Chapter 3
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Trixie shook her head at Rainbow Dash’s words after The Rainbooms finished the song they’d been playing, inwardly nodding as Sunset remained her they were meant to keep magic out of the Friendship Games.
She’d sat down in the corner and half-listened to the six girls as they played, her mind focusing on other matters.
She couldn’t ignore the fact that she was a child now. What would happen when her parents found out?
She shuddered. They had never really supported her wishes to be a showgirl. In fact, they’d been heavily against it. If she hadn’t moved to Canterlot after convincing her parents Canterlot’s school would give her a better education and life experiences than the school back home, she’d have never been able to polish her skills, stuck with whatever unhappy life her parents had planned out for her since birth.
Trixie felt a few tears slid down her face as she wrapped her arms around her legs. Her parents had always been pushing her to achieve in life... yet had never done anything remotely fun with her; both insisting that life wasn’t about “having fun”, but making a name for yourself in the world.
Trixie had never even experienced a proper birthday until she came to Canterlot around the age of eight. Her host family had been so much nicer on her first day she’d thought they were playing some cruel prank.
However, as time went on, she came to understand life wasn’t all about success. Any mistakes she made, she was encouraged to do better next time, whereas, whenever she made a mistake at home, her parents had treated her like she was a disgrace to the human race itself.
Now, with the music ended, she was pulled from her inner musings as Rarity suddenly brought out a huge selection of clothing.
Trixie had to blink. Just where had all those clothing racks come from? Honestly, sometimes Rarity was as reality confusing as Pinkie Pie... and that was a scary thought.
“You really didn’t have to do that,” Rainbow Dash said, seeming embarrassed by what Trixie couldn’t see as anything but what looked like a soccer uniform.
“I know,” Rarity gave a pleased, lidded smile.
“No,” Applejack said, lifting too pink dresses that made Trixie cringe, both from how frilly and girly they look, and, strangely and worryingly enough, a small part of her saying she wanted to try them on, despite them being too big for her now five-year-old body, “you really didn’t have to.”
“I know!” Rarity said, her hands on her cheeks, and wearing an expression and giggling in a way that made Trixie want to hide in the closest again. “Ooh, and we can’t forget out little friend now, can we?” the white-skinned girl said, turning to Trixie, who froze in place as she fell under the fashionista’s gaze and gulp.
Trixie has a bad feeling about this.
Before Trixie knew what was happening, she’d been pulled forward, her clothes somehow simultaneously being whipped off and replaced with a big, frilly light-blue dress with sequins in the shape of the her Cutie Mark around the middle and shoulders.
Trixie eeped, her eyes wide as she looked down at the childish attire she was now wearing... before a small part of her mind told her she looked cute.
“Oh, isn’t she just fabulous?” Rarity declared, admiring her work. “It took a bit more effort, what with the short timing and all,” Trixie seriously questioned just “when” she’d done this, since she didn’t remember them stopping practice until just a few moments ago, thus having no clue when the girl could’ve made what she was now wearing, “but, I think it was well worth it, don’t you.”
“She does look very cute, Rarity,” Fluttershy said, giving the five-year-old a warm smile.
Trixie’s face was bright red, both out of embarrassment and anger. She might physically be a child, but she was still the same age as all these girls! How dare they make her feel nice by being so thoughtful as to dress her up like—
Trixie stopped her thoughts. Where the hell was that train of thought headed? Where had it even come from?
Her inner confusion was suddenly broken when the door opened and she heard a chorus of, “Twilight!”
Whipping around, Trixie’s eyes widened at the lavender girl who’d just walked in, before hope filled her heart.
The princess had already come! Maybe she would be freed from this form sooner than she—
Trixie blinked, before frowning. Something about Twilight was different. She wasn’t wearing the blouse and skirt she always had the last times she’d been to Canterlot High, but instead, some kind of uniform.
Trixie cocked an eyebrow. Wait. She knew that uniform. It was a Crystal Prep uniform.
Trixie scratched her head. Why was Twilight wearing a Crystal Prep uniform? And why was she wearing glasses? And how come her dog wasn’t talking?
