Magic Tricks

by ferret

Trixie Doesn’t Join The Circus

Trixie did not actually have a bullying mindset, when she forced the circus to make her join. The time it took was one factor in this. At first she may have had a mind to bully them into making her join, but before she could join them, Trixie had to find them. They had a half day’s head start on her, and Trixie didn’t know what direction they went in. She certainly wasn’t going to try to figure out a circus finding spell, worried that she’d inadvertantly set them on fire too. Once she found them, she would have gotten off scot free, she was pretty sure, as nopony was going to know what went on in that orphanage anyway.

Trixie supposes she is an evil mare for keeping in mind that if everypony died in the fire, then nopony would know it was her who did it.

But finding the circus took time. It took time, and risks, and failures. Trixie had gone the wrong way, it turns out, and that set her even further behind. She found that out when she walked up to a roadside settlement, sore from being unaccustomed to walking, or from moving around at all, and dirty from the mud she kept falling in.

Trixie didn’t even try to hide when walking the dirt streets of this run down settlement. What were they going to do, send her to the orphanage? She just bore her hoofsteps with confidence, and had an air about her that this was a young mare who knew what she was doing, though still admittedly a filly. Clearly, Trixie wasn’t a runaway, looking around like the world was her enemy, but just somepony’s filly, who got in a bit of a mess and was trying to act like she hadn’t. Because that’s how Trixie acted!

Trixie has always been rather good at putting on a show.

Trixie did get a few stares, when she went up to a group of ponies, and asked if the circus had been through here. It wasn’t enough to condemn her though, because then some pony blurted out, “Oh, they were here last week. I think they went to the orphanage next!”

Trixie quickly thanked him for his time, and trotted away fast, before anypony else could wonder why a filly was asking about a travelling circus. That left her in a bit of a situation though. She had no idea of geography or the layout of the towns here. All she knew was there were two roads leading out of the orphanage. The way she travelled, and the other direction. But how could she possibly catch them if she couldn’t find a shortcut to wherever they were going? Trixie also didn’t... want to go anywhere near what she’d done with that orphanage.

She had something of an epiphany though, that night, when her brain finally relinquished the awareness that travelling circuses aren’t always travelling. They stop, and stay in one place, for a week or more depending on attendance to their show. She didn’t know those details, but she did know that if the circus stopped every time, and she didn’t, then it wouldn’t matter if she had shorter legs than they did. It wouldn’t matter she went the wrong way at first. She could still catch up to them!

That was why Trixie roused herself just past dawn, from a surprisingly exhausted sleep given her recent stint in an utterly unstimulating environment. Awakening, she groaned and stuck a hoof out, from her hastily constructed shelter of all too familiar times past, and unburied herself from the sticks and brambles. Trixie had a long trip ahead of her, once she found the road they went down. A long trip that most notably lacked a brush for her mane and tail.

The road between settlements had been hacked and beaten out of this jungle-like, marshy land Trixie was unlucky enough to live in, so it was quite... possible to walk along this road, if a constant maintenance nightmare, very narrow in places, and a distinct hazard for wheeled wagons. A lone pony could make good pace on it, and Trixie was soon trotting confidently down the road she came from. It was only halfway back to the orphanage that Trixie realized, with a frightening and guttural growl behind her... that she was really hungry. Oh look, watercress.

Some time later, her stomach still queasy from the watercress, Trixie began shying to the other side of the road, as it passed by the turn-off to the orphanage. She didn’t want to get any closer to that than she had to. It had been a whole day, and the place was still burning. You could see it from the turn-off. Trixie hardly dared to look, but she saw some ponies standing there before it, with foals at their feet. Trixie wasn’t sure how to feel about that, some combination of blessed relief and terror at being held accountable. She didn’t even take time to see which foals had survived, because if she could see them, then they might be able to see her.

No, Trixie was never going to return to the orphanage, or what’s left of it. She supposed as she traveled the road in search of a sanctuary, that even the foals who survived were condemned to death. They had nowhere to go. They had no way to defend themselves out here, no roof to shield them from the frequent, driving, grey rain showers. They wouldn’t last a month without a place to live. They were just foals, not monsters like her.

