A Meeting At The Falls

by PennyDreadful

Puppet show of the mind

Trixie hopped onto the bed, and her horn lit up brilliantly, white light pouring off as the room around the piece of furniture began to swim, becoming more and more indistinct.

Soon, the room was a shifting haze of different colors, lazily melding into one another. The natural pattern of unfocused illusion constructs.

Twilight was a little surprised. She had always assumed Trixie was magically rather weak, but an illusion large enough to cover the room like this was rather impressive.

“The great and powerful Trixie is thrilled to invite you to ride along on this magical flying bed, as we dive deep into the mysteries of the universe!” Trixie proclaimed in her most bombastic show voice. The illusion began to swirl, as if the bed were flying forward.

“We shall begin our examination of your hateability at the very beginning.” The image swirled, and formed into a stage, much like the one that Trixie had performed on in her first visit to Ponyville, but this one was far more robust and spruced up. A full facade lay in front of the bed, with the two of them where the audience would be.

On the stage, the blue curtain raised, and revealed two different fillies, as if presented in splitscreen.

On the left, the lavender filly grinned and spoke first. “My name is Twilight Sparkle! I love books!”

On the right, the light blue filly also grinned. “My name is Trixie Lulamoon! I love attention!”

On the right side of the stage, filly Twilight was now attended by a pair of rather dopey looking effigies, one in a vest and pipe, and the other bizarrely clad in both overalls and a tutu. “We do so love you, beloved precious pony daughter!” Burbled one of them in a squeaky voice.

“We shall provide you with all of the books you could ever hope to eat!” Nodded the other. To punctuate that, a large heap of green rectangles each marked ‘BOOK’, landed on top of filly Twilight with a loud thump.

“Yaaaaaay!” Both maquettes bobbed up and down crudely. “Truly we, Twinkly Poo and Dumpson Stardust are the bestest parents!”

Twilight stared at Trixie. Trixie coughed. “Well, The great and powerful Trixie must admit she doesn’t know much about your parents. Forgive her improvisation.”

On the other side of the stage, however, filly Trixie was attended only by one figure. A real one rather than another dummy. The orange unicorn brushed aside her blonde mane and gave Trixie a fond nuzzle.

Twilight could tell that the real Trixie next to her seemed a bit pensive.

The sunflower-marked unicorn spoke rather plummily. “Now Trixie, know that just because mama loves you very much, doesn’t mean you don’t occasionally remind her of the yawning void in her life that comes from not knowing who your father is! Remember that if you ever do something stupid like drop out of school, and she stops speaking to you, then you’ll have left her with no family to talk to except your aunt Poinsettia who will try to talk her into betting on Ban’ei races again!”

Twilight winced. The showmare’s raw emotions were clearly getting in the way of any kind of subtlety.

The curtain closed and reopened, now revealing the two of them as teenagers.

The illusion of Twilight illuminated, just as she was scooped up by an image of Princess Celestia. Not celestia as she truly appeared, but instead with the flowing details and graceful shape that twilight recognized from the famous portrait of the princess one could buy on every tourist tchotchke in canterlot.

“Come, Twilight Sparkle! Let us embark on your journey of incredible magical education! And ice cream afterwards!”

“Wow, thanks princess! How much magic do you think I can learn?”

“All of it, Twilight! It’s your special talent after all!”

The pair trotted off stage, twilight being carried under Celestia’s foreleg like a sleeping bag. The light illuminated Trixie’s side.

“Miss Lulamoon…” a voice labored with disappointment spoke as a beleaguered looking teacher stepped into view. “I don’t want to fail you, but your understanding of magical theory is… well… the drawings of yourself in a cowpony hat are more promising as far as answers go.” She sighed, brandishing a paper simply marked “DUMB TEST”.

Teenage Trixie fumed. “None of it makes sense! Is it the great and powerful Trixie’s fault that the one thing she excels at is withheld from her? If this was an illusion class, she would be passing with flying colors!”

