Even with the day long passed, the central plaza of Ponyville was filled with enough ponies to please the dominion’s resident princess of the night. Many of them were disgruntled, having been roughly awoken by large tremors and loud noises. Upon investigating, they had found an enormous bear-like monster rampaging through the town, leaving destruction behind in its wake.
Fortunately, the bear had been gently removed from Ponyville premises by the creative magic use of their local librarian. With the outdoors now safe, many of the ponies wandered out, forming a crowd as they watched a war of words going on between a cast of friends that had rallied around the librarian, and the showmare who had only earlier in the day set up a stage in the town, giving a dazzling but controversial performance.
“That wasn’t an ursa major,” Twilight Sparkle, former resident of Canterlot, current librarian and ongoing student of the realm’s solar deity explained aloud. “It was a baby, an ursa minor,” She continued, putting sound emphasis on her last word.
The cyan-coloured stage magician’s eyes widened, as it seemed to dawn on her just how over her head she had been earlier in the day when claiming to have once defeated an ursa major. “That was just a baby?!”
Unintentionally being ironic, the town’s resident baby dragon asked what a major was like, only to be told he didn’t want to know. Secretly, Twilight Sparkle thought it was rather like the difference between the baby dragon and an adult dragon.
The wandering showmare suddenly snorted, and all attention returned to her. “Hmph!” She said, tossing her head up, showing what she thought of other ponies in general, “You may have vanquished an ursa minor, but you will never have the amazing, show-stopping ability of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
Rearing up on her hind legs, she let out a loud neigh, before throwing a smoke bomb. Multiple ponies coughed at the sudden noxious cloud, eyes watering and noses wrinkled, before it quickly cleared, showing the self-declared Great and Powerful Trixie departing at a quick gallop.
One of the Pegasus ponies among the Ponyvillians, a blue-coloured mare with a mane of multicoloured hues, made to dash after the departing unicorn, only to get held back. Twilight Sparkle shook her head, telling her friend Rainbow Dash to leave the runaway Trixie be. Rainbow Dash crossed her front hooves in annoyance, but complied with her friend’s wishes. Most of the ponies in the background observing this agreed with the sentiment, wishing only a good riddance to the unicorn whose bragging ways had inadvertently brought a monster down on their fair town.
However, one cream-coloured Earth pony stood her ground as the masses returned to their homes around her. “So that’s what she’s been doing since…well,” She looked at the wagon Trixie had carted into town, now smashed into pieces. Eyes darting back and forth, she waited until all the ponies had emptied out of the plaza before moving to sift through the smashed boards and loose nails, retrieving the few possessions of Trixie’s she recalled her former colleague was fond of.
Trixie found herself trudging through the rain that had suddenly started upon her running away from Ponyville, the mud from the road sticking to her hooves as she continued her slow pace. Her head was hung so low it was a miracle she wasn’t eating the dirt. This was why she had wanted to stay the night in Ponyville, but now it appeared she would have to ride out the storm bare to the elements. Already, she was drenched, her normally wavy mane drifting off to one side and hanging down low with all the water that had soaked through.
Clearing a hill, she paused, looking back. Ponyville lay at the base of the hilly, winding road, several street lights and the odd lit house indicating civilisation against the near pitch black of night. Only a sliver of the moon peeking out behind the dense clouds provided her with light to continue plodding along. Turning her head back, she continued looking straight down at her hooves. Idly, they moved, tracing lines in the mud as she allowed her mind to wander. Her vision blurred, whether from rain splatters across her fur or hot, stinging tears dripping down her cheeks, she couldn’t tell. She had been something once, something great, before-
“I never expected to see you reduced to something like this, Trixie, if that’s your real name.”
Slowly, lethargically, Trixie turned her head around. “Oh.” She said, even her speech slurred. “I thought that might have been you when I saw you in the crowd earlier.”
Her old companion trotted up the last stretch of the hill, approaching Trixie. As she got closer, Trixie saw she was wearing large saddlebags around her back. Wiping her hooves of mud on a nearby tree, the new pony dug through her bags, before pulling out a familiar purple hat and star-spangled cape. “Here,” She said, “I thought you might want these back.”
