//------------------------------// // Great And Powerful Day Off // Story: Equestria's Got Talent // by BudCharles //------------------------------// It was Trixie’s great and relaxing day off! Time for a whole day of trotting around town and eating cupcakes! Not that she had any trouble with the 3 assignments every week, she was more than capable of being a royal student, in fact she was a truly magnificent royal student, she just enjoyed having time to herself, that was all. That’s what she told herself anyway – and what she told Twilight. For the first few weeks back in Ponyville, Trixie had gotten some suspicious looks, but over time she managed to convince the town ponies that she meant well – in fact her shows were now almost as popular as Pinkie Pie’s parties. Almost. GASP! Trixie’s eyes widened, this was too good to be true! Right on the door of Sugarcube Corner was a sign reading “Equestria’s Biggest Magic Show, looking for THE MOST TALENTED UNICORNS”, with a tray full of flyers underneath. Within about three seconds of the corner of Trixie’s eye noticing the words, Trixie had grabbed a flyer and was racing back towards Twilight’s castle. -✩- KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK! Twilight Sparkle groaned at the sound assaulting her door and buried her face in the book she was reading. This was her least favourite day of the week. With Trixie away, she was bombarded with a new pony looking for friendship advice (or an autograph) every 2 minutes. After letting out a very long “euuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh”, Twilight finally got up, put on her best fake smile and prancing over to the door in as princess-like a manner as possible. “Hello, Princess Twilight Spa-” Twilight’s sentence was stopped short when she was bowled over by an excited Trixie Lulamoon charging through the doorway. “Guesswhatguesswhatguesswhat” her student squee-d, with a big, beaming smile on her face, “I’m going to be famous!” Twilight shook the dizziness out of her head and stood up, closing the door with her magic. “Aren’t you already famous?” “Well, the great and magnificent Trixie is going to be even more famous!” Twilight smiled genuinely this time – as much as she shouldn’t be encouraging it, Trixie’s self-admiring attitude was kind of adorable. In the same way as Spike’s ice-cream addiction. “Why’s that then?” Bubbling with enthusiasm, Trixie shoved the flyer into Twilight’s hooves. Quickly but carefully, Twilight read over every word. “Interesting, hmm, okay” she muttered to herself as her student watched on expectantly. “Well, that sounds great!” Twilight finally replied. “It’ll be good magic practice – but who’s your partner going to be?” “P-partner?” Trixie said, all the enthusiasm dissipating from her voice as quickly as it arrived. Not noticing Trixie’s sudden change of emotion, Twilight replied cheerfully. “Yeah, it says in order to encourage friendship, a central value of Equestria, unicorns will be competing in pairs”. “But, but, but Trixie doesn’t have a partner! Trixie isn’t friends with anyone!” “You’re friends with me.” “You’re not a unicorn!” Twilight suddenly remembered that she was in fact an alicorn, even after all this time it was hard to get used to. Being so famous all of a sudden was just weird – still, she found it quite easy to manage events and write her ideas, really she had been being a princess for her own enjoyment until she got the promotion. Still, all those ponies looking to her for advice, what if she made a mistake? What if- “Are you alright? Pay attention to Trixie!” Twilight suddenly snapped out of it. “Whoa, sorry Trixie, you were saying?” “Trixie requires a partner, for the magic competition.” “Oh, right, that! I have an idea!” -✩- “So let Trixie get this straight, you reckon that somepony here is just going to volunteer to be her partner?” “Yeah,” Twilight replied, ignoring the sceptical look on her students face, “there’s hundreds of unicorns lining up for the auditions, at least one of them has to be without a partner.” “Well Trixie has been here for several whole minutes and no pony has showed up alone.” Twilight chuckled a little to herself. “Be patient Trixie, you don’t want to end up crossing another apple with a salamander”. “Trixie meant to do that!” A few metres behind them, a group of three young ponies were having their own discussion, this one a little more heated. “Enough, Gold Star”, one of them snapped, “you’re just not good at magic!” “But I love magic”, replied the cream-coloured unicorn, with metallic-looking golden hair and a cutie mark to match his name, “I know all about it”. “It doesn’t matter”, the other argued, “it’s not about loving it, we’re in it to win, and we’re only allowed two ponies, so just leave!” “But-” “No buts, leave, now!” Gold Star began sobbing before he was shoved out of the line by his two ‘friends’. He noticed the ponies behind the fillies scolding them for their behaviour, but he didn’t care – he knew what they said was true. He was bad at magic! The colt flicked his blue cape over himself and ran away crying, only to end up charging face-first into a squishy wall of purple feathers. “Huh?” he commented, before looking up and nearly having a heart attack. “Princess Twilight? I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! Please don’t banish me to Tartarus!” Twilight chuckled, “are you planning any hostile takeovers of Equestria?” Gold Star shook his head, terrified. “Well if you’re not planning anything evil, the worst place I’m banishing you is the ice cream stand over there.” The colt giggled, but his laughter soon devolved back into tears. “Hey, don’t cry, it’s alright.” “No no, it’s not that, it’s something else” Gold Star sniffed, trying to hold back his feelings. “Do you need help?” the princess asked, becoming concerned. “No, it’s nothing important, I’m sure you have better things to do.” “I’m not more important than anypony else -”, Twilight began, about to go on one of her speeches until she realised who she was talking to, “ahem, what I mean to say is everyone is important, and whatever it is I’m sure I can help”. The princess of friendship then put on the best smile she possibly could, it seemed to work. “Well,” Gold Star began with a sigh, before continuing, “I-I wanted to enter the competition, because I really love magic and it’s so cool and interesting, but I had two friends, and they told me that I was bad at magic, and they wanted to enter on their own. And I think they’re right.” Twilight remembered her own primary school days and winced. The amount of times she was told how she sucked at magic – at least she had a few true friends though, only now did she realise how much they’d helped her over the years. “Don’t ever listen to them,” Twilight replied, giving Gold Star a tight hug, “as long as you love learning, you’ll do great at magic!” Oh my gosh, Gold Star thought to himself, I got hugged by a princess, and she told me I was good at magic. He couldn’t help it, as much as he wanted to be miserable, he smiled. “And I think I might just know who can help you.”