Boast Busted

Chapters

1. The Show Must Go On!
2. Wherein Raindrops Keeps a Promise
3. The Inevitable Ursa
4. Run Runaway
5. Shining Armor

1. The Show Must Go On!

Trixie used her forelegs to point to her horn. “Now, you will note that my horn does not glow,” she said, as she took off her cape, and held it up like she was facing a charging bull. With a flourish, she swung the cape around and clasped it back around her neck – but more importantly, the section of the stage that the cape had been obscuring from the audience’s view, which had once been empty, now had a table on it, loaded down with various trinkets and sundries. It had appeared from seemingly nowhere, all despite Trixie’s horn not glowing. She heard an appreciative hoof-stomp from the ‘crowd.’

“For my next trick, the Great and Powerful Trixie will require a volunteer from the audience!”

There was a long, pregnant silence. The Element of Magic’s eyes narrowed somewhat, as she took a few steps forward. “Lyra, that means you,” she informed her friend.

The mint green unicorn stared back at Trixie, blinking a few times. “Me?” she asked.

“You,” Trixie confirmed.

“Why not somepony else?”

Trixie tapped her forehoof on the stage impatiently. “Because there is nopony else,” she reminded the pony, using a hoof to gesture to an otherwise entirely empty auditorium Trixie was practicing in. “You’re my test audience, meaning you’re my audience volunteer.”

Lyra Heartstrings blinked a few times, her hooves absent-mindedly plucking a few notes on her lyre as she laughed nervously. “Yeah, well…”

“You can’t still be mad at me for turning you into – ”

“No!” Lyra interrupted quickly. She looked at her front hooves. “No, I’m over it. But I don’t want it to happen again.” Somehow, her tone of voice seemed to suggest that she was trying to convince herself of that fact more than Trixie.

Trixie whickered a little in impatience. “Well, I promise you that’s not going to happen. This is all sleight-of-hoof. Smoke and mirrors. A little telekinesis, but that’s it.”

Lyra let out a sigh, setting down her lyre and trotting up onto the stage. Trixie smiled, falling back into character. “What a brave volunteer!” she exclaimed.

“Wait, brave?” Lyra asked as she reached Trixie’s side. “Why do I have to be brave?”

“Hush,” Trixie responded. With a flourish from her cape, she trotted over to her table and selected a deck of oversized playing cards; with another overly dramatic movement, she used her telekinesis to spread the selection of fifty-two cards before Lyra.

“Pick a card,” Trixie commanded, echoing countless magicians before her, “any card! Show the audience but do not show the Great and Powerful Trixie!” She turned away, while putting her hooves to her head as though she were focusing on some deep mystery of the universe.

“…So, what, I just show this to an empty auditorium?” Lyra asked from behind Trixie.

“It’s not empty, it’s full of hundreds of adoring fans!” Trixie exclaimed. After a moment, she added “but yes. Tell me when you’re done.”

A few seconds later, Lyra confirmed that she had done as the other unicorn had asked. Trixie grinned, using her telekinesis to shuffle the cards together without looking, then turning around. “Alright,” she said, placing the cards on top of Lyra’s head and smiling as she did so, balancing them with magic. Behind her, she drew her next item from the table with telekinesis – a long, thin stiletto.

“Uh,” Lyra objected as Trixie turned to her with a maniacal grin. “What are you…?”

“Now hold very still, my brave volunteer!” Trixie exclaimed as she flourished the knife for her imaginary audience. “The Great and Powerful Trixie – ”

“Is completely insane if you’re planning on doing what I think you’re planning on doing!” Lyra exclaimed, eyes wide as she looked between the knife and the cards balanced on her head.

Trixie groaned. “Come on, Lyra!” Trixie tried. “The show is always so much greater when it looks like somepony’s life is at stake!”

“No.”

“I’ve practiced this a hundred – ”

“No!”

“You’re not in any real – ”

“No!”

Trixie sighed. “Fine,” she said. “We do this the boring way. Toss the cards high into the air.”

The Element of Loyalty grasped the cards in her own golden-hued telekinetic aura, and did so. With a sigh, Trixie watched them fall, before picking out one and throwing her stiletto point first at it. The knife flew straight and true through the center of the card, and flew forward before embedding itself an inch into a wooden wall. Trixie’s telekinesis reached out and grabbed the stiletto and the card it had impaled, keeping it face down and away from Lyra, Trixie herself, and ‘the audience.’

“Now, my dull and uninteresting volunteer,” Trixie said, before holding up the oversized card at such an angle that Lyra and “the audience” could see it, but still not Trixie. “Tell the Great and Powerful Trixie: was this your card?”

Lyra stared at it. “That could have been my head,” she pointed out.

“Yes, yes, yes, your best friend nearly killed you. It happens. Now was this card yours?”

Lyra blinked a few times. “I think?”

Trixie turned to stare at Lyra, and the impaled two of hearts that the mint green unicorn had selected. “You think?” she demanded.

“I don’t know! Nearly being stabbed to death kind of makes me forget the small things!”

Trixie let out a long sigh. “The answer is yes, Lyra. This card was your card.”

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“But not totally sure.”

Trixie groaned. “For my next trick…” she began…

My little pony, My little pony
Ahh ahh ahh ahhh...
My little pony
Friendship never meant that much to me
My little pony
But you're all here and now I can see
Stormy weather; Lots to share
A musical bond; With love and care
Teaching laughter; It's an easy feat,
And magic makes it all complete!
You have my little ponies
How'd I ever make so many true friends?

“To be fair to Lyra,” Raindrops called down to Trixie as she used her wings to disperse the last of the clouds in her section of the sky, floating over a hill that looked down upon Ponyville, “you did turn her into – ”

“Okay, first,” Trixie interrupted, holding up a hoof to stop the jasmine-coated pegasus, “that was an accident. Second, it wasn’t permanent. Third, that was a spell gone awry. It wasn’t part of my magic act.” She sat back on her haunches and crossed her hooves in front of her. “All I’m asking for is a little trust, that’s all.”

Raindrops groaned as she let herself drift down next to Trixie. “Do not get me started on trust,” she moaned, lying down on her stomach and letting out a long sigh. She was breathing heavily from long hours of practically working her hooves down to the quick.

Trixie stared. “Rainbow Dash again?” she asked. Raindrops waved a hoof, as though it should have been obvious. “I don’t understand how she’s weather team manager still,” the blue unicorn admitted.

“Well,” Raindrops said, rolling over onto her back, “when she finally does get around to actually working, I don’t think there’s anyone in Equestria who can clear a sky faster.” She waved around to the now-clear, sunny spring sky. “I’ve seen her clear an entire sky full of clouds in ten seconds flat. Plus she always gets the weather schedule right and up on time. Somehow.”

“Yeah, but what use is that if she’s always goofing off? Should she really be manager?”

The Element of Honesty waved a hoof again as she closed her eyes, yawning. “No,” she confirmed after a moment. “But that’s what we’re stuck with.”

“You could be weather manager.”

“Ha!” Raindrops exclaimed without opening her eyes. “No.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. It’s not happening. I have to work hard enough as-is.”

Trixie supposed she could understand that. With Rainbow Dash, a cyan pegasus with a rainbow-hued mane and tail, constantly either sleeping in or practicing tricks to try and get into the Wonderbolts, Raindrops was practically the weather manager for Ponyville already, aside from writing up the weather schedule.

Trixie settled down on her stomach next to her friend, watching absentmindedly as she spotted a lavender unicorn that was pulling a large wagon laden with, from the looks of things, books, heading into Ponyville. Probably another traveler looking to come to Ponyville’s Eventime festival, celebrating the time in spring when the day and the night were exactly the same length. Speaking of which…

“You’ll be at the Eventime festival tonight, right?” Trixie asked. At a nod from Raindrops, Trixie continued. “Will you be coming to my magic show?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Raindrops promised, opening one eye. “Let’s just hope it goes better than the last time we tried to have a celebration here…”

Trixie grimaced at the reminder, glancing nervously up at the sun as she did so, despite knowing that this was silly as Corona wasn’t in the sun – not anymore, anyway. “I’m sure it will,” she said. “It’s only been a few months; Princess Luna said that Corona will need a long time to recover.”

“Yeah, well, let’s hope so,” Raindrops said, closing her eyes.

Trixie had discovered at an early age that she had the opposite of stage fright. She loved to be in front of an adoring crowd, loved having all eyes on her, loved trying to both meet and challenge the judging eyes of an audience. She was an extrovert in the extreme, and nothing made her happier than a captive audience.

Especially if that captive audience was nine-tenths a collection of fillies and colts. Those two special groups of ponies tended to look at Trixie bedecked in her cape and hat and reach two conclusions: one, she was a magician, and two, that made her completely trustworthy while she was on a stage. Even if she was brandishing a knife at them.

“Ha!” Trixie exclaimed as she drew back the stiletto from the colt’s head with her telekinesis. Her knife had only poked a single card, the one on top, but when she saw the look on the colt’s face, she knew she had succeeded without even asking.

Nevertheless, she slid the stiletto from the card and held it high up with magic, so that both the audience and the colt, Archer, could see it. “Tell me, my brave little pony,” Trixie said, rearing up on her hind legs and gesturing to the five of diamonds, “was this your card?”

“Yes!” the colt exclaimed in surprise. Trixie could see his mind turning, trying to figure out how she had performed her magic trick and coming up with nothing. Trixie pulled her magician’s hat down over her eyes as she bowed to the enthusiastic hoof-stomps of her captive audience, and then encouraged Archer to bow as well.

“Was there ever any doubt?” Trixie asked, to which she got an enthusiastic no! in response.

So far, the Eventime celebration was going wonderfully. Starting a few hours ago, just as Luna had begun lowering the sun beyond the horizon, the town center of Ponyville had quickly filled up with stalls and vendors and sights to be seen. By far the largest of the food vending stalls belonged to the Apple clan – Trixie suppressed a scowl at that thought as she remembered how that family, or at least Applejack, their nominal head, had acted back during the Longest Night celebration – but other families and businesses had representation as well, most importantly for Trixie, Carrot Top, another of the blue unicorn’s friends, who was definitely benefiting from having taken part in saving all of Equestria from Corona some months back. With that act came recognition, and with recognition came carrot sales for the struggling farmer.

Trixie had begun setting up her stage about an hour before the sun had fully set, in full view of the town and with the set-up practically a show unto itself. When her show had actually begun, she had already had a large crowd of fillies and colts, and their parents, eagerly waiting for her to begin. That had been about two hours ago now, and her show was beginning to wind down. She had only one last trick, but it was a doozy.

Trixie forced herself back to the here and now as she gently shooed Archer from the stage, then looked back to the audience took off her hat, setting off a series of small fireworks and streamers by stomping her hoof on the proper location on her stage while simultaneously making absolutely sure that the ponies saw that her horn wasn’t glowing. “Trixie will require another volunteer for her next, and final, astounding demonstration!”

Dozens of hooves shot up in the air, sometimes a couple of which belonged to the same pony. Trixie made a show of trying to decide, before picking her inevitable, chosen-before-the-show-even-began choice. “You!” she exclaimed, pointing to a gray-coated unicorn filly with a blond mane, named Dinky Doo. The unicorn put on a good show of looking surprised that she had been chosen, and quickly made her way up onto the stage. Once there, she waved back at her mother, Ditzy Doo, a pegasus with similar coat and mane colorings.

