Hearts in the Right Places

Chapters

The Best Laid Plans
The Common Factor to All Your Failings Is...
Learning to Live With Yourself

The Best Laid Plans

A perfectly good day of doing nothing was interrupted by a summons from Princess Twilight.

I sighed as the message spell expended itself and popped out of existence. I had been enjoying my book, but I put it down on my desk to see what Twilight wanted this time. Not that I had much choice; when a princess was also your parole officer, you came when you were told. Not that Twilight ever lorded that over me, she was always perfectly nice and only asked me to do things. She never technically told me to do anything. Of course, how smart it’d be for me to actually tell her no...

Still, all things considered, my current situation as Princess Twilight’s ... houseguest, wasn’t that bad. For all I’d done, I could easily have ended up in prison, sentenced to work hard labor for the rest of my life, exiled to a celestial body, sent to Tartarus, or turned into a statue and used as a lawn ornament. It seems the law took a rather dim view on the enslavement of a whole village, stealing cutie marks, assaulting a princess, attempting to change the fabric of our timeline as part of a revenge scheme, and then nearly destroying all of Equestria with the previously mentioned time travel. But I hadn't intended for all of that to happen, you see, and I had very good reasons for doing the rest. It’s just that nothing worked out quite the way I hoped, and the whole revenge thing was ill-advised in hindsight. Shame nopony else saw it that way. Luckily for me, I landed on my hooves when my sentence turned out to be live in a castle with a princess.

Not that I had a whole lot else going on at the moment. I had spent the better part of a year working on getting revenge against Twilight for ruining everything in my village. After that plan imploded spectacularly, I had nothing to do with all of this newfound time. All my plans were dead, and I was just living in the moment. Not that my old plans had ever worked out anyways. At least I had a roof over my head and regular meals every day, not to mention that Twilight was helping me with my reform. She hadn’t needed to do that, considering all her options to punish me. Instead I was now her student, something I even I got a stipend for. She was really was nice—perhaps a bit too nice.

Thus, I headed to the castle’s library to meet with Princess Books. I found Twilight busily taking notes with Spike by her side. The table she was using was absolutely covered in books and scrolls.

“What was it you needed help with, Twilight?” I asked.

Twilight smiled and looked up from her writing. “Oh hey, Starlight. Good timing.” She stood up and stretched her back and wings. “How would you feel about running everything for Ponyville's Hearts and Hooves Day?”

That took me aback. “Um, excuse me? Running it?”

“You know, there’s all the festivities, events to manage, ponies to organize.” Twilight explained with a smile like all of this was actually something to look forward to. “There are a few activities we’re planning for the holiday, and it would be really nice if there was somepony there in charge.”

“Oookay?” I scratched behind my ear as I digested that. “And you want me to run everything?”

She nodded. “Mhm! I just got a letter from Cadance asking me to help her organize the Hearts and Hooves Day celebrations in the Crystal Empire. From the sounds of things, it’s going to be a major production—big surprise when she’s the Princess of Love—so she could really use my help, but I didn't want to leave without making sure Ponyville would be okay first.”

Spike crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “Twilight, you know April Foals' Day is like a month and a half out, right?” He sounded about as enthusiastic about this as me.

Twilight frowned at her assistant. “And why shouldn't I trust my student with something like this if she feels she's up for it? It’ll be an opportunity for her to put her lessons to good use, and for more ponies to get to really know her like we do.”

Spike kept frowning despite all these reasonable-sounding arguments.

I pressed my lips together as I considered the proposal: Twilight was giving me an opportunity to prove myself. Something that did sound nice. And really, it was just some holiday festival where a bunch of lovey-dovey ponies got together. It wasn’t like I was seeing anypony, so my schedule was wide open.

I nodded to Twilight. “Sure, I can handle organizing a few things. I did run an entire village for a while, so how hard could one holiday festival be?”

Spike wasn’t quite convinced yet. “Um, you do realize this is different from your village, right?”

I let out a huff and rolled my eyes. “Yes, I know that running some random romantic romp is going to be different than how I ran my village.” Thanks for the vote of confidence, Spike. Geeze, you enslave a whole village like one time and nopony ever lets it go. Nopony even took my motives into account for that. I’d had the best of intentions with my village. Just ... a few things hadn’t gone the way I wanted, or went too far, and it was best not to dwell on past mishaps and mistakes.

Twilight gave me an encouraging smile. “I for one think this will be a great opportunity for Starlight to show everypony that she's changed. Don’t you think, Starlight?”

My ears perked at that positive spin on things. She was right—this was a chance for me to prove. Maybe this would get rid of some of those suspicious looks I was always getting from the ponies in town. It’d be nice to be able to go out without constantly being judged for something that happened in the past, especially when I was trying to do better and reform myself. I could prove to everypony all the good I could do.

“Yeah, that sounds great,” I said. “And relax Spike, it's not like I'm going to enslave everypony and force them to embrace a cult of equality. It'll be strictly voluntary this time.” I let that hang in painful silence for a moment before adding, “Kidding, kidding...”

Twilight’s smile became a little strained. “Good, because I'd get in a lot of trouble if you did.” She chuckled awkwardly like she always did when she was nervous and trying to hide it.

“And she wouldn’t be the only one,” Spike groused.

“But I'm sure it'll be fine. Because...” Twilight levitated a scroll from the table and gave it to me with a flourish. “I’m leaving you notes!”

Now it was my turn to put on a strained smile. “Oh... Great. Notes.” I didn’t know what it was about this pony, but she was an absolute fanatic when it came to notes and checklists. It was like she was convinced the whole world would descend into chaos and ruin if we didn't itemize everything. “I don't suppose you could give me a quick summary?” There had to be a better solution to getting prepared for Hearts and Hooves Day than all this reading.

Spike grinned evilly as he watched me. “That is the summary.”

I really hoped he was kidding about that, but knowing Twilight...

The Princess nodded cheerfully, oblivious to my dismay. “I just wanted it to be comprehensive to make sure you wouldn't feel like I was leaving you hanging. Everything you need to know is in these scrolls—I’ve organized everything, so you just need to follow my notes and you’ll be a-okay!”

I raised an eyebrow as I eyed the scroll in my hooves. “‘Scrolls’? As in, there’s more than one of these?”

“Yep!” Twilight pointed to the table that had about a dozen scrolls and a few books on top of it. “I wanted to be thorough. We can talk about cutting down on the amount of prep work I do for you next time, but for now I wanted to play it safe.”

Spike pointed to the scroll. “The appendix is about four-fifths of the way through that, by the way. That’ll be a reference for your heavy reading.”

“Wait, there’s more research on top of all of this?!” This was starting to get a bit unreal. How long had Twilight been thinking about having me do this?

Twilight smiled wide in the manner I had heard Rainbow Dash once call ‘adorkable’ as she levitated a dozen books in front of me, each with titles like The Origins of Hearts and Hooves Day: A 500 Year History of Courtship and Love and A Date in Fillydelphia: Hearts and Hooves Day in Equestria’s Most Romantic City. “You don't want to be caught unprepared if something comes up or if somepony has a question, so I've collected everything on the topic you could ever possibly need.”

“Gee, thanks.” I plopped the scroll down on the table. “Nice to know you're being thorough about it.”

There was no way I was going to read all of that. I liked reading well enough, but I wasn’t nearly the freakish scholar Twilight was. It wasn’t like I even needed to read all of that to do what needed to be done. Ponies had been doing Hearts and Hooves Day since forever and had managed just fine without a doctorate on the subject. I’d hadn’t celebrated the holiday since I was a filly, and even I had the essentials down. I would be fine without the homework.

Twilight moved the scroll I had just placed down to some arbitrary spot that must have been more organized in her head. “I just wanted to make sure my student is as prepared as she can be.”

“Well, there's no way I could be less than completely prepared with all of this,” I said, trying to not sound too sarcastic.

Spike rubbed his claw over his face and muttered to himself. “Oh Celestia, don't encourage her...”

Twilight either didn’t hear her assistant or was ignoring him. “Also,I have an assignment for you.”

She sounded way too happy about that. I mentally prepared myself for Twilight to get more notey. “Okay ... what sort of assignment?”

Twilight beamed with unrestrained glee. “I'd like for you to make a friend to help you with this. There's going to be plenty of work to do, and there's nothing like a friend to help out for a project like this. That's something I've learned for myself, and something I would like for you to experience as well.”

My smiled ended up being more of a grimace. “Oh great, so it's a friendship lesson and you want me to organize a festival?” Now she was turning this into a group project. Ugh, I hated group projects in school, and that hadn’t exactly changed when I became an adult. That was just perfect.

“You should know by now that she likes to consolidate,” Spike pointed out.

Twilight must have finally picked up on my mood, because she frowned at me. “It isn't too much, is it? I know this is a lot to dump on you, but I thought a friend would make things easier, not harder.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Of course, friends always try to help with doing things! Just ... um, did you have anyone particular in mind?”

Twilight shook her head. “Nope. I figured I'd let you handle that on your own. One of the reasons why I made all these checklists for you and your soon-to-be friend, it'll give you more time to—well, make one.” She chuckled to herself. “I was a bit too hooves-on last time I tried helping you, so I thought I’d let you try things your own way this time.”

I internally groaned. Twilight had somehow managed to find the perfect mix of excessive guidance and no guidance. That took talent. “Okay then. I guess I'll just figure out how to do that.”

I wasn’t exactly sure how. Oh sure, Twilight had gone over—in excruciating detail—how to make a friend, but there was a difference between hearing a lecture and actually using that information. In all honesty, I would rather throw down with a manticore than go through another friendship lesson. They were so ... awkward. It was so much easier just to tell ponies what to do like I did back in my village than it was to make friends and ask them to do things. But I reminded myself I didn’t do mind control anymore. Not after the last incident. I would just have to find less coercive ways to get ponies to do what I wanted. Like the winning personality I didn’t have.

Twilight placed a reassuring hoof on my shoulder. “I have every confidence you will be able to handle it.”

“Glad somepony does.” I whispered.

Twilight grimaced slightly and then waved to Spike. “And you’ll have Spike to help. He’s a great assistant, and I’m sure you’ll work great together.”

Spike looked taken aback. “You’re not taking me with you to the Crystal Empire?” There was a note of hurt in his words.

Twilight was quick to launch into damage control. “I’d love to bring you to help! But I think Starlight could use your help a little more than me. You know how my checklist and note system works, and I can’t think of anyone I’d trust more than you to assist Starlight.”

Spike smiled and his chest swelled. “Well yeah, I do have a lot of experience helping you as your number one assistant.”

Twilight nodded. “Exactly! Also, you want to give someone that Hearts and Hooves Day card you’ve been working on, don’t you? Unless that someone is going to be in the Crystal Empire...”

“Oof!” Spike smacked his own forehead. “I nearly forgot.”

Twilight chuckled. “And who were you planning on giving that to, anyways? I’d like to know who my number one assistant has a crush on.”

Spike blushed turned his gaze to the ground. “It’s a secret.”

“A secret, eh?” Twilight covered her mouth as she snickered. “Alright, I’ll let you keep your secret. For now.”

I didn’t know who Spike planned on giving that card, but it probably wasn’t Rarity given that she was dating Applejack. Twilight had told me about Spike’s crush on her, though it was my understanding that Rarity had managed to let him down gently.

Deciding to leave Spike alone for now, Twilight turned her attention back on me. “Any questions so far?”

I shook my head. “No, I think I’m good.” Though partially I said that to try and avoid a big lecture. Twilight loved giving out information when she got the chance.

“Great!” Twilight said. “Then how about we review the contents of the scrolls? You may find something you have questions about, or even suggestions.” She was way too happy for what amounted to an administrative meeting.

“Um, is that strictly necessary?” I asked, trying to think of a smooth way out of this.

Twilight unraveled the first scroll as she smiled far, far too eagerly. “You want to be prepared, don’t you?”

“Well yes...” The issue was that there was prepared and then there was grossly overprepared.

“So then, the Hearts and Hooves Day committee consists of—” Twilight was miraculously interrupted by rapping on the double doors of the library. “Huh, I wonder who that is?”

I silently thanked Equality for the interruption. Maybe if I was lucky it’d be one of Twilight’s friends, or somepony else asking for help with a friendship problem. The Cutie Mark Crusaders also seemed to be good at causing plenty of havoc. And in a pinch, I’d accept some sort of monster attack or other Equestria-ending threat if it got me out of having a multi-hour meeting with Twilight.

“I'll get it.” Spike waddled his way to the door, and just got his claw on the door handle when the doors slammed open with an explosion of lights and sound. Magical fireworks went off in the doorway, announcing the arrival of my savior.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie graces you with her presence once more, Princess Twilight,” Trixie announced with great aplomb. “Have you seen Starlight around?”

I eagerly waved to my friend. “Right here.”

Spike squeezed himself out from behind the door, wobbling on his feet as he tried to find his balance. “I’m okay too, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

“Oh. Trixie.” Twilight put on a smile that didn’t look nearly as eager as the one she had been wearing just a moment before. “Nice to see you.”

“You as well,” Trixie answered with a dismissive wave.

My smile, on the other hoof, was much more genuine. “Hey. What's up?”

Trixie smirked at me. “Trixie has the most magnificent, outstanding, and grandiose routine planned for the upcoming holiday, but she needs her number one assistant to fine-tune a few things. Can Trixie borrow you for a bit?”

I seized that opportunity like a life preserver in a stormy ocean. “Sure!”

Twilight’s smile became all the more strained. “Well we were about to review something for Hearts and Hooves Day...”

“Um, you don't mind if we take a quick study break, do you Twilight?” I asked, suddenly feeling a little bit guilty. There was just something about seeing Twilight disappointed that was ... yeah.

