Today was finally the day. Trixie, who didn’t want to make a big deal out of the performance at first, had only grown in exuberance as the day approached. She mentioned the show to anypony who passed her in the street, handing out flyers with images of her face on them. Sunburst had taken the liberty of making several posters and had put them up around town. The other teachers, who had been onboard with the idea from the get-go, had spread the news via word-of-mouth to get as big a crowd as possible.
The School of Friendship’s Great Hall had been transformed into a makeshift theatre. Trixie’s caravan was unfolded into its stage mode and curtains were hung appropriately to frame the wagon in the centre the proscenium. This was all raised on a wooden platform, creating as fitting a theatre stage as Trixie could ask for; at least here in Ponyville.
Hundreds of chairs had been set up in the hall facing the stage. At her touring performances, ponies would have to stand around the stage, but Trixie wanted this experience to feel classier. Starlight had been hard at work making this transformation happen. She even, upon Trixie’s request, added a trap door downstage centre with a spring-loaded platform underneath for her grand entrance.
Throughout the day Trixie had been hardest at work. She was up all night practicing her magic, her slight-of-hoof and working her new showstopping material into the performance. She wished she had more time to develop the act in order to impress Star Search, but alas, she will have to wing it to a certain extent.
That didn’t matter though. She was wearing her old hat and cape. She was back where she felt strong. Confident. Invincible. The first time she came to Ponyville she failed to tame an Ursa Minor; she was forced to flee the town in disgrace. But now, with her lifetime of experience behind her, there was nothing she couldn’t take on. Give her an Ursa Minor, an Ursa Major even, and she felt like she would have them eating out of her hoof in no time.
She was on her way back to the top. She could feel it. And nothing could stop Trixie now. At least, as soon as the last additions to her act arrived. They were supposed to be delivered to the school earlier that morning but were now officially running late. They’ll be here, Trixie kept assuring to herself. They must be close my now. She wasn’t sure how much of her thinking was optimism and how much was delusion.
With everything else running smoothly she had to admit their absence was throwing off her preparations. She had been dropping juggling balls and getting tangled up in her handkerchief rope. She considered dropping the new acts entirely. There was only so much even a professional like her could wing. But then her thoughts always returned to Las Pegasus. You need to leave an impression, she thought. Bigger is better. You’ve already come so far. You can’t turn back now. Las Pegasus is one performance away! She had to make it work somehow. Otherwise, how could she ever know she had the potential to be a star? Why would she, the greatest stage performer she knew, settle for anything less than the best for herself? She owed herself her dream job, she knew that much.
She was presently backstage inside her caravan. Inside with her was a large collection of fireworks for the grand finale. Trixie was triple checking all of them. They had all been planted securely, facing upward toward openings in the caravan's roof. They had been set to go off during her finale one at a time; going off any faster wouldn't leave as lasting an effect.
“Think they’ll be loud enough?” Starlight asked sarcastically as she peered in through the caravan window.
“Loud enough? They’ll hear us all the way in Canterlot!” Trixie chuckled. She exited the caravan and closed its door. “And they’re all set to pop off.”
Starlight was still peering through the window. “I don’t remember you using that many fireworks during your old shows.”
“Well who says I have to do everything exactly as I did it back in the old days? I’m a changed mare you know. I have grown. I’ve learned. Learned that ponies these days want more bang for their buck.”
“What do you mean ‘for their buck?’ This is a free show.”
“It’s not too late to change that.” Trixie wiggled her eyebrows mischievously.
“It kind of is. Ponies are showing up at the door already.”
Trixie’s heart leapt to her throat. “Oh my goodness. Where has the time gone?” And where are my final set pieces? She thought with furious anxiety.
“Ah, about those fireworks,” Starlight said. “Isn’t that many a bit dangerous to set off inside the school?
“Huh?” Trixie grunted as her attention was pulled back. “Oh yeah. No, it’s fine. I’ve set fireworks off in here before, remember?”
“Yeah, but not this many.”
