Chapter 8:
There comes a point in every mare’s life when she must do something, even though she’s really, really nervous about it. For me, it was the show. Or the spiders. Nope, most definitely the show. I stood behind the curtains, about ready to go on stage to face my audience. I had peeked outside from around the corner of the curtain twice already, much to the dismay of the stage manager. I smiled meekly as he verbally patted me on the muzzle. The makeup team had already been to me, and also the effects crew. the reason the crew is here was beyond the life of me, but they were all set up anyhow. Everything was perfect. However, it was also early. The crowd was filled, each seat taken. An audience including the Princesses drew many ponies indeed, even though there was no confirmation they would actually attend; it was only rumored. All were well aware that there was at least 45 minutes until the show started. Unfortunately Twilight was sitting in the audience too, so I couldn’t talk to her. No backstage passes for first time shows, I guess.
I was very nervous, and so I didn’t really talk to any of the ponies in the back. I kinda just stood around the catering table, munching on donuts and donut accessories. Someone had suggested using a nerve spell, to calm me down, but I said no. I wanted this to be all me. It wasn’t really a show if I was on spells.
“1 minute to curtain!” A loud pony yelled. I presume if the audience could hear it they’d cheer. But, thanks to the sound dampener, no sound through either side. I could assume that there would be a low murmur, anticipating the show which was about to start, but I could only hope. I walked slowly but surely towards the middle of the stage, stopping in about the center, letting out a breath I hadn’t realized that I was holding. Oh dear Luna, I still wasn’t ready. Now or never I guess. I swallowed, and nodded to Alpha, who was standing by the edge of the curtain. He nodded back knowingly. With the slightest grinding noise, and the rustle of heavy fabric, the curtain slowly and dramatically opened. I could do this; I rehearsed this, I knew this.
My horn gleamed with my practiced incantations as the curtains swung fully open, showcasing the stage, signalling that the show had begun. I strutted forward confidently, my nervousness not forgotten, but simply swallowed and kept down for the moment, remaining as a hard ball anxiety somewhere in my lower gut. My horn glimmered with magic as I activated my first spell of the evening. A loud bang resonated throughout the theatre, and a puff of smoke swelled around me, enveloping me in a grey hug. A single ball of blue light flew up, arcing over the audience before bursting, harmlessly, over a surprised Princess Luna’s head. The leftover smoke from the first spell slowly began to spiral around me, creating a typhoon of technicolor fog around me. It suddenly cascaded into the tip of my horn, before bursting out as dazzling fireworks, exploding over the audience in spirals and stars. This was met by a thundering hoof pounding applause, the audience clearly enjoying my dramatic opening more than I thought they would.
“Welcome to my first ever show, thanks for coming everyone!” I said, trotting over to the microphone. The lights centered on me were dazzlingly bright, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. “Tonight I’ve got a wonderful show lined up for all of you, with tricks and spectacles to dazzle and amaze!” I watched out as the crowd roared, over excited to see my show. Wait, they were excited to see my show! I allowed myself a silent squee, and turned back to the audience, smiling. I proceed directly to my next trick, a glowing ember of light arcing from my horn, circling overhead, increasing in size as it ascended. As it reached the zenith of the arc a second ember branched out from the first, the two combining at the top to form a large, glowing red heart. The heart hovered over the crowd for a moment, then shattered, sending glowing shards across a swathe of the center of the audience, vanishing the moment they touched hide or hoof of the surprised ponies.
“Well, now that I have you all reared up, I might as well introduce myself. My name is Twinkleshine,” I said, amplifying my voice as to not require the mic. “and I will be your performer for the evening.” I smiled, the sphere of anxiety slowly being melt smaller and smaller by the warmth of providing joy to so many ponies. “I can see you all seemed to enjoy my first tricks,” I said, smiling warmly at the roaring confirmation I received, “and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Now are you ready to see some real magic?” I feigned deafness as a loud chorus of yeses echoed through the theatre. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. I said are you ready to see some magic?” The responding shout rebounded through the cavernous room, echoing several times back in forth between the far walls before finally dissipating against the fourth wall.
