The paper slips away from the quivering, sky blue hoof, lazily drifting to the furnished planks that comprise the floor of the cart. Above, lavender eyes remain fixed upon the point in space once occupied by the lettering, pupils having shrunk to the size of pinheads, slightly obscured by the curl of the silver mane that drapes over her face. One could think that the unicorn is a statue if not for the twitch nagging at the underside of her left eyelid.
“This is not happening.”
The words are spoken, in the solitude of Trixie’s cart, the only structure for miles in any direction, because they have to be spoken. They are the lone voice of reason in a world that must be ruled by Discord itself, for there can be no other explanation for the insanity presented on that scrap of parchment.
“This is not happening.”
As the sentence concludes itself, the unicorn snatches the unfurled scroll from its resting place upon the ground. She does so with a hoof rather than a horn, as if she fears it should take to laughing should it scent even a hint of magic. Like it waits to mock any claim she might have to greatness and power. Her eyes, still wide as dinner plates, rake over the arrangement of lettering and rows of sentences once more, scrutinizing them for some hidden meaning: a cipher, a message, anything that would subvert the plainly ludicrous declaration professed by the ink.
“This cannot be happening!”
Trixie finds nothing. Nothing beneath the words. Just the candid statement they had made as soon as she’d brushed away ashes left over from the emerald dragonfire and warily read the message just as she does now. For the seventh time. The words are the same, if a bit wobbily, though that may be from the lack of oxygen reaching her brain. The short, panicked breaths she takes are insufficient to properly sustain her. At this point, outrage alone is keeping her conscious, her horn flickering with a lilac glow as plants wilt and the whole carriage begins to shake, the ferocity of her ire spilling over into the delicate balance of the Hymn.
“THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!”
Exactly twenty-seven minutes later, a pegasus that had witnessed the resultant lavender mushroom cloud beholds a smoking crater that once passed for a tranquil meadow where one particularly vain showmare had decided to set down her wagon for the night. At the center of it sits four scorched wheels, one blue unicorn, staring into space and grinding her teeth, and a singed yet intact (for the fire-retardant charm woven into its fibers is the work of a master) piece of parchment that reads: “You are cordially invited to the coronation of Princess Twilight Sparkle.”.
It’s very easy to hate her. Very, very easy. From the way she tends not to converse, but lecture, the way she doesn’t look at you while she does it, the way everypony just flocks to her side, so eager to get a word in with her, the way her little mulberry feathers just rustle as she feigns bashfulness over the accolades heaped on her for absolutely no effort on her part, from that stupid pink stripe in her dumb manecut to all the many ways she is so absolutely perfect-
Well.
It is very easy for Trixie (formerly the Great and Powerful) to hate Twilight Sparkle.
Scratch that: Princess Sparkle. Because her head wasn’t already big enough. At the rate it’s inflating, surely it’ll fill the whole of the Palace Ballroom before they reach the evening.
“W-what? Oh thank you, Mister Fancy Pants- erm, alright. ‘Fancy’. Yes, Rarity did make this for- huh? Yeah, uh, I’m sure she’d be happy to make one for you. She’s over there by the stairs if you’d like to- My wings? Well, they’re certainly… feathery. My horn? Uh, you all know I was a unicorn yesterday, right?”
From her perch at the corner of the snack table, the sky-blue unicorn scowls even deeper. “Lousy attention horse,” she mutters, muffling her vitriol behind a mug of cider, courtesy of the orchard lorded over by Princess Sparkle’s orange crony. At four refills in, the fizzing amber barely even scorches her throat anymore.
“Now, Trixie,” says the Googly-Eyed, Bobbing-Blue-Hoof Shaped Avatar of Her Conscience, “You shouldn’t say such things about Sparkle, especially after she was nice enough to invite you to this party. You should go over and congratulate her, even if she is a prissy, spoilt, show-stealing, hoof-pointing, fat flanked-”
A few eyes turn in the direction of Trixie, and the mug comes back up, halfway masking the scowl lording over her face. It does little to mask the daggers that launch from her eyes into the sheepish, grinning face of Princess Sparkle. They are missiles turned on anypony that thinks to comment on the ire being directed at the newest member of the Royalty, and a strong deterrent at that. The incensed sorceress is given a wide berth by the other party goers, enough that the line of hate directed at the ever oblivious Princess Bucking Sparkle remains all but unbroken.
