Sky, grass, sky, grass. Rainbow Dash felt as though her eyes would spin right out of her head. Her wings strained, trying to twist over completely in the direction of the roll, her muscles ached holding them at the correct angle. She was going to hold this corkscrew no matter what. She'd counted in her head at least thirty seconds, and she knew she was below twenty feet. This had to be some kind of record, surely.
Sky, grass, sky, grass, sky, tree, sky, grass...wait, tree? The cyan pegasus deliberately angles her wings to try and throw herself into a bank, but it was no use – she was going way too fast, and she was way too low. She feels the tip of a wing drag the grass below and instinctively retracts it, this only serves to make her even more unstable, her body flips and she throws her forelegs up in front of her head.
Celestia this was going to hurt.
After a long few moments, Rainbow Dash carefully peers out from behind her crossed forelegs. The tree was right there, mere inches away, but she hadn't hit it, and she wasn't moving. Her body felt...light, weightless even, disconnected from gravity in a decidedly unnatural way. She expected her life to flash before her eyes...or maybe some flamboyantly dressed feminine stallion to come out of nowhere and sing a big musical number about the meaning of life. Actually, that would be kind of cool.
But no, she just remains floating there in the air, in front of the tree, and nothing cool happens. She eventually becomes aware of the purple aura around her body, and the similarly purple unicorn standing just off to the side of her with a concerned, but puzzled look.
“So. Um. Th-...thanks Twi...” the pegasus sheepishly acknowledges. Twilight Sparkle sets her friend down carefully on her hooves responsively, shaking her head.
“Let me guess, your newest trick involves becoming stuck halfway through a tree?” the unicorn jibes with a playful sarcasm.
“Well, your jokes are getting...better, I guess” the rainbow-maned pegasus returns with a roll of her eyes, though she immediately regrets it – they still hurt from spinning around her head trying to keep track of her orientation.
Dash had actually managed to forget she'd finally convinced Twilight to come along and watch her practice for the first time. She might have been embarrassed the result was the nerdy unicorn witnessing what would been a pretty epic fail, but she was too thankful her friend had the power to save her from her own mistake. She was still probably never going to live it down, though.
And she was right.
The walk back into Ponyville proper – or rather, Twilight walked, and Rainbow Dash hovered overhead and a little behind – was punctuated by a lengthy, smug, and painfully valid lecture about how none of the greatest Wonderbolts became so by getting lodged in solid objects. Or, more accurately, how reckless, borderline suicidal stunts and ideas, did not constitute fearlessness and daring, which Twilight had carefully structured using hall of famer Wonderbolts as examples to ensure Dash was basically forced to pay attention.
Desperate to have something besides Twilight's voice in her head, Dash turned her attention to the sky above. It was blue and clear, little in the way of cloud, but it wasn't hot – it was moderate, comfortable, and tempered by a pleasant breeze. Spring was awesome, especially when Equestria's greatest weather pegasus was around to make sure of it.
Of course, even the most awesome pegasus in Equestria could mess up a trick now and then. Sure nearly becoming part of a tree was a pretty big mistake, but if that tree hadn't been there, she might have pulled off the longest, lowest corkscrew in history. Maybe she did already – she wasn't actually sure what the record was.
“Hey Twilight” the pegasus perks up, grabbing the unicorn's attention, “you happen to have a book with like...all different records for aerial stunts and stuff?”.
The lavender mare ponders over this for a surprisingly short moment, then cocks her head up, which afforded her an almost effectively backwards view at her friend. “Actually, yes, I do. The Aeronautical Records Annual, I got this year's print just the other day. I was going to mention it to you...but then I remembered books hurt your soul”.
She hadn't thought of that, actually. Even a book full of things she actually wanted to know, was still a book. And reading books was just not cool. No matter how many cheesy, hopelessly out of fashion, painfully un-hip masocts and spokesponies tried to insist otherwise. The solution was obvious, to preserve her own cool, Rainbow Dash couldn't read the book...but she just happened to have a friend who would gladly read it and store the information for her reference.
“So, uh...”
“Nope”, the purple unicorn's response came quite quickly and soundly, though she was friendly about it nonetheless. “You want to know what's in the book, you read it yourself. I'm not going to be your cheat-sheet”.
