Trixie's Perfect Show

by CategoricalGrant

Rating: everyone
Tags: Comedy, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Drama, Original Character, Trixie
Length: 5070

Trixie frantically prepares for her biggest show yet, pissing off plenty of ponies in the process.

The GREAT and POWERFUL Trixie, at the urging of Starlight Glimmer, has embarked on the first show of her next tour of Equestria. Arriving in Fillydelphia and obsessed with making everything perfect, she runs afoul of a number of locals, who in turn attempt to impede her progress towards making this show her best one yet.

Written for the Mana's Unsung Heroes contest! Prompt: Picking one of 14 different characters, write a story. "By the end of the story, your selected character must have done something heroic or worthy of praise."

EDIT: Recipient of a coveted 'Recommended' review by PresentPerfect, 8/4/17!

Published 2017-07-11 09:50:06 UTC
Last updated 2017-07-11 09:50:06 UTC

Perfection

It had been a long, grueling trek across Equestria, and Trixie deserved the strawberry ice cream that the vendor floated over to her. She licked her lips greedily as she took it in her own magical aura, running her tongue over it once and smacking her mouth. Immediately, she felt the nourishment energizing her weary bones.

Well, okay, so she had actually been able to travel with her cart by train most of the way to Fillydelphia. However, she had already pulled her own cart for two miles from the suburban train station and was only halfway to the venue!

“This ice cream is of acceptable quality. How much do I owe you?” Trixie asked the teenage vendor, taking another lick of the cone and fishing around for some bits in her saddlebag.

“Uh, five bits ma’am,” came the timid reply from the young mare.

“Five bits!?” Trixie exclaimed incredulously. “What a complete and total ripoff! This isn’t even three bit-quality ice cream!”

“Er...uhmm…” the vendor replied, desperately fumbling for the words to deal with her first unhappy customer.

Trixie’s muzzle contorted into a discerning frown as she examined her ice cream more closely. “Well, I don’t suppose that I can very well return it now that I’ve licked it, can I?” she asked, scoffing. “Fine!” She threw her bits on the top of the cart and leaned over, placing her muzzle inches from the teen’s as she glared intensely into her fearful and confused eyes. “Be aware that instead of patronizing this roadside establishment again, I will use those five bits to take out some ad space in the local newspaper and expose you for price gouging!”

There was a few seconds of silence before the smaller mare let out a whimper. “P-please don’t. M-my uncle owns the cart and gave me this job for the summer, and-”

Trixie exhaled indignantly and stuck her nose in the air. “Fine. I won’t.” She licked her ice cream cone again, unknowingly causing a chunk of ice cream to fall on her star-studded cape. “Perhaps you should display the cost of your ice cream more prominently in the future, so as to give customers fair warning about your ‘screw you’ pricing policy.” She looked back down into the timid young mare’s worried green eyes. “Somepony might come along and make good on their threats. After all, not everypony is as merciful as the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

With that, Trixie turned tail and walked the few feet back to her cart, sticking the entire remaining cone into her mouth as she hitched herself back on the wooden frame. Immediately, she set off in a brisk trot.

Not ten seconds later, a splitting pain cut through her entire central nervous system, doubling Trixie over on the side of the well-traveled road and causing her to nearly choke on the small pieces of waffle cone she was still chewing on.

After her brain freeze subsided and she had hacked up the jagged pieces of confectionary on the road, Trixie brought a shaking hoof up to wipe her muzzle and took a deep breath from her newly-cleared windpipe. “Ugh! I knew I should have decided to take out that ad!”

She soon recovered. Continuing to walk along the road in the midday heat, she spied some foals playing around in a nearby field. One of them, a small, orange colt, appeared to be missing a leg. In its place was a strange metal and plastic contraption that appeared to simulate his absent limb. Just like his group of friends, he was busy laughing and chasing after a short purple pegasus mare, who dribbled a small ball in front of her.

Trixie tore her gaze from the sight and sighed. “Whatever. It costs more than five bits to take out an ad, anyway.”

Her resolve suddenly shaken, Trixie rummaged around in her bag with her magic. As the blue aura continued to probe without success, a spectre of fear flashed across her features. Thankfully, it was replaced with relief not soon after as a folded, weathered piece of parchment slipped out from under her saddlebag’s flap and floated its way up to her field of view.

Trixie smiled and let out a breath she had been holding as she examined the beige note, already slightly torn from many readings over the past few days. Briefly looking ahead to make sure the road was clear of obstacles, Trixie unfolded it and began to read.

