Resting Witch Face

Chapters

Pointy Hats
Wicked Deeds
Tricky Treats
Kitty Cats
Lovely Ladies
Bubbly Brews
Flying Brooms
Secret Spells
Witchy Laughter

Pointy Hats

There’s an old piece of Equestrian wisdom that only makes sense when you remember—this is a species that’s produced both Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, and it’s still not extinct.

It goes like this: life is either a series of surprises or a series of accidents, and the only difference is attitude. Ultimately, the world is full of things you can’t control—the only thing you can understand and master is your own self. So, might as well do that.

It’s a cute idea. It’s completely wrong.

Nopony can control themselves, not to that degree. It’s just that the lucky ones don’t have to, and ponies are a very fortunate species, statistically speaking.

There is another piece of Equestrian wisdom, though, and this one’s dead on the money. It goes like this: whenever something happens to you, the first thing you think of is who you are. The second that you think is who you choose to be.

This is a story about the ponies who aren’t born lucky.

It all started before they saved the day, that day. Picture this:

The Great and Powerful Trixie.

Reading a book.

“The Mouse of Cards! Useless. The Verminister! Also useless. The Demice! Yeah, we know about all these already.” Then Trixie blinked, and stopped turning the pages. “Oh. Starlight! Here’s a new one!”

“Hmm?”

“A giant rat with a fork!” Trixie squinted, tilted the book to one side, her head to the other. “It’s called the Trodent.”

“Trodent?” Starlight perked up her ears and edged closer to Trixie, to peek over her shoulder, speedreading the page with the skill of a pony who’d spent her teenage years utterly friendless. “Never heard that one before.”

Trixie didn’t even bother reading anymore, she just looked at Starlight. “You think this might be it?”

“Well. It’s a sewer spirit. Big one, too!” Starlight pointed at a scribble near the end of the page. “Lord of Metropolitan Filth. Spreads a magic plague, causes headaches and minor discomfort.”

“Hmm.”

Trixie looked out the window.

Ponyville was completely flooded with rats.

Big, disgusting rats, all red eyes and sharp teeth. They moved in waves, screeching all the while, covering every inch of the ground, climbing up every wall. They clawed and gnawed, nibbled and scratched, eating or breaking everything in sight. The came from under the bridge, from the root of the trees, sprouted off the earth like fanged poppies.

Sweat and blood made them slippery, their fur ruffled and glistening under the sun. The only thing louder than the pitter-pat of their million little clawed feet was the terrified, painful screaming of ponies too slow to make it.

Trixie looked away from the window. “…Do rats trying to eat your eyeballs count as 'minor discomfort'?”

“It’s usually just a euphemism for nausea, actually.”

“Right. I don’t think we’re dealing with a Trodent.”

The place was the Ponyville Castle Library, which was a very decadent room, but in a strictly boring way.

The Library wasn’t big; it was ridiculous. It was in the second floor of the Castle because it literally did not fit the first—you could see it from outside, sticking out like the building had grown a conjoined twin. It was as spacious as the rest of the floor combined; bursting with bookshelves on every wall, on every column, every five feet give or take.

Trixie and Starlight had spent the last three hours there, sitting at one of the many many tables. Ponyville Castle had tight security; rats can’t eat through crystal. Thank Celestia for that.

“…So we’re back at square one.” Starlight put the book down, ears flat against her head, and shot Trixie a sympathetic look. “I’m really sorry, Trixie. It was a good guess.”

“Don’t worry! I don’t mind it.” Trixie swished her tail side to side—just casual enough not to be a wag—and sat down next to Starlight, grinning. “This is fun! We’re having fun.”

“Mmm.” Starlight nodded, gentle smile on her face, and patted Trixie’s head. Trixie leaned into it. “Trixie,” Starlight said.

“Yes?”

“Ponies suffering a lot out there.”

The screeching of the rats, and the terrified screams of the innocent citizens of Ponyville, came from outside and filled the room.

So Trixie blinked, and stopped swishing her tail. “Oh. Right.” She nodded. “We’re not supposed to have fun right now.”

“Worried, Trixie. We’re worried.”

“Right, yes, our friends are in danger, how terrible. Anyway!” Trixie got up, spring in her step, and trotted to one of the shelves on the wall. “Time to read more books! Do you think this is a good place to start looking?”

Starlight gave the bookshelf a look. “I suppose?”

“Good!”

Trixie flashed her horn.

Forty books fell from the highest shelves.

“I’ll never get tired of that.” Trixie said, grinning. Then she picked up one of the many books, and read the title. “Okay! Not about rats.” She tossed it over her shoulder and picked another. “Not about rats.” Another. “Not about rats.” Then she paused, and looked at Starlight. “Still worried, by the way! Having a terrible time over here.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“I know you can! Oh wow this is definitely not about rats.”

Starlight chuckled, and then went back to her own book.

It was a lackluster folklore anthology, one of many—a series of bedtime stories to traumatize your children into sleep. Still worth a look, mind you; Equestria being what it was, the difference between a fairytale and an encyclopedia entry started and ended at font choice.

“Not about rats!” Trixie tossed another book over her shoulder, and then moved to another bookshelf. “I have to say, seeing how Princess Twilight is a massive loser, you’d think she’d at least know how to run a library.”

“Hmmm.” Starlight opened a new book and frowned at the index. Nothing useful here either, she could tell already. “I can guarantee you that this place uses the single most efficient filing system Equestria’s ever seen. It’s just so big that I never got around to learn the speci—”

“Yes, yes, I get it, she’s a neurotic mess. Not about rats!” Trixie tossed the book over her shoulder, and then hesitated a bit before grabbing another, biting her lip and frowning before going for it. “You know, I get why she’s a princess? But also, you know. Why is she a princess?”

“Well. It’s hard to say.” Starlight opened a new book and frowned at the index. Nothing useful in there either. “Talent, fate, hard work…”

“Nepotism?”

“The politically correct term is friendship, actually. Kind of her whole deal.”

“Ugh. I guess.” Trixie rolled her eyes, and tossed another book over her shoulder. “Not about rats.” Then she looked at Starlight. “But don’t you ever get tired of it?”

“Tired of what?”

“Of living under her shadow!” Trixie said, picking another book. “Don’t you hate how she’s always hogging the spotlight? Just because she’s better than you at magic? I’m surprised you don’t want to run from this place. Or burn it down, really; I can honestly work with both.”

Pause.

“Uh.” Starlight blinked, looking up from her book, ears flat against her face. “I’ve never felt Twilight looks down on me?”

“Oh,” Trixie said. She frowned. “Well, of course she hasn’t,” she said, and then she grinned in that sly Trixie way of hers. “She couldn’t even if she tried, I’ve got exquisite taste in friends.”

“Rrrright.” Starlight got up from the table and put the book aside. It wasn’t about rats anyway. “Trixie?” she ventured. “Are you okay? You know nopony’s looking down on you just because your magic’s not—”

“What? Looking down on me?” Trixie grabbed another book and smirked at Starlight, positively dripping with smugness. “Starlight, you need to work on your jokes, because Princess Twilight can’t stand to—” and then her eyes caught the title of the book. “Ah.”

Starlight saw this. “Ah?” she repeated, ears perking up. “I know that tone. What is it?”

“This is called Tails of the Macabre.” Trixie waved the book in the air, and then walked to Starlight and showed it to her. “I think it’s a typo, though.”

Starlight looked. It definitely was—this was not a good edition. Starlight wasn’t as book-savvy as Twilight, but she could tell a knockoff when she saw one, and this book was counterfeit. Cheap paper, terrible font.

But still. “Horror stories?” She glanced at the blurb on the back—one paragraph that included the word “monstrous” five times, each one misspelled in new and interesting ways—and then opened the book. It had pictures. “This looks like a very shoddy translation, but it’s worth a chance, I guess. The rats are getting feisty.”

Trixie looked out the window again. Three rats had made it all the way up to the window frame. Two were trying to gnaw at the glass, while the third was hitting it with its tiny clawed fist, murder in its eyes.

