The Friendship Trap

by albedoequals1

Twins!

Minuette walked briskly down the main street of Ponyville. Her reunion with her old friend, Twilight Sparkle, had reminded her that it had been far too long since she had visited her friends in Ponyville. Lyra’s birthday was coming up soon, so it was a perfect time to visit. Her schedule was pretty packed, but she had made time. After all, that was her special talent.

As she walked down the middle of the street, she glanced casually at the signs on each store as she passed. She suddenly stopped walking and stared at one in disbelief.

Right in front of her was a sign with her hourglass cutie mark on it, in full color. Her eyes scanned the text underneath. “Colgate’s Family Dentistry,” she read aloud. She decided that she had time for a quick detour and opened the door with her magic.

A bell over the door rang as the door opened past it. Immediately inside was a small but tastefully decorated waiting room. Behind a desk on one side of the room sat a light-blue crystal unicorn with a starry mane and straight-cut forelock. The receptionist was trying to rearrange several stacks of paper simultaneously and did not immediately look up, but she said in a cheerful voice, “Welcome to Colgate’s Family Dentistry. The doctor is not in yet, but she should be here in just a minute.”

As the crystal pony restacked the papers, Minuette caught a glimpse of the hourglass on her flank. Obviously, this must be Colgate. Strange, dentist offices were usually named after the dentist.

The receptionist set down the stacks and took a sip from a glass of water that sat on the desk. “I can sign you in now, and as soon as she gets here you can—" She looked up and stopped mid-sentence. “Colgate, you’re early. You’re never early.”

Now it was Minuette’s turn to be confused. “I’m not Colgate, I’m Minuette. I thought you were Colgate.”

The receptionist scowled. “Colgate, I’m really not in the mood for your silliness. I had to stay late last night to work on the paperwork and still had to come early this morning to get it done.”

Minuette glanced down at the desk and saw that the receptionist’s nameplate said “Minuet.”

“I’m afraid you have me mixed up with somepony else,” she said apologetically. “My name is Minuette, and I’m pretty sure we have never met.”

Minuet gave her a hard look. “If you’re not Colgate, you’re her identical twin. You even have the same cu—“

Minuette felt a tingling sensation in her horn that quickly spread to her whole body. The feeling was familiar; she had used this spell countless times before. This time, however, somepony else was doing it. All around her, everything seemed to be caught in invisible molasses. Ripples in the glass of water stopped traveling, birds outside hovered in mid-air and Minuet froze with a rather amusing expression on her face.

Minuette remained unaffected and glanced around curiously for the source of the magic. After a minute, she saw a blue unicorn running down the street towards the dentist office. A blue unicorn with a blue-and-white striped mane. A blue unicorn with an hourglass cutie mark.

The newcomer opened the door and trotted inside, only to stop and gape when she saw Minuette. Minuette suspected that her own expression was similarly rude, but the situation was just too absurd to do anything else.

Minuette found her voice first. “Doctor Colgate, I presume?”

Colgate nodded. “That’s me. Who are you?”

“I’m Minuette.” She glanced at the frozen receptionist and added, “with two ‘t’s and two ‘e’s.”

“This is amazing!” Colgate announced. “You look just like me!”

“You look just like me,” Minuette corrected her. “Even sisters don’t look as much like each other as we do.”

“I’ve always wished I had a sister,” Colgate mused. “It would be so much fun.”

“We even have the same cutie mark,” Minuette gestured at the frozen world around them, “and the same special talent. Why am I not frozen? The time-stop spell freezes everything but the caster.”

“I’ve always called it clock-up, myself,” Colgate said, “and I thought I had invented it.”

They stared at each other for a little longer before Minuette said, “You should probably let time resume; I’ll bet you’re getting tired by now.”

“Yeah, heh, I’m sure you know the feeling.” Colgate’s yellow magic faded and the world around them resumed moving as if it had never stopped.

“—tie mark…” Minuet finished before realizing there were two where there had been one. “Ah.” She sighed and held a hoof against her temple. “Which one of you is Colgate?”

Colgate raised a hoof. “Hey, this is great! Even Minuet can’t tell us apart. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“We should trade places and try out each other’s lives?”

“Lyra’s party is tonight, we could practice there!”

“You know Lyra too?”

“Of course, she lives in Ponyville.”

The two unicorns continued to plot their prank, completely oblivious to the crystal pony covering her eyes behind them.

* * *

Pinkie Pie was making a last minute tune-up to the balloons that festooned Sugarcube Corner’s windows and doorways. She felt an odd tingling in her forelock, and then Minuette was suddenly standing next to her.

“Hi, Pinkie Pie! How are you, you old party pony?”

“Minuette! I’m glad you could come!”

“What? I’m Colgate, don’t you remember? I was part of the animal team for winter wrap-up for the last three years? I just opened a dentist office?”

Pinkie Pie looked alarmed. “Of course, Colgate! I never forget a face, heh, heh.” Or do I? She thought.

