//------------------------------// // Come to Terms // Story: A Prosecutor's Past // by Songbrony //------------------------------// Canterlot Magician's Shop 11:05 A.M "It's pretty run down. I honestly think it would be cheaper to just buy a whole new stage." the shop keeper said. "But I've had this one since I was young! It has a strong meaning to me. I really don't want to get rid of it. Please, can you just restore it?" Trixie asked. The shopkeeper sighed. "Okay, Miss Lulamoon. I'll have it ready in a few days. It's going to take some time to restore this stage back to what it was like when you first came in to get it." "Thank you. I appreciate it." she said gratefully. She left the store and let the shopkeeper work on the stage. Did he really have to go? I mean, even after all that I did, he was the only one who treated me...well, nice. she thought, thinking about Pheonix. She sighed. As she walked through Canterlot, she couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy, as if someone was watching her. She looked behind her and didn't see anybody. You're back in the city. Of course it's going to feel like somebody's watching you. she said to herself. Despite liking the attention she got when she performed onstage, she hated being around a crowded area in public when she wasn't in her performance persona. She didn't even have her cape and hat with her today as she was trying to stay out of the light. It was strange. Without her cape and hat, most ponies ignored her presence. But as soon as she put them on, they noticed her. As she walked through the capital, she couldn't help but think back to Ponyville. To them. The ones who she called names and who she tried to get banished to the sun because of a stupid incident that she messed up. I can't go back. Not after how I treated them and then how they treated me back, like...well the closest thing to a friend as I could have after all these years. And now that he's gone... she thought. She shook the thought out of her head. As she walked up to her apartment she ignored the sounds of the ponies below her. There was a StarSwirl Festival at the Canterlot Fairgrounds where she would have normally taken a trip and visited the artifacts and memorbillia from StarSwirl's time. But she wanted to spend some time alone and think about what to do now. She walked into her apartment and pulled out a book about different types of magic tricks she could show to her next audience. She wasn't sure if she should start having ponies pay to see her shows, but she at least could find some new material. There was a knock on her door but she ignored it. The only ponies who came by her apartment were entrepenuers and those wanting to sell her stuff. There was another knock and Trixie rolled her eyes as she closed the book and walked over to the door. "Can I help you?" she asked as she opened the door. "Hello, Trixie." Pheonix said. "Pheo...Pheonix?" she asked. "But Twilight said you left." "I did. I'm not actually here. I'm more or less a projection." he said. "But how?" "Well," Pheonix started, taking a deep breath, "in my world, we have spirit mediums who can communicate with those who've passed on and some of helped me solve my cases. And one of them gave me an item, a Magatama, which allows me to see when someone is lying. Twilight touched it with her magic, and somehow its power transfered over to her for a short time. The Princess must have been experimenting with this world's magic and my own, and she found a way for us to communicate. It takes an unbelievable amount of energy and willpower to cast, but that's the reason I'm able to stand here." he explained. "But how did you knock then if you're just a projection? And who would want to have you talk to me?" Trixie asked. "Was it Snarkle?" "I can focus some energy to touch things if necessary, but it's really difficult, especially since this is the first time I'm doing it. This entire experience is giving me some nausea too." "What about the purple menace?" she asked. Pheonix chuckled. He knew that this was just typical Trixie. There was no reason for her to be so against Twilight, at least from what the others had told him. "Trixie, I'm here because I wanted to ask you something." he said. "When Twilight touched the Magatama she could see when a person, er, pony, was lying. When she saw you, she said she saw these black Psyche Locks." "Psyche Locks?" Trixie asked confused. "They're like a mental barrier that an individual has to protect their secrets. The more locks, the deeper the secret. Usually they're red, but I've seen it on a couple of occasions when someone has a deep secret, sometimes they don't even realize that they're hiding it. Almost like a repressed memory." he explained further. "But I'm not hiding anything." she said. "I'm sure you don't think so. And I'm not here to force you to spill your guts and tell me why you hate Twilight. But I wanted to get a better understanding of it. Like your past with her, your lives at Princess Celestia's school, and anything else that you could think of." he said. Trixie stared at him. "Why do you care?" she asked. "Did she put you up to this? She just doesn't get it. It was the stupid Ursa!" she said defensively. "And I'm sure that it holds some water in your reasoning behind why you don't like her. And I'm asking because you're my friend." he said. Trixie stood there, taken