Dash couldn't even begin to fathom how Twilight does that. The purple mare was getting too good at predicting what she was going to say... maybe that owl of hers really is a spy. Actually, that didn't make much sense, the owl wasn't around right now, because it's day time, and the owl can't read her mind anyway. She'd only just thought of it.
The rainbow-maned mare's eyes pry open with panicked realization. Could Twilight read her mind? Did she have a spell to do that? Was she reading her mind right now? And why was she staring at her all of a sudden?
“Something wrong?”, the unicorn presented a thoughtful look. Panic and paranoia was written all over the pegasus. Pinkie had just finished seeing to it with a permanent marker, earning a mixture of bafflement and curiosity from the unicorn and pegasus both.
“What? It's called literalism” Pinkie insists happily, bouncing up and down in place, “I'm on an art kick. See?” she suddenly produces a perfectly square watermelon from...somewhere. “I already did cubism. Next I think I'll try...”
“Pinkie, that's not how it wor-”
“Oooh! Cerealism!” Twilight is cut off as the pink earth pony suddenly races off in the vague direction of the Oats and Chairs store.
“It's...surreali...oh never-mind” the unicorn shakes her head in dismay, having long since learned her lesson.
Twilight and Rainbow Dash had gone their separate ways, evident primarily in the absence of the aforementioned purple unicorn. The cyan pegasus drifted along at an especially un-Rainbow-Dash leisurely pace, just a few feet off the ground. Her mind was still largely dominated by the events of the day, though it was only the afternoon yet, and there was plenty of time for more to happen. The thought didn't comfort her at this point.
But that might she muses to herself, gazing up at the ice-cream-soda store in front of her. She walks through the slightly awkward double-doors into a world of ice blue, white, and glitter. It wasn't exactly “girly”, but it was “cutesy” enough to make the pegasus roll her eyes a bit – it was to be expected, though. These places all had the same basic style.
She walks up to the bar itself and climbs onto a stool, leaning on the counter. An ice-blue unicorn with a predominantly white mane stood behind it, her eyes going momentarily wide at the sight of Rainbow Dash, but the cyan mare doesn't react, or even look at her directly.
“I'll have an ice cream soda” the pegasus reports inattentively, extending a wing and craning her head to pull a small, slim wallet out of an ingenious hiding place between her thicker feathers, and shaking a few bits out of it onto the counter, before placing it back.
The unicorn attendant doesn't even bother to respond or nod, seeing as the rainbow-maned mare seemed barely even conscious of her existence. Her horn lights up with an ice-blue glow, and a similarly colored aura draws a sturdy glass from the clean-rack behind her, positioning it at a soda-tap which she activates with a hoof, then sets the glass down and manipulates a nearby freezer open, while levitating two ice-cream scoops into it, which return with two scoops of vanilla ice-cream that are deposited into the soda, and finally her magic inserts a straw into the concoction, and slides it in front of the pegasus.
“Thanks” Dash almost mumbles inattentively, attaching her mouth to the straw and starting to slowly drink. The attendant returns her attention to cleaning out glasses, though she continues watching the pegasus with a certain notable curiosity.
“You know, I wouldn't mind Twi so much, if she didn't have to be so damn clever” the pegasus remarks...it wasn't entirely clear if she was talking to the attendant, herself, or some imaginary friend sitting beside her. She didn't sound particular angry or mean-spirited, but she was visibly annoyed.
“I mean it's cool that she's so smart. It's part of who she is. And it's helped all of us...hay, all of Ponyville, no even all of Equestria”, Dash's emphasis climbs with each extension, then drops off again completely with a sigh. “I just wish she was a bit more...in touch, with life, you know? She doesn't really...live it, she just kind of...reads about it”
“I...see” the attendant carefully responds, raising a brow with a cautiously engaged look.
“I had a crush on her for a while, but you know, it was pretty obvious nothing was going to happen. I mean I coulda wrote damn you flank so fine on a sign and beat her in the head with it, she'd just lecture me about how it's wrong to hit your friends with signs”.
The attendant promptly covers her mouth with a hoof to stifle a laugh, though she isn't particularly successful.
Dash takes another long draw of her drink, then leans her head onto a hoof propped against the counter lazily. “It's kinda sad, you know? I'd bet my right wing she had a crush on Princess Luna but thought she just wanted to be her friend, so she didn't do anything about it”.
“That does sound rather sad, doesn't it?” the attendant responds thoughtfully.
