You don't even have to explain this one. I was there. When the new dam was completed, the rush of new technology into the city made everypony want to buy the new things. This brought a lot of goods in but sent a lot of bits out. The result was less money in the city."
Rather than read the book, I listened to Trixie instead—taking notes. She put a more real-life spin on the event that the textbook would never be able to cover. As she described how hard it became for her and her father to afford to live there, however, she went silent.
"Trixie?" I asked.
"I—" Trixie Lulamoon halted. "The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn't wish to speak any further."
Putting my pencil down, I reached a hoof over to touch Trixie on the forehoof. At first, she jerked back a little, but I chased her limb with my own. "It's okay, Trixie. You don't need to say any more." I could see stark relief color her features. "Was there more to that question, Cadance?"
"No. Why don't we talk about this show idea?" Cadance asked.
Trixie seemed to unfold mentally again, and her face brightened. "A b-big chest with a false bottom. One of us can climb in and—"
I interrupted her by levitating a handkerchief from my saddlebags and wiping at her eyes. "Won't he be on stage?" As pink magic took hold of the cloth, I released it.
"Some magic fireworks for sound and light, a fantastic apprentice—that's you, Mike—who distracts him and the crowd from what lies within!" As she spoke, Trixie's full Trixiness returned more and more. "Maybe a joke or some slapstick, get everypony laughing, and while there is plenty of sound we swap."
"And then what?" Cadance asked. "Wait, 'Mike'?!"
Trixie looked at me, then to Cadance, then back to me again. "Isn't that your name?"
"I kinda changed it when I became a pony. And by I I mean my family. They said Mike didn't suit a cute mare. I guess I sorta agreed." Not for the first time I marveled at how relaxed it was speaking in Equish. My stilted and formal language (that Candela had taught me) was now gaining a flood of slang.
"What is your new name?" Trixie asked.
Turning in my seat to face her, I shoved out a hoof to Trixie. "Hi there. Lyra Heartstrings."
"That does have a more pony ring to it than Mike. Alright, Lyra Heartstrings, my name is Trixie Lulamoon. Joke or slapstick?"
"Hold on." Cadance looked between us before letting out an ever-suffering sigh at our excited expressions. "You two can work that out anytime. What am I supposed to do?"
"Brave assistant Lyra!" The Great and Powerful Trixie said (you could tell it was Great and Powerful because she was almost yelling it). "What do you do to your sweetheart when they aren't noticing you and you surprise them?"
It wasn't a hard guess under the circumstances. I jumped out of my desk and crouched down on the floor. "So there you are, curled up in the box and waiting your prince Charming to open it."
"Prince who? I don't think we have any prince Charmings here," Cadance said.
Trixie, ever the showmare, reached up a hoof and pressed her mane back. She walked to the theoretical chest I was bound in and mimed throwing it open.
I was so caught up in the moment that I jumped up and, in my role, kissed Trixie on the lips. For two seconds neither of us moved, then Trixie pulled back. "J-Just like that! But you. And Shining. Not Trixie. Or me. We would—"
Laughter cut into my verbal flood of things I couldn't stop saying. Cadance pointed a hoof at the both of us and was lost into gales of laughter.
"T-Trixie doesn't think it was that funny. It was just a kiss—it might have been Trixie's first kiss—but it was just a kiss! It wasn't even a bad kiss, but Trixie isn't really an expert on them yet." Trixie, like myself, apparently didn't know when to cut her losses and be quiet, though she ran out of things to say eventually.
When the laughter continued, with no sign of abating, I turned to Trixie. "It seems like Princess Mi—" I stopped as the laughter did. Cadance gave me a square look that was a dare to continue saying her full name. "Ahem. I'm glad we're more serious now. Cadance, are you willing to go through with this?"
"I was asking for that, and yes. I need to do something before he turns into this doll-like soldier who doesn't even look twice at me. I think a kiss should do it," Cadance said. "But he can't see it coming. I need him completely distracted as he rips the box open."
Smiling—trying to forget the taste of Trixie's lips still on my own—I stood upright on two legs and bowed to Cadance. "I think I can have that covered. Now, what's the next problem?" I gestured back to my book.
Study went well, and it seemed like no time before we were walking out of the school to get lunch. Trixie had mentioned she knew a great little place not far away, and it had been easy to agree. One problem was I couldn't forget kissing her. It wasn't even like she was my first, but it was still a surprise to have done it.
All through the day and afternoon I couldn't stop thinking about the kiss—it was stupid.