“Is that your mother?” Trixie asked in her show-voice, despite knowing the answer. Dinky nodded furiously, and Trixie put a hoof to her mouth, looking deeply concerned. “Ooh, I don’t know…” she said as part of a well-rehearsed script with Dinky, as she slipped her hat back on. “I know your mother, and if this next trick goes poorly she might have some strong words for the Great and Powerful Trixie…”

“I’m not afraid!” Dinky proclaimed loudly.

“Well of course not, you’re still here,” Trixie said as she took off and swung off her cape in a great flourish. “But not for long!” She passed her cape over Dinky and stepped before the filly even as the gray unicorn made use of a spring-loaded trap door ready and waiting for her. By the time Trixie once more put her cape around her neck, barely a second later, Dinky was nowhere to be found.

Ditzy Doo shot into the air, a look of false panic on her face. “My muffin!” she exclaimed, though one of her eyes winked at Trixie.

“Not to worry, Ditzy Doo!” Trixie said, holding up her hooves. “She’s quite alright! …probably,” Trixie added slyly. She turned to the spot where Dinky had disappeared and started waving her hooves in an arcane manner. “Alakazam…” she intoned. “Alakazoo…come on back Dinky Doo!” There was a puff of smoke from the stage – but when it cleared, Dinky Doo was nowhere to be seen.

Trixie opened her mouth to voice some false concern – the show called for Trixie to look worried that Dinky was lost forever – but she was suddenly interrupted from a voice originating in the rear of the crowd.

“This isn’t magic!” the voice exclaimed.

Trixie blinked a few times, glancing out to the audience. There, in the very back, was a lavender-coated unicorn, with a dark blue mane and tail, each of which had a single pink and purple stripe running through them. She looked angry and…disappointed? Why was she disappointed? Trixie recognized the mare in a moment – it was the same one she had seen coming into Ponyville earlier – but she couldn’t help but think that she knew the mare from somewhere else, as well…

The blue unicorn turned to regard the lavender one. “Oh?” she asked. “Is there a naysayer in the audience?” Trixie asked. “Somepony who doubts the astounding skills of the Great and Powerful Trixie?”

The lavender unicorn looked about ready to speak again, when she seemed to suddenly become aware of all eyes in the audience upon her, with a lot of fillies and colts looking very annoyed at the show being interrupted – almost as annoyed as Trixie, herself. She lowered her head in a gesture of apology. “Sorry…” she mouthed.

Trixie turned back to the stage, putting a hoof to her mouth and repeating the phrase the show must go on over and over in her head. “Now then, where was I…?” she wondered. “Ah, yes! Saving Dinky Doo from the ravages of the Fifth Dimension!”

There was a slight delay before Ditzy Doo remembered her line. “R-ravages?” asked the Element of Kindness, eyes wide. She put a hoof to her head and pretended to faint dead away, though the speed of her fall – and the fact that she caught herself – clearly showed that it was all an act to anyone looking at her.

“Not to worry!” Trixie exclaimed, taking off her hat and cape entirely. “Though it take all of my power, I will save Dinky!” She flicked her mane, releasing a small capsule hidden there and setting off a smoke bomb that obscured the stage, allowing her to slip down the very same trap door that Dinky had. It was a tight fit, but she easily found the filly sitting at the far end of under the stage, waiting next to a step ladder that would take her up behind the curtains.

“Momma isn’t worried, is she?” Dinky asked, a look of deep concern on her large eyes. “Is that why you took longer than you said to get here?”

“Not at all, kiddo,” Trixie assured the foal as the two climbed up the step ladder and behind the stage. “Just had a little problem with somepony trying to ruin the show.” She trotted up to a specially-placed hole in the curtain, horn glowing. While her cutie mark – a blue nebula with a star-tipped magic wand overlaying it – showed that her special talent was magic in general, Trixie had always felt most comfortable with illusion spells. On stage – just as the fillies and colts of the crowd were beginning to look concerned – a large circle, ten feet in diameter, began to form in thin air, standing vertically. Once the circle was finished, five lines shot around inside of it, forming a star, and then the points of the star were connected by a pentagon. With a flash, the arcane mark seemed to collapse in on itself, revealing on its other side what looked to the audience like a dark and desolate world, all twisted, barren rock, with a star-studded night sky.

Trixie grimaced a little as she made the glamor even more complicated. An illusion of herself appeared on the other side of the “portal to the Fifth Dimension,” climbing over a rock face and carrying Dinky Doo on her back. The illusory copy made a mad dash for the “portal.”

At length, Trixie added a final touch – a horrific, green-scaled monster, like a cross between a dragon and a centipede, came into view, nostrils exhaling starry smoke and eyes burning with cold fire and hate.

Trixie put a last bit of magic into her illusion, willing it to keep existing and playing until she and Dinky passed through it. There were cries of surprise and a little fear from the audience, but by far what Trixie and Dinky Doo heard most of was cries of excitement and encouragement for Trixie to keep running.

The blue unicorn got down on her stomach. “Okay, fifteen seconds,” Trixie said as Dinky climbed onto her back. “What’s it like to be on stage?”

“Great!” Dinky replied, smiling. “I love it!”

“Okay, but you have to look worried,” Trixie instructed the unicorn filly. “Remember, there’s a monster chasing you and trying to gobble you up!”

Dinky laughed a moment, before a look of comic fright appeared on her face. She was clearly having a hard time holding it, but then again her back would be largely turned from the audience for the finale. Trixie backed up a few steps, before charging forward and leaping straight through her illusory portal, just as her copy in the illusion seemed to be doing so. She landed skidding but on her four feet, turning quickly to the portal as Dinky Doo slid off of her back.

“Oh no!” Dinky exclaimed loudly, doing her best to sound serious. “The portal is still open! That monster is going to get us!”

“Not to worry!” Trixie said as she reared up on her hind legs, pushing Dinky behind her and gesturing at the portal. “Abra! Kadabra! Alakazam!” Trixie threw her hooves forward, and lightning appeared to shoot from them and her horn at the portal just as the horrific monster on the other side reached it. With a loud pop, the illusion disappeared, though not before the monster on the other side let out a howl of rage.

Dinky made a show of panting heavily, while Trixie actually was – maintaining such a complicated illusion for even so short an amount of time was hard work. The two turned to the audience, and found them stunned silent, eyes wide. It was a kind of silence that Trixie knew well at this point, however, and so she wasn’t worried, nor was she surprised when the audience burst out into whoops and cheers and hoof-stomps. Trixie retrieved her hat and cape from the stage and bowed deeply, while Dinky tried to, but she found herself swiftly being scooped up by a gray blur as her mother flew up on stage and collected the little filly in a tight hug.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, you have been a wonderful audience!” Trixie proclaimed with another deep bow. “This is the end of the Great and Powerful Trixie’s show. Enjoy the rest of the Eventime festival!”

There were some slight boos from the crowd, but they were the boos of a crowd that wished the show hadn’t needed to end rather than that of a dissatisfied crowd – the kind of boos that a performer longed for rather than feared.

There was one exception. The lavender unicorn still sat in the back of the crowd, staring at Trixie. Her look of disappointment hadn’t disappeared, and though she wasn’t booing or making her displeasure otherwise known, she wasn’t cheering or even giving a polite hoof-stomp.

Trixie chose to ignore her as gave a final bow before disappearing backstage. She was quickly joined by Ditzy Doo, who had Dinky riding on her back. “That was amazing, Trixie,” Ditzy said, smiling widely. She was just as excited as her filly, if her eyes were anything to go by – Ditzy Doo had wandering eyes. With focus and effort, she could make her eyes look in one direction, but in her normal state – and especially if she was excited or distracted – her eyes had a tendency to drift apart, each looking outwards. It had been a difficult thing to get used to, mostly due to Trixie not being sure which eye to look into when talking to the pegasus when she’d first met the mail mare and dedicated mother, but over the past few months she’d been able to overcome the issue and looked at the bridge of Ditzy Doo’s nose.

“Thanks,” Trixie responded, as she took off her hat and shook her mane. She looked to Dinky Doo. “And I owe you, my excellent assistant, a whole tray of muffins.” She paused, and frowned. “Though you seem to always be eating them. You sure you don’t want, I dunno, cake, or something else?”

Dinky emphatically shook her head. “Nope!” she announced with utter confidence.

“Okay,” Trixie said, smiling as she looked back to Ditzy Doo. “And thanks for letting me borrow your filly and send her to the Fifth Dimension.”

“Also known as under the stage,” Ditzy said with a laugh, tapping her rear hoof on the wooden planks under her. Trixie winced slightly – Ditzy was strong, sometimes stronger than she realized – but the stage didn’t give out under them. “Can’t wait for the next show, Trixie. Can Dinky be in that one too?”

“Of course!” Trixie promised with a wink at the filly sitting atop Ditzy Doo. “All sorcerers need an assistant!”

“But you’re not a sorcerer!”

Trixie, Ditzy, and Dinky all blinked at the new voice. Trixie looked past the two gray-coated ponies and to the stage’s curtains, where a new pony had entered – the lavender-coated unicorn that had interrupted Trixie’s magic act. The look of disappointment – and a little bit of annoyance – was still plastered on her face.

“Hey!” Dinky Doo objected, raising her right front hoof as she made her point. “You can’t come backstage! Trixie told me only performers are allowed backstage! And performer’s mommas!”

Ditzy’s wings fluttered as she moved next to Trixie. “Do you know her?” she asked.

Trixie blinked a few times. She did know this lavender unicorn from somewhere, but for the life of her couldn’t remember where. She decided to shake her head. “Not off the top of my head, no,” she said, as she took a step towards the mare that seemed determined to ruin her Eventide. “Look, I’ve just had a long show, and the Eventime festival is wasting. So whatever your problem is, can’t it wait?”

The lavender unicorn scuffed a hoof on the stage beneath her. “No, it really can’t,” she said. “I came here all the way from Manehattan to see you and talk to you, Trixie Lulamoon.”

Trixie winced at the usage of her second name. She hated it, with a fiery passion that Corona herself would have envied. “Just Trixie,” she insisted. “And what did you want to talk to me about? Was it really so bad that you felt the need to interrupt my show?”

“Yes,” the unicorn said firmly. “See, I’ve been wandering around Equestria, learning everything I can about magic. Magic’s my special talent,” she said, turning to the side somewhat to display her flank, and her cutie mark – a six-pointed pink star, surrounded by five white stars. “So when I heard a few months back that Corona had escaped her imprisonment in the sun, but then was driven off by the Elements of Harmony, directed by a unicorn who’s special talent was also magic, and who even earned the Element of Magic, and who had been Princess Luna’s personal apprentice, I had to come to Ponyville to meet you.” She sat back on her haunches, an arch look on her face. “And I’ve gotta say, I am not impressed.”

Trixie glared at the lavender unicorn. “Who are you?” she demanded.

The lavender unicorn put a hoof to her chest in pride. “I’m Twilight Sparkle.”