This sort of rumination did not leave Trixie in the most confident, or arrogant of moods by the time she reached the town she was heading for. She wasn’t feeling like bullying anypony. And to her dismay, the circus hadn’t even stopped here! It was just a waystation of a town really, not a place for foals, but a place to supply and stock up before going towards the craggy mountains in search of minerals or riches. This was starting to look bad, because Trixie couldn’t walk for days on end. She had been sedentary for so long, she could hardly walk at all, at this point! She had to stop at that waypoint, but she had no money, or clout, or any of that adulthood that commanded respect. Trixie was in the worst time of her life: still powerless as a foal, but too old to be treated as one, at least not by these ponies.

Her solution in the end was to hide and steal. It worked well, because ponies expected a thief out here, but not a unicorn who could pick a padlock from the other side of a canvas wall. Trixie took nothing more than what she would have earned, had she trusted them enough to try and earn it. Not out of the goodness of her heart. Trixie simply couldn’t carry much while she was a lone pony, without any sort of carriage or wagon. She found a pony’s coinpurse in a lock box behind a desk in that pony’s little guard shack, and under the cover of night many ponies suddenly found reasons to be elsewhere while Trixie raided a coat closet at a tavern. Boots would have slowed her down too much, but Trixie did find a nice sturdy and more importantly oiled cloak. It was too big for her of course, but such is the burden of a thief. You can’t expect other ponies to size their clothing to fit the one who steals it.

With her cloak around her neck its hood covering her head, Trixie stole away into the night. The hem was torn and ragged from where she hastily cut it away, using the extra fabric to stitch together improvised pockets on the inside to contain the fruits of her labor. There she could hold some coinage, the two knives she had found, and the spoon, a hair brush, and a flint stone along with its striker. Her final pocket she had stuffed full of the densest, driest bread she could find in their food stores. She didn’t know how long she was going to have to travel, but she wanted to put off eating more watercress as long as possible.

Most of this was unnecessary it turns out, because Trixie found the circus performing in the very next town. It was no hardship or terrible trial. She just walked, crawled really, over yet another ridge, her muscles screaming at her to lay down and go to sleep in her dormitory at the orphanage, and then there they were.

The tents were there just like she remembered. They even had the same layout, the one she hoped they would repeat to aid in her escape. Brightly colored painted canvas, all lit up with lanterns and glowflies in the last fading light of the evening, ponies milling around, booths set up to sell or amaze, strange looking ponies with strange abilities arousing everypony’s curiosity, tempting them on the outside with what they may find in the big top.

Trixie stopped being able to see the circus because her eyes were too watery. She needed to wipe them off to see it again, but she was too weary to even lift her hooves, and no part of her clothing was clean enough to wipe her eyes with, even if she had barely the strength to lift a feather by now. So Trixie just folded her legs on the side of the path and slept. With the circus for her night light, Trixie slept until dawn on the road into town.

Was this the end for Trixie’s troubles? Far from it! Was it the beginning in a new chapter of her life? Even this was to be denied, pushed back by an infuriatingly stubborn pony known as Hat Fancy, the ringmaster of the Fantastical And Refined Cirque Equestria!

Oh does that... does it really? Trixie had not considered... but no matter!

Hat Fancy was a beautiful stallion, slim and tall, with a dashing green coat, and a golden blonde mane and tail. His cutie mark was what he did best, a megaphone between two stars. This stallion’s hoof would come down coldly, and cruelly, refusing Trixie’s earnest entreaty even though she was the very key to their future as a performing group! For when Trixie approached the stallion, in all his green gold glory, and said to him that she had command of powerful magics, magic that could change the very nature of the world, that her grasp on the arcane could lift the unliftable, and move the unmovable, Hat Fancy just replied in a very sarcastic tone,

“So, you can use magic.”

“Yes, that is what Trixie implied!”