“Yeah. It's all Celestia's fault, of course” the cyan pegasus returns with a small frown. “She had her literally living up in an ivory tower before coming to Ponyville. She obviously never took five minutes to point at Twilight's flank and go hey, see that? Shake it once in a while and something good might happen. She could have at least given her the talk or something”.
The attendant once again finds herself having to restrain a laugh, though this one was also tempered with surprise.
“And that's not even the worst of it. I had the exact same problem anypony who wanted to get with Twilight is guaranteed to have. You know Twilight would want Celestia's approval of anypony she wanted to be with. And how the buck do you live up to those kind of standards? I mean sheesh...”
The pegasus sits up on her stool and gestures with a hoof in illustration of her own point.
“You know, that's probably it right there. Celestia. She had to be Twilight's first crush, I mean there's just no way that didn't happen. But of course nothing could happen because...come on, it's Celestia. And nopony could ever live up to a first love like that...so she never registers having feelings for anypony. Yeah, that's gotta be it...”
Dash frowns and settles down on her seat again, taking another long draw from her drink, and somberly mulling over her thoughts momentarily. “Well, it's not my problem anymore, anyway. I still have a thing for her, cuz...you know, she's pretty special. But it's never gonna happen. So I'm on the lookout for something that will”.
Just about now, the ice-cream had completely dissolved into the remaining soda. The pegasus grabs the class between her fore-hooves and tips back on her stool, gulping down the rest in one long session, before setting the glass back down with a burp and a relieved sigh. “Well, that was great. I'll have to come back for some more sometime”.
Dash takes a moment to fish out an extra loose bit and toss it on the counter, before hopping down off the stool, “and hey, you're a pretty good listener for such a loud-mouth. It was cool to see you again, Trixie”. And with that, the pegasus wanders off out of the shop, leaving Trixie visibly stunned.
The sun was low in the sky now, it's bottom edge not quite grazing the horizon yet. The temperature had dropped and the breeze had died off, but this balanced out pretty well, making it a comfortable, cool evening. Trixie was infinitely grateful for it as she walked home – her body, she concluded, was not built to stand around all day serving milk and soda beverages. But this job was a big part of her new life, and it was...strangely satisfying to go home every day knowing you worked hard enough to actually ache.
“Oh, hey Trixie”
The acknowledgment momentarily stuns the azure unicorn – no one ever recognized her, only...
“...Rainbow Dash, wasn't it?” Trixie calls up to the small cloud floating just off from the path through the park, a cyan pegasus visible reclining lazily across it.
The cyan pegasus rolls off the cloud with an unnecessary but skillful flip to land on her hooves a few feet away, then sits on her haunches casually.
“The one and only” she affirms with her trademark, boastful sitting pose, from which she quickly relaxes, “just get off work?”.
The unicorn found herself strangely possessing of the motivation to sit as well, though she moves onto the softer grass first.
“Yes, Trixie just knocked off for the day” the azure mare reports casually, though still with some mild hesitation. She wasn't entirely sure why she was able to talk to this particular pegasus...by all rights, they should probably hate her, and at the very least, not want to talk to her.
Instead, Dash just nods in response, looking off toward the setting sun, though this wasn't an especially good angle to see it from. “So I guess you live in Ponyville huh? Pretty crazy. None of us had any idea you came back”.
The unicorn frowns slightly at this, though not at Dash, seemingly at herself.
“Trixie only moved to Ponyville about six weeks ago. She is...careful of who she encounters”.
“Bad memories huh? Yeah I know what that's like” Dash muses casually.
Trixie draws her gaze at the cyan mare, finding herself momentarily lost in thought again. This was the same proud pegasus she humiliated in front of a crowd, who seemed almost as boastful as herself back then. The same pegasus she heard remark a desire to chase after her when she fled that night, and was stopped by Twilight Sparkle. How was she now so accepting of Trixie's presence?
“Well, you're cool with me, anyway” the rainbow-maned pegasus reports casually, once more casting her glance toward the sun, which was now well into the process of setting. “You live far from here? It's gonna be dark pretty soon”.
“The road home is a little long” Trixie replies, lifting a hoof to gesture at her horn, “but Trixie is not afraid of the dark”.
