Wallflower saw Trixie in the hall and waved. She should have known better. Trixie showed no signs of recognition. After wallowing in that for a few moments, Wallflower started to walk away. Starting was basically all that she did. Something --something at the very edge of her peripheral vision-- was wrong.
When she turned to look, she saw Trixie. Nothing seemed to be wrong. Trixie was at her locker, seemed to be checking that she hadn’t forgotten anything, and generally looked quite normal.
Then she closed her locker, turned to walk away, turned back, opened her locker again, and ended up right back where she’d been: apparently checking to make sure that she’d retrieved everything she needed.
She did that three times.
Wallflower’s first thought, naturally, was that she had somehow inadvertently given Trixie some kind of brain damage, just by talking to her with Sunset. While she was weighing her options, such as running away and avoiding all human contact for the rest of her life, Trixie did something she barely noticed. Trixie looked at her.
That didn’t register until Trixie started walking toward her, but even then she wasn’t ready to believe that Trixie remembered her. She’d tried waving. It didn’t work.
“Wallflower,” Trixie said, and Wallflower’s brain stopped, “strange eldritch magic may delay recognition, but the Great and Powerful Trixie never forgets her friends.”
Wallflower had to force herself to breathe. After a few breaths, she even managed to speak, “You . . . you remember me?”
Trixie nodded.
Wallflower just stared.
Trixie said, “While she-- I . . . while I may not remember meeting you in third grade, I remember you telling me we met in--”
Trixie’s sentence was cut off by the force with which Wallflower hugged her, but it was pretty clear how it would have ended anyway, and that wasn’t the point. “You remember me!” Wallflower said. “No one but Sunset ever remembers me.”
Trixie said, “Yes, well, Trixie . . . um . . .” and that was about when Wallflower realized how awkward she was making things for Trixie.
Wallflower released Trixie, took a step back to give the other girl some space, and said, “Sorry, it’s just that . . . even when I get people to notice me, which isn’t all that often, the next time they see me they just . . . don’t . . .”
For about a second and a half, Trixie didn’t react at all. Then she smiled in a weird sort of way --Wallflower was pretty sure it was weird, at any rate-- and said, “Well, Trixie does.”
There were still classes to get to, so they had to part ways, but they agreed to meet after school before they did.
⁂
Wallflower’s day was a blur. That, in itself, was unremarkable. Every day was a blur. This time, though, it was a different kind of blur. Impossible to say exactly how it was different, but the why was obvious enough. This day was the day when she might be remembered.
Once could have been some kind of fluke or accident, but if Trixie actually met her after school to talk and hang out, that had to mean something.
And so, here she was: at the end of a differently blurred day, waiting.
And waiting.
It was too much to hope for. Sunset only cared about Wallflower because Sunset cared about everyone; Sunset only remembered Wallflower because she was a magical pony-girl.
The idea that someone else --anyone else-- would ever--
Wallflower gave a start when something touched her shoulder. She turned to find Trixie looking apologetic.
“Trixie didn’t mean to frighten you,” Trixie said. “She just wanted to get your attention, and you didn’t notice when she said your name.”
Wait, what?
Wallflower was lost in her head to the point that she was the one not noticing someone. That was bizarre beyond words, it--
And then it hit her. Twice isn’t an accident. Trixie remembered her. Someone other than Sunset remembered her. Not just remembered her, was actually spending time with her. Time that could be spent with literally anyone else.
It was almost like seeing Sunset; she felt like she mattered. Like she wasn’t useless or worthless. She had to make sure she got more of this in her life. Which, of course, meant responding to what Trixie had said.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Wallflower said, “it’s um . . .” how exactly did one explain such things? “I was just zoned out.”
Trixie nodded, looked relieved, and then . . . then she didn’t seem to know what to do any more than Wallflower. That could be a problem.
“So . . .” Wallflower said slowly, “I don’t actually have much experience hanging out with people.”
“Trixie,” Trixie said as though she were going to make a grand pronouncement, “doesn’t either,” she finished as though she were telling someone she too had lost a homework assignment.
“But . . . but you have friends,” Wallflower said. “The two girls from your--”
“Has Sunset ever told you what Trixie did to her and the Rainbooms during the Battle of the Bands?” Trixie asked.
Sunset hadn’t, so Wallflower shook her head. It was obvious that whatever it was, wasn’t good.
“After being unfairly denied our spot in the finals,” Trixie said, “we . . .” And then Trixie stopped.
“You, um, don’t have to tell me,” Wallflower offered.
“You should know,” Trixie said. “You should know who you’ve become friends with.” Trixie took a deep breath. “We trapped the Rainbooms under the stage . . . by opening the stage’s trap door.” Trixie closed her eyes, inhaled, then opened her eyes as she said, “The drop could have killed them.”
That sent a flurry of emotions through Wallflower. Rage and horror were included, but each only lasted a moment. The end result was actually that Wallflower wanted to help Trixie.
“You were under the Siren’s influence,” she said.
