“Nonsense, Trixie! We’ve made this list and checked it twice! This cannon is tried and tested!”
Regardless of the reassuring context, the filly next to Jack Pot shifted uncomfortably as she looked at the setup before her. “On cockatrices and timberwolves, Dad. Not ponies.” How did Dad even get a timberwolf in a cannon with a borre only big enough for their head and change? asked Trixie.
Regardless, the pitched tentheads that made up their home behind them revealed no answers, quite symbolic with how Jack Pot regarded their craft. They were magicians, after all, and they never revealed what was under their velvet sleeves. Not even in the city of Canterlot. The sparks from their blue horns weren't just for lifting books and writing essays! They were to represent inspiration pumping through their veins!
Someday she’d say it out loud, as soon as she was sure the answer wasn’t the very thing that had placed her here and not in the after-school clubs on Friday nights. Thankfully, his swelling from the previous mishap yesterday had gone down.
Trixie still worried for her father, though, his swollen head affixed to the metal tube as he carefully checked for any flaws or on the surface.
But it couldn’t be! Trixie was certain of it. She’d scrubbed, scraped, and brought every type of swab to check the tip of this barrel. In fact, it had been cleaned and lubed by herself just yesterday. It would function perfectly!
Regardless, the filly was staying where she was, forehooves braced on the cannon as Jackpot dropped his sparkling golden tophat, violet trim bobbing in the crisp evening air. “We’ve got a wonderful performance to perfect, my girl! Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know, and neither does talent! Besides, your horn will see you through any obstacle as my own horn has.”
And now Trixie had that to worry about too. From Miss Harshwhinny to Miss Play Write to Vice-Chancellor Neighsay, the blue filly had quite a lot to hear from the student and teacher’s body of the School for Gifted Unicorns on her magical talent.
Or, lack thereof.
Shame prickled at the base of her neck of just how her horn’s power had barely been enough to lift the puppy the teachers had set up for them at the entrance exam for the School of Gifted Unicorns. Her veins had strained, her pupils had shrunk, her hooves had bit into the soft carpeting of the auditorium! One could be forgiven for thinking she was trying to move a mountain instead of a mutt! And yet, that stubborn pile of fur refused to roll for her - she'd only barely made the cut!
Seriously, how hard could it be for a four-legged being to put up its legs and serve a desperate mare? Hmph. Trixie’d have to ask that other unicorn who’d just graduated from there that question when next she had the chance. Sunset... something?
Goodness, Trixie thought. The cacophony of cackles from that day would never cease, not even with the help of the linens and soft downy cotton of her bed! It did good for muffling her cries, though. At least, when she was awake. Apparently, she’d taken to talking in her sleep.
She knew this because Jack Pot had heard one such nightmare about that day, marched to the school, given the instructor what for - and some of the taunting fillies had their own swollen muzzles to match the donkey-like braying they’d done that day - and well, that reception had silenced a lot of the snickering.
And now, she was spending her weekends honing her talent, but learning this...sleight of-hoof? It was embarrassing. Clearly magic was the end-all-be-all, what would this visual trickery avail her in the future? “Dad, I-”
“‘Dad, Trixie!’ If you place no pomp on your name, nopony else will do the same.” A large grin appeared on the cerulean stallion’s face as the first of his rear hooves went into the barrel. “Now, chop-chop! We have a show tomorrow, you’ve a test of my own design to complete here.”
Trixie slowly clambered over to the fuse, her hooves rushed to hold up the cannon as she slid further and further under it. It was a tight fit at the ends, and the creaking bones testified to her struggle. But it would be done. Even now, Trixie tired of the jeers in school - and of how often her Dad had to shut their maws. “Fuse is ready, Dad! Trixie can reach the matches from here!”
“Spectacular, my girl!” The weapon tilted slowly again as Trixie made for the matchbook next to the fuse. “Now, be careful with that box, Trixie. One strike to the match, with the horn diagram I taught you earlier, or else!”
No further elaboration on Jack Pot’s part was needed. Half of Canterlot some days ago had seen what the ‘or else’ would entail. As it turned out, both the cloth used to start the signal flare and line the trick box last weekend were both flammable. Thankfully, Jack Pot had placed Twilight Velvet in the other box. She could only imagine what would have happened if that family had reason to be angry at hers.
The misfire Trixie inadvertently started still scorched the side of Cinnamon Chai’s tea shop before she could put it out. Thankfully, it had also been mistaken as a promo on Chai’s behalf by the customers, and caused such an upswing in the shop’s sales that Trixie and her father had gotten coupons instead of bucks to flanks. Thank goodness for quick excuses about it looking like unpaid promo work.
The first of the matches from that pencil-thin foldover of cardboard slipped out, the stick trembling in the white sparkles surrounding it. “Annnd, showtime! Trixie, recite the oath.”
Ah yes, another thing that Dad had so helpfully given her - a mantra, something to help her concentrate during her spell-weaving. That... had actually garnered success as well, as she’d used it to keep that cloud of flames from frying Cinnamon Chai and Wild File’s manes at the last second.