After a half hour passes without anypony saying one word to her, Trixie has absolutely no idea why she even bothered to attend.
“Because,” pipes up the GEBBHSAHC, “Twilight wanted to bury the hatchet and you knew it wasn’t doing any favors holding onto all that anger. It certainly isn't because she wanted to rub your muzzle in how she’s a Princess and you’re a dirty vagrant looking for yet another home BECAUSE TWILIGHT BUCKING SPARKLE MADE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO GET A JOB ANYWHERE EXCEPT ON A STUPID BUCKING ROCK FARM BECAUSE SHE’S A SNOTTY LITTLE BRAT THAT CAN’T STAND TO BE OUT OF THE SPOTLIGHT FOR FIVE DUMB MINUTES!”
And the sound of Trixie’s labored breathing echoes throughout the now silent ballroom, every pair of eyes focused on the sorceress, many with their jaws agape. In the center of it all, a little purple alicorn stares at her in horror, eyes glimmering with tears.
Trixie coughs. The mug comes up. Shoot. Empty again.
“Can I get a refill over here or what?”
Nopony thinks the night can get any worse after that.
A savvy showpony knows the value of an impromptu stage. As far as the aesthetics are concerned, our vengeful villainess is not so entirely repulsed by the crumbling overgrowth that is the Everfree Ruins. The décor kept by the former castle's amorphous tenant (floating azure torches, shadows cast without bodies, eyes and teeth hovering in the encroaching darkness) is certainly impressive, if a bit out of season, though come Nightmare Night, Trixie can see it making one heck of a haunted house.
The current literal haunting aside.
“And if that wasn’t bad enough,” the unicorn snarls, “that cyan ingrate had the audacity to throw me out! Me! That’s the last time I try to help put out any fires. Philistines.”
“PRAY TELL,” rumbles the roiling miasma of Nighmare Spirits in a thousand whispering shrieks, “WAS IT NOT THOU WHOM BLUNDERED INTO THE CANDELABRA, ‘FORE THINE ABRUPT EJECTION?”
“Slander! I was sabotaged! Somepony deliberately left that rug where I would trip over it! Anyway, it doesn’t matter; the point is that Sparkle’s a whiny clod and she needs to be dethroned!”
“THINE ANGER BLEEDS ACROSS THE WRETCHED HYMN, AS SWEET AS NECTAR FROM THE FLOWER. YOURS IS A DARK TASK, AND THOU HAST CHOSEN WISELY IN SEEKING US OUT THAT IT MAY BE DONE.”
Trixie wisely omits the fact that empowering herself with Nightmare energy was a low option on an ever shrinking list of formulae in regard to the execution (no pun intended) of regicide.
(In her defense, the plan to steal the Element of Magic and drop the moon on Sparkle’s head had been proceeding swimmingly, until some twit with an ape fetish had attempted and botched the same thing last week).
“You’ve subdued an alicorn before,” says Trixie, “I’m sure you could do it again.”
“WITH GUSTO! WE LONG TO SEE TWILIGHT SPARKLE CRUSHED ‘PON THE GROUND, HER SERFS PROSTRATED BEFORE US IN A FUTILE PLEA OF MERCY! GLADLY SHALL WE AID THEE, SORCERESS, AND IN TANDEM WITNESS THE TRIUMPHANT END OF THINE HUMILATIONS!”
“I've had quite enough of those, thank you.”
“ ‘TIS SETTLED, THEN! COMMIT UNTO TO OUR HOST THINE SOUL AND WE SHALL GRANT THEE THE POWER TO VISIT RUINATION ‘PON THY ENEMIES!”
Silence. Several moments pass. A warbling croak emanates from the ancient mass, perhaps tantamount to an awkward cough.
“My soul,” Trixie repeats.
“INDEED,” echoes the Nightmare, a tendril of seething pitch reaching out. Curled within its grasp is a yellowed scroll, a gentle flick unfurling the parchment to reveal names and titles in dialects and symbols that the unicorn has never seen in even the oldest of museums.
“THE CHRONICLE NAMES ALL THAT CAME BEFORE AND ALL THAT BEAR THE MARK OF THE DESTROYER. TO WIELD OUR POWER IS TO KNOW DIVINITY, AND ONLY BY SIGNING THYSELF WHOLLY TO OUR MAJESTY CAN THE BARGAIN BE SEALED.”