“That’s what they tell me,” Trixie said. “Lavender Lace and Fuschia Blush don’t blame Trixie for getting them to do that, but they can’t look at her without remembering the time they could have killed seven people.”
“That’s terrible,” Wallflower said put a hand on Trixie’s shoulder in the way she was pretty sure people did that when they wanted to comfort someone.
Trixie smiled. “The Great and Powerful Trixie isn’t depressed by such things!” she said in a way that almost sounded like she believed it.
A moment of silence passed between them.
“So . . .” Wallflower said. She didn’t really have anything beyond that to say, and really hoped that Trixie would take over.
“What do you do in your free time?” Trixie asked.
“I, um,” Wallflower said, “I garden.” She had expected some sort of statement about how gardening was beneath those who are great and powerful. Instead, Trixie seemed to be interested. “I’m the founder and sole member of the school’s gardening club. So everything about the school garden is basically my own creation.”
“The school has a garden?” Trixie asked.
Wallflower nodded.
“Perhaps you could show it to me,” Trixie said.
Wallflower very much wanted to do that, but something felt off. It took a few seconds for her pin it down. When she did, she asked, “Did you just say ‘me’?”
“I’ll have you know that the Great and Powerful Trixie says, ‘Me,’ all the time,” Trixie said. “My verbal repitaur, words such as ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘mine’, and ‘myself’.”
“Other than right now, you’ve used them like twice since Sunset and I met you,” Wallflower said.
“Well . . .” Trixie said, “I’ve sort of . . . um . . .” Trixie took an interest, both visual and tactile, in the hem of her shirt.
And then it was like . . . well, not magic --since that involved Rainbows, lengthy transformations, and ears with mobile pinnae-- but some sort of non-ordinary thing that involved instantaneous transmogrification, because awkward hem-interested Trixie was gone and confident smirking Trixie stood in her place.
Of course, confident Trixie was in the same position as awkward Trixie, so she needed to raise her gaze in order to smirk at Wallflower instead of the random spot on the floor she was smirking at when she appeared.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie most certainly does not have nervous tics,” Trixie said, “and she has never faced a situation with anything less than the utmost adroit aplomb--”
It wasn’t hard to see where this was going, so Wallflower said, “-but if she did . . .”
“--speaking exclusively in third person might number among her nervous tics,” Trixie said.
There was an obvious conclusion one could draw from this information, Wallflower stated it in the form of a question, “So, you’ve been nervous this whole time?”
“You have to admit, things haven’t gone the most smoothly,” Trixie said. “Sunset Shimmer was angry with me,” Trixie raised a finger, “immediately after Sunset Shimmer was apologetic to me,” another finger, “then I need to admit that I’d been a jerk too,” a third finger went up, “that left things generally weird,” finger four, “I almost didn’t remember you this morning,” the fingers were joined by a thumb, “I told you about that time I did something that could have killed your girlfriend,” she raised the first finger on her other hand, “and . . . I’ve completely forgotten why I was counting these,” she raised another finger on the second hand, then let her hands return to normal.
“Ok,” Wallflower said, “I can see why you haven’t been completely at ease. Would you like to be non-nervous at the school garden?”
“I would love to.”
⁂
Sunset left Celestia’s office and the only thing on her mind was, That could have been significantly more terrible.
In fact, it wasn’t terrible at all. Given that her trips to the roof and roof-preempting meetings with Wallflower resulted in her arriving to classes late, occasionally leaving them early, and sometimes missing them entirely, she’d expected a punishment-oriented discussion. Instead Celestia was focused on how she could help Sunset.
The bulk of the meeting had been regarding possible accommodations to make it easier for Sunset to attend school in a non-Hellish way.
Celestia even assured her that Luna felt the same way. In a very real way, the two of them were the school administration. They were the powers that be, unfortunately they were the wrong powers that be.
She needed law enforcement, or hackers, or very specific social media executives. She got educators.
Once, though, that would have meant the world to her. Celestia cared about her. Cared about her emotional health and general well being, and cared enough to overlook infractions. Technically, Sunset knew, there were probably policies and procedures in place for at risk students, and they were probably following those, but it felt like they cared.
They were as close as this world came to the mare who raised her and the rebel princess who bounced back from self inflicted dark magic corruption and a thousand years of solitary confinement. The approval of people like that once mattered to Sunset, each for very different reasons, and she’d felt . . . something.
The fact that Celestia had expanded her, “My door is always open,” thing to include, “Here’s my personal number,” in Sunset’s case --which definitely wasn’t a matter of school policy-- would have meant so much, in fact, that Sunset might have finally taken Celestia up on the offer.
Right now, though, it didn’t mean anything, and she didn’t feel anything.
She wasn’t even annoyed by the delay, not really. Provided, of course, that Wallflower’s planned meeting with Trixie hadn’t gone badly. Well, actually going badly wouldn’t be a problem. The danger was if it hadn’t gone at all.
A quick check of her messages showed that it had gone well and she should head to the garden. Probably one of their better days on the strength of that alone, all things considered.