“I’ll return her to check in with the rest of her classmates,” a voice Trixie didn’t recognize pulled her from her confused thoughts, to see Twilight was gone and Principal Celestia was standing in the doorway.
“I didn’t know Twilight had a twin sister,” she said, looking baffled.
“She doesn’t!” Pinkie, who was wearing some kind of western clothing, said excitedly. “That Twilight is obviously the Twilight from this world, since it couldn’t possibly be the Twilight from the pony world since the Twilight from the pony world doesn’t go to Crystal Prep or wear glasses.”
Trixie blinked, staring blankly for a few moments, before her expression saddened. If that was this world’s Twilight, there was no way she could help Trixie return to normal.
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“I can’t believe our world’s Twilight goes to Crystal Prep!” Rarity said, holding her hands up, her elbows bent.
“You’re saying Twilight’s going to be playing against us?” Rainbow asked, sounding confused, before waving a hand. “She’d never do that.”
“Our Twilight wouldn’t,” Fluttershy remarked.
“Our Twilight is a princess in Equestria,” Sunset said in a tone Trixie recognized as one under a lot of stress, as Sunset stopped and turned to face the group, “and an expert in Friendship Magic. And if she was here we’d have already figured what magic is randomly popping in during pep rallies and costume changes and already figured out how to turn Trixie back to normal!”
The girl blinked, seeing the looks on her friends’ faces and Trixie backing away slightly.
Sunset sighed, her shoulders sagging. “Sorry. I’m just frustrated I haven’t heard back from her.”
Glancing from the others, Applejack said, “She’s a princess in Equestria. Probably got problems of her own to deal with.”
Trixie blinked, looking down at the floor. She’d never thought of that. She’d forgotten that the idea of being a princess meant more than just having a crown and others looking up to you.You had responsibilities to tend to and, considering what Twilight had dealt with both times she’d come to their world, it was probably more than just a few little things, like what polish to use.
“We certainly can’t expect her to drop everything and come through the portal whenever,” Rarity said, walking forwards. “Especially if it’s something as minor as a few random Pony Ups.”
“And what about Trixie?!” the little girl growled under her breath. “Trixie may be a minor now, but her situation is anything but!”
“But they aren’t minor!” Sunset’s pulled Trixie from her grumbling, causing confusion in the regressed girl’s mind. “Magic came into this world when I stole Twilight’s crown. It’s taken a lot for me to earn everyone’s trust.” She slumped again. “If we have to forfeit the games because I can’ think of a way to keep it under control...”
Sunset trailed of, resting her back against the lockers, holding herself.
Trixie blinked, before shaking her head, then frowning again. What Sunset just said caused a few thoughts to whirl through her young mind.
For a second, she’d felt what Sunset said meant she was to blame for Trixie’s predicament, but shook that thought off.
Sunset wasn’t responsible for the Sirens coming to CHS just because she brought magic. If what she’d learned about Equestria was right, the reason the other girls had reacted magically was because of their pony counterparts.
Even if their magic had not shown itself, there was still a good chance the Sirens might have found the school and tried what they had anyway. Worse, if Sunset hadn’t been here in the first place, their plan would have worked, with no one standing in their way.
If anything, Sunset bringing magic to their school was what saved it in the end. And while a small part of her, the prideful part that had made her an outcast during her first years of school, wanted to argue that it still then meant, because if the Sirens hadn’t been beaten, she’d still be her real age, the more logical part of her mind reminded her that, yeah, she’d be her normal age, but a mindless puppet to the Sirens.
In all honesty, this was the better scenario for Trixie compared to what would have happened had Sunset never brought magic with her and the Sirens come. All it had done was make the already present magic come to the surface, which was what had saved them all in the end.
Trixie was pulled from her thoughts when she saw the other girls moving off and Rainbow asking, “You coming, Sunset?”
Trixie looked to the girl.
“I’ll... catch up in a bit,” she told Dash, cuaisng Trixie to frown. Something was up.
