The Show Must Go On

by libertydude

The Start of a Beautiful Friendship

The dance hall appeared like many backwater dance halls across Equestria did. A majority of the space consisted of a wide wooden floor that squeaked with every step made. Countless scuffs and scrapes etched themselves into the wood from a hundred past dances, to the point the wood’s original color barely remained. At the far end stood the stage, three feet off the ground and steps on two sides. A banjo sat in the center of the stage like somepony was planning on coming back for it. Dark purple curtains lined both sides, thick dust still caked upon them. Towards the left side of the room sat a long bar with bottles of varying colors propped upon shelves, each reflected in the long mirror stretching from each end of the bar. Also reflected were the two mares standing in the doorway, both examining the scene with drastically different expressions.

“Well, it’s not Carneighgy Hall,” Octavia half-sighed. “But we’ll be able to make do.”

“Voodoo, that is,” Trixie said, rubbing her hooves together in anticipation. “I’ve got so many tricks up my sleeve that these Hilltopians will think I’m the next Hoofdini.”

Hopefully complete with the punch in the stomach, Octavia thought. She walked towards the stage, her cello case strapped to her back. Trixie followed and tossed silver glitter over the floor all the way to the stage. Vague words Octavia didn’t bother to listen to echoed from the magician’s mouth.

“Alright,” Octavia said, climbing the stage and placing her cello case down. “So how are we going to do this?”

“We’re going to do it like it’s our only shot!” Trixie proclaimed. “Like we’ll be run out of town on a rail if we mess anything up! Like Luna would turn into Nightmare Moon again if we got even one iota of this show wrong!”

“Yes, yes,” Octavia groaned. “I’ve heard the pep talks in drama class too. Now how about we talk about the order we’re going to go in.”

“Well, they say save the best for last, so I think you should go first.”

“Hey!” Octavia’s eyes burned with the heat of a thousand suns.

Trixie gave a sheepish grin. “You’re right. Cellos tend to make ponies very sleepy. My act will jazz them up, then your act will calm them down so they can sleep well.”

“Now hold on just a minute!” Octavia said. “We agreed to organize this thing together. This is meant to be a collaborative effort, not a solo act.”

“It is!” Trixie said gleefully. “We’re just collaborating on how to make my show look even better.”

“Our show.”

“That’s what I said. Sodium chloride!”

“What?”

“Salt, my quaint cellist.” She reached into her cloak and brought out a hooful of white powder. The crystals gleamed in the sunlight leaking through the window. Trixie brought the salt to her mouth, licked it, and smacked her lips together. “Tasty and magical at the same time. Especially when you mix it with super-heated water.”

Octavia rolled her eyes. “What a great magician you are, telling everypony how a trick works. Hoofdini would be so proud.”

Trixie’s eyes bugged. “What did you say?!”

“I said, maybe we should try to combine our acts. We obviously aren’t going to agree on who goes first, so maybe we should just cut the head off that snake and work together on one act.”

Trixie stared at Octavia in equal parts confusion and amusement. “The Great and Powerful Trixie sharing the stage? Hah! Why not buy a sea lion and complete the low-rent circus you’re trying to create?”

Octavia put a hoof to her head and closed her eyes. “Look, I don’t know how else we’re going to fix this problem. Either we’re going to have to work together or just keep fighting over who goes first.”

Trixie tapped her chin for a moment, then shrugged. “Very well. Trixie will humor you and let you play your music in the background of the act.”

Octavia rolled her eyes. Sweet Celestia, she really is a magician. Would rather cut off her own legs than give somepony else a little stage time.

Regardless, Octavia stepped away from center stage while Trixie unloaded her various magical artifacts. A series of ropes were soon laid upon the ground, along with a small wicker basket and a bouquet of flowers. Trixie worked with feverish devotion on the objects, shifting each one ever so slightly. Eventually she paused and turned to Octavia.

“Alright, I’m going to do my warm-up act,” Trixie said. “A simple enough trick. But I do need you to move a little more to the side.”

Octavia looked around her, a confused expression on her face. She was already far from the center of the stage. However, their previous argument had exhausted Octavia from any further obstruction, so she moved to the side ever so slightly.

“A little bit more,” Trixie said.

Octavia once again complied, scooting aside even farther.

“Just a teensy bit more,” Trixie said through an artificial smile.

A small grunt came from Octavia as she moved once again. How much farther will she-?

Thunk!

Octavia looked up to see a large wall beside her. The scroll atop her cello pushed against the wood comprising most of the dance hall. The curtain on the side of the stage prevented her from seeing two-thirds of the auditorium in front of her. Had there been an audience, they wouldn’t have been able to see her at all.

“Perfect!” Trixie said. “Stay right there!”

The bow nearly snapped in Octavia’s hoof. That charlatan’s bumping me out!

If Trixie could see her partner’s rage, she showed no sign of it. She merely walked off the stage, then immediately walked back on. She threw a half-dozen kisses out to an imaginary crowd and bowed as far as she could without tasting the ground.