Trixie wrapped a leg around me and grinned. “Trixie would hope that the Princess of Friendship would understand that Starlight couldn't leave a friend hanging in a time of need.”

“Um, sure, that should be alright.” Twilight reluctantly waved for me to go. “We can go over all of this later.”

“Great! Thanks, Twilight!” That was a huge weight off my shoulders to say the least. Now if I could just keep putting off the Great Note Review indefinitely, I’d be in great shape.

“You’re welcome.” Twilight sighed as she rolled the scroll back up. “Though we really do need to go over this later.”

I grimaced. “Um, right, no time to waste. So Trixie, show me this trick of yours.” I leaned over and whispered, “And get me out of here!”

Trixie gave me a subtle knowing nod and rolled her hoof. “Well it first begins as any good magic trick does... sleight of hoof!” She threw down a smoke bomb and the whole library filled with blue smoke. Trixie grabbed me and pulled me along as we made our escape.

Behind us Spike and Twilight coughed, and Twilight called out. “You don’t need to smoke us, Trixie!”

“I don't think that counts as magic,” Spike said. “And I know a thing or two about magic.”

“Everypony’s a critic,” Trixie grumbled as we ran for the exit.

“You don’t hear me complaining,” I said as I escaped as fast as I could. “And really, I don’t mind that at all.”

Now if only I could figure out how I was going to deal with the latest project Twilight had dropped on me.

We made our escape to Trixie’s cart near the edge of town. She had a regular campground she liked to use there with a firepit, and her stage had already been set up.

I gave Trixie a smile once we stopped. “Thanks for getting me out of there. Twilight was about to bombard me with her lists. It was probably going to be hours before she was going to be done.”

Trixie’s chest swelled. “Well of course. The glint in Twilight's eye was evident—if we hadn't left, she would have had both of us roped into her little project.”

I shivered as the image of reviewing list upon list played itself in boring monotony in my mind. “Probably. Once she gets going it's like trying to stop a boulder rolling downhill.”

“Trixie can believe it. You can thank me later,” Trixie added, dropping the third person. Something I had only really seen her do in front of me while we were alone, or when she slipped up. “For now...”

Trixie motioned with exaggerated grandness to the stage. On the stage was a clear box a bit taller than a pony was long, with a crumpled white jacket lying next to it. I was curious what Trixie had cooked up this time. She was always working on adding new tricks and acts to her performances, both to increase her repertoire and skill and to make sure her audiences wouldn’t get bored by her falling back on old routines.

“What do you have here?” I asked. “The new trick you were talking about earlier?”

A wide grin spread across her lips. “Indeed. And I could use your aid, if you'd like to help.”

“Sure, what did you need?” This at least had the advantage over going over a bunch of boring scrolls for a boring holiday.

“I have an escape performance straight out of Hoofdini's playbook, but better.” Trixie’s grin turned eager as she levitated over the jacket. “A daring escape from a straightjacket, upside-down, all while wearing a suppression ring! No magic, no escape, and no tricks past the showmare's usual kit!”

“Huh, sounds neat.” Based on previous conversations, Trixie was a huge admirer of Hoofdini and had been working on mastering several of his tricks and adapting them to her own purposes. “So what did you need help with?”

Trixie coughed into her hoof and spoke more sheepishly. “The problem is, I ... need some backup. I can't always get out sometimes. There’s still a few kinks to work out.”

I pressed my lips together in a frown. “That sounds like it'd be a problem for an escape trick.”

Trixie sighed and ran a hoof along her mane. “Yeah. To be honest, I have no idea how he ever pulled it off to begin with. All I’ve got is hearsay from other magicians and what others have worked out—and even he never tried to do it submerged.”

My eyes widened slightly as I suddenly realized what the empty tank was on stage for. “Maybe you shouldn’t try and nearly drown yourself?”

“But ponies have already seen the dry escape routine!” Trixie stomped a hoof. “I need something bigger! Better! Grander! Ponies don’t just want to see something they’ve already seen before, they want something new and exciting! You don’t make a name for yourself by being just like everypony else.”

“I guess that’s true enough.” Part of me still bristled at the idea of anypony trying to be better than anypony else, but... I felt torn. There was something admirable in how Trixie was always trying to improve herself and do better. It made me worry about how I was bending on my old principles of Equality and becoming stagnant as Twilight’s student. If I was going to be honest, I’d been bending them ever since I’d become Twilight's student. Maybe even before that. I wasn’t trying to force ponies to agree with me, for one. That ... hadn’t turned out well—not after everypony rejected my philosophy and I got ran out of my village. Yet one more failure to add to the pile.

“Maybe, I don't know, sneak in something to help you breathe?” Trixie had taught me that one of the tricks to an escape routine was to hide the means of escape on yourself in some manner. Like that one time she showed me how you could have your assistant slip a key to you through a kiss as the routine’s about to start.

“Hm...” Trixie rubbed her chin as she thought it over. “That might work, actually. Of course, I'd prefer to actually escape the cage—the audience will figure it out if I'm underwater for more than three minutes or so. Nopony can hold their breath forever, and they’ll definitely suspect I’m using magic if it takes too long.” Trixie grinned. “But that's a great idea for practicing. Rushing through the act isn’t great when practicing. At least when you’re still learning the knack for it.”

I nodded. “Happy I could help. In fact, I can even think of a few spells to help you practice.”

“Oh? Well don’t keep me in suspense.” She waggled her eyebrows. “That’s for later.”

It felt like she was trying to say something there, but I couldn’t tell what. Probably just my imagination. “A Water Breathing spell being the first thing that comes to mind, and some illusions might help as well. You know, to hide things like keys.”

Trixie momentarily grinned in a way that seemed strained at the edges but then she relaxed and hip-bumped me. “I like the way you think. So let's fill up the tank and try out this spell of yours.”

“I can handle the water.” I started levitating water into the tank from a nearby well. This was the type of thing I was comfortable with: magic. Magic I knew. Sure, I might not be some triple-PhD in magic like Twilight was, but I had something better. I was really good at the practical side of magic. Theory wasn’t my specialty; it had taken me months to crack one of Starswirl’s time travel spells and then rewrite it to use the Map as a power source, giving me a power boost in the process so that I could slug it out with Twilight. But once I did get going Twilight couldn’t technically beat me. There was the fact that my spell had the side effect of destroying Equestria through factors I couldn’t have known beforehoof, so Twilight convinced me to stop. But that was only because I wanted to stop, not because she forced me to.

Still, if there was one thing I was supremely confident in it was my magic. It was a hay of a lot easier and predictable than ponies. Once you mastered it, magic did what you wanted it to do. You could control it, bend it to your will, harness it towards your purposes. Magic didn’t have a tricky whirlwind of emotions, desires, and needs like ponies did. Magic didn’t fight you, try to take what didn’t belong to it, or abandon you. It just was, and I liked it that way.

Which was why I was a whole lot more comfortable with Twilight's magic lessons than her friendship lessons. I really wish I didn’t have to do those friendship lessons. They made me really uncomfortable. Ponies were so unpredictable and prone to doing who knew what. You would think the bearer of the Element of Magic would understand me, but it had shocked me when she told me that magic couldn’t solve every problem. No, she went even further than that; she argued that even if magic could solve a problem that didn’t mean you should use magic. I didn’t know where she got an idea like that, but it was silly. If you could quickly and easily solve a problem with magic, then you should. Simple as that.

It all made me wonder what I was doing with my life.

Trixie nodded in satisfaction as she watched me levitate the water. “I suppose I should suit up and get ready for practice.” She took off her hat and cape and then sauntered past me, hips swaying as she did so. When she got on top of the stage, she paused to look over her shoulder at me with a smirk.

I was concentrating on the jacket and chains Trixie was going to use, figuring out how all the locks and everything were supposed to go together. “So, mind if I ask for your advice about a few things?”

I swore I could hear Trixie’s teeth grinding together, though I couldn't imagine why. “Like what?”

“Like about how Twilight wants me to run Hearts and Hooves Day in Ponyville.” I levitated the chains and straightjacket up to Trixie.

Trixie took the offered items, her head tilting slightly as she considered me. “Well, do you want to run it?”

“I'm not sure.” I scraped a hoof along the ground. “Part of me wants to prove myself to the Princess, but the other part... To be honest, I think Hearts and Hooves Day is pretty dumb.”

“Dumb?” Trixie looked taken aback by that announcement. “Really? What makes you say that?”

I groaned. Here we go... “Because it's a dumb holiday artificially created to sell things to ponies they don't need like flowers and holiday cards. Really, the whole purpose of the holiday is to support the elites both by tricking ponies out of their money, and creating a safety valve for society to pretend to release the pressure from the inequalities of their daily life through a day off and festivities, thus perpetuating an unequal society by consoling the masses without doing the real work of actual effective change to improve the qualities of their lives.”

Trixie’s mouth fell agape as I finished my explanation. “Huzabwa?”

I sighed and rubbed my face. “See, this is why I can't talk about the whole Equality thing. Nopony understands.”

Of course, the whole Equality thing could use some work—probably a lot of work, honestly. Assuming it wasn’t totally unworkableto start with. The idea that Equality might be too high an ideal to be practical would be a bitter pill to swallow. Trying to force ponies to act in a certain way didn’t work, and had been pointed out to me as being pretty evil, no matter what my goals were. Stealing cutie marks was a no-go as well, and the whole revenge thing was a dead end that nearly resulted in me ending Equestria.

So yeah, my philosophy needed some recalculating.

At least one good thing about Twilight’s lessons and me turning a new leaf was that I had made a friend with Trixie, and the others were alright—even if it was touch and go sometimes. Some things were better now that I was Twilight’s student. Going back to being alone was ... yeah.

Trixie shook her head. “No, I get it, you just blindsided me.” She huffed, sounding grumpy when she said, “It's not all bad. I like the idea of setting a day aside to spend time with your special somepony.”

I sensed there was something important about the way she phrased that. “You got somepony like that?”

“Well of course.” Trixie grinned and reached down from the stage to poke my nose. “She's just a little slow to pick up on what I'm trying to tell her.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Oh? I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sure if you keep at it she'll figure it out eventually.” I was more than a bit curious about who this mysterious fillyfriend of hers was. I hadn’t even known Trixie was seeing somepony. Near as I’d been able to tell, she spent most of her spare time around Ponyville these days so that she could hang out with me.

Trixie eye twitched as her face twisted with a rictus smile. “Riiight, of course. Drop enough hints and they'll get it eventually. It's just a question of subtlety, and how much of it to use.”

“I guess.” I shrugged. “Hopefully I’ll get to meet her someday.”

Trixie rubbed her forehead. “She’s closer than you think.”

My eyebrow raised. “Wait. Is this somepony I know?”

Trixie’s lips spread into a smile. “You could say that.”

“Somepony in town?”

“Yeeees.” Her smile widened. “Somepony I know very well and is very special to me.”

So somepony we both knew and lived in town. Somepony she had a strong relationship with... “Wait, you want to date Twilight?”

Trixie flinched as though slapped. “What?! No! Why would you think that?”

“Because you two know one another and have that whole rivalry thing going on,” I pointed out. “And Twilight can be...” I tried to think of a nice way to put it. “Sometimes she can miss the obvious when she’s distracted.”

Trixie huffed. “Well Trixie doesn’t want Twilight. Much. Admittedly a princess would be a worthy mare for the Great and Powerful Trixie... No!” She vigorously shook her head. “Nonono! Trixie know who she wants. And that’s—” She bit down on her tongue to cut herself off.

I shrugged. Whoever Trixie was talking about, it probably didn't affect me. “I've never really been into that romance stuff. It’s just never interested me. Always been busy with ... other stuff. Like trying to bend all of Equestria to my will while stealing their cutie marks.”

Trixie stared at me like I’d just started tap-dancing with Discord. “Oh... Um—well, that's good to know!” Probably thinking it best to move onto something else, she started putting on the straitjacket. Though instead of just putting it on, she slowly slinked it on, moving with exaggerated movements and shake her rump in that way that reminded me of a reverse strip-tease. I was momentarily confused why she was doing that before I got it.

“You’re practicing for a special Hearts and Hooves Day act?” I guessed.

Trixie facehoofed as she groaned. “Just putting aside subtlety and putting on a show.”

“Oh, gotcha. Looking good!” I smiled in encouragement. “Though that might be a bit too risqué for a public performance. Kids might see you doing that.”

“I know what I’m doing...” She harrumphed and put on the jacket without further ceremony. “How about we just concentrate on your problem while I get ready?”

“Okay then,” I said. “It's a bit awkward figuring out what I want to do. Especially with Twilight wanting to bombard me with scrolls. Even if I know that’s just her being her. Still, it’s a lot of pressure.”

“Maybe you could reconsider the holiday a bit more?” Trixie suggested. “It's not a multi-month commercialization extravaganza like Hearthswarming. I don't think the authenticity of Hearts and Hooves Day is as drowned out as you say it is.”

“Maybe.” Either way, it seemed my choices were to do as Twilight wanted me to do, or disappoint her. I had to admit to myself that I’d been wanting her to trust me and my judgment more, and this was my opportunity to do so.

“Also could you help me with this last bit?” Trixie shifted inside the jacket, her forelegs restrained by the jacket and a suppression ring on her horn. “My hooves are a bit tied up to finish.”

“Sure.” I levitated the chains around to tie Trixie up as she instructed me where everything went. “What're you planning for Hearts and Hooves Day, anyways?”

“Well a bit of a show to warm things up...” Trixie grunted as I hanged her upside down over the tank. “And then a nice lunch in with my marefriend, and maaaybe something more later that night. Holidays are the best for earning bits with a show, and Trixie wants to spend some of those bits enjoying herself—especially with a special somepony. Commercialization or not, it's still a day about romance, right?”