Trixie blinks. She considers that train of thought. Decides she doesn’t like what she sees. Then she lights her horn and conjures up a quill, adding to the parchment in a series of neat, cramped strokes. The tentacle retracts, and the Nightmare swells.
“AN ACCORD IS STRUCK! WE WELCOME YOU, RAINBOW DASH, TO THE FOLD! THOU SHALL KNOW THE GLORY OF OUR FULL POWER, BEGINNING WITH THY LIBERATION FROM THE PEASANT NAME GRANTED BY THINE UNKNOWING AND COLORBLIND DAM!”
Trixie might have taken time to snicker and note it was the small things that made life worth living, but considering her tiny pony body is suddenly filling with a transformative animus of the Nightmare, she’s more concerned with how every molecule of her being appears to be on exploding. When the screaming finally stops (a full three minutes after she’s done changing) the spirits, skulls, torches, and Trixie are all gone. The ruins of Everfree are now occupied by a regal onyx unicorn as tall as Luna, with a roiling silver mane and tail as fine as mist. Eyes of the deepest violet, with draconic slits for pupils, open, and she bares her fangs in a malevolent grin of triumph. The demon formerly known as Trixie rears, cackling as the sky spontaneously roars with lightning.
“Beware, Twilight Sparkle,” the witch crows, “For Trixie is no more! There is only the Great and Powerful NIGHTMARE GLAMOUR!”
Some miles away, in Ponyville, a purple alicorn is concerned with the sound of approaching thunder, and wonders if Rainbow Dash had forgotten to inform them of a scheduled storm. Rainbow is more concerned with the fact that her hooves are now cloven and she seems to be belching fire.
The full moon completes its descent, at last making contact with the lip of the horizon, impossibly far to the west. Opposite the silver sphere rises its golden counterpart, gently ushering away the cloak of night. One sister retires, another rises, and dawn breaks over the smoking ruin of Ponyville, for the third time that season.
A diminutive purple alicorn pauses in her direction of Carousel Boutique’s reconstruction to squint and shield her eyes with a foreleg as the first rays of morning drape themselves adoringly along her soft frame. Few ponies on this green earth can claim the affection of Twilight Sparkle in the way she esteems regal Princess Celestia (though certain cyan pegasi have more than a few things to write about the subject under cover of multiple psuedonyms, with giggling oversight from particular alabaster unicorns). And as much as the newest of alicorns has come to admire Luna, the sunrise is a point of deeply rooted comfort for Celestia’s faithful student, a quiet assurance that no matter how far apart destiny may take them both, the Sun will always embrace Twilight in a warm blanket of love.
That said, this is a rare and spoilt kind of morning, one that leaves the youngest of the four Princesses with an oily serpent twisting within her stomach. Duty calls to her, a promise that she had made at the conclusion of last night’s turmoil, and it sickens her to think of what she must attend to. A measure of bitterness creeps into her demeanor, a scowl crosses her face that expresses the rising outrage that anything could take from her that special moment of security come the dawning of the sun. It isn’t enough that her entire schedule has been thrown off for weeks. It isn’t enough that she and her friends were called to face down their oldest and greatest enemy once again, one that had learned well from its previous mistakes. It isn’t enough that after all the kind attempts to reach out to that despicable mare are answered with spit in her eye.
Trixie has to rob her of the sunrise, too.
One moment of pettiness. She feels it is her right as the wronged party, as a princess, to let herself taste bitterness for one moment. And then she shuts her eyes, draws a hoof to her breast, and exhales the tribulations that have vexed her since the wee hours of the morning in emulation of her much wiser sister-in-law.
“Time for a break, everypony,” she announces, drawing the attention of her volunteers, “You’ve all be working very hard and I think some breakfast is called for, right?”
There are murmurs of agreement from the assembled equine.
“I’m glad you think so,” Twilight continues, “Let’s say we meet back here in one hour, and knock this thing out before midmorning. Call it a royal command.”
Her team of diligent workponies bow respectfully, gratefully before her, and then break off into sections, all heading towards the families and meals that await them, in whatever form they may be. Twilight’s leaderly smile fades as her thoughts turn once more to her duty, yet as she turns towards the smoking branches of her own home, images of the soft, feather-stuffed mattress contained within creep into the forefront of her mind. A wrap of fatigue curls around, eyelids growing heavy. Ironically enough, it is the sudden drooping of her head that jars her awake, gravity acting as a savvy enough alarm clock to keep her on point. With another sigh she turns towards the retreating duo of Time Turner and Ditzy Doo, both trotting towards the gaping hole currently providing entryway into Sugarcube Corner, and sluggishly trails after them.