Trixie,

I know that you’re nervous about your show next week. It’s not really like you to have stage fright, so I just wanted to write you a little something to let you know how proud I am to have a friend like you.
I know you’ve wanted to get back out on the road for a long time (after all, despite all your innovative talent, even the residents of Ponyville get tired of seeing the same performer every week). When you finally came to me and told me about the show you were planning in Fillydelphia, it was the proudest I’ve ever felt. It just confirms what I have known for a while now: you are ready to showcase your talent in front of the world again.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time in Ponyville, it’s to not let your past dictate who you are now. I’m not the pony I used to be, and neither are you. This show proves it.
I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there to travel with you. This friendship problem started out like a soap opera and is getting more convoluted by the second, and Rarity’s penchant for drama is not helping matters whatsoever. When I get back to Ponyville, you’ll have to tell me all about it!
Not that there will be much to say. I’m sure everything will be perfect!

Yours in Friendship,

~Starlight~

Trixie took the time to read over the note twice, and as her eyes passed by each paragraph she could feel her heart rate drop. The corny smiley face Starlight Glimmer had sketched next to her signature even brought a hint of a smile to Trixie's lips.

A deluge of water suddenly pummeled Trixie, soaking her mane, coat, cart, and Starlight’s letter, which subsequently disintegrated in her magic.

Trixie spat a few times and whipped her head around to spot a puddle next to her and an empty taxicab nearby, stopped at a traffic signal. She bolted up to the light and ground her hooves into the road, slowing her in the cart to a rapid stop right at the light, in the lane next to the offender.

“WHAT is your PROBLEM!?” she cried at the cabbie pulling the cart.

The muscular brown stallion turned his head to face her and blinked a few times, processing the anger of the dripping blue unicorn next to him. “Uhhhh...I’m sorry, what?” he asked, his deep voice betraying no anger and only the hint of an accent long since worn away.

“You took your cart through that puddle and SOAKED me!” Trixie accused, pointing at him with a hoof. She tossed her head and let out an infuriated snort as her mane refused to budge, still clinging tightly to her neck. “It destroyed a very important document, and now I have to dry everything before my show!”

“Oh, uh...Sorry ma’am?” the cabbie asked, scratching his balding head with a hoof.

“Sorry? SORRY!?” Trixie fumed, her eyes flaring open to as of then unforeseen sizes. “Is that all you have to say!?”

The light turned green. “Yes. I-I am sorry. I have to go,” he quickly responded, busting into a quick trot and crossing the intersection.

“PONIES LIKE YOU SHOULD BE IN JAIL!” Trixie yelled after him, cupping a hoof around her muzzle for emphasis.

“Hey lady,” a stallion’s voice came from behind. “I don’t know why you didn’t take a right on red, but it’s green now and I got places to be!”

“Oh, go cram it in your earhole!” Trixie retorted, quickly spinning her head around and spattering the wood of her cart with yet more water.

About twenty minutes later, Trixie pulled her cart in the side entrance of a spacious green park on the south side of the city's central district, about two blocks from the river. “Lousy ponies in this city,” she scoffed as she did a three-point turn on a well worn area of grass and parked the wooden monstrosity. Unhitching herself from the cart’s yoke, she trotted back to the side of the cart and began undoing the various pins and magical locks that allowed it to transform into a stage. “Lousy, lousy ponies. Why did I choose here, of all places?”

Stepping back after another moment’s work and pulling a wooden lever with her magic, Trixie watched the cart fold out into her trademark stage, complete with some minor adornments: curtains, firework emplacements, and a hanging blue moon sign. There was still much work to be done, of course, but nonetheless Trixie allowed herself to display a satisfied grin. “Oh, Trixie, you have done it again. This will be perfect,” she smugly commented to nopony in particular.

Hopping up onto the stage and hanging her hat and cape to dry on a rod behind the curtains, she busied herself with preparations, and didn’t even notice the approach of another pony a number of minutes later.

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

“WH-WHAAAA!” Trixie screamed, dropping one of her small special effect tubes and gesticulating wildly with her hooves before spinning around and facing the interloper.

The fear melted off of Trixie’s features as she surveyed the newcomer: a pudgy looking, yellow earth stallion with a twitchy gray mustache wearing a policepony’s uniform. Calming down quickly at the sight of what could be anypony’s eccentric uncle, she cleared her throat. “I mean, uh...yes? Can I help you?”