2. Wherein Raindrops Keeps a Promise

Something clicked in Trixie’s mind. “Oh,” she realized. “Oh! I remember now. You’re the mare that graduated from Princess Luna’s school of magic a year early, and with a perfect grade point average.”

Twilight Sparkle beamed at the recognition. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Princess Luna herself handed me my diploma.”

Trixie considered, vaguely remembering attending that event alongside her mentor. “And since then you’ve just been wandering around Equestria looking for festivals to ruin?” she surmised.

The lavender unicorn seemed taken aback. “What?” she asked.

Trixie moved closer to Twilight. “You interrupted my show!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, that…” Twilight said, laughing nervously and looking a little mollified, before realizing what she was doing, shaking her head, and looking back to Trixie. “Well, that was only because I couldn’t take it anymore! I came here all the way from Manehattan, dropped everything I was researching in the library there, just to see you - and you were hardly doing any magic at all out there!"

“Hey!” Dinky Doo objected, hopping off of her mother’s back and galloping past Trixie and right up to Twilight, who backed up a few paces at the charge and the look of determination in Dinky's face. “Trixie’s the best magician in all of Equestria!”

Twilight blinked a few times as she stared down at the filly. Her expression changed to one of slight condescension. “Now, look, my little pony,” she said in a voice that matched her expression, leaning down to Dinky. “You’re too young to really know this, but what Trixie was doing was not magic.”

“Yes it was!” Dinky objected strongly. “Trixie says that magic is more than just spells and stuff! It’s all about style and presentation and I’m not too young to know ‘cause momma says I’m really smart for my age and – ”

“Thank-you, Dinky,” Trixie said, using a hoof to gently push the filly away from the older unicorn. “But I think Twilight and I need to have a discussion in private.”

Dinky looked dejected. “But I thought I was your assistant…”

“You are,” Trixie promised, “but I don’t know how this discussion is going to play out, and it might involve some mean words that even a filly as smart as you shouldn’t be hearing, and frankly I’m scared of what your mother might do to me if you did hear them.”

Ditzy Doo chuckled somewhat at that as she came forward, scooping up her daughter and placing her firmly on her back again. “Are you going to be okay?” she asked. Somehow, her eyes had managed to wander so that one was on Trixie, while the other was focused on Twilight. The lavender unicorn didn’t seem bothered at all by Ditzy’s eyes, however, which at least made Trixie's estimation of her go up, however slightly.

“I’ll be fine,” Trixie promised, before looking back to Twilight. Ditzy nodded, and headed through the stage’s curtains, a somewhat morose-looking Dinky Doo riding her – though the filly spared enough time to turn around and stick her tongue out at Twilight.

Twilight stared impassively at the display. “Never was good with foals…” she observed absentmindedly.

“Maybe if you didn’t talk down to them like you just did,” Trixie suggested, as she replaced her hat. “Especially Dinky Doo. She is very smart for her age.”

Twilight turned back to Trixie. “Really?” she asked, curiosity piqued. “What spells can she cast?”

Trixie blinked at the question, not understanding how Twilight could have made the leap from smart for her age to spellcasting prodigy. Raw intelligence and spellcasting ability were only peripherally connected, and unicorns of Dinky’s age were usually only just beginning to master basic telekinesis. Dinky was about as far along as any other unicorn filly in that regard. “Several,” Trixie decided to lie, “but that’s not what really matters right now. Why’d you interrupt my show?”

Twilight blinked a few times. “Like I said,” she explained, “you’re the Element of Magic! You were taught by Luna herself! But the spells I saw out there could have been done by…by a filly her age!” She pointed in the direction Dinky and Ditzy had left.

Trixie huffed. “Give my ‘Portal to the Fifth Dimension’ glamor a little more credit…”

“Well, okay, that was impressive,” Twilight admitted, scuffing a hoof on the floor. “But it’s not like illusions are real magic – ”

“What?” Trixie demanded.

“Well, they aren’t! They’re illusions! They’re fake by definition!”

Trixie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Well, what were you expecting?” Trixie demanded.

“I don’t know!” Twilight exclaimed. “Something…well, something more!” She took a step forward. “Does Princess Luna know you’re wasting her education like this?”

Trixie jabbed a hoof forward. “For your information, it was Princess Luna who suggested I put on my first magic show, back during the Longest Night celebration!” she exclaimed. “She’s encouraged it! She said it was a good use of my talents!”

Actually, what Princess Luna had said was that it was an excellent way for Trixie to vent her natural egotistical streak and desire for attention in such a way that wouldn’t drive other ponies away from her, as she had at the time managed to alienate just about everypony in Canterlot still willing to give her a chance. Princess Luna had a way with words, and that way was to make them as blunt and cutting as possible in order to drive points home. Still, this upstart unicorn didn’t need to know that.

Twilight stared in incomprehension. “The Princess wanted you to become a showmare?” she demanded.

“She wants me to be happy,” Trixie informed Twilight. That, at least, was the complete, unvarnished truth.

Twilight blinked a few times. “Okay…” she said, apparently deciding to leave that point alone. “But why were you doing so little actual magic?”

“I was doing tons of magic,” Trixie objected.

“You were using sleight-of-hoof. Smoke and mirrors. Misdirection. There wasn’t a lot of real magic.”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed. “No, there weren’t a lot of spells,” she clarified. “Magic is more than just spells.”

“But they’re the only part that matters!” Twilight objected, looking shocked that Trixie could even imply otherwise.

“No they’re not!” Trixie exclaimed with a stomp of her hoof. “Spells are just the most obvious…and, really, the least interesting.”

Twilight recoiled as though Trixie had physically bucked her in the jaw while making that point. “What?” she demanded. “You’re the Element of Magic! How can you even say that?”

“I think you answered your own question there,” Trixie observed. “I’m the Element of Magic. I know what I’m talking about.”

Twilight glared at Trixie. “You’re wrong.”

“Hey, who between the two of us was taught magic by Princess Luna herself?” Trixie gave Twilight a sly look. “Jealous, maybe?”

Twilight was fuming at the implication. Trixie felt a little bad about the last comment – it was Trixie’s habit of name-dropping and bringing up her status with Luna that had driven away most of the ponies of Canterlot, or at least a mixture of that and spells gone awry causing problems. Then again, Trixie had no interest in trying to make friends with this stuck-up mare, and she doubted Twilight had come backstage looking for a renewed sense of camaraderie, either.

“Look,” Trixie said, straightening her cape and hat. “This is my first Eventime in Ponyville and I really just want to enjoy it, so if you’ll excuse me…” The mare pushed her way past Twilight, and out into the night, trying to focus on the festival in front of her and not the unicorn she was leaving behind. The encounter with Twilight Sparkle had left a bad taste in Trixie’s mouth – which, at the very least, made her first destination an easy choice.

“The short one is giving you the evil eye again, C,” Raindrops observed without removing the straw from her mouth. She was glancing over her shoulder, at the Apple family’s stand, which was being mobbed by customers – as usual. Nevertheless, the smallest member of the Apple family seemed to find plenty of time, in between helping her older sister with sales, to shoot dirty looks at Carrot Top’s own. She was scolded for it a few times by her sister, but it was never long before the filly started up again.

“Foals are foals,” Carrot Top responded simply as she topped off a carton of carrot juice and exchanged it for a few silver bits with a customer, thanking him for his purchase. His leaving left her alone with Raindrops for the moment. “All that really matters is Applejack’s realized that there’s a difference between small business and competition.”

Raindrops considered that as she used her tongue to switch the straw from one side of her mouth to the other. “Never got that,” Raindrops said, as she took a carrot from Carrot Top’s stand, tossing a few bits into the earth pony’s coffers before her friend could start up a rant about her not needing to pay like she had over the juice. “Carrots and apples. Not something you’d think could compete with each other…”

Carrot Top shrugged. “There’s some competition,” she explained. “Apple juice or carrot juice? Carrot cake or apple pie? Apple jam or carrot marmalade?”

“Ugh. Apple jam,” Raindrops said, even as she made a point of biting into the carrot she’d purchased. “Sorry, C, but apple jam. Carrots should not be made into marmalade.”

Carrot Top looked around conspiratorially, before leaning in to Raindrops. “I agree,” she said quietly, and in a tone of voice one might have used to say I accidentally poisoned the Princess. Raindrops chuckled slightly at the tone and the mortified look on Carrot Top’s face at her own words, though the expression fell as another customer came up and bought a raisin and carrot salad, which so far had proven to be her most popular item – it had, in fact, nearly sold out.

After she left, Raindrops continued the conversation. “At least your evil alliance with the Grapes is working out…”

Carrot Top nodded slightly at that, and she was grateful that it had. Put simply, nopony had a snowball’s chance in a volcano of breaking the absolute monopoly that the Apple family had on Ponyville’s produce. The Apples had the best fields, the best equipment, the best workers, the best everything, and the other farmers simply had to make do with what they could get their hooves on. Usually it was everypony for themselves, but this year Green Grapes and his family had hit upon the novel idea of, rather than selling his product directly to the public, working in concert with some of the other farmers to create new dishes that incorporated his grapes and splitting the profits, breaking a Ponyville tradition. Carrot Top had leapt at the idea, as had several other farmers, and the result was the raisin and carrot salad that was selling so well, along with other dishes.

It wasn’t going to break the Apple’s monopoly on anything, but it was definitely helping the farmers who actually needed the bits – and the Apples didn’t, no matter what Applejack seemed to honestly believe.

Carrot Top’s thoughts returned to the present at the approach of a blue-coated mare bedecked in a purple, star-studded hat and cape. “Trixie!” she exclaimed happily, though after a moment her smile dropped when she saw the expression on Trixie’s face. “Oh. Did the show not go well?” she asked, looking between the unicorn and Raindrops.

“No, the show was fine,” Trixie responded as she sat down beside the farmer’s stall, looking over the selection. In her telekinetic grasp there was already a caramel-topped apple, but there was also a small cup of caramel. After a few moments, she telekinetically grabbed a carrot and tossed a few bits into Carrot Top’s coffer – like Raindrops, before the orange earth pony could object and go on about her friends not needing to pay – and proceeded to drench the carrot in caramel, bore a hole in the apple and tossed away the core, and lastly stick the carrot straight through the apple.

“Got any salt?” Trixie asked. When Carrot Top shook her head, the showmare sighed a little before beginning to eat her odd amalgamation of carrot and apple and caramel, the mere sight of which drew odd looks from onlookers. Trixie had the most bizarre diet of anypony that Carrot Top had ever met.

“If the show went fine, how come you wanted salt?”

“Interruption,” Raindrops provided, shifting her straw back to the other side of her mouth. “Some purple unicorn mare with a star cutie mark – ”

There was a pop from near the stall, and a sudden stiff breeze from the appearance of some purple unicorn displacing the thin air. Her sudden appearance made Carrot Top jump, Trixie drop her unholy union of carrot and apple, and Raindrops to continue to sip on her carrot juice at a geologically slow pace, while a number of other nearby ponies seemed equally as startled by the display.

“That’s her,” Raindrops said after a moment of making sure she seemed suitably unimpressed.

“I am not jealous!” the unicorn exclaimed to Trixie.

