Twenty years ago
Twilight and Sunset were standing at the back of the cafeteria and watched Trixie going over her performance one last time. They heard her talking and showing off her talent to the empty rows of chairs.
Both looked at each other and giggled.
“Well, she certainly seems prepared,” Twilight said, “And I see that you are not the only one wearing revealing stuff.” she blushed as she realised that Trixie in fact looked stunning in her stage outfit, and she just admitted that to her friend.
Sunset murmured something that could easily have been an insult, but chuckled. “Let me tell you one thing. When this is over, I’ll never wear something with that much bling ever again.”
“That’s not fair,” Twilight offered, happy about her friend not reacting to her embarrassment. “You have a lifetime ahead of you. Don’t just dismiss–”
“I told her.”
Twilight looked at her, taken aback. “You told her what?”
“That I am going to leave after the summer,” Sunset answered and looked sheepish. “She didn’t take it very well.”
“Oh,” Twilight rubbed her arm and looked at Trixie first, then back at her friend. “What do you think is going to happen?”
“I don’t know” Sunset blurted out and lowered her voice instantly. Fortunately, Trixie didn’t seem to have heard the outburst. She was too much into her performance. “I– we have a good two month left. We can have fun during that time, right?”
Twilight nodded awkwardly. “Yes, of course. I mean it’s not like you will be gone forever. And you could write to her once you are away?”
“That’s what I said!” Sunset threw her hands in the air, before she buried her face into them. Remembering that she already wore her stage outfit, she resisted the urge to just slide down the wall to sit on the ground. “It still feels weird.” Her voice sounded muffled and drawn-out.
Carefully, Twilight got closer and bumped her shoulder into her friend’s. “Hey, if we can stay in touch, so can you two” she tried to cheer her up.
Sunset looked up and gave Twilight a weak smile and a nod, before she watched her magician friend popping things out of her top hat. “Look at her. She really does look the part, doesn’t she?”
“Hey, if it comes to magic and stage appearance nobody beats Trixie,” Twilight laughed.
“That’s very true. And her outfit really is something else. Makes her look, I don’t know– irresistible. You just have to watch what she is doing on stage. You know what I mean?” Sunset looked over and lifted her eyebrows.
“Yeah, there is something about her, hm?” Twilight answered, wrapped up in thought.
“Yes. there is.”
Both girls crossed over to watch her again, immersed in the captivating stage presence that was the great and powerful Trixie.
Today
During their first night and after a long talk, Twilight caught up to the fact that Trixie didn’t want to leave to go back to being alone in her one bedroom apartment. So, on the second day, after Trixie spent the night, she had a swift talk with Sunset while Trixie was out of the room. They quickly came to terms that they wanted to invite her to stay with them in their guest room.
Trixie, although she seemed disinclined at first, reluctantly agreed after a while. Once they settled on this new temporary living situation and everyone got used to the thought, they felt quite comfortable cooking for three in the evening.
The first few days of living together, the three of them did in fact try to update one another on what had happened since they last saw each other. There was a lot of giggling and laughing involved, as well as some tears as Sunset and Trixie took their time processing their relationship and what might have been, had Sunset not moved away.
Otherwise the first week had been a blur.
Twilight remembered a gadget she had almost forgotten about. A refined version of her magic stealing device she had once utilised against her friends.
After the portal closed for the first time, she had worked on it for days on end, just to figure out that she couldn’t make it work. With twenty years of knowledge however, she could bring the device to do her bidding in an evenings’ worth of time.
It now focussed on the detecting magic side of its design and forfeited the stealing part. She installed it near the portal in front of Canterlot High, but it still hadn’t peaked once since then.
And aside from the portal not opening again, Princess Twilight hadn’t written back either.
Sunset even tried to use her magic purposefully on Twilight. They figured it’d be a better idea to try it on her, than on Trixie. Sunset was used to doing it to her friend, even though the opportunity was less frequent over the last few years.
But it appeared that the involuntary outburst in the café was in fact so strong, because it not only drew its energy from Trixie’s and Sunset’s friendship. It seemed that it used up all the extra power that had been stored and cared for in her amulet.
After another week and a half of not figuring out their magic problem, Twilight could keep her promise to Trixie though. She finally got a message from one of her acquaintances, who was in league with the owner of the Canterlot Amphitheatre. She actually got to rent the venue for a special event magic show in seven weeks’ time.
Twilight texted Trixie as soon as she knew and got bombarded with voice messages, asking her if she was serious and what she deserved to be played such a cruel trick on. A lot of third person talking was involved in this and every time Twilight opened a voice message she had to grin.
After an extensive rant about the atrocity of this practical joke, an absentminded Twilight laid her phone back on the table next to her spectrometer.
The moment she wanted to get back to work, she looked at the wide grinning face of Scribble Dee, who had propped her elbows down on the table and put her face inside her palms.
“Well?” she asked.
Twilight flinched back and scowled at her lab partner. “Scrib! You startled me.” She put her hand on her chest and took a deep breath. Then she looked at her table, wondering if she was at the right one.