“Yikes.”

“Yikes is a good way to put it.” Starlight paged through the bootleg booklet, eyes darting left and right. The translation was terrible, you had to read every sentence twice to understand what it meant—but they seemed to be indeed stories about monsters; every chapter about a different one. “Hootligan, Gorgon Zola, Beeholder, Dinotaur, Bearwolf, Neck Romancer…”

Trixie peeked over her shoulder. “Neck Romancer?”

“Sexy vampire.”

“Aaah.”

“The Tyrantula, the… Verminister again? That guy’s popular. And—”

The next page had a picture. A flood of brown rats, taking over a city. Sharp teeth. Red eyes. They covered every inch of the ground, they climbed up the walls and gnawed at the windows, their fur glistening with sweat and blood.

Up in the sky, floating, seven rats with white eyes, forming a wheel, their tails tied up together. That’s what controlled the rats. That’s what brought them to the world of the living.

And its name was—

Starlight’s voice grew colder. “The Rat King.”

“Ooooooh. I think we’ve got it!” Trixie said. “We’re so good at this.”

“We are.” Starlight moved back to the table—Trixie followed—and paged through the short story at a slow pace. “And if we’re lucky,” she muttered as she read, “this will do more than just give us a name. This is a fairytale, so maybe the heroes defeat the monster at the end of the tale, or maybe we get a clue of what kind of weakness—”

“Cats,” Trixie said, peeking over Starlight’s shoulder.

Pause.

Starlight looked at her. “What?”

“I skipped to the ending.” Trixie pointed at the last two paragraphs of the last page. “Says it’s cats. We gotta bring some cats and they’ll just hunt the Rat King themselves.”

Second pause, slightly longer. Starlight skipped to the ending too, and speedread what Trixie was pointing at.

“Oh. Yeah. It’s just cats,” she said then. “If you want to get rid of the rats, you need to find a bunch of cats and let them hunt the—we spent three hours researching this?”

“We’re so good. We’re the best at saving the day.” Trixie flashed her horn. “What’s the next monster in the book?”

“Trixie, we don’t have the time to—wait what’s that.”

Another illustration. Pretty cute, for once.

It was a mare on a hill, under the full moon. Her eyes said “go away”, and her skirt said “the artist doesn’t know how to draw clothing.” Shadows played on her face, sharpening her features; there was a broom by her side, there was a cat on her back. No matter where you were when you looked at the picture, the mare was looking straight back at you.

There was a pointy hat on her head.

It was identical to Trixie’s.

“…The Wicked Witch,” Starlight read out loud, not entirely on purpose. “Also known as the Desired Mare. Is that translation right? That can’t be right.”

“Huh.” Trixie took off her hat, looked at it, and then back at the picture. “The hat is always black in those Nightmare Night costumes, isn’t it?”

“And witches are a legend,” Starlight said. Her eyes drifted around the page. “Or so I thought, at least. But seeing how everything else in the book exists, might as well—”

“Everything?” Trixie asked, frowning. “Really? Even the Neck Romancer?”

“Especially the Neck Romancer; you should talk to Fluttershy one of these days.” Starlight went back to the book, eyes darting around. “So I guess that, yes, chances are witches are also a thing. Who would have thought.”

“So what’s the story about?”

“A wicked witch subjugating an entire town,” Starlight said. She turned the page around, and skimmed some more. “She’s a unicorn without magical talent, but she’s really beautiful, and knows witchcraft. So she’s the most powerful pony around. She kind of sounds like you?”

“I was just thinking that!” Trixie said. “I really am gorgeous, aren’t I?”

“No, I mean—well, yes, you clean up nicely.”

Trixie batted her eyelashes.

Starlight went on. “But I more mean, this witch talks in third person now and then, too? She gets a lovely lady to join her in her evil witchy ways, does some horrible things, and then leaves.” Starlight finished the story, and then went back to the start, to the illustration. Then she said: “Hmm.”

And then a second, stronger: “Hmmmm.”

But Trixie didn’t notice, cause she was still looking at her own hat. And—though Starlight didn’t see this—she then looked around her, at this library she hated, in this castle she didn’t like.

“Hmm-hmmm,” Trixie said then, and her voice and Starlight’s harmonized.

Then Starlight said: “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

And Trixie tipped her hat. “I think I am.”

She was not. And they were both lying to each other.

That’s what this is all about.

Wicked Deeds

“I’m sorry,” Twilight said, and she was smiling in that way that made her eyes cold and her voice burn fire-red. “You are doing what.”

Starlight smiled back, and it was only slightly awkward. “Well,” she said. “We’re… testing the limits of moral ambiguity?”

In the background, Trixie’s voice:

“Not about witches!”

And then the sound of glass breaking.

So Starlight’s smile got a bit more awkward. “It’s a delicate process,” she explained. “We’re learning the ropes as we go.”

Fifty minutes had passed since the hunt and defeat of the Rat King. The day had been saved, Ponyville had survived, and the Ponyville Castle Library looked like a mess.

Which is no small feat, because the Ponyville Castle Library made Sweet Apple Acres look like Fluttershy’s cottage. To take every single book off its shelf and then throw it around, to topple over half the bookshelves and leave them there, to move every single table out of its rightful place—that wasn’t an accident. That took a conscious effort to be legitimately terrible.

“Not about witches!”

Speaking of.

Trixie, the Great and Powerful, was still checking books at random. She was standing atop a little hill made out of piled-up books, rocking her signature hat with a tad more pride than usual. She threw the book over her shoulder, and then checked another. “Uh-oh! Starlight! Duck! Because this book—”

Starlight ducked. Twilight didn’t. She simply looked up and focused on her horn.

“—is not about witches!” Trixie yelled, throwing the book like a baseball pitcher.

FLASH!

And with a burst of purple magic, the book froze midair right before hitting Twilight’s face, which was clearly where Trixie had been aiming.

“Subtle,” Twilight said, putting the book down, giving Trixie a look that would make milk go sour—and then she looked at Starlight. “Seriously, though. What is going on.”

“Right.” Starlight gave her a little smile, and then gulped. “Okay. So, long story short, we found a book that was—”

“Not about witches!”

Starlight ducked. Twilight just flashed her horn a second time, and a semi-transparent pink bubble surrounded both mares. The book bounced off it with a BONK!—which made Starlight wince.

“TRIXIE!” she yelled. “STOP DOING THAT! Oh my gosh, Twilight, I’m so sorry. I get Trixie doesn’t like you, but this is completely—”

“No, no, there’s no need.” Twilight said, and another book bounced off the bubble with a second BONK! “Trust me, the hatred is absolutely mutual. I’d throw a book at her face too if I had the chance.”

“Oh.”

“I’m more concerned about what you’ve done to my library, honestly.” BONK! BONK! Twilight never looked away from Starlight. “So you’re researching witches. Why?”

Starlight blinked. “How did you know we were—?”

“Not about witches!”

BONK!

Starlight nodded. “Right. Dumb question.”

“Trixie’s rubbing off on you.”

“Thanks.” Starlight smiled, no irony in her voice, and then went on. “So, we found a book—the one that talks about the Rat King! Remember? Tails of the Macabre?”

Twilight flashed her horn one more time. The book in particular appeared between the two, floating in midair. “This one?” Twilight asked.

“Yes! It has a chapter on witches. Wicked witches, not evil witches. I feel there’s an important distinction there. And the picture that comes with it—”

“Starlight!” And out of nowhere, Trixie jumped down the hill of books—causing a little avalanche on the way down—holding a book up. “Starlight!” She knocked on the bubble. “I found a book! It’s not about witches, but it’s about rats.”

Starlight and Twilight looked at her. Twilight was frowning. “Trixie.”

Trixie looked at her and gave her a sly smile. “Oh, hi, Princess Twilight! Didn’t see you there.” Then she went back to Starlight. “Do we still care about rats? Or can I throw this book away too?”

Starlight blinked, and looked at Twilight—who rolled her eyes, thoroughly ignored Trixie, and started to page through Tails of the Macabre with a frown.

