“… and so The Great and Powerful Trixie bids you farewell!” As she vanished from the stage in a flash of smoke, the cloaked magician waved her hoof to the applauding crowd, who had been left in amazement at the spectacle that was Trixie’s magic show. However, as the assembled ponies began to disperse and she began to re-fold her stage into a small, rickety, but comfortably familiar wagon, Trixie’s thoughts turned from the outward appreciation of her audience to her inner thoughts.
Another day, another performance. It wasn’t as though she didn't enjoy it, because she certainly did. It’s just that lately, it didn’t seem like anypony cared about why she was there, they just knew that she was there and left it at that. Even her most adoring fans asked the simplest questions, and certainly not the one that she really wanted to hear. No, it wasn’t “Did you know that you’re amazing, Trixie?”, or the old “Did you know that you are best pony, Trixie?” Even “Did you know that I’m in love with you, Trixie?” didn’t give her any pleasure these days. No, what she really wanted to hear was the question. Sure they would ask “Where are you going?” to which her reply infallibly would be some variation of “To the nearest town.” Nor the oft-inquired “When are you going?” that was always too soon, but never soon enough. The question that she wanted just one pony to ask, just one, and just once, was “Why are you going?” Not exactly her reasons for leaving one village, but her reasons for leaving any village, town, or neighborhood.
How little did she know that the question would come so soon, and what a show it would be to answer it.
A little filly wandered up to Trixie to watch her as the magician finished restoring her home and transport. Then, slowly plodding up to the taller mare, the small pink pony proclaimed, “When I grow up, I wanna be a magician too!”
Trixie smiled back. “Well, Trixie is glad to hear it. It’s tough to travel so far, though.”
The young pony’s eyes lowered sadly. “I thought so… That’s why I wanted to ask you something.”
“What exactly is it you wanted to ask Trixie?” She was beginning to think that this filly was wiser than her age would have others believe.
“I know how you travel, and where you travel, but what I want to know is why you travel.” The pony said, looking back up at the astounded mare.
A soft smile spread slowly across Trixie’s face. “I think that you’d better come inside. It’s a cold day, and this might be a long story.” She opened the door to her small wagon and motioned for her small friend to follow her inside. The little pony complied quickly and trotted in, away from the cold and into the magically heated home.
As the pair sat down, facing each other on the rough wooden floor, Trixie cleared her throat, and began to speak, her audience of one listening intently. “Well, I suppose it starts with the blood. My family has always been showponies. Be they an actress, singer, dancer, perhaps an M. C., or any other kind of performer. I believe I even I have twin cousins who are singing entrepreneurs. But me? I knew what I wanted to be since I was as young as you...
10 years ago…
“Wow, Daddy! Look at that! And that! AND THAT!” the small blue filly yelled, galloping around and gestulating wildly. A tall brown stallion walked along the carnival throughfare, chuckling at his daughter’s antics. “Why don’t you stop to appreciate one ‘that’ at a time?” he called, pointing his hoof towards a stand filled with animal-shaped balloons. Trixie froze in her tracks, quickly turning towards the brightly colored inflatables.
As she zipped over in that peculiar way that only children can, the young pony heard a squeak come from her back. At the same time, she and the small red squirrel on her back turned their heads, and proceeded to leap into the air in unison. Suddenly, the grayish pink head of a stallion came into view above her. “I see you’ve met Reggie.” He said, smiling at the startled filly. Trixie put on a confused expression, unsure of what had just occurred.
As she got up, she felt a twitch in her mane “Squeak! Squeaksqueak.”
The stallion in front of Trixie nodded. “I agree, Reggie.” Suddenly, what was going on dawned on her as the little filly felt her mane to find a stretchy, balloon-like body in it. After seeing the spark of comprehension in her eyes, the top hat wearing pony looked at Trixie. “It seems Reggie’s taken a liking to you. In fact, he even wants you to keep him! What do you say?” Smiling gleefully, the excited filly nodded so quickly that her small balloon animal friend had to attempt to grasp her mane in a futile effort to keep from flying off or into Trixie’s horn. Fortunately, the pony in front of her picked him up before her horn could poke a hole in him.