Trixie blinked at other unicorn a few times, before looking down at her fallen confection. After a few moments, she hefted it off of the ground with magic, considering the pieces of grass that came away stuck to it, before taking a tentative bite. After chewing thoughtfully, she seemed satisfied, and pointed a hoof to her friends. “Twilight Sparkle, this is Carrot Top, farmer and Element of Generosity, and Raindrops, weather pony and Element of Honesty.” She shifted her hoof to point to the unicorn. “C, Raindrops, this is Twilight Sparkle, sorceress and Element of Jealousy.”

“Oh my,” Carrot Top intoned.

“I’m not jealous!” Twilight repeated. “I’m…I’m disappointed is what I am!”

Trixie nearly had an outburst herself at that, when she realized that Twilight was beginning to draw a crowd to Carrot Top’s stand. She grinned slightly, leaning over to her friends and held up a hoof as though speaking in confidence to them, though the volume of her voice didn’t change. “She’s disappointed because there isn’t actually an Element of Jealousy.”

“That’s not – !” Twilight began, before closing her eyes and trying to ignore Raindrops’ snickering. She visibly counted to ten. “Look,” she said, “I’m just trying to understand how a pony who is supposed to be the Element of Magic could have put on a magic show I’d more expect from a magic kindergarten filly than from somepony who saved the world!”

“Well, I did save the world. With help,” Trixie added quickly, nodding to Raindrops and Carrot Top, before looking back to Twilight. “It took pegasus magic and earth pony magic – ”

“Earth ponies and pegasi don’t have magic,” Twilight interrupted.

Trixie suppressed a grin. She'd hoped she'd get Twilight to say something stupid; she hadn't expected this. This was beautiful.

Carrot Top was taken aback at Twilight's statement, as were a number of earth ponies and pegasi in the crowd that had been gathering. Twilight seemed to realize her faux pas. “N-not that there’s anything wrong with that!” she added, looking both mortified and honest as she looked between Carrot Top, who seemed more shocked then insulted; Raindrops, who had raised one eyebrow half an inch but otherwise continued sipping her drink at roughly the same rate that continents moved; and the earth ponies and pegasi in the small crowd. “I mean, earth ponies are really good at growing things and are really strong and tough and durable compared to unicorns, and pegasi can fly and manipulate the weather and do other things that unicorns can’t…”

Twilight blinked when the angry looks didn’t go away. “I don’t think unicorns are better than anypony else!” she said firmly. To Trixie, it looked like she honestly meant that, but the damage was done. Twilight came to the same realization only moments later. She closed her eyes tightly, horn glowing, and with a pop she disappeared from view.

Trixie took another bite out of her confection – the grass really did add a pleasant zest to it – and turned back to her friends, chuckling to herself slightly, as the crowd that had gathered around Carrot Top’s stand began dispersing. A few, having had their attention drawn to it now, began to form a line.

Raindrops was staring at Trixie with the same look she had given Twilight Sparkle. “Hey,” she said, “remember after the Longest Night celebration, when you apologized to everypony for being so condescending and manipulative and stuff, and I told you I'd hit you - hard - if you ever acted like that again?”

Trixie considered. “Yes?” she asked.

“Hold still a moment,” Raindrops said as she set her drink down on Carrot Top’s stand and began trotting over to Trixie.

The blue unicorn backed away several paces in fright. Raindrops didn’t speed up to catch her, but she continued advancing. “H-hey!” Trixie objected as she continued backing away, glancing behind her occasionally to make sure she didn’t bump into anything or anypony. “What did I do?”

Raindrop’s wings fluttered a little, though she didn’t take to the air. “That,” she said, cocking her head over her shoulder to indicate Carrot Top’s stand. “Calling that unicorn the Element of Jealousy. Antagonizing her.”

“I didn’t!” Trixie lied, while wondering how to get out of this. Raindrops wasn’t fast, especially not by pegasus standards, but she was relentless.

Which made it a complete surprise when Raindrops stopped advancing, enough so that Trixie, rather than taking the opportunity to flee, stopped moving as well. “Yeah, you did,” the jasmine-coated pegasus said. “What did you think was going to happen?”

Trixie looked down. “She interrupted my show,” she pointed out. “Said that I wasn’t any good at magic.”

“And now you’ve got a huge number of ponies thinking she’s a tribalist,”

"She said it! I didn't make her say that!"

"No, but you were trying to get her to say something stupid," Raindrops said, walking slowly and non-threateningly up to Trixie and touching her forehead to Trixie’s own. “Look, Trixie, we both know you’ve got a delicate ego. And maybe Twilight deserved a little embarrassment. But this? This was too far. By a lot."

Trixie let out a long sigh, leaning in to her friend’s sign of affection. “You’re right…” she admitted after a moment. “I…I should do that whole apology thing, shouldn’t I?”

“Yes,” Raindrops confirmed as she withdrew from Trixie. “Also, one more thing.”

“Yeah?” Trixie asked without looking up.

There was an explosion of pain in the side of Trixie’s mouth, and she saw stars. The unicorn stumbled a little, falling to the ground in a daze. After millions of years – or maybe a few seconds, Trixie couldn’t tell – the world stopped being a spinning mass of stellar objects and singing birds and instead became a spinning quintet of Raindropses (Raindropsi?), who were looking down at her.

“Open your mouth,” the twirling quintet said. For whatever reason, Trixie obeyed them, and the pegasi leaned down and looked in. “Nothing chipped or broken,” they announced after a moment. “Okay, I have a drink to finish.” With that, the Raindropsi (Raindropsen?) were off.

Trixie closed her eyes and rubbed her jaw with her hoof. She resolved to – once she was certain there was no short-term memory damage – make sure to never get into a situation where Raindrops needed to keep that particular promise ever again.

3. The Inevitable Ursa

Twilight Sparkle’s horn glowed, casting a minor cantrip as she looked out at several ponies, who didn’t see her from her crouched position behind her book-laden wagon. As expected upon casting her spell, the unicorns that she could see began to glow brightly in her mind’s eye, while the earth ponies and pegasi remained inert, their normal colorations.

“Ha!” she exclaimed quietly as she closed her eyes and teleported inside of her wagon. “See? See, Trixie? I was right.” She flipped open her book of cantrips – simple spells, usually the first that a unicorn learned after mastering their innate telekinesis, and jabbed a hoof repeatedly on the page she had opened to: the detect magic cantrip. She knew the spell by heart, of course, but she had opened to it and re-read every line several times over just to make absolutely certain that she hadn’t been getting it wrong all these years – and she hadn’t.

“Earth ponies and pegasi don’t glow!” she said. “They do not have magic! The spell is called detect magic and it doesn’t detect them so they’re not magic!” She paused after hearing her own words. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” she exclaimed. “There isn’t!” She dug out a mirror from a pile of books and jabbed a hoof at it. “You are not a tribalist, Twilight Sparkle, just for stating a fact! Nopony would call you a tribalist for saying that only pegasi have wings, or only earth ponies have…” She paused a little, tapping a hoof to her mouth. “Whatever it is that only earth ponies have – oh no!” Twilight leaned away from the mirror in horror. “I can’t think of anything that’s really uniquely earth pony! Maybe I am a tribalist!”

Twilight took a moment to think about that, then shook her head and jabbed a hoof at the mirror again. “No. No you’re not. It’s just Trixie messing with you. Trying to make you look bad. Because…because she’s the jealous one!” Twilight nodded at her realization. “Maybe not jealous. Maybe scared. Scared of the fact that you’re a much better sorceress than she is!”

Twilight began pacing around in the small confines of her wagon, the collected work of the past several years of wandering around Equestria, diving headfirst into magic, learning every spell she could. She had travelled to Manehattan, to Fillydelphia, to Trottingham, to Stalliongrad, practically laying siege to the great libraries of Equestria and devouring all the knowledge of magic that every major library had made available to the public – and even some which were supposed to be off-limits without special permission. Usually she had submitted a request to Canterlot and received that permission. Sometimes she hadn’t gotten it – and once or twice she hadn’t let that stop her.

It was amazing how poorly prepared to deal with teleportation most of Equestria was. She was trying to learn everything she could about magic, after all; she couldn’t let little things like locks and bars and curses and the Equestrian legal code get in the way.

Twilight stopped pacing, looking back to the mirror. “Wait,” she said, “wait. Trixie doesn’t know what kind of sorceress you’re like. She’s seen you, what? Teleport?” Twilight shook her mane. “Teleporting’s easy. And Trixie’s special talent is magic, too. So…” Twilight considered. “Ah! Of course! This is all a test!”

Twilight pranced in place a little when she realized. “Duh, it’s obvious. Of course Trixie wouldn’t bring out her full potential for a silly little carnival like this. Why waste the effort? She didn’t expect to have me in the audience! She expected little foals! And who knows how many ponies before me have tried to learn what she knows about magic? She doesn’t know me from any other two-bit unicorn magician that comes crawling to her looking for attention! She must only accept the best!”

Twilight paused at that. “I am the best,” she said in a low voice, dangerously devoid of emotion. She looked around the mess of books that was her wagon, frantically trying to find some form of inspiration. She would need something big to make up for acting like such a foal in front of Trixie. Something huge. Something gargantuan. Something…

…Twilight’s eyes settled on one book, Creatures of the Everfree Forest, one of her few non-magical tomes. Displayed brazenly on the cover was a megalithic beast, a purple, transparent bear studded with stars: an Ursa Major.

The Everfree Forest was just outside of town.

Twilight Sparkle grinned.

Trixie had just reached Twilight Sparkle’s wagon, parked near the Ponyville library, when there was a familiar pink flash from inside of it, along with a faint popping sound. Eyebrow arched slightly, she raised a hoof and knocked three times on the wagon’s entrance.

“Hello?” she asked. “Twilight Sparkle?”

There was no answer. Trixie tried knocking again. “Twilight, are you in there? It’s Trixie.” She paused a moment to wait for a responce, but got none. “I’m going to open the door, okay?”

Trixie did so, surprised to find it unlocked. Inside the wagon, there was probably a bed and dresser, but most of the space was taken up by books of every shape, size, color, and binding, some stacked in neat piles, some thrown haphazardly across the floor, some sitting on shelves that looked ready to burst. Horn glowing to provide light as the wagon’s door closed behind her, Trixie found that most of the books were about spells and magical theory, with longwinded, often alliterative titles – in fact, Trixie couldn’t find a single book that wasn’t about magic, not just by glancing around, anyway.

Trixie frowned a little as she found a journal, plopped open on Twilight’s bed, or something that was probably a bed underneath all the books it was buried under. She felt a slight sense of invasion as she leaned down to look at it, but quickly found there was no need: the page it was opened to contained a sketch of a magic circle, arcane runes, and notes about how they interacted with each other. Flipping through the pages, she found no personal entries: no comments about seeing a cute stallion or mare; about being overcharged for buying something in a town; not even so innocuous a comment as ‘it was sunny today’ or ‘I saw a bird; it was pretty.’ The “journal” said absolutely nothing about Twilight Sparkle’s life.

Or, on the other hand, she had found out everything about Twilight’s life. This unicorn didn’t just have a talent for magic, from the looks of things – she had an obsession. There was nothing else in her existence besides learning more and more magic, more spells. Twilight Sparkle wasn’t a unicorn, she was a machine: information went in, application came out, occasionally, but only after rigorous study and dissection and experimentation.

