Secret Spells
“Well! This was way easier than expected. But I ain’t complainin’!” Goldie Delicious said, stomping on the ground with a hoof with a determined look on her face. And then she looked at Starlight, smiling sweetly. “Are them ropes too tight?”
Starlight, who was tied up to a chair, glared at her. Then she flashed her horn.
And Goldie Delicious licked her hoof and gently tapped it.
FLA—fsssssssh.
The magical shimmer went out just like that.
“No, no, no magic, please,” Goldie Delicious said, nudging Starlight. “Ain’t no escapin’ here yet, sugarcube. But! You’re comfortable, right?”
Starlight blinked, and looked up at her own forehead. There was a bit of smoke coming off the tip of her horn. “What. What the. Did you just.” She squinted. “Did you just snuff my magic?”
“Eyup!”
“I… didn’t know one could do that?”
“Aaah, we old mares know ‘em old tricks! They used to do this aaaall the way back in the day, when earth ponies and unicorns didn’t get along.” Goldie Delicious tapped her temple, and winked at Starlight. “Anyway, don’t you teleport away.” Then she turned around, to look at the rest of the room. “Y’all! How’s the fire going?”
The fire was going okay.
So the place was the Library, because it was the largest room in the Castle—and it was spotless. Every book back on the shelves, every scroll back in the drawers. The floors had been swept and the tapestries had been dusted. This was a mob, but it was a very organized mob, and Ponyville was good at cleaning after a whole week of practice. Funny that; witchcraft has a sense of humor.
All the wooden furniture was currently getting piled up in the middle of the room. All the brooms the mob could find, the mops, pieces of cardboard, splinters, hay from the kitchens. Anything that could burn.
Another team was dousing everything with oil.
On top of it lay Trixie, tied up. About to burn.
Screaming.
“Okay! For real!” she yelled, squirming around, glaring down at Goldie Delicious from the top. “I feel like this is a bit of an overreaction! It was just a bit of mud! STARLIGHT! HELP ME!”
“I’M TRYING!” Starlight yelled back, and then she looked at Goldie Delicious. “Goldie! Goldie, please, for the love of Celestia, listen to me. This isn’t you. What is going on?!”
“Aaah, that’s one good pyre.” Goldie Delicious said, and then she waved at the mob. “Keep ‘em comin’, y’all! You’re doin’ a great job! We’ll be done in no time!” Then she turned at Starlight and licked her hoof again. “Gaah, I wish I could help ‘em, really. Burnin’ witches is a team effort! But I really can’t carry all that weight around nowdays. These old bones ain’t got the strength anymore.”
Starlight glared. “Goldie.”
“Aye, that’s my name.” Goldie Delicious licked her hoof, and tapped Starlight’s horn. “And don’t you go blastin’ around, you! Ain’t gonna fool an old mare with old tricks!”
FLA—fsssssssh.
Starlight winced, and she felt her magic snuff out a second time.
In the background, Trixie yelled some profanities.
Starlight took a deep breath, and then glared bloody murder at the old mare. “Okay. Look. Listen. Goldie Delicious.” She tried really hard, and failed very much, at keeping a neutral tone. “The mud thing was an accident, Trixie and I have done nothing wrong, and you’re genuinely threatening to burn her alive at the stake. This is stupid even for Ponyville standards! And I live here!”
Goldie sighed, and then tapped Starlight’s horn again. Magic fizzled out. “I know, I know,” the old mare said, shaking her head. “I don’t like it either. Burnin’ folks, well, that ain’t right no matter what. Barbaric, is what it is, yeah?”
“Then why are you leading the angry mob into doing exactly that?!”
Goldie frowned. “‘Cause she’s a witch!” she said, pointing at Trixie. “We all saw the hat. Also she’s told us. TRIXIE! YOU’RE A WITCH, AREN’T YOU? HENCE THE HAT!”
“I WILL LITERALLY EAT THE HAT IN FRONT OF YOUR IDIOT GOONS IF THAT MEANS YOU DON’T BURN ME ALIVE, IF THAT HELPS.”
“Yeah, see?” Goldie looked at Starlight, and then took Tales from the Macabre from her little saddlebag and opened it, paging through fast as lightning. “Eatin’ hats. Classical witch. Fire’s the only way to get ‘em for sure; anythin’ else they can escape. Dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it before it gets dangerous.”
