There was nothing more sad than a pony sitting alone in a dive bar, nursing the cheapest cocktail with the highest alcohol content they can afford.
Trixie Lulamoon had long since stopped caring about the bad things other ponies thought about her however. Not even the pitying looks the bartender was giving her every time he refilled her glass were enough to shake her.
Well, let’s put it this way... this place wasn’t called the Rock Bottom Bar because the proprietor was a big wrestling fan.
The azure unicorn was up at the bar, eschewing the privacy of a booth that would most likely give her all the alone time she wanted. Trixie loved an audience though, even to her misery. The showmare glanced to her right; at the end of the bar where it curved around to the wall, a pegasus with a slicked back mane was talking animatedly (and drunkenly) to a surly looking griffon. They shared a bitter laugh and drained their respective glasses, each taking a moment to recover from the aftertaste. Somewhere in the background, the jukebox kicked into life, sending some heavy synth and rock riffs throughout the bar. It was a hit song from an action flick that Trixie had seen years ago.
Trixie watched on as the pair seemingly attacked each other with a fury that was often reserved for your worst enemies, but a cursory glance at the bartender revealed that he didn’t even seem to bat an eyelid at this behaviour. Perhaps it was normal for a crappy place like this? The magician even seemed to be on the cusp of trying to split them apart when she realised what the pair were actually doing.
It was, perhaps, the most violent make out session she had ever seen. The griffon’s claws were everywhere, leaving deep scratches all over the smaller pegasus’ back (although respectfully avoiding the wings) and their mouths seemed to be fighting over which could be the one in control. Although Trixie had to wonder what the griffon was getting out of the kiss, not having lips and all. She kept watching, half terrified, half strangely aroused, as the pair kicked up feathers in their wild attempt to get each other off. She was glad that the bar obscured her view of the pair’s lower halves; she had no intentions of finding out what was going on down there.
“Ugh, get a room...” a female sounding someone said from behind her.
Trixie giggled, feeling the buzz of the alcohol finally kick in. “I know, right?” She said it without turning around, seemingly answering reflexively. Trixie caught herself and coughed, she had momentarily lost her composure and let her illeism slip. ‘eh, screw it. It’s my day off.’
“That looks pretty good, what is it?” The female sounding someone spoke up again, apparently addressing Trixie.
The showmare looked around at the newcomer and saw that she was staring at her drink. The pony then took the seat next to her at the bar.
“Affordable.” Trixie chuckled darkly.
The new pony was a unicorn, like Trixie, but unlike Trixie, she was wearing a smile. Whether it was a real smile was yet to be determined. Smiles were rare at the Rock Bottom. Not breaking stride, the newcomer locked eyes with the bartender, flashed her pearly whites and flicked her two tone, red and yellow mane. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
For a moment, the bartender’s eyes were drawn to the (still) kissing couple at the end of the bar. The pegasus could be heard moaning over the dull thrum of the bar’s background noise.
“No, not her, you idiot.” Annoyance showed on her pretty face and she rolled her green eyes exasperatedly.
‘There we go.’ Trixie thought, ‘We’re all running away from something here.’
The pony got her drink and took a small sip. It tasted better than she expected judging by the somewhat appreciative smirk on her lips.
“So what brings you to this hole in the ground?” Trixie asked, unabashedly voicing her question within earshot of the bartender, who to his credit never reacted to the unicorn’s words.
“Oh...” The pony seemed wrong-hoofed by the question, but quickly regained her composure. “It had a grungy, old-world charm to it, so I thought I’d check it out.” It was a rather balmy night tonight, but even still, it wasn’t near warm enough to explain why the pony was sweating as much as she was.
Trixie laughed mirthlessly, “What drew you in, its location in the bad part of town? The graffitied walls? The fact that the sign’s remaining neon lettering spells ‘ K BO OM’?” She rolled her eyes and took a long swig of her drink, motioning to the bartender for a refill.
