Hijinks, Part Two
“The Great and Powerful Trixie moseyed elegantly up the aisle of the convenience store, with the grace and sobriety of a pony possessed—”
“Isn’t that supposed to be a bad thing?”
“—possessed by somepony very elegant, when her eyes met with those of the hot clerk pony at the desk, and she came to a startling revelation! Zounds!”
“‘Zounds?’”
“What if the clerk thought Trixie was high?”
“You were high.”
“I’m telling the story. So Trixie devised an ingenious scheme: She would return to the aisles of the store, and pretend as though she were merely shopping, rather than seeking to satiate substance-induced cravings! So, carrying her whole haddock, she seamlessly spun on her hooves and walked up and down the aisle, and at last arrived at the item that would allay the clerk’s suspicions: an extra-large box of oat bars. With this stroke of genius, she strode confidently back towards the front of the store, only to arrive in front of the clerk pony and enlist her incredible powers of deduction to consider a possibility! What if the oat bars weren’t enough? So she winked at the clerk, with both her eyes since she was lacking her usual unparalleled motor control, and turned around yet again! She paced the aisles, wondering to herself what to pick up, calculating and considering what magical third item could be added to an extra-large box of oat bars and an entire raw haddock to make the perfectly ordinary combination of ingredients that would render the Great and Powerful Trixie flawlessly disguised and the clerk pony bedazzled by her normalcy! She thought and thought, and then the idea came to her like… like… well, it came to her! More oat bars! So, confidence restored, she turned back to the front of the store, and she walked with single-minded focus—”
“How did this end?”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie was kicked out of the store.”
“It feels like a lot of your stories end that way.”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie would not be The Great and Powerful Trixie without her Great and Powerful Thematic Consistency.” The pair giggled.
Even after months of knowing her, Starlight couldn’t understand for the life of her why Trixie was so unpopular among the majority of ponies in town. Whenever she tried to entertain the idea of not being delighted by the presence of the adorably egotistical showmare, the gears in her brain ground to a halt and quickly backtracked to the most recent point at which she was thinking positively of Trixie. They usually didn’t have to backtrack very far.
She knew the ego was largely a fabricated act, but she also knew that Trixie adored her own stage persona, and had resolved long ago to give her the most opportunities possible to express it. Trixie let her be the neurotic, nervous, and occasionally morally-ignorant pony that she was; it would be terribly rude not to return the favor. Not to mention boring. Besides, to someone as insecure as Starlight (a flaw she would be the second to acknowledge, after Trixie), being around a pony who, despite frequent failings, displayed a literally unmatched confidence and spontaneity, filled her with… Well, it filled her with a lot of things.
She nudged Trixie, who was currently trying to see how dramatically low she could wear her hat without tripping over a tree root. “Um, where are we going? You realize I just walked this whole way, right?” Not to mention that she’d brought tea so it could be drunk, not so it could be shoved in Trixie’s cupboard before she was dragged out the door.
The two were walking swiftly along the river, and, more relevantly, along the path back through the center of Ponyville. Trixie almost invariably made the plans for their incredibly sporadic meetings, which Starlight appreciated, having such a busy schedule herself. Besides, she liked to think the sense of mounting dread Trixie could sometimes instill was good for her complexion.
Trixie scoffed. “Of course Trixie realizes! She was watching you the whole time, as she does at all hours of the day. That came out weird. She is merely building suspense, as behooves somepony of her craft.” She leaned over conspiratorially, the effect somewhat diminished by her hat slipping down entirely over her lilac eyes. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t be bringing you along if I didn’t think it’d be fun.”
Starlight nodded uncertainly. “Riiiiight. And this won’t be like the time you dragged me all around town looking for a table?”
“Not unless you have any more magic bottles of hatred lying around. Let me know if you do, though, ‘cause that gave me some ideas.”
“And it won’t be like the time you accidentally plucked Fluttershy’s songbirds?”
“Of course not!”
“Or the time you tried to get me to cut part of the palace off to use as a mirror in your wagon?”
“It matched the color scheme.”
“Or the time you asked Thorax if he could help you shapeshift into Princess Celestia?”
“It…” Trixie paused, scrunching her face. “There are things this is less like.”
Starlight shook her head and levitated Trixie over a large stone she was about to trip over. “Well, at least now I know you’re being honest.”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie is alw—”
“Oh, you are not. You’d get bored.”