Starlight’s eyes were so wide they were in danger of falling out. “Before it gets dangerous?!”
“Witches are tricky! Devious. Can never be sure with ‘em around.” Goldie paged through the book some more, and absent-mindedly licked her hoof, snuffed out another teleportation spell before talking again. “They start small then get real big. And from what I’ve heard, your friend has the chops to be the worst kind. Not makin’ many friends in town, has she? This was an easy mob to gather, let me tell you.”
“Trixie is a literal national hero! She’s saved the world at least twice!” Starlight bared her teeth. “So have I, for that matter!”
Goldie frowned, and looked up from the book. “What? Really?”
“Yeah!”
“Well, I’ll be darned. Nopony told me that.” Goldie Delicious turned around, and waved at the first stallion she saw, carrying a wooden table on his back. “Oi! You! What’s your name!”
The stallion blinked, looked around, pointed at his face. When Goldie nodded, he frowned. “Uh,” yelled back. “I’m Caramel!”
“Caramel! Is that witch a national hero?” And Goldie Delicious pointed at Trixie. “‘Cause Starlight’s tellin’ me she is! And my Applejack’s got better sense than to befriend ‘em liars!”
“I mean… She did save us from the changelings once, I guess? I think she’s got a medal for it!” Caramel replied. “She also enslaved the entire town, though!”
Goldie blinked. “What?”
“Yeah!”
“Enslaved?”
“Took over the town, turned us all into slaves! Real evil stuff!”
“Darn tootin’.” Goldie Delicious looked at Starlight again. “That true?”
Starlight blinked, looked at Trixie, looked at Goldie. Squinted. “...I mean,” she said. “Technically, yes, she did that once, but—”
“Real three-dimensional character, this friend of yours, huh.”
Something in her tone made Starlight smile. Nervously, yes, she was still tied to a chair. But she smiled.
That last sentence had sounded very Applejack. Apple blood is thick, after all.
“Tell me about it,” Starlight said. “But she’s one of the good ones. One of the best ones, I swear. Listen, if you’ve been reading those books, I get why you’d think witches are terrible—but this is just a silly misunderstanding. Princess Twilight herself has given us her approval; this is an experiment. Nopony needs to get burned. See, it all started with… ”
And then she told her the whole story, except for maybe the saucy details. And at first she kept stuttering, repeating herself, speaking too fast for her own good—but then she saw Goldie Delicious was nodding along, and she relaxed, and took her time to make a good point.
She relaxed.
Bit of a mistake, that.
Trixie was a coward.
“AGAIN!” she yelled at the next pony who walked by, piling wood at her hooves. “I AM NOT A MONSTER! NOPONY’S GONNA GET HURT!”
The pony—green pegasus mare—gave her a look as she placed a chair next to her. “Well, easy for you to say,” she said. “You’re not the one standing next to a witch.”
“YOU’RE GOING TO BURN ME ALIVE!”
“In self-defense! You started it!” The mare turned around. “Somepony douse this with oil, please? It’s very lacquered, won’t burn otherwise.”
Trixie was low-key panicking.
Being tied up isn’t fun, that’s the harsh truth. Usually, Trixie would’ve made a quip about how it can be fun, under the right circumstances, wink wink, nudge nudge. See Starlight giggle at it, get a reaction from her, usual business.
But she didn’t do that. Instead she felt the ropes scratch against her legs and wrists, and kept thinking she was bleeding. She tried to take a deep breath, but there was a scream trapped in her throat that wouldn’t come out no matter what, and it choked her. She felt her tail cramp up, her eyes itch, her voice break.
“PLEASE!” she yelled. “I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! STARLIGHT!”
Starlight was talking to Goldie Delicious, and not paying attention to her. Which absolutely, no doubt, one hundred percent, meant that she was saving Trixie and fixing everything. Trixie kept reminding herself of this. She knew that’s what was going on, rationally speaking.
Emotionally speaking, though, Starlight wasn’t paying attention, and Trixie was going to die, and nopony was listening.
Tied up.
Wood around her.
The smell of oil, she could see ponies carrying torches. Was she bleeding from the ropes? She felt like she was bleeding.
She was going to die.