“Look, fine... I wanted a drink, not an interrogation. I’ve just been having a rough time lately and I wanted to go somewhere no one would know me.” She looked nothing like the pony that had talked to her mere moments earlier. She seemed much more open than before.
“Join the club. Name’s Trixie, by the way.” She levitated her glass and angled it towards her new yellow-coated friend.
“Sunset Shimmer.” She replied curtly, returning the gesture with a clink of glass.
Trixie grimaced upon hearing the name, for some reason it caused a flare of annoyance to streak through her brain, although she was quite certain it had nothing to do with the pony in front of her. Perhaps she was thinking of a similarly named pony. “Bit for you thoughts?” Trixie asked, sliding one of the small golden coins across the bar.
Sunset Shimmer stared at the coin, evidently surprised by the gesture, but she saw no objections with it either. She slid the coin across the bar until it sat in front of her. “There’s this one stuck up mare who’s really been getting under my skin lately. She thinks she’s all that and a bag of oats, but she seems to go out of her way to annoy me, you know?”
“Oho!” Trixie nodded enthusiastically. “I know someone just like that.”
“So you know, right?” Sunset took a long sip and continued. “I’m just trying to get along with life, do my own thing and she insists on getting in my way!” She downed the rest of her drink, ordered a refill and, with a frantic fury on her face, polished off the second one as well.
“Easy there, it’s not a race.” Trixie took a measured sip as if to say, ‘this is how you drink responsibly.’
Sunset Shimmer took a calming breath, but the red in her cheeks didn’t go away, in fact, they were getting rosier by the second. It seemed like she wasn’t too tolerant to alcohol. She copied Trixie and took a measured sip of her next drink, but it didn’t stop her next words from coming out slightly slurred. “Fucking... Twilight Shparkle...”
Trixie’s heart stopped for a second, waiting on confirmation from her brain that she had just heard that name. When she couldn’t find any evidence to the contrary, Trixie pulled herself from her stupor and formed a reply in her head. “I’m sorry, but did you just say Twilight Sparkle?”
The slightly tipsy unicorn looked up with a queer look in her eyes, “Yes. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that...” Trixie paused, swallowing the pain of the memories. “She’s the pony at the root of all of my current misery. It’s because of that damnable purple upstart that Trixie’s name is mud these days!” The showmare’s anger flared and the glass she was holding in her telekinetic grip smashed into a hundred pieces. Luckily, it had been empty at the time.
Tipsy though she was, Sunset Shimmer could tell that the two of them had at least one thing in common. “Small world, huh?”
There was a small silence after this, as much silence as you can have in a bar anyway. Both ponies merely sipped their drinks in lieu of something to do. Just as she had done at the start of their conversation however, Sunset Shimmer spoke first.
“So what did Twilight Sparkle do to you?”
Trixie opened her mouth to reply, but a loud bang to the left of them interrupted her. A whirl of feathers and limbs could be seen drunkenly exiting the bar. ‘At least someone’s having a good night.’ She rolled her eyes back to Sunset Shimmer, who was wearing an expression that Trixie could bet was also on her face as well. “Anyway... I first met Twilight in her hometown of Ponyville, as I prepared my world-renowned magical stage act...”
As Trixie told her tale she, despite the contents of the story she was telling, found herself feeling a lot better than she had been when she walked into the bar earlier that night. Maybe it was because she had found someone who would listen to her whilst she told a story, something that Trixie had found was in dwindling supply as of late. Maybe it was because she was finally getting this stuff off her chest and talking to a like-minded individual that made her happy, either way, the time seemed to fly by as she spoke. Sunset didn’t even seem to mind the many artistic embellishments she made to the story.
“...and after I came back to my senses, I made a hasty apology and left. Haven’t seen her since.” Trixie paused for a second and sighed. “Although I did read about her happy news in the paper.”
Sunset Shimmer grimaced sympathetically, “So she one-ups you magically twice, then she goes and gets herself made into a princess. I can see how that would annoy you, the same pretty much happened to me.”