“Your grades in illusion are very impressive, yes, but you need to be able to understand the broader magical spectrum. Natural talent is all well and good, but it’s no replacement for actually understanding what you’re doing. If you just applied yourself, then-“

“Trixie understands one thing well enough! She’s dropping out! She will find her fortune with the only magic that matters! The magic of the stage!”

As the curtain shuffled shut again, Twilight couldn’t hold herself from speaking. “That was Professor Misty Morning. You went to Celestia’s school?”

Trixie grimaced. “Why yes, Trixie did. And instead of seeing herself through any kind of effective education, she ran away when things got hard, leaving her with no diploma, a mother who wouldn’t speak to her, and a repertoire of parlor tricks she had convinced herself were unimpeachable.”

“How come we never met?”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “You never talked to anypony except the princess and your direct classmates. Nopony knew anything about you. You were always the princess’s mysterious pupil who never left her tower.”

Twilight cast her gaze down at her hooves. She… had been rather isolated during her schooling. Moondancer and the other ponies in her study group were the only ones she had really interacted with. It was a rather lonely way to live, and she was glad to have escaped it.

“But why drop out? Was it really just because you felt you didn’t have anything to learn?”

Trixie seemed uncomfortable at the question. As she opened her mouth to answer, the image on stage shifted mercurially. The haughty teenage Trixie and the disappointed professor were no longer facing away from one another, but professor Misty was now sat down and had her foreleg over a Trixie who was crying into her forelegs. Twilight could overhear only a few words clearly; “-even know why I’m here! I’m useless at-” and then the image vanished, as quickly as it came.

Trixie glared at the stage. “Forgive Trixie. An illusion this size is difficult to keep control of. If she loses her concentration it can show just about anything.”

Twilight knew that was a load of bunkum. An out of control illusion didn’t show random things, it showed the thoughts of the caster.

But she bit her tongue. She could bring that up after she had more information.

The curtain drew back one more time.

Twilight’s side was illuminated once more to reveal her as a unicorn, emerging from a facade of the library. She trotted along in place happily.
“Gosh, it sure is gorgeous out today! I bet all my friends who care about my well-being are out and about, and would be willing to lend me money for food if I were to ever ask them for whatever reason!”

Once again, the lack of subtlety made Twilight wince. “I get it, Trixie. Is there a point to keeping this going?”

Trixie stared daggers back at her. “So you accept it? The fact that while the Great and Powerful Trixie has suffered, you have never wanted for anything?”

While the pair of them talked, the Twilight on the stage trotted forward and somehow, through a rather mind bending route, arrived in front of the stage without actually stepping off of it.

“Look, I want to be understanding, but… what am I supposed to do here? It’s not my fault that you’ve been dealt a bad set of cards.”

The illusory room was changing. Interior theater trappings becoming the vivid outdoors of a sunny summer day. The audience was now packed with ponies, Twilight among them. A duplicate of Trixie had taken the stage.

“Apologize! Vindicate! Admit that you're not better than Trixie!” The other mare on the bed growled, clearly not paying attention to her own illusion at all.

“Oh my sun, it’s Twilight Sparkle! What do I do?!”

Both Twilight and Trixie were snapped out of quibbling and stared at the illusion stage. It was Trixie’s show in Ponyville. The real Trixie gasped and tried to change the image… but found she couldn’t.

Twilight gave her a meaningful look. Her horn was now glowing too. In an illusion this size, it wasn’t hard to keep pumping magic into it to keep it running. “I’m sorry, but your reaction tells me I might need to see this.”

The illusory Trixie paced, talking to herself in a stage whisper. “Think Trixie, think! Did you ever talk to her at school? Even once? How do you impress her?!”

“Impress me?” Twilight was surprised.
She felt Trixie shove her side. “This isn’t for you to see! Stop it!”

“Everypony likes a chance to show off. And everypony knows who she is. It should be simple to ask if she has any tricks she’d like to show-“

“Stop letting this play! These are Trixie’s private thoughts!” She growled, now escalating the shoving as she thumped at Twilight with one of her hooves.

Twilight grunted, trying to get the other mare off of her as she kicked. Both were rather pathetic fighters, resulting in the two descending into a slap fight. “Ow! Trixie, stop it!”

