“ Next! And it’s not you, Ms. Hot-to-Trot!”
With a scowl THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie sat back down, allowing the foal with her parents to pass by. It was pointless for her to not go immediately - after all, it was plain that she was the most powerful and great magician - neigh, unicorn - in the waiting room, but the ponies running the show simply weren't willing to let her have her shot.
But seriously, if THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie wasn’t the one meant to have the dragon egg in the next room, who was?
It had been surprising news the week before - Princess Celestia had found a dragons egg, the second in the century. It was rare to find one in a hundred years, the last having gone to her famed protege Twilight Sparkle, but this second chance had everypony with even an ounce of magic raring to give it a show.
After all, what was more useful as a familiar than a baby dragon?
As she felt a feeble burst of magic from the next room, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie rolled her eyes. It was starting to get insulting. Fillies, noponies, and even the odd pegasus or earth pony had been given chances ahead of her, all wasting their time. It took a lot of power to hatch a dragons egg. She’d seen the type of pony needed to do so with her own eyes. She’d felt the power, sensed the skill. And these foals? They had no chance. As loath as she was to admit it, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixe was likely at the low end of what was needed - though, once she had that familiar, things would change. She’d have access to dragons scales for potions and dragons fire for sorcery, which would vastly increase her abilities.
“ Next! And no, it’s not your turn!”
Sitting back down, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie tried her hardest not to curse the unicorn that passed by her chair as he entered the ritual room. The waiting room was grating on her - it was a combination of a dentists office and a ... waiting place.
Words were failing her. Obviously, this unstimulating environment was affecting her mind.
To pass the time she played with some fortune telling cards, accidentally predicting the doom of the green mare sitting to her left and unfortunately discovering that the lover of the dappled stallion a few chairs down was unfaithful. She flattened the brim of her magicians hat - but the spell keeping it pristine was still working, so it was pointless. The door to the ritual room open.
“ Your turn.”
She took out a file and began to work on her left hoof. It was a little scuffed.
“ Hey, move it or lose your place.” sighed the unicorn guard, speaking again. THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie’s ears perked up.
“ Oh, wait, it’s me!” she exclaimed quickly, leaping off of her chair. She raced past the guard as a few foals chuckled - well, it didn’t matter. She’d show them. SHE’D SHOW THEM ALL! AH AH HA HA ho hooo...okay. She had her inner monolog under control again.
“ Greetings.”
“ Good day, Princess.” she said, entering the large stone amphitheater and bowing to the alicorn presiding. She had never met the princess before but it was easy to keep her calm, unlike the foals she’d heard about stammering and stuttering in the monarchs presence - stage fright and shyness was not one of THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie’s problems, as years of stellar performances had shown. As she trotted confidently over to the pedestal where the blue-green egg sat on a pillow, a smile peeked on her lips.
“ I don’t believe we’ve met, though your reputation as a performer has reached my court.” said the Princess, smiling back. “ The Mayor of Manehattan claims you put on an unusually dazzing show on the last Nightmare Night.”
Trixie froze for only a second, her eye twitching at the thought. She’d been hired to do a show, yes. And, well, it had been scary, that was true. But nopony but her knew that the spell she’d used was only supposed to summon mannequins that she had dressed to look like zombies - not summon actual zombies.
But. She’d dealt with it and there had only been minor injuries.
THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie refocused.
“ You are correct, your highness.” she said with a little flaunt of her mane. “ I dare say they’ll never have another Nightmare Night as good until they hire me again.”
“ Mm - I may wish to hire you for Canterlot’s celebration, then.” said the Princess with a nod. “ But, to the matter for which you have came. This dragons egg is available to anypony with the power to hatch it. Are you ready?”
“ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie has been ready since she heard of it.” said the blue unicorn, focusing her eyes on the prize. The egg shone like crystal as she focused her magic around it, levitating it slightly. She felt...nothing.
She doubled the juice.
Nothing.
Setting her jaw and clenching her eyes, she gave it every ounce of magic, prayer, and dharma that she had.
NOTHING.
“ It seems it was not meant for you.” said Celestia, putting a hoof on Trixie’s back. The mare felt her confidence flagging as the egg slowly began to descend onto the pillow. She’d failed - Trixie had failed. Again. Just like she always did.
No.
“ hhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEERRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!”