“Coffee first,” she yawns to nopony in particular, “Then Trixie.”
As it happens, her friends would rather she just stick with “coffee”.
“Twilight, dear,” Rarity huffs without glancing up from the reapplication of her makeup via a compact, “You know that I adore your commitment to a promise, but I do have to ask, ‘Why bother?’.”
The alicorn doesn’t answer immediately, instead taking a long drag from the oaken liquid pooling within her cup. Ah, coffee; the source of all her power.
“You saw how bad she was after we got the Nightmare out, Rarity,” the princess at last answers, licking delectable wisps of the hallowed beverage off her lips, “Something’s gone out of Trixie and whatever’s left is hurting pretty badly.”
“Y’all ask me,” growls Applejack, nursing the charred brim of her character stetson, “I say let ‘er hurt some.”
“Applejack!” squeaks Fluttershy, “That’s not very nice!”
“Nah ve’y nithe?” splutters Rainbow Dash over the mummified slug of her scorched tongue, “Sh’ p’actic’ly des’toyed ‘onythille!”
A moment of silence passes as the rest of them attempt to decipher the pegasus’s injured jargle.
“Destroyed Ponyville!” Pinkie Pie squeals with a delighted hop, “I won! I won! Wait. What did I win?”
“Yeah, Flutters!” Applejack continues, “An’ even ignorin’ all th’ havoc she wreaked ‘fore she sold her s- er, Rainbow’s soul t’ th’ Nightmare, think ‘bout all th’ other times she’s done made our lives mis’rable!”
“That doesn’t mean we should make her suffer, AJ,” Twilight interjects, “Nopony is beyond a second chance.”
“What about a third chance?” Rarity grumbles, “She only smashed my home and workplace.”
“An’ burnt mah hat,” Applejack grouses.
“Th’ee sol’ mah sole ‘oo thah Nigh’rare!” Rainbow hisses.
“She. Burnt. Mah. Hat,” Applejack seethes.
“Not to mention turning all the cakes the Cakes had baked into hungry cake golems and forcing us to blow them all up before I could even throw one birthday party where we got to eat the guest of honor!” wails Pinkie, “Not. ONE! SINGLE! CAKEPONY!”
Twilight blinks. So does everypony else.
“An’ she burnt mah hat!” Applejack roars, angrily hurling her tattered inheritance onto the table, “Twi, I know that you an’ Flutters try t’see th’ good in everypony, but there’re jes’ some thin’s y’ cain’t forgive!”
Twilight sighs, sipping away last of her coffee and with it the last of her precious moments away from business. “I’m sorry that you feel that way, Applejack. And I know that Trixie has done very reprehensible things. But I think that somehow I started this, if what she said last night has any weight to it. I don’t expect you to forgive her, but I have to try. I have to try and make this right.”
There’s grumbling and irate sighs (some kind of raspberry on Rainbow Dash’s part), but no actual resistance as Twilight stands and proceeds out through the hole. Down the ruined streets she trudges, scorched buildings and beleaguered, impromptu repairponies hard at work rebuilding their homes. It’s familiar work, an old routine, but to recall Trixie’s (or Nightmare Glamour’s, rather) snarling visage, standing amidst the burning wreckage, accusing the princess of driving her to such lengths, chills the alicorn’s blood. The bitterness returns, arguing that she and Trixie weren’t friends, that she was not responsible for the dark thoughts that trouble the amateur magician, and once again it is disregarded just as swiftly. As she approaches the Golden Oaks library, sans the northern wall and a good chunk of the reference section, Twilight sighs once more.
She’s been doing that a lot today.
It is her responsibility. As a princess, as a fellow practitioner of magic, as a pony, Trixie needs a friend right now to soothe her haunted mind. Twilight is many things: a sorceress, a student, somewhat neurotic, often irritable, possessed of an insatiable curiosity of all things academic, and most recently: an alicorn. But never, in any way shape or form, has she been, nor will she ever be, cruel.
She enters through the door, in spite of the hole, to preserve some semblance of normalcy. It’s a hard image to keep up, in light of the madness that had possessed her… her what? Nemesis? Headache? Responsibility?