Trixie was a coward. But she wasn’t weak, she wasn’t meek. Fear was hot and burning in her chest, it was bared teeth and angry tears. Trixie felt fear like most of us feel hate.
So when somepony else came by, with the can of oil, and started dousing, what she thought was not “I’m going to die”. What she thought was, “I have power in me now.”
“I could hurt them for this.”
And it was a hard thought to battle. She knew this might happen from a while ago, she knew Starlight was on the case and Goldie Delicious seemed to be listening, she knew this was scary but she had to wait because these ponies were very clearly terrified of her. But she also thought, they’re hurting me, and I can hurt them, and it made perfect sense to do that.
Witchcraft means you can get whatever you want with just a thought, and you’ll face no consequences.
And Trixie wanted to hurt them so badly. That was the truth. Awful truth, but truth nonetheless.
“JUST LET ME GO ALREADY!” she yelled at the next pony, “COME ON!”
She wanted to make them suffer.
“LET ME GO!”
She wanted them to burn instead.
“YOU IDIOTS!”
Only she didn’t want to want to hurt them. That’s what mattered.
Because Trixie was lying to them, but not to herself.
“I DON’T WANT TO HURT YOU!” Trixie yelled, squirming again. “AND I DON’T WANT TO USE WITCHCRAFT AGAINST YOU! BUT YOU’RE MAKING IT REALLY HARD, AND I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN CONTROL IT! STARLIGHT! STARLIGHT!”
Trixie’s voice broke in that last one. That made Starlight look up.
There was a little earthquake.
“...And then I jumped on the broom and held her really tight,” Starlight said. “From behind. But I mean, she asked me to, right?”
Goldie Delicious nodded, frow burrowed in concentration. “That sounds like y’all got somethin’ going on, alright.”
“So you think that too?”
“Well, I ain’t an expert on love or nothing, sugarcube, but I ain’t dumb either. You ever seen my Applejack talk to the real pretty one? What’s her name. Rarity?”
Starlight nodded. “Rarity, yes.”
“Well, you’re like them two but more blatant.”
“That is genuinely such a flattering thing to say. Rarity and Applejack are so great.”
“They are, aren’t they?”
“So, uh.” Starlight bit her lip. “Can you please untie me? And not burn my best friend to ashes due to some old superstition? If you don’t mind.”
“Well! I’ll be darned, that’s a yes from me indeed. Mighty sorry, Starlight, this was all a very silly misunderstandin’. Ptooie!” Goldie shook her head, and threw her book over her shoulder. Then she turned around. “Y’all! Everypony! Guess what! We got everythin’ wrong! Turns out witches can be good after—”
“STARLIGHT!”
Trixie’s voice broke, there, and that made Starlight look up. Her pupils shrank.
“Oh, no,” she said.
There was a little earthquake.
Nopony got scared, because they didn’t have time to; by the time they got worried the earthquake had stopped already. But still, it was potent enough to shake the room, make ponies stumble, knock books off the shelves.
And one of them fell right in front of Starlight and Goldie. One Starlight recognized, because it had a picture of a cat violently eviscerating a rat on the cover.
The title was: Of Mice and Mice: How to Deal with the Pests, Critters, and Small Animals that are Currently Ruining your Life.
It fell open on the chapter titled: Cat Conquest: How to Deal with the Inevitable Uprising when a Magical Mishap turns Feline Friends into Foes.
Trixie screamed again. “STARLIGHT! I DON’T THINK I CAN CONTROL IT! HELP ME!”
Starlight’s pupils shrunk. “Oh, no.”
Goldie Delicious, who’d seen the signs too, bit her lip. “Trouble?” she asked.
“Massive trouble. TRIXIE!”
FLASH!
And she teleported away, leaving the chair and the ropes behind.
So Goldie Delicious was left behind. She looked at the book again, and then made a face. “Well! I’ve done goofed up today. Aaah. Granny Smith was right! Age’s made me one silly goose. Could’ve sworn I was smarter than this.” She turned around, and waved at the crowd. “Y’ALL! GOOD NEWS! AIN’T A WITCH, WE DON’T GOTTA BURN NOPONY! BUT Y’ALL SHOULD RUN ANYWAY!”
She was met with silence, at first.
And then that one stallion, the one carrying the table earlier. Caramel, was it? He talked. “What?” he asked. “I’m sorry. What?”
“RUN!”
