Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate Leadership
“Twilight,” the letter had said, “please come to Canterlot at your earliest convenience. There’s been a minor… situation.”
Twilight looked up from the letter in her hoof at the castle doors of Canterlot. She tucked the letter under her wing and strode inside. Walking down a couple hallways, she eventually reached the throne room where Celestia and Luna were occupying the twin thrones that stood a little higher than the rest of the room, as they had always done, if you don’t count those thousand or so years Luna was messing about on the moon anyway. The thing that caught Twilight’s eye though, and what made her do a double take, was the fourth pony in the room.
“Trixie?” said Twilight, raising an eyebrow and walking cautiously around the other mare who was staring determinedly up at the pair of princesses perched precariously on their pedestals.
"Ha!" shouted Trixie. "You were so weak that you had to bring in your little lapdog to do your work for you?" She shot Twilight a contemptuous look.
Glancing back and forth between Trixie and the princesses, Twilight said, "Umm... am I missing something here?"
Celestia, doing her absolute best to stifle a chuckle, said, "Trixie here is attempting a coup."
"It is not an attempt!" cried Trixie, stamping her hoof. "I am overthrowing the princesses—" she spat the word out like it had insulted her mother "—and taking control of Canterlot."
"Of course, my mistake," said Celestia with a deep and utterly sarcastic bow.
Trixie stamped her hoof yet more angrily. "I demand to be taken seriously!"
Celestia's face reddened as she held her breath to avoid laughing. Her sister, meanwhile, opted to cover her giggling by placing a hoof over her mouth and pretending to cough.
"Well, as you can see, Princess Twilight," said Luna, turning her attention to Twilight, "this clearly is an urgent issue that needs addressing."
"Clearly..." echoed Twilight. She bit her lip, then added, "Can I speak with you two alone for a moment?"
Celestia shrugged. "I don't know. Can she?" she asked Trixie with raised eyebrows.
"Absolutely not!" Trixie straightened herself. "This is between me and you two."
"Oh, but you're forgetting Princess Twilight. She has a say in the Equestrian government as well," said Celestia slyly.
"You're a princess?!" said Trixie incredulously, just now noticing Twilight's wings and crown for the first time.
Twilight fluttered her wings as she shrugged. "Evidently."
"Why wasn't I notified?"
"We sent out invitations to her coronation months ago," said Luna. "Did you not receive one?"
"That's beside the point." Trixie turned her ire on Twilight. "I will not allow you to collude with your fellow dictators. "Anything you want to say to them, you can say in front of me."
Suddenly, like an explosion of requisition forms in her head, Twilight hatched an idea. "I just wanted to discuss the terms of our surrender with them," she said.
"You what?" said all three ponies simultaneously.
Twilight cleared her throat. "Yes," she said deliberately and while winking in an exaggerated manner, "our surrender."
"What's the matter with your eye?" said Trixie, more than a little suspicious. "Why are you blinking so much?"
Twilight quickly brought a hoof to her eye, rubbing it innocently. "Oh, sorry it's just that your greatness is so, umm, great it's blinding me."
Trixie buffed her chest. "You wouldn't be the first." Waving her hoof, she said, "Fine, you may speak with them. But be quick about it."
Twilight hurried up the steps to the twin thrones, giving a quick glance back at Trixie, then wrapped her hooves around Celestia and Luna’s necks. She pulled them into a tight huddle, then, once she was sure Trixie wasn’t listening, said, “What the hell is going on here?”
“Do you want to tell her, or should I?” asked Celestia, casting a glance at Luna.
Luna rolled her eyes. “Twilight, as I’m sure you’re well aware, Trixie is currently attempting to overthrow us and rule over Equestria.”
Twilight nodded. “Yes, I gathered that much.”
“But what I—well we—can’t figure out is why.”
Celestia then added, “She first showed up about a week ago, threatening the guards and such. She only made it about as far as the first hallway before being thrown out. After that she’s been barging her way in every day, demanding the same thing every time.”
“She’s demanding you two step down?”
Luna’s dark eyes shrugged, if eyes could shrug.