For the first time in hours, Trixie felt alive again, as elation washed over the sadness that had clung to her, coating her mind as surely as the mud did her body. Focusing her magic, she picked the articles of clothing up with a telekinetic grip, donning them back where they belonged on her head and body. Tears freely flowing now, this time of bittersweet happiness, she dashed forward and wrapped her front hooves around her old friend. “T-thank you so much!” She choked on her words. “I-I thought that I had, had lost them. I didn’t think anything had survived after that Luna-cursed bear destroyed my wagon!”
“There, there,” The dichromatically-haired mare gently patted her blubbering friend, suppressing her mysophobia for a greater good. “I saved what I could before anyone else could look at it. Some pictures, a few books, all that I could find is here,” She motioned with her head to her bags. “I didn’t find any bits, but that’s alright, I brought some food. Keep the bags, I have spares at home.”
She continued to comfort the unicorn, Trixie’s coughing and sobbing slowly subsiding by the minute, their body heat mingling to stay warm even as the rain continued to pound around them. At last, Trixie spoke again, “I really don’t know what to say. It’s been so long…Agent Donut Donut Seven.”
“It’s Agent Sweetie Drops! Get it right!” The Ponyville mare snapped back, before calming down. “Although, I go by Jane Bon Bon nowadays.”
Trixie snickered, “Bon Bon? Is that your real name? Always an obsession with candy when it came to you, wasn’t it? I bet you even make candy nowadays.”
Bon Bon blushed, partly at how easily Trixie was riling her up once more, and partly because Trixie was right. She had opened a confectionary in Ponyville, after all.
“It is,” Bon Bon said, taking a deep, calming breath before deciding to needle Trixie back. “And I’ll have you know that I eat things other than candy! Like oat grains, for one!” Only occasionally, though. Lyra probably stole more from her than what Bon Bon actually ended up eating. “You never answered me though, I notice. Is Trixie your real name? Or is that just another lie like defeating an ursa major, Agent Wandering Blue?”
She had expected many things from Trixie when using her old codename. Indignation in the form of a cute squawk perhaps, for Trixie had never really liked the codename. A light shove for the subtext that Trixie wasn’t able to beat an ursa major, perhaps. It must have wounded her deeply in town to state nopony could do such a thing to maintain cover, when they both knew that was hardly the case.
What Bon Bon hadn’t expected was for Trixie to look utterly hurt.
“Wh-what?! Did I say something wrong?” Bon Bon pleaded in a panic, not wishing to drive Trixie off as soon as the two had reunited after several years. “Ooooh, don’t tell me that you’re still annoyed about that incident with the baby oil-“
“We agreed never to talk about that again!” Trixie growled. She looked like she was about to continue, her face angry, before it froze. A few long seconds passed with Bon Bon fearing her friend’s face had stuck in a stage of rigor, before it softened. “Yes, Trixie is my true name. Trixie Lulamoon.”
“Trixie Lulamoon?” Bon Bon asked aloud. “Lu-la-moon.” Looking up at the sky, past the dense canopy, she spotted the moon vainly trying to break free of the thick clouds that bound it. “No wonder part of your cutie mark was the crescent moon.”
Trixie responded to the humour with a hearty laugh, one that lifted Bon Bon’s morale. “And no wonder yours was of candy.” She smirked, finally bringing her hooves down from her hugging position, looking at the saddle bags Bon Bon was carrying. “What did you put in there, enough gummy candy to spark a repeat of the dry ice disaster?”
“I-idiot!” Bon Bon brought a hoof up to give a solid poke to Trixie’s ribs. “You know I couldn’t have predicted that!”
“Ah yes, ‘I couldn’t have predicted that’, Trixie repeated like one of those annoying parrots from down south, and Bon Bon rolled her eyes as she could hear Trixie speaking the hoof air quotes. “’My plan is foolproof’, I recall your exact words were, and instead we ended up having to run disaster control to keep the Princess away from the kitchen long enough to bake her a new cake before she found out the old one was gone.”
Oh yes. Bon Bon did remember that incident. And many more besides. She could have brought up some of Wandering Blue’s own mishaps, but she was the better mare. Yep, definitely the better mare. It had nothing to do with the many more of her own embarrassments that Trixie would no doubt bring up in turn were she to respond with a return salvo.
So instead, she decided to change the subject. “So, a travelling stage performer?” She asked.
