After Dinner Confrontation
Trixie once again found herself standing inside the spacious chamber of Twilight’s dining chamber. Of course with a pool of water in one corner, and an assortment of empty plates; the place looked a bit unprepared. The fact that Celestia was staring angrily at her one time student, Twilight Sparkle, only cemented the awkward feeling in Trixie’s gut.
Starlight stood by her side, with her muscles tense and her eyes firmly planted on Celestia. There was a feral nature to Starlight that Trixie was attracted too, and yet at the same time scared of. This mare looked like she was ready to either greet the ruler of Equestria with friendly banter and friendship, or to utterly destroy her.
Twilight was nearly shaking as she looked up into those fiery eyes of Celestia’s. “S-see, I brought Starlight over, and we even managed to convince her first friend to join us as well.”
Trixie leaned over and whispered, “First friend? I’m your first too?”
“Well… I had other friends from my past or by relation to Twilight. You’re the first friend I made outside of that, and you’re my best friend as well,” Starlight answered in a quiet voice.
“I guess I’ve had… almost friends before, but they never stay long.” Trixie lowered her head ever so slightly. “I always screw it up sooner or later.”
“I’m learning to accept that,” Starlight said. “Don’t worry, nothing you ever do will make me not be your friend.”
“Even if Trixie does something… bad again?”
“I’ll join you if you want,” Starlight winked. “Could be fun, raising chaos all across Equestria. Defiling rulers, making trouble, having sex.”
“What?” Trixie asked.
“The last one was a joke.”
Trixie laughed nervously.
“You’re really tense.”
“Like you can speak, you look ready to kill something.”
“I’ve never seen Celestia angry before, I’m worried about what could happen.” Starlight’s eyes focused hard on Celestia and Trixie realized she had missed most of the conversation between the two princesses.
“I would meet this friend of Starlight’s and judge for myself,” Celestia said. She looked directly at Trixie.
Trixie’s heart sunk and she felt her legs wobble a little. Twilight turned back to them and beaconed for them to come forward. With Starlight leading her it was less awkward, but Celestia didn’t take her eyes off of Trixie for a moment. Once they were within hooves reach of the giant princess, Trixie felt her heart give out. She was but a minuscule insect to the giant, she remembered how tall she was back when Trixie was a filly. That same feeling of insignificance hadn’t changed in the slightest.
“So,” Celestia said. “You two are the reason why I’ve been kept here for three hours, waiting for Twilight to finish the dinner.”
Starlight was quick to respond. “I am sorry about that, I should have told Twilight about my change in plans. I guess,” She glanced over at Twilight. “We have all made mistakes today.”
That last sentence hit Trixie like a brick. She hadn’t meant to hurt her best friend’s feelings, but it was also Twilight’s fault for getting her so riled up in the first place. Trixie never would have said anything stupid if not for the mare who was Tartarus bent on destroying her life.
Twilight looked away. “You two made plans without me. Trixie shouldn’t have convinced you to ditch the party.”
“She didn’t even ask me to leave,” Starlight said. “I decided to join without telling her.”
“She still had all the things set up for that impossible trick.”
Trixie took a step back. I don’t like where this is going.
“She…” Starlight looked back at Trixie. “Why did you have that stuff ready.”
Trixie took another step back. “I was planning on doing it.”
“Without my help you would have died.”
Trixie looked nervously from side to side. Stop asking questions!
“Did… did you,” Starlight’s lip quivered. “You knew I would ditch Twilight for you didn’t you?”
Trixie shook her head. “No, no I didn’t. I had hoped that by some miracle Twilight would allow you out of the party but I had no intentions of you just leaving without giving her any word of warning.”
“So you wanted me to break my promise to Twilight?”
Trixie took another step back, and a teal aura wrapped around her. She was lifted an inch off the ground as Starlight’s horn lit up. “How much of this did you orchestrate?”
Trixie closed her eyes. “I didn’t mean to do anything bad. I promise!”
“You would have died if I didn’t save you, so you knew I would come. You were planning all of this weren’t you?” Pain and anger mixed in Starlight’s voice.
Trixie tried to hide the outrage at how unjust the world around her was. Instead she nearly shouted, “Yes, I knew I couldn’t do the trick and survive. But I didn’t think you would really care enough about me to come back.”
