//------------------------------// // A Great and Powerful Student // Story: Bugsydor's Cryogenic FicFrag Storage // by Bugsydor //------------------------------// "Are you sure about this, Twilight? She may have become 'The Great and Apologetic Trixie' the last time we saw her, but she hasn't shown up yet without causing some kind of town-wrecking disaster. I think we should send her away," Spike whispered. "Come on, Spike! I think we should give her a chance. I think she's honestly a changed mare who wants to get better at magic the right way," Twilight whispered back. "Besides, Ponyville gets more-or-less leveled on a regular basis by some disaster or another. Hay, I've destroyed the town at least twice myself," she admitted. "Yeah, yeah. We both know you're really just doing this so you can play Celestia and have somepony to call 'your faithful student'," Spike said with a smirk. "I've got to get a start on my dreams somehow, after all," she giggled with a sheepish shrug of her horn. "Trixie is not deaf, you know. Also, she is standing right here," Trixie stated with some controlled irritation. "So are you, Princess Twilight Sparkle, willing to teach Trixie to be a proper mage? Trixie promises that her days of deceit and darkness are behind her. Even if they weren't, your newfound divinity means that you could easily thwart any scheme Trixie could concoct before it got off the ground." "I'll give her that point," Spike mumbled. "For one thing, Trixie, my having wings, a horn, and increased stature and neck-length doesn't make me any more of a goddess than Big MacIntosh or Shining Armor." 'At least I think it doesn't–I'll have to look that up later,' she thought to herself. "Regardless, Trixie, I think I can trust you and would gladly take you on as a stude–" "But only if you make a Pinkie Promise first!" Spike interjected. "A what?" queried a somewhat irked and perplexed Trixie. "A Pinkie Promise is where you go through this little dance while saying 'Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!' And if you ever break one, I. Will. Find. You," Pinkie Pie expounded, punctuating her invasion of Trixie's personal space with emphatic jabs towards her great and powerful face. The pink mare then dove back into the shrubbery from whence she came, as if she was never there to begin with. "I really wish you would stop doing that, Spike." "Though Trixie is a bit unsettled, she agrees to your terms. Trixie swears that she will not do anything to usurp Twilight's power or authority or to harm the town of Ponyville. Neither will Trixie use any of her newfound magical prowess for evil, though she may use them for personal enrichment. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." "That's good enough for me. Welcome to Ponyville, and thanks for volunteering to learn magic from me! I've always loved learning about magic, and I keep hearing that the best way to learn something better is to teach it yourself, so I'm really looking forward to this. "There's still the issue of where you'll stay while you're in Ponyville as my student. It might be convenient to house you on-site at my home in the library, as it does have room for guests and you wouldn't need to worry about arriving late to your studies..." The two unicorns continued to discuss arrangements as they walked towards the Books and Branches library or, as Spike was wont to call it of late, Princess Sparkle's Palace of Books. The smile on Trixie's face was more subdued than Twilight's enthusiastic grin, maybe even slightly humble, but it appeared no less genuine. Spike, on the other hoof, was less than enthusiastic about this turn of events. 'Twilight may trust you, Trixie, but I've still got my eye on you. You're bad news, and I know it.' With that thought in mind, Spike tailed the scholarly ponies to his home. _-\*/-_ "And this, Trixie, is going to be your room for the foreseeable future," Twilight said with a yawn as she showed Trixie the guest room turned dorm room. "Wow, I'm tired. I keep forgetting how much growing takes out of a pony." She chuckled to herself. "See you in the morning!" "Good night to you too, Princess Sparkle," Trixie cordially replied as her door shut behind Twilight. Indeed, Twilight had been having a bit of a growth spurt lately, particularly noticeable in her neck and horn. Her face had been subtly shifting its structure as well, leaving her current visage partway between a young mare's approachable, round softness and the noble, chiseled, and some would say divine elongation of royalty. The combined effect had her catching a good deal more stallions' eyes, but more of these gazes ended up averted in deference, often with the stallion in question stealthily kicking himself. Twilight herself wasn't quite sure what she thought of this. Trixie, for one, thought the changes suited her new princess. 'For one thing,' she thought as she hung her hat on a rack to begin her nightly bedtime routine, 'Twilight's newfound divinity makes stomaching my past failures easier. It's a lot easier to spin being thwarted by a goddess-in-training than being shown-up by some upstart unicorn in a backwater village, after all. 'And now, I'm taking lessons from one of the greatest and most powerful ponies in existence,' she thought with a smile as she slipped beneath her bedcovers. 'Nopony will dare to mock me now.' She had good reason to smile as she slipped off to slumber. It's not every day that you make inroads with a freshly-minted friendly deity, after all.