Twilight Sparkle didn’t have a life. She had an existence, and that was it. It was a wholly depressing thought, enough to make Trixie turn around and start to leave the unicorn’s wagon, dark humor turning around in her head. Dear Princess Luna, she mentally composed, today I found something horrifically depressing. I might kill myself now, so you should probably start looking for a new representative of your Court to Ponyville, and a new apprentice. I’d recommend a unicorn named Twilight Sparkle, but I think she’d drive you to suicide as well. Your faithful corpse, Trixie.

The blue unicorn stopped, however, when her horn’s glow at last fell on something that wasn’t about magic, pinned to the back of the wagon’s door: a pair of photographs, one of a white-coated mare with a white and purple mane, and the other of a blue-coated stallion with a darker blue mane, both unicorns. The family resemblance was obvious – these were probably Twilight’s parents, then.

“Huh,” Trixie observed in a quiet voice, as she inspected the photos. Sitting beneath it was a well-worn book, set into its own special shelf that even Twilight’s journal hadn’t received. What surprised Trixie was that she recognized the book: Don Rocinante of Equestria. It was one of the most beloved tales of all time, a farce and a comedy, also a little bit of a tragedy. It was, most importantly of all given the wagon she found it in, a work of complete fiction.

Trixie owned the same book. Not the same edition, from the looks of the cover; not even the same publisher – the book had been in the public domain for centuries – but the same fundamental story. Trixie used her telekinesis to lift the book from its stand and open it up, and honestly expected scrawled ink from Twilight’s quill inside of it, complaining about unrealism or making commentary about how magic doesn’t work this way or that way. Instead, she found a wholly unblemished tome, apart from the effects of age and what looked like a marinara sauce stain about halfway through.

Trixie blinked at the sight of it, before that feeling of invasion of privacy came back with a vengeance, and this time nothing came along to stop it. She set the copy of Don Rocinante back where she had found it, and quickly made her way from Twilight’s wagon, shivering a little.

Trixie didn’t know her father, and her mother had died not long after she was born, but that had never bothered her. She had been raised by her aunt Moonsinger, a unicorn and her mother’s sister, and uncle Sky Shaper, a pegasus, and to her they were her parents. And at some point, around the same time that Twilight’s parents had given her a copy of Don Rocinante, Trixie’s uncle and aunt had given her the same book.

It was…unnerving. Here was Trixie the extrovert; there, Twilight the introvert. Here was a blue unicorn who desperately wanted to stop driving ponies away from her; there was a violet one who, from the looks of things, just wanted to be left alone. Here was the personal student of Princess Luna; there was the only unicorn in the history of Equestria to leave Luna’s school of magic with a perfect grade point average, and a year early besides. Yet both had the same book given to them as foals; no doubt the same book had shaped their outlooks on life and turned them into the mares they were today.

Discord’s mismatched horns, Trixie thought, there’s a chance that my aunt and uncle met Twilight’s parents at the book store! It wasn’t hard to imagine that, if circumstances had been only a little different, Twilight could have been the Element of Magic, surrounded by friends, while Trixie wandered the land in her wagon, always alone.

The blue unicorn realized that her trotting away from Twilight’s wagon had turned into a full-on gallop, and stopped herself only with deliberate effort, turning around and finding herself more than a mile from the Ponyville library. I screwed up again, Trixie thought to herself. It was a familiar thought, one she’d had a lot in Canterlot but which had come surprisingly less often in Ponyville. It felt almost like an old friend, or at least something that considered itself an old friend no matter what Trixie herself thought of it.

I screwed up again. Twilight just wanted to do what she does, the only thing she knows how to do. Information goes in. Application comes out. She didn’t mean to interrupt my show. She didn’t mean to be unpleasant to me. It probably never even entered her mind. And because of that, I manipulated things so that she ended up looking like a bigoted, awful mare.

Congratulations. You’ve never managed to drive somepony away and ruin their lives at the same time. Well done, O Great and Powerful Trixie! Was there ever any doubt?

Trixie began galloping again, back to Twilight’s wagon. The lavender unicorn would have to come back at some point, and when she did, Trixie would be waiting.

---[side story]---

Twilight’s mane and coat were both a little disheveled from trotting through the Everfree forest, having been caught a few times on thickets and twigs, but she didn’t let her appearance bother her as she moved with determination, horn glowing brightly as she repeatedly chanted the words of the Finder’s spell. From the mental pulse her horn was giving off, she was getting close to –

– a cockatrice leapt from a nearby bush directly in front of Twilight, and screamed, eyes on its rooster-like head glowing blood red.

Twilight didn’t even slow down or look directly at it as her telekinesis grabbed the cockatrice and hurled it high into the air, its shriek changing from one of challenge to fright at being so casually tossed aside. The unicorn was getting close to her destination and really didn’t need to be distracted right now. In fact, just to prevent further distractions, Twilight teleported the rest of the way, trusting her abilities to carry her safely to near wherever the Ursa lay.

Her trust was well-founded. With a pop and a flash of light, Twilight appeared in front of a truly massive cave opening, and the pulse of her Finder’s spell went into overdrive. Chuckling to herself, the unicorn proceeded in, though she made her horn’s glow dim considerably as she did. Her ears were perked high and alert, while her eyes scanned the shadows, looking for any sign of…

Her horn’s light finally fell across something that wasn’t merely rock or lichen. At first, all Twilight saw was a field of speckled white and blue, translucent fur, like looking at the night sky, but as she continued to walk forward, she saw more of the vast creature in front of her: white, sharp claws, a black nose, and an eight-pointed star placed firmly on its forehead.

Best of all, it was asleep. That was perfect, and not just because it made the Ursa significantly less likely to eat Twilight. The lavender unicorn closed her eyes tightly, horn glowing, as she reached out with a sweet, honey-flavored magical aura, which closed around the beast’s head like a halo. The spell she was casting over the sleeping, gigantic blue bear was fantastically illegal for her to know – it had been one of those cases where she’d broken into a library’s sealed vaults and read the grimoire it came from by furtive horn-light. Twilight had never planned on using it before today, and certainly never planned on using it on other ponies.

But an Ursa, that was different.

After several long minutes of concentration, Twilight’s eyes opened again – and, at the same time, so too did the Ursa’s. It looked at Twilight, but its eyes were unfocused and glossed over as though it wasn’t really seeing anything, which was technically true. The Ursa was still, technically speaking, asleep, and was unaware of the world around it. It was essentially sleepwalking, only with Twilight’s mind, rather than the Ursa’s, directing it. The lavender unicorn smiled as she poured more magic into the spell, making the Ursa stand up and begin talking long, lumbering steps forward on all four paws, and out the cave, with Twilight in tow.

Twilight’s grin widened as she and her ursine companion made their way to Ponyville. The way she saw things, there were two possibilities: either Trixie was testing her, in which case such a powerful enchantment and display of her reservoirs of magic – this spell required a continuous influx of eldritch energy – would surely allow Twilight to pass the test; or else Trixie was a blowhard fraud who didn’t really deserve the Element of Magic, in which such a display of power on Twilight’s part would get Trixie to admit that and apologize for the way she treated Twilight, at which point she would return the Ursa to –

The unicorn stumbled a little while walking. She paused in her trot, shaking her head to clear it. She had stumbled over a root, one that was large and should have been fairly obvious with her horn glowing to provide illumination, not to mention the natural, soft glow that the Ursa itself had. Twilight realized that her eyelids felt a little heavy…

Blinking, she teleported atop the Ursa’s back, resolving to ride him into Ponyville. Probably would make a better impression, anyway. The spell was a little more exhausting to maintain than Twilight had anticipated, but surely there would be no problem as long as she didn’t tire herself out with walking…

…or keeping her eyes open…

Trixie wasn’t a mare who could easily sit still and do nothing, so she had been spending the past hour outside of Twilight’s wagon practicing her illusions; in this case, she had created a full deck of fifty-four playing cards and a six-sided die, and was playing a private variant of solitaire she had invented just for her illusions. She was also losing – the illusory die didn’t seem to like her much, and Trixie couldn’t help but wonder if that had anything to do with her current frame of mind. Still, Trixie hated losing, especially to herself at a game she had invented, so in a way it was a welcome relief when she heard a scream of terror.

Trixie blinked, looking up and allowing her game to dissolve into blue ether. In moments, she was on her hooves and running towards the source of the screams, back towards the Eventime festival proper. A quick glance at the position of the moon revealed it to be about half an hour before midnight.

The blue unicorn stumbled a little over something as she ran, a shallow pit that had somehow appeared in the dirt roads of Ponyville. She frowned at the sight of it as she resumed galloping, only to stumble again in another pit. By the time she hit the third, she stopped running and took a moment to look around, horn glowing brightly to provide more illumination than the moon and stars were able to by themselves. Somepony had been digging shallow pits at regular intervals through Ponyville’s west main road, had probably been able to get away with it because everypony was at the town center right now. Trixie climbed out of the latest pit, looking around. They looked almost like footsteps…

It was around then that she heard a roar. A very, very loud roar that completely overwrote the sentient part of her brain and sent her scurrying into a nearby bush for cover at the sound. It was several long moments before thought was possible for the blue unicorn again, and several more before she was composed enough to emerge from her hiding spot and begin charging towards the center of town.

The source of the roar was not hard to spot. It was a gigantic, blue bear with a translucent, star-studded hide, reared up on its hind legs and looking around menacingly. Ponies everywhere were scattering at the sight of it, practically trampling each other down. Trixie had almost resolved to do the same thing, when she spotted her – a purple unicorn with a deep blue mane, lying prone at the feet of the bear, eyes closed, though breathing steadily. The beast didn’t seem to notice Twilight Sparkle beneath its feet, but that didn’t mean that the unicorn was even remotely safe.

Trixie grimaced as she began charging forward, the stampede of other ponies eagerly parting to get around the seemingly suicidal student of Luna.

“Whoa there,” a voice came from above Trixie as she ducked behind a tent, while the giant bear casually knocked over a stand of cherries and, finding that it liked the action, proceeded to do likewise to all the stall within its reach. Trixie looked up, and saw Raindrops, hovering in place behind the tent. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Trixie pointed to Twilight Sparkle. “I’m trying to save the napping idiot,” she said. The two ponies were about a hundred feet from the bear, who was having too much fun causing destruction to notice them.

Raindrops pointed at her wings with her hoof while scoffing slightly. “Yeah, no. I’m the one who can fly out of reach.”

“But you’re a slow flier,” Trixie pointed out. “I can turn invisible.”

Raindrops didn’t argue the point. She looked around a few moments at the debris that had been tossed over in their direction, and settled on a large toy axe from one of the game stalls. “Okay,” she said, hefting it before launching herself straight up into the air, though not before calling down, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Trixie.”

“Me too,” Trixie decided, as she wrapped illusions around herself, bending light around her body, cape, and hat, and turning her into nothing more than a smudge on reality, then began galloping forward as fast as she dared. As she got near the bear, an axe flew down from overhead and knocked the bear on top of its head. Frankly, given its size, Trixie was surprised that it had even noticed, but the bear did indeed look up, and saw Raindrops silhouetted against the moon.