Trixie rolled her eyes, suddenly standing on her hind legs, waving her front hooves in the air. “Please! The Grrrreat and Powerful Trrrrixie is a magician,” She spoke in a hammy high-cultured accent, “Not one of those namby-pammy amateurs who wouldn’t know a third order Windigo summoning circle from a cryothaumaturgically-derived rune construct!” It was to the agency’s credit with training its secret agents that Bon Bon, even as an Earth pony, was capable of following everything Trixie had just said.
With the same sort of adaptation that had made her one of the most reliable agents around despite her at times eccentric attitude, Trixie whiplashed the conversation as she stood down on all fours again, “But yes, I do put on shows. After the agency shuttered, I decided I wanted to travel, and putting a smile on ponies’ faces is my idea of still serving Equestria.” Casting her gaze around, she looked up, the hard rain continuing to soak her fur. “Like so.” Slowly, a pink dome of energy built up around the two, forming a hemisphere that protected the two from the relentless rain and withering wind threatening to give the both sickness.
Bon Bon paused. Grateful as she was to escape the rain, something didn’t add up. “Oh really? Because I saw your show today, and that sure didn’t seem to be the case. Instead, you seemed rather stuck-up. What happened, Bluey?” She prodded the former agent.
Trixie’s eyes widened, perhaps startled at being called by that nickname for what was probably the first time in years (this was certainly the first time Bon Bon had encountered one of her former coworkers since moving to Ponyville) before they started shifting left and right. Slowly, grudgingly, she grunted out, “I guess I was feeling rather…bitter, today. I was going to put on a great show and entertain fillies and colts, mares and stallions alike as always. Then I realised I was performing in the town where Princess Celestia’s latest student was rumoured to be living.”
Bon Bon blinked. “Uh, yes, Twilight Sparkle does live there, she’s the librarian. She’s, uh, that purple unicorn who got rid of the Ursa.” At that point, Bon Bon paused, thinking she may have said too much, given how Trixie had just been humiliated in town, but decided to ask the question that was burning at her, ”What does that have to do with being bitter though?” Wait, was Trixie jealous? In all the time she had known Wandering Blue, Bon Bon had never known the secret agent to be one to be jealous. Envious, maybe, but never actually jealous.
This time it was Trixie’s turn to blink, multiple times. “That was Princess Celestia’s student? That know-it-all?” Her face scrunched up, before working back to a more annoyed look, “Never mind that! It has everything to do with me being bitter, Sweetie Drops! After all, I…I…” She trailed off confused, her face scrunching up in what Bon Bon had always thought a cute manner, before it took on what Bon Bon knew to be her look of sudden comprehension. “Wait. Could it be you don’t know?”
“Know?” There was something in Trixie’s behaviour. Something had happened to her which had caused this behaviour change from the Bluey Bon Bon knew and loved. “Know what?”
Former agent Wandering Blue sighed, “You remember how the Bugbear escaped, and I wasn’t able to come to help because I was still suffering magical exhaustion?”
A dark grimace passed between the two, both remembering the accursed Bugbear that had triggered the dissolution of the agency, and what had happened a week before it had escaped. “I sure do. They weren’t even certain you would survive after you defeated that.” Bon Bon hadn’t even been a part of the team that had brought it back in to Tartarus, only learning of it through pictures and personal accounts from others, and even still she had trouble saying its actual name.
There were so many teeth, undoubtedly used to eat roots, and then the acid it could spit out, or its purple fire that left behind toxic sour gas, and the ease with which it had reshaped the land when it thrashed around after being seriously wounded. Prince Blueblood, a professional cartographer by trade, had apparently thrown a happy fit upon realising how much work in redrawing the maps there was to be done, but all Agent Sweetie Drops had done was to cower over the prospect of actually fighting such a thing. “The Bugbear I fought was nothing compared to it. That creature could probably have eaten an Ursa Major, a real one that is,” She couldn’t resist a verbal poke at Trixie over her earlier statements in Ponyville.
Suddenly, the rain washing across her fur had broken her mental defenses, as a cold tremor worked its way down her spine. Bluey would have defeated an Ursa Major with ease, so how could she have been struggling with a Minor? She had defeated something that had wounded the Tree of Harmony, for Celestia’s sake!
Trixie just rolled her eyes. “At least you can still say its name.”