“Did she say why?”
“Evidently she’s not pleased with the job Celestia and I have been doing. It’s anypony’s guess why she thinks she could do any better.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I think I can figure that one out. Have you tried anything to get rid of her?”
Celestia nodded, letting out a small sigh. “We’ve tried many things, but she’s almost admirably persistent. After the third or fourth straight day, I offered her the keys to the kingdom and then pretended to throw them out the window, only to hide them behind my back. I thought for sure that’d distract her long enough that she’d eventually forget about her coup and go home.”
“But, as I said she would,” said Luna with a bit of bite in her tone, “Trixie returned only a few hours later, convinced that the keys weren’t necessary for rulership.”
“She is technically right about that,” said Celestia nonchalantly.
“All right,” said Twilight, pursing her lips. “So tricking her won’t work. Have you considered just throwing her in prison?”
Celestia gave Twilight the kind of benevolent smile that a teacher gives a student who just asked a stupid question. “I don’t think it’d be very becoming of a pair of benevolent pony princesses to throw somepony in jail simply for being a nuisance.”
“No, I suppose not.” Twilight sighed. “Fine, we can’t trick her, and we can’t put her in prison, so what are we going to do? And now that I think about it, why did you even summon me here in the first place?”
Celestia and Luna shared sly glances before the older of the two ponies answered Twilight. “We didn’t say that you couldn’t trick her, just that that particular trick—”
“And several others,” said Luna under her breath.
“—didn’t work.” She grinned. “However, we’ve devised a plan that we think should suffice, and you’re central to the whole thing.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like where this is going?”
“We’re going to give Trixie what she wants.”
“What!?” shouted Twilight.
Trixie suddenly snapped to attention. “What is it? What’s going on?”
Twilight waved her hoof. “Nothing, nothing. It’s just…” She trailed off, mumbling something about something, which apparently was enough to satisfy Trixie. Turning back to Celestia, she said, “What in the name of all things sparkly is wrong with you two? You’re going to give Trixie Canterlot?”
“Well, not just her,” said Celestia rather casually. “Trixie and you.”
Twilight stared blankly at Celestia for a moment, then she laughed. “Oh, thank goodness. I thought you were being serious.”
“I am.”
Twilight swallowed hard. “Luna?”
Luna nodded. “This is the best way to both rid ourselves of Trixie, and also teach her a lesson at the same time.”
“What kind of lesson are you trying to teach her? Complain enough and you’ll get what you want?”
Celestia chuckled. “Something like that, yes. Anywho, now that you’re here we can set our plan in motion. Luna and I will abdicate the throne, decreeing that Trixie and you shall takeover, then we’ll be on our way.”
“On your way?” Twilight looked suddenly worried. “You mean you’re just going to leave me here with her? Where are you going?”
“I don’t know about Luna, but I am going on vacation,” said Celestia as she produced a pair of sunglasses and a large sunhat from thin air. “I hear the Hayman Islands are quite nice this time of year.”
“I think I’ll follow you, sister,” said Luna, also inexplicably producing a bottle of sunscreen and an umbrella.
Breaking their huddle, Celestia, her wide-brimmed hat perched atop her head, tossed a large keyring to Trixie. “I, Celestia, hereby abdicate the throne of Canterlot, blah blah blah, and bequeath it, along with all its responsibilities, to Trixie Lulamoon and Twilight Sparkle. I do this knowingly and while in possession of all of my faculties—maybe despite my faculties,” she whispered under her breath, “and all the other things I’m supposed to say. Luna?”
“I, Luna, abdicate blah blah blah—Can we go now?”
Celestia stifled a chuckle. “Yes, let’s go.” Waving a goodbye as she turned away, Celestia said, “Toodles!” and then disappeared in a flash along with Luna, leaving both Twilight and Trixie with dumbfounded looks.
“So… apparently you and I are the rulers of Equestria now,” said Twilight, shuffling her hooves awkwardly.