This banter continued in much the same vein for the following ten minutes, until Starlight realized that her retracing of her earlier walk was not stopping, and was beginning to look as though it would continue right back to…
“Trixie, why are we going to the palace?” she asked, with a (currently) small amount of concern.
“Because Trixie,” Trixie said, waving enthusiastically to ponies who responded with looks as though they’d never encountered the gesture before, “Has had an idea. And you’re going to help me with it!”
“I am?”
“Yes!” Trixie patted her on the head. “It’s very nice of you. One of only many reasons you deserve to be”—Starlight’s eye twitched—“Trixie’s special somepony!”
The pair entered the palace (which was open to the public and generally lacked security, as Starlight was very acutely aware) and walked down a corridor. Then they walked down another, identical corridor. And another. And another. And a few more for good measure.
Trixie had begun to complain sometime around corridor number… What was it? One? “Starliiiiight! You live here! Why are we lost?”
Starlight glanced at her in disbelief. “I don’t know, maybe because I’m not the one leading us?”
“Trixie hoped having you here would reassure the palace that Trixie meant well,” Trixie sulked. “But apparently nothing can quench the flames of hatred in the hearts of—”
“Okay, okay, calm down,” Starlight quickly said, having heard a similar spiel several times in the very recent past. Reassure the palace, right. Why didn’t that seem as absurd as it should?
After a moment of confusion, she remembered the fireplace, that night after they’d saved Stygian and banished the Pony of Shadows. After she comforted Twilight and had been smacked in the face by the prospect of her new immortality, when she’d first considered her domain as a princess, it had lit itself.
Perhaps Trixie was onto something?
“What if, instead of hoping the palace likes me, you just… ask it nicely?”
Trixie blinked and gave her a look of confusion. “Palaces aren’t intelligent, silly.”
“Then why—of course, you’re right, silly me. But, er… try anyway?” She gave Trixie what she hoped was an encouraging smile.
“Okaaaay…” Trixie thought for a moment, pacing back and forth in the wide crystal hallway. “Starlight’s palace! Um, and also Twilight and her friends’ I guess! Can you pleeeeeease let the Great and Powerful Trixie find the room she’s trying to go to? Trixie means only the best for Starlight, and she’ll be very careful!”
Very careful? With what?
Trixie waited for several seconds. Then she sighed and began walking back in the direction they’d come. “Oh well. The Great and Powerful Trixie’s critics truly have no shame. And to think, they say—oh here it is.”
And indeed, through reluctant acceptance by the palace or sheer dumb luck, there was a door off to the side that was slightly different from the others. Trixie sauntered towards it, all moping forgotten, and, with a dramatic swish of her cape, swung open the door. Starlight followed her in.
It was the room with the mirror portal. The one to Canterlot High.
Starlight’s brain instantly made several connections, projections, reflections, and, for good measure, some objections. “No. No. No, no, no, no no no no no.”
Trixie had started waving her hoof dismissively before she’d even reached the second no. “Oh, Starlight, you worry too much. You haven’t even heard the plan yet!”
Starlight began pacing in a manner that would’ve made Twilight proud. “Trixie, the last time I went through this portal, we ended up fighting—no! That doesn’t even matter! It doesn’t matter that things turned out okay last time, this is too much. The stakes of anything to do with this portal, with that world, are too high.”
Trixie walked over and attempted to put her hoof on Starlight’s shoulder. It promptly slid off as the pacing continued. Undeterred, Trixie said, “I bet I can convince you. Especially when you hear my plan!”
Starlight, with some effort, slowed from a pace to a sort of stationary trot. “Oh, okay! Explain it to me, then—explain the one perfect idea that’ll make this okay. I know you’re much smarter than ponies give you credit for, Trixie, and I’m sure you’ve thought this through, but I’m sorry, no matter how good it is, we just can’t—“
“We’re going to sell interdimensional magic fireworks!” Trixie announced with glee, having waited long enough for the opportunity to leap into the air.
Starlight’s trot petered out, along with, she’d later conclude, a not-insignificant portion of her sanity. “...Okay. I was prepared to poke holes in your plan even if it sounded really clever, but that actually sounds so straightforwardly bad that I don’t really know what to say now.”