She frowned at Scribble and raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing here? Your workplace is over there. Shoo.”
Scribble’s grin widened even more if that was possible. “So, she still does use the third person when she speaks of herself, hm?”
“Yes, she does– sometimes. What’s your point?”
“Nothing, nothing. I just thought it sounds cute when she does it, don’t you think?” Scribble raised her head from her hands and smiled innocently at Twilight.
“Wh–What are you implying?” Twilight felt her cheeks heating up, but swallowed the embarrassment down for now.
“Me? I’m not implying anything. Yet, I’m not the one smiling from ear to ear whenever my phone is vibrating.” she turned to get back to her table, leaving Twilight struggling to keep her face from turning red all around.
“That’s preposterous,” she retorted and rubbed her cheeks, which in fact positively hurt from smiling a lot today. She hadn’t even noticed until Scribble pointed it out.
Scribble just looked over her shoulder and nodded “If you say so.”
Twilight could spot her smirk, before she turned away to get back to work.
As soon as Trixie realised that the booking of the Amphitheatre hadn’t been a practical joke, she almost freaked out. Twilight and Sunset had to do their very best to calm her down, which was rather difficult, since stage-Trixie had taken over to process everything that was going on.
After the initial outbreak of the great and powerful Trixie being like they remembered her to be, she already had begun to plan the show.
Since Sunset usually worked the night shift, and Twilight really liked to plan things, she offered to help Trixie after her days at the university were over.
In the wake of the nightly planning sessions, Twilight realised what this chance actually meant for Trixie. She was more determined than Twilight had ever experienced in High School and she realised, when it came to her performances, the magician was as meticulous and precise as Twilight was in every part of her life.
They talked for hours about different mechanics she would use and wardrobe changes or even gimmicks she needed to have to make this show work. The sheer effort of will on Trixies side and Twilight’s concise enquiries made her realise that Trixie hadn’t had a show in her entire life, that went as she had planned.
As soon as Twilight realised that, she ramped up her efforts. Planning was the one thing she had always excelled at and the very idea of something not going as planned, made her shiver on the inside. Trixie needed to win in life for once and inadvertently Twilight had provided her with the biggest opportunity of her lifetime to do so.
Trixie seemed to realise that pretty quickly too and started to think big. Every part of the performance had to top the previous one which wouldn’t have been a problem if it wasn’t for one tiny detail: The farther down the road they went, the more Twilight realised that this wasn’t going to work if Trixie would do everything on her own. As thorough as Trixie’s planning was, she never even had the idea of not doing it alone.
Twilight tried her best to help her plan everything to her satisfaction, but one late evening, she couldn’t justify going any further.
“Um. Trixie, could you just help me with that?” she asked and pointed at one of the sheets of paper where a rather tricky illusion was scribbled down. “Have you ever done that before?”
The magician just glanced at the note and shook her head absentmindedly. “No, I did not. But I have some pretty good ideas on how to do it.”
“Oh kay–,” Twilight wasn’t sure how to react to this. “But what about this one?” she tapped on another piece of paper. “That illusion seemed to be needing at least four hands to pull it off”
“Pfft, please. The great and powerful Trixie can do it with one hand if necessary!”
Twilight struggled and had to push herself to speak again. “Trixie, I don’t think this will be possible without help from–”
“What are you talking about?” Trixie interrupted her “It is–”
“Please,” Twilight shot back, “Please let me finish.”
Trixie looked like she wanted to start an argument on that, but ultimately decided against it.
“I think you would be better off with an assistant.” she scrambled through the pages which she had sorted by their difficulty of execution. “Better yet two or three.” she lifted her eyebrows and sighed.
“Don’t get me wrong, there are some pretty cool ideas in here. And I am very grateful and honoured that you cared to share them with me. I know that magicians don’t do that lightly. But I am pretty sure that everything in here would be less taxing if you had help.“
“And how do you suggest I’ll do that?” Trixie responded and crossed her arms. “It’s not that there are a lot of assistants standing in line to work with a magician. Never mind the fact that I don’t have the money to pay them. I barely make rent as is. I don’t have fancy money to hire an assistant, let alone three.”
Twilight thought about that and put her hand to her chin. “Sunset used to help you out, right? A–and, I don’t know. I already read a lot of your stuff and I know how the tricks work by now–,” she went silent and her face flushed bright red.
“You–You are offering to help me?” Trixie seemed perplexed at the thought.
“I guess– I am?” Twilight answered and folded her hands in her lap.
“Why? Why would you do that for me?” Distraught, Trixie fiddled with some papers she picked up from the table while she stared at Twilight disbelievingly. “You don’t even know me that well. I can’t even believe that you let me stay here.” She looked at the papers to not face the other woman’s gaze.
Twilight shrugged her shoulders. “Well, you needed a friend.” She smiled at her, the colour slowly going down from her cheeks.
Trixie’s mouth dropped open and she just stared at her.