Trixie merely narrowed her eyes and started looking around the room. “I’m not falling for it this time,” she said defiantly. “I know you’re just waiting for me to get close to the throne so you can jump out and yell, ‘Haha! You fell for the oldest trick in the book!’, but I’m not falling for it this time!” She shook her hoof angrily.
Crickets chirped, which was odd given they were inside and unless there was a dire cricket infestation, there really shouldn't have been any crickets at all. Trixie waited a few more minutes in silence until eventually Twilight broke it. “I don’t think it’s a trick,” she said. “I think they’re actually gone.”
Trixie pursed her lips, then walked slowly towards the keyring that was laying on the ground. As she picked it up, she immediately started looking around wildly. But no one jumped out, and no signs fell from the ceiling. Only awkward, impenetrable, you-just-found-out-your-wife-is-cheating-on-you silence filled the room. She then slowly made her way to the throne, past a stunned Twilight, and past the blackened spot the pair of princesses had left when they vanished. Seating herself in Celestia’s old seat, Trixie looked around the room.
“Yep, this feels right.”
Twilight, reluctantly, took her seat next to Trixie. “This feels so wrong.”
“But, my princess, the land… she can give us no more. If you push the crops any harder, there won’t be enough to harvest next year.” An old pony with a ragged mane and depressing eyes looked up at Trixie pleadingly. He held his beat-up straw hat between his shaking hooves like he was trying to win an award for most clichè peasant ever.
Trixie sneered down at him from her lofty throne. “I will have a feast like never before at my coronation, and I need those carrots you have.” She slammed her hoof down. “By order of Princess Trixie, you will bring me five hundred pounds worth of carrots by the week’s end, and not a carrot less. Now begone.” She waved her hoof, dismissing the pony out of the room.
Twilight cleared her throat. “I know you’re enjoying all this, Trixie, but don’t you think you’re taking things a bit far?”
She snapped her head towards Twilight. Trixie’s eyes were filled with a malice that suited her surprisingly well. “I haven’t even begun to go far enough,” she said. “I demand you bring in the next pony!” She jabbed her hoof at a guard who could not believe his terrible luck at having this be his first day on the job.
Shaking his head, the guard opened the door. Before it had even halfway opened, the ponies behind the door pushed it all the way and crushed the poor guard against the wall. Striding into the room with all the grace and dignity of a stampede of rhinoceroses, two massive ponies flanked one much smaller one with a slicked back mane and beady eyes.
“Princess Trixie,” he said in the high, shrill voice of a stallion who never quite finished puberty, “it has come to my attention that you’re diverting all produce away from the city’s markets and into your private stores.”
“Of course,” said Trixie, puffing out her chest, “it’s my coronation. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to indulge?”
The stallion frowned. “Because it is illegal, princess. Surely you must know that you can’t take such an action without the consent of the Council of Nobles?”
"The Council of What?"
The stallion let out a long, slow, entirely too loud sigh. "The Council of Nobles, princess. Equestria is not a diarchy, or did you not know that?"
Trixie looked like she was trying to work through a particularly difficult math problem in her head. She turned to Twilight with a look of utter confusion on her face. "What is he talking about?"
Twilight mimicked the stallion and sighed, her chin resting in her hoof as she leaned against the armrest of the throne. "This is what I was trying to tell you about before. You can't just do whatever you want, Trixie. There are rules and regulations you have follow. I tried to explain the Council of Nobles to you, but you just said—"
"I don't care about that," said Trixie waving her hoof dismissively. "I am the supreme ruler of Equestria!"
"Well, you're not actually," said Twilight, absentmindedly blowing a strand of hair out of her face. "You're the co-ruler, and not very supreme at that. But even as co-ruler you have very limited power. The Council of Nobles are the ones who truly run this country. The princesses are little more than figureheads.”
Trixie adjusted her lopsided crown and let out a huff. “What about all those ponies I banished to the dungeon?”
“You mean those ponies from the orphanage?” asked Twilight, her eyebrow raised.
“Yes, the ones looking for a handout.”
Twilight frowned. “I think they just wanted to ask about the tax code. Although, I can only imagine they just went back home when you ‘banished’ them to the dungeon without trial. We don’t even have a dungeon.”