Wait, what? Bon Bon’s back straightened out, startled. What an odd statement that was.
“I almost died half a dozen times fighting that, and after evacuating my team as they fell one by one and becoming the last pony standing, I thought I would die, no chance of survival short of a Celestia ex machina,” Using the jokey agent parlance for Princess Celestia appearing to save a mission that had gone wrong. “After wearing it down and giving it a major wound, I used one of the level five spells.”
“You WHAT!” Bon Bon gasped, and before she knew it she had struck Trixie in the jaw, hard enough to send the unicorn reeling backwards. Bringing the offending hoof up to her mouth, astonished at what she had done, she started apologising as quickly as she could. “Oh no, Bluey, I’m so sorry, I shou-“ She was stopped by a blue hoof in her mouth, and nearly gagged at the offending taste of mud.
A shake of her head accompanied a choking, and Bon Bon realised with alacrity that Trixie was crying again. “No, I deserved that, Sweetie.” She took a deep breath. “It’s called a binding spell. There’s a more fancy name for it, but the creator was egotistical in addition to being a jerkass and made it sixty words long, and while it’s very accurate in its effects when you decipher the roots of each term, I certainly wasn't going to bother remembering the whole thing.” Sitting down on her haunch, tears running free, the blue-furred mare continued, “It was classified that high in the forbidden spell archives for a reason. As long as you have the time and the skill to properly prepare it, the weakest foal can bind the magic of an opponent several dozen times stronger. Even had I died right after casting it, it would have been powerless for over a week after, more than enough time to return it to Tartarus.” She chuckled morbidly. “At least we managed to stop it before it had the chance to suck a single pony body clean.”
“I’m sensing a major but in here.” With good reason. Level five blurred the line between merely destructive spells and those that required major sacrifices, up to and including pony lives, sometimes those of the caster’s. Trixie would die before she used another pony’s life to fuel a spell, and she herself was still here. Bon Bon had a sinking feeling that the ‘but’ involved sacrificing something just shy of Trixie’s own life.
It seemed that Trixie had no tears left to get, as she sniffled, her violet eyes tinged with red. “Yes. So long as the pony who uses the spell is still alive and desires it to be so, the spell will continually draw on the caster’s magic to maintain the binding.”
And finally Bon Bon understood. “And that beast is immortal,” She said, horrified at the implication. With the amount of magic it had held, the spell must have been sucking Trixie’s magical energy dry to keep the beast docile. No wonder Trixie hadn’t even been able to fend off an Ursa minor. She would be fuelling that spell for the rest of her natural lifetime.
But even as answers were forthcoming, she had more questions, deep inside aware that Blue had most likely thought of everything, but still trying to find a better option. “But wait, you can cancel the spell, right? Surely Celestia must have designed more protections in Tartarus for it after it escaped?”
Trixie shook her head. “I won’t.”
“B-but…surely you can pass the burden of the spell on to somebody else? Princess Luna just returned, perhaps one of the Princesses can take over now that there are three of them?” It was selfish of her to even think such a solution, let alone vocalise it, but Sweetie Drops and Bluey had always been close, up to the day Celestia decided to force them and all the other agents apart by dissolving an organisation protecting Equestria. Perhaps she was a little bitter herself.
Again, Trixie shook her head. “I won’t. What if Princess Celestia or even Cadance had done so? Perhaps Nightmare Moon might rule over us today. I won’t accept my crippling them in case of a future disaster.”
“T-then…what if you die?!” Bon Bon nodded her head, certain that she had thought of something at last, still knowing that she wouldn’t really have been the first to think of it, let alone plan for it. “Then the spell will deactivate, and it’ll be able to escape!”
Trixie started to respond, then stopped herself. Her melancholic expression slowly morphed into a grin. It was a small one, one that had little very passion behind it, but Bon Bon knew Bluey was happy. “Thank you, SD. I really appreciate it.” Standing up on her back hooves again, she swept Bon Bon into another big hug. “When I die, the spell will transfer to Celestia, and only then. From there, she can carry it around, or perhaps find another pony powerful enough to bear the burden. Or who knows, perhaps she can dissolve the spell, trusting in Tartarus to keep it contained this time.” She laughed, a mirthful barking sound that belonged more to a dog than a pony. “I certainly won’t be around to save her cake-addled plot then if it escapes. Maybe that damnable creature will drown out her sun again with its wings as it carries the bodies of the dead.”