“You got a permit for all of this?” the police pony asked, raising an eyebrow as he surveyed her setup.

Trixie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Of course. The permit for the show tonight is on file with the Office of Public Events.”

“Okay,” the officer said, sniffing and scrunching up his muzzle for a moment. “But, do you have a copy of the permit on you?”

“No, I don’t. They told me I was set,” Trixie bit back defensively.

“You should always have your permits on hand. What kind of irresponsible event planner wouldn’t?”

“Irresponsible!?” Trixie parroted, holding a hoof to her barrel in mock hurt. “I never! Sir, this is going to be my most RESPONSIBLE and PERFECT show yet! PERFECT! How dare you insinuate otherwise! I know it may not occur to you union-suckling doughnut-munchers, but us real ponies just do what the people at the City Office tell us to do. They told me that I had everything I needed. So there!”

“Look, I can’t let you work on this without seeing a copy of the paperwork,” he told her with more heat in his tone, widening his stance and puffing out his barrel. “Why don’t you stop working and come on down here to talk to me?”

“Stop working? Talk to you? What are you sugg-” Trixie stopped talking immediately, her eyes gradually narrowing. Slowly, she leaned down towards the policepony, a disgust-laden scowl across her muzzle. Then, silence.

“...Is Trixie being detained?”

The policepony seemed to halt for a moment. “Well, I, uh...no, but I need to see your permit.”

“Then have a nice day,” Trixie responded in an insincere manner. “...I hope your day sucks,” she grumbled under her breath as she turned around to continue her work.

“Ma’am! Ma’am, don’t be like this, I need to talk to you! Ma’am!”

Trixie stood up and looked in the direct opposite direction from the policepony. “I am a citizen of Equestria who retains all of her rights, as she is not being detained,” she stated clearly. “Now I will detonate these safe smoke bombs, for which I have a permit, without intending to use them as a weapon.”

Trixie’s magic flung five miniature smoke bombs onto the hard wood of the stage, immediately casting her and the surrounding area in thick, colorful smoke.

She allowed herself the satisfaction of a wicked grin as she heard the policepony begin to hack ceaselessly. “Y-you’re c..crazy, lad-y!” he cried between racking coughs. “I’ll...be watchi-i-ing you!”

Trixie waited until the smoke dissipated before peeking behind her. Sure enough, the yellow cop was already far away; but he seemed to be radioing something in at his cart on the other end of the road, watching her.

“Ergh...that may have been a mistake,” Trixie mumbled as she looked at the clock off to the side of the stage. “Three-thirty!? Argh! He’s made me late for the flower pickup!” she groaned, hopping off the stage and trotting away from it briskly. “I will never contribute to the Policeponies’ Ball ever again!" Biting her lip in thought, she added, "Although, it's not like I ever did in the first place...”

The quaint ringing of a small bell filled the florist’s shop as Trixie pressed the door open with her muzzle. “I-I’m here,” she managed to wheeze, catching her breath. “There should be a pickup order for ‘Trixie’.”

“Last name?” asked a late-middle aged mare with an off-white coat and a lilac mane, who put on her glasses and prepared to look at the records book sitting on the shop’s rough, wooden counter.

“Lulamoon.”

The florist perused the list for a few moments. Then, she flipped the page over and continued to look. Then, she flipped the page back.

Trixie’s hoof began tapping against the shop's uneven tile floor as she watched the florist’s search with anxious anticipation.

“...Honorific?” The florist asked, moving her gaze away from the book to focus on Trixie’s response.

Trixie sighed in exasperation. “The Great and Powerful. Also, I may have put down ‘Esquire’ as the suffix. It depends.”

The florist tutted quietly as she flipped the page again. “Ehhh….Oh! I see what the problem was.”

“Lady, if you don’t have my flowers, you’re going to be running a teacup shop here in about fifteen seconds.”

“We have your flowers,” the mare soothed with a comforting smile. “It’s just that we don’t actually list orders as small as yours separately. Fifty roses and fifty daisies, correct?”

Trixie’s posture visibly relaxed. “Yes, that’s right.”

“It looks like you pre-paid, as well. Responsible!” The florist smiled and trotted back into the cold room behind her. “Let me just count out your flowers,” Trixie could hear her call from the back.

“Finally,” Trixie whispered under her breath. “Somepony in this rotten town realizes that I’m responsible.” Still a little jittery as a consequence of her time constraints, Trixie began to slowly walk around the store, disinterestedly browsing the store’s colorful wares.