“So you were planning to die in front of everypony?” Starlight asked, the tone she used made it clear that she didn’t believe Trixie at all.
“Would that have been so bad?” Trixie asked.
Starlight stared at her, slowly her eyes widened and Trixie dropped from the air and onto the floor. Her legs were too weak to carry her weight and she collapsed. Shame filled her heart and she couldn’t even look up to meet Starlight’s stare.
Starlight spoke again, but her voice came out gentle. “Trixie, were you really going to do the trick without me?”
“I tried, didn’t I?”
Starlight sat down. “You knew I would come back.”
“Nopony comes back for Trixie… nopony.” Trixie’s entire body shook. “You… I hurt you. M-maybe I wouldn’t have gone through with the manticore trick without you before you showed up. But after I hurt you, after I sent my only real friend running away crying… I broke your heart. How could I…” Trixie choked on the words.
Starlight knelt down and placed a hoof over Trixie’s. “You really didn’t mean to hurt me… did you?”
Trixie looked up, her eyes were red and a few tears escaped the sides of her face. “You are the only pony to ever really care about me and I hurt you. Why would I ever hurt you? I’m such a failure though, that I hurt you anyway. Starlight, I c-can’t keep going on alone. You’re friendship means more to me than I think you could ever understand. Clearly the princess of friendship doesn’t care or she would have helped me already, but you could see past… all my crap and see the real me.”
Starlight looked back at Twilight and Celestia. “I’m not sorry I missed the dinner.” She returned her focus on Trixie. “I’m sorry that I missed just how important our friendship is.”
Celestia let out a sigh. “If it saved someponies life, I can accept having wasted an entire night here.”
Twilight sat down. “You can’t do this.”
Both Trixie and Starlight looked back at her.
“You are supposed to be a villain; you can’t turn out to be a really lonely and sad pony. You can’t make me look bad in front of Celestia. And you especially couldn’t have tried to commit suicide via manticore!” Twilight stood up. “Stop it, and act like you’re supposed too!”
In Trixie’s emotionally weakened state she flinched away from Twilight’s volume. Her mouth began working on its own again. “Of course, princess. We should all just do and say and act like whatever you want us too. I can be the villain of the piece to make you and all your friends look better. It doesn’t matter if I run away from a town scared, lonely, and with nowhere to go. You just have to be happy.”
Starlight growled. “Twilight, you need to be quiet.”
“No I will not be quiet in my own castle. I am the princess of friendship! I am the pony that helps ponies out when they have friendship problems. There is no way that I could have missed a clearly obvious friendship problem, and ignored it for years because of my own feelings and, and… made things so much worse.” Twilight covered her eyes with a foreleg.
Celestia smiled. “It would look like my time has not been wasted after all. Twilight is very seldom wrong when it comes to friendship problems… excluding the trading of ponies lives for books.”
Twilight shot her a glare. “I only did that once, and have been trying to make it up to Fluttershy ever since.”
Celestia laughed.
Trixie managed to push herself up onto her hooves and lowered her head. “I apologize Princess Celestia for wasting your time. If you excuse me I… I should be leaving now.”
Before Trixie could turn to leave, Starlight was at her side. “Nonsense. After everything Twilight just said, I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to leave so soon and would even go so far as to allow you stay the night with us in our big, warm, and loving castle. You can sleep in my room, it will be just like a sleepover.”
Trixie smiled weakly at her, then look at Twilight for permission.
Twilight let out a sigh. “I am going to go and find my bottle of scotch. Go ahead and do whatever you want. I'm through.”
Celestia smiled at Twilight. “You have enough for a six hundred pound pony?”
“I have all the scotch in the world, go right ahead.”
Just as the two of them turned to leave, Starlight leaned over and whispered into Trixie’s ear, “I am not leaving your side until I know that my best friend is going to stay alive.”
Trixie tried to come up with a snarky comment but only found self pity. “You’re too nice to me.”
“You’re my best friend, I can be as nice as I want to.” Starlight nodded toward the hall where they had entered. “And I really do appreciate your friendship. I… I sort of needed it actually.”
Trixie smiled up at her. “You did?”