“All right.” I said, grinning ear to ear with anticipation along with many members of the crowd. “Let’s get this show on the road!” I followed up this statement with a swirl of my cape, coupled with a basic smoke spell combined with a short range teleport. Parlor tricks, but when coupled with the horn light diminishing gem, courtesy of Twilight Sparkle, I had learned to turn these minor effects into something seemingly impossible. The crowd collectively gasped as the cloak continued its swipe across space, minus its owner. Appearing in the back, I activated a dual animation and voice enchantment I had cast on my cloak. My whispers turned into fantastic roars from the now empty cloak. “An invisibility spell? No, that’s not it. Whatever could be the cause of my sudden disappearance?”
With a blink, a column of light, brilliant fire, and noise shot up, the white and red swirling together to form a furious beam of power. Just as the audience had time to turn back to witness it and gasp, there was a brief flash, and I was back on stage, my cloak settling back around my shoulders. “Now, that’s what I like to call my Brazen Barrage. Now, then,” I started pacing back and forth onstage, “I suppose you’re wondering what you’re all out here to see? A fantastic light show?” I began the casting of a spell, a particularly powerful one, though my light and sweat were masked by the dampening gem. “Maybe a hot mare onstage doing tricks, shaking her flank and whatnot?” My mind burned as I focused, all my energy into this grand trick. I’ll have plenty for later, but this one is a must do. “Certainly not your...” My horn flashed once, intentionally, as I roared out. “Your chairs.”
The audience let out a loud gasp as they collectively looked downwards, and saw the floor, their drinks and popcorn floating in mid air, several standing up in disbelief that their seats still existed. Up popped a drink, a small one mixed with several magic enhancements, crushed gems and the like. I floated it up and took a swig. “Very delicious, I’ll have to commend the chef. Speaking of ponies...”
“Her sleight of horn wasn’t sleight! It was incredibly laborious for her to do that trick!” I froze, I could recognize that voice no matter where I was. This couldn’t be happening, is she really that petty? I thought I got rid of her when I lived in Ponyville...but I continued on, despite several voices murmuring through the crowd, several of them pointing out the gem, still faintly glowing from absorbing the glow from the previous trick. Well, worst comes to worst, it was time to improvise. I dropped the gem, cancelling it’s horn glow dampening effects. A little extra effort, okay, a lot, but worth it to prove Trixie wrong.
“Now then, I’m going to need a member of the audience for this next trick.” I pretended to look around them, judging and considering each pony. Though, in the end, I decided upon the loveliest mare in the audience, my Twilight Sparkle. I could’ve sworn I heard Princess Luna say something, though. “Yes you! Lovely mare in the purple!” I watched as Twilight made her way through the crowd to the stage. “No problem, my good mare, let me.” I quickly cast a spell, and ‘teleporting her’(she actually teleported herself) up beside me. “Now, you may suffer from a few side effects from this trick...I’ll temporarily turn you into an orange!”
Extending my amplification onto Twilight, I feign ignorance. “Now, then, what’s your name?”
Suppressing a giggle, Twilight said gingerly. “Twilight Sparkle.” I think I heard Princess Celestia cheering.
Focusing for a moment, I cast a spell, and Twilight vanished in a burst of smoke, a small orange dropping to the stage. Summoning a decorative table set, I sat down at the table, not invisible, and floated the orange up to the plate. Remembering those four forced years of Mannerisms in school, I used utmost grace and fluidity as I sliced open the orange, eliciting a few cries from the audience, and took a bite of one slice. I chewed slowly and exaggerated my motions, then swallowed, eliciting several more gasp, along with a cry of “the horror, the horror!”. I nonchalantly spat a left over seed onto the stage. After a moment, it started shaking, and burst, Twilight appearing in a tower of seed shards. Twilight looked confused for a moment, then spit out a seed herself, and smiled. The audience burst into applause.
As I was about to say something, the shrill, loathsome voice shouted again. “She just teleported her away, and an orange in! It’s all fake!” I swallowed, not wanting to deal with her. I sighed, before casting a quick spell.
“Why don’t you come up here and prove how fake my magic is?” I shouted out over, in an unprecedented bout of confidence. “Sis, do you even cast?!” With the final remark, I stomped on the stage with my forehooves, eliciting a cheer from the audience.
I could hear her chuckle from across the room. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I do.” She mimed my teleportation spell perfectly, appearing in front of me in quite the intimidating gesture, surrounded by her own light effects, shimmering like fires above her. “And I’ve been at this game far longer than you have, little Twinkle.”
I was slightly confused by this. “No you haven’t. We’ve been at this the exact same amount of time. We went to magic school together. Remember?” As I said this, I launched several of my own light displays, shimmering the lightest blue light of fresh snow on Hearth's Warming Eve.