“Here you are,” the florist grunted as she placed a moderately-sized crate filled with Trixie’s flowers down on the counter.

“Than-”

The door to the shop burst open, sending the bell wildly jingling.

Her ears falling to the sides of her head as she grimaced, Trixie looked over to the doorway, spying a pair of similar-looking ponies. In front was a pegasus mare about Trixie’s age, her pink and lilac mane done up ornately. She seemed to be deeply distressed and looking about the store wildly, which sent her long earrings flinging into her neck. Behind her an older-looking mare tried her best to simultaneously calm her companion while catching her own breath.

After only a brief moment, the younger mare darted up to the counter, nosing past Trixie, who was only just able to pick up the crate of flowers in her magic. “My order from another shop fell through, and I need four dozen roses!” she shouted at the florist, still twitching about as if somepony was after her head.

“We’ll pay whatever you need,” the older mare chipped in.

“Be quiet, MOM!” the younger one shot back.

“I’m just trying to help, darling.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” the florist apologized with a deep frown and a nod in Trixie’s direction, “but we only have a handful of roses left. She just cleared us out.”

The daughter let out a pitiful whimper and twirled around to Trixie. “I-I need your flowers! Please!”

Trixie took a step back, surprised by the newcomer’s command. Quickly recovering, she retorted in her quintessential style. “What? No! Get your own! I need these!”

“It’s my wedding weekend!” The daughter pleaded, tears in her eyes. “The rehearsal dinner is in less than half an hour, and the ceremony is tomorrow morning!”

“We’ll pay!” the mare’s mother tacked on quickly.

Trixie merely scoffed at the entreaties. “I’m so sorry that you actually have somepony to love and spend the rest of your life with, but we NORMAL ponies don’t count that as grounds for begging. Why don’t you just get some other flowers?” She gestured in a 180 degree arc with her hoof. “There are plenty to choose from. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a store full of them.”

“B-but it’s Windy Day’s and my special flower!” the daughter pled again. “He gave me a red rose on every date he ever took me on! When he proposed, instead of answering I took him to my closet where I had dried and kept every single one of-”

“Alright,” Trixie cut her off. “Spare me your love story, okay? It’s depressing enough being me without hearing it.” Looking down at her flowers, Trixie bit her lip.

It’s not like she really and truly needed them. They were an important touch, of course, but she could still have a successful show without them, right? She’d be making a mare's happy day even happier by giving them away.

“Well…” Trixie began, before grimacing and flinching.

I’m sure everything will be perfect!

“...No.” Trixie sighed, bringing her head up to meet the bride to-be’s wavering gaze. “I’m sorry, but I really need these for my event. I can’t.”

The mare sniffed twice before collapsing into a sobbing ball on the floor of the flower shop.

Her mother rushed over almost immediately to calm her, making soothing noises. Having none of it, the daughter squirmed out of her grasp and dashed out the door, taking to the skies immediately. For several seconds, her crying was audible from within the shop.

The mother stood up and turned to Trixie, a loathing scowl on her muzzle. “You just ruined a young mare’s wedding day. I hope you’re happy!” Turning around and flicking her tail disrespectfully in Trixie’s face, she walked out of the store and flew after her daughter.

As soon as the bell had stopped its violent jingling, Trixie turned to the florist, who looked back at her with a deep scowl.

Trixie smiled awkwardly. “...Geez...Bridezilla...Am I right?”

Coming within view of her cart, Trixie could see the tip of a crimson tail swishing out from between the stage curtains. “Oh, what fresh hell is this?” she groaned, placing the crate of flowers down gently and sneaking up behind the offender.

As she carefully approached the interloper from behind, she could hear them snickering and clanking objects about. Picking the pony up quickly by the tail with her magic, she darted behind the curtains to conceal them both from view.

A green colt looked up at Trixie from his position floating upside-down in front of her. He weakly struggled from side to side in her grasp, but his brown eyes sparkled up at her with curiosity.

“Alright, kid, who are you, and why are you messing around with Trixie’s things?” she asked in an exasperated tone.

“Hah! It is you!” he declared, pointing a rough hoof at her. “I have come for my revenge!”

“...Revenge?”

“You don’t remember me?” he asked, his voice dropping a little bit from its prior victorious crescendo. “I’m Fresh Fruit!”

Trixie snorted. “Yeah, you’re a fruit alright.”

“You seriously don’t remember?” he asked, suddenly completely downtrodden. “You came and did a show here two years ago, and you turned my mane green!”