“Here...” Dash begins, sitting up a bit and opening her fore-legs invitingly. The azure mare found herself utterly perplexed by the gesture. Surely the pegasus was not inviting her for a hug, that seemed- her thoughts prove redundant. The pegasus becomes impatient almost immediately, and simply walks over to the unicorn, picking her up about the back and under her hind-legs, more or less forcing Trixie to put her fore-legs around Dash's neck for support.
“What...what are you-”, Trixie's protesting query goes unanswered and promptly proves redundant – the pegasus lifts them off the ground and takes flight, hovering several feet up.
“Which way do you live?” the cyan mare queries casually. Trixie couldn't help but hold onto her tighter, it was quickly evident she had never been carried by a pegasus before, and being this high off the ground was making her nervous. Her hoof shook as she gestures it westward.
“T...Trixie lives...over there...in a small blue house...third in the row”, the azure mare stumbles over her words, between shaking gently with nerves and being slightly startled at the gesture alone.
Dash takes a slightly firmer grip of Trixie and casts her a reassuring smile, “hey, don't sweat it. I'm the best flier in Equestria you know. You couldn't be safer”.
Trixie could only offer a small nod, before the pegasus takes off in flight to the west. She was thoughtful of the nervous mare and didn't go too high or too fast, able to feel that her reassurance had done relatively little to ease the unicorn's fear of heights – pegasus had an innate sense for it, ironically. She also noticed, quite quickly, that as it got darker, Trixie squeezed her eyes closed and unintentionally tried to hide her face in Dash's neck. Not afraid of the dark huh...?
It could only possibly have been a matter of a few minutes, but to Trixie, it felt like an hour. She could hear...no, feel, the pegasus' heartbeat through her neck, it was just as fast as her own. Was the pegasus afraid too? No...surely, it was just the exertion of carrying her own weight and Trixie's at the same time. But somehow, it still felt comforting. Trixie was not accustomed to being held, even if it was for a purely practical reason. She had read stories of how the heartbeat of another could be soothing, but she believed it romantic drivel. For once, she was happy to be proven wrong.
She feels a slight shock of impact as the pegasus touches down again, however gently she made the landing, and opens her eyes as Dash carefully puts her down on her own hooves. She was indeed at the front door to her house, the pegasus had gotten her there in a fraction of the time it would have taken her normally, and without a scratch to show for it.
“T...thank you, Rainbow Dash” the azure mare smiles weakly, “Trixie is grateful for the...lift”.
The pegasus shrugs nonchalantly, placing her fore-hooves behind her head. “Hey, no problem. I figure...you know, maybe we could be friends? And friends help each other out. So uh...I'll see you around”.
“...wait!”, Trixie's sudden remark pauses the pegasus as she had turned to fly off again. The unicorn hesitantly steps toward the cyan mare, and then quickly and nervously kisses her cheek, before rapidly retreating through the door of her house.
It was to Rainbow Dash's great relief that Trixie had retreated so quickly, she couldn't have seen the pegasus' wings standing firmly out to either side behind her, or the blush across her confused face.
Trixie remained lent against the inside of her door as though some terrible beast had chased her inside. She waits until she hears the tell-tale sound of wing-beats and scuffle, proving the pegasus had flow away before she finally allows herself to breathe again. She takes a long moment to collect herself, then permits a small smile to spread across her face.
The next morning arrived with all the subtlety of one of Trixie's old shows. The light from Celestia's sun pierced the thin blue curtains of Trixie's bedroom and painted obnoxiously bright radiance across the room, and the unicorn's face. She grunts in protest at it and pulls her pillow over her head while turning over. It was her day off, Trixie didn't need to put up with this.
Trixie's recently acquired home in Ponyville was surprisingly humble, considering its owner. It was relatively small, consisting of no more than a living room which was also the kitchen and dining room, a bathroom, and a bedroom. It had a small front garden, barely the width of the house and not even a third of the depth, and a small back-yard of similar dimensions.
A simple wooden table, wooden chairs, an old-looking comfortable sofa, a coffee table, a book-shelf with maybe half a dozen books in it, a dresser in the bedroom, and an old bed that wasn't all that much bigger than Trixie herself. The furnishings were similarly humble, it seemed. There were no photos on the walls or in frames, not even of Trixie herself.
There was just one object in the room to imply Trixie hadn't necessarily lost everything that terrible night – a trunk that sat at the foot of her bed, a bit old, very battered, which had her cutie-mark painted on it. One couldn't help but wonder what personable treasures she kept hidden in that inauspicious box, and why they were in the box, and not on display in her home.