aback. A...friend? she thought. She looked away from Pheonix. "After all that I did, all that I caused...how could you consider me your friend?" "Call it an Attorny's respect. When I was defending Rainbow Dash, you helped me find the truth, and I think that it was your Attorney instinct kicking in. And when I defended Sonata, you showed that the truth was more important to you than a victory in the court room. I know many attournies who would have fought tooth and nail to get a win. Usually by withholding evidence or being vague in their questions and answers. "But...I didn't have anything. There was nothing I could do to fight it back." she said. "Maybe. But I also think that you knew that it was the right thing to do." he said. "Look, I don't know what you're talking about." she said, defensively. They stood there in an awkward silence. "Well...can I come in then?" Pheonix asked. "Oh, yeah...sure." she said, stepping out of his way. He walked in and looked around. "This is your apartment?" he asked. "Yeah. Not many see it as I don't have visitors." she said. "It's not a bad place." he said, looking at all the pictures she had. He had to admit that the place looked amazing. "Looks much better than my first apartment. Well, and my current one." "Well, I've had time to straighten it out a little bit." she said. "Been living here since I was a filly." "With your parents?" "Ye-yeah." she said. "How were they?" he asked. "Fine. You know, they wanted me to study law and follow my father's hoofsteps and be a lawyer." she said. "What changed that? I mean you seem to be more into entertaining than the lawyer business, though you're pretty good at both." he said. "Well, while I was at school, I saw my idol do amazing magic. Beautiful magic that I could only have dreamed to have done at her age. She was the same age as me but was doing magic that was three years more advanced than what we were studying. So I trained and studied harder, so I could match her, try to be like her." she said. "Who was she?" Pheonix asked. "She was...just someone. She had walked around the place stuck in her books and always learning new magic. She joined the talent shows just so she could see how she would do in front of others, like a training course." So Twilight might have been her idol from what she told me. he thought. "What was her name?" he asked. "I don't remember. I gave up trying to impress her." "What caused that?" "Why do you care? Why are you asking about my past?" Trixie asked. "Well...I just want to know more about you." he said. "But Twilight said she sent you home. How are you here right now? And how did you find me?" "Well, right now I'm more like a projection. I can't interact with other objects, but I can do everything else." he told her. "But how? I looked into that kind of magic, and it takes an exuberant amount of magic and focus to do that. Twilight was able to do it with the help from the Princess, but even then she had to have been pretty tired." she said. "Well..." Pheonix started to say. Trixie's face fell to a frown. "She wants you to figure out the stupid reason for why I hate her so much, doesn't she?" "Look-" "Listen here, porcupine, you can run back and tell that dim witted Snarkle that The Great and Powerful Trixie hates her for the humiliation she caused me with the Ursa. What is it going to take to get that through that dumb Unicorns head?" she asked. "Trixie..." Pheonix started. "I know a few things about you, if you don't mind me saying them." he told her. "Like what?" "Well, for starters, you were valedictorian of your class, same class as Sonata, and that you idolized someone." "Yeah, and? Anyone could look up a yearbook somewhere." she said. "And also that you signed up for a talent show so you could prove yourself to your idol. And I think I know who that idol is." Pheonix said. Her face shifted, but just for a second. "Oh really? Who does the spikey headed freak think is the idol?" He took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes. "Twilight." Trixie shifted her gaze a little before she looked back to Pheonix. "That's funny." she said with a chuckle. "Why would that idiot be my idol? After all she put me through? It's not my fault that when I went on stage she was so intimidated by me she had to throw everything she had at me in order to win." "You know Twilight wouldn't do something like that to win. She was doing it to test herself. She didn't care about the winning, or the attention from the crowd, she just liked knowing she had succeeded in her chance to complete the spells." he said. "How do you know? You weren't there and didn't see her!" Trixie exclaimed. "No, but I do know Twilight. And I think you do too. What else is there? You changed your entire persona when you found out Twilight sent me. You switched from talking in the first person to the third person like that." he said, snapping his fingers. "Trixie doesn't know what you're talking about. You're just imagining things and making them up." she said. "Trixie please. You know I'm right." he said. She hesitated before answering him. "So what? What if I used to think Twilight was cool and that she had everything I wanted? I've got it all now, so it's not like I'm missing anything." "Maybe. Or maybe you're missing a lot more than you thought." he said. "What do you mean?" He walked towards her, running his fingers through his hair. "I think you were