Smoke and Mirrors

by Baby Boo

1. The Somewhat Secret Story

TWILIGHT SPARKLE found that her neck had stretched out to a long, thin noodle, atop which her head bobbed like a toy absurdity. She gaped at the mirror, weaving and ducking her head to watch her peculiar new snake-throat writhe in response.

She looked over to Applejack, who had been puffed out into a big orange ball of pony, with a startled face stuck on the middle and four tiny stubs of hoof beneath. On Twilight's other side, Rarity's head and hooves had also blown up, with the rest of her body shrunken to insignificance between them.

Rarity looked at Twilight, Twilight looked at Applejack, Applejack looked at Rarity, and all three burst out laughing. The giggles spread to the rest of their friends, joining similar flurries of laughter from other groups milling around in the dark, mirror-filled enclosure.

After a few minutes of swapping around to see what different mirrors would do, the novelty wore off, and the group allowed the slow flow of traffic to guide them toward the thin blade of sunlight marking the exit flap.

"And the ghosts in that spinny tunnel? Those were super-scarafunny!" Pinkie Pie bubbled as they emerged from the big tent that housed Mirror! Maze! Madness! onto the grassy fairway.

Fluttershy chuckled nervously. "Right... f-funny...."

"I liked the actual maze part, at the beginning," said Rarity. She fluttered her eyelashes and raised a hoof to her temple in self-parody. "An intellectual challenge and a million stylish reflections in every direction – what could be better?"

Rainbow Dash hovered down just to stick out her tongue and gag, while Spike chuckled a little louder and longer than the joke really deserved. Pinkie, however, looked pensive, and dropped from a boing to a walk.

"I didn't really like that part," she said quietly. "What if the wrong Pinkie found the way out?"

Rarity gave Pinkie a sympathetic smile and drew close to her side. "Oh Pinkie dear, you've already passed that test..."

Last out were Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, and the group's young guest, Twilight's niece.

Dreamsweet was of an age when her classmates were developing cutie marks left and right, and she stood at just the right height for her horn to clock Twilight on the chin whenever she swerved abruptly to gawk at things. The tumbling, brush-resistant curls of her pastel-striped mane were partially tamed with a red-and-white checked kerchief, and draped across her back was a light simple cape of the same checked material, adorned at its corners with Crusader patches.

"Did you see the part where all the reflections were a little bit different?" she asked on the way out.

"Mm-hmm! Isn't it amazing what you can do without magic?" replied Twilight. Dreamsweet blinked and frowned up at her, looking for signs of a joke.

"I don't think you could do all that with no magic," she said, with hesitant certainty.

Twilight grinned. "No, really, that was all curved glass, colored lights and cleverness!"

"Hum." Dreamsweet didn't seem entirely to believe it. "Then isn't it all just a bunch of tricks?"

Twilight and Applejack paused to give the filly a pair of quizzical stares.

"Well, sure they're tricks," Applejack said. "Even if they did some of it with magic, it'd still be a trick."

"It's all a matter of skill and presentation, whether you do it with your horn or with some smoke powder," added Twilight.

"Hah! And we'd be crazy to bring you up to a bunch of real magic mirrors!" Applejack laughed, but stopped suddenly as Twilight shot her a startled look.

Dreamsweet's puzzled frown deepened. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, uh... you mean nopony ever told you that story?" Applejack withered slightly under Twilight's flat stare.

"I don't know. What story is it?" asked Dreamsweet, reasonably.

"I guess it's just never come up," Twilight said, in a slow and thoughtful tone. She and Applejack held a quick wordless conference of looks and eyebrows. Spike, who had fallen back to climb on Twilight's back and let her do the walking, caught Dreamsweet's baffled look and could only shrug in response.

Soon the consensus went from dubious frowns to smiling shrugs, and Applejack said, "Well, it's not like a some deep dark secret, anyhow. You see, there was this time not too long after you were born –"

Rarity popped up beside Applejack, raising a dramatic hoof of interruption. "Oh, when she was born! Do you remember the birthday celebration?"

"Ooh, yeah!" squealed Pinkie Pie, who was now sitting on Twilight's back behind Spike. She bounced off and landed next to Dreamsweet. "That was the kind of party that parties go to! And it was all for you! But you were too young to know it!"

"Uhh... you mean my actual birth day?" The filly had passed beyond perplexity, into the state of simply humoring the elderly.

"Oh, yes! It was the most magnificent affair. You've never seen the Crystal Empire so excited!" said Rarity. "We were all involved in planning the official festivities at the palace, of course, but the real show was out on the streets..."

Comments

[Regidar]

Hm, good so far. Writing is pretty solid, and it actually captured me. Shit's hard to do.

[Baby Boo]

5034205 Fantastic. Glad that it's got your attention, then; now if I can just manage to keep my attention on it...