Straining so hard she felt like her skull was going to explode, Trixie threw things she didn’t have at the egg. Voodoo, hoodoo, wabbajabba, karma, luck, thaumaturgy, and more than a few swear words. She was burning magic at an atrocious, dangerous rate - if she didn’t get the egg open, she’d at least die trying.
What the hay - she threw a little bit of her life force in there too.
Crick.
In an instant she relaxed, falling to the ground and panting for breath. Across the egg was a single crack, less visible than a hair. Legs shaking, she tried to stand - and it cracked again. Like a spiders web the cracks spread, quicker and quicker, until the entire shell broke off, revealing a small blue scaled dragon. It gasped for air for a moment, stretching it’s arms and legs, before gripping it’s tail and curling back up.
She’d done it.
Whoo. She’d...done...it.
THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixe passed out besides the pedestal, a smile on her face.
After a few moments Celestia signalled the guard, who left to dismiss the other ponies waiting. When he left, Princess Luna faded into sight from where she’d hidden herself with magic.
“ She is the only one who didn’t sense me.” said Luna, looking to Celestia. “ Sister, you felt her magic. She’s untrained. She’s barely strong enough to cast any real spells. Can she really take care of a dragon?”
“ She can - Twilight Sparkle personally vouched for her.” said Celestia, leaning over and nuzzling the sleeping dragon. It cooed slightly before beginning to snore, faint smoke rising from it’s nostrils. “ Ah, I always regret letting a little one go.”
“ That reminds me - wherever did you get the egg from?” asked Luna, looking to her older sister.
“...Lulu, you know when I told you about the, ah, ‘advances’ ponies have made in contraception in the last thousand years?”
Luna blushed, remembering the conversation well.
“ Well, um, the methods are still not, shall we say, foalproof.”
“...oh no.” said Luna, her eyes going wide. Dragons gestated for five months, ponies for eleven. And they’d had a dragon as a guest in canterlot eight months ago, right in the middle.
“ This has happened a few times before.” sighed Celestia, hanging her head a little. “ And, um, please keep it a secret?”
“...I won’t tell a soul.” said Luna, more than glad to keep this quiet. “ But this means you don’t get to tease me about my ‘flagrant misuse of the guards’ anytime soon.”
“ Ok, fair.” giggled Celestia. “ But in all honesty, you could have been a little more subtle than simply ordering a regiment of single stallions to report to your chambers.”
As the two sisters chattered away, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie and her dragon both drooled in their slumber.
THE HIGHLY ANNOYED AND SLIGHTLY CHARRED Trixie scowled.
It was really more of a pout, but she’d never admit it. Things had just gone so wrong, so quickly, she had to pout. She’d woken a few minutes prior in a luxurious Canterlot bedroom - the kind a mare like THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie deserved. She’d found her robe and hat on the table besides her and her new baby dragon in a small crib, sleeping peacefully.
She’d leaned over to take a look at the sleeping wyrmling. Of course, her mane had drooped as it always did in the morning and fell upon the babies face, causing it to sneeze.
Fire.
Into her mane.
After a few seconds of panic she’d managed to get off a fire-suppression spell, but that had only managed to cover her and her room in a cold foam. She’d tried a simple cleaning incantation - and teleported everything in the room but her, her hat and robe, and the baby dragon just outside, watching helplessly as it fell upon Princess Celestia as she walked through the courtyard with Twilight Sparkle.
Of course they would be there. THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie counted herself lucky there hadn’t been a class of foals touring the castle as well.
Of course, the Guard stormed her room within seconds and behaved about like anypony would when the Princess has had a four-post bed dropped upon her. THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie didn’t blame them for that.
Throwing her in the deepest dungeon while they toweled the Princess and her court mage off? She found that somewhat excessive.
But putting the baby dragon in with her? That, she could never forgive and that was why she was pouting.
Because it would. Not. Stop. CRYING.
“ Shut it up!” the guard shouted again, growling as he banged a hoof on the iron door of her cell. THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie rolled her eyes as she tried to remember a spell to summon earplugs - the closest she had managed so far was nose plugs. The little blue dragon lay on the cot besides her, bawling and flailing in the cold damp cell. “ Shut it up or by the Princess, we’ll dig a deeper cell and put you in it!”
“ Alone?” she asked rather hopefully. Before the guard could answer the door to the dungeons opened and a purple unicorn - and possibly the mare THE VENGEFUL AND SOMEWHAT CHILLY Trixie hated most - entered the room, levitating several scrolls and a bag along with her.
