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// Bonus: Humility 
// Story: Letters to the Sun 
// by Horizon Runner 
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	Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,

I fear that you must remember me. If we’d only met once, I would assume you’d forgotten my name and face, but after our second meeting I cannot hold onto that hope. You know who I am, and you remember me as the crazed, power-hungry mare who tried to enslave all of Ponyville, who tossed you out into the Everfree and sealed your friends away beneath a magical shield.

That isn’t how I wanted to be remembered.

I’m not a bad pony, or at least that’s what I want to believe. I’m not ‘just misunderstood’, either. That would be easy enough to say, but it’s not exactly true. I’m just desperate, pathetically, deplorably desperate, and that’s what everypony rightfully remembers. The attention grabbing, the empty threats, the reckless boasts… mistakes, made on the wrong path to greatness.

You should understand where I started, for I believe you may find it familiar. I was a young filly living in Manehattan who displayed a great deal of magical talent in her youth. However, I never had the fortune to meet Celestia, nor the opportunity to apply to her school. Instead, for reasons I won't elaborate upon, I was forced to leave my home when I was very young. All I had to my name were a pair of saddle bags, a few dusty old spellbooks, a two-bit cape my mother had bought me at a fair, and a tiny sliver of hope that I'd be able to find a place in the world. I left Manehattan without a bit to my name, living on whatever morsels I could scavenge or steal. This is why I hold myself so highly, Twilight Sparkle. Because while you studied under Celestia herself, I was marching for miles under the sun. While you slept beneath her wing, I was learning to pick pockets and shift cards.

It took five years just to get my own trailer and my own show. I built my way up there by working almost any job there was. I had enough pride to avoid the truly malodorous lines of work that a mare can find herself in, and eventually, though later than I'd like to admit, I managed to give up petty crime altogether. Once I got the trailer and a few special effects, I got to work.

My first show was probably the greatest I ever put on. The effects were pathetic, the tricks were ill-performed and mediocre, but for some reason that sleepy small-town crowd didn’t care. They loved every minute of my awkward, stumbling performance.

It took me a long, long time to figure out why. I guess, in hindsight, it’s because that was the only show I enjoyed putting on. It was the only show where I really smiled. It was the only show that was sincere.

After that first test of the water, it became about the fame. I improved my craft a thousandfold. I began to practice real magic, as well as tricks. I expanded my repertoire to the display you saw in Ponyville. I even developed that ridiculous accent, along with the title.

It’s funny. I should have noticed back then that “The Magician” was much more popular than “The Great and Powerful.” Perhaps if I had come to understand things then, I would have taken a different road.

I became fairly well-known, and not always in a good way. At my shows, I’d call up “powerful” unicorns from the crowd and make a mockery of their gifts. I’d always known I had a lot of raw talent, but I’d never realized how much until I started proving myself constantly like that. I received a few letters from powerful ponies because of it, ponies who needed powerful magic, ponies who just wanted to show me off to their wealthy friends.

I turned them all down, of course. I wasn’t going to be a souvenir, no matter how great the pay. I was the Great and Powerful Trixie. I had to keep moving up until Celestia herself bowed before me.

At least, that was what I believed.

Then came Ponyville, where you turned my act against me. It was my own fault, as I now see, but it was the first time I’d experienced failure in a great span of time. Everything collapsed after that. Word spread to the neighboring towns. My boasts were laughed off, my acts jeered back onto the open road.

If this had just happened without a catalyst, I would be long dead by now. As it was, my focus shifted to you. You became my obsession for almost a year. I scraped by, working whatever job I could find—sometimes even those I swore I’d never touch—and I trained. I trained harder than I ever had before, striving each day to lift a little more, to make myself invisible for a few more seconds. I burned out five times, but each time I just rested for a day and kept going.

And then, as you’ve probably guessed, I found the Amulet.

But do you know how it came to that? How does a mare become so broken inside that she seeks out something as infamous and dangerous as the Alicorn Amulet?

Simple. She has her fortune told.

I’d become so desperate at this point that it sickens me to even remember. My training was wearing me to the bone, and I could tell I wasn’t improving as much as I had in the past. I thought I’d hit my limit, though I later learned that I was just so exhausted that my magic refused to work at its full potential.

I panicked, and called upon one of the only favors I had saved up. There was a stallion working with a traveling carnival which I’d journeyed with before I truly started my career. He was a fellow magician, and we’d become friends before I’d gone off to seek my own path. I found him, making a happy little living in that same carnival, and I asked him if there was a good fortune teller in the troupe.

It might sound ridiculous, I suppose, but have you ever had your fortune told by a professional, Twilight Sparkle? It is not a matter of gazing into a crystal ball and reading invisible currents. The stallion I met was a strange, wiry old zebra. He took me into his tent, and started lightning dozens of incense burners. Then he sat down, motioned for me to sit opposite him, crossed his legs, and meditated for two hours.

At any other point in my life, I would simply have left him there. But that day was my darkest hour, and I thought if I could just have something, some kind of guidance, then I might be able to make it through another night.

So, I did the same. I meditated, though I honestly couldn’t concentrate at all. My thoughts kept drifting back to Ponyville. I thought about you, the most powerful unicorn I’d ever met. I didn’t yet know about your connection to Celestia, or that you were destined to be her heir. If I had, perhaps I would have followed the fortune teller’s advice.

When he stirred, he told me that my future was an open plain. He explained that I was not constrained, that I could make my way anywhere at all, that my destiny was of my own choosing. He told me that this was a rare thing, that most ponies had but two or three great paths they could take.

Then, he told me what I should do if I wanted to fulfill my dream to become the most powerful unicorn in Equestria. He said I should study under you.

It took the last of my composure to pay him before I left. I felt cheated. Surely, the first part of his fortune was something he told everypony. Surely, the latter was because he’d heard of you, knew of your skill. In my mind, fraud was the only explanation.

I couldn’t bear to consider the idea that he was right, that I’d only surpass you by becoming your student.

But I failed to catch a small bit of meaning hidden in the words he used. “Most powerful unicorn.”

A bit ironic, isn’t it? I never could have guessed Celestia would… well, I suppose that’s a separate issue. Congratulations, by the way. I suppose it’s easier to say that now, knowing that you were destined to fly higher (heh) than I ever could.

The Amulet was a mistake. It was rumored that a certain dealer had it in his possession, and after the fortune telling I was so lost that I dived right in. I found it, and… well, you saw what happened next. Thank you for stopping me. When I remember the end that cursed bauble compelled me towards, it makes me sick to my stomach. I hope you disposed of that vile thing safely. It’s worse than you saw, Twilight. It wants more than just power. At the end of its path, there lie only ashes and charred bones.

That’s all in the past, at least for me. I’ve improved even since then, dropped the accent, gone back to my old stage name. Trixie the Magician smiles as she weaves her spellwork, and the crowds that aren’t warded off by her reputation seem most pleased with the result.

I have a request, one so selfish and callous that I can hardly bear to put it into words.

Please, Twilight Sparkle. Could you teach me?

I understand that, as a Princess, you’re more busy than you’ve ever been, but I’ve been studying magic my whole life, and you’re still head and shoulders above me. You’re simply superior, and I’ve accepted that, but I want to do my best to keep climbing. There are still unicorns who outclass me, even though they are few and far between. Perhaps, if you’d take me as your humble student, I’d be able to match the point you were at when we first met. Perhaps I’d someday reach the point you were at when you bested me that second time.

I don’t expect you to accept me, but please, please consider my request. Let me follow this path, even if it’s too late to reach the heights the fortune teller foretold.

With my sincerest congratulations and apologies,

—Trixie Lulamoon.