“You’re a unicorn.”

“You got something wrong with that?!”

“...beat it, chick.”

“What?! Trixie is giving you an opportunity here!”

“Are your parents around?” he said, leaning to glare at her. “Seriously, go find somepony else to bother. Everyfoal wants to join the circus, so just go find your parents and tell ‘em you want to be an acrobat or somethin’.”

Not only did Hat refuse her offer, but he had the gall to tell Trixie to go find her parents! She was horrified and enraged when he said that. All her life leading up to this moment, and just, go find her parents. JUST GO FIND HER—

Needless to say, Trixie was acting like a chick, despite being practically a fledgeling, and she may have had some very sour words for the ringmaster. He may have called for his head clown to gently escort her off the premises, and said clown may have done so, while inserting Trixie’s entire head into her mouth. And Trixie may have run away then, screaming that they’d be sorry they ever told her to go away, that she was a freak just like them, and that they’d have to let her in. Having not otherwise displayed any emotion other than plentiful cheer, said clown may have slightly frowned at Trixie’s statement, about how her and every bog damned pony in this circus was a freak. To this day, Trixie regrets having made that clown sad. But all Trixie’s other reactions were entirely justified!

Be that as it may, Trixie found herself at a serious quandary. She dared not show her face at the orphanage or what’s left of it, nor was she safe in the wilderness, nor could she safely abide in any settlement she could find, without the risk of being caught, or worse. Her only way out was this circus, who summarily denied her so much as a chance to demonstrate her talents, on the mere assumption that a unicorn’s magic is not a worthy act that could possibly impress anypony, despite the pegasus acrobats and the earth pony strongponies and clowns. It was not Trixie’s first encounter with tribalism, but it certainly was the one that stung the most. That Hat Fancy himself was a unicorn didn’t lessen the sting. The night came again, with the circus in town, and Trixie couldn’t enjoy it at all. Trixie had to save her money for food since she had no hope of finding any in the future, and she was no longer some poor bedraggled orphan, at an orphanage who paid for her to see the circus (as required by the royal funds they received.)

Trixie couldn’t enjoy any of the circus, because she just had to hide away from all the ponies who could have recognized her, with no pony in the world able to protect her, or care for her. Her tears of anger turned to tears of sadness that night, as the terrible loneliness of losing everything wracked her young body with sobs. Nopony was there to hear them though. Trixie didn’t allow there to be anypony there to hear them. So she got to spend another night of an empty stomach, crying herself to sleep.

Not an auspicious beginning to her heroic escape from the terrible orphanage. Do not think Trixie regretted her escape though. She awoke in the night as she sometimes did, that night, terrified that she had been returned to that awful place, that Trixie was awakening in her room, and the matron was just seconds away from demanding to inspect their beds. But the chill of the night wove through her fur and Trixie was soothed by the strange sounds both of distant pony revelry and the ululations of the creatures of the swamp. Trixie realized the orphanage was gone, and she awoke feeling grateful and relieved, despite the disaster of her situation, to be finally free.

Trixie developed a plan that morning, a plan that would surely secure her future for many years to come. Squaring her shoulders confidently, Trixie faced the town with its colorful circus tents, turned on her heels, and ran away.

There was still only one road from this settlement to the next. That road, she ran down. Most settlements only had a small armful of ways to neighboring ones, due to the difficulty of road maintenance in this particular land, though there certainly were many ways in and out of Star City. Trixie was not headed for Star City though, but a nameless villa beyond the one the circus was in. Trixie made her way swiftly to this place, which she confirmed was not merely an outpost, but a place with families and foals and craftsponies who would make a splendid audience for Trixie’s first big performance.

To say Trixie could not live off of stealing from other ponies is not quite an accurate assessment. What she was convinced is that prolonged thievery would result in her capture, but she had no fear for securing herself nutritious food and clean water on a temporary basis. She was more than capable of doing so, from ponies who expected not a mare of her particular talents skulking through their village and raiding their stores. And thankfully this time, Trixie stole good, nutritious food like hay bars, corn cakes and peanut butter. Her time at the orphanage had taught her one thing, which was a love for food that filled you in a genuine way, and lasted a long time until the next meal. Whatever happened in the future, Trixie was no longer at risk of succumbing to the irresistable urge of soup cooking in a pot, now that she was relatively well versed in the arcane art of feeding herself.