“Trust me, Star. They’re just going off one at a time and they’re all angled in safe directions. It’s all perfectly fine.”
“Okay. If you’re sure. You know more about fireworks than I do, after all.”
Trixie hugged her friend. “Thank you for helping me set up, Starlight. The stage looks even more incredible than I could have imagined. You’re a miracle worker.”
“Eh, I just do what I do,” Starlight said. “Seriously though, that’s a lot of fireworks. Even for you.”
“For the biggest finale you’ve ever seen! This is going to be a special one, Star. I can feel it.”
A ruffle of the curtains caught Trixie’s eye. It looked like somepony was trying to poke their head through but couldn’t find the opening.
“The stage is for performers only,” Trixie declared. She was using her stage voice to full effect.
“It’s me guys,” came a nasally response. “I … can’t … find the-”
“It’s on your right Sunburst,” said Starlight.
After some more rummaging behind the curtain, Sunburst finally poked his head through.
“Aah! I’m changing!” Trixie exclaimed, pretending to cover herself.
“Oh, sorry I-” Sunburst stammered as he closed his eyes and backed out of the curtain.
“She’s just kidding, Sunburst,” explained Starlight. She gave Trixie a playful swat to the back of her head.
“Couldn’t resist,” Trixie shrugged.
Sunburst came back through and was fully backstage with the others. He was carrying a clipboard, acting as stage manager for this performance.
“You setting things up okay, Trixie?” he asked.
“Oh yes. I know my way around backstage like I know my way around the back of my own hoof,” Trixie said proudly.
“Uh, okay… Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that few ponies are gathering outside the front doors.”
“Starlight told me. Ugh, I wish I had more time.”
“Should I start letting them in?”
“NO!” Trixie exclaimed. She grabbed him by the collar and looked directly into his eyes, their faces practically touching. “You must let the anticipation build. When the time’s right to open the house, Trixie will let you know.”
Trixie let go, leaving Sunburst uncomfortable. “Of course.” He fixed his collar and checked his clipboard. “I also wanted to let you know that Fluttershy is here with a bunch of animals...”
“Perfect timing!” Trixie let out a huge sigh of relief.
Starlight looked confused. “Animals?” she asked.
“Just wait, you’ll see,” Trixie assured her before turning back to Sunburst. “Tell her to bring the animals around back, so the ponies out front don’t see. I don’t want to give away the surprise!”
“Sure thing Trixie.” And with that, Sunburst disappeared back through the curtain, after struggling to find the opening again, of course.
“Why did you ask Fluttershy to bring some animals?” asked Starlight.
“Follow me.” Trixie took Starlight by the hoof. “I’ll show you.”
Trixie excitedly led Starlight toward the rear of the school; Trixie practically yanked Starlight off her hooves as she pulled her friend through the corridors. Her energy was so infectious that Starlight couldn’t help but grin alongside her. This was easily the most excitable she had seen Trixie in years.
Bursting open the back doors Trixie was greeted by a startled Fluttershy. A dozen white rabbits, the same ones Trixie met when she visited Fluttershy the other day, were hopping around her hooves, munching on grass and playing with each other.
“Good day Fluttershy!” Trixie exclaimed with a flourish. “The Great and Powerful Trixie welcomes you to her theatre!”
Fluttershy cocked an eyebrow, unsure of how to respond. “Uh…”
“She’s in show mode,” Starlight assured. “Just go with it.”
“Okay,” said Fluttershy. “I brought the animals you asked for.”
“Trixie can see that,” the magician said. She searched around Fluttershy, looking for the one creature that seemed to be missing. “And the ferocious lion?” she added.
“Aww, they’re so cute and fluff- Wait. Did you say lion?” Starlight asked with a twinge of worry. This wasn’t a part of any act she was aware of.
“He’s right here,” said Fluttershy as she turned to look behind her. “Come on, Leo. Say hi to Trixie.”
Out from behind Fluttershy’s hooves, hidden this whole time, came an adorable lion cub. He tentatively peered around Fluttershy’s legs before letting out a soft ‘mew’ and disappearing right back.
