Twilight sipped her tea nervously. She was thinking hard. Spike was upstairs, thankfully sleeping, and her friends were probably waiting for her at the train station. After Twilight had found Trixie, she had taken an earlier train and shipped her off to bed. Twilight had no idea on how to break the news that an old enemy was in her house to her friends.
The last time they had seen Trixie was when the unicorn had broken the town hall and worn an evil amulet.
They wouldn't be at all keen to see Trixie again.
Twilight imagined what her friends' reactions would be. Rarity would gasp and take Trixie away to have her hair done. Applejack would give her the cold shoulder. Fluttershy would hide under the bed. Rainbow Dash would shout and argue with Trixie for several hours and Pinkie Pie would...throw her a 'You're not a big horrible meanie anymore' party.
Trixie was in no state to cope with any of those.
Twilight let out a shuddering breath, before an idea suddenly sprang to her mind. Of course! Why hadn't she thought of it before? Princess Celestia always helped her and there was no doubt that the Alicorn would advice Twilight on what to do next.
The unicorn leapt up from her kitchen table and ran to her desk where a quill and parchment lay. She quickly scribbled up a Ietter, explaining every vital detail. It was incredible that Twilight's writing was still small and neat even at the pace she was writing at. Within five minutes, she had written a full letter:
Dear Princess Celestia,
I know that I have only just seen you today, but a problem has already come in my way.
Trixie Lulamoon is a unicorn who visited Ponyville twice in the past. The first time, she accidently brought a bear into town by her boasting, and the second timeshe tried to take over the town, once with a mysterious artifact called 'The Alicorn Amulet.' I presume that you know what happens to the holder of the object so you should be able to guess what happened.
After the incident, Trixie ran away, apparently to Canterlot. Who knows what she has been through, Canterlot is a four hour train drive from Ponyville. Today after having breakfast with you, I managed to find Trixie and convinced her to come to Ponyville. She is currently in bed, resting.
Please, Princess, can you advice me on what I should do?
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle
Twilight re-read her letter. Okay, she may have stretched the truth a little, Trixie had been tricked, she hadn't been convinced at all.
Princess Celestia wouldn't mind that.
Twilight trotted up the stairs to her bedroom, ready to give Spike her letter, when she paused. Spike slept in her room. Trixie was in her room. The unicorn sighed and slowly walked to the bundle of covers. She reached out with her telekinesis, removing the covers from the baby dragon. Spike's eyes twitched once or twice before finally opening.
"Twi?" Spike yawned. "Look, can't you -"
"Shh!" Twilight hissed, tossing a warning glance towards her bed.
"Um, Twilight?" Spike whispered uneasily. "Are you okay?"
Twilight shook her head. "I'll tell you downstairs."
Spike reluctantly hauled himself onto Twilight's rump and the two tiphoofed down the stairs. Twilight handed her letter to the dragon.
"Spike," she ordered. "Send that to the Princess."
Spike looked at Twilight and firmly shook his head. "Twilight, I'm not sending it until you tell me what's wrong."
"What?" Twilight stared at her assistant in disbelief.
Spike tapped his foot.
"Please Spike?" She pleaded. "I promise I'll tell you, but please can you send my letter first?"
Spike sighed. He gently blew on the letter, causing it to dissolve in thin air and sending it to the Canterlot Castle. The dragon looked expectantly at Twilight.
Now it was Twilight's turn to sigh. She was clearly going to have to tell Spike, there was no way around it.
"Well, you know how I was at Canterlot Castle having breakfast with the Princess? I was leaving and I saw Trixie."
"What?" Spike's mouth dropped open. "You mean, The Great and Powerful Trixie Lulamoon?"
"Yeah," Twilight rolled her eyes. "So what did I do?"
"Uhhm, turn her in to Princess Celestia? Shoot her with a blast of energy?"
Twilight facehoofed. 'Here goes nothing, Twilight.' "No Spike, I invited her into the library."
Spike could only stare.
"Spike?" Twilight asked, worried.
Spike fell on his back. Twilight peered at him. He was clearly unconscious.
"How many times have I had to do this?" The unicorn muttered, lifting him up and walking up the stairs to the bedroom.
***
Trixie was staring at the ceiling.
She found it quite interesting that she could see the sky above her. In her last house, she had a simple ceiling, which she found boring.
'The next time I get a house,' Trixie thought absent-mindedly. 'I'm getting a ceiling like this one.'