Trixie had to eat well, you see. It was an obligation, because she couldn’t be a sallow, hollow-eyed orphan for her performance. She had to be bright eyed. She had to glow with health. She had to be the sort of filly who you wouldn’t ever see growing up in a place like this. She had been their demon in the dark for so long, and now she was going to become their idol. Trixie’s final pièce de résistance was a mysterious cloak of deepest blue. An ordinary, mundane cloak of deepest blue, but made mysterious by the attitude in which Trixie wore it. Trixie made it to fit her body by drastically shortening it. She had to ensure that ponies would not recognize their missing curtains, so she used some cheap silver paint she found to decorate her accouterment, feeling inspired as she tried to transform it into the stunning starscape Trixie saw above her every night, in the wilderness or on the trail, when other ponies hid away in their shelters and wagons.

It was poor compensation for the cold and damp, and monster attacks, but Trixie did have to admit she really appreciated the strangely inspiring sight those curtains of stars presented overhead, way up there in the sky. She wasn’t as good at painting it. But she made do.

Trixie’s act prepared, she executed her plan. “Presenting the amazing, magical pony!” she shouted, atop the town stage / hanging platform. Trixie was not very experienced with coming up with memorable tag lines at this point, but she had plenty of time to learn. Her thin, reedy voice was not carrying far beyond the stage anyway. When nopony paid attention to the filly hollering at them from on that stage, Trixie lit her horn and filled the air with the bright flash of sparkling stars. It was not aimed to impress ponies, oh no, this bit was only aimed at getting their attention. The next bit was aimed to impress them.

Trixie presented herself as what she thought was professional, but may have come more off as desperate, saying, “The magical pony will perform feats never seen before! Her magic is so powerful she can do things you would never think possible! Watch as she amazes you with her show stopping skills!” With Trixie’s horn alight, the trees behind the stage bowed down, as if in deference to the filly of blue. As the trees restored their dignity, the hoof mirror she had stolen hovered above her, reflecting rays of purple light in a five pointed star pattern around her, that glittered in rays of magically enhanced light beams.

This auspicious beginning of Trixie’s stage career was met in the very beginning, with a challenge.

“Oh look, a unicorn using magic,” a brownish earth pony stallion said, in a mocking voice. “What are you going to show us next, how to make your horn glow?”

“A-as you can see, Trixie’s sorcery has already made her horn glow!” Trixie said, trying not to shrink back at the stallion’s approach. Another stallion, likely his friend, said,

“That’s just ordinary magic, filly. You think we were born yesterday?”

“I could do that with my hoof tied behind my back!” a greyish mare shouted from the ponies walking by behind them. She wasn’t even a unicorn.

The lead stallion laughed at that, a cruel careless laugh that made Trixie feel calm, and very focused. The mirror fell to her feet, as her magic started to creep along his body. He was a bulky stallion, very dense, and well built, and far too heavy for even an adult unicorn to lift in whole.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he shouted, noticing the glow covering him too late, as Trixie easily overpowered his bioresistence, and severed his earth connection in the most literal way possible, leaving him flailing helplessly in mid-air.

“Watch in awe,” Trixie chirped shrilly around her shining horn, “As the amazing magicalest pony teaches this naysayer how to fly!”

And then she started to swing him around in the air.

“Put me down!” he shouted, and then “Woah! Woahh!!” as his heavy body swung around like it were being carried by an invisible hummingbird with extremely powerful wings. Trixie tipped him upside down, spilling out the contents of his saddlebags.

“Oops!” she said cheekily as what appeared to be his carpentry tools spilled to the floor. She set the stallion down and floated his tools instead, and the other ponies were looking at her now! They were looking at her in ...fear...