“He’s just shy,” said Fluttershy softly. “He told me he’s looking forward to being a part of the show but he still has a bit of stage fright.”
Trixie was dumbstruck. Starlight didn’t notice her friend’s reaction as she was so enamored with the new adorable creature in front of her.
“Don’t worry Leo,” Starlight said as if she was talking to a foal. She bent down and reached out a hoof to try to coax Leo out from behind the yellow pegasus. “We’re not going to hurt you. Come on out.”
Taking a few nervous steps, Leo came back around and approached Starlight. He sniffed her hoof and gave it a friendly lick.
“That’s it. You’re such a good boy, Leo.” She scratched him behind the ears, which encouraged Leo to nuzzle up next to her. “Who’s the cutest thing? Who’s the cutest? You are! That’s right! You are!”
Trixie watched this sickeningly cute display of affection struggled to find words. “This is- Why did- How-” She closed her eyes and took a breath. “Fluttershy?”
“Yes?”
“What happened to the giant, ferocious lion I asked you to bring?”
“You didn’t ask me to bring a giant lion,” she responded in confusion. “I remember, you said you wanted a ‘measly little lion’. I admit I thought the word ‘measly’ was a bit mean but-”
“It was an expression,” hissed Trixie. “I didn’t literally want you to bring the smallest, cutest, most innocent looking creature in the animal sanctuary. He’s barely bigger than the rabbits!”
“Oh sorry,” Fluttershy said sheepishly, looking down to avoid eye contact.
“I wanted a monstrous beast to make the trick look dangerous. Nopony’s going to think Leo could eat me whole.”
“You said you could make it look dangerous without it actually being dangerous.”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie can dazzle your eyes with wonder, but she can’t perform impossible miracles. What am I supposed to do now?”
Fluttershy started backing away. “I’m so sorry Trixie. I didn’t mean to mess up your show. If you give me some time I can go back to the … the sanctuary and get … get…” Fluttershy tried to get the words out but her eyes had started welling up with tears.
Trixie instantly regretted blowing up in her face like that. She should have been clearer in her instructions the other day. If only she hadn’t rushed off. Stupid!
“Look, it’s fine Fluttershy. Thank you for coming all this way. I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer.” Trixie gestured toward the corridor that led backstage. “Can you please take Leo and the rabbits into the theatre?”
“Are you sure it’s-” Fluttershy started.
“It’s fine,” Trixie snapped. “Just … go. I’ll figure it out.”
Fluttershy looked unsure but nonetheless led her animals into the school. As the bunnies hopped in along and Leo disappeared back between Fluttershy’s legs, Trixie closed her eyes and rubbed her hooves against the sides of her head. She could feel pressure building up, and a headache was not a good thing to have before going onstage. When she opened them, Starlight was standing very close to her face, tapping a hoof impatiently. She very much looked like the School of Friendship’s headmare right now.
“Well?” Starlight asked with a stone face.
“I … wanted to … pep up the show a bit.”
“I didn’t know you wanted to use live animals!”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
“No. Not inherently, no. Thank Celestia it’s just a lion cub.”
“What’s so great about a cub? I wanted to get a manticore. Or the closest in resemblance, at least.”
Starlight’s eyes went wide and she took a step back. “Why would you want to bring a manticore into the school?” she asked.
“I wanted to recreate the trick with the cannon. Remember the trick I did with the cannon and the manticore?”
“Of course, I remember. But why didn’t you tell me? I thought this was just supposed to be your smaller tricks. Disappearing acts, escape routines, stuff like that.”
“It’s going to be that too.”
“Animals need a lot of care and if they aren’t trained properly they can get hurt.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to? Trixie has worked with animals before. Let me tell you, they’re way more well behaved than working with children.”
Starlight sighed. “Then you’re sure you can handle this?”
Trixie puffed out her chest. “The Great and Powerful Trixie can handle anything!”
“I just don’t understand why you left this addition so last minute.”