So Starlight looked at Trixie again. “Rats? I mean…”

And then she looked out the window.

Ponyville had been completely taken over by cats.

Fit and fat, fast and slow, hunting and sleeping; they were everywhere, by the hundreds. Nature’s deadliest tiny predators, creeping around with dead rats in their mouths. They ran across roofs, climbed up trees, slept under rogue rays of sunlight. They pounced from above and reached from below, eviscerating every little critter in their reach.

Ponyville bathed in blood, in filth and pain and the screams of the dead. But you could barely hear it through all the purring.

“Yeah.” Starlight looked away from the window. “Pretty sure we’ve got the rat thing down by now. What’s the title of the book?”

“Of Mice and Mice: How to Deal with the Pests, Critters, and Small Animals that are Currently Ruining your Life. And on the cover there’s a picture of a cat violently eviscerating a rat.”

Starlight perked her ears, and leaned towards Trixie, so she could get a look too. “I’m sorry. Eviscerating?”

“No, violently eviscerating,” Trixie said, holding the book up. “There’s a difference, see?”

“Oh. Oh, wow. That’s needlessly graphic.” Starlight made a face, and then leaned away, looking back at the town. “I suppose you might as well keep it for later? Maybe it’ll turn out to be useful. Does it say anything about how to deal with cats?”

Trixie arched an eyebrow, and then paged through the book until she stopped at a page with a picture of a cat violently eviscerating a bird. “Cat Conquest: How to Deal with the Inevitable Uprising when a Magical Mishap turns Feline Friends into Foes. There’s an entire chapter dedicated just to that.”

“Definitely keep it around for later.”

“You’re trying to walk the line between wicked and evil.” Twilight’s voice made both mares perk up and look at her. Twilight wasn’t paging through the book anymore; she was looking at one single page. “And the witch in this drawing has Trixie’s hat, which is a pretty creepy coincidence. So.” She put the book down and looked at Starlight. “Please tell me you’re not trying to turn Trixie into a witch?”

Pause.

Twilight closed her eyes, rubbed the space between her eyes. “You’re absolutely trying to turn Trixie into a witch.”

“We absolutely are, yes,” Starlight said.

“And you,” Trixie said, smiling in that way that made it look like she had fangs, “are welcome.”

Twilight opened her eyes, looked at Trixie, and smiled back.

And then she closed the book with a SLAM! that made both Starlight and Trixie flinch.

“You know,” Twilight said, voice of molten glass and fire, “I live with Starlight Glimmer. I talk to her daily! And this is still the single worst idea I’ve heard in my entire life.” Pause. “No offense, Starlight.”

“No, no, none taken, I’m a handful.”

“And this book,” Twilight said, waggling Tails of the Macabre in the air, “isn’t exactly thorough, either. How much do you two know about witchcraft?”

“I wasn’t aware it might be an actual school of magic until fifty minutes ago,” Starlight said.

“And I literally have no idea what we’re doing! I’m just going along for the ride,” Trixie said.

“Right.”

“But,” Starlight said, and she walked closer to Trixie, here, standing by her side, so they’d face Twilight together. “There are barely any books on witchcraft around! Looks like it’s been, what, centuries since the last one? We could learn so much.” She nudged Trixie. “Right?”

Trixie was very quick on the uptake. “Of course!” She nudged Starlight back. “Absolutely. I’m doing this strictly out of scientific curiosity.”

“Yeah!”

And they both stood there, grinning at Twilight. Pitch-perfect, nothing but innocence and thirst for knowledge in their eyes. This was Fluttershy levels of sincerity, Pinkie Pie levels of naive childhood wonder.

So they were, like. Super lying.

But that’s what nagged Twilight—they were lying too well. Starlight and Trixie were natural predators, sure, but… There was an undertone of honesty to this lie. Twilight could hear it in their voices.

Because they weren’t lying to Twilight.

They were lying to each other.

So Twilight squinted a bit harder. “...The difference between witchcraft and magic,” she said, taking a step back, looking at both at the same time. “You know nothing, about that, right? You only know witches are wicked, and that’s it.”

“Literally nothing,” Trixie said.

“Witches have to be wicked, that’s definitely part of how it works,” Starlight said. “I don’t know why, but it’s a strict requirement. And witchcraft doesn’t seem to involve casting actual spells either.”

“No, you don’t cast any spells.” Twilight looked at Tails of the Macabre—still floating by her side—and made a face. “That’s how normal magic works. If you want to, say, find a treasure, you cast a spell, and try to detect gold.”

Starlight frowned. “And I’m guessing witchcraft doesn’t do that.”

“Witchcraft doesn’t do that,” Twilight said. “If you ask a witch for a treasure, she’ll point at a spot in your garden, and say ‘dig’. And if you dig, you’ll find treasure, because it turns out your grandparents buried it there years ago. It was always there. But it’s the witch who pointed out where to dig.”

“Right.” Trixie nodded, looked at Starlight. “So it’s a scam. Witches are scammers.”

Starlight looked at her. “It kind of fits you, doesn’t it?”

“I was literally born for this.”

“You have, but they’re not scammers,” Twilight said. “Starlight Glimmer, surely you’ve already realized—”

“—That if that’s how witchcraft works, witches are indirectly manipulating the timeline.” Starlight waved a hoof in the air. “Or directly, but only when you’re not looking. I get it, I get it, I’ve got a type, time travel is my personal—”

Twilight shook her head. “It’s not time travel,” she said, never blinking. “Not in that sense of the word anyway. Because they don’t use magic, they don’t use spells. They just point, and say ‘dig’, and then you dig, and then there’s treasure. There’s always been treasure there, but only once they want you to dig.”

“What,” Trixie said.

“What?” Starlight said, frowning. “Then how would they do that?”

“We don’t know.” Twilight said the words like a statement, not like an apology. It wasn’t a problem, it was a matter of fact. “Witches were researched at length centuries ago, and there wasn’t a single trace of magic detected whenever they did their thing. They just did it.”

Trixie put her hat on again. “So… that’s it?”

“That’s it.” Twilight bit her lip. “There are two main schools of thought regarding witches. Some scholars think their whims were powerful enough to alter reality—that whatever they desired would happen, naturally, without them actively doing anything.”

Starlight arched an eyebrow. “And the other school says that…?”

“Witches don’t exist, anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot, and our ancestors were incredibly stupid.”

That made Starlight frown. “And you don’t side with them? Feels like you’d side with them. No offense.”

“None taken! I’ve read history books, I have no idea how we survived as a species.” Twilight waved a hoof. “I used to think witches didn’t exist, too. But, you know, then I met Pinkie Pie.”

Starlight blinked. “Ah. Right.”

“Right. Right! Of course.” Trixie nodded. “Pinkie Pie.” Then she leaned closer to Starlight. and whispered: “Who’s that.”

“Pink one. Maud’s sister.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Starlight frowned. “Likes to throw parties, loves to sing? Looks and smells and talks like cotton candy developed a brain?”

Trixie shook her head. “Nothing.”

“…The one you find particularly annoying, Trixie.”

“Ah! The baker. Sugarcube Corner. Yes.”

Twilight stared at them, unflinching, for a good three seconds. Four. Five.

Then she looked at Starlight. “And you genuinely find this pony’s company to be rewarding, you tell me?”

“I mean—”

“Trixie.” Twilight took a deep breath, and then forced herself to look at Trixie in the eye. It was the spiritual equivalent of submerging your head in ice-cold water. “Listen. If a witch commits a crime, it’s impossible to prove it’s her. There’s a reason they all got burned at the stake. So I very heartily recommend—”

“Well, Princess, that’s what the normal witches went through.” Trixie raised her snout up to the heavens, and closed her eyes, blinded by her own brilliance. “I, however, am the Great and Powerful Trixie! And even as a witch, I will be on my best behavior at all times. You have my word.”

“The toilet paper in my bathroom is worth more than your word and we both know it.”

“That sounds like another ‘you’ problem.”