Trixie stared at them almost as uncertainly as they stared back at her. Why weren’t they applauding? Trixie noticed out of the corner of her eye that one of the tools was a hammer, with a wooden handle had a long crack through it, that was bound up with tight cloth tape to hold it together. She immediately dropped the other tools and focused on the hammer. “A-a-and thank you for your performance, sir!” she said urgently before anypony could run away, or think that this wasn’t supposed to happen. “For your trouble, your hammer shall be...”

Trixie’s magic glowed brightly, as she rewound the very strands of time to when that hammer was created, remembering the grain of the wood and using that to heal its wound, sealing the very cells together again until it was one seamless whole. “Repaired!” she declared triumphantly, spinning the cloth off the hammer

“Hey!” he shouted as she returned it to his hoof. “That was my...” That was the extent of his diatribe, before Trixie’s arcane hoofiwork become known to him, and with a few practice swings of his hammer, Trixie was in. The townsponies only wanted a few meager repairs at first, but Trixie didn’t just help them. She got their imagination going. And thanks to her unorthodox upbringing, Trixie was much better at fixing ponies than she was at fixing things.

Swamp blight is... an affliction that doesn’t usually kill foals. The damp air and certain suspected toxins lead some foals to contract just a touch of pneumonia. They usually survive it... somewhat weaker than before. It’s not a death sentence, but it’s not a good omen for one’s continued health. Trixie only knew that the tiny foal was coughing, and that her little chest didn’t feel right inside, and that Trixie had just been thrust into things way over her head. But Trixie boasted, and she remained calm, and she tried her best.

Clearing out the fluid in the lungs was easy enough, but the sense of wrongness persisted. It wasn’t exactly dark magic but... something like dull embers that were quenched painfully with the surface of the foal’s alveoli. Yes, hearth magic does not translate well to language or demonstration, but suffice to say, the usual hearth solution is to find things that feel wrong, and wiggle around with your magic to find what would feel right. Not the safest way to treat ponies, and only powerful unicorns (need she say) have much luck at it, but at the very least this foal did not summarily burst into flames.

In the end, when the mare held her quiet child, looking at the peaceful infant foal with a desperate adoration, it gave Trixie a strange feeling: one of satisfaction, but also one of fierce... jealousy. She was unable to ruminate on this however, for that was when the rest of the town started to swarm Trixie, demanding of the filly cures to all their ailments. You may think this was what she was unprepared for, but Trixie was expecting this. She had years of experience fighting foals who wanted to take advantage of her, and her magic. This hostility was something Trixie could deal with, something she had even prepared for.

Snapping out of the paralysis that strange... reaction had caused her, Trixie leaped backwards onto her stage, and shouted down at the crowd, “And just who thinks they are worthy to receive the magic of the most magical mare the world has ever seen?”

Everypony shouted at once, but Trixie had the ability to shout louder. “All who think you are worthy, come to the Fantastic And Refined Circus of Equestria! Trixie will be performing in the big tent.” Then she pulled her trump card, and stomped her hoof on the stinkpuff she’d snuck up on the stage, preparing to make her escape. The swamp gas released by those fungi is quite flammable, so after escaping its concealment, the bright flash of fire Trixie’s horn spark caused easily attracted the audience’s eyes to the stage, where Trixie had ‘vanished.’ In their fascination with the gout of fire, nopony noticed to the side, the outline of what may have been a little purple glow worm, gallopping away from it. The fact that the crowd then had to put out the resulting fire on their stage may have had some distracting influence too, but Trixie firmly stands by the claim that she had not meant for that to happen.

Trixie’s grand scheme, you see, was to capture the hearts and minds of the townsponies, not literally of course. It was something she learned at the orphanage, when other foals would pretend that Trixie had said something, so that she would pay the price for breaking promises she’d never made. The instigator would be far off in another part of the dormitory, while Trixie had to deal snout-to-snout with all the accusations, and the hurt betrayal, whether real or feigned. Trixie wasn’t the sort of pony who would do that to other foals, because either foals were new and unsure of themselves, friends with her, or afraid of her, so the trick was more useful against her than for her. Trixie remembered it though, and remembered how it was an excellent trick against those higher than you, those who had a greater reputation to lose, should trust in them be shaken.