Thankfully, no one questioned her going with Sunset, not even Sunset, seeing as Vice Principal Luna had put her in Sunset’s care in the first place.
She followed Sunset out to the front of the school, glancing up when Sunset sighed and said, “Still no reply.”
Seeing the book in Sunset’s hands, Trixie knew she was talking about the princess.
She followed her down towards the statue where she knew the portal to Princess Twilight’s world was. Why were they heading towards it?
“Maybe there’s another way I could reach her,” Sunset said as they stopped, reaching out a hand to the surface.
When Sunset’s hand made contact, however, a flame seemed to flare around the point of contact. “Hey!” she cried, suddenly pulling back, as if her hand was stuck. “Let go!”
She placed both her hands on the surface, trying to give herself more leverage to push back, but all that happened was her other hand became stuck.
Some kind of red energy, Sunset’s magic, Trixie guessed, was shining around her hands and disappearing into the stone as she kept pulling.
Able to tell something was very wrong, Trixie grabbed Sunset’s leg and started pulling too, trying to help the girl pull away.
Suddenly, Sunset was released from whatever was holding her against the portal and their cried out as they toppled backward, Trixie wincing as her knees strapped the ground again.
“What did you do?!” Trixie looked up at Sunset’s voice, before following her gaze to see the Twilight from their world lying on the ground on the opposite side of the statue.
The girl got up quickly, her expression one of fear.
“Twilight,” a pink woman, Crystal Prep’s Dean Cadance, if Trixie remembered correctly, said. “You need to check in with the others.”
The girl hurried off, despite Sunset calling after her.
Trixie frowned after her, before Sunset helped Trixie up and moved her hand to the portal— before her eyes widened and she started pressing her hands frantically against the stone, saying, “Where’s the portal?!”
Trixie’s eyes widened as she saw Sunset was clearly pressing her hands against the stone, yet it was solid as any ordinary rock. The portal was gone!
She quickly joined her, her heart clenching as her hands pressed against cold rock.
“Where the portal?!” Sunset cried, her voice frantic.
Trixie shared her fear. The portal couldn’t just suddenly close like that. From what she’d heard, Princess Twilight had made it so the portal would always be open.
For it to suddenly close like that...
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Trixie glanced around, wondering where Sunset had gone.
She’d slipped away from the group shortly after they and several of the Crystal Prep girls had gotten into an argument, to put it lightly, after Sunset had gone up to Twilight to learn what the girl had done to the portal, and now, whilst everyone was partying, she couldn’t help feeling both better and still scared about being on her own.
She could tell this sudden livening up of the party was Pinkie Pie’s doing, but couldn’t see the girl.
“What is a child doing here?” a voice Trixie recognised said from behind her.
The little girl whirled around to see a tall woman with pale skin and brown hair with purplish-pink mixed through it. She was wearing a blue long-sleeve suit-like shirt, a long dark-blue skirt and an expression of... disapproval was the only polite word Trixie’s mind could come up with.
Despite knowing she used to be teenager and thus shouldn’t be scared, due to her younger mind, she was heavily intimidated by this woman.
Trixie trembled as the woman looked down at her, before her nerves cracked and she ran, calling out, “Sunset!”
Suddenly, the lights flashed back on and the music abruptly stopped, startling Trixie and causing her panic to rise as she searched for the group of girls she desperately wanted to see.
She found them moments later and hurried forward.
Sunset, despite having been distracted by the sudden lighting change, seeing the tears in Trixie’s eyes as she ran towards them, bent down, to which Trixie responded by latching onto her in a tight hug, quietly sobbing.
Sunset gently hushed Trixe as she held her close as the little girl shuddered in her grasped.
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When school finally was out, Sunset couldn’t have been happier. Shortly after Trixie had grasped onto her, crying, Crystal Prep’s Principal, Abacus Cinch had given a speech that caused all the girls to frown along with the rest of the CHS students.
Miss Cinch was a nasty piece of work; she’d been able to tell. Her way of talking about CHS reminded Sunset of how she’d been before, which didn’t improve her opinion of the woman, especially after she found out she was the reason Trixie had been crying.
