New Endings, Old Starts

by David Silver

145 - Fancy Seeing You Here

They were wandering the carnival, soaking in the sights and distractions with pleased smiles and plenty of little hugs to share back and forth. "Come one, come all!"

Comforting lifted both ears towards it. "I know that voice..."

"None can resist the spellbinding power of the Great and Powerful--"

"--Trixie," finished Comforting, the two speaking the name at once. "I want to see this. Would you like to see?"

Amity blushed softly. "I am a bad audience for magic shows."

Comforting blinked. "What? We are magic. How?"

"That's part of the problem." Amity turned a hoof at herself. "I pay attention. It is hard to distract me. I see through tricks and ruin the fun. I don't want to ruin the fun."

Comforting rocked in place. "Then why can I do magic around you? My magic needs people to not pay attention."

"I can see it. I just let you."

Comforting blinked at this. "Then... Just let her."

"That's what I want to do."

Comforting casually hefted Amity up. "You can do that and be a polite audience member. We'll clap when she does tricks and be part of the crowd."

"If you're there, I will enjoy it." Amity curled in against Comforting. "Let's go."

Comforting took her date into the ampitheatre that had other ponies ready for a show. She found a spot near the front and sank onto a seat. She served as a seat for Amity, petting and hugging gently as they waited.

With a great eruption of smoke, Trixie appeared. "Let the show begin!" She spotted a creature she knew. "Look at that! Somecreature Trixie knows, so far away from home." She wagged a hoof at Comforting. "You aren't here to compete with Trixie, are you? Hardly fair, being a chaos spirit and all."

Comforting raised her hands. "Even a chaos spirit would have no chance against the Great and Powerful Trixie."

Trixie couldn't smile much harder than she was, squeaking with the effort. "Trixie was trying to be humble, but even a chaos spirit knows that was too far from the truth." The crowd was clopping and stomping at the whole thing, thoroughly amused. "Let's begin with a classic. You." She pointed to another mare. "Trixie summons you!"

She proceeded to cut the mare in half, then pull an impossible amount of cloth from her dazzled ears. "No wonder you can't hear Trixie with all this in the way." She pulled and tugged to free up the ear obstruction, the crowd laughing and cheering the whole thing on.

Amity reared up on Comforting, leaning in to whisper, "I know how she's doing that. Do you want to know?"

"The fun of magic shows." She tapped Amity gently. "Is accepting the magic. It takes skill and effort to put on a good show. She's not using magic, and that means it's all skill. Let's enjoy that display."

"Hm." Amity sat in Comforting's lap. "You have a point... I would need practice to be this good at such chicanery."

"Chicanery is her specialty." Comforting clapped at the next trick that somehow replaced one pony's mane with another, leaving the two with the other's mane color and style. "She's good at it."

Trixie whistled sharply. "Comforting! Trixie requires you."

Comforting pointed at herself, and Trixie nodded. She put Amity down and stood up, jogging up and hopping onto the stage. "How can I help, Great and Powerful Trixie?"

"You can stand perfectly still." She placed a top-hat on Comforting's head, and an apple atop that. "Trixie is going to show off her marksponyship!" She hopped back and made a motion as if drawing a bow, magic glimmering into a bow-shape, her horn glowing. The bow, at least, was a magical display. "Count to three."

"One..." Trixie drew the bow back as far as it'd go. "Two." Trixie lined up the shot, tongue extended with the effort. "Three."

Trixie released the magical arrow, but Comforting felt something solid crash into her chest. It didn't hurt, but it was like someone had lightly punched her. She looked down to see an arrow protruding from her. They had shot her? It didn't feel like she had been... Oh! She staggered back, clutching the lethal arrow. "You got me..."

"Trixie was not aiming for..." She trailed off as if just noticing her shot had hit Comforting and not the apple. "Have no fear, Trixie will save the day!" The crowd was gasping with shock and awe as she hurried to the play-acting Comforting. "Behold her Great and Powerful magic!" Her hooves glowed green, but there was no healing happening. Comforting wasn't even sure ponies had healing magic. But, for magic tricks, that didn't matter.

Trixie pulled the arrow free with a hoof as her glowing magic 'soothed' the pain. "Are you feeling better? Show the crowd."