“Why?”
And then there was a crash, and the monsters burst into the room.
FLASH!
Starlight teleported right next to Trixie, flashing her horn left and right, pushing away anypony remotely near them—and untying the ropes with one swift spell. “Trixie!” she yelled.
“STARLIGHT!”
“Oh my gosh, Trixie, I’m so sorry I took so long, I swear I was—whoa!” Starlight stumbled backwards, almost fell down the pile of oiled furniture, because Trixie tackled her into a hug as soon as she could. “Trixie!”
“Thank you thank you thank you.” Trixie pressed her face against Starlight’s neck. “Oh gosh that was terrible. Am I bleeding?”
Starlight hugged her back, and looked. “No.”
“Thank Celestia. I’m way too beautiful to have scars.” Trixie pressed herself against Starlight a bit tighter, and tried to slow her breathing. “Oh gosh. Oh gosh that was the worst, that was the worst thing I’ve ever—did you fix it?”
“Yes.”
“So I’m not getting burned alive.”
“No.”
Trixie laughed, and then nuzzled Starlight’s neck. “Celestia, I love you so much. I could kiss you right now!” Then she let Starlight go, grabbed her face, and gave her a very flashy peck on the lips anyway. “Muah!”
Starlight giggled. “Well, that’s—” and then she stopped. “Gosh, I’m so sorry it took me this long. This must have been terrifying, I swear I tried to be as fast as possible, I just—I was afraid Goldie Delicious would only give me one chance to explain myself, and I wanted to be thorough, and—”
“I really, really don’t care,” Trixie said, swallowing, still trembling a little. She was still pressing herself against Starlight. “I’m not being burned alive anymore, that’s all that matters. Who’s Goldie Delicious.”
“Old mare who literally almost killed you.”
“Oh.” Trixie frowned, and then looked around. “The one that’s yelling right now?”
Starlight looked. “Yes. Her, in fact. What’s she saying?”
Goldie Delicious’ voice came to them, clear as day: “RUN!”
“Why?” replied a random stallion.
Trixie blinked, and frowned. “Uh-oh. Starlight?”
“Trixie.”
“I think I might, uh. I might be trying to kill everypony in sight?”
Starlight nodded. “Yes. Well. I was afraid you’d say that.”
And then there was a crash, and the monsters burst into the room.
There’s something in the way a cat walks when it feels it owns the room, tail up, eyes shining. Cats move like predators, fast and sleek and silent, perfect killing machines.
Picture that, but very, very big.
Three cats entered the room. That’s what the monsters were, because the cats were the size of five ponies put together. They came in, faster than a thing of such size should move, blocking the door.
They looked at the mass of ponies with stilted, cold eyes.
Goldie Delicious was quick to move. “Okay!” she yelled, waving a hoof in the air, walking towards the cat. “Hold on! I know these kitties! They’re mine!”
Starlight visibly relaxed her shoulders. “Oh, thank Celestia—Goldie Delicious! You can control them, then?”
“What? Oh, absolutely not. They’re cats! You don’t control ‘em.” Then she turned to the crowd. “EVERYPONY PANIC! THESE LIL’ ONES LIKE TO PLAY WITH THEIR PREY!”
The cats hissed.
The ponies screamed.
Hell broke loose pretty hard.
You’ve never seen a cat hunt, because they don’t want to be seen, so just picture them swatting at the little ponies between their paws—jumping side to side to corner them, slapping them across the room with no forewarning.
The ponies tripped among themselves, almost ran on top of each other to get away, and the cats noticed it and played with it. The smallest one of the three took a liking for butting the ponies with its forehead. Really cute, if murderous, but then again that’s a cat’s whole deal overall.
Trixie and Starlight were standing on top of the wooden pile, and so they were away from the crowd at the start, and could get away from the cats. “This is bad!” Starlight said, speaking close to Trixie’s ear so she could be heard among the screaming. “This is definitely bad!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be! Kind of their fault, this one!” Starlight said. They hid behind the pile of wood so the cats wouldn’t see them. “Can you fix it?”
“I don’t know! I’ll try!” Trixie gulped, and then peeked from the side of the pile of wood, and glared at the cats. “You three,” she whispered, “are going to stop right now! And shrink immediately!”
Nothing happened. Just more screaming.