By pretending to be a preview to the real thing, she would amaze and bedazzle the crowds, and when the circus came to town without her, they would pay the piper! She imagined on cold nights, that snooty ringmaster pony run out of town, because he had refused to accept Trixie into his troupe, and now could not produce her on demand. He would be begging at her hooves to get her to join, her audience demanding it of him every time they went in the big tent, and found only floating, and minor conjuration alongside the tumblers and tightrope trotters.

Unfortunately, Trixie may have overestimated her talents at showmanship, and underestimated just how close she had been to disaster that first time. It turns out, that was a fluke. The second town she performed in, she once again began in fine form, “Presenting the amazing magical mare!” she called out atop her improvised stage of crates and discarded planks. Just like she remembered her mother doing, once long ago. But when Trixie dazzled them with her incredible star magic, the responses she got were lukewarm at best. And at worst...

“Gah, my eyes!”
“You stupid filly, are you trying to blind us?”
“What is this supposed to be, a joke?”
“I’ll be telling your parents about this!”
“Are those my planks? You little thief!”

Trixie’s stammered apologies went unheard as that last mare pushed her roughly off the stage, Trixie landing on her tail on the dirt of the road. Rather than reclaim her planks though, the mare ignored them entirely to round on Trixie stating hotly, “I’ll teach you to steal my hard earned work!”

“You can have your planks!” Trixie cried in panic, “Trixie didn’t know they were yours!” The mare raised a hoof at her anyway, a thousand repetitions of this at the orphanage running through Trixie’s head. Trixie braced for the inevitable beating, when Trixie realized... she didn’t have a horn suppressor on, and her eyes snapped open.

The mare didn’t lay a hoof on Trixie, but instead found herself levitated into the air mid swing, missing Trixie’s beautiful snout by mere hairs!

“She’s using magic!” a stallion shouted out. As if that weren’t the whole point of a magic act.

“Somepony stop her!” another mare cried, and the two ponies who rushed at Trixie found themselves summarily tossed in the air, along with the first one who was moaning with fright at her helpless state, and her height of 3 feet above the ground.

“This is only the first of many amazing feats Trixie will perform, at the Fantastic, Refined Circus of Equestria! This simple juggling act is but a preview of what you will see!” Trixie began skillfully moving these ponies through the air, as though they were being thrown from her hooves like juggling balls. “When I perform next week I will cure your foals, and make your dreams come true, and show you things you’ve never even seen before, ever!” She spread her hooves triumphantly at that, as three whole ponies soared high above behind her, awaiting the thundrous applause.

But, not a hoof so much as disturbed the dirt underneath her. Trixie opened her eyes, dropping back to fours and realized finally that the crowd was not impressed by her amazing magical feat of levitation. They were staring up at it though, and murmuring frightfully.

“No pony could do that...” she heard one say.

“Trixie can!” Trixie shouted at the mare. “Trixie is the most magical mare—”

“That’s no pony! That’s no pony at all!” came a frightened response.

“She is a pony!” Trixie protested, shrinking back at the sudden stares. “She r-really i-is a p-pony!” she stammered losing her composure most terribly. And then the words came from that crowd that made her blood run cold.

“It’s a monster.”