Comforting turned to the crowd, showing off her miraculously-- Cloth was firing out of her as if she were somehow bleeding the colorful cloth at a prodigious rate.

Trixie clopped a hoof on her face. "Your chaos magic made Trixie's healing magic do that!" The crowd was losing it, but in a good way, and Trixie was eating it up. "You seem to be fine. Have a seat." She waved for comforting to step off the stage. "For her next trick, Trixie will--"

Comforting settled next to Amity, giggling at the silly magic trick she had helped perform. "That was fun."

"That was fun." Amity clapped in appreciation. "You reacted quickly. She did not inform you of the trick beforehoof, did she?" Comforting shook her head no. "I didn't think so. That was impressive, for both of you. I liked it."

They watched the show together the rest of the way, to Trixie's dedazzling finale that had her vanish from the stage in a fit of trickery, leaving the crowd cheering, but dispersing to find other distractions. "Let's visit." Comforting led the way around to Trixie's wagon and knocked lightly on it. "Trixie?"

"That's Great and Powerful." She popped open the top of her door and her sour look brightened, seeing who was bothering her. "Oh. What brings you by? And who's your friend? They've been staring at Trixie, and normally she likes that..."

Amity dipped the front of her body down. "Nice to meet you, Trixie Lulamoon."

Trixie inclined her head. "A fan? Trixie is delighted to meet another of her many adoring fans."

Comforting rested a hand on Amity's back. "This is Amity. We're here on a date."

Trixie blinked. "A date?" She looked between the two young creatures back and forth. "A playdate?" Not many other kinds of dates made sense to her in that moment.

"You can call it that." Comforting lifted Amity up so her hooves rested on the edge of Trixie's wagon, the two almost face to face. "She's a s--" Her words died, somehow unable to speak. She hated it. But she also realized what it was a moment later. "Very close friend," she continued instead. "She has an eye for magic."

"An eye?" Trixie turned her head to direct an eye at Amity. "Are you a magician in training?"

"I'm not nearly as good as you are, Trixie Lulamoon."

Trixie colored. "Stop that! Trixie very rarely goes by her full name. Great and Powerful Trixie, if you feel like being full and proper. Where did you even hear that name?" She glared at Comforting. "Did you tell her? Wait, when did I ever tell you!? Who is speaking of Trixie's name?!"

Comforting fired a fingerfun at Trixie. "A pony as famous as you, it shouldn't be surprising."

"That is not entirely wrong... But Trixie is the Great and Powerful Trixie. She does not advertise herself as Trixie Lulamoon." She sat back, crossing her arms. "She still suspects." She glared at Comforting, the most likely by her reasoning. "Is this revenge for the show? Trixie was playing! You heard them cheering us both on. Didn't you enjoy it?"

"I thought it was a great trick." Comforting nodded with a smile at the recent memory. "You really surprised me."

"See? Trixie can even surprise a chaos spirit. You know, Trixie has surprised that other chaos spirit before." She waggled her brows with a triumphant smirk. "Tricked a whole hive of changelings and got a medal for it." Her horn glowed as she brought the medal over to gloat properly. "Now all of Equestria understands how Great and Powerful Trixie is."

Comforting clapped at the sight of it. "Very nice, and well-deserved from the sound of it. You don't... fight changelings often, do you?"

Trixie made a face at that. "No! Besides, they're much nicer these days." She booped Amity, knocking her free of the door so Trixie could take the spot instead. "You're friends with one, aren't you? Trixie doesn't remember their name."

"Ocellus." Comforting helped Amity get herself upright. "She's very nice, but I'm not sure she ever saw your show."

"Which is why Trixie doesn't remember her. I know I saw her at the school." She trailed off. "Speaking of... Why do changelings have 'he' and 'she', anyway? They're whatever they care to be! That's their whole thing! They have this perfectly good chance to strike down the binary and they're wasting it."

Comforting blinked at that outburst. "Trixie... Are you... non-binary?"

Trixie cocked a brow. "Trixie has no idea what that is. She does think it's silly that changelings are boys and girls when they are both and neither, if you think about it." She leaned in over at Amity. "What do you think?"

Amity gave it due consideration. "Hm. I am still learning changelings, but it seems to be a marker of identification. They decide if they like being approached as a female or male. If the forced nature of the binary system bothers you, at least changelings get to choose which they prefer."