Trixie was too busy wishing Celestia would turn her stupid sun off to have such thoughts herself, though of course, it would never happen. Eventually, with another protesting groan, she pulls the pillow off her head and sits up, rubbing her eyes with the back of a hoof. Coffee was required. Immediately. But the thought of walking to that cafe nearby that actually made something palatable resembling the miraculous liquid filled Trixie with despair, and a taste for muffins.
At least there was no such thing as a freeze-dried insult masquerading as tea. A kettle of boiled water, a cup, a small bowl of sugar-cubes, and a container of tea-bags from that delightful store two blocks over was all it required to get tea right. This is Equestria, there are no British to insist otherwise. Whatever those are.
Trixie continued to be referred to in the third person as she sat at her little dining table and levitated her cup of tea to slowly imbibe it. She contemplates a proper breakfast to go with it, but the thought of the effort involved makes her cringe. It was Trixie's day off, and she intended to exert as little effort as possible in the enjoyment of it.
Still, her mind returns to the events of the night before. Rainbow Dash had been more charming than she probably intended. In fact, she probably hadn't been all that charming at all, but Trixie was so unaccustomed to be treated well, it just seemed that way. Trixie didn't mind being a little pathetic, though, if she got to feel a bit special in return.
They say being carried by a pegasus, for a non-pegasus, is a life-altering experience, and one could only imagine that being carried by a pegasus as awesome as Rainbow Dash only magnified the effect. Being lonely, a bit desperate, and kind of tragic helped too, of course. Trixie was strangely content with this simple new life she'd built, but she couldn't help but wonder if it was finally time to add a little more to it.
Just a friend, for now. Surely no more than that. The pegasus was quick to point out the poor perception of Twilight Sparkle, but Trixie was fairly convinced Dash herself wasn't much better at it, if perhaps maybe in different ways. Trixie was very careful of who she encountered when she was out and about, but that wasn't to say she didn't see plenty in the process.
The first couple of weeks of Trixie's return to Ponyville had been the most difficult. She would run, hide, and/or use illusion magic to conceal herself if she so much as suspected one of Twilight Sparkle's friends was nearby, with the exception of the shy yellow one, who wouldn't recognize her anyway, and she had been quite successful. In more recent weeks, having worked out their routines and patterns, it was much easier to avoid them, and...on occasion, that is frequently, observe them from a distance.
Multicolored oatmeal with sweet-grass and carrots? Trixie looks up from the curious dish that had appeared in front of her, at the humming, swaying pink earth pony who had put it there, smiling cheerfully. The pink one, that was, Trixie was too busy blinking in confusion – when did Pinkie get in here? And what in the name of-
“So Cerealism turned out to be kinda boring. But mighty tasty!” Pinkie announces happily, producing another bowl of the curious “cereal” and placing it in front of herself, as she sits at the other end of the table on the other chair, and promptly buries her face in it, eating messily.
Trixie blinks a few more times for good measure...but then just gives a shrug of her shoulders, and leans down to take a mouthful of the dish herself. It was actually pretty good – the multicolor effect was inherently caused by some combination of fruit syrups that gave the dish a surprisingly balanced, sweet palette, that worked well with the sweet grass and carrot slices. The texture was a bit...questionable, but easily ignored.
Of course Trixie had no hope of hiding from the pink one. She found Trixie within ten minutes of her return to Ponyville, and had taken three hours to convince not to throw her a welcome party. Trixie had since learned the earth pony was another of Twilight Sparkle's friends, but had managed to forge an agreement that she would keep Trixie's presence in Ponyville a secret in return for free ice-cream-soda for life. The small print of the agreement also included Pinkie randomly popping in to hang out when she was home, though Trixie quickly came to like that part.
“Really, Dash? Again?”.
The cyan pegasus groans in protest, stuck the wrong way up, with just her flank and tail sticking out of the tree she had become tangled in. Twilight stood below, slowly shaking her head. The sun hung high over the field were Rainbow practiced her flying tricks, but there was a fair bit of cloud today, as a spring-shower was scheduled.
The unicorn's horn lights up and she magically plucks her friend from the tree, setting her down on her hooves below it. The pegasus dusts herself off with an annoyed, embarrassed frown, and sits on her haunches, crossing her front legs over her chest and looking away.