Meanwhile, Starlight was frowning. “If witches can manipulate reality like that…” She looked at Twilight. “How did they manage to burn them at the stake?”

You could see smoke coming out of Twilight’s ears. “Trixie,” she said, speaking with the slow pace of someone trying, and utterly failing, to control their anger. “The ‘wicked’ bit is in the title. You’re—oh, uh, they caught them while they were sleeping, Starlight; ultimate power doesn’t mean anything if you don’t see it coming.”

“Wait, what.” Trixie frowned. “They actually burned the witches? I thought that was just Princess Twilight threatening me?”

“Trixie, Twilight would never—”

“I was absolutely threatening you, yes, but historically a lot of ponies got burned at the stake, and most were believed to be witches.” Twilight frowned. “Especially in little towns like this one. Witches are dangerous, ponies get paranoid—”

“And our ancestors were idiots,” Starlight finished. “Burning witches at the stake was barbaric.”

Trixie frowned, but then she took another look at Starlight—and flipped her mane off her face. “Well! Let them try if they dare!” She stuck out her chest. “See where that gets them.”

“Right,” Twilight said. “So you might get hurt, or alternatively, literally everypony else gets hurt. See why I’m so against this idea, Starlight?”

“Yes.” Starlight looked at Trixie, who simply nodded, and then back at Twilight. “Yeah.”

Twilight knew that face. “But you still want to do it.”

“Yes.”

Twilight had to rub the space between her eyes, and then look at them. “Okay. Why.”

“Because it’s Trixie!” Starlight said. “It’s her, and—Twilight, she’s perfect for this, you know it, and I… trust her with my life.”

“Yeah,” Trixie said. “I’m not going to hurt anypony. Not on purpose.”

And then Twilight saw the face Trixie was making—and so she relaxed, and showed doubt for the first time since she had walked into the library. “…Right,” Twilight said. “I mean, I guess, yes, she has proven her redemption a couple times already. She’s on our side nowadays.” Squint. “Still terrible, mind you, but not an outright villain.”

“Love you too, Princess,” Trixie said.

“She’s still Trixie, yes; that’s why it’ll work out,” Starlight said. “We need wickedness.” Then she pushed Trixie behind her again so Twilight could look at nothing but Starlight’s own eyes. “Please? Twilight?”

Twilight frowned. “Starlight—”

“Do it for me?”

And there it was.

Starlight had this uncanny ability to make her eyes look really big, and really pleading, and really full of stars. And you can’t really live with someone for years, show her the true meaning of friendship and how to fight for what’s good, and not get attached.

So Twilight clicked her tongue, and then took a step back. A flash of her horn, and Tails of the Macabre disappeared. “The problem with witchcraft is that it’s affected by itself. If you become a witch, you were always going to become one too, and that’s a path that leads to—”

“Twilight.”

“Ugh, fine. I guess we might… learn something interesting, if you’re really careful.” Pause. “And if you clean up this mess.” Pause. “And if you do everything under my strict surveillance.”

Starlight lit up, her ears perked up, her tail swished side to side. She grabbed Twilight and gave her a quick hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For real.”

“Yes, well. I’m starting to understand why Princess Celestia cried every time I drew her a new portrait when I was five.” Twilight returned the hug, and when Starlight let her go, she cleared her throat with a cough. “Are you sure you’re up to the task, though? Researching something like this takes time. Even if I help you find the right books.”

Trixie grabbed Starlight and dragged her closer to her, so she would also be further away from Twilight. “What, with Starlight on the case?” she said. “It’ll be a matter of minutes. She’s a genius! Aren’t you, Starlight?”

Starlight chuckled, and shrugged. “It’s not like we’ve got anything else to do.”

Twilight arched an eyebrow. “You’re kidding me, right? You’re going to be cleaning all week.”

Pause.

Both Trixie and Starlight looked at her. “What?” Trixie asked, looking around. “No way. How big is this place?” She looked at Starlight. “Can we force Spike to do it?”

“Probably yes.”

“Good!”

“You can absolutely get Spike to help you,” Twilight said, “but I’m not talking about the library.” She nodded at the window. “You do realize Ponyville was just taken over by rats, right? And by cats, too. The place is drowning in filth. Castle included.”

“Uh.”

“So you mean…?”

“I mean,” Twilight said, and you really couldn’t blame her for the absolutely terrible smile that made it to her face when she said this, “that you better learn to hold a book while you’re mopping the floor, because that’s what we’re going to be doing for a long time.”

Tricky Treats

Filth moves down.

That’s the lesson you gotta take home with you. Filth moves down, so you start cleaning at the top, then move downwards. If you do it the other way around—well, more power to you, but by the time you reach the roof, the floor will be worse than when you started. Do it well, or do it twice, goes the saying.

Ponyville knew; it was a place of folksy wisdom. The streets had been brushed just enough so that taking a walk didn’t count as a health hazard—but if you were to look out the window that morning, the next day after the Rat King’s defeat, you’d see most Ponyville citizens were standing on their rooftops, ready to scrub away some grime.

The Castle was no exception. It was time to clean the roof: Starlight had a broom, Twilight had a mop, and Trixie had a wonderful personality.

“I didn’t know it was physically possible for this place to look worse.” Trixie turned a page of the giant book she was reading, and then looked at Twilight. “You know, Princess? In moments like these, you can really tell this is your house. Isn’t that right, Starlight?”

“Mmm.” Starlight was looking at her own hooves as she swept around. The roof had a very pronounced slope, and was slippery in places. “I mean, it is very purple.”

Trixie smiled at her, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes,” she said, looking around. “Very purple.”

The Castle roof was an absolute disgrace.

Picture a pile of trash sitting by your feet, a little hill of greenish muck. And then picture yourself reaching for it, touching it, and with a crack you break through the crust and reach the wet, slimy insides. Slipping between your fingers, under your fingernails. Picture the way you’d feel.

The Castle roof was that, but for every one of your senses.

Blood and sweat on every surface, mixed with the kind of gray muck you don’t want to think about too hard. Droppings and drool and dead rats, spread around in every possible combination. It was like having a stroke, but through your nose.

It really put a smile on Trixie’s face.

“You know,” she said, looking around. There were a lot of cats on the Castle roof, too—Trixie was surrounded by them, using the fattest one to prop up the book for ease of reading. “It took me five minutes to clean my wagon. Total. Didn’t even need help!”

Starlight was by the western half of the rooftop, sweeping away rat hair. “Trixie,” she said. “I helped you.”

“And I’m grateful, but I didn’t need your help.”

“Right. But you still asked for it.”

“Because I like you! But I don’t live in a castle.” Trixie snorted, and flipped a page of the book, barely looking at it. “Seriously. I mean, come on.”

Twilight’s ears perked up. She was by the northern side of the rooftop, mopping away a big black stain. “I’m sorry, what are you implying?”

Trixie gave Twilight one of those smiles. The ones that, in another universe, would’ve been a middle finger. “I’m saying, a castle isn’t really subtle.” Trixie waved a hoof at the entire roof. “So, you know, debris, hubris. Suits you.”

Twilight took a deep breath, and then went back to mopping the stain. “Trixie,” she said. “I’m a princess. Living in a castle comes with the title.”

“Right, but I’m the egotistical one.”

“You are the egotistical one! How is that—ah.” Twilight looked down, and poked a black cat very lightly with her mop. “I need to clean that spot. Please?”

“Meow.”

“Thank you very much.” Twilight looked up again. “Trixie, how is you being egotistical even a question? You legally changed your name so it says you’re great and powerful. You’re textbook.”

That made Starlight look up. She’d been focusing on her broom. “Wait,” she said, frowning at Trixie. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is your legal name?”

Trixie waggled her eyebrows, her smile lopsided, but in a very sexy way. “I know, right?”

Starlight turned to Twilight. “And how do you know that?”

“I checked her official records.” Twilight replied instantly, no hesitation. Then she saw the way Starlight and Trixie were looking at her, and frowned. “What? I’m a princess, I can do that.”