Trixie frowned, and talked again, focusing harder. “Stop listening to what I’m feeling. Listen to what I’m telling you. I’m not what I think, I’m what I do, and what I’m doing is telling you to stop the cats!”
Again: nothing.
Trixie clicked her tongue, and turned to Starlight. “Give me two minutes.”
Starlight was grinning. “That sounded good. You took the talk seriously?”
“I take everything seriously. I’m a very serious pony.”
Starlight smiled, and nuzzled Trixie on the cheek. “You sure are,” she said. “And what you said is completely right. Were you talking to the cats, or to the abstract idea of witchcraft?”
“I have no idea. Both?”
Behind the pile of wood: “HISSSSS!” and then a lot of screaming, and the sound of a bookshelf falling over.
Starlight and Trixie both winced at the sound, and then looked at each other. “We should help,” Starlight said.
“We should?”
“Maybe witchcraft will work if we go and do something.” Another scream. Starlight sucked air through her teeth. “There was a book that talked about this, and the cats always listen to you. You try to calm them down, I try to research?”
“Sounds terrible.”
“That’s a plan, then. Good luck, Trix. Don’t get hurt.”
“Geez. Love you too.”
And Starlight teleported them both.
FLASH!
FLASH!
Trixie appeared in the middle of the room, almost to be trampled by three ponies running around, carrying Goldie Delicious among them. The old mare—who couldn’t run, hence the preferential treatment—noticed and waved. “Oh! It’s you! Sugarcube, I’m really sorry, I’ll make it up to you, promise! Y’ALL TREAT STARLIGHT RIGHT TOO, SHE’S WORTH IT!”
And then she was too far away for Trixie to hear her.
“Wow,” Trixie said, frowning. “I've already forgotten who that is. OKAY, YOU THREE! HEY!”
The cats stopped moving, and looked at her. Ears perked up.
Trixie took a step back, gulped, but kept on talking. The ponies around her stepped back, too, so she was standing in the middle of an empty circle. Reassuring, that.
So Trixie blew some hair out of her face, and pointed an accusatory hoof at the cats. “I’M THE WITCH HERE! AND WHEN I TALK, YOU LISTEN!” Around her the crowd gasped, and retreated a bit more, which made her puff her chest out. “Well, yes, you’re all welcome, by the way,” she said. Then, back to the cats: “And I don’t want to hurt anypony in here! Okay? That’s behind me. I already hate myself enough right now, don’t need you three making it worse. So stop.”
And the cats stopped.
And approached Trixie, moving slowly this time.
Around her, the crowd muttered again, this time looking at her with a mixture of fear and respect, and Trixie saw it.
So she put on her showmare voice now; after all, if you find yourself on a stage, the least you can do is own it. “Yes! I have been telling you this, you idiots,” she said to the crowd. “But I guess you were too awed by my brilliance to listen! I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, first witch in a thousand years, do not wish to hurt you!”
The crowd gasped. Oh, and it was a good gasp. She had them in her pocket.
“Indeed! For I have mastered the dark arts—they do not master me!” Trixie still had her cape on, so she flung it to the side, dramatically. “And you’re welcome!”
More gasps, more positive muttering. No cheers, but, well, give them time. And—
“—Whoa you’re, uh, close.” Trixie took another step back. The three cats were right there, looking at her, cocking their heads to the side. They leaned forward, wiggling their tails in the air, and Trixie frowned. “Uh. Are you actually listening to me or…?”
The cats’ pupils were wide and black. “Meow,” one of them said.
“Mrrp,” said another.
“Huh. That’s—I genuinely can’t believe this worked.” Trixie looked at her own hooves. “Being a witch is so confusing. So you just listen to me now? I’ve mastered witchcraft? Is that is?”
The cats’ pupils shrunk into terrifying slits.
One of them got its claws out.
And Trixie clicked her tongue. “Right. Of course.”
The closest cat swatted at her, too fast for the eye.
FLASH!
Starlight teleported right next to the book about pests—Of Mice and Mice—and rushed to the chapter about cats. “Come on, come on, come on.” Her eyes darted left and right; long book, very dense, lots of cases tackled: infestation of many cats, one single rebel cat, cats with mystical powers, cats which jumped through dimensions. Nothing useful so far. “Come on, come on, come on, come on.”