looking for her attention. For her to accept you. She told me about your parents. And the bruises." Her face dropped when she mentioned that. "And I don't think the bruises came from him." "I..." she stammered. "I don't know-" "When you were going to school, you wanted to become an entertainer. You wanted to make people laugh and smile. But your father wanted you to become a lawyer, and his acceptance meant the world to you. But when he found out you didn't want to follow in his footsteps, he stopped accepting you. So you had to look elsewhere for his acceptance. But before you did that, you tried to earn his back by taking more advanced Law classes. It didn't work, and you started noticing how your idol was being treated by the other classmates, and you became jealous. They accepted her and ignored you." he explained. "How do you know-" "And after you hurt that one student during one of your shows, you were bullied. You had been ridiculed and rejected, the exact opposite of Twilight. After all the bullying, I think you might have went to your parents for support. While your mom may have been very supportive, your father wasn't. He ignored you for awhile and you started faking things. The injuries, according to one specific student, said that they looked too precise and large for them to be from your dad. And then after awhile they stopped, probably because the others stopped paying attention to it, since it became normal." he continued. Trixie felt her heart tug a little. "You've got it wrong..." she said. "I'm sorry?" "It wasn't my dad...it was my mom..." she said. "She was the one who wanted me to follow my dads career. My dad wanted me to follow my dreams, not my dad. He was very busy, and I was always trying to get him to pay attention to me, to show me a little bit of care. And when I told them I wanted to be an entertainer, my mom got mad. She said I wouldn't make any money, I wouldn't do well, and that I wouldn't be able to do anything with my life with that career." she explained. "I took the Law class so I could appease her. It didn't help that much, so she started getting really angry and upset. It didn't really help that my dad was going over some case files. He was so freaked out that he had missed something after the Defense told him something that made him think that he was guilty." "He never talked to me about work. But I knew that it was bugging him. He didn't sleep, barely ate, and it drove me and my mom crazy. He was such a workaholic." she said, chuckling. She had started to cry a little without even realizing it. "Anyway, he eventually just stopped talking to anyone and my mom was getting more upset with me each day I started drifting out of the Law class. And so I tried to keep the entertainment thing hidden from her." she said. "But what about the bruises?" Pheonix asked. She stared at him. "Why am I even telling you this?" she asked. "You don't know anything about me. You don't know who I am or what I've experienced." "You're right. I don't. But I feel somehow I do know parts of you. You're smart, a hard fighter, and a bit of a grudge holder. But like I said earlier, the trial really showed some of your true colors whether you like it or not. You wanted to find the truth as much as I did. Granted we both chose different routes to do that, we both wanted the same thing. And I respect you for that." Pheonix said. She looked at him, not sure how to feel. She hadn't had respect in a long time, and she wasn't sure if Pheonix was being honest about it. "Even after I tried to get Rainbow Dash banished to the sun? How could you respect me for that?" "Because you were following your evidence. And I was following mine. When we brought them together and saw the whole picture, though it also helped that Sonata ticked you off, you're focus shifted to getting the truth. I don't know many Prosecutors who are like that. And I know you wanted justice." he said. "Something I don't think you got." She looked away from him, flashes of her past jumping in her head. "What do you know..." "Nothing. So I can't even begin to imagine what you had gone through. But I do believe you can't blame Twilight for it." he said. She stayed quiet. "It wasn't my dad." she said. "You said that already. It was your mom who wanted you to follow his career-" "No. I heard the rumors at school. It wasn't my dad. They're wasn't enough evidence to prosecute, and they used my dad's profession and the profession I wanted to go into against him. I was too scared to talk anyways at the time, and I missed my chance to get it right..." she said, a few tears forming in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Trixie." "And even if I wanted to reopen the case, it wouldn't matter." she said. "Well, yeah, I mean the case was 'solved.' Closed." "No. In Equestria we take those cases extremely seriously. If there's even a small doubt that it was wrong, they'd reopen it and find out for sure." she explained. "Then why don't you?" "Because both are dead." she said sadly. "Oh...I'm so sorry. I didn't know." "Nobody does. Even after all these years, I just pretended that he was the one who did it, not the other way around. It was easier to accept it than to fight it. So that's what I did...and I wish I could take it all back." she said. "We all make mistakes." Pheonix said. "Sometimes we can fix them, other times we can't. But you honored your dad at the