“Hey, ugly!” the jasmine-coated pegasus shouted at the Ursa. “Hi!”

The bear roared, charging to get directly underneath Raindrops and rearing up on its hind legs, swiping at her. She was too far off of the ground, however, her wings beating furiously to make sure that even if the bear was smart enough to try jumping for her, it still wouldn’t reach her. Trixie, meanwhile, had reached Twilight Sparkle’s side. She didn’t appear injured, at least, as Trixie used her telekinesis to heft the fallen pony onto her back and gallop away, letting her invisibility spell fade just as she reached an alleyway. On reaching it, she waved to Raindrops, who spotted her and nodded as she remained stationary, more than a hundred feet up. The bear looked increasingly angry, but so far couldn’t seem to think of any way to get the annoying jasmine pegasus.

Trixie turned back to regard the bear after depositing Twilight in the relative safety of the alley. What was this thing? Why had it wandered into Ponyville? It had seemed just as confused as Trixie was to find itself in the middle of a pony town.

The unicorn steeled herself as she went through every spell she knew. Sooner or later, the bear was going to grow tired of trying to reach Raindrops, and when that happened it would go back to destroying everything – or grabbing a midnight snack, in the form of any ponies it could chase down. Unfortunately, though Luna had trained her in the basics of combat magic, Trixie had never had much of a flare for it – and more importantly, she’d never expected to fight something that was bigger than most of the buildings in Ponyville.

“Urgh…” a voice said from behind Trixie. The unicorn looked, and saw Twilight’s eyes fluttering open, as the mare rubbed her head. “Ow…”

Trixie rushed up to the unicorn. “Twilight!” she exclaimed. “You! You’re the one who’s been doing nothing but learning spells!”

The other unicorn’s eyes locked onto Trixie. “Oh,” she said, her voice dry, “it’s you. You know, I – ”

Any further scathing commentary was cut short by the bear growling, drawing Trixie and Twilight’s attention. It had settled down on all fours again, glaring up at Raindrops but looking like it was trying to decide whether Raindrops was worth the effort anymore.

“…So that’s happening,” Trixie announced, turning back to Twilight, who was staring with wide eyes and flopped ears. “Any ideas?”

Twilight blinked several times. “I – but – how could this have happened?” she demanded, hooves at her mouth in horror at the sight of the bear. “The Ursa was – ”

“Nopony cares how this thing got here!” Trixie exclaimed. “We just need to get rid of it before it destroys Ponyville! I don’t think I know any spells big enough! Do you?”

Twilight’s eyes were still fluttering in shock. “I…maybe…”

“Teleporting. How about teleporting? Could you teleport it?”

“What? No!” Twilight exclaimed, running her hooves through her already disheveled mane. “I mean…maybe! Maybe, if I had time to gather the power to move something so massive…”

“Time?” Trixie asked. “How much time?”

Twilight started using her hoof to draw numbers, variables, and mathematical symbols in the dirt. “Well, um…if I…carry the two…divide…no, wait, was I supposed to…”

“We don’t have time for math!” Trixie exclaimed. “Give me a guess!”

Twilight looked up, somehow even more horror on her face. “Guess? Guess?” she demanded. “I don’t make guesses, I – ”

There was a roar. Twilight and Trixie both turned to see that the beast – apparently an Ursa, if Twilight’s exclamation was anything to go by – had turned around, and was looking at both of them, seeming to be very annoyed at the sight of the two arguing unicorns.

“Five minutes,” Twilight Sparkle guessed, closing her eyes and getting her horn glowing.

Trixie grimaced. Summoning all the bravery she could, she charged forward at the Ursa, horn glowing beneath her hat.

“What are you doing?” Raindrops called down, eliciting a glare from the Ursa but not otherwise drawing its attention away from Trixie.

“Buying Twilight Sparkle time!” Trixie shouted back, as she skidded to a halt in front of the Ursa and made her horn flash. She disappeared from sight for a brief second, and when she re-appeared, she had been replaced by five identical copies, each of whom scattered and began running in circles around the Ursa. It roared in confusion and frustration, beginning to stomp its forelegs at the Trixies, as well as chomp at them with its teeth. Each time it managed to grab one, the Trixie it hit would disappear in a puff of blue-tinted smoke. Eventually, there was only one left, and the Ursa seemed immensely pleased with itself as it brought its paws down on the final Trixie – only to have that one disappear as well, rather than leave a Trixie-colored stain on its coat and the ground. The Ursa roared in frustration.

The real Trixie, meanwhile, had been hard at work after turning herself invisible again. She knew only one decent, purely combat-related spell, how to summon a bolt of lightning. The downside was that she wasn’t certain she could create a cloud, and therefore a lightning bolt, large enough to cause significant damage to such a huge creature. The upside was that there was a weather pony floating in the sky right over Trixie and the Ursa’s head, using her pegasus abilities to build the cloud up from the tiny wisp Trixie had put together into a building-sized nimbus just waiting to release its stored charge. The Ursa noticed the cloud just as Raindrops landed atop it and gave it a good, solid buck with her hind legs. A yellow-white bolt of lightning arched from it and struck the Ursa…

…and singed its fur. Slightly. Worse, the discharge rendered Trixie visible again, as the cloud began to dissipate.

“Huh,” Trixie said as the Ursa turned to regard her again, this time not looking particularly annoyed at all. Absolutely furious and ready to tear her apart, yes, but not annoyed. Trixie gave the bear a polite smile, then began to gallop right at it, eyes closed as her horn glowed again. The Ursa had apparently not expected this move, and reared up in surprise as Trixie managed to shoot between its legs.

“Any more plans?” Raindrops called down.

“Don’t die! That’s my master plan right now!” Trixie exclaimed as the bear began turning, a ponderous prospect for it given its sheer mass. Trixie telekinetically hefted the remains of a nearby pear stall and threw them at the Ursa, succeeding in her brilliant gambit to make it more angry. With a roar, it charged.

Hasn’t it been five minutes yet? Trixie demanded as she squeezed her eyes shut and released a burst of light, as bright as a magnesium flare, from her horn. Upside: the bear roared in pain as it stumbled in its charge, pawing at its eyes. Downside: Trixie fell to the dirt road as well, hooves at her eyes. She gingerly opened her them and found that she could see vague outlines and colors, but nothing else, and that was despite closing her eyes in preparation for the burst of light. Groaning, the unicorn shut her eyes again, picked a direction, and started galloping…right into a large, fuzzy mass.

“Eep!” she shrieked as she forced her eyes open, in time to see something blue and white and large swipe at her. She ducked what she assumed was the Ursa’s claw and began galloping again, only to trip and stumble over a ruined stall, getting tangled up in its banner and landing face-first in what smelled and tasted suspiciously like apple pie.

Great. I’m going to die and Carrot Top is going to think my last action was to pig out on something made by her biggest rival. Provided the Ursa leaves a body behind. Which it won’t.

I don’t even like pie.

Trixie forced her eyes to both open and focus, and saw the Ursa standing up, roaring in furor as it rubbed at its damaged eyes, then brought them into focus on the target of all of its hate. Trixie kicked her hooves furiously, trying to untangle herself from the Apple family’s banner and failing miserably. The Ursa began its charge…

…then it was surrounded in a violet aura. It stumbled slightly at the sensation as the aura flared a moment, before there was a flash and a pop. The Ursa disappeared from sight, and following it was a stiff breeze as the air rushed to fill the vacuum its sudden disappearance left behind.

Trixie looked back to the ally where she’d left Twilight Sparkle. The unicorn was standing, dripping sweat and panting heavily. “That,” she exclaimed loudly, “is real – ”

She didn’t get to finish her proclamation, as her eyes fluttered once, before she fell to the ground, heaving chest revealing that she was still definitely alive, but unconscious.

4. Run Runaway

Trixie finally managed to untangle herself from the Apple family banner, with help from Raindrops once the pegasus had joined her. It still took several minutes, however, and by the time she was free, a number of ponies had begun to creep back into the festival grounds, given that there was no longer a gigantic blue bear destroying it.

“Where did it go?” one pony asked as Trixie shook her left rear hoof free of the streamer. This was followed by numerous questions, all of them directed at Trixie and Raindrops, but the two ignored them as they both trotted over to Twilight Sparkle, who was still passed out, but looked mostly unharmed. Trixie breathed out a sigh of relief, turning around to regard the crowd.

“Is anypony hurt?” she asked, slipping comfortably into her role of ‘Representative of the Night Court of Luna,’ which was her normal job in Ponyville. This usually simply meant that she served as a glorified messenger between the Ponyvillians and Luna, but in times like these the official authority was useful.

There was several minutes of low chatter between everypony as they checked each other. Fortunately, nopony seemed to have been injured by the Ursa. Trixie leaned quickly that there was a good reason for that: despite its later actions, apparently the Ursa had rather peacefully wandered into Ponyville initially, largely unnoticed due to essentially the entire town being at the Eventime festival. On sighting its approach, most ponies had quite sensibly already fled; the remainder made good their escape once the Ursa had turned obviously violent.

“Did you get rid of it?” a pony, an orange colt with a green mane, asked.

Before she even actively thought about it, Trixie was opening her mouth to answer yes, and then proceed to go on about how she had been instrumental and a vital part of doing that very thing – at least until she saw Raindrops watching her actions closely, left eyebrow raising by about half an inch.

“I helped,” Trixie decided after a moment, ignoring a twinge in her jaw as she turned around and pointed to Twilight, who was awake and groggily getting up onto her own four hooves, shaking her head. A look of mild panic overcame her features when she saw how many ponies she was surrounded by. Trixie placed a re-assuring hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “But most of the credit goes to Twilight Sparkle,” the mare explained. “Raindrops and I distracted the Ursa, but she was the one who cast the spell that teleported it away.”

Trixie blinked a few times even as she finished saying that. Huh. That hadn’t been as hard to admit as she thought it was going to be.

“Wow…” a short green colt with an orange mane said, trotting forward several paces, eyes locked on Twilight. “You beat an Ursa Major!”

“An Ursa what?” Raindrops asked.

“An Ursa Major!” the colt repeated. “A big bear, bigger than any other bear! The biggest bear to ever walk Equestria! Nopony but the Princess is supposed to be able to beat one!”

Trixie pouted a little. “I helped,” she repeated in a low voice. She heard Raindrops chuckle, but decided to ignore it.

Twilight closed her eyes, shaking her head. “That wasn’t an Ursa Major,” she explained. “That was just a baby. An Ursa Minor.”

“A baby?” numerous ponies exclaimed at her statement. Trixie, herself, was having a difficult time comprehending that. “If that’s an Ursa Minor…what’s an Ursa Major like?”

The lavender unicorn laughed, rubbing a hoof behind her head. “You don’t want to know!” she responded, smiling a little and finding some inner reserve of socialness. “But trust me, I’d never be crazy enough to try and bring an Ursa Major into…town…” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she had just said, or more to the point implied, eyes wide and pupils shrinking to tiny dots. Looks of furor that would have done the Ursa Minor proud began to appear on their faces of the Ponyvillians as their eyes locked unerringly onto Twilight Sparkle.

