21. Tricky Skies (by Eyeswirl the Weirded)
Princess Celestia had a strange job.
She was, of course, Princess Celestia of Equestria™, long-standing ruler of the equine nation and She Who Raises The Sun. She had many duties that usually kept her very busy, but she did not tackle everything that needed doing in the palace by her lonesome. Indeed, she'd gone temporarily insane centuries ago while trying to manage everything herself, and since learned to delegate. Every now and then, this left Celestia herself with nothing to actually do. Not just things that could be put off until a little later, but a flat nothing that needed her stamp or say-so.
At such times, Celestia usually opted to seek out entertainment among the common pony in disguise, not unlike what Luna was doing. Albeit for very different reasons. Some day she wanted to have a day out with 'Moon Sky' and her own alias; Sunny Skies. That day, however, would have to wait until Luna was comfortable enough for such a thing and both of them had the time.
'Sunny Skies,' a white pegasus with a long, pink mane and a smiley little sun for a cutie mark, wandered through the streets of Canterlot. Her thoughts of how long it had been since she and Luna could just carelessly have fun together were interrupted by a boisterous voice.
"Come one, come all, to see the mystifying magic of the Great, and Powerful Trrrrrrixie!!"
Even with what Celestia had heard about what went down in her school's cafeteria recently, indecision flickered in her mind as for whether or not to hope it was the first Trixie she might have guessed. She trotted at a brisk pace towards the voice, seeing a stage in the middle of the plaza. Already, dozens of ponies had gathered to see the source of the commotion; a blue mare in a purple, starry cloak and matching pointy hat.
Princess Celestia had lived a long time, seen many, many ponies over her many, many years. Some of them looked alike, some of them had similar names, some of them were both at the same time. It was nice that nopony ever really got on her case for mixing them up every now and then, as she could usually get away with them thinking it was because they were but humble ponies before the Princess of the Sun. Fittingly, the ego-inflating sentiment did more to preserve her image as not-a-pony-that-forgets-ponies-names'-so-often-that-it-looks-like-she-just-doesn't-care. She did, really, but come on! She was sure she'd heard of ponies with the exact same names through generations.
That in mind, she was certain this was Trixie Lulamoon, her runaway student from years ago. Sunny Skies stood back and watched, making the mental note to follow Trixie to talk to her when she was finished with this thing.
"Watch and be amazed," shouted Trixie, drawing a red cloth from within her cloak, "as Trixie performs feats of magic like none you've ever seen!" She whirled the cloth around experimentally, then smiled, swishing it vertically to reveal a metal cage large enough to hold a bear, becoming visible as if it had been obscured by a smudge that Trixie was wiping away.
Trixie took her hat off and flung it to the side, a coat rack sprouting from the bottom and planting firmly on the stage floor, the hat balanced neatly on top. Spinning quickly in place, she threw off her cloak (which came to rest on a hook of the coat rack) to reveal she was bound in an intricate series of chains and ropes tightly constricting her movements. Some whistled at the display, more-so as Trixie opened the door to the cage and shuffled in, the crowd getting an eyeful of her flank as she looked over her shoulder.
"Don't try this at home, fillies and gentlecolts," she said while stopping to wink at them, "you won't have near as lovely an audience!"
Many in the crowd whooped and cheered appreciatively as she continued with the trick. The cage door shut, the glow of Trixie's magic engulfing it along with a jug of unknown liquid that emptied itself over the cage, fluid evenly dripping down the bars as Trixie lit a match. Some in the crowd gasped, seeing where she was going with this.
"Oh, wait," she said with a smile, "Trixie almost forgot the most important thing!"
The prop she conjured next wasn't a fire extinguisher or any manner of flame protection, but to Sunny Skies's equal anticipation and horror, an inhibitor. Trixie donned the device that would render her unable to use magic while humming a cheery little tune, it's loud click signaling to the crowd that there was no spell she could cast to get out of what she was about to do. She dropped the match at the edge of the cage, igniting the liquid. Fire coated the bars, smoke and flames encircling the bound pony inside until she completely faded from sight, having made no effort to even move from where she was standing.
The crowd watched in silence as the fire crackled and burned, no sign of the showpony anywhere. Within minutes, a few proactive members of the audience were putting out the fire with extinguishers. When the smoke had mostly cleared, all they found was the blackened cage.
"Thanks for the helping hoof there, fellas!"
Everypony turned to see Trixie, wearing not chains, but her hat and cloak, leaning back in the chair of a nearby outdoor cafe. Her forehooves were leisurely behind her head, hindhooves up on the table, and a cup of tea levitated to her lips as she took a sip. "Ahh~!" She set the cup down on the table, next to the inhibitor that clearly hadn't stopped her from escaping. She smiled pleasantly. "Always nice to get a little help from friends, even for the Great and Powerful Trixie!"