“ Ms. Sparkle.” said the guard, bowing to her.
“ Hi, Hoofscrews!” she said in a pleasant tone, greeting the guard. “ I’ll take over from here.”
“ Thank Celestia.” sighed the guard, trotting towards the door. “ Teach this idiot a silence spell, would you?”
THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie shot a flank-stinging spell at him as he departed, causing him to jump and fall down the stairs. He glared and left, leaving her alone with Twilight Sparkle and the crying dragon.
“ So, um, here’s some food for your dragon.” said Twilight awkwardly, levitating the bag inside of the cell. “ Sounds like she’s hungry.”
“ Mm, perhaps.” said THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie, glancing at the bad as it landed. Her eyes widened as she saw it was filled with gemstones. “ W-what is this?” she exclaimed, pouncing on the bad and tearing it open.
“ You know, dragon food? Gems?” said Twilight, as if it should have been obvious.
“...dragons...eat...gems?” said Trixie, pausing as the thought filtered through her mind. She lay on the mossy cobblestone, a small pile of gleaming jewels in front of her. “ They eat gems. How many do they eat?”
Twilight levitated one to the dragon, who grabbed the emerald and began to gnaw on it greedily.
“ Uh, well, when my dragon, Spike, was little, maybe three or four a day? As they grow older they can eat a lot more stuff, but for now - “
“ ...oh no.” said Trixie, trembling as she held her head in her hooves. “ Oh no, oh no, oh no. I can’t afford that. I can’t! I can’t, I don’t have any bits!”
“ I, uh, noticed.” said Twilight, unrolling the scrolls she had brought with a flare of magic. “ You’ve got your unpaid students loans from the Institute for Illusionists, a triple mortgage on a destroyed housewagon, a rather sizable tab at the Magick Hat Shoppe, three hundred outstanding parking tickets for a housewagon, and you’ve defaulted on three different lines of credit.”
“...wait, what?” said Trixie, blinking.
“ I looked up your finances to see if you could afford, um, your dragon.” Twilight said with a grimace. “ I wouldn’t have done this, but your, uh, current wagon got repossessed.”
“ B-but I made the payment!” exclaimed Trixie, tears forming in her eyes as she leapt up. “ I know I did!”
“ Uh, you paid of the interest.” said Twilight, taking out the receipt. “ You didn’t pay the principle.”
“ Gim!”
Trixie and Twilight glanced to the little dragon, who was cooing and waving a clawed paw at the pile of gems. “ Gim!” it repeated. Wincing, Trixie levitated a ruby over. The dragon began to suck on it happily.
“ So, basically, theres no way you could afford to raise your dragon.” said Twilight, regaining Trixie's attention. “ And, uh, you did kind of break three of Celestia’s ribs.”
“ Oh that.” sighed Trixie, remembering the reason she was in the cell.
“ Yeah, uh, we were actually talking about paying your debts while we were walking.” continued Twilight, glancing to the ceiling. “ She was all for it, you know, before. Kinda funny, actually.”
“ Not to me.” moaned Trixie, lying down on the cot.
“ But, um, we’ve got other options.” said Twilight, trying to take a positive tone. “ One, my friend Rarity can teach you the gem-finding spell she knows. It’s pretty powerful, but, um, you turned her hair green when you came to Ponyville.”
Trixie groaned.
“ Two, uh, we might try filing for bankruptcy.” the purple mare continued. “ You’d end up going to debtors prison for...a while. But you would get out. Someday. Maybe.”
Trixie groaned again, burying her head in her front legs.
“ Option, three, well, the Institute for Gifted and Talented Unicorns has offered to adopt your dragon and could - “
“ No.”
Trixie hadn’t budged when she answered. She didn’t need to.
“ Uh, well, it’s your only real option.” said Twilight, sounding surprised. “ You - “
“ Twilight Sparkle, you listen to me.” said Trixie, looking up. Her eyes were red with tears of frustration, but focused. Twilight’s ears pinned back, obviously caught off guard by this sudden force. “ My life has been one long, miserable joke. I’ve flunked out of a dozen magic schools, lost everything I owned time and time again, been humiliated more times that anypony could count, and I don’t have a bit to my name. This dragon is the first time in just about ever that anything, and I do mean anything, has gone my way.”
“...what about that show in Manehattan?” said Twilight, a little shocked and grasping for a response. “ I heard - “
“ The zombies were real.”
“ Oh. Oh. And the - “
“ We never found the fish.”
