Celestia walked towards her sister’s room. The castle hallways were quite calm at this time of day, so she didn’t have to stop every two minutes to smile at a guard. Not that she minded, they were just doing their jobs – the constant socialising was simply a bit much, especially after the… interesting… day she was having so far. She was glad to have a break.
In the room itself, Trixie let out an impatient sigh, before looking back towards Luna. It seemed the princess had completely missed Trixie’s signal, as she continued with her life story.
“And thus, he dropped the scrolls all over the pavement! It was not funny he insisted, well we certainly found it funny.”
Earlier in the conversation, Trixie would have tried asking if Luna meant ‘we’ as in herself, or as a collective. By this point, all she wanted to ask was ‘when will this be over’ but the annoying “politeness” thing Twilight had taught her got in the way.
Finally, Trixie was given her way out.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
Luna recognised the sound.
“Sister, can thou not see we are busy?”
“No I can’t,” came the giggly reply from Celestia, “but I can hear you are!”
Luna groaned and put on her most unimpressed look.
With that, the door swung open and Celestia turned to Trixie, who looked as if she’d been forced to listen to a panicked cat being dragged across a blackboard stretching halfway to the Crystal Empire.
“Trixie, I need to ask a favour, is it alright if I take you away from Luna for a bit?”
“YES!” Trixie yelled out at the top of her voice, before correcting herself. “Ahaha, what Trixie meant to say was yes, Trixie must fulfil her very important duties, after all, she isn’t best princess for nothing.”
With that, Trixie quickly scampered out the door, Luna calling out behind her in the Canterlot Voice.
“WE UNDERSTAND THOU MUST FULFILL THY DUTIES! WE HOPE TO SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN DEAR FRIENDS, WHEN CIRCUMSTANCES DO NOT US PART!”
Celestia caught up with Trixie about thirty seconds later, finding her panting in a heap next to a massive stained glass window.
“Is… she gone?” Trixie asked, giving her most dramatic exhausted pose possible.
“Yes,” Celestia said, her voice tainted with a hint of scepticism about Trixie’s ‘exhausted’ state. “Now I believe I asked a favour of you?”
“Oh yeah, what was Trixie meant to do again?”
Trixie leaped back on to her hooves, all her tiredness magically vanishing.
“Well, as Twilight is unable to complete her regular duties, you will need to sign a few documents she was planning to complete today.”
“No problem, Trixie is excellent at writing! It’s nothing more than moving a pen around! The great and… uh… administrative Trixie is more than capable!”
“Thank you for co-operating,” Celestia said with a smile, “I’ll show you to the study.”
A few minutes later, Trixie found herself in a dark, wooden room, surrounded by multiple piles of paper, taller than her.
“So, how much of this is Trixie signing again?”
“Oh right, the whole lot,” Celestia replied casually before walking out.
Trixie’s eye twitched slightly as she stared at the monstrous situation she had just locked herself into.
Back at Gold Star’s place, Twilight had finally managed to distract the crowd long enough to get inside. She hurriedly carried Gold Star up to his bedroom door before collapsing in front of it.
Gold swung the door open and dragged his temporary mentor inside.
“So you found a solution for something?” the young colt asked.
“Oh yeah!” Twilight exclaimed, “Remember what I used on the wind?”
“You never told me actually.”
“Oh… right. Heh. Well, I used an inhibition spell!”
“Oh! I heard about those! Starswirl used one to turn an angry dragon’s fire –”
“-INTO SMOKE!” they both continued together, before giggling aloud.
“Exactly!” Twilight continued once the laughing fit subsided. “So imagine if we used an inhibition spell – on your magic!”
“That’s a great idea!” Gold Star squeaked.
“This was a terrible idea”, the young colt sulked a few minutes later. “I tried it a hundred times and nothing happened.”
“Maybe you’re just not aiming it right?” Twilight reassured him. “Aim is important when you’re casting spell on yourself.”
She investigate Gold Star’s stance, before adjusting the position of his front legs and his horn.
“Try now,” Twilight smiled.
Gold Star charged the spell, closed his eyes – and – WHOOSH! He opened them to see a flash of light surround him, before it dissipated into the air.
“Did… it work?” he asked cautiously.
“One way to find out!” Twilight exclaimed happily.
“An exp-“
“AN EXPERIMENT! Wait, how did you –”
“You always do that face before you say ‘an experiment’” Gold Star said with another giggle.