Still smiling, Twilight simply shrugged. “Don’t look so surprised. Yes, there are people in the world that like you. And yes, maybe I am one of them.”
Trixie closed her mouth, opened it again, and then closed it once more.
“I think I have never seen you speechless,” Twilight chuckled.
“It’s not a state of being I am used to, I have to admit.”
“Well, I like you. So get used to it. And therefore, I’ll ask again. Will you let me help you do this the proper way? Just assisting. So you can concentrate on everything that makes you the great and powerful magician you always claimed to be. I believe you can do it, if you let me –” she stopped and thought about it for a second “– us, help you. I’m pretty sure Sunset is on board, too.”
Trixie thought about it for a long moment. “I suppose I could give it a shot,” she said and smiled warily. “If you work very hard on it! You have to know every illusion by heart!”
“Very well,” Twilight answered. “Would you now please lay down your papers, I have to throw this couch cushion into your face for being a weirdo when it comes to friendship.
Eyebrows shooting up, Trixie slowly put the papers she was holding down on the table, looking at Twilight in defiance. “You wouldn’t dare,” she countered challengingly.
Twilight waited a second, just enough to see Trixie’s lip curl upwards, telling her that she needed this distraction as well. And then she threw a pillow at her face.
Trixie ducked and grabbed one herself, throwing it back and even following up and pushing Twilight down with the big pillow herself.
Twilight mumbled under the vast amount of fabric and she pulled it down hard so that Trixie lost her balance and had to intercept herself to not smother the woman beneath her.
Their faces were only centimetres away from each other as Twilight adjusted her glasses and involuntarily gazed into Trixie’s eyes. She hadn’t seen it coming and her heart raced inside her chest. Do something, Twilight, she scolded herself. Say something.
“H–hey, what are you doing? Have you been trying to kiss me?” she laughed awkwardly and pushed a pillow in Trixie’s face. You could have said anything and you went for that? her brain berated her. “From why do you even like me to this in under 2 minutes. That’s got to be a new record or something.” She tried to save the situation and let out another uncomfortable laugh.
Trixie backed off and mumbled something under her breath before she got articulate again: “I wasn’t. And believe you me, if I wanted to kiss you unexpectedly, one of the first things you’d hear from me was: ‘May I?’, that’s for sure.”
Twilight chuckled and got back up while her eyes darted everywhere: “Sure.”
Trixie scowled at her “Despite what you may think, Twilight Sparkle, I would never invade someone’s personal space like that.”
Waving it aside, Twilight nodded. “I believe you Trixie. I have never seen you overstep physical set boundaries. Auditory boundaries, well, that’s a whole other story.”
She started laughing as a huffing Trixie thumped a fluffy pillow right into her face. She let herself fall onto her back again and squinted over the edge of the cushion. Trixie looked at her with a triumphant smirk. Her eyes were closed half way, she had a predatory look on her face and another pillow in hand. Fortunately, the rest of Twilight’s face was hidden as she blushed under the magician’s gaze.
Another six weeks had gone by and Twilight, Sunset and Trixie worked every minute they could spare on Trixie’s show.
Twilight sat on a chair, standing at their improvised stage area that they built in their living room. Dreamily she looked over at Trixie showing Sunset how to best palm a small item and get it to her without anyone else noticing.
Of course Sunset had agreed to help and it hadn’t taken long for the three of them to agree on a setlist of illusions.
With two assistants on her side, Trixie admitted that everything Twilight had pointed out to her that maybe was manageable alone, would work much better with a second set of hands. She actually showed them more tricks that definitely were out of the question to perform alone but she had studied and practised for years now.
Twilight was nodding to everything she had been shown and her respect for the magician rose with every new piece that had been revealed to her. The capabilities of the illusions to wow an audience was very high and still most of them hadn’t seen the light of day in a stage performance.
Twilight often thought about this at night, laying awake for hours. With three people it was no problem to do everything Trixie wanted to. And after careful consideration, she realised that the only thing that was holding Trixie back to achieve greatness all this time was– herself.
She never had help after Sunset left and she always tried to make it on her own. Her ambition and her ego counteracted which she never even realised.
“Twi?” She heard Sunset calling and then she shook herself to get out of her thoughts.
“Yes? What?” Twilight realised that she had been staring at the two of them and cleared her throat. What she didn’t notice was that both women must have looked at her for some time now. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Sunset chuckled. “I was asking if you could help me with this.” She held up a key. “Trixie wanted to grab some dinner and you are way better with the fiddly stuff than me. Maybe we can work on it a little bit?”
Twilight rose from her chair and moved over to Sunset, nodding. “Sure thing.” She took the key while she watched Trixie out of the corner of her eye getting dressed and walking towards the door.
“Later” she heard Trixie call and saw her smile in their direction.
Twilight gulped and she felt her pulse rising dramatically. Ignoring the weird feeling in her stomach, she showed Sunset how to vanish the key properly.
After all, the big show was only days away and thinking about the magic part distracted her from thinking about Trixie all the time.