The Trixie on stage sighed. “It doesn’t matter. How do you say that? “Hi, you don’t know me, but I know you and I tried to kill myself the other night and do you think we could be friends?”

Twilight’s surprise was enough that she lost focus, and Trixie successfully ground the illusion to a halt. Twilight stared up at Trixie, now standing over her on the bed and panting angrily from the exertion.

“You tried to kill yourself?”

“Yes!” Trixie drew herself up, and averted her gaze. “You saw it, back at the falls!”

“That flashback was to your first performance in Ponyville, Trixie.”

Trixie was clearly boiling internally. She was shaking slightly, and her muscles were clenched. “It is none of your business how many times Trixie has failed to take her own life! While she is sure you would love to enumerate yet another one of her failures, she-“

“Please tell me it’s only the twice.” Twilight looked rather pleading.

Trixie’s fury faltered when she saw the genuine concern in the princesses eyes. “I… well… yes.” The rage was clearly letting out of her, and she seemed to deflate slightly. “Once before I met you, and once at the falls.”

Morbid curiosity presented a question.

“Why only those times?”

The illusory Trixie became unpaused again, much to real Trixie’s chagrin. The illusion was placid now. Sat and staring at the stars. The stage and crowd were all gone, leaving only the dark night that Trixie had fled into after the Ursa attack.

She spoke very calmly, with a joy that resonated from somewhere deep. A single tear of joy ran down her cheek.

“Twilight Sparkle… I hate you.”

The real Trixie buried her head in her hooves.

The entire illusion collapsed, like a cloud that had looked at Rainbow Dash funny. They were back in the hotel.

Twilight was a little perplexed. “I don’t understand.”

“You saved me.”

“Huh?” It had been muffled by Trixie’s face being pushed into the bed. Twilight hadn’t heard it straight.

“You saved her.” Trixie repeated. “After you showed Trixie up, after you left her with nothing… you saved her life. Because she had hatred.”

This was… not something Twilight could process.

“She hated you so much, it was better than anything. Every night that went by on the cold road, she was warmed by thinking about how much she loathed you. Thinking of your face was enough to help her sleep anywhere. Whenever she had to push through something, work a demeaning job, ignore giggling hecklers… all she had to do was think about you, Sparkle. Think about your laugh and your smile and your detestably perfect life. No matter what, it allowed her to push forward.”

“Trixie… are you sure that’s hatred? It sounds a little… uh…” Twilight was blushing. She had no idea how to process the idea that someone hated her so deeply. All she had ever done was be nice to ponies! Do her best to understand them! When she had made mistakes or acted rashly, she apologized! How could somepony be so deeply obsessed with somepony else?

“Like what?” Trixie snapped.

Twilight wanted to answer, but found it impossible to spit out what she had meant to say.

“Oh whatever. It doesn’t matter what you think of Trixie.” Something had changed in the showmare. Now that these words were spoken she looked… broken. Her radiant pride was gone.

“Twilight… Your greatest privilege is the fact that you don’t know how it feels to not matter.

Imagine you don’t matter. Imagine that you’re Trixie. A moron who ran away from school and her home to become a traveling magician. Imagine it made sense. After all, your cutie mark is on stage magic and illusion. It was clearly where you were meant to be. You were so naturally talented, you had no need of the fiddly academic learning to do what you did best.

And then over the next couple years, it sinks in that your life is now as big as the tiny cart you live in, and that you’ve ruined your life. And despite spending years living as a traveling performer, your tricks have hit a wall because you don’t understand the magical theory to make better ones.

And then you don’t even have your art anymore. The only thing that was still bringing you worth in your own eyes is gone.

So you try to kill yourself, but get rescued by somepony who believes your story that you were trying out a new rope trick. And then you're back on the road, with nothing inside you.

You are nothing. So you fill that nothing with what looks like something. You take every ounce of showmareship you have and try to put it where your soul should be. You build your fake ego bigger and bigger in the hopes that it can possibly feel real.

The Great and Powerful Trixie is the weakest, most pathetic pony to ever live, and yet she’s able to always see through your own lies. No matter what audience you wow with that big ego, it never works on yourself.