Beige magic quickly enveloped Reggie, turning him a more opaque red. As Trixie leaned down and the brownish magic faded, the balloon’s creator spoke to them. “That spell should keep him as safe as a balloon can be!” winking at the pair. Trixie was a bit hesitant to test this, but Reggie quickly threw his soft body right into her horn, which only resulted in a slight stretching of his belly, and proved that the spell had succeeded. Noticing the little filly’s stunned reaction, the stallion with a magic wand and star as a cutie mark decided to show her the ways of show magic. “Huh, it seems like you thought that was pretty cool!” Trixie nodded profusely. “Maybe you’d want to help me and maybe even try it yourself? That is, if that alright…” Both magician and filly turned towards the younger’s father.
“Well, I guess it’s alright with me.” The fatherly earth pony decided. Both Trixie and her new friend leapt in the air with glee, though the lighter helium-filled squirrel made it higher.
Later…
As the little blue filly clambered up into the small, unassuming wagon, a curtain pulled back to reveal the small room that was a wonderland of impossible things for her. The wooden panels on the inside of the magician’s wagon were a stark contrast to the bright and colorful handkerchiefs and cloths hanging on the walls. Trixie quickly bounded up to one, attempting to make Reggie disappear by covering him with it and pulling it off with a flourish.
The gray stallion, who had introduced himself as Starspell, chuckled at the pony’s excitement, quickly throwing a cloth over the red squirrel and pulling the bright yellow handkerchief off of thin air. Smiling, he pulled Reggie back out from under his top hat and placing him down in front of the astonished Trixie. “I believe this is what you are trying to do?” Starspell said while smiling brightly. Trixie nodded profusely. “How about we start off with something simpler?”
As the coconut shells turned around each other, spinning in intricate patterns, a pair of little violet eyes followed the swirling shells as best they could. Suddenly, the halves stopped. “Now, which one do you think the ball is under?” A little blue hoof slowly and cautiously made its way toward the rightmost shell, the one that seemed to have the sphere under it before. Unfortunately, as it was lifted up, there was nothing to be found but empty air beneath. The magician looked at his apprentice, smiling as a teacher would to their favorite student. “The first rule of stage magic; nothing is what it seems.” Starspell lifted his hoof from the table to reveal that at some point while he had been spinning the coconut halves, it was slipped under his hoof. Though at a complete loss as to how he had done (it was magic after all), Trixie thought she got what he meant by that first rule. Noting the spark of comprehension in her eyes, the filly’s mentor offered the covers and bright red ball to her. “Would you like to try, if you understand the concept?”
While it took some practice, often involving the ball rolling out from the shell and falling onto the ground, little Trixie eventually managed to slide the ball under her hoof whilst her audience focused on the twirling shells, believing the sphere that they were after to be under one. As she and her teacher re-entered the wagon that housed so many wonders, the small magician asked her mentor, “Are we going to do things like disappearing?”
Starspell chuckled “No, not yet. However, I may have time to teach you something else…”
Trixie leapt up and down frantically, almost throwing Reggie off of her head. “Yes yes yes yes yes pleaseeeeeeee?” she pleaded, dashing inside the wagon without waiting for an answer.
Taking a deck of cards from a small table by the entrance to the small wagon, Starspell turned to the excited filly. “Pick a card, any card!” he exclaimed, spreading the deck so that only Trixie could see the chosen card. After poking the 5 of Hearts, she watched as the gray stallion shuffled the deck, taking care not to look. He then spread the deck out in front of her, face-up. Slowly, his hoof came down on the 5 of Hearts. “This is the card you chose, is it not?” Trixie’s mouth gaped open in complete astonishment at the age-old trick that always managed to astonish and amaze. “Now, let me show you how I did it.” The deck was quickly shuffled and given to the surprised filly. “First off, memorize the bottom card.” Trixie cemented it in her mind as the King of Clubs. “Now I, your spectator, choose a card.” A gray hoof poked the Queen of Spades. “Make sure that you put it right on the bottom of the deck!” The card was quickly brought below the King of Clubs, and the deck was re-shuffled and spread out before them. “Remember the card you memorized?” A quick nod followed the statement. “Well, since you put my card below it…” Trixie perked up, quickly getting the gist of what Starspell was saying. She then pulled out the card below the King of Clubs, which was, of course, the Queen of Spades. “Well done!” her mentor cheered, and Trixie smiled wider than she had the whole day. A small voice called form above her, “Squeak! Squeak squeak?” The stallion replied, “Well, I really don’t see how you could do this any better, as you can’t even shuffle the deck!” Trixie giggled at the exchange.