“Don’t worry, my most trusted assistant marefriend helper pony, Trixie will say it for you: ‘That’s a great idea, my Greatest and Most Powerful Commander Trixie! Let’s do it right now!’” Trixie wrapped Starlight’s left wing around herself and began walking happily towards the portal.
Starlight’s hooves scrabbled on the crystal floor. “Commander?”
“Aw, do you not like it? I was trying out a new title, but I’ve got a lot of ideas, I’m sure you’ll like one of them.”
“No, it’s, er, great, but, I just don’t think for the love of Celestia stop moving!”
Trixie gave a long-suffering sigh and acquiesced. “Whaaaat.”
“Don’t give me that. You know we can’t do this.”
“Trixie knows nothing of the sort!” Trixie said indignantly. “Give me one good reason we can’t.”
“Okay, first, what on Faust are interdimensional magic fireworks?”
“Trixie is so glad you asked. You know how Trixie has always wanted to magically enhance her fireworks for her shows? Well, she finally managed to make spells stable enough to imbue them into powder! And she’s so excited that showing them off in this world simply isn’t enough! Besides, imagine how much more impressed ponies will be in a world where they aren’t even used to magic!” Trixie bounced in excitement, looking hopefully at Starlight. “Oh, and the interdimensional part is just because that’s where we’re selling them.”
Starlight had promised to kick the habit of bottling up her emotions, figuratively or otherwise. This was an advantage in this situation, because, had she not, she would’ve already graduated from a glass bottle to a milk jug. Or possibly a barrel. “It’s ‘people’ in that world, not ponies. And have you considered that selling magic items to a population not familiar with magic could have disastrous consequences? I mean, look at what’s already happened every time magic artifacts show up there! You heard about the memory stone, right? Or the crown? Or the sirens?”
“Ah,” Trixie said, with all the crafty manipulation skills of a baby tadpole, “And have you heard of, oh, Trixie doesn’t know, the Elements of Harmony? Which have saved the world like, twenty times?”
“That is not remotely the same thing.”
“And all those bad things have been happening because magic has ended up in the hooves—”
“Hands.”
“—of the wrong ponies! People, whatever. Obviously magic is great when the people using it are good! Trixie would never be foolish enough to sell anything dangerous to people who wouldn’t handle it well.”
Starlight was beginning to reconsider her assumption that she wouldn’t need to deconstruct Trixie’s plan. “How do you know anything about the people in that world? You’ve never even visited.”
“Trixie knows from what you’ve said that the people there are basically the same as the ponies here. So if they’re trustworthy here, they’re trustworthy there, right?” Trixie rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. “Also, Trixie maaaay have looked through Twilight’s journal communication thingie to cross-reference responsible customers.”
“You wha—nevermind.” This was getting ridiculous. And something didn’t add up, given what Starlight knew about her friend. “Why are you putting so much effort into this?” She searched for a diplomatic way to put her concern. Trixie wasn’t lazy. Far from it—she’d lived on her own for years before Starlight ever met her. It was just that… “You’ve always been very… path of least resistance. This doesn’t feel like you.”
Trixie huffed and finally stopped pacing around the portal. “Fine. I want to visit the human world. I really really want to. And…” She thought for a moment. “Yeah.”
That made more sense. “You know, you could’ve just asked.”
“And you would’ve said no!” Trixie said accusatively.
“No!” Yes, she would’ve. “At least, I would’ve been more likely to say yes than I am to this.”
Trixie smirked. “Ah, but you’re already thinking about going along with Trixie’s plan.”
She was? “I am?”
“Uhuh! You want to go back there too. Don’t you want to see Sunset when you’re not both trying not to die? Trixie can see it in your face.”
“I… don’t think you can see something that specific on anypony’s face.”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie can.” Trixie bowed lightly. “Also, it’s not fair that you’ve gotten to go and Trixie hasn’t.”
Unfortunately, that was true, and the part of Starlight that aggressively demanded fairness in all things (a more substantial part of her than she’d admit, even though in any other pony it’d be a trait considered worthy of respect) immediately sympathized. After all, how often did somepony get the chance to visit another world? How many ponies even could? Wasn’t it the duty of the ponies with that opportunity to take advantage of it, rather than wasting their privilege? And didn’t she have the authority to think about this kind of thing, now that she was technically a princess?
Shut up, me! We’re trying not to agree with her!