“Thank you all for coming!” Trixie proclaimed. “Thank you for your applause! Thank you, thank you!” Her face then grew somewhat annoyed, her hooves coaxing the non-audience down. “Okay, that’s enough. The Great and Powerful Trixie likes applause, but she doesn’t like it that much.”

“Au contraire,” Octavia hollered from her spot.

Trixie shot her a dirty look, then resumed her focus on the imaginary crowd. “I want to thank you all for coming to the very first Hilltop Hearth’s Warming Eve Spectacular. I would say you had nothing better to do, but… wait, you really don’t have anything better to do!” She held her hooves out for imaginary laughter. Octavia held hers out toward the windows, begging Celestia for relief.

“Anyways, as the greatest magician this side of Equestria, I wanted to give you ponies a show on this most dreary of Hearth’s Warming Eves. I will be aided my musical assistant, Octavia. You can’t see her, but she’s there.” Her face grew serious. “Don’t ask why. That’s part of the magic.” She then motioned toward Octavia, a gesture known universally amongst performers for “Do something and do it now”.

Octavia readied her bow and gave a quick tremble on the strings. The noise was somber and cold, the emotions Octavia had been trying to give auditory form in her three-day sabbatical in the motel room.

“No!” Trixie hissed. “Something adventurous and mysterious at the same time! Mys-venturous, as they say.”

Shaking her head, Octavia started a new barrage of notes. The major chord she chose hit the adventurous notes Trixie demanded, and the few flat notes she threw in gave the notes an occasional playfulness that implied the musician was toying with the listener. This appeared to satisfy Trixie, for she began motioning towards the ropes in front of her. The strings began to move slowly, vibrating first before standing straight up like they were pulled taught on one end. Each one then began to move from side to side as they stared back at Trixie. Her wild gesticulations with her hooves seemed to hold them in a trance, the ends of the ropes weaving back and forward while the rest of the rope stayed in place.

“Now,” Trixie said in a low voice. “Hit them with an exciting tune!”

Octavia complied, hitting a dominant chord with more than a few sharps.

All of a sudden, the rope heads twisted toward Octavia. The move surprised her, but she maintained her rhythm.

Probably just a part of the act, she reassured herself.

Then, in a move faster than Octavia could react, all the ropes began snaking their way toward her. The twine material created terrible new scrapes along the stage’s surface. Octavia didn’t even have time to holler before the ropes started to wind around all her legs.

“Stop playing!” Trixie cried out. “The ropes hate the music!”

Octavia dropped her bow, less from Trixie’s suggestion and more from the fact the ropes were starting to squeeze the feeling out of her legs. The cello fell to the ground and made a loud bwang that echoed throughout the hall. For a few moments, neither mare could do anything but make hushed breaths.

Yet moment by moment, the ropes loosened their hold on Octavia. Blood began to circulate in her legs once again. The numbness died away and the ropes slithered back towards their mistress. Had she been paying attention, Octavia might’ve taken their reticent crawls for ones of shame. Instead, all of her attention was on Trixie.

“What in Tartarus’s name happened?!” Octavia cried out.

Trixie, for the first time since Octavia had met her, turned bashful. “The notes,” she said in a whisper. “They were the wrong ones.”

“What do you mean ‘the wrong ones’?!”

“They must have been sharp notes. Rope snakes don’t like sharp notes.”

“Well, a little heads up beforehoof would’ve been nice!”

“I’m…I’m sorry.” Trixie’s head turned away from Octavia’s. Unadulterated shame covered her face.

The moment of weakness bought Octavia’s compassion for only a moment. “Sorry isn’t enough!” she hollered. The bottles on the bar shelves shook from the scream. “You’re supposed to be an expert magician, and you let that slide by you?”

“I said I’m sorry!” Trixie’s voice now had a slight tremble to it. “You don’t have to yell.”

“Yes, I do! You overtake the show, shove me into the corner rather than share the spotlight, then do a magic trick that gets somepony hurt! I think yelling is the only way anything’s going to get through your egotist mind.”

The pain in Trixie’s eyes increased. “You’re just hysterical. You don’t mean that.”

“I mean every syllable of it, you showboat!” Her face filled with an unrepentant sneer. “If you’re such a good magician, why don’t you make yourself disappear?”

Though she couldn’t see it, Octavia knew right then that Trixie’s face fell.

“I…” A quick sniffle filled the room. “I guess you won’t…won’t be wanting to work together anymore.”

“That’s the first thing you’ve been right about,” Octavia growled.

“Alright.” Without another word, Trixie walked down the stage and towards the front doors. For a few moments, her hoof steps echoed across the floor, then she disappeared into the snow-filled street.

It seemed like an hour until Octavia realized she was alone. She looked down at the ropes, all flaccid except for one. The lone rope looked up at her before drooping its head.

“Yeah,” Octavia said, repeating the gesture back to the rope. “I’m sorry too.”

Comments

[bahatumay]

Hopefully complete with the punch in the stomach, Octavia thought.

Dang. She’s colder than the blizzard.