That's when the past events flooded back to the unicorn. She was in Twilight Sparkle's house. And the purple mare had probably called Princess Celestia's guards to come and put her in prison.
"No!" She yelled, struggling to remove the duvet cover from her blue body. "No!"
A frazzled purple unicorn raised her head. "Trixie?"
Trixie, caught up in her own desperation, didn't have time to feel embarrassed that Twilight was seeing her acting like a lunatic.
"Please!" She begged, skidding in front of a bewildered Twilight. "Don't call the guards!"
"What are you talking about?" Twilight drew herself up, puzzled. "What guards? I didn't call any guards."
Trixie straightened herself. "Oh."
Twilight shuffled her hooves. "So...how about lunch?"
Trixie stared blankly at the purple mare.
"You must be hungry, right? Do you like pancakes?"
"Pancakes?" Trixie suddenly realised that her tummy was rumbling with hunger. "You can make pancakes?" She turned up eager eyes to Twilight.
Twilight started walking down the stairs. "Yes."
Trixie summoned as much energy as she could into her horn. A pink explosion appeared and Trixie had disappeared.
"I just hope," Twilight blinked and smiled at the vanishing explosion. "That she teleported to the right room."
***
Twilight watched as Trixie gobble up her pancakes.
She had never seen anypony as hungry as the unicorn. Celestia knew how much the poor thing had gone through. It just occurred to Twilight that she was the one who had caused all the worry and pain for Trixie. A pang of guilt and sympathy hit Twilight.
"Do you need any medicine?" Twilight asked, carefully examining Trixie over the rim of her coffee cup.
"Hmm?" Trixie looked up. "Medicine?"
"Medicine? Do you need any?"
Trixie frowned. "Me-di-cine. Is it that bottle with that disgusting stuff inside?"
Twilight bit her lip. "You got so adjusted to the streets that you've forgotten your vocabulary?"
Trixie could only blink at her.
"Oh it doesn't matter," Twilight sighed. "I'll just take you to Nurse Redheart."
Trixie nodded, then pushed her plate away, satisfied with her breakfast. Twilight looked at her empty plate. She wasn't a particularly good cook and had never imagined that one could enjoy her quick breakfasts.
"Well," Twilight got up. "We should go to Nurse Redheart now."
"Okay." Trixie shakily stood on her hooves. Her tummy was about the size of Twilight's now, but her rubs still stuck out on the other parts of her body.
Twilight stared at the unicorn as they walked out of the door. She needed to sort her mind out, never had she been so unprepared.
"Uhhm, Twilight?" Trixie asked. "Should we really have come outside?"
Twilight turned around. Five ponies were running towards her. One was a unicorn, two were earth ponies and another two were pegasi. She gulped. They had come outside at the worst possible time.
Trixie Lulamoon blinked open her heavy eyelids groggily, sleep deprived. The sun was rising and beautiful rays of orange were shooting out into the sky whilst birds chirruped from their trees. It was a beautiful scenery, one that even Rainbow Dash would have admired, but Trixie had no time for that sort of thing. She had to get a move on before a pony found her.
"Food," Trixie whispered to herself as she stretched her tired legs. "Food."
The unicorn inspected the smelly bins, searching for something edible. The sun began to rise higher into the air as Trixie gathered up her breakfast: a box of noodles and half an eaten daisy sandwich. That was good, considering that she normally ate rotten eggs.
Trixie ate in silence, planning out her day. Her horn glowed and an illusion of a Canterlot map materialised in front of the magician. Trixie felt a rush of pride at her successful spell casting and beamed, before frowning again as she studied the map.
"Hmm," she said thoughtfully. "Maybe a visit to the Royal Palace will be good. Trixie heard some ponies talking about Princess Celestia having a special guest."
With a faint pop! the illusionary map vanished. Trixie got up with a groan, tired, but slightly eager. Gradually, the mare had reluctantly begun to enjoy her daring life as a street pony, enjoying the feeling of freedom that ran through her head all the way to her rump when she ran. She was content. Eventhough she was famished. And parched.
Smiling, Trixie straightened her beloved hat and tightened her cape, before rushing off to the north. She had business to do.
* * *
"I think I should go now, Princess Celestia," Twilight Sparkle smiled apologetically across the table at her mentor. "I'm afraid that I've got quite a few jobs to do in Ponyville and Spike will be waiting for me."