“I just had a feeling that what I had wasn’t enough. I wanted more pizzazz. More razzle-dazzle.”
“How much more razzle-dazzle?”
“Uh, excuse me,” came a high-pitched voice from behind Starlight. The headmare turned and somehow her eyes got even wider while her jaw hit the floor in shock.
The voice belonged to Ponyville’s mailmare, a grey pegasus with crossed eyes. Those eyes were struggling to study the clipboard she was carrying.
“I have a delivery for a … a ‘Miss Powerful?’”
“Miss Great and Powerful,” Trixie clarified. “And you’re late.”
“Sorry. Your package was kind of hard to get over here.”
Behind the mailmare was what must have been Trixie’s package. Well, it wasn’t really a package so much as a complex structure, one that Starlight had been unable to take her eyes off. It was a tower-like fixture made of wooden beams that stood at an approximate height of fifteen feet. Four of these beams connected at the top to a pendulum that dropped down in centre. At the base of the pendulum was the largest sawblade Starlight had ever seen, suspended a few feet above the ground.
“Please bring it into Trixie’s theatre,” commanded the magician. “And try not to delay the show any longer.”
The mailmare gave a curt nod and flew to the other side of the pendulum. The structure wasn’t on wheels, so it was an effort for her to push it. As the contraption was pushed slowly toward the doors, Starlight turned back to Trixie. Her eyes were glowing red with stress.
“So … funny thing…” Trixie trailed off.
“What is that!?”
“It’s a pendulum with a big sawblade attached to it. It’s kind of exactly what it looks like,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s just another magic trick. No different than any of my other tricks or the tricks that other magicians do.”
“I’ve never seen you use something like that before.” Starlight pointed to the structure as if its size wasn’t apparent when it first appeared. The mailmare had managed to push it to the door to the school but was having a challenging time making it fit through the entryway due to its height. “Look at the size of that thing! It can’t even fit through the door!” Starlight finished.
“Well at first I wanted a regular table saw, but then I thought, why not go big?”
“Let me think, oh right, because it’s clearly a dangerous piece of … um…” Starlight was still unclear of the device’s intent. “What do you plan on doing with that thing, anyway?”
“It’s quite simple,” Trixie began as she lay flat on her back to demonstrate. “I lie on a table underneath he saw, bound tight with the chain from my usual escape act” Trixie then swung her hoof over her torso to visualize the contraption. “Then,” she continued, “as the pendulum starts swinging over me, the sawblade getting ever closer to cutting me in two, I make my daring escape at the last second and the audience cheers.”
Trixie got back to her hooves and lowered her head to the ground, swinging her hat away from her with a flourish. “Then I bow, the fireworks go off and the show ends. What do you think?”
Trixie forced a big toothy grin, but her eyes had worry in them. Not worry for the trick itself, she had nothing but confidence in that, but worry for her friend’s reaction.
Starlight simply closed her eyes and kept her voice as steady as she could manage. “Trixie, I gave you a lot of freedom for you to do this the way you wanted. I converted the school into a theatre for you, I pulled the wagon here for you, I even let you pack the house with fireworks, more than the school’s fire safety code allows.”
“We have a fire safety code?” queried Trixie.
“I let it slide because I trusted you knew what you were doing. And because you’re my best friend and I know how much this means to you. But going behind my back to bring a dangerous contraption and a lion-”
“A lion cub,” Trixie specified.
“It doesn’t matter!” Starlight snapped. “You could get hurt. Something could go wrong and you or someone else could seriously be-”
“It’s just a trick, Starlight. It’s not different from any of the other tricks I’ll be doing.” Trixie gestured up to the top of the pendulum. “There are these guardrails that keep the pendulum on a secure and predictable path. Those guardrails hold in place a safety mechanism that keeps the pendulum from dropping down too close to me. It’s not going to be anywhere near me. It’s just going to keep the audience’s attention busy while I slip out of the chains. I wouldn’t use it if it was ever going to put me in actual danger! Do you want me to cancel my card tricks too? Wouldn’t want to get a papercut!”