“So, Sunset,’ Applejack said as their group left the school, each sending a glare to the Crystal Prep students, save Twilight, who glared back, “is Trixie gonna be staying with you again t’night?”
Sunset nodded, bending down and picking up Trixie, causing the little girl to eep, clearly having not been expecting it. “Like I said yesterday, my apartment’s only about ten minutes from school, and since Vice Principal Luna put me in charge of looking after her until we can get her back to normal, it only makes sense she stay at my place.”
Rarity nodded, then frowned. “Darling, do you have anything for Trixie to wear to bed?”
Sunset blinked, before groaning, and would have face-palmed if she weren’t presently holding Trixie. She'd returned the borrowed pajamas this morning, so now Trixie had nothing to wear to bed.
Rarity just shook her head, then smiled. “I think you’ll need to make a small stop on your way home, darling.”
Sunset sighed, giving a smile of her own. “Yeah. Guess we didn’t think of that, did we?” she asked, looking to Trixie, who blinked, taken aback by being brought into the conversation instead of simply being talked about.
“Well, don’t keep her up, Trixie,” Dash smirked playfully, mussing up the girl’s hair. “We’ll need Sunset at her best if we’re gonna beat Crystal Prep tomorrow.”
Trixie pouted, puffing out her cheeks, which looked more cute than intimidating, as far as the gathered girls were concerned. “Trixie knows, Rainbow Dash. She doesn’t need you telling her.”
Dash snickered. “You know, that whole speaking in the third-person thing’s a lot cuter when she’s this age.”
Trixie’s cheeks flushed.
Sunset rolled her eyes, shaking her head, along with the rest of their friends, before bidding them all goodnight and heading towards the shopping district to pick up some things for Trixie.
Whilst Trixie’s personal belongings had been sent over to Sunset’s house by Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna, several things Trixie didn’t have would need to be bought before they got to Sunset’s apartment.
About an hour later, Trixie and Sunset walked through the door of Sunset’s apartment. As she stood by the couch,, Sunset holding two bags, one with their recent shopping purchases and the other dinner, since there wasn’t going to be time for Sunset to cook anything with the time, Trixie glanced at the older girl.
“Um... Sunset?” Trixie asked, just as Sunset was setting down the bags on her small kitchen counter.
“Yes, Trixie?” the older girl replied as she started sifting through their purchases.
“How can you afford an apartment...?” Trixie stopped, looking around. She hadn't really seen much of it this morning, so looking at it now was leaving her in awe.
The apparent wasn’t too big, there was a small combo kitchen and dining area, with another area that was what Trixie assumed a living area, with a black couch the filed a whole side of the room and a flat-screen, sixty inch TV with what looked like a PS4 and PS3.
Sunset blinked, cocking an eyebrow, before moving over to the dining table and putting the food on it, whilst leaving the bag with Trixie’s clothing on the kitchen counter. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” Trixie looked down, shuffling her feet and twiddling her fingers. “You came from Equestria... right?”
Sunset nodded, taking out the McDonalds she’d gotten for them: a double cheese burger for herself with a large fries, coke and sundae and a normal cheese burger, medium fries, coke and sundae for Trixie.
She had almost gotten a kid's meal for her, but Trixie had insisted on a normal meal.
Trixie moved up to the table, sitting down, frowning when she realized she was too short, her head barely reaching over the table top.
Sunset left the room, returning with a cushion for Trixie to sit on, allowing her to reach over the table.
“Well...” Trixie said as she looked down at her food. “Where did you get the money? I would’ve thought you’d not have much, since you weren’t born in this world.”
Sunset blinked, before chuckling, shaking her head. “Whilst Princess Celestia didn’t know it, when I went through the portal against her wishes, I’d returned a short while later and grabbed a ton of gems. Once I got back here, undetected by the so-called ever vigilant Royal Guard, mind you, I sold the gems and have been using the money from them ever since.”
Trixie blinked, her eyes widening. “B-but you first came to our school four years ago.”