“Hmmm…” Trixie tapped her muzzle with a hoof. “I’ve turned a lot of manes green over the years. It was the only color I could do. Your case doesn’t jump out in my memory.”

“Come on!” he growled, beginning to struggle more against Trixie’s magical grasp on his tail. “The other foals made fun of me since I was all green! They called me ‘Green Weenie’, and ‘Green Ghost’, and ‘Lime Colt’ for weeks!”

“Oh yes, what a terrible ordeal you must have gone through. Nopony else has ever experienced emotional trauma like you have.”

“Exactly!” Fresh Fruit cried vindictively, pointing a hoof up at her. “So you can see why I have waited patiently for such a long time to destroy you!”

“I don’t have time for this,” Trixie groaned. “What were you messing with?”

Fresh Fruit’s lips curled into a sinister smile as blood continued to rush to his head. “Nothing. Even if I had been, I’d never tell you. I’d just wait to see you fail, your show crashing and bur-”

“Nice maneclip. Is that the lynchpin to my Box of Illusion?” Trixie nabbed the bronze clip from the colt’s shaggy crimson mane using another extension of her magic and levitated it in front of her eyes for closer inspection.

“...No,” Fresh Fruit responded, biting his lip.

“It is.” Trixie shook the colt by the tail for a moment, lecturing, “You can’t just break into somepony else’s setup and mess with things! Everything has to be perfect tonight, and if I wasn’t so clever and an astute observer this might have slipped by me!”

The colt groaned. “Just let me go already, or I’ll call the police!”

“Oh, I’m so scared,” Trixie mocked, letting her voice waver and her legs tremble. “Whatever will the police do when a thief calls them for help escaping retributive justice?”

“I don’t know, but that yellow stallion with the mustache has been watching your stage all day and poking around the area with his police dog,” Fresh Fruit threatened. “I bet he wouldn’t think twice about arresting if you were caught hurting a little colt!”

Trixie froze. She could even feel her heart skip a beat as a vision of her being dragged away kicking and screaming from her stage and thrown in a cell played in her mind.

I’m sure everything will be perfect!

“In fact, I might call him over anyway. It’d be even better revenge!”

Trixie briefly considered utilizing a variant of the silencing spell that she had once used on Pinkie Pie, but quickly concluded that overreacting to the situation was the best way to make sure the performance would never happen in the first place. “Ah...Alright, look, ‘Fruit’, I’m sorry about your mane, but it's in the past, and you can’t just do this to me.” She apologized begrudgingly.

“You can’t just semi-permanently change a foal’s mane color either, but it didn’t stop you!”

A deep, guttural growl found its way out of Trixie’s throat. She knew what had to happen next. “Alright, what do you want?”

“A hundred bits.”

“What? You’ve got to be crazy,” she sneered. “Twenty.”

“One hundred.”

“Thirty.”

“One. Hundred.”

“Fifty.”

“TWO hundred,” the colt replied more forcefully. “Negotiating demands is disrespectful.”

“In a single second, I can make it so you can’t speak for a week,” she threatened, scowling and bringing her face toward his.

“Oh Mr. Policepony!”

“Fine!” Trixie relented, dropping Fresh Fruit and sending him clunking to the floor of the wooden stage. She fished out a bag of bits from her saddlebag and tossed them defiantly at his splayed-out hooves. “Now get out of here! And don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again.”

Fresh Fruit recovered quickly, nabbing his newfound riches in his mouth and scampering off the stage and away onto the city streets.

When he had left earshot, Trixie let out a pitiful whine. “Ohhh….There goes Trixie’s celebratory spa day tomorrow…” Pouting, she stole a glance at the clock. “Only five-thirty. A whole two hours left to finish setting up.” She took a deep breath in, closing her eyes for a few moments, and exhaled with purpose. “Time to do this.”

Trixie ran a brush through her ice-blue mane as she went over her pre-show checklist in her mind. The fireworks had been prepped, the flowers onstage (the roses mostly for show, while the daisies were for the transfiguration routine- they would be scattered into the crowd at the very end), and each piece of her equipment checked for further sabotage by frustrated colts with nothing else to do.

“Everything’s going to be perfect,” she stated confidently.

“Ahem,” somepony cleared their throat next to the backstage steps.

Trixie glanced over to the side. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Are we almost ready? The crowd is getting antsy,” Gift Basket chided as she strode up the stairs, her pink mane’s tight bun remaining perfectly motionless as she moved.