trial. He would be proud of you." he said smiling. She smiled back. "Thanks." "Well, I better get going. This spell is draining after awhile, and I don't want anypony passing out on me." he said. "Oh great, I'm saying anypony now." Trixie chuckled. She led him to the door. "Pheonix?" she asked, causing him to turn. "Thank you. I know that it was hard for you here, and I didn't make it easier, but you still found the truth in a world you had no idea existed and had no experience in. And yet you stayed and fought for that truth. It's something I look up to." He smiled at her. "Before I go, can I give you some advice?" She nodded. "Don't hold everything in. Let it out sometimes. Talk to other peo-...ponies. You'll find you have things in common. I'm not going to force you, and a true friend isn't going to force you to spill your guts unless they notice something really bugging you. And, maybe, just maybe, if you find someone you trust 100%, you could tell them about what happened. Holding it in won't help. And who knows. Maybe I'll return for another impossible case in the future." he said grinning. "I look forward to seeing that display of yours again then." she said. "Goodbye Trixie. Remember, it wasn't Twilight's fault." he said before turning and walking out the door. Trixie stood there, thinking about everything they had talked about. She sighed, walked out the door, and walked down the streets to think. *** Twilight paced around the room. I hope he can figure it all out. I know that she liked him, but I don't know if it would be enough for her to tell him anything. she thought. "Well, that went better than expected." Pheonix said as he walked through the doors. "Pheonix!" Twilight said running up to him. "So did you find anything out? Did you break the locks?" she asked. "I found out some information, but it's not for me to share. And I didn't try to break the locks. I don't know what breaking them in this world would do to her. It could be harmless, worse than it would be in my world, or the same. Forcing those locks open is not something I like to do. Especially to someone like Trixie." he said. "Oh..." Twilight said. "However," he said as he heard the hoofsteps behind him. "I doubt you'll have to wait long to find out." "What do you mean?" she asked. "Just trust me." he said smiling. "But..." she started before nodding. "Okay." "Mind sending me back now? I had just gotten over trying to fry myself in my tub with a toaster after some people found those photos of Rainbow Dash." "YOU SHOWED THOSE TO PEOPLE?!?!" Twilight exclaimed. "No!! Not on purpose!! They fell out of my pocket and they opened it up in front of me!" he said defending himself. "Damnit Pheonix..." she said. He raised an eyebrow. "Really? Now it's okay to swear?" "Shut up." she said. "Well, it was nice to see you again. If we need you again though, you can count on me bringing you back." she said. "Just give me a warning so you don't pull me out of the shower or another trial." he said, thinking of what would have happened if that were the case. He wouldn't have any clothes, and that would be more than embarrassing. "Sure thing." she said smiling. "Goodbye Pheonix." she said and cut the magic that had projected him here. He faded away and Twilight saw Trixie standing behind where Pheonix was at. "Trixie??" Twilight said surprised. "So...you really are more skilled than I thought." she said. "Pheonix said that spell would be draining." "Oh...well it is, but I wasn't casting a majority of the magic. The Princess helped with me on that." she said. Trixie nodded her head, jealous that the Princess would take time to help Twilight. "Well...Look I just wanted to say that...I'm sorry." Twilight looked at her confused. "For how you treated Rainbow Dash?" "Well, for that, but...also for my anger toward you. It's not because of the Ursa. And I'm sure you know more about it, so that's all I'm going to say. I just figured you should know that you weren't the sole reason for the anger." she said. I knew it! she thought happily. "And before you get that smug look on your face, just know that I'm NOT going to tell you anything more." Trixie said. "But...I do hope that maybe...over time....we could be friends?" she asked awkwardly. Twilight was slightly taken aback by this, but after thinking about it, knew that it was only natural. If I truly was Trixie's idol when we were fillies, I shouldn't be surprised she wants to be friends. "Sure." she said hesitantly. "But, please, don't try to send one of my other friends to the sun." "Oh, I won't. I'm done with this attorney business. I'm going back to my true calling of being an entertainer." she said. "Well, next time you're coming through Ponyville, stop by. I'm sure we'll be glad to see you." she said. "I doubt it. But...I will. Thanks." Trixie said with a small smile of gratitude. "I'll see you later, Snarkle." she said. "Trixie! You know-" Twilight started but stopped as she saw Trixie start to laugh a little. She smiled back at it. "Okay then Ms. Great and Powerful Trixie. See you later." Trixie turned around and walked out the doors. Maybe one day, I'll come to terms with it. Maybe Twilight can help me. But for now, I'm going to keep it to myself. She doesn't need to know. Not yet. As Trixie left, Twilight walked to the balcony and looked out over Canterlot. Another step for Trixie. Maybe one day we can be good friends.