I noticed Princess Celestia begin to stand up out of the corner of my eye, looking as though she were about to do something to stop us, before being pulled back down into her seat by Princess Luna’s hoof, shaking her head slowly. Trixie, not intimidated by my display of magic, took a step back, and shot up a beam of light blue light. I responded with a pinkish white beam. The resident DJ, by the stage name of DJ-P0n3, chose this as an excellent time to spin up an upbeat techno track(‘Spin That Record’), somehow synchronizing the beat to the the flashes of our cantrips as we hurled the across the stage, now a veritable battleground. Props to her.
The spells that we were launching at each other were more showy and startling than anything, more for care of the audience than each other’s mortal well being. This went on for several minutes, with neither of us getting the upper hoof over the other for more than a second our eyes easily readjusting from the seizure inducing display from our own experimenting with similar incantations. As she shot a spiraling sparkle of a spell towards my ice beacon, which we had unspokenly chosen as targets in our contest, I thought I saw an opening on her own beacon. However, she had anticipated this, and lunged towards me directly, magic entirely forgotten to her, in an attempt to end it.
As she lunged, a slight magic glow, the deepest of royal purple in color, surrounded her hoof for but a moment, causing her to stumble, landing in front of me in a crumpled heap.
“Enough of this!” I boomed, my shout echoing past the fourth, fifth, and sixth wall, attempting to stay in my stage character, stomping the stage in front of me while discretely casting a spell as I did so. Shimmering blue and pink bars erupted from the stage floor, encasing Trixie, and lifting her above me, front and center on stage. As an afterthought, a shimmering bandana appeared around her muzzle, silencing her futile cries.
“Now, what should I do with this mare?” I asked the crowd in front of me, tapping the floorboard in front of me idly as I waited for the shouted answers to die down, several of which I myself wouldn’t repeat.
“Give her the Royal Treatment!” Princess Luna shouted over the din.
“I could do all of those,” I said, and, with an afterthought, added “well, most of those,”, causing a ripple of laughter through the crowd. “But do you know what I am going to do?” The crowd listened expectantly, Trixie’s eyes nearly popping from her skull with something I would almost call fear. “I’m going to set her free, and let her return to her seat. Her losing is more than enough punishment that what she deserves, despite what a few of you might think.” This elicited another, more scattered shimmer of laughter. “And with no further ado,” I said with a flourish of my cape, causing the bars to dissolve, depositing the frumpled mare into the aisle to limp dejectedly to her back row seat. “And it looks like my time is up, and though there were a few...annoyances, well, one toothpaste colored one, it was a wonderful time. I’m honestly very surprised at the huge turnout, no thanks to the presence of the Equestrian Royalty, and it was my honor to entertain you all. Goodnight!” I popped behind the curtain, before realizing it was still about noon. “I mean good bye! And have a great afternoon!”
I went back, but before I could go to my dressing room to relax, Twilight, who I now realized never left the stage, almost tackled me. “Wow you were amazing!”
I blushed, and said bashfully. “It was alright, Trixie kinda ruined the show, though...”
“Ruined the show!? You kicked her flank! That was more embarrassing than when I beat her!”
“Wait, you’ve fought Trixie before?”
“Yes, one time she came into Ponyville, and started showing off. No one really liked her after she proved arrogant and cared more about making a pretty light than making her audience entertained.”
I was stunned. I hadn’t even begun to think I was being an arrogant braggart. I wasn’t, was I? No, it could’ve have been. Not on my watch, at least. “Wow. All I did was embarrass her in front of thousands...” I frowned slightly.
“Yes, but she deserved it! Both times!” Twilight smiled, and picked up my chin. Neither of us noticed our second guest, however.
“Well, it seems we have some NEIGHsayers.” Trixie said, as I turned towards her. On stage I had confidence boosting spells, but here...I was worthless. I stared at her, a little bit of fear in my eyes. “It seems you took quite the enjoyment of trying to embarrass me on the stage.”
And none of us noticed the third guest in the hallway. A Royal visit was rather unexpected, but wholly welcome. I looked up and smiled. “Why, hello, Princess Luna.”