Trixie tapped a hoof against her chin. “Hmm, that would explain why they looked more confused than terrified.” Taking her hoof off her chin and slamming it down on the armrest, she added, “But that’s no excuse! If there is no dungeon, then we must begin construction immediately.”
The stallion, who was apparently still in the throne room, cleared his throat quite loudly. “Excuse me, princess, but as I’ve said before, you’ll require the blessings of the Council to begin construction on any new building.”
Trixie groaned. “Fiiiiiiiine. Get me the Council of Nobles then and we’ll see if I can’t convince them to build this dungeon so that I may throw them all in it.” She nodded to a pair of guards standing to her left. Rolling their eyes, they muttered something to each other and then left the room.
To her right, Twilight was wearing a smug smile. “You sure you know what you’re getting yourself into? The Council has… a reputation, to put it mildly.”
“Bah,” said Trixie bahingly. She sneered at nobody in particular. “We’ll see how noble this council is once they get here.” Noticing that the greasy stallion was still standing in front of her, a rather disapproving look on his face, she added, “You may go now.”
Pursing his lips, he said, “I’m on the Council of Nobles, princess.”
Trixie coughed awkwardly. “Right, of course…”
A few minutes of uncomfortable silence passed before the guards returned. The doors swung open and a parade of ponies marched into the room, each just as pompous looking as the last. Once they’d all managed to squeeze into the ever-shrinking throne room, Trixie addressed the crowd by clearing her throat loudly. They all looked up at her, frowns and looks of scorn across most of their faces.
“Apparently I have to do this, so let’s get it over with,” said Trixie with more than a tinge of annoyance in her voice. “You’re the Council of Nobles, correct?”
They nodded in unison… well, most of them did anyway. Some of them were busy ignoring her and muttering amongst themselves.
Trixie’s eyes narrowed. “What I need from you is very simple. All I want is for you to agree to allow me to build a dungeon so that I can throw these peasants somewhere.”
A unicorn mare holding a monocle up to her eye said, “Why, I must say, I’m quite in favor of this idea. I’ve long said that we need somewhere to house all the… undesirables.”
“And what? The mason’s guild will simply shoulder the cost of something so expensive?” said a pegasus stallion with short-cropped hair and a dirty suit. “I hardly think this is the most effective way to deal with the problem currently facing the city.”
“Oh, sweet goddess, here we go again,” muttered a different unicorn mare, this one in an absurdly large hat.
The stallion stamped his hoof. “Yes, again. I know it doesn’t seem like the solution on the front, but the major problem facing today’s youth is education. We need to invest more in teaching these young foals about science, and math, and history, not just throwing them in some dungeon in the hopes that the problem will just disappear.”
"Of course a councilman from the Lower Quarter would say that," said a haughty older stallion. "Have you ever considered what those of us from the Merchant's Quarter might want?"
"Oh, don't pretend like you're so high and mighty," grumbled a barrel-chested stallion near the back. "All you ever want to talk about is taxes and levies. It's always tax this, and expense that. Maybe we should raise the import tax, or maybe we should raise the domestic tax," he said, mimicking the stallion's voice not quite perfectly. "Maybe you should go jump in a lake!"
"With respect, councilman, it is my taxes which pay for your sewage treatment." The haughty stallion sneered at his fellow councilman.
"And it's my sewage treatment which allows you to spew crap from your mouth!"
Trixie watched with increasing annoyance as the group of nobles before started arguing with each other rather loudly. One pony would fling an insult, and three more would respond. Within mere seconds the meeting had dissolved into utter madness. The din was starting to grow so loud that Trixie found herself unable to think. She cast a glance over at Twilight who simply shrugged her shoulders indifferently. Trixie massaged her temple with a hoof.
After a moment, Trixie rose up suddenly and shouted, "Shut up! I demand that all of you shut up this instant! Your princess wishes to speak."
The room quieted down for a moment as everyone's eyes fell on Trixie. A mare near the back shouted, "Our princess is Celestia! Who the hell are you?"