That night…
“Welcome to the world of amazing magic performed by the Great and Powerful Starspell!” the magician announced as he sprang up onto the stage with a puff of smoke, so that it seemed to the audience as if he had suddenly appeared out of thin air. The response was so powerful that the waves of applause were tangible. “Pre pare to be amazed by the sights you will see!” he continued, as the applause continued. As the audience began to calm down, he prepared for his first trick.
“Would a member of this wonderful audience please come up?” Many excited crowd members quickly stood. A gray hoof pointed to a small yellow colt in the back. “How about you?” A wide grin plastered across his face, the pony trotted quickly up to the stage that had once been a wagon. “So, what’s your name?”
“Um, I’m Camera Shy.” The pony said, smiling.
“So, Camera Shy, how long have you been making fireworks?” Starspell asked.
“For about… wait… what?” Suddenly, he found himself extremely confused.
The caped magician began to act flustered. “Well, I assumed that you had made that firework yourself, but I suppose it might not have been made by you…”
“Um, what firework?” Camera questioned, now thoroughly perplexed.
“Why, this one of course!” Starspell exclaimed, quickly pulling a small red firework out from behind his confused volunteer, showing it to him and the crowd, who began clapping and laughing along with the two ponies onstage.
After Camera left for his seat, the magician “realized” something. “Wait a moment! One just can’t have an unused firework lying around!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you agree?” The crowd roared their agreement, many voices coming together to form one resounding iyesi. “Well then, let’s fix that, why don’t we?” With a wide flourish, a gray hoof quickly pulled the fuse across his cape… and nothing happened. “Erm… Just a moment!” the embarrassed magician called. After trying multiple times with no effect, Starspell, to the amusement of the crowd, quickly darted behind the curtains for a moment, before coming back out with a small pony by his side. “I am utterly embarrassed that I can’t light this! Why, it’s so simple that even a little filly could do it!” he said as Trixie took the firework from his hoof. Making sure not to show what was really going on to the ponies around her, she quickly pulled the firework along her side at a signal from her teacher, and the rope stretching from the bottom lighting with a dramatic whoosh. The small device quickly pulled itself from Trixie’s grip, exploding against the backdrop of stars with a loud bang, glowing as brightly as the mark which had suddenly tattooed itself across her flank.
Back in the present…
“And so, I decided, from that moment on, that what I wanted and was going to be was a magician. The excitement, the adoration, the mystery… I don’t think I could even see myself doing anything else.” Trixie finished, yawning as she ended her narrative.
“…Wow” the pink filly replied, awed by the story which the magician that she so idolized and adored had told. “That all really, truly happened?”
“Yes, it most definitely did.” Trixie replied, the grown magician smiling at her enthusiastic audience.
“Even the part about the squirrel?” she asked, in disbelief.
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” Suddenly, a little red balloon popped up from under the hat which the storyteller had lain down during her tale. The little squirrel bounced up onto the pink pony’s head.
“Squeak. Squeesqueak!” it chided to the amazed pony below it.
Trixie giggled “I believe he just called you out for thinking he wasn’t real.”
She blushed. “Well, I mean, it was kind of- he is kind of amazing, right?”
The balloon animal puffed out its chest from atop her head. “Squeak!”
“Hey Trixie?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think you could teach me some of those magic tricks, too?”
“Well, I don’t see why not.”
And so Trixie, her new apprentice, and their squirrel companion spent the night going through act after act and trick after trick until all three had fallen asleep.