Trixie continued, unkindly not giving Starlight the chance to win her argument with herself before attacking from a second front. “Come ooooon, you know you want to give Trixie what she wants!”
For Celestia’s sake. “You know, usually it’s considered polite to not say that part out loud, even if you’re hoping it’s true.”
“Why would Trixie be polite instead of winning an argument?” Trixie began slowly walking towards the portal, not breaking eye contact with Starlight. “Plus, she’s right, isn’t she?”
…
“Yes.”
Trixie squealed in delight and leapt on Starlight for the second time in half an hour, leaving her hat to float to the ground where she’d been standing. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! I’ll make sure you don’t regret this!”
Starlight choked, partially from surprise and partially from being choked. “I didn’t agree yet!”
“Yesyoudid! Come on, help me with the boxes!”
“What boxes?”
Twenty minutes later, a pile of boxes—some cardboard, some wooden, and some mostly tape—lay in front of the portal.
Trixie, in her eternal wisdom, had lugged all of them into the palace the day before (or rather, into the first room the palace would let her find, which turned out to be a pantry that Spike hopefully hadn’t used in the past day) in the assumption that Starlight would agree with her proposal. Starlight was beginning to suspect she was the most manipulable pony in Equestria, but she could worry about that after administering… interdimensional magic trade.
Twilight was going to kill her.
“Hey, Twiwight won mine tha we’re doin thih, righ?” Trixie mumbled around a box she was dragging with her teeth, five other boxes grasped in her magic aura. They plopped down unceremoniously with more momentum than Starlight generally preferred to see explosives moving with.
“Ha! Hahahaha! Nope! Not at all!” Starlight said believably.
“Great!” Trixie beamed. “This should be everything. We’ll need a couple trips. Let’s go!”
Starlight pulled her back across the largely frictionless floor with her magic. “Waaaaaitwaitwaitwait. If we’re doing this, you need to be ready. How much do you know about—”
There was a loud sneeze.
It didn’t come from Trixie.
The two looked at each other. “Trixie… Do any of your fireworks sneeze?” Starlight asked with trepidation.
Trixie thought for a long moment. “Not anymore, I don’t think. Those weren’t super stable and I didn’t want the others going off, soI—”
There was another sneeze.
Starlight immediately ran a scanning spell over every box in the pile. Fireworks, fireworks, concerningly large fireworks, fireworks, signs, fireworks, a pony, fireworks— wait. She grabbed a box from near the bottom of the pile, shoved another in its place before gravity could work its whims on the above boxes, and opened it.
Inside the box lay a curled up, trembling Lyra Heartstrings.
Starlight made a strangled noise. “Wh— you— This portal is not a public transportation service!”
Lyra raised a hoof sheepishly. “Um, I can ex—”
“No! No explaining! This was a terrible idea and I don’t care why you want to go to the human world, we’re leaving, Trixie, grab the boxes—”
“Actually, I am a human,” said Lyra nervously.
Trixie looked at her as though she’d grown two heads, or perhaps two hands. “Um, you don’t look like one. Do you mean, like, in a past life or something, because I don’t think—”
“No, I’m the human Lyra!” the possibly-human Lyra said, voice cracking. She sat up in the box. “I’ve been stuck here since the Friendship Games! I promise I’m telling the truth!”
Starlight blinked. “What.”
“After the games, the Twilight from this world came through our portal to visit—I saw her come out! But there was already a Twilight there, who I think must’ve been the original human Twilight, so they were confused and went to talk for a while, so I figured the portal would stay open for a bit, and I wanted to see the magical pony world everyone was talking about so bad, so I went through when they weren’t looking and even though it was super weird it was also the best thing I’d ever seen and I thought that maybe the Lyra here would want to visit my world so I managed to find her and she did so we switched places and then we haven’t been able to talk to each other or get back through the portal because I don’t know how it works!” Lyra gasped in another breath. “And it’s been so long and I love it here but I just want to go home and I overheard Trixie a couple days ago saying she’d be visiting and I thought since you’re her marefriend and a princess and all it’d be okay so I put myself in this box and please take me with you?”
Starlight’s brain had shut down and gone into emergency power-saving mode several run-on sentences ago. Trixie, on the other hand, grinned widely and hugged the tearful Lyra. “Of course we’ll take you! This is perfect!”
That comment was sufficiently insane to jolt Starlight back to reality. “What about this is perfect?! Were you even listening?!”