Trixie’s magic died. There were three heavy thuds, and three pained shouts behind her. She turned and saw the ponies she levitated were—were on the ground and they had fallen! “Trixie is sorry!” she squealed, looking with fear at one cursing, and holding her leg in pain. “Trixie can fix this!” Trixie said frantically, “F-f-for my next trick...” Her magic enveloped the mare’s leg and oh dear sweet Guardians but there was a sliver of bone in there, like the mare’s bones cracked like glass, jutting at a terrible angle deep within her flesh. Trixie didn’t know which way it was supposed to go, so she enveloped her own filly leg in magic to compare and—yes, that was what she needed to do! She set straight the mare’s—

The mare screamed long and hard. Suddenly everypony was running and screaming. Trixie didn’t know what to do. She had repaired the mare’s leg! She made it—no, no not that short! In a stroke of brilliance, Trixie scanned the mare’s other leg in the chaos, and imagined a mirror in-between them. “Stop screaming!” she screamed at the mare. “She’s fixing you! She is!” but the mare would not stop, pain giving way to panic as she could not pull her injured leg free of Trixie’s magic. Trixie couldn’t let the mare go; she would just break again! She had to make her whole. She had to—with a brilliant flash, the bone fragments were swiftly knitted together.

The mare was crying at this point, crying and blubbering like an adult should never ever ever do. Trixie wishes she could say this was the most scared she had ever been in her life, or the most guilty. But it was pretty high on the charts. Trixie released the mare, and the mare didn’t seem to realize she could walk, just crawling, lurching away from Trixie, finally finding her hooves and gallopping away. Trixie sank to her belly watching her go, trying to figure out where she had gone wrong. After some deliberation, Trixie came to the conclusion that part of what she did wrong was not immediately running screaming out of town as fast as her hooves could carry her, when a dozen hooves thundered around her dismayed form in a circle. Trixie looked up and... spears.

She was surrounded by spears.

Author's Note:

Trixie finally makes her big debut!

Comments

[Reese]

"Oh does that... does it really? Trixie had not considered... but no matter!"
Hm. I wonder what that's about...

...This story has quite a low bar for happy moments, doesn't it? :)

[Cheer]

She awoke in the night that night

[ferret]

6798671

6798528
Trixie commands you to be happy!

6798493
fixed...

[Reese]

6808105
"Trixie commands you to be happy!"
Well, I was thinking more of Trixie's happiness, but I did smile at that. :)

[Emperor]

Poor Trixie really must have pissed off a deity of luck or two in a previous life.

As all the background ponies in this chapter demonstrate, if you can prevent yourself from panicking at the slightest change in the status quo, then you're literally a superequine.

Saying that, this isn't a criticism of this story or anything, just an observation. I went through a lot of Harry Potter fanfics back in the day, and probably one of the most odious category of fanfic tropes in that fandom was the 'Wrong Boy Who Lived' fics, where Harry has a twin sibling who is mistakenly confused for being the real Boy Who Lived, who gets all the training and media glory while Harry is crapped on. Most writers drop those stories, thankfully (they're not very good), but the obvious build-up is towards a vengeful satisfying climax where the truth is revealed and all the supposed good guys suffer the grandfather of all guilt trips.

This isn't a Wrong Boy Who Lived fic, but it does have a little bit of a close parallel. Princess Celestia will have dun goofed and selected as her latest student a unicorn raised in luxury in the capitol of Equestria, while the real hero basically gets dumped on for basically her entire life and has to battle through adversity. So I guess the point I was trying to get into is not to fall into the trap of turning the scene when everypony finds out the truth into a viscerally satisfying event where all the good guys either suffer guilt trips or go into denial and then turn it into several chapters of angst.

So far I mean, your writing doesn't show any real signs of building up to that, so I'm happy with that.

[ferret]

6811202

if you can prevent yourself from panicking at the slightest change in the status quo, then you're literally a superequine.

It's like we're really watching the show!

The obvious build-up is towards a vengeful satisfying climax where the truth is revealed and all the supposed good guys suffer the grandfather of all guilt trips.

I can assure you that is not anywhere near what the climax of this story is going to be. You're making me want to actually write more, just to give you something a little less drearily black and white. I still have some painful parts to get through though...

Most writers drop those stories

I—I wasn't thinking about doing that! Honest!

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It just felt like something she would say given the situation.

[LordChumley21]

I'm beginning to suspect Trixie embodies the 7th element of Harmony; Comical misunderstandings (Although these are actually pretty serious . . .)

[ferret]

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The title.

Also, have another chapter.