“How am I supposed to top that? How? Anything I do from this point onwards is gonna look pathetic in the face of that. Oh, you bought a new caravan? Princess. Oh, you mastered the cloning spell? Princess. Oh, you sold out a show? Princess.” Trixie glowered and visibly shook with suppressed rage.
“You know what, Trixie?” Sunset put her hooves on Trixie’s shoulders, a serious (if a little drunk) look on her face. “Forget about that Sparkle bitch. You seem pretty alright to me.”
Trixie stared back at the other unicorn, an equally serious (and probably equally drunk) look on her face. Her lip trembled for the briefest moment before one singular tear rolled down her cheek. “Do you really think so?”
Sunset Shimmer smiled. “I know so.”
“You know what?” Trixie said suddenly, perking up, “Let’s go somewhere else, this place is kinda depressing.”
Once again, the bartender was well within earshot and didn’t blink. He actually nodded a goodbye to the pair of them as they dumped a stack of bits on the bar each and jumped from their stools.
Just before the pair made it to the door, it opened, aided by a magical glow. In stepped a fairly large unicorn stallion, easily taller than both Trixie and Sunset Shimmer, but wearing a tan overcoat and a bucket hat, almost comically large sunglasses blocking his eyes from sight. He stepped forwards and barged past the two unicorn mares, sneering at them both in the process, a singular sweaty blond lock falling from beneath the hat.
Trixie turned to her new friend and they shared a confused look, both turning to see the stallion’s white coated behind sit in a shadowy booth at the back of the bar. Without another word, they both turned and left the bar.
==
They wandered the streets, deciding that they deserved better than a rathole in the bad part of town and they found themselves in the newly renovated part of the shopping district. The night air had sobered them somewhat, but they still leaned on each other for support as they half walked, half stumbled to a more classy establishment that could entertain them for a while more.
“Let’s go dancing!” Trixie’s eyes lit up with glee as a club came into view.
Sunset Shimmer looked wary as memories flashed in front of her eyes. “I don’t really like dancing.”
Trixie grinned. “You’ll love it, trust me.” She got around to the other side of Sunset Shimmer and began nudging her in the direction of the dance club. The yellow unicorn didn’t put up much resistance, merely allowing herself to be shunted along by her much more eager friend.
They approached the club, the aptly named ‘Foxtrot’, and smiled warmly at the bouncer, a burly earth pony who had no trouble letting a pair of hot young mares enter the place. He gave an exaggerated smile and winked at them both before lifting the velvet rope.
The hallway they entered was wide enough to allow three ponies to walk side by side without much trouble and it lead into a short downwards incline where a larger door stood, the club’s logo (a cute cartoon fox) imprinted on it. Sunset Shimmer was expecting some heavy bass and rapid beats strumming from beyond the closed door, as was common in these kind of clubs, but instead she was treated to a muffled, yet clearly high energy synth tune.
When they opened the door, it all suddenly made sense. Immediately to their right was a bar where many ponies were perched, although not as Trixie and Sunset Shimmer had been at the Rock Bottom, sullen and quiet, but chatting animatedly and looking out towards the rest of the large room. The bartender was in high spirits, wearing a bright white suit with a black shirt, the top buttons undone. His black mane was slicked back and he was laughing with a patron- whatever they were sharing was apparently hilarious.
The rest of the open room seemed to be devoted to dance floor, a highly polished affair that reflected all of the flashing lights and lasers, making the entire room glow with a multitude of neon colours.
The song was high tempo and delightfully cheesy.Trixie got into the spirit of things and started to gravitate over towards the dance floor, Sunset Shimmer following in her wake. As they stood on the edge of the dance floor, looking in at all of the ponies dancing happily and without worry, the two mares found their hooves tapping in time to the music. Trixie could tell that the song was from one of those decades old movies about a streetwise bunch of troublesome colts and fillies who learn how to express themselves through the medium of dance. Despite her general lack of interest in those kinds of films, she still found the song strangely fitting for the moment, as if there were no more perfect place in the world right now for her than an upscale discotheque in the heart of Canterlot.
