Tryouts

Twilight retired to her bedroom early. Alone. Spike had wisely abandoned the castle until the ensuing storm had blown over. The four remaining mares in the castle's living room cleared dinner from the table.

"So what do we do now?" Moondancer asked.

"How about a magical battle royale to the death!?" Trixie suggested, bringing her horn to life.

"Now, now," Starlight Glimmer said, licking her hoof, "There's no need to fight." She put her hoof gently to Trixie's horn, extinguishing its light. "Because I think we all know who would win... Me."

"That's not what Twilight would want!" Sunset Shimmer said. "Look, I'm not a big fan of this plan either. But Twilight wants us all to be friends. And I trust her. I... I love her. And if this is what she wants- if she wants us all to be... best friends, I'm willing to try. For her."

"Hmf!" Starlight huffed. "Everything was going perfectly until you all showed up today. I can't believe I have to endure this too now."

"Well, I'm willing to try," Moondancer said.

"Of course you like the idea, Moonprancer," Trixie said with a smug grin, "You get to be 'best friends' with Trixie first!"

"It's Moon Dancer, and I think I'd rather sit on an ant hill," Moondancer spat. "But I agree with Sunset. If this is what Twilight wants, I'm willing to try, for her."

"Hmf, you will not want Twilight, or any other pony after you've been in lesbian with the Great and Powerful Trixie!"

"In lesbian!?"

"And neither will Twilight!" Trixie continued, ignoring her. "After just one night with Trixie, she will forget all about the rest of you!"

"I think we're getting a little ahead of ourselves," Sunset said. "We're all in this together. So the very least we can do is try to be civil. How about we all tell each other a little bit about ourselves?"

"I am the Great and Powerful Trixie!" Trixie said. "The greatest and most powerful magical equine that has ever lived!"

Starlight snickered. "You want to try that again?" she asked.

"I am the Great-"

"All right, I'm gonna stop you right there," Starlight said. "Here's the real scoop with Trixie here,"

Trixie glared at her.

"What? You think Twilight never talked about you before you came back?" Starlight asked, before turning back to the others. "So here's the deal; The first time Trixie came to Ponyville with her little act, she boasted that she had vanquished an Ursa Major."

The other two gave Trixie a dubious look.

"So two of her 'fans' went out, and actually found one, well, an Ursa Minor, and led it back to Ponyville for her to 'vanquish it'. Twilight Sparkle ended up saving the day."

"That was not Trixie's fault!" Trixie defended.

"Then she ran off, and came back a couple years later with the Alicorn Amulet and enslaved all of Ponyville."

Trixie covered her face with her hooves.

"Once again, Twilight was able to save the day, with the help of her friends."

"But I was under its evil influence, so that wasn't really my fault either!" Trixie said.

"Eh, that's kind of a grey area," Starlight shrugged.

"But then Trixie saved all of Equestria when the Changelings came back!" Trixie said emphatically.

"Yes, she and I worked together to save Equestria from the Changeling takeover. So I guess she breaks even."

"So what about you, Starlight?" Sunset asked.

"Well, I..." Starlight trailed off, "I guess you already heard about it from Twilight, about the whole, stealing cutie marks and almost destroying the world things." She looked at Sunset Shimmer. "What about you? How do you know Twilight?"

"Well, before Twilight, I was Princess Celestia's student. But I-" Sunset frowned. "I was too arrogant to see her wisdom in tempering my lust for power. So I ran away through her magical portal mirror," she said, pointing at the mirror. "Through there is another world, like ours, but the people there are different. They walk on two legs and wear clothes all the time and... it's weird.

"But after I was there for a while, I came back and stole Twilight's crown and Element of Harmony to use for myself to control the other world. But its magic turned me into a twisted demon when I tried to use it for evil." Sunset shuddered at the memory.

"Twilight saved me, and helped me start over. And since then, I've been working hard to make amends and help protect the people there from magical threats bleeding through from this world. I finally got up the courage to come back to Equestria to thank Twilight and... tell her how I really felt after all this time."

"What about you, Moondancer?" Starlight asked.

"The details of my life are quite inconsequential," Moondancer said.

"Oh, come on. It can't be any worse than time-traveling into the past, and almost unmaking existence," Starlight said.

Moondancer sighed, resigning to taking an unpleasant trip down memory lane.

"I met Twilight when we were both fillies, in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. She was my Alchemy lab partner. She was the only pony I could really relate to. The only one who took academics as seriously as I did. And that was before I ever found out that she was Princess Celestia's personal protege. After that, I figured if the Princess saw something in her too, there must be something really special about her. I modeled my whole life after her. Same study habits, same classes. I even wore my mane the same way."

She slumped into her seat.

"Then, during the summer school break, I decided to throw a party for me and her, and our friends on the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration. I was going to finally work up the courage to ask her to be my special somepony. And then- Then she never showed up." Moondancer wiped the tear from her cheek.

"She went to Ponyville that very day, and sent for her things to be moved to her new home. She never even said goodbye. It killed me, the way she abandoned me like that. After that, I just stopped caring about keeping up with our other friends. I poured myself into my studies. It was all I had left."