“That's the idea.” I frowned as I thought everything over. “Even if it's kinda horribly unfair to single ponies.”

Trixie chuckled as she swung around on the chain. “It's jokingly been called Singles Awareness Day for a reason.”

“Isn't that the truth?” An idea struck me. “Maybe I can do something about that? Assuming Twilight hasn't already arranged something. I could make things a bit more equal for everypony.”

“There you go! She told you to take charge of the day, so take charge!” Trixie waggled her eyebrows as she gave me a grin. “Let's do something about being single. Together.”

“Right.” I rubbed my chin as ideas started to form. My smile slowly grew as the pieces fell into place “If I run the festivities, then that means I can run them my way, right?”

That could work perfectly. I wouldn’t have to worry about all of Twilight’s lists, I could follow my gut for how things should be done, and I could even improve the festival with my own ideas. What downsides could there be? I’d get to prove myself to Twilight, to everypony in the town, and get to do it my way. I liked this idea the more and more I thought it over.

Trixie’s grin melted into a scowl as she tried to escape. “Um, right, that’s a thing too. Twilight clearly trusts you do handle things. Let's handle them!” She grunted as she swung in place. “Right after I get out of this.”

It took a while.

“So you're sure you've got everything you need?” Twilight fretted over me the next day at the train station. “You’ve got all my checklists? Reading materials? Writing supplies? Lists of contacts? Means to contact me if anything goes wrong? You know where everything is, right? And the backups? You don’t need me to go over any of that again, right?”

I did my best to stay patient as I repeated myself for the third time. “Yes, Twilight. I've got your scrolls, the supply stockpiles, your list of contacts, your backup list, your emergency backup list, and the secondary emergency backup list. I’ll be fine, trust me.”

Twilight had been nervously fluttering from one thing to another all morning as she got everything ready for her trip to the Crystal Empire. Even now she was giving me worried looks as Captain Storm Kicker gave instructions to the rest of the Twilight Guard as they loaded her things onto the train.

“I just wanted to be sure.” Twilight’s eyes flickered. “We didn't get to review everything like I'd hoped. There is a lot to read over, and Hearts and Hooves Day isn't that far away.”

“We get it, Princess,” Trixie groaned. She had been beside me the whole day as we helped get Twilight moving along and on her way to Crystal Empire, though she had been a bit less patient than myself. “Trixie promises, we couldn't forget if we wanted to by this point.”

“Twilight, you put me in charge of this because you believed I could handle it, right?” I asked, trying to soothe her. The sooner she was out of Ponyville the sooner I could get to work doing things my way, not to mention her being nervous was making me nervous.

Twilight took a deep breath and nodded. “Right, right, I believe in you. I just... really want this to work out, is all.”

I placed a hoof on her shoulder and gave her an encouraging smile. “Don't worry, it will. I've got all your notes, there's no way I won't be able to handle this if I follow them.”

Twilight’s strained smile looked like it was about to break into mania at any moment. “I did write down every possible contingency I could think of. And we discussed the contacts list, right?”

“We did, Twilight.” I smiled and patted Trixie’s shoulder. “And look, I have a friend to help me do all of this, just like you asked for. Trixie knows all about putting on a big public performance. She'll be great for helping me with this.”

Trixie nodded. “Exactly. And Trixie will be with her every step of the way, and then some.” She smirked and hip-bumped me.

Somehow Twilight’s smiled became even more strained. “Good to hear! And Spike!” She pointed down to Spike, who was smiling as he carried one of Twilight’s checkilists. “Don't forget him. He helped me put all those scrolls together and knows everything that needs to get done.”

Spike nodded. “Yep! I’m happy to help.”

Trixie groaned with clear exasperation. “We won't, don't worry.”

“Oh, right.” I looked down to the baby dragon and smiled. “There's no way I could ever forget about Spike.” He didn’t really play into my plans, yet, but he might get slotted in somewhere. There was always a place for a useful assistant.

Twilight’s ears perked as Cloud Kicker, her public relations secretary, waved for her to get onto the train. It was getting pretty close to the train’s departure time. “Look, I need to get going. If there's any questions you need to ask...”

“I'm fine,” I assured her. “Really, Twilight. I've got everything under control.”

“Right.” She took another deep breath. “Well you know how to contact me if anything come up. You remember, right?”

Trixie pressed her hoof to her face. “We remember. Go, shoo!” She waved for Twilight to go. “Have a little faith in your apprentice.”

I smiled gratefully to Trixie, wishing Twilight could show a little more confidence in me as she left everything in my hooves. It wasn’t like I didn’t know how to organize something like this. I’d organized plenty of things when I’d run my town.

The train’s whistle blew, announcing that it was time to get onboard or be left behind. “Okay, I'm going. Right now. To leave you to take care of everything. Because I trust you.”

Spike crossed his arms over his chest and shot her a disapproving scowl. “Twilight...”

“Bye!” Twilight finally turned to get her hooves moving, but then stopped to give me an apologetic smile. “One final thing I need to talk with Starlight about before I go.”

I frowned as Twilight wrapped a wing around me and we both started walking towards the train. “What is it?”

She glanced back at the others before speaking in a hushed tone. “I’d like for you to do something for me as a favor.” She levitated out a folded piece of paper. “It’s about Spike. This is a recipe to one of his favorite treats. He loves crystal-crisps and I always make them for him on Hearts and Hooves Day. You know, to show him I love him and care. I’d make it for him, but with me going to the Crystal Empire without him this year...”

It wasn’t hard to figure out where she was going with all of this. “You want me to make it for him instead.”

Twilight smiled and nodded. “Exactly. It would mean so much to me if you took care of this. It’s been bothering me since I decided that Spike could stay behind to help, and it’d be a huge load off my mind if you did this.”

I shrugged and reached out to grasp the recipe. “Sure, that should be easy.”

She held onto the paper and her smile became strained. “Please don’t forget this. I realize that things might get a bit chaotic, but I really want to make sure this is taken care of. I don’t want him to feel like nopony loves him. You’re, well ... you live with us now, and I really want to be able to trust you with stuff like this.”

“I’ve got this, Twilight.” I pulled the paper from her grip with a tug. Geeze, she was such a mother hen sometimes. It was cute the way she cared for Spike, but she really needed to trust me more. “I won’t forget, I promise.”

Twilight closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “Right, good.” When she opened her eyes her smile was much more relaxed. “Best of luck, Starlight. Try and have fun. That is part of why I wanted you to have some friends around.”

I rolled my eyes, the corner of my mouth turned with a smile. “Yeah-yeah. Get on the train already before you have to fly after it.”

“Oops, right!” Twilight waved as she got onto the train. “Bye everyone!”

Spike and I waved goodbye as she left, and relief flowed through me. I put away the recipe for the crystalcrisps for now. I could worry about that later.

Trixie let out a relieved breath. “Oh thank Celestia, Trixie thought she was never going to leave.”

“She just wanted to make sure we would be okay,” I said in defense of my teacher. “So she checked on that. Fourteen times.”

Trixie shot me a flat stare. “She's got a problem.”

Before we could get into an argument, Spike cleared his throat as he unrolled a checklist and pulled out a quill. “What's next now that Twilight's gone?”

I traded conspiratorial grins with Trixie. I’d been looking forward to this moment since getting up that morning. “First things first, we're getting rid of all the lists.”

Spike dropped the quill. “Could you repeat that? I think I misheard.”

“Like I said.” I took the list from Spike and felt a little too happy throwing it away. “Trash the lists, because we don’t need them. Twilight wants me to organize the event my way, and doing things my way means not following five miles of lists and instructions.”

“Twilight's plans probably work great for Twilight.” Trixie smirked and shot a spark from her horn that set the list plus the rest of the trash with it on fire. “But we're not Twilight.”

Spike’s jaw hung open as he watched the scroll burn. “B-b-but—!”

I patted him on the shoulder to reassure him. “Twilight put me in charge, right?”

“Yeeeeah.” Spike looked up at me as he started to regain his wits. “But she also left instructions. You know, princess-y instructions that ponies are supposed to follow, because she's a princess.”

Trixie scoffed and waved the idea off. “Suggestions, for those who clearly can't handle themselves. Starlight ran her own village, and Trixie is a small business owner. We’ve got this.”

“Uh-huh.” Spike frowned as he looked between us.

I decided to try something to bring him around. It might be trouble if he decided to tattle to Twilight about what I was up to, and it’d be best to avoid that. “Hey Spike, have you ever read Lyequinegus? You know, from Ancient Pegasopolis?”

Spike sighed and nodded. “Yes, Twilight made me read it as part of my history education.”

“Ouch, he's gotta be one of the most boring writers I ever had to put up with. Granted, most of that's because the Noun Verb version of his collected sayings is still the definitive one.” And it somehow didn’t surprise me that Twilight had assigned poor Spike to read something like that. “Anyway, if you had to suffer through reading him, I'm sure you recall his Fourth Axiom.” I grinned. “Unless you suppressed the memories.”

Spike groaned as he ran a claw down his face. “No, I mostly remember it. Mostly because Twilight put it on the test she gave me. It had something to do about how a leader should make decisions based on the situation he’s dealing with, and not just what he’s told to do by his commander who’s far off somewhere and doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“Exactly!” I exclaimed. “And in my judgement as the pony in charge, Twilight's list of suggestions aren't applicable to my plans or the current situation.”

“Uh-huh,” Spike said, sounding like he was starting to get on board with the idea. “So what were you planning on doing?”

I grinned, something of how I felt back at my old town creeping back into me as I thought of the possibilities. “We're going to make this the best Hearts and Hooves Day ever.”

Author's Note

Thanks to my editors Chengar Qordath and Comma-Kazie for all their help, and to my pre-readers Brony Writer, wolfstorm56, Trinary, 621Chopsuey, Rodinga, PoisonClaw, and Swiftest for their hard work editing.

The Common Factor to All Your Failings Is...

Burning Twilight’s notes was the most liberating thing I’ve done in a while. I hated being constrained by others, and all those scrolls, checklists, schedules, and everything else just felt like a bunch of anchors weighing me down. Not like I’d need them anyways—I knew what I was doing, like always. I was going to make this Hearts and Hooves Day great, and I was going to show everypony exactly why I was Twilight’s student.

Once the embers cooled, I headed to Ponyville’s town hall with Spike at my side to meet with the Hearts and Hooves Day committee. If everything was going to work the way I wanted, then I needed to get everypony on board with my ideas. That would be simple enough; once they heard my arguments, they would see I was being perfectly logical and right, and everything would follow after that.

“...so glad ye could make it fer th' day, Rarity,” I heard Granny Smith say as I entered the town hall. “Applejack's had nuthin' but good to say about yer work, an’ Ah can see why.”

“Why thank you, darling.” Rarity beamed at Granny as she hung strings of paper hearts up along the walls. “I do think some of my designs were quite smashing.”

“Rarity is a blessing like that.” Mayor Mare smiled up from a scroll she’d been examining. “It’s a relief to not have to worry about how everything will look when she’s on the case.”

Rarity tittered. “You’re too kind.”

I trotted up to them, looking around the interior of the town hall. It looked like Rarity had jumped right into the decorating. The building was now thoroughly covered in Hearts and Hooves Day decorations, with hearts in red, pink, and white strung around that somehow managed to look classy despite being all over the place. “Huh, this does look pretty good.”

“Thank you, Starlight.” Rarity turned to face me with a smile. “Now, Twilight said you'd be going over the plans with us?”

Spike slipped off my back to beam at Rarity. “Yup!”

I returned Rarity’s smile. “That's the idea. And I've got some big plans to go over.”

“Ya do, eh?” Granny leaned forward and grinned. “Well, don't keep us in suspense.”

“I'm sure Twilight's checklists are as extensive as ever,” Rarity said as she puffed up her mane with a hoof.

My smiled widened as I puffed out my chest. “Actually, I did away with the lists.”

“Yeah, she did,” Spike added, scratching the back of his head. It was nice of him to make sure I got the credit for this. He was a real team player. “I think she wants to take things in a different direction this time.”

“Oh?” Rarity’s tone had a hint of worry when she spoke. “Well, that sounds intriguing.”

“What sort of direction?” Mayor Mare asked in a much more wary tone.

Excellent, time to reveal my grand vision for a better Hearts and Hooves Day. “Glad you asked. I'm thinking it's far past time we took this holiday in a bold new direction, and show everypony what Hearts and Hooves Day should be.”

“‘Should be’, eh?” Granny’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “And what exactly is that?”

Rarity rubbed her chin. “Hmm, I think I see what you mean. We have been sticking to some of the more traditional ways of handling the holiday. You don't set new trends by sticking to the same-old same-old.”

Rarity’s way of thinking wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but I’d take it for now. “Hearts and Hooves Day has emphasized the wrong thing since its inception. We're always celebrating romantic love instead of showing all the other types of love as equally as important. You know—love for a friend, love of family, love of self, or for your community. Stuff like that, and so much more.”

Mayor Mare’s frown deepened. “Maybe, but isn't it a bit last-minute to shift in this ‘bold new direction’? These type of things are normally determined well in advance. We don’t want ponies getting upset because of a bunch of last-minute changes.”

Granny snorted and nodded. “Especially when there's nuthin' that needs changin'! We've done jes' fine with the holiday as is fer decades now, an' romantic love's what it's always been about!”

Ugh, great. I was dealing with a politician who was more worried about upsetting her constituents than making real change, and a traditionalist who wanted to do things exactly the same because that’s how things had always been done. There was no imagination, no daring, no desires for a better world.

Rarity bit her lip. “So ... exactly what sort of change did you have in mind?”

