~~~~~Trixie~~~~
I saw the sun rise that morning. Normally I am a pony who prefers her beauty rest, but my mind wouldn’t let me rest. Why must I be burdened with a mind so formidable that even I cannot silence it? Other ponies are lucky to not have such problems. I tossed and turned all night, too excited and nervous to get any sleep. On the one hoof, she said ‘yes’ and I couldn’t wait to learn the secrets to her success; but on the other…I was also afraid that I would mess everything up somehow. I didn’t want to make an even bigger foal of myself in front of Twilight Sparkle but also…I sort of wanted to make a good impression on her too. I guess I just wanted her to like me.
Once the sun had risen a bit, I threw on my cape and hat; they helped to mask my slightly disheveled look. Choosing not to seem overeager, I had waited until nearly noon before exiting my cart with a flourish. I had learned early on that I should always move dramatically in case somepony was watching. I had left my cart parked alongside the library, so it was a rather short stroll to the place of my learning. As I approached the door, the same apprehension as last night struck me. You are going to regret this. She will see right through you. Nopony ever really changes. After taking a moment to shake such errant thoughts from my head and entered the library. Greatness is not won by hesitation.
“Are you really sure about this, Twilight?” The little dragon-thing was talking with my new teacher when I entered.
“For the last time Spike, yes,” Twilight didn’t even look up from the book she was reading.
“But it’s Trixie we're talking about here! You remember what she was like the last time she came through Ponyville?”
It was clear that this ‘Spike’ wasn’t exactly my biggest fan. Obviously, they still hadn’t realized that I had entered. I was about to announce my presence when I overheard something. Something that made me feel less than great and powerful.
“I remember very well. She is rather hard to forget.” She shook her head.
“Exactly! So how can you even stand to be around her? She's so full of herself!” Spike’s words stung, but not as bad as Twilight’s.
“She may be a pain in the hindquarters, but…” The rest of her words went unheard as I stepped back out of the library.
It seemed like she didn’t really want me here, and who could blame her? I…I had just hoped that she could see that I could be better than that. She only thought of me as a ‘pain’…so much for her being my first real friend. A wave of disappointment washed over me. Should have known better. Why would she give you a chance? She’s just like everypony else.
A few deep breaths later, I calmed myself down. Giving up so easily is not the way of the Great and Powerful. Trixie did not come this far to quit over her first setback. If Twilight didn’t want to be my friend, I would just find somepony else. I even had a great idea on who that somepony would be. Miss Sparkle may not have been thrilled to have me, but she still agreed to teach Trixie, and Trixie was not about to let that get away from her. I turned back toward the doorway. Using magic, I sent a wave of smoke under the doorframe. I magically threw open the door and caused a small series of dramatic explosions to highlight my entrance.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie has arrived for her lessons!”
~~~~Twilight~~~~~
Spike would not give me a moment’s peace that morning. Ever since I let him know that Trixie would be coming over for magic lessons, he felt he needed to let me know his opinion on the matter…every fifteen minutes. It was getting close to noon, and I was surprised that my new student hadn’t shown up yet. Maybe she was nervous? I tried to do some reading to distract myself from Spike’s newest barrage of protests. He continued on, though, even going as far as to ask if I remembered what happened last time. Sighing, I continued the conversation, hoping to draw it to a close once and for all.
“I remember very well. She is rather hard to forget.”
“Exactly! So how can you even stand to be around her? She's so full of herself!”
“She may be a pain in the hindquarters but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t deserve a second chance. Trixie could have reached out to anypony but she chose me. I don’t want to let her down.” I shot him a look to indicate that the conversation was over.
He still seemed to want to say something, but never got the chance. Smoke came from beneath the doorway just before Trixie appeared with a loud bang. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has arrived for her lessons!”
“Good morning, Trixie. Shall we get started then?” Despite my optimism, she still acted like the same old Trixie.
“Yes. Yes we shall.” If she had seemed hesitant yesterday, it wasn’t showing today. “How do you want Trixie to begin?”
“Why don’t we start off by gauging your current magical aptitude?” My words seemed to fail to make an impact, so I continued more colloquially. “Show me what you got.”
With those words, Trixie began to perform her magic. Literally. She acted as if she were on stage rather than demonstrating for an instructor. It took her over two hours to run through her entire routine; I will say that she had quite an interesting assortment of abilities. While most weren’t terribly impressive, there were a lot of them, and I couldn’t figure out how she pulled some of them off.
“Thank you for holding your applause. Trixie is finished; you may clap now.” She smiled smugly as I put my hoof over Spike’s mouth to deny him comment.