Bon Bon paused again. Something didn’t sound right. “Bluey…did Celestia do something to you?”
The blue mare was instantly defensive. “N-no! Why do you ask? T-Trixie has nothing against the Princess! Nothing at all, eheh,” She punctuated it with an obviously fake smile.
Bon Bon just rolled her eyes, “Please, Bluey, you’re not fooling anypony.”
Trixie just sighed, reluctantly parting her hooves away from Bon Bon’s body. As the rain began to finally, finally lighten up after incessantly pounding on the violet-coloured dome for over an hour, the magician started pacing in a circle on the dirt road in front of Bon Bon, creating a strong impression in the still earth.
The cream-coloured confectioner let her, knowing Bluey would need time to steel her resolve to reveal whatever truth she carried close to her. It had already been an emotionally charged reunion, meeting up with Wandering Blue again after so many years apart, in the process reopening old wounds she had thought healed from when Celestia had shattered the bonds held by a secret agency tasked with guarding Equestria from monsters that lurked in the deep and the dark, its former agents dispersing to all the corners of the globe to build new lives. The revelation of Bluey’s affliction was picking away at the open scabs, and Bon Bon needed some time herself to get ready for whatever bomb (not of the éclair variety, thankfully, she still had nightmares about cleaning out all the cream from her fur) that was about to be dropped on her.
“Donuts, do you think I would brag about defeating that monster in my show?”
It took her several seconds to process Bluey’s words, some of them spent partially rebooting from her mental introspection, several more to process what the unicorn mare had asked, and then a few more to refrain from a verbal riposte at a nickname that annoyed her, “No, I know you wouldn’t. You would never casually reveal secrets like that. Thus why you probably bragged about beating an Ursa Major instead, it would send ponies into a panic especially if they knew such a real monster had managed to escape Tartarus.”
“Yes,” Trixie slowly said, wording her next question carefully. “You were there to witness me being humiliated by Twilight Sparkle. Did you find it odd that I said nopony could defeat an Ursa Major?”
Now that Bon Bon had been asked about it, such a statement was odd. Trixie might have been sorely lacking in magical power by now, but in her prime she could probably have juggled multiple Ursa Majors with ease. All three of the Princesses undoubtedly could defeat one with ease, and at least a few of the other agents, Earth Pony and Pegasus and Unicorn alike, would be capable of at least standing up against one with their special talents. “I…guess? I just assumed you didn’t care to reveal there were ponies who, in fact, could. The only ponies outside of the Princesses who could have their true powers classified as state secrets.” She herself was one of them, renowned for her ability to prod the very earth into obeying her whims.
Trixie sighed, and Bon Bon had the sinking feeling she was about to find out the truth. The blue mare went through a number of actions that Bon Bon recognised as nervous tics of hers, sitting on her haunches and burying her head in between her front hooves, her teeth beginning to chatter, ears flickering like crazy. It took a while, but Trixie finally spoke again, “I didn’t want to say it, but I had to say it. No wait, that sounded better in my head. Um, Trixie was forced to say it? No, no, no. Grrr, get over it Trixie, just tell her.” Turning to look at Bon Bon, violet eyes meeting onyx, she at last come out with it, ”Princess Celestia put a geas on me.”
Bon Bon froze in her tracks. The Princess had done what?!
Bitterness had finally leaked into Trixie’s words. “Right after I defeated it, she came to me once I awoke from magical exhaustion. She praised me greatly for beating it, and we made our arrangements for the spell maintenance. Then, knowing I was weakened and incapable of performing the feats I had done before, she forced a spell on me with conditions.” Her teeth were grinding, nearly snapping together as she angrily hoofstomped a tree, leaving a large indent in the bark.
The secret agent turned candymaker suddenly felt tired. She didn’t want to know what those conditions were. But she didn’t have a choice in the matter anymore. To stop Bluey now would be to leave the mare bearing the knowledge of what had been done to her all by herself, and Bon Bon couldn’t do that. She had to bear some of Bluey’s trauma.
That’s what friends did.
“One! In general, I am not allowed to reveal anything about the agency to anypony outside of those in the agency or with clearance! Only her failure to modify the geas right after abolishing the agency even allows me to still talk to you about these things, since you at least were an agent.”