Trixie puffed out her chest. "I am the Great and Powerful Trixie! And the Princesses Celestia and Luna named me—"
"And me," said Twilight without enthusiasm.
"—the Princess of Equestria!"
"Why should we follow you?" asked a blonde-maned stallion near the throne.
"Because I'm the princess, of course," said Trixie like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"You're no princess of mine."
This was followed by cries of "Yeah!" and "That's right!" and at least one "Even Molestia was better than this!"
The crowd started to get rowdy at this point. As they jostled for a position near the front of the room, one of the mares climbed the steps of the throne and declared, "The Princess is dead! Long live the Council!"
Trixie shrunk into her seat. "Uh oh..."
Suddenly, Trixie felt someone grab her hoof, and a moment later she was being dragged off into some hallway. After being pulled inside a room, and having the door slammed shut behind her, she looked up to see Twilight standing over her. She had her head pressed against the door, like she was listening for something. She noticed Trixie looking at her.
"Well, I hope you're happy, Trixie. You really screwed everything up this time." She took her ear away from the door. "They looked ready to, well probably not kill, but at least beat you up."
"I thought they had to listen to me," said Trixie as she shook her head. "I thought being the princess meant everyone had to do as I said."
"Yeah, well they have to respect you before that happens," said Twilight. "I mean, what did you expect? Celestia would give you the throne and everything would be hunky-dory?"
Trixie raised an eyebrow. "Uh, yes?"
Twilight clicked her tongue. "Well there was your first problem." She looked around the room they were in for the first time. The walls were lined with dozens of paintings, each one a bit older than the last. "Huh," remarked Twilight, "I don't think I've been here before."
Trixie got off her haunches and followed Twilight as she started to walk around the room. It was a small and cramped room, not made any better by the sheer number of portraits filling the tiny space. Veils covered all of them, and a thick layer of dust covered the veils. Lifting one of them, Trixie coughed as some of the dust got in her lungs.
"It's... Celestia," she said quietly once she'd stopped coughing.
Twilight stopped, walking back a bit to where Trixie was. She looked at the portrait for a moment, then lifted the veil in the one next to it. Once the dust had cleared, the smiling face of Celestia, wreathed in light, looked back at her. "This one is too."
Trixie's horn burst to life as she lifted the covers of a couple more pictures. "They're all Celestia," she whispered.
"There's gotta be at least a hundred of them here," muttered Twilight. Every painting she looked at, all of them were of Celestia. She appeared in dozens of different poses, and a hundred different settings, but every time she was always smiling. She turned the painting around. Scribbled on the back was the year it was painted and the artist who painted it. Each portrait was done by someone different, and there was always a large gap in the number of years between each painting.
"How far does it go back?" asked Trixie.
"I don't know. Maybe all the way back to the Founding?"
Trixie let out a slow whistle. "Why are they all of Celestia? Where's Luna's portraits?"
"She's been gone for a thousand years. It's going to be a little while before anyone is painting her."
"They must really love her, huh?" said Trixie, with just a hint of sadness in her voice.
Twilight nodded, lifting the veil on yet another painting. "It's because she loves and respects them just as much as she is loved and respected. Look at all this," she said, waving her hoof over all the paintings. "She hides this away because she doesn't want other ponies to think she's egotistical, but she keeps them because she knows they were made out of love. She lets ponies make their own choices, even though she could rule autonomously. She respects ponies enough to let them govern themselves, eeeeeeven if that doesn't always seem like the best plan."
"Do you think I could ever be loved?"
Twilight stopped. She turned slowly to Trixie, a sad smile on her face. Reaching out her hooves she wrapped her legs around Trixie's neck and pulled her into a tight hug. "Maybe if you stop being such an arrogant jerk," she whispered into Trixie's ear. Pulling away from the hug, she chuckled. "For someone so full of themselves, you really don't have a lot of self confidence, do you?"
Trixie flushed red. "Oh, shut up."
Twilight smiled. "So, why did you want to overthrow Celestia anyway?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.