“Hey, these things don't always go to plan. I'd like to see you do better, you know, considering you can't even fly” Dash retorts indignantly, and a bit childishly.
Twilight actually seems to become annoyed at this, evident in the sharpening of her features as she turns away. “For your information, I could if I wanted to. You saw yourself I can give ponies temporary wings”.
“Yeah, fro-fro butterfly wings that burn up in the sun” the cyan mare retorts, again, somewhat childishly with a roll of her eyes, “real impressive”.
The unicorn's eye twitches violently for a moment as she takes a sharp breath and prepares to say something rather angrily...but she pauses herself, and lets it go with a long breath out. The notable silence lasts a few moments, prompting the pegasus to open her eye to look over at the purple mare, who she finds has turned away from her completely.
“...hey, I didn't...I mean, it was actually kind of impressive” Dash attempts to be reassuring, getting the distinct impression she's just trodden on the unicorn's pride a bit too hard. “It's just...you know, they weren't really practical. And you didn't use them on yourself, so you don't actually have the experience...” yeah this is going really well isn't it Dash? Why don't you call her a nerd for good measure
The cyan mare furrows her brow and leans forward, swearing she heard the unicorn say something under her breath. “Huh? What was that? I couldn't hear you”.
“Nothing” the purple mare retorts distantly, giving a shake of her head, “I'm...heading back to the library”. She doesn't even bother to look back as she starts walking away.
What did that even mean? Dash furrows her brow, her mind still stuck on what Twilight had said under her breath. The pegasus' hearing was a lot better than ponies would probably believe, but she was having trouble getting her head around what she thought she heard. So much in fact that she almost doesn't notice her friend is leaving at first.
“W-..hey, what! Where are you going?”.
The unicorn stops for a moment with a sigh, “I told you, I'm going back to the library. I have books to read, things to study. You know, nerding to do”.
“Why'd you come out here if you were just gonna leave?” Dash retorts, confused, and a bit upset now.
“Well jeez, I don't know. Because you asked?” the purple mare retorts rather sharply, though she seems to recoil slightly from her own tone, softening again strait away. “I'll see you, Dash”.
The pegasus lets her leave this time, knowing she'll probably just say something she'll regret if she pushes it any further. She gives a frustrated grunt and slumps back against the tree behind her, crossing her front-legs again and turning her head off to the side, furrowing her brow.
”One day I won't even need the spell. But then it'll be too late”? What in Equestria does that mean? Dash turns her head to the slowly shrinking sight of the purple unicorn walking the curving path back in the direction of Ponyville proper. Even from here she could see the angry, but upset look on her friend's face.
I don't get it. Is coming out here just a waste of time to her? Is she angry at me for talking her out of studying for once? Is she angry that I had another accident? Ugh, I wonder if Celestia has a flanking instruction book I could borrow. “How The Buck To Understand Twilight Sparkle”. If anypony has one, it'd be her for sure.
“Oooh she all maaaaaad” Pinkie observers with a mockingly angry face.
Dash turns her head upward without so much as a skipped heartbeat, observing the top half of the pink earth-pony protruding from the tree just above her head, upside-down of course.
“Hey Pinks”.
“Hiya Dashie” the earth pony retuns with a big smile, “wanna go play some pranks?”.
“Not today Pinks” the pegasus returns with a shake of her head, lowering it a bit with a weight of thought still across her brow, “got stuff on my mind I need to work out”.
“Oh, okie dokie lok-” the earth pony is cut off as her tenuous attachment to the structure of the tree gives way and she falls out of it onto her head, though she simply rolls over and sits up like nothing happened, leafy twigs sticking out of her mane and all. “Oh hey, are you gonna go visit Trixie today? It's her day off you know”.
This actually manages to inspire some surprise in the pegasus.
“What, you know Trixie's back in Ponyville?” Dash queries with a vacant blink.
“Well of course. Duh!” Pinkie reports with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, and head. “I knew from the start. I wanted to throw her a big party – of course, but she didn't want that. So we made a deal. Free ice-cream-soda for life!”, she gives a hoof-pump, “although I'll still throw her a party when she's ready. Just have to wait. Wait wait wait wait wait...”
The cyan mare slowly shakes her head, “Pinks, how'd you know I knew she was in Ponyville? … have you been spying on me again?”.