It’s far too early to be thinking about this.
Regardless, Twilight crosses the book-strewn floor to the shut door barring entryway to the reading room. She knocks politely. Waits.
Silence.
“Trixie?” calls the alicorn, “It’s Twilight. I’m here to check on you, like I promised. May I come in?”
More silence. The purple pony interprets the lack of objection as consent, and opens the door.
Darkness envelops her, the room a dim cavern wreathed in dust. Through the shuttered blinds lilts a few rays of her mentor’s fiery charge, faintly depicting the silhouette of a table, and the unicorn whose head is draped piteously upon it. A feeble lavender glow briefly illuminates Trixie and the dead look on her face, the tired bags under her eyes, and the cracker that slides between her crumb-covered lips. The princess takes a step forward, jumping slightly as something crunches beneath her hoof, an investigation revealing the floor to be littered with crumpled wrappers and bags. The alicorn huffs.
“I see you found my pantry,” Twilight grumbles.
“I needed comfort food,” Trixie grunts, a line of magic shoving another cracker into her overstuffed maw.
“Speaking in the first person, are we?”
“Third person pronouns are for winners.”
Well. That isn’t a good sign. A plastic bag crinkles as Trixie continues rooting for more confections.
“This can’t go on forever, you know,” Twilight points out.
“Says you,” the unicorn snaps, “There’s nothing but anguish outside. Why should I leave?”
Crinkle.
“Oh do not tell me that you’re out of peanut butter crackers!”
Twilight sighs. Again. “Because that. Now, look at me…”
Defiant to the end, Trixie remains slumped where she is, until a pink shimmer encases the whole of her blue form. She squawks as she is buoyed upward and inelegantly deposited in front of her ruler. Like an insolent foal, she pointedly avoids making eye contact with the alicorn, a nuisance the Princess ultimately abides.
So with Trixie there in front of her, Twilight… wonders what to do next. Unease flickers within her, a scathing comment on how unprepared she is bobbing around in her mind. Okay. No plan. What would Princess Celestia do?
Her horn lights again, teleporting in a silken cloth from the next room. Tentatively, awkwardly, she touches the sheet to the unicorn’s muzzle, scrubbing away the muck and crumbs that have taken root there. The motion does finally get Trixie to look at her, she focusing on Twilight with a pointed and sharp glare. Our heroine winces, but continues her grooming of the other mare, noting the stained, matted trails of fur leading down from her eyes.
She should say something.
“Sometimes,” she begins, and fights not to immediately bite off her tongue. Really? That’s how she’s going to approach this?
“Sometimes…”
Yep.
“…our archnemeses get made into Princesses. And it isn’t fair. But these things happen. And the best we can do is just accept that it did in fact happen and move on to greener pastures.”
The young alicorn is fully aware of how much hostility could ever be packed into one deadpan stare. She’s getting one of the most ferocious right now. And she’s also aware that she deserves it. But, all those letters to the Princess can’t have been for nothing so she delves back into her reserve of fortune cookie lessons accumulated from her time in Ponyville and surfaces with another little gem that makes her want to bury her head in the ground.
“It’s also important to remember,” she continues nonchalantly, for the alternative is to cry forever, “That we are all lovely, special ponies, and we all have something special to offer. So when… our archnemeses get made into Princesses –” Twilight hopes that the heat rising in her cheeks isn’t visible “- we keep in mind that it isn’t our fault, and is in no way a negative reflection on us.”
“How?”
The edge on the magician’s words is enough to freeze Twilight solid. At last she looks up from the inanity of her task, meeting the fire in Trixie’s eyes head on.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
“Because-”
“No,” interrupts a seething unicorn, “Shut up. Shut up and listen, for once in your life. Magic is my life. It has been my life since I was a tiny foal. I was the first in my class to get my cutie mark, and when it came, it was for, surprise surprise: magic. I studied at Hoofington University for years to reach the level I was at when I first came to Ponyville. I loved my gift with every fiber of my being, wanted to honor it by becoming the greatest magician the world had ever seen. To that end, regardless of what mistakes I’ve made, how I know I misused it, I dedicated my life to magic.
“And then I met you.”
Twilight recoils slightly, struggling for any response. She can only choke.