Bon Bon’s blood ran cold. Celestia never had done anything like that to her, one of her top field agents, and so far as she knew never to anypony else. Even when the agency had been dissolved, no such thing had been implemented to prevent possibly bitter ponies from blabbing to others. Celestia didn’t trust you because you were an agent. You were an agent because Celestia trusted you.
“Two! I am not allowed to talk of superpowered artifacts, long-forgotten spells, or ponies that have eclipsed their talents so far they approach the power of the alicorns themselves. Thus, when push came to shove, I had to deny that a pony could possibly defeat an ursa major in outright battle. Idiot foals aside, only me obviously boasting for a performance was what let ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie’ claim to beat an ursa!”
“Three! I am not allowed to talk at all about that monster no matter what. I cannot research it, I cannot tell stories about it, I cannot put shows on demonstrating the legends and old mares’ tales that have built up around it! I am not even allowed to mention its name out loud or in writing, ever, not even to you.”
Bon Bon jerked her head up. “Wait, you mean the-“ She was cut off before she could utter its name.
“Don’t! Please don’t!” Trixie pleaded. It turned out she hadn’t run out of tears, as they started dripping down her face again. “I don’t know what I may be forced by the geas to do if somepony even mentions its name aloud while I’m around!”
Bon Bon made an attempt to speak, but thought better of it. It seemed Wandering Blue had been holding in a lot.
“I had nothing to forgive the Princess for,” Trixie continued, pacing again. She began to sound like she had forgotten Bon Bon was even there, rambling into empty space instead, “After all, there I was, weakened to the point of a newborn filly, and too proud to quit! Had I been captured, all too possible with my magic gone, I would have been a goldmine of information with the right spells! I swore to guard Equestria, and that was just another sacrifice I would make.” With a sudden motion, she swivelled around, rearing up on her back legs again, slamming her front ones down into the drying dirt. “Then a week later the Bugbear escaped, and she decided to disband the agency. Complete deniability, she wanted,” Trixie snorted, “And to that end, just like everypony else, I wasn’t allowed to work in Canterlot as a researcher, professor, a bureaucrat or even a waitress. Too much chance of a noble finding out I was one of the Princess’ former spies.”
The unicorn was working herself up good by now. “Trixie despised it, of course! We served her for years, and then she throws us away like trash? I dedicated my life to her, and instead because ol’ Sunbutt didn’t care to learn from that monster escaping and upgrade the wards at Tartarus, the Bugbear escaped, and then that’s it.” By this time, she was repeating her rants from only a minute ago.
She suddenly stopped, before hanging her head low again. Tapping her front hooves together, Trixie said, “I guess…well, I guess I was jealous of that purple unicorn, whatever you said her name was. Sparkler or something?”
“Twilight Sparkle.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Trixie clapped her hooves again, this time with an uncaring attitude. “I suppose I wanted to see what was so special about her that Celestia trained her, even though she got rid of us despite trusting us enough to serve in the first place. What kind of roll did she get in the dice of life that she’s in a position where the worst Celestia might do to her is put her in a position of responsibility only a few hours away by train from Canterlot?” She shook her head. “I just don’t see it, though.”
“Oh, Bluey,” Bon Bon felt herself wanting to cry, and made her decision. “Come here.”
It was relief that Trixie did just that, and Bon Bon found herself hugging the azure mare again. There seemed to be a lot of that going on again. Belatedly, the Earth Pony patted Trixie on her back side, a gesture that had once been normal, but which the passage of time made awkward.
They remained that way for several minutes until Bon Bon felt it was safe enough to speak again, the howling wind and drizzinlg rain having finally died down, leaving nothing but quiet. “Would you like to come stay the night at my place, Bluey?”
Looking like she wanted to say yes more than anything else, Trixie shook her head, hanging it low, pawing the ground with one of her back hooves. “No. After those two idiots brought that Ursa into town, I really shouldn’t. No doubt by daybreak I’ll be persona non grata. Besides,” Finally, she lifted her head back up, a teasing smirk plastered all over her muzzle, “I’ll no doubt eat all your oat grains and you’ll be left with nothing but candy, and I can’t in good conscience let you pig out on sweets again.”