Slipping out from underneath the cannon as the last of Jack Pot’s body tumbled in, the cerulean-coated filly raised her head to the Celestia-cherished clouds and yelled. “Behold, Canterlot! The fire that burns in the heart of Canterlot’s number one apprentice, Trixie!”
Tapered red tip met the cross-stitched patch, and Trixie eagerly awaited the spark to alight on the head of that implement.
Moments later, her smile wobbling but still intact, Trixie pulled out another match and struck it on the flint. Again. And again. Nothing. “Come on, my wonderful daughter! We’d rather not have Luna run up the lights before you do!” came the only sound from that chrome chamber.
On her tenth match strike, yellow-on-white light finally erupted from the tip, Trixie almost dropping it in surprise. Beckoning it closer to the cannon, the blue filly watched the coils of rope fizzle away. The burning fuse snaked up in midair, then tickling the wheel, then into the jamb of the metal flintlock, an-
BANG!
Shredded purple vinyl and scruffs of albino hair blew out and into the maw of the waiting lion five feet from her.
“DAD!” she screamed. She clambered over her own hooves twice as she ran to the smoking barrel. That wasn’t supposed to happen! Pieces of Jack Pot were not supposed to fly like that! The barrel was supposed to be snug enough to launch, not wide enough to warp!
What was she going? To? DO?!
Surely Celestia, benevolent as she was, wouldn’t take a “Sorry, Princess, but Trixie has pulped her pops, maybe a ‘W’ for this semester would do a grieving filly right?” Even the thought made Trixie's heart skip as fast as her hooves did, peering into the barrel, horn alight to… do something! Anything!
Yes, even gape, just letting her jaw smack against metal, at the surprising lack of any red intermingling with blue. Or … anypony at all in the barrel save for those few wispy strands of white. “Umm… Dad, where are you?” she asked.
A tap on her wand-covered flanks got her attention. Turning, the cerulean filly’s eyes met the large clumps of jagged white wisps among the lions’ closed lips.
A growl came from the lion. Another scream so petrifying it could have turned that lion to stone coming from the other. But just as the lion’s jaws yawned open to swallow her whole- “TA-DA!” There was Jack Pot, nestled in that beast’s maw like it was a lounge chair, horn sparkling in royal purple coats, robe unmarred.
“DAD! But...but how did-?” Trixie was so worried about him! About herself! About how this might be the latest and last in a line of screwups supreme! It even unwound the funny feeling in her gut, a crimping coil of… anger? But why? Dad is okay! I… Trixie didn’t know of this part of the trick, but it worked out for Dad!
“Elementary, my dear daughter! That matchbook you had was full of fakes, but only halfway so! You managed to get through it fast enough, however, showing your perseverance! And your amazing readiness when the BANG blew through during this trick - why, it only shows what your true talent is, one the School for Gifted Unicorns still deserves to see! And that is patience!”
“Wh-what? T-Trixie does not understand...”
“The need to wait until the time is right - that is where your true power lies, Trixie! It’s where every magician’s true talent does! With enough time, mountains can be moved, progress can be viewed, and you can become a legend!” His smile grew. “And if you can’t, well, a little targeting out won't hurt anypony… so long as you make sure you make them meet you at your level.”
Jack Pot’s forehoof flung to the sky, as rich with stars as the canvas over their home. “And when their efforts fail, know that no pony will ever dislike seeing you fluster another. They’ll jowl, they'll jaw-jack… and then they’ll keep you around to see what you brew up next. Like your school did.” Jack Pot’s muzzle pulled back in anger as he spoke the last four words.
Trixie’s nugget of anger did rise up again, but this time, she successfully suppressed it. Jack Pot was her father. There was always a good reason for what he did. He stuck up for her, even though it often cost her chances of bonding with other unicorns!
And if they refused now, after this show... well, she’d just start her own show after she left this madhouse of a school! If that self-confident mare with the diamond on her flank could make it big, so could Trixie!
“But no matter what trials you face, whatever barbs these one-trick ponies throw your way… you’ll always be my Great and Powerful, sweetie. Never forget that.“ A swell of pride did come through Trixie at those words, in a way no firework or swig of Sweet Apple Cider could compare. Still, she shook her head at her father’s final statement, a million thoughts swimming through her mind as to how to perfectly state her new goal in life.
Obviously, she would be Jack Pot’s Great and Powerful “… no.” She looked him in the eye. “Trixie will never forget. Because Trixie will be Equestria’s Great and Powerful.”
The coil in her stomach vanished entirely. Trixie’s grin grew, mirrored quickly by Jack Pot's. For her, dazzling the world wasn’t just for rock-clutching sea ponies anymore.
And unlike them, she thought as she looked at the stars embroidering the sky, backlit by the rising moon, my show won’t end when some stick-in-the-mud unicorn tries to trip Trixie up.