“Yeah I did.” She looked around and only after the two princesses left did she continue. “You’ve had to have spent a lot of time finding that manticore. You couldn’t have just decided that you were going to end it with a manticore tonight because you hurt my feelings.”
“I’ve been on the edge for a long time, tonight just pushed me further than I had ever been.”
“Well let’s see about trying to get you away from that edge,” Starlight said as she led Trixie over to the hallway. “I’m going to help you as much as I can, and if you want I can even try and help you learn a few nifty spells for your show.”
Trixie smiled. “Really?”
“Of course. We’re going to be great and powerful together after all.”
“How dare she come into my castle, with my pupil, and act all like she was the hurt pony. You know what? I think she was lying about everything!” Twilight said. The bar table did not make a good pillow, but she was too drunk to care.
“Why would she do that?” Celestia asked, a glass of scotch floated next to her.
“Because she wants to destroy my reputation, that’s what!” Twilight cried.
Celestia sat next to her sipping gingerly at her glass. “I don’t believe she had intended any harm.”
“She is a villain!” Twilight shook her head. “Villains can’t… it’s not fair.”
Celestia smiled. “Oh really?”
“No it’s not. I’m the princess of friendship, and she’s just a pony that came to town and, and, did bad stuff!”
“Did your pupil not do the same?”
Twilight shot her a dirty look. “I didn’t have a choice. Starlight’s more powerful than m- ugh, she’s not a bad pony.”
“And what about Trixie?”
“She’s…” Twilight raised her head, found her bottle and put her lips to it. She drank greedily from it before setting it back down. “I hate being an alicorn. It’s harder to get drunk now.”
“That’s because you’re bigger.”
“Also because of her, you’re mad at me.”
“I’m… well yes, I am upset with you. I don’t think you understand how little free time I get. This was the first night off I had to myself in a month. I could have had a massage, or eaten an entire cake, or had wild crazy sex. Instead I spent it with you, because I wanted to see how well you were doing now that you’re a mentor.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Just promise you’ll make it up to me in the future and I will forgive you.”
“Done…” Twilight let out a sigh. “Trixie isn’t a bad pony, is she?”
Celestia wrapped a wing around Twilight. “What’s really going on?”
Twilight laid her head down again in shame. “I keep screwing up.”
“Like the time you sold Fluttershy into slavery?” Celestia reminded her.
“Why do you remind me of that every single time I mess up. You know that was a mistake.”
“Because you need to be reminded of the power you hold. Besides you apologized.”
Twilight shook her head. “I gave away ten percent of my income to her next fundraiser annomanlous… anal… uh… anomom… in secret.”
“Well that’s one way to make up for it. Though I don’t think secrecy in this case would be a good idea.”
Twilight stared at her bottle of scotch with tired eyes. “Did I mess up again?”
“Only you can answer that.”
“I’m gonna make up for it.” Twilight pushed herself off the stool and nearly collapsed. It took a moment but she figured out how to walk, or sort of stumble in the correct direction.
“Good luck.”
Twilight didn’t need her luck, her luck stunk. She made her way alone down the long corridors. All the doors looked the exact same. Several times she got the wrong door. When she did finally get the right door she smiled at the two unicorns lying on the bed. Starlight was holding Trixie. They were both sound asleep.
Twilight shuffled into the room, and once she got the foot of the bed she stuck her hooves over it. “Hey!”
Starlight’s eyes opened at once and her horn flashed green. The lights came on and blinded Twilight for a brief instance. “T-Twilight? What time is it?”
“It’s late-o-clock.” Twilight replied as she tried to hide her eyes from the light.
Trixie stirred and stared at her with sad eyes. “What, are you going to make fun of Trixie while she sleeps now too?”
“Tricky, I am sooo sorry,” Twilight said. She leaned forward. “I just didn’t want to admit that I was wrong again, or that I missed out on a friendship problem. So I attacked you. I’m sorry.”
Trixie frowned. “I was an awful pony, and I did awful things. You don’t need to apologize.”
“N-no, I need to. You are my pupil’s best friend. Please forgive me.”
Trixie closed her eyes. “Go to sleep, your drunk.”
“Not until I make it up to you.”
“Then go to sleep and you’re forgiven,” Trixie said.