"But they don't have to prefer either." Trixie threw her hooves wide. "That's what I'm saying!" She clopped her hooves. "Ah ha, Trixie knows. They like to do what ponies do. Ponies have girls and boys, so they have to have girls and boys. Mares and stallions. They're just copying pony mistakes!"

"Maybe." Comforting picked up Amity into a hug from behind. "It was nice running into you."

"Feel free to stop by any of Trixie's shows." Her horn glowed, taking hold of her door to swing it shut. "Good night." It closed with a firm click.

Amity wriggled and turned to face Comforting. "She is an interesting pony. Not many are like her, I've counted."

The door swung open anew. "You did what?"

Amity lowered her ears. "You are the best magician I know of."

"Oh. Of course." Trixie buffed at her chest. "She appreciates you understanding this." She closed the door with a satisfied click.

Comforting took Amity a distance away to avoid more eavesdropping. "She's silly." She touched noses with Amity. "Did you have fun?"

"Today is a lot of fun." Amity nuzzled under Comforting's chin. "I knew you were safe, but seeing you hurt, even fake, was... tense... I'm glad that part is over, but I had fun."

Comforting hiked a thumb at herself, holding Amity firmly with the other hand. "An arrow couldn't put me down. Spirit, like you."

"I still don't like seeing you hurt." Amity inclined her head. "You wouldn't die, but arrows could still make you suffer, and I don't want that."

Comforting trembled and hugged Amity all the tighter. "You are too pure sometimes." She carried her date off towards the eating stands. "I say now's a fine time to grab some carnie dinner! Corndogs and fizzy sugar water for everyone!"

"Yay!" Amity considered a moment. "You know we don't have to eat either of those."

"We don't have to do any of this." She put Amity down on a stool. "But here we are, enjoying it anyway. Got a favorite flavor of soda or should I pick?"

"I want what you pick. Be my chaos, Comforting."

Comforting ruffled her head. "Be my order, Amity." The two smiled and she went to pick a fizzy drink and a corndog to enjoy.

Author's Note:

Did you think the date would be over instantly? Though I feel like this might be a fine stop for the arc, but maybe...? Should we press on or move on?

Join the special community of folks who like my stories, get updates early, and/or get your own here at atreon!

Don't want to do an ongoing thing? You could

Join my discord to chat!

Comments

[Poparakelis]

"I still don't like seeing you hurt." Amity inclined her head. "You wouldn't die, but arrows could still make you suffer, and I don't want that."

The proof they are meant to be together no matter what reincarnation

[Poparakelis]

About the arc, you can push more but then you'd have to give a, preview? Tease? Of their future dynamic/relationship

[Amethyst Dragonfly]

I have one comment about this chapter, Awww.

[Prettypony]

"You can call it that." Comforting lifted Amity up so her hooves rested on the edge of Trixie's wagon, the two almost face to face. "She's a s--" Her words died, somehow unable to speak. She hated it. But she also realized what it was a moment later. "Very close friend," she continued instead. "She has an eye for magic."

oooooh did Comforting want to call her her special somepony or a spirit? It seems like spirit but the way she gets hung up makes it feel more like special somepony

Also Trixie being nonbinary totally tracks and is a good opportunity for some future chaosing. comforting giving trixie the power to be whatever she wants to be

[Twinkie Sprinkle]

Really fun seeing Comforting and Amity interact with Trixie. It's nice to see a big affirmation of just how much Amity worries about and cares about Comforting at the end, too.

I will agree with Comforting that corn dogs and soda are fun snacks.

[David Silver]

11657536

11657592
Trixie has feelings and she's pretty bad at dealing with those, even her own. But she is pretty good at bring irritated at things. Stupid binary.

Amity and Comforting have gone through some things together. The world may keep on changing around them, but they have one thing they can hug firmly and keep close.

[Twinkie Sprinkle]

11657749

It really is great how Comforting and Amity continue to stick together through everything.

[DrCygnus]

Comforting lifted Amity up so her hooves rested on the edge of Trixie's wagon, the two almost face to face. "She's a s--" Her words died, somehow unable to speak. She hated it. But she also realized what it was a moment later. "Very close friend," she continued instead. "She has an eye for magic."

the fuck is this?