“In one second,” Trixie hisses, seething, “You brought my entire world crumbling down around my ears. In one moment you stomped every effort I’d ever made, every minute I’d spent pouring over old tomes and manuals. The second you tossed aside that Ursa Minor, I was nothing more than a footnote in the great legacy of Twilight Sparkle. And that’s all I’ll ever be.
“No matter what I do, no matter how hard I apply myself, I will never be as good as you. Never. You are everything I want to be. You have everything I ever dreamed of having. Ponies love you. The Hymn loves you more than any other unicorn in Equestria. The Princesses love you so much that they made you one of them. I’m not your archnemesis. I’ll never be anything more than that one-trick pony you showed not once, but three times now. So don’t tell me that it isn’t a reflection on me. You being a Princess is nothing but a black mark on my record, because it does nothing but remind me of how inadequate I am.”
The alicorn is able to choke out the beginning of a reply. “Trixie… I didn’t…”
The unicorn laughs, bitter and low, almost a sob. “Of course you didn’t. You were too busy living my dream. You were doing magic I can only ever dream of performing. I hate my cutie mark now, Sparkle. I hate my gift. And without that, what do I have? Tell me: what am I without my magic?”
The tears are long since dried up. The shell that calls itself Trixie just stares hollowly into her ruler, imploring her for any sort of validation. Twilight feels sick, meeting that stare. She wants to run. Run and hide under the wing of Princess Celestia. She tries to find that pettiness again, ration out why Trixie’s hopelessness isn’t her fault. She can see the logic, but it rings hollow. Here is a pony that needs her, and she cannot in good conscience abandon her. Twilight reaches up with a hoof, puts it to a sky blue cheek.
“You are still one of the single most talented magi I’ve ever seen,” Twilight says, “You – no. Now it’s your turn to shut up. Royal order: stop talking. You said it: your magic is a gift. You wield is more deftly than any other unicorn I’ve ever met. So give yourself credit. Your magic isn’t gone. You haven’t lost your touch. Heck, you nearly ripped Ponyville in half last night! Do you know how many counterspells I had to blow through to keep you from casting those disjunction beams?”
“I was channeling the Nightmare. Of course I was powerful.”
“The Nightmare doesn’t have any real ability. Everything it has it takes from other ponies. Last night was all you. So pat yourself on the back there.”
“Oh joy. I can inspire hordes of angry ponies to dip me in tar and feathers for the rest of my life.”
“Well, archnemesis is a step above footnote, isn’t it? Yes you are, don’t contradict me. That said, villain isn’t a healthy place to be. So I’ll tell you what you can be without magic, if you’d like: my friend.”
The magician narrows her eyes, and the hoof drops from her face. “The joy has been doubled; finally I can trail along mooning after Princess Sparkle like everypony else.”
“That’s not what-” Another sigh, the biggest yet. “Trixie. You don’t want to be the best magician. You want to be appreciated. You want to be loved. Harsh as it is to hear, you have a compulsive need for positive reinforcement. I know; I get like that all the time. But there are much easier ways to get that. I’m willing to show you, if you’ll let me.”
Twilight raises her hoof again, this time only at shoulder level, and outstretched in a gesture of peace. Trixie stares at the limb balefully, shying away from it with the air of a suspicious alley cat that’s been kicked one too many times. Yet she’s intrigued. Hopeful. In spite of spite, the lightness in her chest suggests she wants this.
“Will there be more peanut butter crackers?” she inquires slowly.
Twilight smiles. “Sure.”
“Then the Great and Powerful Trixie accepts your offering, Twilight Sparkle.
It’s haughty. It’s fussy. It’s snobbish in ways that would make even Rarity grind her teeth in irritation. It refuses to dirty her frog with a plebian hoofshake. It’s everything the old Trixie was and Twilight couldn’t be happier.
That is Trixie’s failing, one that she must overcome daily if she’s to make this friendship work. As the unicorn understands it her sentence could have been much, much worse. Luna was quick to demand banishment (the report of another Nightmare, willingly embraced, apparently hitting too close to home) and Celestia had not disagreed. But Twilight fought (fought!) for Trixie against the elder royals on the matter, until at last both sisters were forced to concede her point. After all, if Chaos himself could be reformed, why not a former Nightmare?
Luna did not have much to say in reply to that (to Twilight’s heart-pounding, “I just played chicken with God so I’m gonna go throw up now” relief).