Twilight sat down. “That was easy… too easy.”
Starlight growled. “Twilight you smell like booze… and… is your horn limp?”
Twilight prodded her horn, it was slightly limp. “HA! I got whisky horn! And I drank scotch…”
“Twilight, thanks for apologizing but you need to go to sleep,” Starlight said.
Twilight shook her head. “Tell me how to make up for this first. Then I’ll leave you alone and never ever bother you again.”
Trixie groaned. “Fine! Promise to help make Trixie super famous and you can leave.”
Twilight smiled. “Done! A princess can make you as famous as you want to be. I’ll just tell everypony how good your show is, even if that’s a lie.”
“Twilight!” Starlight cried. “What the Tartarus?”
“What? I don’t like magic shows. I’m like Applerack in that uh, Applejack in that way.”
“So, that doesn’t make her show bad.”
“No, I mean the lie is that I liked it.”
“Darn it, Twilight.”
“It’s a good show,” Twilight said. “I just don’t like magic shows. I can do all of that stuff and really good too.”
Trixie pulled the pillow over her head. “Starlight, I just want to go back to sleep please.”
Starlight’s horn lit up. “You can make up for it when you’re not drunk.”
Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but the world flashed green and she blinked. Suddenly she found herself sitting in her bedroom. Twilight went over to the writing desk. If she wasn’t going to be allowed to help now, she would just have to remind herself to help tomorrow. She grabbed a piece of paper, and a quill. Her horn simply refused to function so she used her mouth to write out a letter to herself.
After she was done, she smiled at it. Then she flopped over the desk and fell asleep.
Painful morning rays of sunlight shone through Twilight’s bedroom’s window. She tried to hide away from it. The room smelled horrible. She spent nearly a minute trying to figure out what could smell so awful before realizing the sad truth. I stink.
Twilight looked into the mirror, her eyes were bloodshot and half of her face was covered in ink. Shame filled her chest as she realized she had done it yet again. She’d completely submerged herself into the drink. She shook herself and used a damp rag to wash her face with. It didn’t get all the ink out of her fur, but it did a lot of good. Then she returned her attention to the table with the letter she’d written.
“Oh, great, what did I wrought this time?” Twilight walked over and read it.
“Dear me, that’s you Twilight Sparkle in case you didn’t know.
Anyway, Trixie tried to commit suicide yesterday and it’s all your fault. You got drunk to try and runaway from the responsibility, but you also hurt her feelings. So you need to make it up to her by making her famous. Now I’m going to bed, good luck future me.”
Twilight cringed. I am a terrible drunk.
She looked back toward the door. “I really bucked up this time, didn’t I?”
She had no idea how to fix what happened. It was because of her that Trixie had lost her ability to become the famous magician she always wanted to be. Or at least she was beginning to think that was the case. She couldn’t help but to beat herself up for not having reached out and offering a helping hoof in the past, not when she so clearly needed to do so. Last night, last night she had said some awful things to Trixie in the heat of passion.
“Even if Trixie was lying about the suicide, which I don’t think she was, I shouldn’t have said that stuff to her.” Twilight walked to the bedroom door and opened it. “I guess I’ll have to make up for this… somehow.”
It only took a few minutes and a bit of magic to create the most lavish breakfast she had ever created. Of course when she checked on the bar, she found a sleeping alicorn princess lying on the floor. A small army of empty bottles surrounded her.
For a brief moment Twilight was angry. She drank way too much of my scotch!
She pushed the feeling down and left Celestia there. It was probably not good to be angry over a few bottles of scotch, not when she could very easily buy more. So she went into the dining room and finished up preparations. After that was done she teleported herself into Starlight’s room.
With her best Pinkie Pie impression, Twilight called out, “Good morning sleepy heads! I made breakfast!”
Starlight jumped up again. “Twilight! Darn it! Can’t we get some sleep?”
Trixie stirred next to her. “Did she mention breakfast?”
Starlight swallowed. “You made breakfast?”
There was an unmistakable rumbling from Trixie’s belly. Twilight was delighted to hear that her offer may be even more tempting then before. It might have been an easy olive branch, but hopefully it would start to repair some of the hurt Twilight caused.
Trixie pushed herself up. “I’ll eat.”