Seeing the street performer unharmed, the crowd roared with cheers, hooves that weren't stomped in applause waved wildly in the air. A few members of the audience, however, were less impressed, one proving more vocal than the rest.
"Ahh, that's not so great," said a stallion, earning a raised eyebrow from Trixie, "she just made it look like there was a fire and walked out."
Some ooh'd at the accusation, Trixie standing up with a smirk. "Really? You don't think Trixie could escape a blazing inferno?" Stepping closer to him, the crowd making room, she chuckled a little. "Well, seeing as how Trixie has already demonstrated her own affinity for doing just that," nopony could see Trixie's horn light up through her hat, but that didn't stop her from casting spells, "let's see how you handle it!"
The lone heckler was quickly surrounded by a ring of fire, not close enough to burn him, but enough that he could very easily feel the heat, panicking for a few seconds as he tried not to get his tail burnt off, to the crowd's amusement.
"Trixie thinks you'll find her fires are quite real," she said with a smug smile, "and not cold fires, either." Her face grew contemplative. "Or was it lukewarm? Cool?"
The pony in the ring of fire hopped a little on his hooves, visibly sweating. "I-I get it, can you put this out now?!"
"Hang on," Trixie said while dismissively waving a hoof that she then drew to her chin in thought, "Trixie thinks this was important. The name was cold fire, but she said lukewarm. Not usually much point in fire if it isn't hot, or you could just use something else to avoid the risk of flames getting stale to the audience, but at the time it was pretty-"
"PLEASE PUT OUT THE FLAMES, GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!!"
Some in the crowd laughed, though it wasn't clear if it was that or the desperate plea that got her attention as she returned her smile to the one that doubted her. "Very well, re-educated citizen," the fires were extinguished, "Trixie hopes you'll remember this the next time you have questions about whether or not hot fire is hot."
He immediately sprinted away. Sunny Skies noted that that wasn't a very nice way to make a point, but she supposed if nopony was hurt, there wasn't a problem. That, and Princess Celestia might have done something similar in Trixie's horseshoes.
Trixie casually sauntered back to the stage, clearing away the soot-stained cage with a spell before turning to the audience and smiling. She cleared her throat, then quickly stood on her hind hooves, using her forelegs to throw out her cloak in theatrical fashion as fireworks shot from the stage, the crowd cheering and throwing bits for the stellar performance.
Then she heard a voice. "YOU ARE SURROUNDED, TRIXIE LULAMOON!!"
Looking around, she saw ponies in nice suits and sunglasses all around the plaza. Trixie swore under her breath.
One such pony turned to the one that just shouted. "Beaten Bush, you idiot! If you hadn't called out that we were here, we could have just closed in on her before she noticed! Why do you always do that?!"
Another facehoofed. "Every. Single. Time."
Trixie was looking around rapidly, her expression nervous. "A-and that concludes Trixie's show for today, uh, you can all go home now!"
The ponies in suits only stepped closer, Sunny Skies gathering that this was something Trixie did not want to happen as she quickly levitated as many of the offered bits as she could into her hat. Celestia didn't know who these ponies were, but she knew they didn't work for her. If it was them, or one of her old students...? She looked up at the midday sky and narrowed her eyes.
Suddenly, half of Canterlot was shrouded in darkness, as though a massive cloud had simply blocked out the sun, the audible fright of many.
"Hey," shouted a random pony, "we aren't scheduled for a storm today!"
"I've never seen a storm make it this dark!"
"It's not a storm, it's an attack!"
"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"
"Quick, everypony scream and panic!"
Celestia felt only a hint of shame for teleporting herself away from the crowd. She'd been in her share of mosh-pits over the years and this one was probably going to leave bruises on anypony that didn't get out of the way fast enough. On that note, she activated a long-perfected detection array spell so she could see and hear every detail of what was going on in the area. Subtle use of telekinesis and minor barrier spells kept anypony from getting hurt in the rapidly-snowballing chaos.
"Somepony call Flashlight Patrol!!"
"Is that a real thing?"
"WOO, midday midnight rave party!"
Celestia was pretty sure the screams and stamping of hooves now had a side of wubs.
"Can anypony with wings get up there and clear those clouds?"
"Are you kidding? It'd take the Wonderbolts a week to get through that!"
"This has nothing to do with weather, she's back! It's Nightmare Moon!!"
If ponies weren't screaming and running before, they were now. Celestia facehoofed. Great, now I have to explain to the nobles that Equestria is not getting conquered... again!