Sunset Shimmer’s earlier ambivalence seemed to be melting away as the pair watched on. ‘Maybe it won’t be all bad, Trixie seems like a really nice mare after all.’ Then she felt herself being pulled forwards into the melee of dancing ponies, a blue and silver blur swimming in front of her eyes as it darted around looking for a piece of dance floor big enough for the both of them.
When they found somewhere, Trixie was already looking sweaty and Sunset Shimmer could see why. With all of the ponies around them and the high energy environment, the disco was like a sauna. She could really feel it, but when the azure unicorn coaxed her into dancing with her, it didn’t really matter anymore. All she could feel was the rhythm of the music flowing through her, fueling her desire to dance the night away. Trixie was right there next to her, shaking and shimmying with the best of them, but there was something sultry about her movements that Sunset Shimmer hadn’t noticed before. Each shake of the hip was a deliberate movement that flowed into the next almost like liquid. She was quite the performer.
The next thing she knew, she was mirroring Trixie step for step, getting in close and rubbing her flank against Trixie’s and all the while smiling and laughing like she didn’t have a care in the world.
A few surrounding ponies whooped and cheered as they watched the unicorn pair, but Sunset Shimmer didn’t care about the attention (she noticed that Trixie was grinning widely) she was just enjoying the moment. The feel of Trixie against her as the music flowed over them was all that was real to her right now.
As the song came to a close, Trixie and Sunset Shimmer looked at each other and the meaning in the look passed between them without a word. They walked off of the dance floor to minor applause from the ponies who had seen their little show. They then found an empty table on the outskirts, falling into the seats with a sigh of exhaustion.
“I haven’t danced like that in years,” Trixie said between heavy breaths.
“I haven’t danced like that at all before,” Sunset Shimmer countered. “Judging by your moves out there, you’ve had a fair bit of practice. It took all I had to keep up with you.”
Trixie smiled widely. “And if I may be so bold, you did a fantastic job of it.”
Sunset Shimmer laughed nervously “It’s not like I really wanted to... I- I just didn’t want to disappoint the ponies watching us.” she felt warm, something that had nothing to do with the room full of sweaty, dancing ponies. There was something about Trixie’s off-hoofed compliment that really threw her for a loop.
“Hey, are you okay? You look a little flushed... was it the dancing?” Trixie leaned across the table and made to press her right forehoof against Sunset Shimmer’s forehead, but the latter backed away almost instinctively.
“I’m fine, really! I’m just not that used to so much physical activity in such a short period of time. I’ll be fine once I’ve had a moment to breathe.” Sunset indeed started to breathe more heavily, but it didn’t help steady her rapid heart rate. She needed a moment to herself, stat. “If you’ll excuse me, I just need to go to the little mare’s room to freshen up.” She laughed breathily and zipped out of her seat and across the room to where the toilets were. She knocked into a few ponies on her way over, but her mind was elsewhere, not bothering to spare mental function for such unimportant things at the moment.
When she burst into the bathroom, she was glad to see that it was relatively uninhabited. Sunset settled herself in front of the bathroom mirror, running a cold tap and splashing herself in the face a few times. She looked at her reflection; coat damp and matted against her body, mane slightly wet but still gorgeous, and sighed heavily. ‘What the hell is going on with me? I’m cooler than this!’
She took a few more deep breaths and she finally seemed to be settling down, ‘I shouldn’t take too long or Trixie will probably wonder what happened to me.’ It was an idle thought, one that would be completely appropriate for the situation, but it got Sunset Shimmer’s heart racing again.
“Oh no...” She stared at her reflection, the ghost of a smile on her lips that was replaced by a look of horror. “It can’t be...”
Thud
“Oh, there you are, you were taking too long, so I thought I’d check up on you.” Trixie walked into the bathroom, politely holding the door for a pony who was on her way out.