“I'm happy you asked that,” I said, trying to regain my momentum. “We're just going to shift things a bit. We probably don't need to change most of the decorations, though we have a huge problem in that this holiday is incredibly unfair to single ponies. We're going to shift the focus from romantic love exclusively and encourage ponies to embrace all forms of love equally, celebrating the other types of love in the world.”

Rarity tilted her head slightly. “What exactly do you intend on doing? I'm all for allowing a bit more room for activities for single ponies—goodness knows there’s a reason why we had the arts and crafts table for the children, but...”

“What I mean is that we should change what Hearts and Hooves Day is,” I explained. “For one, I think we should cancel the romantic dance set for seven o'clock. And the romantic walk, and the traditional flower exchange will need to be adapted, and ugh, the couples’ dining has got to go. We need to rebuild this whole holiday from the ground up to make it more equal to everypony.”

Granny snorted derisively. “That's ridiculous! What'd even be the point of havin' a Hearts an' Hooves Day celebration then?!”

I glowered at the traditionalist neighsayer. “So that nopony feels excluded, of course. You know how much this holiday sucks if you’re single? Or just had a breakup? And what about those ponies that just aren’t interested in romance?”

Spike placed a claw on my leg, his face contorted into a grimace. “Um, maybe there's a better time? And place? And ... way? Just saying, there’s all those other non-romantic holidays out there for everypony else.”

Rarity nodded. “And what's the point of even having a romantic holiday if there's no romance?”

I frowned and stomped a hoof. Why weren't they getting it? “That's the thing—it shouldn't be a romantic holiday. It isn't fair and equal to everypony, and its mere existence excludes some ponies and forces them into feeling like they have to conform or risk being ostracized and shunned.”

Granny’s brow crinkled as she scowled. “That's—Ah never in all mah years—Ah don' even—WHAT?! Whatever hooey yer talkin’ ‘bout, it sounds like crazy talk. We’ve been doin’ things this way years and years and nopony’s complained ‘bout nothin’. Yer just stirrin’ up trouble where there ain’t any!”

Rarity daintily cleared her throat. “Now now, I'm sure we can find a way to fit both romance and a celebration of other forms of love into the day's festivities.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “None of you get it! Romance is the most unequal thing of all. It's all about putting one person in the whole world above anyone or anything else. There's a whole community, a whole world out there to consider, and everypony is letting themselves get tied up with worshipping one individual. We need to set a new standard to set an example for all of Equestria for how things should be. And unfortunately, that means we need to do away with the romance for a bit to balance things out.”

Granny stared at me like I’d grown a second head and declared my undying loyalty to Discord with a song and dance number. Then to my surprise, she burst into a cackle and slapped her knee. “Hooee, you had me goin' fer a minute there young 'un! Ah mean, Ah've never seen a jokester keep a straight face that long before! That showmare friend o'yers picked the perfect partner!”

Spike’s shuffled his feet. “Um ... she's ... kinda sorta, actually serious.”

I glowered. I would not tolerate being made a laughingstock over my views. “Yes, I am serious, thank you Spike. I'm serious, and this is happening. Twilight gave me royal authority to run this holiday, and I'm going to do it the way I think is best.”

“Just ... completely setting aside romance?” Rarity shook her head. “That hardly seems like the right way to do things, and I can't imagine that's what Twilight had in mind. I mean, what would the holiday be without celebrations of true love like the story of Goldstar and Far Seeker?”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “You mean that old romance story where some noblepony put the world and the lives of thousands of ponies in danger only so he could selfishly save the one other noblepony he loved? Please.”

Rarity’s eyes narrowed and a hint of tension entered her voice. “I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I happen to think it's one of the most wonderfully romantic tales ever told. A story of true love overcoming the odds.”

Spike pulled on my leg and hurriedly whispered to me. “Um, Starlight? Rarity really loves that story. Maybe you shouldn’t—“

Whatever he was saying wasn’t important. I had an argument to win. “It’s a derivative, trite, dumb, and selfish tale of two ponies putting themselves over everypony else, if you ask me.”

“I see.” Rarity put aside the decorations she had been fiddling with and cleared her throat. “Mayor Mare, would you hold me back, darling?”

Mayor Mare eyes flicked between us and she placed a reluctant hoof on Rarity’s chest. Then to my surprise, Rarity snarled and tried to jump me. “How dare you?!”

I took a step back, surprised by the sudden fiery outburst. “Rarity?!”

“Rarity, please!” Mayor Mare pleaded as she actually struggled to keep her hold.

“Let the mare go, Mayor!” Granny called out. “Let ‘em sort it out themselves!”

“RARITY NONONONO!” Spike grabbed my leg and tried to drag me towards the door. Given how much bigger I was, he didn’t get anywhere. “Wewerejustgoingpleasedon'tthinkthiswasmyidea!”

“Starlight, thank you for sharing your ideas,” Mayor Mare said, still trying to maintain her cool despite holding Rarity back. “But I think perhaps we should just stick to Princess Twilight's plans.”

I glowered at the lot of them. I should have known things would turn out this way. Of course they didn’t understand what I was going for—nopony ever does. This was my village all over again. I try and explain how I was trying to help everypony, and they turn against me. But you know what? That was okay. I had a way to deal with this.

“You know what?! Forget all of you!” I smirked with self-satisfaction. “I'm going to run this holiday how I want to. I've got Twilight's authority backing me up, so it's going down my way. If you won’t be part of the solution, then you're all dismissed!”

Mayor Mare started as though she had been slapped. “Excuse me? We're dismissed?”

“Git yer hide outta mah sight!” Granny Smith spat. “Mayor, let the damn mare go already! She ain’t right in the head.”

I wasn’t intimidated by some old apple farmer. “You heard me, you're dismissed. As in, you’re fired. I'll make this work on my own. I don't need all of you getting in my way anyway. Twilight left me in charge because she trusted my judgment, so I’m using it right now.”

Rarity stopped trying to get past Mayor Mare as her face twisted with incredulity. “Can ... can she do that?”

“Eenope.” Granny shot me a scowl. “Ah’ve been helpin’ with this here festival for decades, and Ah’m not bein’ shooed away like some varmint.”

Mayor Mare pressed her lips together. “I... don't think she can do that. Not without some kind of written statement from Her Highness.”

I snorted. “Of course I can. Princess Twilight said I'm in charge. Are you going against her orders?”

Rarity narrowed her eyes. “I'd like to see Twilight's written orders saying you're allowed to destroy all the traditions of Hearts and Hooves Day. As I said before, I really don’t think this was her intention when she put you in charge. I know Twilight, she wouldn’t authorize something like this.”

Granny stomped a hoof. “An' Ah say phooey on them if she did! Ah don' think you git the point of all of this.” Granny waved a hoof dismissively. “It don' matter—this holiday's happenin' the way it always has, an' that's final! You can’t make everypony stop celebratin’ it the way they always have anyways. We’re all gonna do things how we like, and you can eat craw if ya try and tell us otherwise.”

I stiffened as I realized this was not at all going the way I wanted. It was dawning on me that I was in real danger of getting locked out here unless I turned things around and fast. “Um, Spike! Twilight left a paper saying that I could run this my way ... right?”

“Not that specifically, no.” Spike crossed his arms over his chest. “And whatever proof of authorization she did leave would have been with her notes. Um, which you got rid of.”

I took a moment to think that all the way through. “You mean with all the scrolls we set on fire?”

Spike frowned deeply. “Yeah, those papers.”

Mayor Mare’s jaw dropped. “You burned the Princess's notes?!”

My ears wilted as I realized I might just have undone myself. “I didn't need them. I was going with a completely different plan. I wanted to do this my way.”

Rarity huffed and tossed her mane. “In that case, you're hardly acting with Twilight's authority.”

I opened my mouth, but no retort came out. These ponies weren’t going to listen to me, and I’d literally burned up any official authority I had over them. Dammit, it had felt so good to burn all that paperwork too. This wasn’t fair … but what could I do? I could ask Twilight to give me some fresh paperwork, but that would lead to some awkward questions, not to mention it’d take time to get from her. It might even cause Twilight to come running back to Ponyville to try and fix everything. Once she heard what happened and that I couldn’t handle the situation she was going to be so mad at me.

So that left me with ... nothing. Nothing but another failure in the long list of failures that had made up my life.

Granny covered her mouth as she snickered. “Ah ain't gonna say that worked out badly for ya, but Ah’m thinkin' it mighty loudly.”

Mayor Mare frowned as she said, “I think we're done here. You can go, Miss Glimmer.”

Spike tugged on my leg. “Come on, let's go already.”

My shoulders hunched as the crushing weight of everything fell on me as I turned and left the town hall.

After the disaster at the town hall, I’d come back to the Castle to rethink what I was doing. Thus far I hadn’t come up with anything productive. I didn’t want to go back to the Hearts and Hooves Day Committee and beg them to take me back. That’d be too humiliating, and I’d still just have to do things their way. Despite my appeals to the heart and logic, they hadn’t agreed with my way of doing things. So that was a bust. Somehow I doubt beseeching the common pony would work out any better—not on such short notice anyways. The average pony wanted their bread and circus of a romance festival, and it was going to take a lot of work to convince them otherwise. And as my attempts to convince the committee had shown, my conversational skills weren’t up to snuff. Not without using magic, which ponies would get really mad at me for using, Twilight included.
I was well and truly screwed unless I come up with something radical and quickly. Thus, I paced about the Friendship Castle’s library and fumed. Spike had dutifully followed me home, and Trixie had decided to join me, though she seemed to be more interested in her bag of peanuts than me at that moment.

“I can't believe them! They kicked me out! Twilight put me in charge, and they actually kicked me out!” I cried as I stomped about. “This is—argh!”

Spike frowned as he watched me pace around. “Well, you did kind of go against Twilight's plan.”

I grumbled under my breath. At the rate I was going I was going to create a furrow in the floor. “Twilight just wanted to turn me into her proxy for running Hearts and Hooves Day. She had intructions for her instructions!”

“Uh, yeah,” Spike said, not sounding the least bit moved. “And if you’d done what she told you to do, none of this would have happened.”

“But I wanted to do it my way! I wanted to do something special, not the same old thing that's been done for centuries.” I groaned and pressed my face against the table. “This is a disaster. When Twilight finds out...”

“Does she really need to, though?” Trixie asked in between mouthfuls of peanuts. “Why advertise a failure when we can still find another way to ultimately succeed?”

“That’s … actually a great idea!” I ran over to a nearby bookshelf as neurons in my brain started firing. I couldn’t let past failures stop me. I could do this! “I can fix this! I can’t just give up so easily.”

“Exactly!” Trixie punched up a hoof. “Enter into action with boldness!”

Spike frowned deeply as he watched me pull several books from the shelf. “I have a bad feeling about this...”

I flipped one open and started combing through its spells. “Maybe I could just use a little mind control to convince the Hearts and Hooves Day Committee to agree with me? Once the holiday goes my way and everypony sees how great it is, they'll thank me afterwards.” I beamed as I considered the possibilities.

“No!” Spike smacked me on the nose with a scroll. “Remember how mind control is evil and wrong? Twilight gave you a lecture about it, and Rarity wasn’t exactly wild about you mind-controlling her the first time. I doubt she’d love it now.”

I grimaced at the painful memory of my last ... attempt, resurfaced. It’d all been working out really well before things suddenly took a turn for the worst. And everypony had been pretty mad with me afterwards. Right, that might make it a no-go. “This is different, it'd be for a good cause. This isn't like how I used mind control to make all of Twilight's friends do my bidding just to finish a friendship report. And it doesn’t need to be outright mind control—just a suggestion in the right direction. I might be able to make an artifact that suppresses romantic feelings. I’ve studied the Crystal Heart, maybe I could make something approximately the same to a different effect? It would probably burn out in a few hours but...”

Trixie frowned ever so slightly. “But are you really convincing them? Just saying, Trixie never had to make an audience cheer for her, they cheer themselves because she’s actually that good. Forcing ponies to do what you want doesn’t prove anything.”

My teeth clenched together. She had a point. “But...”

“No!” Trixie booped me on the nose. “Take it from Trixie, it isn’t fun to have your brain twisted around by magic and be made to do something you don’t want to do.” She huffed and ran a hoof through her mane. “Let's set aside the semantics for a moment and focus on the important thing: does it really matter?”

I scowled. “Of course it matters. I'm right and they're wrong! They don’t even realize it yet. It’s just...” I groaned. “I don’t want to fail another assignment. Again.”

“And why should their opinions matter? Or some dumb busywork assignment?” Trixie rolled her eyes. “If Trixie concerned herself with what every critic said about her and her shows she’d be a neurotic mess. They blew your ideas off. So what? Let them fret over it, I say—they've taken it upon themselves to do your job for you, so why not enjoy the day off with somepony?” Trixie grinned oddly, her eyes being half closed that put an odd touch to her friendly smile.

I bit my lip. “I don't know. What'll Twilight say when she learns I blew everything off?”

“Didn't you hate the idea of doing it in the first place?” Spike asked.

I grimaced. “Yeeeah.”

Trixie scratched her chin and then her eyes brightened. “Trixie’s got it!” She scooted next to me to wrap her leg around mine. “The holiday will probably just proceed like it always does, right? Safe and boring and uninnovative?”

“Probably,” I grumbled. “I can't imagine the committee will rock the boat.”

Trixie nodded. “Exactly. You delegated the busywork to the plebs. Let them deal with all the stress of running the holiday. Meanwhile, Trixie’s got a great idea for what we can do. With your day being free, now's the best time to get to better explore the meaning of the holiday.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why would I want to do that?”