“Oh, no, no no no no...” the pink one begins waving her fore-legs emphatically, “nononono, no no, no no no no no, nono …. well” she pauses and smiles, “maybe a little”.
“Right...” Dash furrows her brow, but then shakes it off with a small sigh, “anyway, like I said. I have a lot on my mind. I'll probably catch up with her tomorrow or something”.
Pinkie cocks her head to the side, “well that's silly. You had a lot on your mind the first time you went to see her and it made you feel better, right? Why not today!”. She began bouncing in place, for reasons only Pinkie could possibly understand.
Dash pauses at this with some actual consideration. The earth pony had a point – it was almost terrifying when that happened, but it was a point nonetheless. “You know, you might be onto something there Pinks. And we are friends now after all. Yeah, I think I'll go catch up with Trix. You gonna come along?”.
“Nope!” the pink mare shakes her head with a big smile, gesturing a hoof in the vague direction of...well, where Twilight was, before she'd eventually disappeared from sight. “I'm gonna go cheer up Twilight”, she takes an extremely fake serious look, “or die trying”.
She might not have made that joke if she'd realized it was apparently quite possible. Pinkie stood in visible and for once, genuine, shock, beside Spike, both stood outside and a little off to the side of the library as it rattled and shook on its foundations. The lavender unicorn's angry ranting bellowed from within, virtually indecipherable in the way it kept changing tone from furious to mocking to venomous and liberally interspersed with words the baby dragon wasn't old enough to understand.
“I really, really, really wouldn't go in there...” Spike insists in mixed shock and horror. His point is promptly illustrated by what looked rather like a bolt of purple lightning blowing the door clean off the library, before a magic aura picks it up and slams it back into its frame.
Depending on you point of view, it was either surprising or quite logical that Celestia would touch down beside them outside the library, right about the same time an entire bookshelf flies through and destroys the larger balcony's doors, before the same magic aura pulls the doors back together. The bookshelf remains lodged halfway into the building on the other side of the street though.
“Princess! Oh thank … you!” Spike exclaims, grabbing the goddesses' nearest leg, “Twi's totally lost it! The mess, Celestia! The mess! It'll take the rest of my life to clean up!”.
Celesita nods knowingly, patting Spike gently on the head with the hoof she removes from his grasp, and then proceeds toward the library, clearing her throat and holding her head up. She stops immediately in her tracks as another bookshelf sails clean out one of the tree's walls and off into some distant part of Ponyville with a pretty radical amount of force behind it.
“On second thought...it may be best to let her...get it out of her system first...” Celestia submits with a nervous smile, and wide-eyes.
“...woah! Uh...Trix...you okay...?”
Rainbow Dash just...blinks vacantly at the bookshelf that was now half-way through the ceiling of Trixie's house. The unicorn herself was attached to the candelabra hanging from the ceiling several feet away, very pale and shaking in fear.
“Trixie knew it! She knew Twilight Sparkle would find out she was back in town! Oh Celestia, she's going to kill Trixie! Look! She's already trying! How can Trixie defend herself against projectile bookshelves!?”
“Woah, woah...easy now...” Dash tries her best to be comforting, though she herself was still more than a bit put-off by the projectile bookshelf. She floated near the ceiling just below Trixie, carefully coaxing her down into the hold of her fore-legs, and eases her down onto the floor, where she immediately shrinks into a cower, covering her head with her hooves and still shaking.
The pegasus rubs the back of her head sheepishly as she sits down next to the petrified unicorn. It was a bit of an extreme situation. “Uh...I really doubt Twi launched it at you on purpose...just a really, really weird coincidence”. Dash is forced to look off to the side momentarily, if anything, she was probably aiming at me...
“...h-hey, come on. Lets get this thing out of here anyway” Dash announces with an awkward insistence, trotting over to the bookshelf and pushing up against it from below, trying to get it back out the ceiling...rather in vain, it had to be said – those bookshelves weren't exactly light, and it was stuck halfway through the ceiling itself to boot.
Trixie takes a long few moments observing, and though still clearly shaken, eventually climbs to her hooves. Her horn lights up and an ice-blue aura spreads around the bookshelf. She exerts her will against it, having to lower on her legs and physically push forward against the spell to try and shift the object. Dash begins flapping her wings in slow, powerful controlled strikes, adding more force to the effort, and the bookshelf begins to inch. She flaps her wings faster, as Trixie's hooves begin to scrape slightly along the floorboards, loosing traction as she tries to push forward against the shelf's mass in her magic hold.