“Yes, yes. Don’t try to rush perfection,” Trixie replied, looking back into the mirror and continuing to brush her mane. “How is the ticket collection going?”

“Good. We've sold more than expected. I have no idea why so many ponies want to come and see you.”

Trixie exhaled hard through her nostrils, but bit her tongue and said nothing.

“Well,” Gift Basket continued sharply, clearing her throat again. “We’ve stuck our neck out for you. Don’t keep them waiting.” The sound of hoofsteps rolling down the steps signaled her departure.

“Ugh,” Trixie groaned, finally putting down her manebrush. “What a nasty, nasty mare. Why on earth did I agree to work with her again?”

Running once more over the checklist in her mind, Trixie fired up her horn and levitated over her now-dry hat and cape, putting them on just so. Her ears flicked once at the loud chatter coming from the crowd outside. “Okay, time to do this.”

Trixie stole a final glance into the mirror and stopped herself before she could raise a hoof off the ground. Then, she wiped her cape with a hoof.

She paused for a moment, then she wiped it again. Then, another pause.

Staring back at her from the mirror was a big, pink spot.

Trixie’s heart froze solid with fear. “No... No, no, no!” She frantically wiped and tugged at the cape, but the almost two-inch wide stain remained. “I should have never had that ice cream!”

I’m sure everything will be perfect!

Darting over to the curtain and peering surreptitiously around it, Trixie gazed upon the biggest crowd she had ever drawn. There must have been at least two thousand ponies, all eagerly chattering among themselves in anticipation.

They were all here to see her, a semi-professional magician with an ice cream stain on her cape.

I’m sure everything will be perfect!

Tears began to well up in Trixie’s eyes, and she scurried into a corner and sat down on her haunches, holding her back hooves close to her barrel as she tried to control her breathing. Floating her saddlebags over, she reached in with a hoof and fumbled frantically for Starlight’s letter.

It was only after almost a minute that she remembered that her record of her friend’s heartfelt words was nothing more than a pile of pulpy mush in the middle of a side street on the outskirts of the city.

I’m sure everything will be perfect!

Tears beginning to stream down her cheeks, Trixie tried to think of anything else, anything at all, that Starlight had written. She could think of absolutely nothing. Instead, the same declaration played over and over again.

I’m sure everything will be perfect!

Racking sobs began to quake through Trixie’s body as she fumbled pitifully with her cape, soon un-cinching it and throwing it to the floor along with her hat. “A-all that...” she wept. “Everything that happened today, everypony I dealt with, and I-I-I can’t even make a show go right!”

Taking deep, uneven breaths, Trixie resigned herself to the only conclusion she knew. “I’m...I’m just like who I used to be!”

Trixie’s eyes widened as, in a moment of clairvoyance, she was able to remember one more thing for a precious, fleeting moment.

I’m not the pony I used to be, and neither are you. This show proves it.

Her breathing suddenly steadied, Trixie wiped her eyes. Peering around the curtain again, she took in the expansive, excited crowd, but found her eyes suspiciously drawn to a single colt in the front row. He was orange and had a prosthetic limb; something about him looked familiar. He was looking up starry-eyed at the stage, sitting with a big smile on his face next to ponies that Trixie assumed to be his parents and little sister. Turning her head, Trixie noticed that the entire front row was filled with families not unlike the orange colt’s.

Pulling her head back inside, Trixie sniffled once and floated her hat and cape back over to her. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t make things perfect, Starlight,” she said mournfully as she carefully put her regalia back on. “But, I guess it doesn’t need to be perfect for me. It just needs to be good enough...For them.”

With one last wipe of her eyes and glance into her mirror, Trixie pulled the wooden lever next to her prep table. Immediately, she could hear the crashing and booming of the show's fireworks, and she readied herself behind the split in the curtains.

When the explosions stopped, the uproarious applause from the crowd was finally able to reach Trixie’s ears. Throwing half a dozen smoke bombs on stage and pulling the secondary lever that sent the final, most impressive firework shooting directly up into the sunset framed by the Fillydelphia skyline, she rushed through the gap and into the cloud of prismatic vapor.

When the smoke began to clear, Trixie was reared up on her hind legs in a dramatic pose, a slight breeze sending her cape billowing behind her. “Fillies and Gentlecolts!” she bellowed, using her magic to amplify her voice above the deafening roar of the crowd, “Welcome to the GREAT and POWERFUL TRRRRRRRRIXIE’S Magic of Life Charity Show, benefiting the Fillydelphia Babies and Foals’ Hospital!”