“Wow, Trixie, you have quite a variety of magical talent,” I started, before being cut off by her usual bluster.
“Thank you, thank you. I am impressive, aren’t I?” She held her head up high.
“Yes, but there are some criticisms I can make.” I had expected her to make some counterclaim, but she fell silent. She almost looked hurt, and I hadn't even really said anything yet. “You have more tricks than an average unicorn, but most of them are fairly basic and…”
“Nothing like the things you can do, right?” she finished for me. “So tell Trixie what she is doing wrong.”
“Well, um, I can’t say I saw anything really wrong with your technique. As far as I can tell, you just need to keep practicing. That’s all that I did…”
“No! That can’t be all there is to it!” Her voice rose. “Trixie has practiced all her life! Both of our talents are magic, so she should be just as good as you are!”
I wasn’t sure what to say at first. While I had thought that she was back to her old self, it seemed that Trixie was rather emotional today. She went from boastful to insecure to angry in a manner of seconds. I felt bad, but I had no idea on how to handle her. My eyes fell to the ground.
“I’m sorry. I’m not sure what to tell you.”
“Is that it then? Is there nothing you can do for...Tr…me?” She sounded dejected now.
I took a deep breath. She'd come to me, so I refused to let her down so easily. I walked over and put my hoof on her shoulder. “I didn’t say that. We’ll just have to take it slow and figure this out together. I’ll think of some tricks I can do that you didn’t show me today and start teaching you those tomorrow. I just need some time to figure out how to go about it.”
“You…you’re not giving up on me?”
“Give up? I haven’t even tried anything yet. At least give me a chance.” I smiled at her. I wanted her to feel that she came to the right pony.
She gave me an odd look; one I really wasn’t sure how to interpret. It seemed like she couldn’t figure me out. I didn’t think I had done anything odd…
“Very well Miss Sparkle,” she said, as she recovered her dignity. “Tomorrow it is then. This will give Trixie some time to practice the…the other thing in the meantime.”
“The other…oh! Right, you said you wanted some advice on making friends. I really am not sure on how to teach you that yet; I’m fairly new at it myself,” I said, shooting a glance at Spike. He was opening his mouth, but seemed to think better of whatever he was about to say. If I ever got enough teaching experience, I swore to Celestia that one day I would teach him manners.
“Yes, well, Trixie already figured out who the perfect mare for her first friend would be. She thinks she can handle this one; you can just help out if something goes wrong.”
“Fair enough, I suppose. Who are you going to talk to?” A bad feeling slowly crept over me.
“One of your friends. That way you can smooth it over if Trixie somehow manages to screw this up. Last time I came to Ponyville, I seemed to manage to singlehoofedly offend you and most of your friends…all but two. I admit that the crazy one may be a bit of a challenge for me until I get some practice, so I chose the other one.”
“Oh no, you don’t mean…” I winced.
“Of course, I chose the pegasus who didn’t come on stage. I think her name was Fluttershy.”
“Trixie, this isn’t a good idea. Fluttershy is really quiet, and you're kind of loud, so I’m not sure it's a good match.” Despite my protests, it didn’t seem like I'd be able to talk her out of it.
“Nonsense! Trixie’s plan is perfect.” Her pride had returned in full force. “After all, Trixie is the one who came up with it. We will be good friends in no time!”
“Just…take it slow with her…please?” I said, feeling like I was watching a train wreck in slow motion.
“Trixie will keep that under advisement. She will regale you with her victory story later. Farewell!” She quickly trotted out the door.
“You’re not going to stop her?” inquired Spike, as the door shut.
“I think this is one of those things she needs to learn on her own…”
“You have a bad feeling too?”
I gave him a weak smile.
~~~~Trixie~~~~~
“Farewell!” I called over my shoulder as I left Twilight’s library. I was a little disappointed with how today had gone so far, but no matter! I still had business to attend to. You knew her lessons wouldn’t help you.
While I may have been still accepting her magical charity, I had decided to handle making friends on my own. If Twilight Sparkle didn’t want to be my friend, why should she help me make friends? Fine, she could just be that way. Trixie didn’t want her as a friend anyway. She would never want to be your friend.
I slowed down as I got close to the cottage near the Everfree forest. It took me nearly two hours to reach it. Trixie, in her infinite brilliance, seemed to have forgotten to ask Miss Sparkle where Fluttershy lived. Today just hadn’t been Trixie’s day. I thought it wise to ask the local mailmare for directions, but that proved to be just another mistake. The directions the grey pegasus gave me were so confusing that I probably would have found it more easily by wandering aimlessly.