“T-T-T-Trixie!?” Sunset Shimmer turned towards the source of the noise, but turned away again when she felt how warm her cheeks were. This wasn’t the most effective tactic considering the mirror she in front of, however. “There was n-no need for you to come in here. Just wait for me at the table.”
The azure unicorn had other ideas, however. “You sure you’re alright, you still look really flushed... or maybe,” Trixie’s smile grew wide and predatory, her eyes sensuous, “maybe the Great and Powerful Trixie was just simply too much for you to resist.” Her voice betrayed a joking tone, but Sunset Shimmer didn’t seem to hear it, her eyes had gone wide and rather fearful.
Trixie sashayed over to the mirror and stood at Sunset’s side, making sure that their flanks were touching. “So which one is it?” She asked with a teasing smile.
Sunset Shimmer looked away, but the scared look remained on her face. Trixie stopped smiling, looking rather nervous. “Hey, I was joking... no need to go all serious on me.” Trixie fell silent as realisation dawned upon her. “Unless... you actually-”
“So what if I do!?” Sunset suddenly burst out. She looked rather angry and stared at her fellow unicorn as if challenging her to start a fight.
“Well...” Trixie stated flatly, “it certainly simplifies things.” Without even blinking, Trixie moved in and kissed Sunset Shimmer full on the lips. For a moment, the yellow unicorn had no idea what was going on, but her brain seemed to melt not too soon after that and she merely leaned into the kiss and gave back what the other was giving.
When she finally found her senses, Sunset broke away and stared deep into Trixie’s eyes, saying only one word, “Why?”
Trixie eyed the unicorn hungrily, biting her lower lip. “Hearing ponies insult Twilight Sparkle is one of my biggest turn-ons.”
Sunset Shimmer let that sink in for a few moments, momentarily stunned, but she acted quickly and put on her best sneer. “In the other world, where we met, that whore Twilight was hanging around my waste of space ex-boyfriend like a desperate little bitch in heat. She’s so pathetic.”
Trixie visibly shuddered and eyed Sunset with an obvious lust. “More.”
“Princess or not,” She was getting into her stride, speaking with a passion and a force she was conjuring from her memory and experiences. “I wouldn’t touch her skank ass with a ten-foot barge pole.” Sunset suddenly found herself being pushed back by the force of Trixie’s second kiss. The azure mare seemed to be directing her towards the nearest cubicle and it wasn’t long before she could feel cold porcelain against her rump.
Trixie turned around and locked the door to the cubicle. It didn’t leave them much room to move around, but Trixie wasn’t planning on that much action. She maneuvered around to the toilet side of the cubicle and sat herself down, leaving Sunset standing. “Now, kiss me.” Trixie had to move her flank back so the sudden pressure of Sunset kissing her didn’t send her falling into the toilet bowl.
Sunset broke the kiss once more, but this time she looked confident and powerful. “I hear that Twilight’s brother has a thing for Princesses--”
kiss
“--maybe the little pervert has a brother complex--”
kiss
“--probably thinks a threesome isn’t out of the question--”
kiss
“--gets herself off every night thinking about it--”
kiss
“Uuuhhhnnn” Trixie moaned into the kiss, tensing up before a splashing sound could be heard.
Sunset Shimmer pulled back, looking at her azure friend. “Did you just..?”
Trixie smiled mysteriously, “well it wasn’t number one or number two if that’s what you’re asking.” She stared at her fellow unicorn with a half-lidded, seductive look, Sunset Shimmer returning it in kind.
“Shall we take this somewhere more comfortable?”
Author's Note
I started writing this as a joke that came up during a skype chat. Me and a bunch of other people were talking about relationships based on mutual hatred, so I came up with the idea of Trixie and Sunset Shimmer getting together based on how much they hate Twilight Sparkle. It was a passing thing really, but it really seemed to catch on with people, so they challenged me to write it... and here we are.
It was kinda hard to come up with a good ship name for the two of them because their names go kind of awkwardly together, but I finally settled on Shimmie, 'cos it sounds kinda cute.