The lavender unicorn sputtered a little, before snapping her eyes shut, horn glowing brightly and disappearing in a flash and a pop. There was a protracted silence, before Trixie turned to Raindrops and poked a hoof at where Twilight had been.

“That one’s not my fault,” she insisted.

Trixie found Twilight Sparkle on the floor of her wagon, saddlebags slung over her back and desperately looking between a pair of books – from the looks of things, trying to decide which of the two thick tomes to take with her. On hearing her enter, the lavender unicorn eeped and spun around, horn glowing brightly. “Stay back!” Twilight ordered. “I have a horn and I know how to use it!”

Trixie decided that, given Twilight’s current frame of mind, it would be better to leave that one be rather than come up with some witty response. Instead, the blue unicorn sat down just inside Twilight’s wagon, closing the door behind her and taking off her hat. “Full disclosure,” Trixie said, “there’s about a hundred ponies outside who are very, very upset that their Eventime festival has been ruined. More will be showing up soon, too. So don’t try to run.”

“Ha!” Twilight exclaimed. “I just teleported an Ursa Minor miles without having line-of-sight to where I was sending it, and to somewhere I’ve only been once. You really think I’d run?”

Trixie sighed, waving a hoof. “Alright, fine. You can teleport. You can make the perfect getaway. At which point I write to Princess Luna about what you did and you become a hunted criminal.”

Twilight stared, and for a second Trixie was worried that she had made a mistake mentioning to the desperate pony that she could turn Twilight into Equestria’s Most Wanted. After several long moments of uncomfortable silence, however, the lavender unicorn hung her head in defeat. “I didn’t mean to,” Twilight stated, sounding exhausted, hurt, and in all other ways like a pony at the end of her rope. “I just…I figured that you must have unicorns coming up to you all the time, being the Element of Magic…so I had to impress you to make you teach me what you know. Either that or you were treating me the way you were because you were a fraud, in which case I’d show you what real magic was…”

Trixie blinked a few times, considering, before rubbing a hoof behind her head. “Option two, for the most part…” she said.

Twilight locked eyes on Trixie. Despite being the one to bring up the possibility, she seemed shocked. “But…but you’re the Element of Magic!” she exclaimed.

The blue unicorn spent a few moments to try and figure out the best way to go about this. “Twilight,” she said, “what do you think magic is?”

“This!” Twilight exclaimed, waving a hoof around her wagon. “Research! Documentation! Experimentation! Spells!”

“Never been much of a spellcaster,” Trixie admitted sheepishly. At Twilight’s uncomprehending look, Trixie pressed on. “During the fight with Corona a few months ago, she destroyed the stones that I thought were five of the Elements of Harmony. At that point, I was ready to just give up, to let Corona win. I’d given everything I had and it wasn’t even close to enough. But then Cheerilee – you haven’t met her, she’s the Element of Laughter – pointed out that Corona hadn’t destroyed the Elements. She’d destroyed a bunch of rocks. The spirits of the Elements of Harmony were right in front of her. And one by one, each of the five ponies that followed me into the Everfree Forest claimed their Element.

“But Corona…well, actually, me, but Corona agreed with me on this…said that it didn’t matter, because we still didn’t have the sixth Element. But the ponies claimed that they did, and it was me. They pointed out everything I’d done to help them during the lead-up to the Longest Night celebration, and during our time in the Everfree. They said I hadn’t let them down yet and they said they knew that I wasn’t going to let them down now. Because they were my friends, or wanted to be my friends, despite the fact that I hadn’t acted very nicely towards them. And I realized that I wanted them to be my friends, too. That I didn’t want to let them down.

“And that’s when I earned the Element of Magic. Not because I knew so many spells, not because I had some kind of deep reservoir of magic to draw on. But because I had a…a connection with those ponies. My friends.” She scuffed a hoof on the wooden floor of Twilight’s wagon in slight embarrassment. “That’s what magic is. It’s connections. Unicorn spell-casting is the most obvious kind of connection, when we take our inner power and cast it out to the world around us and shape it by making connections with whatever we touch. But magic is also how a pegasus has a connection to the air and the clouds and the seasons. Or how an earth pony has a connection to the land, to growing things.

“But it’s more than just that, too. It’s the connection between friends, or family, or lovers. It’s the connection a teacher has with her students. The connection a musician has with her instrument, or a weather pony with her job, a farmer and her business, a mother and her daughter. Or a magician with her audience. It doesn’t matter what the connection is. If it’s there, it’s a kind of magic.” Trixie looked to Twilight hopefully. “Is any of this making any sense?”

Twilight considered for a few moments. “Not really,” Twilight she decided after her ruminations, her voice deadpanned. “No.”

Trixie huffed, hopeful expression dropping to one of annoyance. “Well, too bad. I’m not explaining it again.”

“So what happens now?” Twilight asked. As she did, her muscles tensed slightly, her head drooping a little. Clearly, she was expecting a fight, and in all honesty Trixie’s first instinct was to give her one.

Instead, however, the blue unicorn sighed. “I don’t know. This whole situation is sort of my fault. I manipulated you into making yourself look like a tribalist, and should have treated you better.” She looked to Twilight. “But it’s also your fault, for bringing the Ursa Minor into town. I’m willing to take responsibility for my part. What about you?”

Twilight met Trixie’s gaze, and the silence between the two of them stretched on, and on. Trixie could see the gears turning in her head, her weighing the situation carefully, trying to find a way out of the situation. After a long moment, she looked away from Trixie, eyes closed, a look of defeat on her face. Trixie smiled at her apparent choice. “You’ve made the right – ” she began, when Twilight’s horn glowed. In a flash and a pop, the lavender unicorn disappeared from sight.

Dear Princess Luna,

As you are well aware, tonight was the Eventime festival in Ponyville. I put on another magic show, and once again I found I had a captivated audience. You were absolutely right about my desire for attention and how showmareship would be an excellent outlet. The Great and Powerful Trixie could be a regular part of Ponyville’s festivals for years to come!

Unfortunately, I had more than just my adoring fans of Ponyville watching me. A unicorn named Twilight Sparkle had journeyed to Ponyville on hearing that I was the Element of Magic. She thought that because I was the Element of Magic, I must have been a superb spellcaster, and was distraught when she learned that wasn’t the case, enough to cause a minor interruption to my show. Unfortunately, I was not as sympathetic to her as I should have been, especially after she came backstage accusing me of being a fraud and wasting your teachings. I tried to leave the situation peaceably, but when she pursued me into the festival, old Canterlot habits came back to me, and I managed to make her seem like a tribalist to the ponies of Ponyville.

I have included a more formal testimony of her response in my regular report to you. Here, I just wanted to make clear that Twilight Sparkle is not entirely responsible for what happened in Ponyville tonight, that I bear a large responsibility for goading and dismissing Twilight. I don’t think she’s a bad pony, she simply made a few bad decisions – because of me. I ask that you consider that when deciding how to deal with her when the law enforcers of Equestria catch up with her.

Your faithful student & servant,

– Trixie

Trixie considered her letter for a moment, illuminated by the dawn’s light that was coming in through her home’s window. She hated having to send letters like this, ones where she was forced to admit to Luna that despite everything she was learning about not acting like a complete and total jerk to others, about the ‘magic of friendship,’ she still had a long way to go in that regard. A large part of her wanted to just crumple up the letter and toss it into the fireplace, but she knew that wouldn’t solve anything – Luna would find out sooner or later anyway, and putting off telling her teacher would only make her that much angrier when she did find out.

With a sigh, Trixie took off her magician’s hat, chanted a few magic words over it, and tossed the parchment she had written her letter on into it. There was a flash as the letter disappeared from her hat, the enchantment inside of it seizing it and transporting it to Luna’s private study, where the Princess would read it in a few hours after she rose from her sleep – though she held dominion over both sun and moon, Luna still considered herself primarily a creature of the night, and so typically slept from dawn until about noon, or later if she could help it.

Having fulfilled her duties, Trixie slipped her hat back on her head, and went back out into Ponyville. The mess that the Ursa made of the town’s center had been largely cleaned up, or at least turned from a chaotic, widespread collection of debris into a single large pile that would be dealt with later, after everyone had slept the day away as well – ponies were not themselves nocturnal, like Luna, but even without the Ursa, the Eventime festival would have itself been enough to prompt most ponies to decide to sleep in.

Some industrious pony had, from the looks of things, dragged Twilight Sparkle’s wagon into that pile. Trixie could definitely understand the sentiment. Despite being perfectly functional, it belonged to a pony who had ruined what was supposed to be a time of celebration, and so as far as the Ponyvillians were concerned the wagon and everything in it was just so much trash.

Still…there was a tremendous amount of knowledge in that wagon. Trixie recalled that Twilight Sparkle had been expecting her to be some mighty archmage, a sorceress supreme with magical power second only to the Princess herself. Despite her special talent being magic, however, Trixie had never really been much of a spellcaster.

But there was no reason that couldn’t change. Twilight Sparkle might not be the last unicorn who came to her looking to learn something. Maybe next time, she could actually have something worthwhile to teach.

Plus, Trixie supposed as she opened the door to Twilight’s wagon, there might be something I could use in one of my shows. Teleporting would be a neat trick…

Author's Notes
Thank-you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed this. Also, I would like to take the time to thank Cerulean Starlight for taking it upon himself to serve as an editor for this story! Thanks again, CS, for the effort!

Still have a horrible plan for this universe, but I'm going to wait for CS' final edit PM first.

5. Shining Armor

It was a rare thing for Shining Armor to receive a personal summons from the Princess; rarer, still, to receive one so early in the day. True, it was past noon, but the reigning monarch of Equestria was, by preference, nocturnal, typically going to bed almost immediately after setting the moon and raising the sun, and sleeping straight through the midday. As it stood, Her Majesty couldn’t have been awake for much more than an hour at this point.

Not that Shining Armor meeting with the Princess was a rare thing; he did so every day, in fact, as part of the general cabinet meeting of her personal staff, reporting on the defensive readiness of Canterlot, both the palace and the capital city as a whole, an exercise that had once been largely a formality, but which the return of Corona had turned into a decidedly more serious endeavor. Things had been tense in Canterlot for the past few months, as nopony knew when Corona planned to strike next, or how, and so all that the Royal Guard could do was hope that they were prepared for whatever came.

Still, as Shining Armor approached the core of Canterlot Castle, he was trying to remember the last time the Princess had held a personal audience with him. The only one he could recall was when she had appointed him Captain of the Royal Guard, and that had been more of an interview than anything.

Shining Armor was nearing his destination, now, the personal offices of Her Majesty the Princess. He was passing an increasing number of the castle’s staff – maids and servants, of course, but also members of the Royal Guard, dressed in armor and armed with weapons that were considerably more ornate than the standard issue, but which were no less functional. He recognized each and every one, of course: they were the personal guard of the Princess, and he had personally hoof-picked each and every one for their skill, loyalty, and adherence to duty.

This last quality was demonstrated as he approached the doors to the Princess’ office. Despite recognizing who Shining Armor was, despite his technically being their commanding officer, the pegasus and earth pony who stood guard at the door both assumed a defensive posture as he approached, crossing their halberds in front of the door in challenge. He could have easily, after all, been an assassin wearing an illusion or having shape-shifted into his current form.