Bon Bon sighed, but this time it was in good humour. Her old friend might still be holding in a lot of anger and grief, but at least she had managed to release some of it. “You don’t have to worry about that. My roommate steals enough of my grains that I wonder if she even ever goes grocery shopping.”
The confectioner knew she had said the wrong thing when Trixie sidled up next to her within the blink of an eye, muzzle to muzzle, noses uncomfortably close, “Oh, a mare for a roommate, eh? Is she by any chance your cousin?”
Blood pooled into Bon Bon’s cheeks far too easily as she understood the reference right away. “Me and my roommate are not lesbian lovers!” She protested.
Trixie hoofwaved off the angry mare, only to add fuel to the fire, intent on capsizing the ship, “I never said you were, silly Donuts! But seriously, where do you live? Above your shop?”
Already used to the multiple twists and abrupt turns of the conversation, Bon Bon just nodded in reply.
The magician sighed. “It…it was nice meeting you again, Sweetie Drops…Bon Bon, I guess. I wish I could stay, but I think it best I not be in Ponyville come the morning, especially if you have a roommate who knows nothing about our past.” She looked skywards, her violet eyes focused on the moon that had finally broken free of its restraints, casting its heavenly light on the earth below. “Jane Bon Bon, The Confectionary, Ponyville? I’ll write to you.”
“It’s 'The Candy Emporium',” Bon Bon wryly corrected, bracing herself for the ribbing she knew would come.
“Right, right,” Trixie rolled her eyes again with a good-humoured tone of voice. “After the candied corn disaster, I had hoped your naming skills would have improved.”
“Grrrr….”
“B-b-but, that’s not important now, nope!” With haste, Trixie’s horn glowed pink, the dome that had protected the two mares from the wild weather disappearing, having not been necessary for several minutes now, allowing the unicorn in question ample room to back away from her growling opposite. “I’ll come visit you soon, incognito!”
Feeling a little bit sad that their reunion was to be over so soon, even as intense as it was, Bon Bon decided to get in one last jab. “Don’t forget your bags,” She deadpanned.
“Oh, right. Eheh. Trixie merely allowed you to carry her bags until she was finished talking with you!”
“And drop the third-pony ego, it doesn’t suit you!” She continued snapping again as the saddlebags finally came off her back in a telekinetic grip, Trixie tucking them on her own body underneath her cape. Coming from her, she knew Trixie would take such advice to heart, but decided she was on a roll, “And don’t forget to eat your fruits and vegetables! Grains may be healthy but they don’t supply all your nutrients! Remember to brush your teeth after too!”
She was rewarded with a twitch of the nose, followed up by an eye roll. “Yes, mom.” To cap off the moment, she looked over in the bags that she was now wearing, pulling out a muffin. “Really, Donuts? Blueberries?”
The two looked at one another for a long second, before simultaneously bursting out laughing.
“But seriously, Bluey, please do come back. I missed you so,” Bon Bon said, affectionately bringing a hoof up to Trixie’s jaw. “Where are you going from here, now that your wagon’s gone? Will you still be putting on shows?”
The showmare shrugged. “Trixie – that is, I, I do not yet know. I think I will return to my father’s home in Whinnychester. With his help, maybe I will continue to train my magic again. I was brought so low from my past power that every ounce of strength I’ve gained since only reminds me of how much is still locked away, protecting Equestria. Beyond that…” She trailed off. “Beyond that, I intend to continue travelling. It’s nice to visit places without the reason being to protect Equestria from a threat of the week.” Sighing, she brought her own hoof up, dragging Bon Bon’s down, until they were both at chest level.
The two bumped hooves. Trixie, for the first time in ages, smiled a deep, bright smile, as if all her fears had vanished, her shoulders no longer needing to bear the weight of Equestria, or holding the heavens. Bon Bon thought the morning sun couldn’t compare to the radiant Lulamoon.
“Goodbye, Sweetie Drops,” Trixie said. Turning around, the former secret agent, trusted confidante, guardian of Equestria…now a show magician, walked off.
Bon Bon stood there, watching her once-colleague trot along the road. When Trixie was far enough up the next hill, at an angle that it was as if she stood in front of the moon itself, Bon Bon whispered to herself, only the light wind picking up her words, “Goodbye…Wandering Blue.”
Burning the image of the Lulamoon in the moon into her memory, she turned around, and began returning to Ponyville.