And then you see her.

Beautiful, radiant Twilight Sparkle. The princess’s protege, in some random backwater town. You nearly seize up. She has such obvious and perfect value. You want nothing more than to be close to her.

You’ve always dealt in stories. Stories and narratives are the way you view life. And at that moment, when every story about yourself is dead, you see a pony with a brilliant, shining story. A story where she rescues princesses and makes true friends.

Your mind starts whirling, writing stories where you have some kind of worth through proximity to her. But it doesn’t come.

There are hecklers, same as any show. You deal with them, give the audience some laughs, and then, awkwardly, try to invite that radiant mare up to show off herself. But it’s too muddled. The showing up and the invitation get mixed. She runs.

You’re crushed. You plan to leave. No sense sticking around. There are always rope tricks to practice.

Then, there’s all the stupid stuff you know about. The idiot children, the Ursa Minor, Trixie’s attempt to deal with it… and Twilight Sparkle. She saves your life.

And you feel the flare of hatred. For so long, you’ve felt nothing but hatred for yourself, but for the first time, your false ego feels real. You’ve been shown up. Humiliated in front of everypony. That fire finally feels real.

Imagine that. Twilight Sparkle has given you a reason to live, because you hate her. And the story now spins neatly in your mind. She’s a hero. She’s beloved by all and pure of heart.

The story will be beautiful. Trixie has zero worth in her own life. She has no story. But Trixie can be great and powerful in Twilight’s story! Everypony always remembers the villain! The rival! Now, You have a reason to live! To learn more magic!

Do you understand, Twilight?!”

Trixie stood up, eyes manic. Twilight recognized this tone of voice, and a shiver went down her spine. Last time she had heard this insane impassioned tone, it had ended with Trixie jumping off the falls.

“Larmoya is dead, but she is remembered forever as a part of Starswirl! The period where Trixie saw herself as your rival was the happiest she has ever been!” Trixie was now openly weeping. Tears trailed down her cheeks to land on the bedspread. “Trixie needed to be part of your story! She bought the Alicorn amulet because the story of her seeking revenge was a perfect narrative to escalate the rivalry! But then you- you forgave her! You didn’t swear vengeance or tell her she was beneath you, driving forward the screw of rivalry! You spurned her! You forgave her!

You broke my heart, Twilight! It hurt to know that you couldn’t hate me the way I hated you! The way I needed you! And then you went and became a fucking Princess!”

The force of that word was enough to nearly knock Twilight over.

“When I saw that newspaper, it broke me. Your story had become so much bigger than I could ever imagine. Your duel with Trixie was no longer an important and thrilling chapter in your life, it was now a comedic scrap with a poor deluded bum. A unicorn too stupid to see she never had a chance to be your rival. You were a goddess! You were now peers with the sun and the moon! Useless, stupid, tiny Trixie could never hope to be an important part of a story that now lasted until the stars explode!

THAT is why I tried to kill myself, Twilight. I called you out here in the hope that you could grant a dead idiot's last wish, and let her be thrown over the falls in a duel she could pretend was the kind of climax her terrible story would never see! To pretend in my last moments that I was your Larmoya, and that my death would forever linger as part of your story. That I could be worth something!

And you couldn’t even give me that. Now Trixie has nothing. No story, no rival, no hatred, and no death. Just a perfect plastic princess who doesn’t care that she exists, but can’t even be indifferent enough to let her horrible life end.”

By the end, every word had stabbed Twilight like a knife. The true depth of the despair was like nothing she had ever seen before.

She looked at the shuddering form of Trixie, now scrunched into the tightest heap possible, wracked with sobs. Deep, ugly sobs of the sort that show there’s nothing left inside to let out.

Twilight felt a ping of instinct. It was a terrible idea. Awful. But maybe it was right.

Twilight scooched close, running a hoof down Trixie’s withers. Trixie, sobbing a little less, lifted her head slightly to look at her.

As it raised, Twilight gave it the lightest magic nudge to send it higher.

And then Twilight kissed her.