Trixie’s smile grew oddly strained. “Maybe there's somepony you could spend it with? You know, a study buddy?” She waggled her eyebrows. “Or something like that?”

My ears twitched as I thought the idea over. “You really think so?”

“I think Trixie wants to spend the day with you,” Spike stated.

I blinked at the suggestion. “But didn’t you say you wanted to spend the day with your special somepony?”

Trixie’s eye twitched and she ground her teeth as she tried to maintain her smile. “Yeees, I did.”

“Oh...” After a moment of contemplation, I figured it out. “Your special somepony dumped you, didn’t they? I’m sorry about that, Trixie.”

Strangely, Trixie groaned loudly and facehooved. Spike joined her with the same motion.

I looked between them as I got the feeling that I was missing something. “What?”

Suddenly, Trixie grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking me. “For Celestia's sake, mare, does Trixie have to spell it out in the sky with smoke and fireworks?! You—Trixie—Hearts and Hooves Day! Together!”

It took me a second before I could regain my wits to reply. “Okay, okay! I'll hang out with you on Hearts and Hooves Day!” Geeze, Trixie must really have been let down hard by her former special somepony. She must really have needed a friend to hang out with to make her feel better.

Trixie stopped shaking me and then blinked. “Huh. That was both easier and harder than Trixie thought it would be.”

“So you guys have plans now. Great.” Spike picked up a extremely large Hearts and Hooves Day card from the table, and sighed longingly as he looked at it. “I’ve got my own plans for tomorrow, so I'll let you two go do that.”

“Right right, shoo.” Trixie dismissively waved him away.

Spike scampered off, leaving the two of us alone. Trixie let out a sigh of relief and then gave me a coy smile. “Well, now that we're alone...”

I sighed and gave Trixie my full attention. “Right, let's make some plans for tomorrow.” I smiled. “At least we’ll each have a friend to hang out with for Hearts and Hooves Day. That’s something.”

Trixie’s smile stiffened until it turned brittle. “Yes, a ... friend.”

It was finally Hearts and Hooves Day. I didn’t feel good about giving up and letting the committee handle everything, but what could I do? They weren’t going to change their minds. Magic seemed to be out of the question, and even if it wasn’t, there just wasn’t enough time to change everything. So giving up seemed the way to go since bashing my head against a wall wouldn’t accomplish much. Though I didn’t like the idea of explaining everything to Twilight later. Hopefully she’d understand. She usually did. After all, she forgave me for nearly destroying Equestria and trying to break up her friendships. Compared to that, screwing up for not planning a silly romantic holiday was nothing. She forgave a lot of my screwups, honestly.

The good part of dumping my responsibilities for the day was that I would get to hang out with my friend Trixie. That should make me feel at least a little bit better. I certainly did after watching Trixie’s morning show. Her escape trick went off without a hitch and ponies were cheering for her by the end. It didn’t hurt that they were giving her plenty of bits, either. She had set up her stage next to town and had gathered quite the crowd of couples.

Once the performance was done I waited by the stage for Trixie to finish everything up. She had a few things to clean up and prepare for her night show, which she was pretty particular about as to make sure her next show would go off without a hitch. When she was done she trotted over to me with a proud grin. “Trixie is ready for a wonderful Hearts and Hooves Day with you. Are you ready to be wowed by her on this momentous occasion?”

I chuckled. Trixie being her usual elaborate self had a way of making me smile. “I think so. Looks like the show went over well with the crowd.”

“But of course.” Trixie snapped out her cloak with an elaborate flourish. “And that's just the warm-up.”

“Oh? Planning on doing something bigger for your night performance?”

“Far bigger.” Trixie grinned eagerly. “Tonight's performance will most certainly turn some heads.”

“How so?” I grinned back and nudged her side. “Or are you going to wait to show me?”

“Oh, I don't want to spoil anything.” Trixie hip-bumped me. “But trust me: you will love it.”

“I can't wait then.” I looked to Ponyville as the many couples walked next to one another enjoying the holiday. “Though that leaves us the rest of the day to hang out.”

Trixie scoffed. “You make that sound like it’s almost a bad thing. It’s you and me, on the most romantic holiday of the year. How could that not be wonderful?”

“It could be worse,” I admitted. “Well, what did you want to do first? I’m open to ideas since I’m here to make you feel better.” I bit my lip as I moved into uncomfortable territory. “I know you probably don't want to talk about it, but I understand that getting dumped sucks. I just want you to know that I’m here for you as your friend, and want to help you forget all about this special somepony that dumped you.”

Trixie’s smile became so strained it even crept into her voice. “Right. I almost couldn't ask for more.”

“Happy I can help.” I looked around as I tried to think of something to do. “So, maybe we could get something to eat if you're hungry.”

That suggestion seemed to work, since Trixie’s ears immediately perked. “Excellent start! Hrm... I think something with chocolate—it fits the day.”

I rubbed my chin as I considered the idea. Chocolates were kinda in for the holiday, but that was fine. If it made Trixie feel better I was fine getting some. “Sure, why not? I could use a bit of comfort food after yesterday.”

“Mm, yes, I can imagine.” Trixie gave me a hug, and not just a quickie either. She wrapped me up in a very friendly hug complete with a platonic nuzzle. “Those old bores wouldn't know something good if it bit them.”

I grumbled as she reminded me of the Hearts and Hooves Day committee. “Part of me wants to try and prove that right now.”

Trixie wrapped her arm around mine and started pulling me along. “Let it go, Starlight. They aren’t worth it.”

“Fine, fine.” I let out a long sigh and reminded myself that this day was about Trixie. Not some backwards thinking holiday committee that I’d forget all about by the end of the month. “I'll drop it. Let's just get some chocolate and see if that improves my mood.”

“And enjoy ourselves a little, right?” Trixie held onto my leg as we walked. “That is part of a holiday, isn’t it?”

“I guess.” I nodded down the street to Bon Bon’s Bon Bons. The business was a madhouse with couples and kids trying to buy sweets, and it took us a while just to get in the store. I might have suggested going someplace else, but considering it was a holiday all the places serving food were probably just as packed.

I frowned as I checked the confections on display. It was now only a quarter full of Hearts and Hooves Day-themed candy in the usual heart-shaped boxes, bags, or just loose in the display. “Hm, looks like everything is holiday themed.”

“It is the day for it,” Trixie said. “It'd be bad business not to go along with it.”

“True.” I didn’t want to be a stick in the mud, so I decided to shelf my complaints and just try and enjoy myself. “How about I buy a box for you and a box for me?”

Trixie shook her head. “Nonsense, I'll buy one for you.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she put a hoof on my mouth to stop me. “I insist.”

I rolled my eyes and smiled despite myself. Trixie was being a bit silly, but what the hay? We were just trying to feel better, and if this helped her then so be it.

We stepped up to the counter and were met with a smiling if slightly disheveled Bon Bon. Her mane looked like it could use a brush or three and there were bags under her eyes, but she still managed to sound cheerful. “Hey there. What can I do for you?”

Trixie hummed loudly as she looked around and tapped her chin. Suddenly, she grinned and pointed at a particularly nice pink heart-shaped box with teal lettering that read For My Special Pony. “Trixie wants that one. It’s perfect.”

“Sure thing.” Bon Bon pulled the box off the shelf. “That’ll be ten bits.”

“Naturally.” Trixie started sifting through her recently-filled bitbag.

A pang of guilt hit me when I heard the price for the box. Trixie had only recently started to recover financially from some pretty hard blows over the last couple of years, and I didn’t like the idea of her spending all that money just on me. “You don’t need to get anything that expensive for me.”

“Nonsense.” Trixie handed over the box with a smile. “Trixie wants to. Take it.”

Seeing that I wasn’t going to win this one, I took the box with an appreciative smile. “Thanks.” Not wanting to hold up the line, I looked around for something to buy. I didn’t want to look bad next to Trixie, so I bought her one of the bigger boxes on the shelf. It was a big pink thing in the shape of a heart with big letters that read Happy Hearts and Hooves Day!. Thankfully, Twilight had given me a generous stipend as her student. It wasn’t anything crazy, but considering I didn’t have any living expenses I wasn’t doing badly for myself either. Twilight really was too nice to me, at times.

“Here you go,” I said as I gave her the box.

“Thank you.” Trixie nuzzled me as we stepped aside for the next customer in line. She opened up the box and popped a chocolate into her mouth. “Mmm! These are really good!”

“Told you Bon Bon had the best treats in Ponyville.” I opened my own box and tasted a chocolate. It melted in my mouth and made a shiver of pleasure run down my spine. “Mmm, and I nearly forgot how good.”

“Only the best for the pony in Trixie's life.” Trixie ate another chocolate. “And it’s made all the better by Trixie’s company.”

“Me too,” I agreed. “It's nice having a friend to hang out with.”

“On Hearts and Hooves Day?” I turned my head to see Lyra standing near us. Considering she was wearing an apron and cleaning a nearby table, she must have been helping Bon Bon manage the shop today.

“I don't exactly have a special somepony,” I explained. “Never have, really.”

“Aaah.” Lyra grinned as she looked between us. “Well glad to see this all worked out for you then.”

“I'm making the best of it I can with Trixie,” I agreed.

Bon Bon grinned at us from behind her counter, the massive line to her counter finally dealt with. “Yes, I can see you're hanging out as ‘just’ friends.” She said that in a weird way, though I didn’t know why. Egh, maybe it was a Hearts and Hooves Day thing.

Lyra grinned and leaned against her partner. “Aaah, those were the days. Good times, but it took us waaay too long to finally admit we were something more.”

Bon Bon snorted and slapped her chest. “Oh, stop exaggerating. It didn't take us that long to figure out we loved each other to death. Now figuring out everything after that...”

“Half the fun, love,” Lyra said with a hip-bump.

Bon Bon returned the hip-bump. “You could say that.”

Trixie grinned weirdly, and in what seemed to be the spirit of the moment, gave me a hip-bump as well.

All this talk of love was getting awkward, especially when Lyra and Bon Bon started kissing each other. “Um, maybe we should get out of the way to let them, um, do their business?”

“Sure, sure!” Trixie leaned in to whisper, “We can go somewhere more private.”

“Sounds good,” I agreed, and we headed to the door.

“Have fun!” Lyra winked at us as she waved. “But not too much all at once.”

“No promises!” Trixie declared as we exited.

We walked for a time, each of us enjoying our chocolates. Trixie was close enough to brush up against my side. Must have been because the street was pretty busy today. It was nice just getting to hang out with my friend, and I could feel myself relaxing as the minutes rolled by.

Once I’d finally had my fill of chocolate, I wrapped the rest up for later. “So then, what to get up to next?”

“Hm, good question.” Trixie looked around for a moment and then her eyes sparkled. “Oooh, that looks nice!”

I followed her gaze to a collection of tables near the town square. On them were a bunch of arts and crafts supplies available for anypony to use, with over a dozen or so ponies busy making each other cards and other decorations.

“Whoa!” Trixie suddenly grabbed me by the arm and dragged me towards it. “You want to make some decorations?”

“Why not?” Trixie asked as we approached one of the tables at a more regular pace. “Let's spite the old fogeys and come up with something of our own!”

It seemed a bit childish, but it wasn’t like I had any other plans. “Oh, why not? Let's go then.” I sat at the table and thought over what to make.

“Exactly!” Trixie grinned and settled in right next to me. She started vigorously working on her decoration, her tail brushing up against mine, either from the wind or her overexcitement with the craft.

We both sat there in silence as we went to work, though Trixie used her hat and cape to hide her work from me for some reason. “Hrm, teal and blue?” she mused to herself. “That's not bad...”

“What're you working on?” I asked, trying to get a look.

“Hrm?” Trixie looked up, but quickly moved her cloak to keep me from getting a peek. “Oh, some decorations for the show later tonight.” She shook her hoof in front of my nose. “No peeking though, it's a surprise. What about you?”

“I’m just fooling around.” I held up a grey heart saying ‘Love Equality’ with several equal signs. “How does this look?”

Something almost approaching a smile worked its way onto Trixie’s face. “It's ... so you.”

I cautiously smiled in return. “Thanks, I'm pretty happy with it.” I snorted. “Even if it’s just some silly decoration.”

“Oh.” Trixie’s ears wilted. “We can do something else if you're bored.”

I shook my head. “No, this is alright. I am having fun, in a way.” I frowned as I considered my card, then looked at the ponies around us. They were all smiling, talking, and exchanging cards and other crafts. There were even some kids making some paper decorations with great enthusiasm as they laughed and talked. It caused a stab of guilt as I studied them.

“We ... never did this type of thing back at my village,” I told her, thinking back to a time that felt like a lifetime ago. “I kinda ... forbade it.”

Trixie grunted neutrally. “Because it gave unequal attention to one pony over another?”

“Right.” My frown deepened as I studied my craft again, my little mockery of this dumb holiday. It was a spiteful and petty act against the occasion. I couldn’t deny that—at least not to myself. And at the end of the day it felt so empty and hollow.

I let out a long sigh. “It was just another thing I denied myself, so I denied it to everypony. If I’m going to be honest, I didn't allow myself to have any real friends. Not that I cared about that type of thing at the time. Or... at least I didn't think so. That’s what I told myself. I had to set the standard as the mayor of my village, and a truly equal leader couldn't have friends.”

I grimaced. How hollow did that sound now? Twilight was a princess, and she had a ton of friends. Despite all her struggles, she still held onto them. All Sunburst did was move to go to school and I wrote him off completely as a friend, just like that. After that everything in my life went to Tartarus. Nothing had worked out since then. I’d ended up running across half the world trying to outrun my failures. All I had to show for the wasted years of my life was nothing. Was there a single pony I had left happier with Equalism, happier even for just meeting me at all during those years of my life? It didn’t feel like it.