Starlight shrugged. “I’ll come too I guess.”
Twilight was delighted. She didn’t even wait for them to fully get out of bed before teleporting all three of them into the dining room. Starlight and Trixie hit the floor, the blanket fell over their heads as Twilight trotted to her side of the table.
“Okay everypony, let’s eat!”
Only after they sat down and got some breakfast in them did Twilight decide to repair things. “So, uh, last night I was kinda cranky.”
“Twilight, you were downright evil,” Starlight said.
Trixie nodded. “I agree, you had become quite the little villain last night. Trying to emulate your betters?”
Twilight frowned. “I was wrong. I’m sorry. I promise that I’ll make it up. You wanted something to do with your show right?”
“The great and powerful Trixie has changed her mind about her request,” Trixie said while sticking her muzzle in the air.
“Oh, what do you want?” Twilight asked. She was beginning to suspect it was something bad.
“I want to be an alicorn princess!” Trixie declared.
Twilight’s jaw dropped. “You… what?”
“You heard Trixie.” Trixie smiled slyly. “In fact it is not really a different request. I asked to be famous, and what would make me more famous than that?”
“I could also just slaughter your reputation across Equestria to get the same result,” Twilight hissed under her breath.
Trixie leaned back and threw a leg over her eyes. “Oh dear me! How could you ever be so mean twice in a row? I thought you were supposed to be nice. But alas I am doomed to be crushed under your oppressive hoof.”
“I am not turning you into an alicorn!” Twilight demanded.
Starlight stood up. “If you turn her into an alicorn, I want to be one too!”
Twilight blinked. “What? But, I’m not turning either of you into alicorns!”
Starlight narrowed her eyes. “Oh I see. Playing favorites because you hurt her feelings? That’s just fine. I’ll just watch as you turn my best friend into an alicorn princess and leave me behind in the dust. I guess I can say that I’m friends with two princesses but that hardly seems fair, it doesn’t seem equal.”
What the Tartarus is going on? Twilight shook her head. Confusion and anger fought for control over her heart. “Neither of you are becoming alicorns!” Why would they ask this of me now? I just wanted to make up for treating Trixie… holy crap!
“So when do I get my wings? Or does the crown come first?” Trixie asked.
“You evil, conniving, manipulative, arrogant, stuck up, talentless HACK!” Twilight screamed. “You did lie last night! The whole thing was a lie to make me feel bad so that I could turn you into a princess. In fact I’d go so far as to guess that you even used my pupil to get to me. The whole suicide thing was a shame!”
Trixie flinched away. “Twilight-“
“No! No more Twilight! I am going to go all Celestia on you this time!”
Starlight rose to her hooves. “It was a joke!”
Twilight gave her a sour look. “What?”
“I told her that we could get some revenge if we played a joke on you, pretending to want to become alicorn princesses,” Starlight admitted.
Trixie looked down at her plate. “I’m full.”
Starlight gave her friend a look that Twilight couldn’t decipher. “I’m so sorry this backfired.”
Twilight sunk into her chair. “A joke? Are you serious?”
“Yes I am. And you just called Trixie some horrible things all over again.”
Trixie pushed away from the table. “Trixie will not sit here and be berated by an overblown princess and her stuffy attitude.” She turned around and walked away. “Trixie would very much like it if you never talk to her again, Twilight Sparkle.”
Starlight moved away from the table and followed her. “Trixie, it’ll be okay. She’s just upset, I’m sure that we can fix this.”
Twilight watched them walk away, a migraine was forming in her head. Darn it, between last night’s drinking, and my constant screw ups, this whole situation is falling apart.
Twilight hit the table with a hoof. “UGH! What am I supposed to do? That joke was just awful, and now I over reacted again. It’s like that Discord thing all over again.”
“That’s what happens when you try to tackle the wrong problem,” Celestia said from the doorway.
Twilight looked at her with pleading eyes. “What should I do?”
“Figure out what the real problem is and then work from there. I can’t tell you what the problem is, but I think I can tell you what it’s not. I don’t think Trixie wants to be famous anymore than she wants your apology.”
“Then what the hay am I supposed to do?”
Celestia simply smiled. “Isn’t that what the princess of friendship is supposed to figure out?”