Paranoid? Yes. But it was the job of the Royal Guard to be paranoid, and especially these two. If they hadn’t reacted as they had, then each of them would have soon found themselves off of guard duty and on to latrine duty.

Shining Armor stopped a respectful distance from the two. “I’m here to see Her Majesty,” he stated. “I was summoned.”

The two guards looked to each other, before the pegasus turned and opened the door, announcing Shining Armor’s arrival, while the earth pony’s eyes remained fixed on the unicorn captain of the guard. After a moment, the pegasus looked back to his companion and nodded, and the two guards stepped aside, allowing Shining Armor entrance into the Princess’ office.

In stark contrast to most of Canterlot, the private office of Princess Luna Equestris was constructed from, or at least made to look like, wooden paneling, rather than the granite that most of Canterlot was made from. Further contrasting with the blue-and-silver decorations strung up throughout the castle, Luna’s office was decorated primarily in shades of warm, inviting reds, complimenting the large fireplace that warmed it in the winter. It otherwise looked surprisingly mundane for the royal office – there were comfortable but hardly lavish cushions sitting on either side of a normal-looking mahogany desk, a book case filled with volumes of both legal code and political philosophy, a map of Equestria and its neighbors on one wall, and various other trinkets scattered about, both useful ones like the abacus sitting at the Princess' desk, and mere curiosities, such as a buffalo peace pipe hanging from one wall. Without changing a single thing about it, one could have transported the room to a normal, albeit wealthy, barrister’s or bookkeeper’s office in Manehattan or Stalliongrad, and not have been able to detect anything out of place.

Despite all that, it wasn’t the simplicity of the office that made Shining Armor pause as he entered, as he had been in here before and knew what to expect. He had even anticipated seeing Princess Luna sitting on the other side of the her desk, horn glowing as she looked over her schedule for the day and reports of what had occurred while she slept. It wasn’t even surprising to see that she was not wearing her black crown, nor the rest of the royal regalia, though those sat nearby on a special stand prepared for them.

No, the thing that caught him off guard was that Princess Luna Equestris was wearing glasses.

Thin, red-rimmed glasses, that somehow managed to make the Shepherd of the Moon, the Caretaker of the Sun, the impossibly ancient yet eternally youthful alicorn princess of Equestria, look almost cute –

No, no, not going there, not even thinking about going there, Shining Armor declared sternly to himself as he approached the desk, and offered a deep bow. “Your Majesty,” he said. “You sent for me?”

Luna had looked up from whatever she was doing as Shining Armor had bowed, and nodded as he spoke and rose from his bow. “Yes, captain,” she said as she stood, walking out from behind her desk to join him. “There is a…is something the matter?”

Shining Armor blinked a few times, and suddenly realized that he must have been staring. “Uh – no, Majesty. I just – I didn’t know you needed glasses.”

Luna paused a moment, then chuckled slightly as her horn glowed, and she levitated the glasses off of her face and set them down on her desk. “I don’t, but I find they help me concentrate on work, especially so soon after waking up, when work is the furthest thing from my mind.”

“Yes, Majesty,” Shining Armor said. “What is on your mind?”

“Several things,” Luna responded, pressing her lips tightly together for a moment after doing so. “Several things…breakfast, for one, but I’ve put that off for the moment.” She motioned with one hoof towards the cushions at her desk, as she herself walked over to the office’s window, ruffling her wings slightly in agitation. “Please have a seat, Shining Armor.”

In truth, he would have preferred to remain standing, but when the Princess of the Night offered one a seat, one took it. He settled down on the large cushions on his side of the desk, watching Luna closely. “Does this concern the Cavallian envoy that will be arriving in a few weeks, Majesty?” Shining Armor asked. With Corona returned from her exile into the heart of the sun, Luna had been reaching out to the various nations surrounding Equestria, looking for support and aid in finding her. First and foremost, of course, was a planned meeting with Cavallia, Equestria’s oldest ally despite also technically being a breakaway state.

Luna shook her head as she turned to regard Shining Armor. “No. Your plans to safeguard Princess Mi Amore Cadenza during her stay are exemplary. This matter doesn’t concern Equestria as a whole…it concerns the Starlight family.”

Shining Armor blinked at the mention of his own family, one of the oldest and most respected – and influential – families of the Night Court. His father, Nightlight, was Viceroy of Latigo, one of Equestria’s largest provinces in the northeast that bordered the Griffin Kingdoms, the independent nation of Gryphos, and the protected city-states of Hippopotamia. “Has something happened to my father?” Shining Armor asked.

Luna shook her head. “No. Your father is just fine, as is your mother. For that matter, to my knowledge your sister, is alive and…unharmed…as well, but this matter concerns her – ”

“Twilie?” Shining Armor asked, standing suddenly and forgetting decorum and proper etiquette at the mention of his sister. “What’s happened to her?”

Luna raised a hoof, trying to calm Shining Armor down. “Please, captain. Sit down.”

Shining Armor obeyed, but only after a moment as his gaze remained locked on Luna’s. The Princess of the Night’s lips were pressed tightly together as she waited for Shining Armor to at least look like he had calmed down. “Last night,” Luna began, “Twilight Sparkle arrived in Ponyville, where she met with my student, Trixie Lulamoon. Do you know her?”

Shining Armor tried to stop his grimace, but failed. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “I met her several times when she lived in the castle, though we never spoke directly. She has a…memorable…personality.”

“That is a charitable way of phrasing it, yes,” Luna confirmed. Shining Armor knew that Luna was rarely so kind with her adjectives. “In any event, your sister met with Trixie. Their meeting did not go well. According to my student, Twilight accused Trixie of being a two-bit hedge mage and a waste of magical talent.” She held up a hoof before Shining Armor could respond to that. “I believe my student, captain, but given the severity of what followed, I am arranging to have the matter thoroughly investigated, and I will of course allow the Starlights to arrange for their own investigation.”

“Severity of what followed?” Shining Armor echoed.

Luna winced slightly. “Trixie, displaying far less control than I would like, goaded your sister into making herself seem like a unicorn-supremacist in front of all of Ponyville. Now, if the matter had progressed no further than this, I would not be talking to you, Shining Armor. Harsh words between two young mares are not worth the attentions of the Night Court, nor the Royal Guard.”

They’re worth my attentions, Shining Armor thought. Not that he would, in any way, abuse his position as captain of the guard to come down on Trixie like a ton of bricks like he wanted to - but that didn't mean that he wouldn't abuse it a little to get back at Trixie for doing that to his sister. Perhaps just a very thorough security check next time she came to Canterlot. Something inconvenient and drawn out. It was amazing what one could do when one was part of the group that strung up the red tape.

Of course, then what Luna had specified sank in. “What happened?” he asked.

Luna grimaced again. “There is no easy way to phrase this,” she stated, “So I will simply say it. Twilight Sparkle responded by going into the Everfree Forest and using fantastically illegal enchantment magic to take control of an Ursa Minor. She then proceeded to bring the Ursa Minor into the center of Ponyville. I do not know her intentions, because at that point, she lost control of the Ursa Minor, and it proceeded to go on a rampage through the town square, causing thousands of bits in property damage.”

Shining Armor stared, wide-eyed. “N…no,” he stated. “Twilie…Twilie wouldn’t do that.”

“There are dozens of eyewitnesses, Shining Armor. The evidence is irrefutable. Now, there were no casualties, and there are also dozens of eyewitnesses that confirm that, while Trixie distracted the Ursa Minor, your sister was able to teleport it away, back into the Everfree. But she then teleported away herself. Nopony has seen nor heard from her since, but then it has only been a few hours. And that does not change the fact that she used illegal magic in the first place, illegal magic she could have learned only by breaking and entering into secure vaults in one of the great libraries of Equestria.” Luna’s grimace worsened. “I am sorry, Shining Armor, but under the circumstances I have no choice but to issue an arrest warrant for your sister…and as you are aware, she is a sorceress of considerable power, so in addition to the Guard I must also involve the Shadowbolts in this matter.”

Shining Armor blinked at that. Popular myth liked to paint the Shadowbolts as Luna’s personal team of ponies devoted to black operations, both within Equestria and outside of it, responsible for blackmail, extortion, and assassination. Shining Armor, having worked with them in the past, knew that in actuality, for the most part, being a Shadowbolt meant long hours of investigation, surveillance, and paperwork, and that it could actually be a fairly boring job most of the time, and was further fully constrained by all the normal laws of Equestria.

But one did not become a Shadowbolt by being a desk jockey and paper-pusher. They were called in only to deal with threats that the Guard could not, by itself, handle. “Is…is that really necessary?” Shining Armor asked.

Luna nodded morosely. “It is, I’m afraid. Nothing can change that. I summoned you here to personally inform you, rather than risk letting you find out by overhearing gossip or learning by reading in tomorrow’s paper.”

Shining Armor looked up at that. “Tomorrow’s?”

“The…the incident…happened too late at night for the news to reach the Canterlot printers. I also pulled some strings at the press. I cannot – I will not – stop the story from running. But I believe I have managed to convince most of the major newspapers to bury the story on page seventeen, or where they like, rather than the front page, for now. That will not last, but it should give your family time to decide how to respond.”

Shining Armor nodded. “Thank-you, Majesty.”

“There is no need, Shining Armor. I owe your family much, and you in particular as well.” Luna eyed Shining Armor. “But this also comes with an expectation. If your sister contacts you, you must inform the Shadowbolts. I want your word as captain of my Royal Guard, and as a scion of the Starlight family.”

Shining Armor nodded slightly. “I will,” he promised. “What…what will you do with Twilight?”

Luna grimaced again. “That depends heavily on the circumstances surrounding her arrest. At the moment, I am willing to take her emotional state into account, and her contribution of banishing the Ursa Minor back to the Everfree. But there will be some form of punitive action, captain, likely several years in prison, or at the very least under house arrest, either in Canterlot or Latigo.”

The unicorn captain of the guard nodded again, still trying to wrap his mind around the idea of his sister, of little Twilie, causing so much trouble. They had used to be so close, but ever since she had set out on her journey through Equestria to learn as much about magic as possible, they had begun to grow distant, letters from her coming less and less frequently, and of course Shining Armor – and indeed, his father and mother as well – had a difficult time ever contacting her due to her constantly being on the move in that caravan of hers…

“You must have some leave time coming up,” Luna said, interrupting Shining Armor’s ruminations. “In fact, it doesn’t matter if you do. Take the next week off, captain. Go and see your family.”

Shining Armor started to object, but the look in Luna’s eyes brooked no argument. Instead, he nodded. “Yes, Majesty. I’ll do that.”

“Very good,” Luna said. “I’m…I’m sorry, captain. I know how this feels, to have a sibling act in a way you didn’t think possible. But Twilight has done nothing unforgiveable. If you speak to her at all, please, make sure she knows that.”

Shining Armor nodded, as Luna gave him leave to depart. He did so stiffly, without even acknowledging the guards on the other side of the door as he did, letting his hooves fall almost mechanically to the floor as he made his way from the Princess’ office.

Twilie…Shining Armor thought. What have you done?