Trixie placed a hoof on my shoulder. “But you want friends now though, right?”

“Y-yeah, I do.” I gave her a brittle smile as I placed my hoof on hers. “It's ... it'd be really hard to go back to how things were. I really like being friends with you, Trixie. The idea of not having you as a friend isn’t something I want to think about. I know it's going to sound dumb and cliché, but it really is nice having a friend for once.”

“I know what you mean.” Trixie nuzzled me. “I spent so much time alone on the road that friends became an afterthought. Then of course you came along, and...”

I shook my head and chuckled. “Don't we make quite the couple?”

Trixie snickered. “Only the best, right?”

I grinned. “Sure, let's go with that.” A realization struck me. “Ugh! I'm so happy Twilight isn't here. She'd probably give some sappy speech about friendship if she saw us right now.”

Trixie grinned back and poked my ribs. “I won't tell her if you don't.”

“Thank you. I've had enough friendship speeches to last me.” Admittedly, the thought of Twilight gave me some inspiration to try something else, and I went to work with some scissors and paper. “Besides, I kinda like things how they are right now between you and me. You know, relaxed, no pressure. No having to worry about having my friendship levels examined and prodded at like an experiment.”

“Exactly! Some things just have to happen organically. Friendship, forgiveness...” She leaned closer, puckering her lips oddly. “Romance.”

“Exactly how I feel about it,” I told her as I focused on my cutting. “I'm not sure Twilight quite gets that. I feel a lot better just feeling and doing things how I want to.”

Trixie continued puckering her lips before she started frowning and sat back in a huff.

I studied her as she glowered at the table. “Is something the matter?”

“Nothing.” The single word was stiff as she returned to her work. Had I said something wrong?

Well, I had something I was sure would fix that. “Hey Trixie, I made this for you.”

“Hm?”

I gave her a pink-on-red paper heart I had cut out that read ‘Starlight’s #1 Friend’. It brought a smile to my friend’s face. “Thank you, this is very nice.”

Her smile made me smile. “That’s at least one Hearts and Hooves Day gift you’re getting. Well, on top of the chocolates.”

“Indeed.” Trixie finished up whatever she was doing, and added my gift to everything else she pushed under her cloak. “This is fun. We should do more projects like this.”

“I don't see why not,” I said. “It’s a bit silly but I don't think I mind. Not when I do it with you.”

Trixie’s lips curved into a smile. “There's plenty more projects we can work on later.”

“Sure, anything you had in mind?” I asked.

“My cart's always in need of some work.” Trixie waggled her eyebrows. “Maybe we can work on putting in a bigger bed sometime?”

I nodded. “I don't see why not. You made a lot of bits at your show today, so I wouldn't blame you for wanting a new bed.”

Trixie’s eye twitched slightly. “And when things finally work out, I wouldn't mind a little extra room for my Plus One.” Her hoof slowly slid down the side of my leg.

I raised an eyebrow. “Huh? You planning on getting a roommate? Or a ... cartmate? Whatever you’d call it when you live in a cart and ride around.”

Trixie groaned and slapped her face with her hoof. “More like a partner. Somepony that could live in her cart with her and go on tour with her. Quite cozily. Especially when it’s raining outside. Listening to the rain's lovely when there's no need to travel, and having somepony with you makes even the worst storm enjoyable, don't you think?”

I raised an eyebrow. “That does sound nice, yeah.”

Trixie leaned in to whisper, “Especially with a partner.”

I took a moment to think that over and blinked. “Oh! Right! I get it!”

Trixie smile widely. “Really?”

I nodded. “I’m sure a show partner would really help you rake in the bits. Or maybe you’re thinking of taking on an apprentice. That’d be good too.”

To my surprise, Trixie groaned and slammed her head against the table, muttering something I couldn’t hear under her breath.

I frowned watching her strange behavior. Was it something I said? “Trixie? What’s the matter?”

She groaned again. “Trixie realizes she has a lot of work to do for her show tonight.” Before I could say anything, she abruptly stood up from the table. “As much as I'd love to keep going, I should get ready.”

“I understand.” I stood up and stretched myself out. “I'll be sure to watch the show.”

“I'm counting on it.” Trixie leaned in briefly to hug me. “I'll see you this evening!”

“Sure thing!” I exclaimed as I hugged her back. I had a feeling Trixie was going to give me a fun show.

Trixie’s show started after twilight. The lights were dimmed, barely illuminating the light-blue and pink banners and ribbons that decorated the stage, and paper heart decorations dotted the benches. Couples engaging in soft conversations and leaning on one another surrounded me on the benches. In fact, there was hardly a single pony in the crowd. Yet another reminder of my own single status. More doubts about what I had been doing with my life crept in, yay.

The day got pretty boring after Trixie went off to prepare her show. That was one issue with having friends, you missed them when they weren’t around. Probably why I’d headed to Sugarcube Corner for a while to talk with Pinkie and get something sugary to eat. Most everypony else was too busy to hang out due to the holiday. I kept feeling like I was forgetting to do something that day, but I couldn’t remember what. There was just too much on my mind. The holiday, the committee, where my life was going, Twilight’s reaction to my failure, Rarity being mad with me, Spike, Trixie, my old history with Sunburst—just one thing after another to ruminate on. I liked doing; thinking and overthinking just put everything into doubt.

Thus, it was a relief when blue smoke started covering the stage and Trixie’s voice echoed from someplace out of sight. “Ladies and gentlecolts, welcome to another dazzling show on this most romantic of days, Hearts and Hooves Day! Turn to your partners and thank them for taking you to the highlight of the day, for the show will now begin!”

A brief flash of multicolor fireworks blinded the audience. When my vision cleared, Trixie was standing on the stage, hat and cape billowing as she wore a confident grin. Ponies started clapping and hooting as the show got underway.

“Thank you, thank you, you're so kind!” Trixie flicked a hoof and a bouquet of roses suddenly sprung into her grasp. With a flourish, she tossed the bouquet into the audience—where it landed right in my outstretched arms.

I giggled. Trixie could be so wonderfully silly at times. “Thanks Trixie!” I called out as I ate one of the flowers, which was really quiet fresh and tasty.

“You're the best Trixie could ask for!” Trixie answered.

Next Trixie disappeared into another puff of smoke, but appeared a moment later next to a box on the stage. “Tonight, Trixie thinks she should skip past the warm-ups and move to something more engaging. Could she have a volunteer from the audience?”

I raised my hoof alongside a bunch of other ponies. I’d joined Trixie on her stage plenty of times, and after the week I’d had it’d be nice to do so again. I was rarely bored when I joined one of Trixie’s shows.

Trixie pointed at me. “Excellent! Would you be so kind as to come to the stage?”

I headed to the stage as several of the audience members nudged one another, whispering as they wore strange, knowing grins.

“Thank you ever so much,” Trixie said once I stepped onto the stage. She guided me up to the box, which was about as long as a pony is tall if they're standing on their hindhooves. “Now then, one of Trixie's favorites: the Dividing Box. First...” She coyly went about removing her hat and cape and hoofed them to me.

I’d done this trick enough times to know how to hold everything like a pro, thanks in no small part to Trixie’s instructions, and placed them on a table just offstage.

Trixie grinned and sauntered over to the box. She stepped inside and gave her rump a single shake as she lay down. “And now, close the box!”

I did as she said, and Trixie’s voice became muffled. “Now! Take the sheets of metal next to you and put them through the box! They are sharp enough to cut through without issue! Separate it into three parts!”

I would have been nervous if not for the fact that I knew Trixie knew what she was doing. Thus I picked up the sheets of sharpened metal, each as wide as the box, and inserted them into their slots.

“Now then—tap the box!” Trixie called out, and I did just that. “Then open it!”

I opened the box, revealing it to be empty. The audience gasped and a murmur ran through the audience. I briefly wondered where Trixie had gotten to when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and found Trixie holding another bouquet of roses for me, with one rose held between her teeth.

Trixie’s grin widened. “Now for the next act, Trixie is going to steal somepony's heart!” To my confusion, she knelt in front of me. “Would you be her partner?”

I blinked and took a step back. “E-excuse me?”

She kept her gaze to the stage as she said, “The Great and Powerful Trixie is asking you—you, Starlight Glimmer—to be her partner.” This elicited a collective aaaw from the audience, applauses, and loud whistling.

Several things started to click together. “Y-you mean...?”

“Of course Trixie means it.” Trixie stood up and smiled at me. “She's been hinting at it all day.”

“Um, well, I-I-I...” I collected myself and smiled. “I’d love to be your full-time assistant!”

For some reason, the audience collectively groaned, with so many ponies facehooving at once the sound was almost musical, and more than a few were snickering. Weird. I thought it was sweet for Trixie to ask me to help her with her shows.

Trixie’s reaction was also not what I expected. Her smile became increasingly strained until it finally snapped with a scream. “Does—this—NO!” She stomped a hoof. “For Celestia's sake mare! What do I have to do or say for you to figure out I want you to be my fillyfriend?!”

My eyes widened. “W-w-what?!”

She grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard enough to make me dizzy. “Will. You. Be. My. Marefriend?”

My mouth hung open. I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

My answer took too long for Trixie because she shook me again, slightly less violently. “Do I need to be more clear?! Let me try and be more obvious!” She shot off a spell and fireworks went off. They exploded in the air, spelling out: ‘Will You Be My Special Somepony, Starlight?’

Okay, no way to misinterpret that. So I stared into Trixie’s eyes. This was all so sudden. Trixie wanted us to be together? How? Why? I thought we were just friends. It never occured to me that anypony could see me in that way. Not romantically anyways. Though as I looked at her, I saw her anger fade as she came to bite her lip, and doubt grew within her eyes. It was then I knew my answer.

I smiled. “Trixie, I’d love to be your special somepony.”

Trixie beamed at me and then bowed to the audience in one fluid motion. “Thank you all for coming! Trixie's afraid the show's ending early today. But Trixie will be performing again tomorrow, so please be sure to come by again for a full show then.”

“Huh?” I tilted my head. “You sure about ending the show early?”

“Yes,” Trixie murmured. “We have things we need to discuss. In private.”

Considering we had just become fillyfriends, that was probably an understatement. “Okay then.”

There was a murmur of discontent from the crowd, but it sounded half-hearted as ponies started dispersing. Trixie took the opportunity to wrap her arm around mine and pulled me off stage.

I felt my heart start to thump faster as we approached Trixie’s cart. “So, um, that sure was something. Didn’t quite expect that today.”

“The day was running out, and I had to do something. You are very...” Trixie’s ear twitched as she stared at me. “Never mind. It's fine, it's fine—it's all sorted now, and we've still got this evening.”

“What did you want to do?” Given the way she was hurrying us towards the little camp she had set up beyond the borders of the town, she must have had something in mind.

“Weeeell...” Trixie guided me to her cart and threw a couple of logs onto the campfire. Soon the light of the fire revealed that a quilt had been laid out and covered with rose petals, and on it was a bottle of champagne on ice, chocolates, and a nice salad. “I think we should have a nice evening in—just the two of us.” She emphasized her point with a pleasing nuzzle.

“Oh wow, look at all of this.” My eyes widened as I looked everything over. “You really outdid yourself.”

“Only the best for Trixie’s fillyfriend.” Trixie held out a hoof and assisted me with sitting on the quilt like a perfect gentlemare. “So ... where shall we start? Ooh, hold that thought!”

Trixie shook the champagne and popped its cork, causing the fizzy drink to overflow out of the bottle.

“Oooh!” I held my hoof to my mouth as I watched her fill a couple of glasses. “You're such a romantic, you know that?”

Trixie grinned and waggled her eyebrows. “I like to think of it as putting on my best show for a smaller crowd.”

I snorted at the corny line. It was extremely endearing in its own way. In truth, I’d never been wooed before. I’d never allowed myself to be. It wasn’t part of The Plan. The closest thing I’d had to a romantic experience was some basic physical relief with another pony. Nothing like this. And it felt good, I had to admit.

I chuckled as I watched Trixie give each of us a bowl of salad. “How long have you been planning this?”

“About two weeks,” Trixie admitted. “And I've been seriously thinking about it for a month or more.”

“That's ... wow. I never thought.” I shook my head. “I think I might have missed a few signs.”

“More than a few,” Trixie answered with a little irritation in her voice. “But that’s fine, everything’s worked out now. Now I have my favorite pony in the whole world with me on the most romantic day of the year. Things couldn’t be better.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said as I started chowing down. “Even if it is a bit surreal. I've never been on a real date before.”

“Me either, really. I'm just kind of making this up as I go.”

I took a sip of the champagne. “So, what's your plans for after Hearts and Hooves Day? I hope you’re not leaving again too soon.”

“Honestly, I didn't have any,” Trixie said. “Just ... um...” She trailed off as her light-blue coat took on a pinkish tone around her face.

Her blushing only caused me to blush in return. Here comes the awkwardness back in force. “Right. That's fair. Not that I can judge or anything. Not like I've got a whole lot going on these days either.”

Trixie looked up from her glass. “Just your studies, right?”

I grunted and nodded. “Pretty much. I mean, I like the magic studies. The friendship lessons? Not so much.”

“Oh?” She flicked her hoof for me to explain.

I frowned into my glass as I thought of how best to explain it. “They're... I don't know. A lot of pressure. And they seem so basic. I mean, friendship lessons, really? But on the other hoof, I’m not really that great at talking with ponies—considering how many villages and communities I’ve been run out of over the years. Some of them for good reasons.”

Trixie scoffed. “I’ve been run out of towns before. I wouldn’t care what the ponies of some backwater think of you.”