She heard Trixie talking in the background. No more screams, though. And was that Trixie’s showmare voice? Either everything was going great, or everything was going terribly, but she couldn’t spare a glance.
“Come on come on come on come on—THERE IT IS!” Relevant paragraph: what to do when giant cats attack. Starlight hadn’t read something so fast in her entire life.
“Cats are natural predators, strong and fast for their size. An unwieldy or feral cat of massive size is no joke, and can’t be easily dealt with; thus, the safest, and most reasonable way to deal with them is to shrink them back to normal size.”
Pause.
Starlight blinked, and looked at the book. “I’ve put Trixie’s life at risk for this?”
“GAGH!” And Trixie bounced off the floor once, and crashed against the bookshelf next to Starlight, knocking down all the books. “Gaaagh.” She got up from under them, rubbing her forehead. “Oh, this is going to hurt in the morning.”
“Hi, Trixie.” Starlight closed the book, and looked at the cover in annoyance. “You know what? I think I hate books now. I’m a scroll mare from now on. How are you doing?”
“Cats out to kill me.”
“Lovely.” Starlight turned around. The three cats were right there, getting ready to prowl, looking at Trixie with murder in their eyes. “Got your back.”
“Celestia I love you.”
The cats jumped.
Starlight spared a side smile at Trixie, and cast a spell.
FLASH!
And literally nothing happened.
“Uh-oh.”
“GAGH!”
So the cats prowled, and jumped, and then swept at Trixie and Starlight again, since cats are nothing if not playful, and so they went flying again. Starlight, however, was quick enough on the draw—and teleported them away to safety.
Whereupon the second cat swiped at them again.
So they went flying, anyway, and crashed against another bookshelf, knocking books down again. The cats hissed—and Starlight teleported them a second time.
FLASH!
At the other side of the room, the entire crowd between them and the cats.
What ensued were screams, and ponies running around, and the cats getting ready for round two—and Trixie and Starlight, wobbly on their knees, looking at each other.
“Okay.” That was Trixie, panting, looking at the cats as they approached. “You’re still great, don’t get me wrong, but what in the name of Celestia was that.”
“I—” Starlight gulped. “I couldn’t break the spell.”
“What.”
“I tried to shrink them, but there’s a spell on them, and I’m not strong enough to—I can’t shrink them!”
“What do you mean, you can’t shrink them? You’re the single most powerful unicorn in the whole—”
“I know! But I can’t break the spell anyway! Oh shoot they’re here.”
The cats swiped at them.
Starlight wasn’t as quick on the draw the second time, so the cats got to play a bit more. Pleasant, it wasn’t. The bruises turned into scratches. The scratches started bleeding. Something cracked, and Starlight’s left hind leg started hurting really, really bad.
FLASH!
Starlight got them out a third time.
“My head hurts,” she panted, not even trying to stay up. “I don’t think I can teleport us again.”
“Everypony ran away,” Trixie said, looking around. “We’re alone in this place. Are you sure you can’t teleport us, like. To Manehattan or something? As far away as possible?”
“I really can’t.”
“Just my luck.” The cats approached again. Slowly, this time. They were savoring it. Trixie winced. “I hate this.”
“Why can’t you control them? Why are they attacking us?”
“I don’t know. They listened to me earlier, I don’t understand why… I can’t get witchcraft to listen to me.” Trixie rubbed the space between her eyes. “It doesn’t do what I want it to do. It listens to, to the bad part of me.”
Starlight gulped, looked at Trixie. “To the first thing you think, instead of the second?”
“Yes.”
“That is so judgemental on witchcraft’s part.”
“I know.”
The cats were already there. Starlight looked at her leg. It wasn’t broken, it just hurt a lot. “And you want them to attack you?” she asked. “Why? Are you—oh.” She frowned. “You feel guilty about trying to kill the room. You hate yourself right now.”
“Mmm-hm.”
“Because you’re afraid you’re disappointing me? Trixie, you hurt nopony, and they were literally trying to burn you alive.”
“Right, well, I can’t control what I--”
“I know.” Starlight saw a cat raising a paw, unseathe its claws, and lick its lips. And instead of flinching, she grabbed Trixie by the shoulders, and looked her dead in the eye. “But whatever happens to you, happens to me. Listen to me, okay? Feel this. Do you want me to get hurt?”
CRACK!