"Of course Twilight," Princess Celestia returned the warm smile. "You may come whenever you want. It is always a pleasure having you, even if you're only staying for breakfast."
Twilight knew that her cheeks had gone a bright red and that she was beaming at the Ruler of Equestria. She never knew that Celestia enjoyed her company so much. Why, if she had known then she would have spent all of her day with the Princess!
'No I wouldn't,' Twilight thought firmly. 'My friends are back in Ponyville.'
"I'll see you soon then, Princess," Twilight had long since learned that Celestia preferred when she didn't bow.
"Goodbye, Twilight."
Twilight walked, no skipped, out of the room, her head in the air. She pushed the doors open and exited the building, walking straight into a blue unicorn.
"Oof!"
Twilight blinked and blushed. "O-oh my! Sorry about that!"
"Trixie should have looked where she was going." The blue unicorn replied, tipping her purple hat forward sheepishly.
Twilight laughed.
Wait.
Blue unicorn?
Purple hat?
Third pony language?
Trixie?
Trixie?
"Trixie?" Twilight gasped, her mind whirring.
Trixie's eyes shrunk. "Twilight?"
The two unicorns stared at eachother. Twilight's gaze dropped down to Trixie's tummy. She was skinny and filthy, her ribs showing. Twilight started to feel slightly uncomfortable. She had been having breakfast with royalty, whilst Trixie had probably been starving.
"Trixie?" Twilight asked, her voice quivering. "H-have you been homeless?"
Trixie shuffled her hooves. "No."
"You've been living on the streets."
"How did you know?"
"Aha!" Twilight declared triumphantly. "So you have been starving! You've been homeless and living on the streets!"
Trixie took a step back. Then another. Uh-oh. She found her hooves galloping against the concrete street, her telekinesis gripping onto her hat furiously.
Twilight gasped and flung herself after Trixie. "Wait! Trixie!" She shouted, her voice blown away by the wind. "No!"
But no, Trixie didn't stop. From the corner of her eye, Trixie could see Twilight summoning up magic from her horn, preparing to teleport in front of the blue unicorn. Trixie was cunning, sly. She was also clever. A genius at illusions, one would say. And she was going to put her skills to use.
Skidding to a halt, Trixie concentrated hard, forming five other Trixie's in her mind.
Twilight too, skidded to a halt, her eyes blinking rapidly.
Six Trixies were in front of her. It was obvious that they were illusions, she just had to figure out which one was real. Twilight studied the six ponies, looking at their features carefully. Soon, she had realised that one of them was sweating hard, their purple eyes darting around, refusing to look directly at Twilight. Brow furrowed, Twilight took hold of the guilty pony with her telekinesis. The five remaining Trixies instantly disappeared.
"H-how did you know that was Trixie?" Trixie stammered, wincing at the strong hold of Twilight's magenta telekinesis.
Twilight gently dropped Trixie onto the ground, horn at the ready in case Trixie decided to run for it. "If you want to blend in, you need to fix your facial expression a bit."
Trixie whimpered and Twilight bit her lip. The show pony was scared of her, that was for sure.
"What do you want to do with Trixie?" Trixie asked faintly, her stomach turning uncertainly.
Twilight sighed. "I don't know, Trixie," the mare admitted. "I really don't know."
Trixie suddenly felt herself falling, her world spinning. Her head was hurting. 'Oh Celestia,' she thought. 'I'm fainting.'
* * *
Trixie's tummy hurt. Badly.
"Trixie?" She heard a comforting voice say. The voice was amazing. It reminded her of the night and how the stars would gently twinkle at her. Trixie smiled contentedly as her eyes opened. A purple unicorn with a dark mane and tail was staring worriedly down at her.
"You're awake!" The unicorn said with relief.
"Twilight?!" Trixie's eyes shrunk to the size of pinpricks once again.
Twilight looked even more worried. "You haven't got amnesia, have you?"
All of a sudden, the past events came back to Trixie. Her fight for escape. Twilight. And she was laying in a bed.
It was too much for Trixie. Her mouth opened and all of her breakfast came out, the noodles and the sandwich. The lavender scented sheets now smelled of vomit and daisies.
"How did I know this would happen?" Twilight muttered, reaching out with her magic for the blanket. She squeezed the duvet cover and the vomit vanished, presumably to a bin. The fresh cover was once again over Trixie.
"Twilight?" Trixie asked, snuggling into the sheets.
"Yes?"
"Leave the talk for tomorrow, Trixie needs to got to sleep."