Of course, actions have consequences. Every Princess agreed that Trixie could not be simply absolved with a wave of a hoof. Penance was necessary, carried out under the watchful eye of Twilight, beginning with the reconstruction of Ponyville. That the unicorn understood, even if the dirty looks and rough bumps throwing her off her concentration while she was lifting something heavy did get old very quickly.
Philistines.
A familiar routine by now, the rebuilding of Ponyville lasted twelve days, and by the time it was finished, one could never have guessed the whole of the town had lain in smoldering ruin less than two weeks ago. Not that it was a welcome exercise, as the Ponyvillians had pointed out, harshly and often. Trixie understands bitterness. She cannot fault them, even now, least of all when their scathing remarks on that going there did indeed expedite the reconstruction.
That said, she has absolutely no problem hating them for visiting upon Equestria that plague of plagues, the ruination of sanity and one’s property everywhere, on a scale that even the Nightmare could not hope to ever match: children.
“DINKY!” snaps the magician, “Put that down! That is an antique and not for- Snips! Snails! Trixie explicitly forbade you two from chewing gum in the library! Spit it out! And, for the love of the Sisters, will somepony wake up Berry Pinch?”
Of all the forms of punishments she could have been sentenced to, it had to be teaching. Had to, according to Twilight Sparkle, eyes lighting up in oblivous wonderment as she informed a horrified Trixie that the rest of her community service would be directed teaching the unicorn foals of Ponyville the basics of magic. There is no nobler duty than the sharing of knowledge, according to the Princess, and no better way to make friends than to make friends with their foals.
Trixie hates foals; they smell bad, break everything they touch, and feel the need to scream like they’re being horribly murdered every minute of every hour. And Twilight had fought tooth and hoof for the magician to serve in academia rather than join the Nightguard hunting Changelings in the Badlands, where the land itself revolted against the Hymn to remain arid and scorching even under cover of night. And if the heat didn’t get you, the Changelings would.
Trixie would have preferred the Nightguard.
It’s too easy to hate Twilight Sparkle. Much too easy. For the immortal alicorn embodiment of all Harmony and Friendship, her naiveté astounds and infuriates. Put a bunch of foals in a room with a paroled criminal and you won’t get ponies coming together in the spirit of betterment: you get dirty looks and whispered questions not quite out of earshot. And after four weeks of that, then said paroled criminal’s patience starts to fray, and then…
And then Trixie has to take a good long look in the mirror and remind herself why Twilight is a Princess and she is not.
So she makes the best of her situation, and goes to work with the tools that she has.
“We call the flow of magic that runs through our land the ‘Hymn’,” says the magician, her horn aglow with a lavender haze, “because, like music, our individual resonance harmonizes. Who can tell me what ‘harmonize’ means?”
“It’s like when ponies work together, right?” Sweetie Belle squeaks, waving a foreleg about like she means to hang a flag from it.
“Correct. Cooperation. Unity. Harmony. It is the basis of our entire culture, expressed through the homonymous Elements. Combine the five virtues we are taught by our mothers and one can create a force powerful enough to do anything.”
“Like give Rainbow Dash her soul back?” asks Snips.
“WHY DOES EVERYPONY KEEP BRINGING THAT-“ a moment to clear her throat, “Yes, Snips. They returned Rainbow Dash’s soul. And is just, if not the tip of the iceberg, then well below the water, though the ocean knows no limit in its depths.”
Firelock blinks. “Wait, why are we learning about the ocean now? Is it magic, too?”
“I… n-no, it’s a metaphor for the capabilities of magic.”
“What’s a metaphor?” asks Snails.
“It’s for meta…ing,” cries Bloo, trailing off as she realizes she doesn’t actually have a joke.
Sweetie Belle groans. “I hate grammar class!”
Such does the conversation run amongst the younger unicorns. Meanwhile Trixie finds her old friend Eyelid Twitch is back, once again threatening to preclude a mushroom cloud. She shuts her eyes. Deep breaths. There’s only six weeks left of these brats.
“Divided,” she announces, the edge to her voice cutting through all distraction in an instant, “We fall. You all did a wondrous job on the project this week, and now it just has to go up. Who would like to try and lift it?”
Argue not the eagerness of foals: nine miniature hooves pop into the air, and nine times do their tiny horns crackle, sputter, and fail to lift the banner spread across the library floor.