Trixie froze, staring in disbelief at the Royal deity standing behind her. Without turning around, her horn flashed, causing her body to disappear into nothingness, presumably teleporting away, leaving nothing but her hat. A moment later, a hoof reached out of a shimmering hole in the æther, grabbing the hat and taking it back into the hole. Luna’s horn quickly shimmered as she started talking. “I just sent her to the royal guard station. They won’t do anything bad to her, but it’ll scare her quite well.” She laughed, and we joined in. I trotted over and hung my neck over Luna’s shoulder in a hug. “You did a wonderful show, Twinkleshine, and a most admirable defeat against your rival.” Was she my rival? “Though I wouldn’t have been so...lenient, the way you handled that was quite fitting of you.”
“Thank you, Luna. I honestly didn’t expect such a huge crowd.”
Luna gave a hearty chuckle. “Come now, with my Sister and I? How could it not? People were beginning to wonder when we starting spending time together, Twinkleshine.”
I sensed that Luna had something else to say, but, didn’t really want to say it at this point in time. “Let’s head back to my dressing room, I’m quite tired...”
We had walked back to my dressing room, and made it inside when the full weight of today’s experience hit me. All the spells had worn off, all the confidence, the energy, and the magic potions were gone. As soon as I stepped inside, I nearly collapsed with fatigue. Luna and Twilight chuckled, and helped me into my bed. Twilight gave me a goodnight kiss before the two walked out, talking about...something. I can’t really remember what. I fell asleep quickly after that, as I had gotten very little sleep the night before, so I started dreaming really quickly. Man, I say quick a lot when I’m tired.
I was back in...high school? I looked around, there’s Moondancer, there’s Lyra, there’s Minuette, there’s Lemon Heart, and...there’s Trixie. There’s my teacher, Sunflowers, she was good, I guess. “Twinkleshine, what’s 2+2.” She couldn’t be serious.
“3.” I answered nonchalantly. Wait, 3? No, I meant 4! 3 Was only for very small values of 2! “3. I mean 3!” Wait, did, I say 3 again? “Celestia send it to the moon.” I muttered underneath my breath.
The teacher, whose actual name and face I still cannot recall clearly, turned to look directly at me with a head with the same size, shape, and coloration as that of Princess Celestia. With my dear old teacher’s body.
“Excuse me, what was that you said?” she said, standing up, looking, the room seeming to darken around her oddly expressionless, unmoving eyes.
“I- I was just-” I began, each word tumbling over each other like foals being let out to recess.
“Just what?” The entire room changed to pitch black, burning flames bursting into existence in her eyes. “Do you know what happened to the last pony who used my name in vain?”
“Um- they got sent to the moon?” My eyes were wide as saucepans as I thought what was going to happen to me.
She sat back, some light returning to her eyes. “No, but a good guess.” Her mouth grinned, revealing several rows of large, sharp teeth seldom seen in any species, let alone a pony. I’d never seen Celestia’s teeth in person, but still. “She got sent back to Magic Kindergarten.”
I turned around, and was shocked to see Twilight sitting at a desk several sizes too small for her to possibly sit in. The look of horror on her face was veiled by a mask of determination, most likely put up for my sake. “Don’t let her scare you. It’s not that bad.” she said, her muzzle staring down at her desk, staring in boredom at the problems before her, somehow even more basic than those I was already answering.
“Twinkleshine.” A voice said from behind and above me. “You need not to fear her. It is nothing but a dream.”
“Wha- what?” I said, turning around, seeing Princess Luna hovering above the oddly roofless schoolhouse on a cloud, munching idly on an apple. As I realized the truth she spoke, The Celestia monster in front collapsed in a screech and a pile of wormy apples.
“Also, I made pancakes.”
“Pancakes?!” I said, startling up straight in my bed, knocking the mare off of me.
“Ah, you’re up. I knew the pancakes bit would work.” the purple mare said, getting up gingerly from the floor. “You must have been having quite the dream. I couldn’t seem to wake you up, so I to resort to drastic measures.”
My ears drooped as I answered. “You you lied about the pancakes?” I asked dejectedly.
“Not at all!” Twilight said, her horn illuminating the rooms as she hovered a loaded plate of delicious pastries up to me. “This was the drastic measure.”
“Have I ever told you that I love you?” I said as I began scarfing down the pancakes, devouring each goey, blueberry laden bite.
“Uh, I think so...” Twilight said, although seeming not quite sure herself.
“Well, I do. Top notch pancakes, by the way!” I put down the plate down, got out of the bed, and enveloped Twilight in a brief embrace. As I did so, I could have sworn I had seen a shadow outside the window flutter away into the darkness of the night.