“I—” Starlight looked at Trixie, who was back at looking at her book, petting one of the cats, and then back at Twilight. “I don’t—when did you do that? Why did you do that?”

“The moment you brought her to my house, and because you’d brought her to my house.”

Trixie spoke, though her eyes were glued to the book. She talked slowly, not looking up from the page. “You know, you can say whatever you want, Princess Twilight,” she said. “At the end of the day, you live in a castle, while I live in a wagon. So obviously—”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight said, with perhaps a bit more bite to it than strictly necessary. “I don’t understand why it’s relevant that Applejack’s dog has better living conditions than you?”

“Well,” Trixie said. “I—”

And then she stopped.

And looked up from the book, at Starlight. “Who’s Applejack again?”

Starlight sighed, and went to sweep some more hair—but there was an orange cat on the way, cuddling up against a white one. “Whoops. Move out of the way, please, you two?”

“Meow meow.”

“Mrrrrp. Mrow.”

“Thank you, thank you, sorry.” Starlight turned to Trixie as she kept sweeping. “Applejack is the one living in Sweet Apple Acres. The farm? She’s orange.”

“No idea who you’re talking about.”

“The dumb one.”

“Rainbow Dash?”

“No, that’s stupid. Dumb.”

“Ah. The one with the cowboy hat?”

Twilight was squinting at them, leaning on her mop. “Okay,” she said. “First of all, what is even the difference between—?”

“Dumb means she’s not educated, stupid means she doesn’t have a brain,” Starlight said. “You can be clever and also dumb, but you can’t be clever and stupid.”

“Uh-huh.” Twilight nodded. “Second question. Why do you know the difference?”

“Well—”

“I don’t care about your friends but they’re a part of Starlight’s life,” Trixie cut, going back to her book, waving a hoof in the princess’ direction. “We had to come up with a system so she can tell me about her day.”

“Right. Have you tried remembering their names.”

“No. Have you tried not living in a castle? Same thing.” Trixie blinked, and then inched closer to the book, pressing her snout against the page. “Oh huh. Hm.” Then she turned the page, and cast a single glance at Twilight before reading again. “Anyway. All that matters is that I live in a wagon, and you live in a castle, and my house is better. Isn’t that right, Starlight?”

Starlight looked at Trixie. “I… guess? I like how the Castle looks, to be honest. I like purple.”

“Blue’s better, but I suppose nopony can be perfect. Living in a castle is so tacky anyway. If I were a princess instead…” Trixie turned the page. “We would just…”

And then she turned the page again, and didn’t say anything else.

Starlight kept on sweeping some more, getting rid of the hair and the muck, asking some cats to please move away, thank you very much, go nap over there we’ve already cleaned that bit, and then she looked at Trixie with a smile.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie,” she said, warmth in her voice. “Lost in a book. Never thought I’d see the day.”

Twilight was done with the big black stain. “Right,” she said, trotting closer to Starlight, lowering her voice to little more than a whisper. “You know, I know I helped you find the right books and all, but I still think this is a terrible idea.”

“Twilight, you can’t tell me with a straight face this doesn’t pique your scientific curiosity. It’s a new form of—”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Starlight, please, stop lying and tell me what this witchcraft nonsense is actually about.”

It struck Starlight like lightning.

She was sweeping some green muck, and the sudden wince was so strong she actually lost her footing and had to grab Twilight for balance. The broom slipped from her grasp and fell, bouncing off the slanted roof and—

Twilight focused on her horn.

FLASH!

And the broom stopped mid-fall, floated upwards, and started sweeping the roof by itself.

Starlight looked at it, then at Twilight, and then she carefully placed all four hooves on the roof, this time keeping her balance. “Why didn’t you do that from the start?” she asked, nodding at the autonomous broom.

“I don’t like that spell. It always forgets to sweep around the corners.”

“Meow!”

The closest cats reacted immediately, arching their backs, baring their fangs at the broom, unsheathing their claws—but not daring to get close to it either. The broom didn’t pay them any mind. Soon there were five, seven cats, following their broom with their eyes, all of them hissing.

“And they hate it too, so I’m not the only one, even.” Twilight unfolded her wings, and used one to shield them from Trixie’s line of sigh. “So, I take from your reaction that I was right, and you have a hidden reason to research witchcraft?”

Starlight bit her lip, and then looked through Twilight’s feathers, at Trixie. She was still reading, eyes darting around the page.

“Trixie?” Starlight ventured.

Trixie didn’t reply.

“She’s not listening,” Twilight said. “Say whatever about Trixie—and I can say a lot—but she’s great at not paying attention. Now, tell me.”

Starlight smiled. “Oh, she’s the best.” Then she looked at Twilight. “So what gave me away? I thought I was putting up a good act.”

“You were!” Twilight said, smiling. “Up till the moment you looked me in the eye and said ‘yes, Twilight, we just discovered an obscure source of ancient power, and I want somepony else to play with it instead’.”

Pause.

Starlight frowned. “Right. Pushed it too hard?”

“I’ve seen Applejack be less blatant.” Twilight took a step to get eve closer to Starlight—and almost stepped over a cat. “Oh. Sorry.”

“HISS!”

“Whoa, sorry. I don’t like the brooms either, don’t hold it against me.” And then Twilight waited until the cat went away, and then looked at Starlight, and frowned. “So, what’s the actual point of this whole deal?”

Starlight bit her lip. “I’m trying to help her,” she said. “I think she needs this more than anything right now. Listen, Twilight, I know you don’t like Trixie—”

“And isn’t that an understatement.”

“—but she’s a good pony. She’s, changed, she…”

“I know she isn’t evil,” Twilight said, shaking her head. “Don’t get me wrong, I trust Trixie. I just don’t like her. And respect is a two way street, Starlight. I’d be willing to meet in the middle, but she clearly isn’t, and at one point I have to stop trying.”

“We’re working on it, I swear. You have no idea how much we’ve improved at this behind closed doors, it’s just that she, uh.” Starlight looked at Trixie again, here, and her voice became much warmer. “I know she comes off as obnoxious, but she doesn’t really mean it, you know? It’s just a self-defense mechanism. If she’s the biggest pony in the room, she doesn’t have to worry about being the smallest pony in the room.”

Twilight nodded. “Right. But, you know, Fluttershy also turned insecurity into eighty percent of her personality, and I don’t feel like throwing her out a window every time she opens her mouth.”

“…To be completely honest, Fluttershy doesn’t talk much.”

“She doesn’t! And she’s lovely! See a pattern?” Twilight shook her head. “Listen, you have your friends, and I have mine. I understand that, I’ve understood that for a long time. Trixie is important to you.” Twilight paused, took a deep breath, spoke like she was pulling teeth. “If she makes you happy, that’s all I care about. But—witchcraft? Really?”

“You didn’t see the way she smiled when we found that drawing, Twilight,” Starlight said. “She wasn’t excited, she was elated. I’d never seen her like that. The witch in the picture had the same hat as her, and I just thought—”

“That you’d egg her on?”

“I thought it would help her feel good about herself. I don’t think she quite knows how to do that.” Starlight scratched the back of her neck. “I get that, as a project, learning about witchcraft is a bit…?”

Twilight didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was rolling her eyes. “Dangerous?” she guessed. “Suicidal?”

“I was going to say ‘non-conventional’.” Starlight frowned. “Twilight? You don’t think if Trixie becomes a witch, it’ll get to her head, right? You don’t think she’ll do something… evil?”

Twilight chose her words very carefully.

“I think,” she said, looking over at Trixie, “that she might be tempted to do evil, once she gets all that power. She won’t do it, of course, and she’ll be angry at herself for it, but—you know what I actually fear?” Twilight frowned. “That she’ll do something stupid. Or she’ll hurt herself, or you, or both.” She looked at Starlight. “But I don’t think she’ll fall to the dark side, no.”

The relief in Starlight’s eyes was brighter than the sun itself. “Really?”

“I don’t think power corrupts.” Twilight flapped her wings. “I think I’m a pretty good example of that, if you don’t mind me saying. What power does is—it brings everything to the surface. Every little bit of yourself, everything that you are, it comes out when you have power.”