“...oh dear. And - “
“ Disintegrated, teleported to the North Pole, and no, it didn’t look like I’d been turned into a stallion for that trick, I accidentally did. It took three weeks to fix that.”
“...Geez.” said Twilight, rubbing a hoof on the back of her head. “ Uh, wow. Must be hard to stay positive with a life like that.”
“ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie manages.” said Trixie, recovering from her situation for a few moment, before slumping back onto the cot. Besides her the little blue dragon had fallen asleep, the half-eaten ruby still in her mouth. “ First things first - how are you getting me out of jail?”
“ Uh, well, thats another problem.” sighed Twilight, opening another scroll. “ The, um, Guard is accusing you of attempted regicide and being an evil sorceress.”
There is a rare sound that one can only hear a few times in their life, the sound made by an idea. It is a strange little twang that shouldn’t exist, but does, and everyone who hears it somehow knows what that idea is.
And a evil, vicious little idea entered Trixie’s mind.
“ No.” said Twilight, instantly putting her hoof down. “ Trixie, don’t even dare think that. And look at your situation - there is no chance, no how, that you could possibly take over Equestria!”
“ It’s possible!” declared Trixie defiantly, jumping up and glaring through the bars. “ It’s remote, but it could happen!”
“ Please, Trixie.” snorted Twilight. “ One - you’re in jail. Two, you’ve have to fight the Royal Guard and you don’t have an army. Two, you’d have to fight the Elements of Harmony, and you’d need some sort of team of villains to do that. And Three, Princess Celestia might be in the hospital, but Luna wouldn’t just let you take over!”
“...so, I need a horde of mooks, a legion of evil, and I’ve got to somehow deal with a god-like Princess.” said Trixie, conjuring a paper and pen and jotting it down. Her dragon was snoring slightly, little puffs of pink flame flickering from her nostrils with each breath. “ Anything else?”
“ Well, assuming you take over you’ll need to deal with civilian disobedience, re-establish ties with other nations and HAY WAIT!” Twilight shook her head, snapping out of it as she realized she’d been helping Trixie. “ Come on, Trixie, lets get back to reality. Even if you wanted to, you’d never find that stuff.”
“ Uh, well, I was kinda stalking you and your friends for a while.” said Trixie awkwardly, glancing at the stone floor. “ You know, trying to plan my revenge and stuff. And, uh, by a while...I mean since we last met.”
“ ...that’s all you’ve done?”
“ Well, kinda - you know, in these modern days it’s not what you know, it’s who. So I’ve been networking.”
“ Oh no.” said Twilight, eyes widening as Trixie's smile did as well.
“ Meeting with grumpy gryphons, boorish Bluebloods, and dealing with diamond dogs. It wasn’t pleasant, but I’ve got a nice little roster to work with.”
Twilight stared at her for several seconds.
“ You still need an escape plan, and that you don’t have.” said Twilight flatly, her annoyance obvious. “ There’s no way out of here.”
“ You foal!” cackled THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie, rearing back onto her hind legs. “ A magician of my ability can easily escape such a meager prison!”
Trixie looked around for several seconds.
“...I suppose that I shouldn’t have hoped for a secret door to suddenly appear.” sighed Trixie, sulking a little. “ Fine, I won’t try and launch a campaign of terror against Equestria.”
“ I’ll look into getting you on a work detail.” said Twilight, scowling. “ It’ll take six months and be hard, but you’ll be able to pay of your debts.”
“...and keep my familiar?” asked Trixie, giving a weak but hopeful smile.
A smirk flickered on Twilights lips for a second before melting her frown.
“ Of course.” said Twilight, turning to leave the dungeon. “ No funny stuff, Trixie - this is a chance to fix most of your problems in one go.”
There was the sound of a sneeze. Twilight trotted up the stairs in silence, turning to glance back at the top. Her eyes bugged - the jail cell was empty, save for a few pinkish sparks.
“...okay, that...happened.” said Trixie in confusion, glancing around. She seemed to be inside her wagon, which was being pulled. Her familiar had let out a doozy of a sneeze and engulfed the cell in fire and the next think Trixie had known, they were here.
The little dragon was still asleep and was lying on top of Trixie’s bed. Trixie smiled leaning over to nuzzle the dragon a little. She pulled the covers over the reclining reptile and couldn’t help but feel a somewhat motherly feeling.
Oh, she was going to love having that thing around.
And now, it was time to turn a few repo ponies into frogs.