Silence.
The sound had come from below. There was a noticeable crack on the floor, between them and the cats—the crystal had shattered. The crack looked like a rogue lightning; just a few inches wide, but it spread across the entire room, and all the way up to the walls.
The cats had noticed, too. One still had its paw in the air, but they were all standing still, looking at the crack with wide eyes, ears perked up. Completely frozen.
So Starlight gave a low whistle, and looked at Trixie again. “Wow,” she said. “You genuinely love me, don’t you.”
Trixie winked at her. “Only the best for me.”
“You’re such a charmer.” Everything hurt so much that Starlight’s laugh came out more like a moan, but she was trying to smile at least. “Please save us, Trixie.”
“Yes.” Trixie closed her eyes and laid there. Didn’t even try to move. “Please save us. Anyone, anything. Get these stupid cats away from us.”
“HISSSSS!”
Pause.
“HISSSSSSSS!”
That was a different cat from the first—and soon the third joined them, too. Hissing and huffing, clearly angry or scared, or maybe both. Starlight took it all she had in her to look, and then she had to do a double take.
Brooms.
Dozens of brooms, floating all around the Library, zooming in circles around the cats, making general sweeping motions in their direction.
And the cats were clearly terrified. Back arched, tail down between their legs—they tried to sweep at the brooms but the brooms were faster, and the cats kept retreating, clearly, visibly trembling.
“Oh my gosh,” Starlight said, rubbing her eyes to take a second look. “The cats are scared of the brooms. I forgot that.”
“The ones they used for the pyre?” Trixie asked.
“Yeah. They must have heard you right now.” Starlight smiled. “And, I mean, I guess the cats were shedding hair, with all this playing around, so technically speaking they’re just cleaning everything up.”
“Right. So this was going to happen anyway, and maybe I did nothing?”
“I—”
CRRCK-CRACK.
The ground shook again, and the cats hissed. The brooms kept talking. The crack in the ground got wider.
And the Library folded, and split in two, and half of the room—weighted down by the three gigantic cats—tilted down, and outwards.
And fell.
Two walls, half the bookshelves, and half the floor—it all fell with a crash; there was a loud THUD! when it hit the ground outside. The Library was on the second floor, after all, hanging from a branch of the magical crystal tree that held the Castle.
Starlight and Trixie were left in a room that now had a giant hole that led outside. They could see all of Ponyville in front of them.
They hugged each other.
“That,” Starlight said, “was probably overkill.”
“Right. Well.” Trixie shrugged. “I never really liked this room, to be honest.”
“Oh, I can tell.”
And that’s when Twilight Sparkle, full-cast in plaster, awkwardly lounging on a wheelchair that Spike was pushing, made her entrance.
“GIRLS!” she yelled. “ARE YOU OKAY? I CAME HERE AS SOON AS I COULD!”
Pause.
She looked at the flying brooms, zooming around aimlessly. The books on the floor and the broken bookshelves. The pile of oiled wood on the side.
The giant hole that stood where half the room had been minutes ago.
Starlight and Trixie, hugging each other, bloody and tattered.
And then Twilight squinted. “What in the name of Celestia is this. Did you just break my house in half.”
The one who answered was Trixie. It took her a moment—she had to swallow first, and then breathe a bit to calm down, and then get her voice back—but she managed.
What she said was: “Yes.” And then she added: “You’re welcome.”
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Yeah, those people who think that a ninja dressing in neon orange is fundamentally absurd? Those people have obviously never seen a tiger. Can't blame them really, those things are stupid sneaky.
Wow, what a chapter. Good thinking on Starlight's part to draw Trixie's thinking towards her love for her and away from her hatred of herself.
She's a witch!
Well, that's a hell of a way to solve a problem.
now that's a proper disaster for Starlight and Trixie to have to figure their way out of! as a cat owner who has seen her play with mice, i would definitely be very frightened if i ever met a cat larger than me, so the fear here is very understandable. and Goldie Delicious's echo of Twilight's earlier words on Starlight and Trixie's flirting was a fun touch
This is just hilarious.
"What. Did you just break my house in half."
The way you wrote that is just...too funny. I literally wheezed irl while reading this part, and I can tell you that I rarely wheeze irl. Strike that. I just remembered I've been wheezing the past ten minutes while I read this chapter.