Starlight looked down, lightly touching her mane with a hoof. “Character is what we are in the dark,” she said. “Right?”

“Character is what we are when there are no consequences. That’s the meaning of power.” Twilight bit her lip. “We talk about alicorns like they’re ponies, but we write on witches like they’re monsters. Because they face even less consequences than I do.”

“And you think Trixie won’t…?”

“I think she’ll do something that’s very Trixie,” Twilight said, her tone getting snappy again. You could hear the eyeroll lost somewhere in there. “So I’ll hate it, but it won’t be evil.”

Starlight smiled, finally, and nodded. “Good. Thank you, Twilight. That’s… actually really nice to hear.”

“Yes, well, I appreciate that you were completely willing to go with it before hearing me saying all of this, actually,” Twilight said. “Very reassuring. You know she’s hiding something, right? I don’t know what exactly, but—”

Starlight snorted. “Yes. I’ve been pretending I’m interested in witchcraft research to make it easier for her to pretend the same, and I think she’s bought it? But she’s a terrible liar herself.” No shortage of love in those last words—she was smiling while she said them.

Twilight nodded. “Right,” she said. “So you’re aware. Glad to hear that.”

“I’m letting her think she’s fooling me, but I honestly don’t mind it.” Starlight shrugged. “If this helps Trixie, if it makes her feel happy about herself for once, I don’t mind a little white lie.”

“Hmmm.” Twilight’s mouth became a thin hard line. “Right.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. She’s just embarrassed to say why she likes witchcraft, so much, but… Twilight, lately Trixie’s been talking about living under our shadow, about being looked down upon. She’s got me worried that she might—ah! What are you doing here?”

“Mrrrow. Meow meow.”

Starlight kneeled down and petted the cat. “There, there. We’re busy right now, do you mind coming back later?”

“Mrow.” Then it looked at Twilight. “Hisss!”

And the cat went away.

Starlight grinned as she watched it go. “These are some social kitties, aren’t they?”

“Resentful, too,” Twilight said, clicking her tongue. “So much for a single broom. We got them from Goldie Delicious—Applejack’s cousin? You know, the Apple family record-keeper, that old mare who lives with a lot of—”

“I’m not Trixie, Twilight. I know who she is.”

“Oh. Well, she’s the one who lent us most of her cats, and told us where to find some more.” Twilight arched an eyebrow. “And I don’t know what kind of owner Goldie Delicious is, but I can tell you herding cats is not as hard as ponies make it out to be.”

“Really?”

“I guess Fluttershy helped, but—“

“Well!” Trixie slammed the book shut it with a BLAM! that made both Trixie and Starlight jump. “Looks like witches can get whatever they want. They just make a wish, and poof! I can’t wait to do that.” Then she got up, and walked towards them. “So, are we done with cleaning yet? Can we leave?”

“Ah!” Starlight put on her best smile, and winced away from Twilight, reaching for a broom that wasn’t there. “Yes! No. Not at all. Sorry, this is a very big roof. Give us a couple hours, and—careful!”

“Wha?” And just like that, Trixie stepped over the tail of a cat, and lost her footing. “Ah! Ah!”

Starlight jumped. “Trixie!”

Trixie tripped again, out of reach. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!” And she tripped, and tumbled, and fell, and reached up with a hoof—

And then she was not falling anymore. She was grabbing a floating broom, frozen mid-fall—and with a “Hup!” and a little bit of a waggle, she climbed on top of it and sat down.

On the flying broom.

She hadn’t even dropped her hat, she was still wearing it.

“Oh. Huh.” Trixie looked down, ears perked up. She patted the broom, which moved up and down a little, seemingly following Trixie’s commands. “Huh.”

Starlight and Twilight hadn’t moved yet. Starlight was still reaching forward, as if trying to grab Trixie; Twilight had her wings wide open, ready to fly to the rescue at a moment’s notice. They stood, frozen, staring at Trixie for three seconds that felt like at least twenty.

And then Starlight gulped, and looked at Twilight. “You’re the one who enchanted that broom,” she said. “I thought it was a self-sweeping spell?”

“Technically speaking, I made it so the broom floats and follow commands. For cleaning, but I guess, if you ride it…”

Trixie twirled in midair. “This is actually quite comfortable!”

“If you’re to become a witch,” Twilight said, looking at Starlight. “You were always going to be one anyway. See what I mean?”

“Wait,” Starlight said. “Is this witchcraft, then? Seems a bit less intense than I thought it would be. It’s just a bit weird how—”

“Meow!”

Starlight shut up.

The cats were there. All the cats—all the ones on the roof at least—looking up, at Trixie, following her with their cute little eyes. They were all sitting down, most swishing the tail side to side as they watched.

And even though the broom was close to them, and even though you could clearly see them tensing up, baring her teeth and aching to either strike or run away—they weren’t.

They weren’t even hissing. They looked at the broom with hateful eyes, but still stood there, completely still. The three biggest cats moved, then—picked up the book Trixie had been carrying, and carried it to her.

“Meow, meow.”

“Thanks! But I’m done with that, you can keep it,” Trixie said. “Consider it a gift.”

“Meow.”

And the cats put the book down, and sat there, looking at Trixie still.

Twilight looked at the cats, then at Trixie flying on her broom, and then at Starlight. “Cats,” she finally said.

“And brooms,” Starlight said.

“I’m a witch!” Trixie said, her grin even wider. “I’m a witch! Starlight, are you seeing this? Are you seeing it?”

Starlight saw the smile, and looked ready to cry in a good way. “I am,” she said. “You’re a witch. I can’t believe you’re a witch!”

“I know! I’m amazing!”

“You are!”

“We are literally in mortal danger as we speak,” Twilight said, and she spoke louder than needed with the express purpose of ruining that little moment. “These are forces we don’t understand that are actively changing the world around us, girls.” She looked up. “Trixie, did you intend to do literally any of this? Flying on a broom, charming the cats…?”

Trixie grinned at her. “Not in the slightest!”

“Right.” Twilight gave Starlight the side eye. “So there’s witchcraft happening, for the first time in over fifty generations, and she’s not controlling it. Nopony’s controlling it. But it still happens. Wonderful.”

Starlight came down to the real world when she looked away from Trixie’s unabashedly happy face, and her ears went flat against her face. “Ah,” Starlight said. “Right. Yes. When you put it like that—”

“So I need to control it!” Trixie said, twirling around on her broom. “I’m sure it’ll be easy, I’m really talented.”

“Hmmm.” Starlight was rubbing her chin. “But we don’t even know how witchcraft works, or how you become a witch, or…” Starlight waved at Trixie. “What did you do to end up like this?”

“I read a book! And I didn’t help you clean the roof. I would’ve helped you, don’t get me wrong, but—”

“No, no, entirely understandable, this is Twilight’s house.”

Twilight frowned. “Why does that make it entirely understandable.”

“So you didn’t help. Does that count as wicked?” Starlight looked at Twilight. “It’s not evil, but it’s very not righteous. I’d say that counts as wicked.”

“Reaching a bit.”

“But it makes sense, you think?”

“It does. And I do. Both.” Twilight waved at Trixie. “You should try to be a bit more wicked, in general—I can’t believe I’m saying this—and then try to seize conscious control of your witchy powers. You think you could do that?”

“For you?” Trixie said, looking at Twilight. “Oh, I’d be my best self just to spite you.”

“Please be,” Twilight said.

“But this was Starlight’s idea! So I’ll be as wicked as I can be.” Trixie winked at them. “Any suggestions on how to do that? Wait, no, don’t say anything, I’ve an idea already. I’m going to vandalize your library some more.”

“Oh, no,” Twilight said.

“Oh, yeah! That sounds lovely. Have fun!” Starlight waved at Trixie. “Don’t break anything, though, that’d be straight up evil. Just be mildly annoying!”

“I’ll try my hardest, love you, bye!”