After spotting the pink-maned filly flitting about her yard, I took a deep breath and approached. I had to make an impressive entrance if she was to like me. Fluttershy seemed preoccupied with feeding some chickens, some birds, and a rabbit and…how many pets did this pony own? She didn’t see me approach, so I allowed my introduction to be pleasantly surprising.
“Ta-da!” I called out, as I appeared in front of her amid smoke and a few small fireworks. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has arrived!”
With a yelp of surprise, she fell from the sky, landed on her posterior, then backpedaled as if Trixie were a ghost. I guess her name was fitting. Personally, I always thought that my parents should have included ‘Great and Powerful’ in my name so I would be aptly named as well. One of my few (many) regrets in life.
She just stood there shaking like a leaf, so I continued. “Trixie apologizes if she startled you. You are Fluttershy, if Trixie is not mistaken?”
I knew I was correct, but I thought that since she wasn’t saying anything, I had better take charge of the conversation. For some reason, it wasn’t working the way I had envisioned. She only made a soft squeaking noise; I took that as a ‘yes’. I tried to approach, but for every step I took, she retreated one. Couldn’t she see that I was trying to be friendly?
“You surely remember The Great and Powerful Trixie! Now Trixie has…”
She shook her head slightly. After my memorable performance last time…she forgot about me?
“You don’t know who Trixie is?”
“Um…I…I…um…I’m sorry.” Her voice was so soft you could barely call it a whisper. She averted her gaze and shifted awkwardly on her hooves.
“Trixie had a show here…it was about a year ago and…oh never mind.” I tried to hide any hint of annoyance from my voice. “The important thing is that Trixie has traveled many miles to see you!”
She looked around as if to see if I could possibly be talking about somepony else. She sheepishly pointed at herself to confirm. I facehoofed. All right, if taking it slow wasn’t getting it through to her, I would have to up the ante.
“Trixie has come to announce that she has decided that you would be the perfect friend for her!” I said loudly. To further prove how incredible this was for her, I punctuated my sentence with another small display of smoke and fireworks. “You may feel honored now.”
She let out a small scream and ran into her cottage. So much for feeling honored. I called for her to wait as I started after her, but a voice from behind stopped me in my tracks.
“What in the hay are you doing to poor Fluttershy!?”
Oh no. No no no no no. This was not happening. I turned and saw the orange, Stetson-clad earth pony. One of the ponies who hated Trixie. Apple…something.
“Ah. Well…Trixie…is not doing anything.” I refused to meet her eyes.
“Ah can’t believe you would come back outta the blue and just start picking on a poor filly like that.” She didn't sound happy to see me. “Ah knew you were bad news and all, but honestly…”
“Wait! Trixie was not picking on her! She was merely…” I paused. I couldn’t bring myself to admit to her what my real intentions were. It was too embarrassing. Humiliating, really. “Trixie was just…honoring her?” Real smooth.
“Honor nothing. You wouldn’t know honor if it was gnawin’ on yer flank.”
“But Trixie…”
“Why don’t you just git yer great and powerful keister outta here before you make somepony else cry.”
Somepony else already was about to cry. I ran.
~~~~Twilight~~~
It had been several hours since my ‘Great and Powerful’ student had left. It must have been around five o’clock when I heard the door to Trixie’s cart slam shut. I had a feeling things didn’t go as planned. I glanced at Spike. He shrugged, but also seemed a touch concerned. I left the library to go check on her.
I knocked several times on the door, but received no answer. The door itself wasn’t locked, but it wouldn’t open. I felt a strong magical aura holding it shut, one that even I couldn’t budge. That was very strange; it wasn’t like anything she showed me before.
“Trixie? Are you in there? Is everything okay?” No answer. “Trixie?”
After making no progress for a few minutes, I finally spotted an open window. The Barrier spell prevented me from squeezing through the small frame, but I could see clearly into her carriage. Trixie was lying curled up in her bed, crying her eyes out. I thought that she might be upset but nothing like this.
“Trixie!” I called, but she still didn’t—or couldn’t—hear me. Did the barrier cancel sound, too? I tried to use my magic to force my way in to comfort her, but it was no use. I took a step back, not sure of what to do. Not sure of what I could do.
“Hey, Twi?” Spike must have come outside at some point. “I think maybe we were a bit wrong about her…”
“I think so, Spike. She really needs somepony right now.” I took a deep breath. “I’m going to try to be that pony.”