“Trixie was listening very well, thank you. And now she guesses we have to go to the human world, don’t we~? I mean, we can’t just leave Lyra here!”
The Lyra in question frowned—or, gave it her best shot, given that Trixie’s hooves were squishing her cheeks. “That kind of hurts.”
Starlight stomped over to Trixie. “Did you plan this?!”
“I’m actually a bit offended you’d think I’d do that,” Trixie said, removing her wandering hooves from the relieved Lyra’s face.
“...I don’t.” Starlight sagged. “I’m sorry. This day has just been… crazy. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop any time soon.” She turned to Lyra. “I’m so sorry about all of this, and especially that you didn’t feel you could seek help from any of us. Of course we’ll take you home.”
Lyra smiled a slightly watery smile. “It’s okay. Really, I did choose to come here, and I never hated it. It’s just… a lot.” She curled back up in the box, shifting into a relatively cozy-looking position. “Can we go now?”
Starlight stared. “Well, now that we know you’re here, you can just walk.”
“Oh.” The mint-green unicorn sat up. “Um. Right.”
A minute later, Starlight, Trixie, and an anxious Lyra were lined up before the now-activated portal (the fireworks being left for the second trip).
“Ready?” Starlight said, glancing at the others. “Well… Lyra, I guess you know what to expect. Trixie—”
“Two legs, weird spider hooves, yeah yeah. Let’s go!” Trixie leaned back and took a flying leap through the portal, once again leaving her hat behind.
Starlight groaned and picked it up with her magic. “She’ll be the death of me. Come on.”
They stepped through.
Immediately, Starlight was thrust into a swirling vortex of colors, reduced to weightlessness, and had all sense of direction wrung out of her like a damp towel. It felt as though she would be sick, if her stomach could only decide which way was up. She’d been through the portal before, but it wasn’t exactly something you could prepare for. She felt freezing- or was she on fire? Or did she have no nerves at all? Or was she standing upright on the pavement in front of Canterlot High School?
She was, as it turned out. The portal didn’t give you much of an adjustment period.
She leaned against a solid side of the horse statue, panting. Something was wrong with her eyes. Everything was grey, and she could barely see… Or, no, it was dark. Why was it dark?
“Trixie?” She said, voice surprisingly steady. “Why is it night?”
Trixie stepped into her vision from the left, stride confident but wobbly. “I planned it this way! In Equestria, the princesses move the sun and moon. But Twilight says they move themselves here!” Starlight was fairly certain Trixie had lost her balance by now and was just trying to prolong her slow fall to the asphalt. “And you say they don’t have magic. So at this time of year, it’s already nighttime! Cool, huh? Ow!” She finally gave in and tumbled to the ground. “I figured it’d be safer.”
As she got up to help Trixie, Starlight spotted Lyra looking around out of the corner of her eye, and waved. “Are you okay?”
The now-ex-unicorn nodded, wobbling her arms to keep her balance upright after so long on all fours. “The portal was… a lot, but I… I’m just glad to be back. I need to find Lyra. The other one. She’ll be at my house.” She swallowed. “I hope.”
Starlight gave what she hoped was an encouraging smile, but she wasn’t sure, given her relatively little practice with human facial muscles. Muscle memory did seem to somehow transfer, which was interesting, given that the magic of ascension didn’t confer—not the time. “Come back here if you need anything at all. I don’t have my magic in this world—or my wings, I guess—but I’m not completely useless.” Lyra gave her a thumbs-up (a gesture Starlight wouldn’t be mastering any time soon) and ran into the darkness.
Right. Starlight stood up straight and squinted in the dark until she found Trixie, who’d righted herself and was staring at her, mouth slightly agape. “Okay, let’s go… wherever in Celestia’s name you want us to go, and then we can go back for the fireworks.”
“Um, Starlight?” A familiar voice said from beside her. “I’m over here.” Starlight looked, and there was Trixie, still on the ground, flexing her hands experimentally.
She looked back. The other Trixie was still staring at her.
Ah.
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Oh dear. Trixie times two can't be healthy for anyone's sanity.
11752825
It was great for mine! I don't know what you could possibly be talking about.
These two are such a wonderful disaster, love seeing what chaos they stir up.
I think you're seriously undervaluing baby tadpoles here.
This can only end well.
I see Starlight is desperately trying to discover if you can be demoted from being a princess.