Twilight blushed a little before continuing.
“Heh, right, I do get a little hyped about testing things. So, you remember that portal spell from earlier? The one that disturbed Doughnut Joe?”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to try that out again. Just a portal from here to the other side of the room.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive! I know you can do it!”
“O-okay…” Gold Star answered, charging up his horn.
Immediately, he noticed it felt different. It was way easier to focus on the spell, and it seemed to be aiming directly where he wanted it to go.
He launched the spell with a quick zap, and sure enough, found himself staring into a perfectly placed portal.
“I DID IT! I DID IT TWILIGHT!” the filly squeaked, jumping ecstatically up and down. “I just wish Trixie was here…”
“Why don’t we go show her then?” Twilight smiled. “It’s just a quick walk to the palace!”
She then noticed the massive mob outside the window.
“On second thoughts, let’s teleport there instead.
Trixie’s mane began to stand on end and both her eyes were now twitching. How did Twilight deal with all this nonsense? This wasn’t paperwork, this was literary torture!
For the second time that day, Trixie was saved by a knock on the door.
“Hi Trixie!” she heard Gold Star call out.
“Hello,” Twilight added, “we just wanted to show you something. If you’re not too-”
“YESYESYES!” Trixie almost squeaked, “SHOW TRIXIE! SHOW TRIXIE!”
She darted out of the room, dropping a piece of paper on which she had written “who cares about economic protocol, just build the blasted hospital!”
Out in the castle hallway, Trixie watched eagerly as Gold Star charged up his portal spell. The young colt noticed Trixie’s eager expression and started to think about how bad it would be if he messed this up. If he interrupted Trixie’s work just to mess up again.
He charged the spell and – it opened a portal to Ponyville. The biggest misfire yet!
He laughed nervously and tried again – Manehattan!
Then Cloudsdale!
“I don’t understand!” the colt finally cried out. “It was working before!”
Twilight wanted to answer him, but she couldn’t think of anything. It had to work, right?
“I’m sorry” Gold Star said softly as he approached Trixie, his head hanging down in defeat. “I’m sorry I let you down.”
“Don’t be silly, you just need more practice, soon you’ll be as amazingly talented as Trixie!”
“No,” Gold protested, starting to cry, “I’m just bad at magic! I’ll never be as good as you! You’ll have to do the show alone all because I messed up!”
“Come on,” Trixie tried to reply, “you’re Trixie’s student, you have to succeed eventually!”
“What if I don’t?”
“Don’t be silly, of course you –”
“What if I don’t!”
Trixie took a deep breath, she was going to have to give him an honest answer. She thought to herself for a moment, then made up her mind. She gave Gold Star the biggest hug possible before answering.
“Then Trixie would still be your friend, because you care about Trixie, and Trixie cares about you – and what spells you can or can’t do will ever, ever change that! Now stop being such a silly filly!”
The young pony giggled and hugged back. “Well I’ll be an even friendier friend!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! The friendly and outgoing Trixie is clearly the most friendy!”
Twilight suddenly had a moment of realization!
“I’ve got it! Gold Star, try the spell again!”
“Now? But… I thought the inhibition thing didn’t work?”
“Just give it one more go, okay?”
Gold Star sceptically went along with it. He got into the correct stance, charged up his horn and – a portal to the other side of the hallway! He did it! But how?
“Wh – what did you do?” he asked Twilight in amazement.
“I didn’t do anything,” Twilight smiled, “you believed in yourself!”
“So you’re saying all I had to do was believe in myself... that’s kind of weird.”
“Of course not! You had a real problem, without the inhibition spell it still wouldn’t have worked! It’s just – that was only part of the problem – and believing in yourself was the other part.”
“That kinda makes sense, but I think I’ll stick with magic, psychology is confusing!”
Twilight giggled. “Good idea, the psychology majors I knew were some crazy cucumbers!”
She turned to Trixie. “So what now? Looks like we’ve done our jobs for the day, all that’s left now is to find that counter-spell.”
Suddenly, a pair of guards came rushing down the hallway.
“PRINCESS TWILI – UM, PRINCESS TRIXIE – AND YOUR FRIENDS, WE NEED YOU AT ONCE! IT’S A DIPLOMATIC EMERGENCY!”
“Well, so much for that idea” Twilight sighed.