I let out an exasperated sigh and shook my head. “No, it’s... I haven’t exactly been the best pony out there. I’ve done some pretty rotten stuff, if I’m going to be brutally honest. I always told myself that I had good reasons for doing them at the time. It was so easy to justify anything I did since I wanted to believe it so badly, but … looking back on it?” I hunched my shoulders and tightened my grip on my glass until it almost cracked. “Saying I did it for the greater good rings pretty hollow when it was really all for nothing. In the end, I was left with nothing when Twilight ru—changed everything when she came to my town. I didn’t have any friends, lovers… anything, really.”

Trixie shifted closer to me and wrapped a leg around my shoulders. “But you’re better now, right?”

“I guess.” I leaned against her, enjoying her warmth. “After losing my village, I was just so angry. I let my rage fuel my magic and control my life. I suppose I’d always done that, but it was the worst leading up to my fight with Twilight. When I gave up on revenge and my rage...” I wrapped my arms around myself. “I just felt empty.”

Trixie frowned as she held me. “Maybe, but at least you have me now. I’m not going to abandon you.”

I smiled softly. “Thanks, that means a lot. This might not have been what I was planning for my life, but it’s not so bad.”

“Life's weird like that.” Trixie chuckled and nuzzled the top of my head.

I continued to lean against her as I watched the fire burn. “Do you ever feel like ... I don't know, like you're settling for something less? That there could have been so much more, but now all you’ve got is what you’ve got.”

“Sometimes.” Trixie squeezed me with her hoof. “But not anymore. And from now on, things can only get better.”

She leaned in for a kiss and I returned it. I couldn’t agree more.

Author's Note

Learning to Live With Yourself

I didn't wake up until well into the next morning. My head throbbed with the after effects of last night’s booze binge, but that was more than made up for by the warmth and content filling me. It took a few moments for me to see where I was through squinted and blurry eyes. I was inside of Trixie’s cart, lying on the fold-up bed with a light-blue leg wrapped around me. I could feel Trixie’s warm body curled up against me. Memories of the vigorous activities we’d gotten up to the previous night flooded back. Things had definitely escalated far faster than I expected. But I didn’t mind that at all. Right then and there, I was happy. Happier in so many ways than I had been for a long time.

Trixie murmured in contentment as she lightly squeezed me. “Mmm, that was a fine night in.”

“Yeah, I liked it too.” I yawned, in no rush to get moving. “Thanks.”

“There's no need to say thanks.” Trixie chuckled, nuzzling the back of my neck. “It was my pleasure as much as yours.”

I snickered. “I noticed.”

Trixie coyly nibbled my ear, sending a wave of pleasure through me. “I hope you've got a clear schedule for the day, because I'm not done with you just yet.”

I shifted around so that I was facing her. The vague feeling that I was forgetting something swirled in my head, but that was probably just the haze from just waking up from an exhausting day

The moment was ruined when there was a knock on the cart’s door.

Trixie groaned and glared at the door like it had slighted her. “Fans. My work's never done.” She called out to whoever was at the door. “The Great and Powerful Trixie isn't available right now! Come back later, please!”

“Trixie?” asked the last pony in the world I wanted to be on the other side of that door right at that moment. “It's Twilight. Is Starlight here? Spike said she didn't come home last night.”

Trixie faintly, almost petulantly, groaned. “What are you, her mother? Can't you come back later? We're busy.”

“I just want to make sure she's okay,” Twilight pressed. “I heard some stuff happened while I was gone, and I wanted to check up on her.”

My eyes widened as I realized why she must be here. Twilight wasn’t supposed to have returned from the Crystal Empire for another few days. If she was back, it had to be because she heard about what happened with the committee and my blowing off helping with the preparations. That meant she was back with a doozy of a lecture. Could she be mad enough at me that she no longer wanted me to be her student? Not that I’d exactly been the best student to start with, and I did just manage to flop the biggest assignment she’d given me yet. Then there was the fact she didn’t like Trixie. She wasn’t going to like hearing we were special someponies. All of that together could mean really bad things, like getting kicked out of my new home, get sent to prison or worse for failing her over and over again.

“Hide me,” I squeaked to Trixie.

Trixie quirked an eyebrow. “Wait, what?”

“Do you have any idea how much she'll freak out over this?!” I pulled the bedsheets over my head, because thatwould surely keep me hidden. But I wasn’t sure what else to do. I really, really didn’t want to see Twilight under these circumstances.

Trixie groaned, barely keeping her voice at a whisper. “Trixie knows she wasn't that loud, no matter how good last night was.”

There was another knock at the door, and this time Twilight sounded less patient. “Trixie?”

Trixie sighed and got out of bed. She opened the door a crack as she came face-to-face with Twilight, while still preventing her from looking into the cart.

I couldn’t see Twilight, but I could hear her gritting her teeth as she spoke. “Hey, sorry for waking you up, but I'm just really worried about Starlight. I heard she had a big argument with the Hearts and Hooves Day Committee, and ended up not helping out with the holiday. I’d feel a lot better if I could just talk with her for a bit.”

Trixie scoffed. “Yes, well, Trixie's not interested in the ramblings of a few old farts. How does this affect Starlight, exactly?”

“Look, I just want confirmation she's okay and nothing serious happened to her last night,” Twilight said, her patience fraying at the edges. “That's all. She was last seen with you, so I thought you would know where she was.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie can confirm that she's perfectly fine.” Trixie haughtily brushed her hoof against her chest. “Now if you'll excuse Trixie, she has coffee to imbibe and a make-up show to prepare. And also some laundry to do. Coffee, then laundry, then show.”

“Well if you could just tell me where she is—”

I sighed. I’d come to know Twilight well enough to know she wasn’t going to give up easily. Hay, she’d probably cast a tracking spell to follow me here. At the rate Trixie was going, she was going to get herself into trouble on my behalf. That being the case, I teleported a safe distance from Trixie’s cart and then trotted towards Trixie’s camp. Maybe we could at least go with the fiction that I hadn’t been up half the night banging around with Trixie.

By the time I reached the cart, I could hear that Twilight was losing her patience with Trixie. “Trixie, I swear, I don’t really need this right now. If you’ll just—”

I did my best to sound surprised to see Twilight. “Twilight! There you are. I've been trying to find you all morning.”

Trixie blinked in surprise as she looked around Twilight to see me. “Oh, there you are, Starlight! Trixie was trying to tell somepony that you were okay, but that we didn’t know where you were at this moment. Not that somepony believed us, despite Trixie always being honest and trustworthy.”

Twilight turned to face me. “Starlight! I finally found you!” She wrinkled up her nose as she frowned. “Is everything okay? You don’t look great.”

I looked up to realize that my mane was a mess. That, and I probably smelled of certain activities from the previous night. Ugh, not the best start to the conversation. Once again I’d leapt before I looked. “Sorry! I-I got right up and started looking for you the moment I woke up.”

Twilight’s head tilted as she studied me. “Wait, you were looking for me? I just got back home a couple of hours ago. I wasn't supposed to come back until the end of the week. Why were you looking for me?”

I said the first thing that came to mind. “Um, I heard you were looking for me?” Was my voice always this high-pitched?

There was the slightest hesitation from Twilight before she chuckled. “Right, it's probably been one of those days where we kept missing each other.” She groaned and rubbed her forehead. “Sorry, been something of a long day. And long night. And a few long days and nights before that.”

Now that I got a good look at Twilight, she didn’t look so great herself. There were bags under her eyes, and her mane could have used some touching up. She must have gotten on the first train back to Ponyville after she heard what happened with the committee. “I think I can understand that,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. Twilight hadn’t started the conversation by yelling at me or directing her guards to arrest me and drag me to a dungeon, so this could’ve gone worse.

The brief flash of mirth extinguished when Twilight frowned. “Though there were a few things I wanted to ask you that I’m ... concerned about.”

Here it comes. My throat suddenly felt very dry. “Like what?”

“I heard you got into an argument with the committee, and you got kicked out of the preparations. It’s why I raced back to Ponyville on the first train I could get on today.”

I cleared my throat. “It's not that big a deal.”

Twilight’s ear flicked. “I think it's a pretty big deal. Especially when they told me that you wanted to change the entire holiday at the last minute. What happened? Were my notes not clear? Was there something I forgot? Normally everypony's easy enough to work with.”

I shuffled in place and didn’t meet her eyes. “I had a few ideas for how to make the holiday better. They were close-minded and kicked me out.”

“And inferior,” Trixie piped in as she combed her mane. “And boring, as Trixie recalls.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “'Make the holiday better'? What do you mean? I don't remember you bringing this up before I left.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, wanting to be anywhere else but here right at that moment. “I ... kind of used my best judgment?”

“Spike said you set all my notes and checklists on fire.” Twilight’s eye twitched in the way that never promised anything good. “Was that your best judgment as well?”

The words had sounded like an accusation, and I winced. “I didn't set them on fire. Fire just ... happened near them.”

Twilight’s twitching intensified and her words became icy. “If you objected to my scrolls so much, maybe you should have said something ahead of time. I put a lot of work into those for them all to just go up in flames, you know.”

I hunched my shoulders. All the work Twilight put into making those scrolls wasn’t something I'd really thought about. “I didn’t think I needed them.”

Twilight rubbed her forehead. “Maybe if you had followed my instructions then the committee wouldn't have given you the boot for wanting to change how the entire holiday worked.”

Something inside me started to burn when I was reminded of the committee and how they had treated me. “Hey, they didn't even give my ideas a fair chance! How’s that fair?”

Twilight met my gaze without flinching. “From the way they put it, you tried to bully them into doing away with all the romance for a romantic holiday. I get it you might not be happy with every aspect of the holiday, but there's addressing a problem, and then there's throwing the foal out with the bathwater. What's more, you didn't discuss any of this with me, which is a huge problem when you start trying to throw around royal authority in my name.”

I let out an annoyed huff. “So I can't do anything without your permission?”

Twilight groaned and pressed her hoof to her face. “You didn't do something without my permission! You threw away all my instructions and then went off to do your own thing! This was a serious breach of trust, Starlight!”

I stomped a hoof. “You're acting like I'm the bad guy here!”

“Not to mention you're a bore,” Trixie imputed as she put some coffee on the fire. “Really, don't you have any faith in your student?”

Twilight growled deep in her throat. “Several ponies are angry with me because of this! I said everything would be fine with Starlight in charge, and the whole situation blew up! Now I've got ponies throwing around rumors that I'm trying to ruin Hearts and Hooves Day, or even threatening to cancel it forever! Not to mention Mayor Mare and several 'concerned citizens' wrote me a very unhappy letter over this. This is probably going to be in the newspapers soon.”

“Oh good gracious!” I slapped my hooves to my cheeks in mock horror. “Not a letter! Was it sternly worded? Did they even use three exclamation points?!”

I all but heard the cracking as Twilight ground her teeth together. “I'm being serious here. As a princess, part of my job is to try and keep everypony happy. Now a bunch of ponies are questioning if I lost my mind appointing you to head the celebrations.”

My ears flicked and I turned my back on Twilight. “They're the ones who were wrong, not me. And I’m kinda hurt you’re not even considering my side in this.”

Trixie scoffed. “Besides, if it's your failure appointing the head of celebrations, doesn't that mean it's your failing?”

Twilight groaned again and ran her hoof down her face. “Okay, fine—you clearly aren't going to budge on this, so I’ll just call it a wash since everything worked out fine in the end. But it's going to be a while before I can trust you with anything like this again.”

That announcement caused me to wince. That one hurt. I’d thought I’d been making progress as her student. Her not wanting to give me this type of authority again stung a little. “But I—”

“No buts!” Twilight cut me off. “If you're going to cause big incidents like this, then I can't trust you with something as important as the Hearts and Hooves Day festival.”

Trixie tsked as she shook her head. “Oh no, how horrid. Hearts and Hooves Day didn’t go off without a hitch. Really, Princess, don't you have something better to do than ruin a nice morning?”

Twilight scowled at Trixie. “Trixie, now really isn't the time for more of your snide little comments, okay?”

That did it. “Hey! You can't talk to my girlfriend that way!”

Twilight blinked as though she’d been slapped. “Wait, you two are…?” She looked between us.

I felt my cheeks start to glow. It hadn’t exactly been my plan to just put that information out there like this. “Uh ... um ... yes?”

“You have the privilege of teaching Trixie's marefriend, yes.” Trixie wrapped an arm around my shoulders while glowering at Twilight.

Twilight groaned as she rubbed the sides of her temples. “I really don't need this...” She took a deep breath and gave us a very shaky smile. “That's ... nice. I’m happy. For you two. Maybe I should leave you two alone for now?”

“That would be great, thanks,” I said. I wanted this conversation over. Just being reminded of yet another one of my failures wasn’t what I needed in my life.

“Perhaps you should, yes,” Trixie agreed. “At least until breakfast is over. And lunch. And dinner. But Trixie would love to host you at the evening show.”

Twilight frowned as she studied Trixie. “Actually it's more lunch by now, but whatever. I'm going. We'll talk later, Starlight. I'll think about the evening show if I can straighten everything out before then. Bye.”

“Bye, Twilight,” I answered dully.

Twilight turned to go, but only made it a couple of steps before she turned back around. “Oh! One thing before I go. Spike seemed really down today when I spoke with him. Did something happen yesterday? Normally he's a bit depressed after Hearts and Hooves Day but some crystalcrisp usually helps with that.”

Trixie shrugged. “Trixie hasn't the faintest idea. Maybe you let him down too?” My fillyfriend muttered to herself, “As if that would narrow it down...”

Dread descended over me as I realized what I’d forgotten. “...horseapples.”