And Trixie kicked the broom, and it flew higher, and then lower, and then she turned a corner, and then she was gone.

None of the cats moved until she was out of sight.

“Well.” Starlight looked around, picked up Trixie’s book. Wands and Wisdom, it was called. She paged through it as she talked. “That’s that. Can you get me another broom so we can finish cleaning this place?”

Twilight frowned. “I don’t like this.”

“I know.” Starlight looked at Twilight, smiling. “But you saw her, right? How happy she was? I had never seen her like that before.”

“Danger, Starlight. We’re in danger.”

“Didn’t you say that she wouldn’t turn evil?” Starlight went back to her book. “Once she learns to—”

“HISSS!”

“Ah!”

A cat had stepped over, tangling itself around Starlight’s legs, who stumbled and came close to falling down. She managed to regain her balance, but in the meantime, she lost her grasp on Trixie’s book.

Which went flying straight towards—

FLASH!

Twilight flashed her horn, freezing the book in mid-air.

Right in front of her face, which was clearly where the book had been headed.

“I don’t think she’ll turn evil,” Twilight said, putting the book down, voice sweet, motherly. “But Trixie got it wrong. It’s not wishes. Remember Tails of the Macabre? The book you found first?”

Starlight nodded, said nothing.

Twilight nodded back. “It was not a good translation of the original text. The wicked witch is not “the desired mare”. It’s “the one who desires”.”

Starlight made sure to step away from the cats, and then frowned. “And there’s a difference,” she ventured.

“There is.” Twilight flashed her horn, and the book vanished. “I trust Trixie, I know she’s a good pony, but—just because she won’t hurt anyone, that doesn’t mean no one will get hurt.”

And then Twilight went away to look for another broom for Starlight, and made sure not to step on any cats on her way. It took her a long time. She was very careful.

Kitty Cats

“MEOW!”

Twilight winced. “Ah!”

Her blood shone bright red under the sun.

It was the second day after the defeat of the Rat King, and the roofs were finished. Now it was time to clean the walls and the windows. Cue Twilight flying outside the castle, spray bottle of soap at the ready, scrubbing like her life was on the line.

Here’s the thing about cleaning windows: don’t mind the scrubbing. Focus on the drying. Once there’s soap and water all over the place, once the grime has been cleaned up, you need to grab a ball of crumpled-up newspaper, and then dry everything off. You don’t have to use newspaper, but newspaper is what works best.

Until the very last moment, you’ll think you’re messing it up. The newspaper doesn’t absorb the water, it smudges it, see? You’ll think you’re making it worse, you’re ruining a perfectly good thing, you have no idea what you’re doing—and then, suddenly, so fast you can’t see when it happens? Everything looks nice, and perfect, and wonderful.

Cleaning a window is exactly like raising a child, that way.

“Ouch.” Twilight waved her hoof in the air, wincing at the pain. Three red lines across her forearm, one of them deep enough to drip blood. She blew on it, and then frowned at the cat in front of her. “Don’t do that! Look, it was getting dark and we weren’t making any progress, okay? If I hadn’t charmed the brooms we would’ve never finished the roof. I didn’t like it either! I’m not the one to blame!”

“Hisssss!”

The cat tried to scratch her a second time, and Twilight flapped her wings and flew some feet away from the window she’d been scrubbing. “Okay. That’s it.” Twilight said, frowning, flashing her horn and pointing at the cat with the soap. “I have a bottle of soap and I am not scared to use it. Don’t try me.”

The cat squinted. “Hisssss.” Arched its back. Rose a paw in the air.

Twilight squinted back. “Wrong choice.”

And she squirted soap at the cat’s face.

The ensuing fight involved a lot of screaming, some lost feathers, and the cat doing a brave leap out of the window so it could get at Twilight’s eyes—but ultimately, Twilight won, and the cat went away.

It just cost Twilight three more scratches, a bit of hair, and most of her dignity.

“Wow.” From around the corner came Spike, looking at the cat as it ran back into the Castle, tail between its legs. Spike was also flying, and also carrying a bottle of soap, and some newspaper under his arm. “They can really hold a grudge, can’t they?”

“Yes. Isn’t it convenient?” Twilight went back to the window, and a second cat, bigger and browner, came out of nowhere to hiss at her. She squirted it with soap without looking, and the cat ran away. “They just happen to attack me on sight now. Lovely.”

Spike saw Twilight’s eyes, he heard the tone of her voice, and frowned. “Right,” he said. “So… Is this about Trixie being a—”

“It’s absolutely about Trixie being a witch.”

Spike sighed. “Figured.”

“I saw this coming a mile away. Did cats ever like me?” Twilight went back at the window, scrubbing more furiously than ever. “I have no idea! Is this Trixie’s fault? No way to know!” She glared at the scratches on her forearms. “But either way, I’m the one bleeding.”

Spike frowned, and then got a page of old newspaper and crumpled it up in a ball. “That looks bad,” he said. “We should disinfect it. Want me to go get the kit?”

“Yes, please.”

“Sure.” Spike looked at the window, then at the ball of newspaper in his hand, and then he offered it to Twilight. “Mind drying this one for me?”

Twilight didn’t, and so, Spike left.

For the next five seconds, Twilight just focused on the windows. Silent, frowning, trying not to think about the pain on her forearm. At least there was catharsis to be found in cleaning windows. There’s something hypnotic about the repetition, something relaxing about—

Trixie’s voice, behind her: “You missed a spot there!”

And out of the corner of her eye, Twilight saw that—indeed, over there, in the upper right corner. A little brown stain. She hadn’t seen it before, though. Had it appeared when Trixie had pointed it out, or was it there from the start?

Twilight grit her teeth so hard, for a moment, she feared one of them might break. She rubbed at the stain until it disappeared, and then she turned around. “Trixie,” she said.

Trixie came down flying.

She was still riding the broom, sitting upright, tail swishing in the wind. She was wearing her signature hat with a bit more pride than usual, and her cape fluttered in the wind every time the broom moved around.

She looked good, actually.

“You know, you’re doing a terrible job at this.” Trixie looked at the windows behind Twilight. “This looks worse than when you started.”

Twilight took a deep breath, and went back to smudge the windows with the newspaper. “Why are you here, Trixie? Need another book? I gave Starlight a list, so…”

“Nah, not really.” Trixie inched closer, and leaned forward on her broom. “I wanted to talk to you, Princess.”

The newspaper balls squeaked against the windows. Twilight looked at Trixie. “Funny. I wanted to talk to you too.” She rose a forearm in the air, little drops of blood dripping from the deeper scratch still. “Would you please stop doing this?”

“Doing what.”

“Mostly just being yourself, but if I have to be specific, not throwing the cats at me would be nice.” Twilight sighed. “Listen, you’re not going to stop fooling with witchcraft no matter what I say, but the least you could do is—”

“Yes, yes.” Trixie spoke slightly louder, and then flew to the side, leaning against the Castle wall, still looking at Twilight. “See, that’s what I wanted to talk about, Princess. We both know that this,” and Trixie pointed at her hat, at the broom, at her entire persona, “is a bad idea. But you have to stop pointing it out.”

There was a moment of silence. The only thing you could hear was the squeak of the newspaper balls drying off the windows.

Then Twilight blinked, and looked at Trixie again. “I’m sorry?”

“Oh, please, Princess.” Trixie rolled her eyes, and did a little twirl on her broom. “Me? A witch? I’ve no idea what I’m doing, something terrible might happen, and if it does it’ll be my fault. Again.” The next words, she said a little harder than usual. and while looking down, at her hooves. Frown on her face. “To the surprise of absolutely no one.”

Pause.

Twilight squinted. “Trixie? You okay?”

“Please.” Trixie looked up again, smug delight in her eyes. “I’m never just ‘okay’. I’m great. And powerful, you know? It’s kind of a thing.”

“Uh-huh. That is absolutely not what I was asking, you’re aware.”

“And that is so sad, isn’t it. So.” Trixie nodded at Twilight’s scratches. “What happened to you anyway.”