“Trixie, what’s going on? You’re acting like a total diva and I don’t know why you’re behaving this way. It’s not like you and all these new tricks are making me worried about you. Why are you doing this and what aren’t you telling me?”
Trixie knew Starlight was seeing right through her. Her friend was looking at her now, not with frustration in her eyes, but with empathy and understanding. Trixie knew she should have been honest with Starlight right from the get-go and she was pushing the headmare’s patience to the limit. Even amongst BFFs like them there was a limit to how far a pony’s goodwill can be tested; Trixie had to learn that the hard way many years ago.
Trixie swallowed her pride and stood tall with courage. Better to be honest later than never, she thought.
“Star,” she began but was cut off by the appearance of Sunburst, rounding the corner rather clumsily.
The bearded unicorn cleared his throat as he approached Trixie with a confused expression. “Trixie there’s somepony here asking about a ticket reservation. He said you’d know what he was talking about.”
Trixie’s eyes lit up; her train of honesty completely derailed as she turned her full attention to Sunburst. “Did he give you his name?”
“Star Search,” said the vice-principal as he checked his clipboard. “I thought we weren’t doing ticket sales.”
“We aren’t,” assured Trixie. She used her magic to unroll a scroll she had tucked away in her cape. The scroll read ‘Reserved for Star Search.’ “Please attach this to a seat in the front row. Front row centre if you can manage” she said as she passed the scroll to Sunburst. “And maybe you should lead him to the seat too. Just for good measure,” she added with a wink.
“Okay, yeah. I’ll be sure and do that…” Sunburst trailed off and headed back inside the school, still slightly confused.
Turning back to Starlight, Trixie saw she wasn’t confused anymore, or even worried. She simply had one eyebrow raised in annoyance.
“Please don’t make me ask.”
“Star Search is the pony you saw me talking to at the café the other day,” Trixie said, answering Starlight’s unasked question. “I invited him to see my show.”
“Is that what this whole thing was about? You wanted to impress this guy?”
“Yes,” Trixie sighed. “He’s a-”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” asked Starlight with an excited look in her eyes.
Now it was Trixie’s turn to look confused. “What?”
“You wanted to impress a cute guy? You could have told me. I’ll always be your wingpony. It’s a little … extravagant but I mean who would you be if you didn’t throw in everything but the kitchen sink just to leave an impression?”
“Uh, right. All the way…” Starlight wasn’t technically wrong. Trixie did want to impress him, just not in the way Starlight was thinking.
“You still should have told me about the new acts for safety reasons, but if you know what you’re doing, then I trust you. You can do the show the way you want to do it, new tricks and all.”
“Okay. Great,” said Trixie. She had come so close to coming clean, but at least she had Starlight’s trust again. That’s what mattered most. It would be fine if she left out the finer details for now. She couldn’t risk throwing off the rhythm of the show any more.
“Now come on Miss ‘Great and Powerful,’ we should get those doors open. It’s showtime!”
Now it was Starlight’s turn to grab Trixie by the hoof and lead her back into the school. Inside they passed by the mailmare, who had miraculously managed to fit the towering pendulum through the door.
“Wow, it looks even bigger inside the school,” Starlight said in awe.
“Gotta play to the back rows, right?” said Trixie. She turned to the mailmare. “Thanks again for the delivery.”
“Oh, just doing my job,” huffed the mailmare. She was clearly exhausted from pushing the pendulum. “I just had to take some pieces off to get it through the door.”
“That’s fine. Just set it backstage.”
“Okay. Did you want the pieces-”
Trixie was being pulled along out of earshot. “Just leave everything backstage, I’ll know what to do with them. And thanks again!”
And with that Trixie was whisked by Starlight down the hall to the stage, leaving the mailmare to push pendulum alone through the corridor. She strained with all her might to move the heavy device. Removing the guardrails from the top didn’t make it any lighter.
As she pushed on down the hall, she looked into all the empty classrooms. Then she looked back to the gigantic sawblade. “What kind of school is this?” she wondered aloud.