The ponies in suits were shouting at each other as they scrambled about, most of them just trying not to get bowled over in the tumult.
"Find her!"
"Grab her!"
"Don't let her slip away!"
One of their number, her spell told her, was seconds from succeeding. The one that first yelled, Beaten Bush, if she remembered right, was standing behind Trixie in the darkness on stage as she frantically gathered the bits thrown earlier with help from a nightvision spell. Celestia was just about to magically root his hooves to the floor or something when he gently tapped Trixie on the shoulder and pointed in the direction of the exit with the fewest ponies in suits feeling around or trying detection spells.
The spell made out the details of Trixie's face, looking at Beaten Bush in confusion. It even made out what he whispered to her before smiling, walking off the stage, and joining the rest in 'searching' for Trixie.
Oh, thought Celestia.
A few minutes later, she determined that Trixie, the stage, and most of the bits that presumably made her living were gone. I'll have to find a chance to talk to her some other time. Its job done, Celestia returned the sunlight over the city to normal, as though nothing had ever happened.
With daylight restored, the crowd quickly calmed down, though she knew she'd be hearing about this for the next few days. She briefly tried asking the ponies in suits what it was they wanted with Trixie, as a few of them had hung around to keep looking.
"Classified information, ma'am," one answered stoically, "nothing to see here, move along."
She looked around for Beaten Bush in the hope he would be more talkative, but it looked like he had joined the departing search parties. It seemed none present were inclined to answer an everyday pony like Sunny Skies, but morphing into Celestia here would do her few favors in the long run. Sighing, she added Trixie and her pursuers to the list of mysteries to be unraveled later.
In the meantime, it occurred to Celestia that the ponies in suits were probably at least related to the ones she'd heard about raising a fuss in her school's cafeteria. Picking up a quill and her best Royal Decree Paper, she knew just what kind of changes needed to be made...
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Oh?
I see.
Interesting.
Right.
Come again?
She's right.
Oh boy.
Impressive.
Oh really?
Oh boy.
I think it's called cold fire, but I think temperature wise, it's more luikewarm.
That wasn't very nice, but, I suppose you made your point.
Because it's funny
Ponies are idiots.
Smart.
Of course you'd jump to that.
Again?
A double agent.
Oh?
Hooo Celestia getting involved in all this crazyness :)
6109861 You DO realize that this story is a spin-off of another, which is about male elements of harmony, right? You can read it and find out.
6109846 Not that far ago, when they invaded the School and hurt Moondancer trying to get Trixie. One of them mentioned bringing Trixie back home rather she liked it or not. My guess is she is a Noble's daughter and they are paying big money for the group to bring her back home.
ps. Chapter 16:
6109955
6110021 All of this is explained in Enthusiastic Admirer. I know it's supposed to be a self-contained story, but it's still part of the universe. Go and read it for the full story.
6109893 WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED?? oh well. ON TO READ
Wow. What is us with Beaten. Are he and Trixie and item? Great job. Good luck with the next part of this story.
6110125 Just be warned- those stories were written before I got an editor
I'm guessing Trixie owes someone money, or they agents of Trixie's family hired to return her home.
Wow. Haven't heard this enough.
You're all idiots. Every. Last. One of you.
Haha! I see what you did there. But seriously. Please. Don't. I beg of you.
A certain blue pegasus has felt the cosmic impact of this statement and is officially pissed off. If only there was an RD angry emoticon.
Of course that's the first theory these numbskulls come up with. In the words of a wise princess, "Leaders have to deal with a lot of subservient dummies."
1. Dummies.
2. They're as bad as candy people.
3. ... Again? If you mean the explanation, how many times have you pulled this stunt? That must've been some kind of boredom.
Good chapter. Keep it up!
6110146 cant talk. Reading funny ponies.
6109861
Hmm... Big Mac and Shining I can get, I suppose it's not like Blueblood was hiding he was a total ass so Honesty fits him, Soarin as loyalty... well, he didn't ditch his team after they tried to ditch him so alright, Thunderlane... I can't imagine him in the place of Pinkie, she does so much of a better job. Braeburn...
Well, he certainly amounts to the same amount of child responsibility like Rarity... She ditched the CMC on Fluttershy while he fell asleep on his job of watching them.
6111551
Not sure which it is... I'll try to look into them just, you know, lots of other fics to look into as well.
I like the idea that Celestia has her full name and title trademarked.
Sunny Skies, now there's a bit of fanon I've always enjoyed.
Oh, indeed.
I like this this trixie. Continue carrying on. I expect monthly python next time.
So Trixie was Celestia's student and the Stallions In Black don't work for her...
And we see the greatest skill all Ponies have, PANIC!