“You see?” Trixie continues, “Alone, we are hardly capable of anything. But if we work together…”
The glow of her horn intensifies into a flare of lilac, a double corona lighting upon her birthright as vaporous aether fills the air, thick enough to nearly swim through. In the violet haze, nine little horns wink into life, a spectrum of soft glows as they know true magical stimulus for much the first time. Capability finds direction as they try again, nine little fields seizing upon the edges of their project. Yet still it is not enough.
“Come now,” says the magician, “Merge your fields. Trixie can only supply the magic for you to channel.”
A couple of “how”s begin to roll off a couple of tongues, the words dying as the unicorns process the ancient and instinctual knowledge that now surfaces in their minds. The little bubbles expand, snapping into one another as they grow into individuality. Within a moment, the nine fields are gone, replaced with one solitary grasp of telekinesis that ripples like the dew in Rainbow Dash’s mane. Firmly grasped within their animus, the banner begins to rise at the foals’ direction.
Trixie must smile, in spite of herself.
“Divided, we fall,” she says, “But united…?”
“We fly!” squeals Sweetie Belle delightedly.
A sigh. “Oh, close enough.”
And it’s right then, in the magic of unity and harmony, the class project hovering high enough that it’s the first thing anypony sees when they walk in the library, that the door opens. The unicorns all glance down from their standard to find their Royal Highness Twilight Sparkle, mouth agape in the wake of what she beholds. It’s not just her archnemesis beaming at her. It’s not just the filly and company whom Rarity had written off as hopeless have at last grasped the fundamental basics of Harmony. It isn’t even the worn and messy, hoofpainted hanging bidding her “Congratulations, Princess Twilight Spark”.
It’s all of it at once.
She doesn’t cry. Maybe she gets a little misty eyed, but Twilight doesn’t openly sob at the sight before her. She drops onto her haunches, struggling for words before the Oh-So-Smug Trixie smirking at her. All she can manage is, “Twilight Spark?”
Trixie shrugs. “I’d think by now you’d be used to ponies running out of space to write on.”
“Uh-huh. What am I being congratulated on?”
“Beating the Nightmare twice. Rebuilding Ponyville in record time. Saving my flank. Take your pick. But if I had to choose…”
And Trixie trots up to her quasi landlord and runs a hoof under one mulberry wing.
“It’s getting a pair of these.”
Twilight frowns. “Trixie, I’ve had these for two months now.”
“I know. And I never congratulated you.”
Violet eyes meet violet, and for a moment, Twilight sees something in them. Something sincere.
Just a moment, though.
“Nice work, Sparkle,” says the Great and Powerful Trixie, “Keep it up, and this rate you may even keep pace with me.” And when the magician turns, batting her princess across the face with a silvery tail, Twilight can only sigh. Smile, but sigh regardless.
“Excellent work, everypony,” says Trixie, noting the perspiration gathering upon her students, “You can let it go now.”
There’s a uniform gasp around the room as the physical Hymn winks out of existence, the banner flopping gracelessly to the ground. The foals drop onto their haunches and bellies, sucking down great lungfuls of icy oxygen as exhaustion overtakes them.
“Aw,” Trixie croons, “Are my little ponies tired? Well, if you all need to be sent home to rest, I guess you’ll all miss out on…”
The room fills with silence, save for the tiny panting of Trixie’s students.
“I said you’ll all miss out on…!” she barks, banging a rear hoof against a wall that runs through the adjoining breakfast nook.
“Oh!” comes a squeaky giggle, and then the room fills with confetti and streamers as party favors pour from the ceiling. From the kitchen doorway speeds a cart laden with punch and cakes, somehow defying gravity with their decidedly equine shape, pushed onward by a pink ball of sugar-flavored adrenaline.
“This SUUUUPER fantastic ‘Congratulations You All Did Magic Slash Twilight Is The Besterest Princess Ever’ Party!” gushes Pinkie Pie as she and her cart of desserts bounce around the room.
How she doesn’t drop anything or trip over the balloons strewn across the floor is the real magic.
Twilight watches from the doorway, still frozen where she sits. She has to process how long it’ll take to clean up her library. How Pinkie does what she does. How long it took to make that banner. Whether or not the children rehearsed this at all. But most of all she has to look at the mare snarling at her pink co-star about missed cues and improper grammar, and process that she was the one that brought this moment about.
It’s very, very easy to hate Trixie. Much too easy. But sometimes, if you stick with her, she can surprise you.