"And then," she continued, "then she appeared on my doorstep years later. This was after she had become a princess, mind you. She tried to pretend that we were still friends. But I had learned to hate her a lot in those years. She never knew- maybe she still doesn't know, just how much she damaged me. But damn it all I still loved her! And I hated myself for it."

"She tried so hard to try to make it up to me. She really did. She even tried to throw a party for me to make up for the one she skipped. She really thought that it was going to do it. Well sure, why wouldn't it? It was only the first time I'd ever put myself out there. And she didn't even bother to show up. And then she left town without even saying goodbye. Even though we were supposed to be friends."

"I was humiliated!" Moondancer cried. "I felt like I wasn't important. I never wanted to let myself be hurt like that again. Our other friends had finally convinced me that I had value, that other ponies might like me and want to be my friend. And she. Didn't. Show. UP!"

"Wow. That sucks!" Trixie said.

"When Twilight realized that the party couldn't make up for the way she had hurt me, she pleaded to not let her mistake be the reason for me to not be friends with anypony else. She reminded me that I did have friends, and ponies did care about me. She hugged me, and we shared a cry. It reminded me of all the reasons I loved her in the first place."

"She has visited since then, but she's just so busy now, as a Princess, with this-" Moondancer motioned to the castle around them. "And Lyra had mentioned all these romantic plans she had for Bonbon for Hearts and Hooves Day, I decided that I would finally tell Twilight how I felt. And then-" she looked at the others. "And then you all showed up."

"Well, actually, you showed up. I've been here for a while now," Starlight said.

"As have I," Trixie said, pointing at her caravan parked outside the castle window.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Moondancer groaned. "I should have expected that Twilight would have others wanting to be her suitor. She- she really is... something," she said, dreamily.

"Yeah..." the other three agreed in unison.

Moondancer looked up at the clock above the bookshelf. It was still early. Just under the clock, on the top shelf was something familiar.

"Hey, look! Scrabble!" she said, levitating the game box down. "Twilight and I used to play this all the time when we were students together! It was her favorite game! I guess it still is. She was the only one that could ever beat me. Do you want to play?" she asked the group.

Starlight grimaced. She recalled many a time that Twilight would cajole her into playing with her and Spike. Starlight was on a more even-footing with Spike. They were each accomplished scholars in their own right. But Spike shared Starlight's disdain for the game now, after being completely, utterly, and repeatedly destroyed by Twilight's infinite vernacular. These mares were a different story, though. It would be fun to see the table turned for once.

"Oh, that's the game where you make words?" Starlight feigned.

"Yeah, they have this in the other world too," Sunset said.

"Trixie will become the BEST at Twilight's favorite game!"

"Alright! Game on!" Moondancer set up the board and the tile bag and racks.

Upstairs in her room, Twilight Sparkle lay in her bed. It was still early. Too early for her to go to sleep. She was sitting propped up with a pillow behind her, by the bedside light. She struggled to read the same paragraph of her book for the third time. Her mind was elsewhere, worrying about what she was going to do to deal with the other mares.

She hadn't heard any of the others come upstairs yet. And she certainly didn't hear the telltale sounds of any of them becoming 'best friends' thumping through the walls. At the very least, she was glad she didn't hear the noise downstairs of a magical battle royale to the death.

"Maybe they are getting along," she mused quietly to herself. She knocked on the wood of her bed's headboard, just to be safe.

The Scrabble board quickly became filled with tiles. Moondancer and Starlight Glimmer were neck and neck in close competition. Sunset was close behind in third. Trixie rearranged the tiles in her tray, hoping for some insight to get her back out of her forth place.

"HEN." Moondancer added the tiles to the left edge of the board, below a stray Y, and above UT, and ON. "6 points."

"Ha," Starlight laughed at the paltry play that left her within striking distance.

"MAGNET." Sunset played, on the right edge, grabbing one of the Triple-Word-Score spaces. "27 points!" Trixie added an IC to the end of it.

"MAGNETIC." Trixie said, grabbing the other Triple-Word-Score space. "39 points! Trixie is tied for third place!" Starlight dumped the tiles from her rack onto the board.

"ELECTROMAGNETIC. 66 points, plus a 50-point bingo for all seven tiles played, so 116 points!" Starlight announced, giving her a commanding lead over Moondancer. Starlight stretched her hooves. "Well, I guess that makes two ponies that can beat you at Scrabble, Moondancer. But hey, don't feel too bad. I was trained by the best. And now you've been beaten by the best!" she gloated.

Moondancer calmly placed the tiles from her rack in and among the carefully arranged tiles she had been playing all game along the left edge; HEN, a stray Y, UT, and ON, scooping up all three Triple-Word-Score spaces on that side in one deft play.

"OXYPHENBUTAZONE," she said.

"That's not a real word!" Trixie said. "You made it up!"

"All words are made up!" Moondancer said.

Trixie stared off into space, her mind currently blown.

"It's real." Sunset said, looking in the dictionary. "Oxyphenbutazone is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug."

"1,508 points." Moondancer said.

"Mother FUCKER!" Starlight flipped the table, sending tiles everywhere.

Upstairs, Twilight began to hear the noises of a magic battle royale to the death.