Twilight’s brow furrowed. “Starlight. You didn't forget to make Spike a very special somethingto help make him feel better, did you? You know, something else important I trusted you with? Something you said you could handle? Especially considering the fact you didn't actually help run the Hearts and Hoove Day celebrations?”

My ears wilted. “Okay, I bucked up on that one.”

Twilight clenched her teeth. “Starlight! That was important!” She covered her eyes with a hoof and took several breaths. “Look, I can understand things didn't work out with the holiday—things happen, I once tried to organize the town for a royal procession for Celestia, and long story short, the whole town got eaten by parasprites. But you should have been able to handle this one thing. Don't you care about Spike and his feelings?”

“No,” Trixie answered with exaggerated boredom. “Unless we're getting paid to. Were you getting paid for that?”

“Trixie,” I growled. “Now isn’t the time.” I’d been so wrapped up in my own stuff that I’d completely forgotten about Spike; that wasn’t fair to him. I could have taken some time between hanging out with Trixie and her show to have made Spike his crystalcrisp, but I’d been so wrapped up in my own horseapples that I hadn’t even crossed my mind.

Way to go, Starlight.

Twilight’s ears twitched. “It's importantbecause Spike's my family. And I thought Starlight would feel the same way when we all live together.”

Ouch. Just … ouch. Of all the things I’d worried she would say, that one hurt the worst. I didn’t have a sufficient reply to that one. ‘Sorry, I’m a massive screw up who can’t be trusted with the smallest thing when you’re gone’ didn’t make up for hurting Spike.

The wheels turned in Trixie’s head as her gaze shifted from Twilight, to me, the Friendship Castle, and then back to me and Twilight. “Oooh. Trixie understands now.”

Twilight shook her head and turned away from me. “Okay, fine, I'll deal with that on top of everything else. Are there any other fires I need to put out now that I’ve returned way ahead of schedule?”

“That should be everything.” I rubbed my leg. What had started out as a great morning had taken a pretty craptacular turn. “I think I need to have a talk with my girlfriend.”

“Soooo … perhaps you should go so we can have those talks. Privately.” Trixie shooed her away with a flick of her hoof. “With Trixie and her special somepony.”

“Right, I'm going to leave you to that. We'll talk later.” She made that last word sound incredibly ominous before she teleported away.

Once she was gone, I turned on Trixie. “Are you trying to get me in trouble?!”

Trixie’s ears wilted. “I was just trying to help...”

I stomped a hoof on the ground. My patience was completely used up. “Don’t you get it? One word from Twilight, and I'm in jail for the rest of my life! Or worse!”

Trixie snorted. “Over my dead body.”

“There are ponies who'd be okay with that,” I groused, my gaze shifting away from Trixie. I’d made some enemies in my past. Plenty of them, honestly. You always made enemies when you tried to change the world, and I hadn’t went about trying to accomplish my goals in the nicest ways possible.

Trixie grimaced before recovering, straightening herself, and putting on a dramatic flair. “Well, feather them! If it's that dangerous, let's just go—you and me, Trixie and Starlight: Mares of Wonder!”

“Dammit Trixie, this isn't one of your shows!” I stomped irritably around her. “And I’m tired of running. I’ve ran across half the world, from Equestria to Freeport and Northmarch, and all along Equestria’s frontier. I’m been exiled from at least half those places, and made a mess of my life every step of the way. Running doesn’t help me.” My ears wilted. “After all, I can’t run away from myself.”

Trixie shoulders hunched. “Sorry.”

“Just ... ugh.” Great, now I felt terrible about attacking Trixie. Just perfect. All I could do was slink to the ground and sit. I just felt so tired.

Trixie stood there, shuffling in place before she slowly approached me. I let her, and she sat beside me, wrapping a leg around me to hold me close. I sniffed and tears started welling up. It felt dumb for me to cry over ... whatever it was I was crying over, but I did anyways. I couldn’t stop myself, I didn’t know why. Trixie just held me as I cried.

We sat there in silence until I was done bawling. I didn’t know how long, but eventually Trixie spoke up. “I just wanted this day to be special for us.”

I sighed and nodded. “It was. I just ... I really messed up. Again.”

Trixie squeezed me. “It’s okay. I’ve had my fair number of screwups in the past too.”

“Nothing like mine,” I groused.

“Still enough to know what it’s like,” Trixie quietly insisted, her ears nearly flat against her head. “It took a lot of work for me to pull my show back together again, especially after the incidents with the ursa minor and alicorn amulet. I’m still not allowed in some towns. If Princess Twilight wasn’t so forgiving, I probably wouldn’t be allowed to perform in Ponyville either.”

I frowned as I thought about how Trixie always acted around Twilight. “Then why do you always give her such a hard time?”

Trixie fidgeted and turned away from me. “I don’t know. Sometimes it just feels good to tweak her nose. Being with you is wonderful, and it feels great to be with you when it ticks off the pony whose ... well, not ruined my life, but been there when everything kept going wrong. When something went horribly wrong, there she was in proximity. That, and I don’t want her driving a wedge between us.”

I grasped her hoof and squeezed. “She won’t, I promise.”

Trixie put on a smile tinted by sadness. “You sure you don’t want to run away? The world’s a big place. We could get away from here, away from anypony that knows us, knows what we’ve done. Start a new life. The Great and Powerful Trixie and her Amazing and Glamorous Assistant Starlight Glimmer. We’d make a killing overseas.”

I shook my head. “Tempting, but no. Running’s never worked out for me, and, um... I don’t want to give up what I have here. Yeah, Twilight isn’t always happy with me and what I’ve done, but...” I bit my lip as I tried to find the words for it. “She cares—about me, as a pony. Her, Spike, and her friends. They’ve given me a chance. That’s more than I can say about a lot of the ponies I’ve met over the years. It’d feel wrong giving up on that.”

Trixie frowned but nodded. “I think I can understand that. It can be hard to give up on what you have. At least if it’s something you like.” She shrugged, then grimaced. “I know I’d never want to give up being a magician. That time I had to work on a rock farm just to make ends meet...”

I nuzzled her to try and comfort her. “You’re back on your hooves, at least.”

She nuzzled back. “Yeah, looks like it. So I can relate to you not wanting to throw everything away now that you’re putting it all back together again.”

I nodded. “Everypony’s trying to make me a better pony, even when they don’t have to be one. I mean, it’s frustrating to have all this magical talent and ability to make the world a better place, only for it to backfire horribly.” I scraped my hoof in a circle in the dirt. “And if I’m going to be honest … I’m scared of who I’d become if I left Ponyville. It’s so easy to justify doing anything if I think it’s for the best. I ... I don’t think I can do this alone.”

Trixie wrapped her arm around mine and held it tight. “But you don’t have to. You have me—and, I suppose, Twilight and her friends as a distant second.”

I chuckled. “So I do.” I leaned in and gently kissed her lips. “With you and the others, I think I can do this. One day at a time. Maybe not more than that, but I think I can be a better pony by doing it one step at a time.”

“I believe in you.” Trixie kissed me back, deeper this time.

I returned her kiss, but then a stab of guilt struck me, and I reluctantly pulled away from my special somepony. “... I should probably talk to Twilight.”

Trixie puckered up her lips in a pout. “Must you?”

“Yeah.” I grinned and booped her nose. “Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of time together after I’ve talked with Twilight. I’ll be back when I’m done.”

Trixie grinned and counter-booped. “Trixie is going to hold you to that.”

“It's a promise,” I said as I stood.

Trixie sighed, but gave me a slap to the rear to get me moving. “Go on, then. The sooner you leave, the sooner you can come back to my welcoming embrace. Also, you owe me a favor for letting you go instead of spreading more time with me.” She gave me a mischievous grin that promised interesting things when I returned.

I snickered. “We'll see about that.”

It didn’t take me long to find Twilight in her office in the castle. Her door was half open, but I still hesitated as I knocked. No sense being rude and starting everything on the wrong hoof—well, more wrong than they already were, in any event.

“Come in,” she called without a trace of enthusiasm.

I entered the office, my heart picking up speed as I did so. Twilight hadn’t even bothered to look up as I entered. Instead her head was propped up on her hoof as she wrote. I swallowed and forced myself to say, “Hey.”

Twilight finally looked up from her work, the bags under her eyes even heavier than they had been that morning. Her words were carefully neutral as she spoke. “Oh, Starlight. I wasn't expecting you back so soon. I figured you were going to spend the rest of the day with Trixie.”

I rubbed my arm as I tried to think of what to say. “I had something more important to do.”

Twilight leaned back in her seat. “I’m listening.”

I took a deep breath. “We ... I need to apologize.”

Twilight stared at me for a long moment before she sighed and put down her quill. “We did have something of an argument a little bit earlier.”

“I noticed.” I grimaced. “I'm sorry I let you down.”

“It's ... okay.” She rubbed her eyes. “I think I let you down too.”

I blinked in confusion. “Huh?”

“I shouldn't have put you in charge of Ponyville's Hearts and Hooves Day before leaving for the Crystal Empire,” Twilight explained. “That was a lot to dump on you, especially when you hadn't been given nearly that much responsibility as my student before. I should have stuck around to watch over you after giving you something this big for the first time. I was hoping I’d get to cover things both here and the Crystal Empire and ended up delegating too much onto you. I should have known better, and really should have realized how reluctant you’d be to tell me no. I know how easy it is to bite off more than you can chew just to try to please your teacher.”

“Yeah?”

Twilight’s smile was strained at the edges. “I may have completely freaked out about giving Princess Celestia a friendship report every single week. And there may have been a week where I didn’t have anything to report, and a subsequent freakout may have caused the entire town to riot.”

“That … sounds pretty bad,” I conceded. “And you really wrote a friendship report every week? That sounds like it could get hard.” And here I’d thought Twilight had been cracking the whip when she demanded I give her a report only every so often.

Twilight rubbed the back of her neck. “There's a reason she told me to stop doing them every week if I didn't actually have a friendship lesson to write about.” She shook her head. “Though now that I think about it, it's been forever since I sent one to her.”

I sat down opposite of her. “Nothing more to learn?”

Twilight frowned as she considered the question. “Not exactly—more that I fell out of the practice, I guess. I stopped learning something new every week, then I got busy with different things like becoming a princess. Then I started concentrating on helping other ponies with their friendship problems, applying what I knew, then were the map missions...”

“And now here you are?”

“Pretty much.” Twilight let out a long sigh. “Now I've got more to do than I've got hours in the day.”

“And a student of your own,” I added.

“Life has a strange way of creeping up on you like that.” She gave me a lopsided grin. “Granted, I thought my first student would be a little younger than you turned out to be. Well, my first full-time student, anyway.”

I grinned back. “Sorry to disappoint.” In truth, I was older than her—by a good number of years, which made my status as her student a little bit grating if I was honest.

“That's hardly a major problem.” Twilight’s smile was replaced with a more serious frown. “So, lessons learned then?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

“Just try and tell me what you've got planned in the future, okay?” Twilight requested. “I think that would avoid a lot of trouble in the future.”

“Can do.” That sounded reasonable enough, given my track record.

“And perhaps you could write a letter to the Hearts and Hooves Day Committee telling them you're not planning on changing the entire holiday anymore? And also apologize for some of the things you said?”

I wrung my hooves together. “Maybe.”

Twilight’s tone took on a more serious edge. “It would help save me a bit of time putting out that fire. Not to mention smooth things over from the other day.”

I sighed. “Okay. I mean ... I don't think my ideas were wrong, but I didn't pick the best way to pitch them.” Apologizing after what happened didn’t appeal to me at all, but it sounded like I was stuck doing it anyways if I wanted ponies to talk to me again. I didn’t want some big fight with Rarity, and picking a fight with Granny Smith was bound to make Applejack mad at me.

“An easy trap to fall into,” Twilight commented.

“I noticed,” I grumbled. “Since I keep doing it.”

Twilight stepped around her desk to place a comforting hoof on my shoulder. “I'm sure we'll get you there eventually. We just need to keep working at this stuff.”

“I'll keep trying.” I took a deep breath. “ One day at a time. I ... I know I have a long way to go, but I won't give up. I’m trying to be a good pony now, I really am. It’s not easy, but I’m honestly trying.”

Twilight smiled. “As long as you don't give up, there's hope.”

“Thank you, Twilight.”

“It's part of being a teacher,” Twilight said. “I'm trying to live up to my half.”

“I guess I can try to be a better student then.” It was good to hear that Twilight wasn’t giving up on me like I’d feared. She had every reason to, but she still didn’t abandon me. Maybe with time I could be a little more like her.

“Everything worth doing takes effort.”

I nodded. “And this is worth doing.”

“Good to hear.” Twilight sat back down in her seat and let out a tired sigh. “Anything else we need to cover?”

I shook my head. “I can't think of anything.”

Twilight stretched out her limbs. “Good, because I could stand for nothing going wrong for a little bit.”

I let out a relieved sigh. “You and me both.”

And, as seemed to be an all too regular occurance in Ponyville, something happened to ruin a perfectly peaceful day. Outside the window, smoke started billowing up from the middle of Ponyville, followed by the panicky mewling of the residents of Ponyville—a sound that had become all too common in my life. Given the way Twilight’s ear twitched, she knew there was trouble in town too.

A strained smile found its way to my face. “Okay, I am completely—” I hesitated as I thought over how the last few days had gone. “—ninety-five percent sure that's not my fault.”

Twilight groaned and let her head fall to the desk. “I better go out and see what that's about.”

“Probably.” I stood up but then hesitated as a thought plagued me. “Um, one thing before we go. Assuming this latest crisis doesn’t take up the entire day, think we could make some crystalcrisp for Spike later? You know, to help him feel better?”

Twilight smiled, it was a tired smile, but there was still warmth to it. “Assuming the world cooperates, I think that would be a great idea.”