Finally, slowly, the bookshelf slides back out the ceiling along the angle it had come in, until it was far enough out that when the pegasus and the unicorn fall to the floor from over-exertion, the bookshelf simply slumps onto the outside of the roof with a loud bang, then slides off it onto the ground outside with an even louder crash. The scene was in no way rife with thinly veiled sexual implications.
Dash got up fairly quickly, still breathing kind of heavily, but dusts her hooves and assumes a triumphant pose “aw yeah, super pegasus saves the day again”. She pauses, and looks over at Trixie, who was still slumped on the floor and breathing heavily, clearly worn out. “Er...oh, hey...”, the cyan mare wanders over and carefully picks the unicorn up, guiding her over to slump on the couch.
“Th...thank you, Dash” the unicorn struggles out between breaths, giving a tired, but genuine smile, “it seems...things begin to go better for...Trixie when you are around”.
The pegasus blushes lightly at this, but quickly converts her nerves into bravado, striking another pose, “well yeah. When you're this awesome, it tends to spill over to those nearby”. She sinks away from her pose and...finds herself actually feeling a bit silly for it, turning her eyes away, “I mean uh...and you know...I like to help my friends”.
Trixie cocks her head with slight puzzlement at this reaction, but shrugs it off, having a much better handle on her composure now. “Trixie is glad to see you anyway. She had nothing to do today and was looking forward to seeing you again”. She immediately finds herself slightly mortified at saying that. It was a little bit too true.
To Trixie's surprise, however, the cyan mare smiles at this, with a small nervous blush. “Yeah, me too”.
Celestia just watched on in, at this point, shocked bemusement, sitting on her haunches and observing the spectacle as another bookshelf is launched out a different wall of the library. Spike at this point was cowering under the bath, which had been launched out a different wall at some point, just his tail sticking out as it rattles from his shaking.
“Wow, she's really mad” Pinkie remarks, popping up through a hole in a bookshelf that apparently landed on her at some point, an open book across her head. “Uh, maybe somepony should...stop her now? Before one of those-”, she cringes as the most recently launched bookshelf hits Sugarcube Corner “never mind...”.
“That's a funny way to spring-clean” Derpy announces with a raised brow, hovering just beside Celestia, gesturing a hoof at the library. “Did Twilight decide she doesn't like books anymore?”.
“Er...not exactly” the sun goddess returns with a nervous smile, “dear Twilight is um...well, she's having a bit of an episode”.
“Ah” comes the gray mailmare's simple response, giving a small shrug of her shoulders as she lands and trots toward the door, “well, the mail is the mail, I always deliver”.
Celestia cringes, “oh, dear, I don't think that's such a good-”, it was too late. The blonde-maned pegasus fishes a letter from her mailbag and holds it between her teeth, then trots inside without a care in the world.
Celestia and Pinkie both cover their eyes with a hoof and flatten their ears. One could only imagine the horrifying consequences that would befall the poor mailmare. Of course, when absolutely nothing apparently happens...and the activity in the library seems to cease entirely, they're left rather surprised.
Rather cautiously, especially for an immortal sun goddess, Celestia peeks her head around the corner to look into the library through it's door, not that there was a door attached anymore at this point. The inside was even worse than the outside, predictably enough – none of the furniture was were it sat originally, either having been launched out of the building at some point, or currently lodged in a wall, or the floor. None of the books actually looked damaged, ironically, though few if any of them were left in the remaining shelves.
“Shh, it's okay”
Celestia's attention is drawn by Derpy's voice, spotting the mailmare and Twilight just visible beyond the door into the backroom of the library. The gray pegasus was giving the purple unicorn a comforting hug, who was in turn hiding her face in the mailmare's shoulder, just letting herself be held.
“It'll be okay” Derpy insists softly, rubbing the back of the unicorn's head with a hoof, “you just got a bit carried away. It happens to everypony”. In defiance of all logic and reason, it was clearly working. Celestia couldn't help but think to herself the blonde maned mare was either fearless...or shamefully, as they all should, just knew Twilight wouldn't hurt anypony on purpose, and had no reason to fear in the first place.
And the day's subtle foreshadowing was complete.