“Hi, Pinkie Pie! How are you, you old party pony?” Another blue unicorn had appeared on the other side of her.

“…Minuette?” Pinkie Pie asked uncertainly.

“Of course, who else would I be?” the unicorn replied with a cheeky grin.

“Of course…has anypony ever told you that you look really, really similar?” Pinkie smiled winningly.

The twins looked at each other in mock dismay. “What?” one of them asked.

“We look nothing alike,” agreed the other, “see?” They stood next to each other and struck mirror poses.

Oh dear, Pinkie thought, keeping everypony straight may be harder than I ever thought.

At that moment, the guest of honor walked in. “Hi, Pinkie Pie. Sw— Bon Bon sends her regrets, but she has to do…something in Canterlot.”

“Hi, Lyra!” the hourglass ponies chorused.

Lyra looked, and gaped. “Minuette, Colgate? I didn’t know you...knew each other.”

“Of course, we’re like sisters!” one of them replied.

Pinkie Pie caught Lyra wincing slightly at that remark, but the twins seemed too caught up in their performance to notice.

“We brought you a gift,” one of them asserted.

“We were going to bring separate gifts,” the other explained, “until we found out that we got you the same thing.”

“Well, uh, thank you for coming, it’s good to see both of you again,” Lyra said uncertainly.

The doppelgangers devolved into giggles. After a moment, one of them whispered to the other and they both lit their horns. There was a quick blue blur and one pony stood where two had stood before.

She waggled her eyebrows at Lyra expectantly.

“Um…Colgate?” Lyra guessed at random.

The mare just giggled and did not confirm or deny Lyra’s guess.

* * *

To Pinkie and Lyra’s great relief, Minuette and Colgate did very little to disrupt the party, mostly settling for impersonating each other to the ponies that only knew one of them.

As the party began to wind down, Lyra found the pair having a private discussion in an empty corner. She had been more suspicious of ponies in general ever since she discovered that her roommate was a spy, so she hid behind a counter and listened in.

“…but I guess they found somepony more qualified. I ended up working for a travel agency. It’s a little boring, but I get along with all the ponies, so it’s not too bad.”

“I wish we had traveled more when I was a filly, but Mom never wanted to leave Ponyville.”

“What about your dad?”

“I don’t remember my dad; he left us before I was old enough.”

“I know the feeling; my mother left when I was tiny too.”

“Hey, we should introduce them to each other.”

“Omigosh, I was thinking the same thing.”

“If they liked each other enough…”

“We really would be sisters!”

There was a dim yellow glow for a moment, and then the conversation resumed.

“I hope Lyra’s enjoying her party.”

“She should be, she has lots of friends, and Pinkie Pie always throws a great shindig.”

“I hope she isn’t too weirded out by both of us being here.”

“Nah, Lyra’s cool, she won’t care if we’re being a little weird.”

“Hi, Lyra,” one of them said right in her ear.

Lyra screamed and jumped five feet straight up in the air. She landed on top of the counter and looked all around herself frantically, pupils contracted and breathing heavily.

From her elevated vantage point, she could see now what had happened. The twins were smiling innocently up at her from either side of the counter. One of them must have been taking both sides of the conversation so the other could sneak up on her. Probably from the moment they started talking about her.

Lyra struggled to lower her heart rate to a normal speed. She noticed that everypony still at the party was staring at her. “Heh, heh. I’m fine! Nothing’s wrong, I just got…startled.” She hopped shakily down from the counter and glared at…whoever was on this side of the counter. “Somepony snuck up and surprised me, that’s all.”

She looked back to see that the other of the twins had walked around the counter and they were standing next to each other again. “Hey, Lyra…”

“Do you know our parents?”

“Uh, I know Colgate’s mom and Minuette’s dad,” Lyra said evasively.

“What about my…wait, you’re hiding something.”

“You know what happened to our missing parents, don’t you?”

Lyra sighed. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“Tell us,” the pair chorused.

Lyra struggled internally for a moment, then sagged. “Fine. You have to promise you won’t tell your parents that I was the one that told you.”

They nodded enthusiastically.

“You are sisters.” Lyra smirked at the matching expressions of astonishment. “Your parents broke up right after you were born, each taking one filly with them. I found a picture that time I was visiting your house, Minuette, but your dad made me promise to never tell.”

“I knew it!”

“It all makes sense!”

“We…we have to fix it!”

“Fix it? How?”

“It’s been eighteen years, they can’t still be mad. We’ll just reintroduce them to each other.”

“We’ll have a whole family!”

“Not to rain on your parade,” Lyra interjected, “but surely they would have talked to each other by now if they weren’t still mad.”

“Don’t worry, Lyra, we’ve got this.”

“We just need to set a trap.”

“We can find out how they originally fell in love.”

“And set it up again. How hard could it be?”

“What if they don’t have time for any of that?” Lyra objected.

The twins looked at each other and grinned. “We’ll make time!”