Sunset nodded, opening her burger and taking a bite. “You’ll wanna eat your food before it gets cold, Trixie. Burgers and fries don’t taste that nice reheated.” She gave a sheepish smile. “Trust me, I learned through personal experience.”
Trixie shook her head. “But... to have been living off the money from those gems for so long, even in a small place like this... just how much did you get for them, and how many did you bring?!”
Sunset shrugged. “I honestly had no idea how much the gems were worth in this world until I tried to sell them. I’ve only used a little over half of them.”
Trixie’s mouth just hung open as she stared at the older girl.
After a few moments, Trixie seemed to remember what Sunset said about her food getting cold and started to eat.
Sunset couldn’t help smiling at the contented face Trixie wore as she ate her burger, the one only a little kid could wear when eating a burger.
They ate in relative silence, simply enjoying their food.
Sunset’s eyes glanced at the pickles Trixie had removed from her burger. She said in response to the look that, while she didn’t eat pickles, she liked the flavour they gave the burger, to which Sunset herself had to agree. She herself didn’t like pickles, hadn’t even as a pony, and much preferred having them in a burger temporarily, simply to add the flavour they do, before taking them out.
Once they’d finished (though Trixie could barely finish her medium meal, what with her smaller size), Sunset took the rubbish and tossed it away. Glancing up, she saw Trixie’s failed attempt to stifle a yawn behind a wide open hand.
She smiled, walking over and picking up the tired girl. “Come on, Trixie. Let’s get you washed and then t’ bed, huh?”
“But Trixie’s not t-tired,” Trixie said as another yawn came from her maw.
She brought Trixie to the bathroom and set her down whislt she filled the bath, putting in some bubble bath so a layer of bubbles covered the surface.
Once the bath was full, Sunset undressed Trixie, the girl clearly too tired to do it herself, lowered Trixie into the tub and began washing her, which included brushing Trixie’s teeth.
Trixie attempted to struggle against being washed, but she was too tired to stop Sunset, and stopped moments after, though brushed her teeth herself. With Trixie washed and clean, Sunset lifted her out of the tub and helped to dry her off.
With Trixie dry, Sunset lifted her up and carried her over to one of the two spare bedrooms in the apartment. It wasn’t much, the walls were pretty plain, the desk on the other side of the room was empty and the bed’s covers were a plain light-blue.
Setting Trixie down on the bed, Sunset went out to the bag of clothing, then came back and took out a pair of light-blue pajamas consisting of a long-sleeve, buttoned shirt and pants, helping the tired girl into them.
Sunset helped Trixie into bed, before stretching. She moved to the door and turned off the light, before heading off to have her own shower.
When she was finished several minutes later, she returned to her room to put on her long-sleeve purplish-red pajamas.
She paused, however, when she saw Trixie sitting on her bed at the top of the loft, looking down at her lap.
Sunset went and knelt down next to the bed, lifting Trixie’s chin so she was looking her in the eyes. “What is it, Trixie?”
The girl looked away, her face blushing red with embarrassment despite how tired she was. “Can Trixie... Can... Can I sleep with you?” the little girl murmured, rivaling Fluttershy in low audible talking.
Sunset blinked, then smiled and nodded. She could understand. Even though Trixie knew Sunset was a good person, sleeping in a place you weren’t used to, on your own would make anyone unable to sleep.
She got up, grabbing and putting on her pajamas (she and Trixie were both girls and Trixie had been the same age more than twelve hours ago, so it wasn’t like Trixie was seeing anything she shouldn’t), then got into bed, letting Trixie nestle in next to her under the covers.
Turning off her bedside lamp, Sunset settled down and couldn’t help smiling as Trixie snuggled closer to her for warmth.
She closed her eyes to let sleep take her, wondering what events she’d be facing in the Friendship Games tomorrow, and finding comfort in the warm body against her. She hadn't felt so warm inside since... since she had been Celestia's student as a filly.
Her eyes moistening a little at that thought, and wondering why she hadn't noticed it last night, she pulled Trixie a little closer, before drifting off to sleep.