Trixie shuffled her hooves awkwardly. "Promise you won't laugh?"
"No."
"Well... I thought if I became a princess, everypony would love me."
"Aww," cooed Twilight, patting Trixie's head. "That's adorably naive."
Trixie's face flushed red again. "Said neurotic and paranoid Twilight."
"Hey, I'm not the one with a failed coup."
Rolling her eyes, Trixie said, "Oh please, like you haven't thought about it."
"It was one time! And I was eleven!"
Trixie stifled a giggle.
Now it was Twilight's turn to flush red. She let out a groan. "Whatever, let's just go and fix your mess."
Taking Trixie's hoof again, which this time caused her to go red for a different reason, Twilight dragged the other mare outside the room and back down the hallway towards the twin thrones. As they entered the throne room, Twilight looked back at Trixie, giving her a reassuring nod. "We can fix this," she said quietly, "together." Twilight flung one the door and cried, "All right! Listen up, every--What the? Where is everyone?"
Indeed, the room wad completely vacant. Even the Royal Guard, who had literally one job--to guard the throne room--were nowhere to be found. The hall was as silent as an art gallery on a regular work day.
"Maybe everything just fixed itself?" suggested Trixie.
"Yeah, that'd be too easy. Pretty sure it doesn't work like that. C'mon, let's go check outside." Twilight led Trixie out of the throne room and down the hall towards the entrance to the castle. Every room they passed through was just as silent as the last, and not a single soul was to be found anywhere. "This is so weird," muttered Twilight.
Finally, they reached the castle doors where, once again, no guards were present. Twilight, with Trixie's help, pushed open the door and the exited to the castle steps. Once they got outside, it became immediately apparent where everyone had gone. The streets below were packed with ponies marching up and down, holding signs and waving flags.
Trixie's eyes went wide. "Oh jeez... This is bad. This is really bad."
Grimacing, Twilight bit her lip. "I think this might be a little beyond us. We're gonna need some kinda..." She twirled her hoof around, searching for the right word. "Some kind of, whaddaya call it... deus ex—"
"Machina?" said a familiar voice.
Twilight gasped gaspingly. To her left, Celestia and Luna were standing there with cheeky grins on their faces. Luna was holding a piece cake in her magic, and a fork was currently working its way through the tip of the slice. "Your timing is a impeccable as always, sister," said Luna.
Celestia grinned. "I'll be taking that, then," she said, reaching for Luna's cake.
Luna pulled it away, shaking her hoof. "Ah, ah, ah. Twilight? Where exactly is the Council right now?"
Twilight grimaced. "Well..." She pointed down to the streets where ponies were marching and chanting slogans.
Luna smirked.
Celestia grumbled something unintelligible, then said, "Fine, keep your stupid cake." She turned to Trixie. "So then, my dear, did you learn anything today?"
"Yeah, being a princess sucks."
Celestia nodded wisely. "That it does, my little pony. That it does."
"Uhh..." said Twilight, slowly raising a hoof. "Why do you sound like you're wrapping everything up? There's literally riots in the streets right now. This cannot be okay."
Celestia chuckled. "Oh, Twilight, silly silly Twilight. This is Equestria. We don't have riots. Do you really think this is the first failed coup?"
"Well, no, but I mean look at what's going on down there." She jabbed her hoof down towards where a group of ponies were standing around a building, holding torches.
Celestia smiled self-assuredly. "Oh, please, this is nothing we can't—" Her eyes went wide. "Oh, shoot, they're about to burn that building down! Luna, get the buckets!"
"Soooooo," said Trixie awkwardly, "am I still getting off scot-free?"
"Not if that building burns down. You're going to the dungeon with no trial if that happens."
Luna sighed. "We don't have a dungeon, remember? You said it was bad for morale." She shook her head. "I warned you this would happen. We need a dungeon, I said. Noooo, they'll hate us, you said." She gave Celestia an "I told you so" look that burned more than it should have.
"Fine, we'll gather the Council and have a referendum." Celestia rolled her eyes.
Twilight held up a hoof. "Yeah, about that..."