Twilight frowned, looked at her forearm, back at Trixie. “The cats keep attacking me.”

“Because of me?”

“…I think?”

Trixie clicked her tongue, annoyed. In moments like these, she looked just like Starlight, Twilight noticed. Same expression. Maybe a bit sharper around the edges.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Trixie said.

Twilight perked up her ears. She kept on drying the windows. “You didn’t?”

“No.” And then Trixie tipped up her hat. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, any other day I would absolutely go out of my way to make your life difficult.”

“Right.”

“I really can’t stand you.”

“I’m aware.”

“But I didn’t know the cats were… I’ll ask them to stop. Or try to. They’ll probably listen, right? They love me.” Trixie shook her head, and suddenly she was talking louder, and her back was straight. “Anyway! Whatever! Can you shut up or not?”

Twilight arched an eyebrow, still working on the windows. “You mean, about the fact that this is all a terrible idea,” she said. “The witchcraft thing.”

“Yes.”

“Even though you agree?”

“Yes.”

Twilight took a deep breath. Many things went through her head, but mostly, she thought she finally understood what Trixie was hiding, what she was lying about—and so, Twilight tried really hard not to grin. “Why’s that, then?”

And Trixie replied, simply:

“It makes Starlight happy!”

Twilight was done with the windows now. They looked amazing—all the water had dried out, the smudges were gone, they looked crystal clear. Better than the day the Castle had been built.

Twilight smiled. It was enough to make one proud.

And then she looked at Trixie. “Really?” she asked, making sure to come off as antagonistic as possible—Trixie was a contrarian; you couldn’t show sympathy, or else she’d go out of her way to annoy you. “You’re doing this for Starlight. That’s your whole motivation?”

“She’s so excited about it! Have you listened to her talking about it?” Trixie looked away from Twilight, stared into the distance, and in that moment she looked sweet. “She literally looked me in the eye and said, ‘yes, Trixie, we just discovered an obscure source of ancient power, and I want you to play with it instead’. Come on.” Smile on her face.

Twilight put the balls of newspaper down. “Right,” she said. “I guess that sounds somewhat familiar.”

“Yes. I don’t care for scientific discovery, and I got this hat,” Trixie pointed at her hat, “at a discount Nightmare Night costume shop. But the moment Starlight read that book and saw the witch looked like me, she was elated. I’d never seen her like that. What did you want me to do? Just tell her I don’t care?”

Twilight made a point to cross her arms and arch an eyebrow. “So that’s it? You’re turning into a witch because you want to be nice to Starlight. You know you can just buy her flowers, right?”

Trixie clicked her tongue. When she spoke next, there was an edge of steel to her voice. “Listen, Princess.” She made the word sound insulting. “We don’t get along. I get it. I’m Starlight’s cool new marefriend, and you’re her overbearing, strict, boring mother. You hate me, and I can’t stand you, and that’s our current relationship. I get it.”

Twilight’s eye twitched. “I mean,” she said. “If you’re just going to say it, sure.”

“But the least you can do is let Starlight have fun, for once, without feeling guilty. Is it really that hard?” Trixie stared. “You have one redeeming feature, Princess Twilight, and that’s that you care for Starlight. That’s it. That’s the one thing I respect about you.”

Twilight’s straightened her back, met Trixie’s glare one for one. Edge of steel in her voice, too. “Funny,” she said. “I could say the same about you.”

“Good. So just. Don’t be terrible, for once? Show some support?” Trixie squinted. “Starlight wants this more than anything right now. And I don’t—she said she trusted me, okay? I think it’s a bad idea, I fear I might hurt somepony. But she said she trusted me.”

Twilight nodded. “Starlight does trust you. She always has.”

“And I’m not going to let her down. It doesn’t matter what I think, because she believes in me, and I trust her better than I trust myself. Is it that hard to get? Is it such a difficult thing to believe?”

Twilight gave Trixie a look. “I don’t think you could let her down if you tried,” she said. “But we’re playing with forces we don’t understand, dark forces we don’t understand. What if something happens anyway, and you can’t control it? Starlight will be crushed. This was her idea, she’ll blame herself.”

“Then do your job! Save the day, and…” Trixie waved a hoof in the air. “I don’t know, don’t tell her ‘I told you so’. Say we learned a lot about witchcraft, come up with whatever. Blame it all on me! I don’t care. Just don’t make her feel bad.”

“So. Lying,” Twilight said. “You mean I should lie. For Starlight’s sake.”

“Oh, for the love of—yes! Yes, I’m asking for a little white lie! So Starlight stops thinking that she’s a burden to the whole world! Did you know she still blames herself for that stupid time traveling nonsense?” Trixie grind her teeth. “She’s my best friend, and I love her, and you should shut up about witchcraft being terrible already.”

“Sure.”

“But I guess you’re too much of a goody-two-shoes to—what. What?” Trixie blinked, and inched away from Twilight, frowning. “What did you just say.”

“I said sure.” Twilight shrugged. “I don’t like lying, but I care for Starlight, too. As much as you do, just in a different way.”

“…What.”

“Sometimes a pony is worth following a crazy plan.” Twilight looked at Trixie, and this time she was smiling at her, but she made it look like a smirk. Because Trixie was a contrarian. You had to play the game with her. “That’s a lesson I learned a while ago. If Starlight says you’ll try your best, I believe it.”

“I. I mean. Well.” Trixie looked around, fidgeted, inched away from Twilight again. “Whatever!” she said. “You’ll shut up about witchcraft being a bad idea, then?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll stop criticising Starlight for it.”

Twilight nodded, rose both hooves in the air. “I’ll watch from the sidelines, but that’s it. I’ll stop nagging you two. And if things go down, I’ll do my best to save the day, and I’ll make it look like none of you are at fault. I agree with you that Starlight deserves that, at least.” Then she offered Trixie a hoof. “Deal?”

Trixie fidgeted some more, looked at Twilight’s hoof, at Twilight’s face. Squinted. “Well,” she said, eventually. “Sure. Just—don’t mess it up.”

And then Trixie flew away, never shaking Twilight’s hoof, and once she was completely out of sight, Twilight allowed herself a very hearty chuckle.

Five minutes later, Spike came back with the first aid kit, disinfectant and bandages in hand—and was met by a humming Twilight, grin as wide as the horizon in her face.

So he reeled back a little. “…Someone’s in a good mood,” he said.

“Hmm. Well, you know.” Twilight smiled at him, and showed him her forearm with the scratches. “Cleaning relaxes me, I suppose.”

“Good!” Spike poured some disinfectant on the cotton, grabbed it with the pliers, and started applying it to Twilight’s wound. “Sorry if it stings.”

“Don’t worry. Oh, and we don’t have to worry about the cats attacking me anymore. I think they’ll forget about the brooms pretty soon.”

Spike blinked. “Huh. Well. That was quick.” And then he pointed at the side. “Also, you did a really good job over here. I’d never seen these windows look this clean.”

“Well, what can I say. Sometimes we both forget I’m actually really good at my job.”

Lovely Ladies

Starlight witnessed reality warping itself inside out, and then she went: “Oh my gosh.”

But like, in a good way.

And then she came out of the bed and beamed at Trixie, holding something up. “Look what I found!”

Trixie looked. “Is that a kite.”

“It’s my favorite kite!”

Trixie looked again. It was kite-shaped, which is entirely expected when talking about a kite, but still kind of boring. No ornaments, no decoration. Dull shade of green. If that kite had been music, it would’ve been played in elevators. If it had been a pony, it would’ve been Spike.

So Trixie smiled. “Right. It’s very pretty. No wonder it’s your favorite.”

“I know! It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Starlight got up, patted the dust off her mane and back, and then looked at the kite with shining eyes. “Spike gave it to me as a gift when I first moved in here.”

“Would’ve never guessed.”

“And I thought I’d lost it! I’ve no idea how it ended up under the bed. Maybe it fell from the wall?” Starlight caressed the kite with a love that bordered on eroticism, then looked at Trixie. “Thank you so much! Did you want me to find it?”

Trixie put on the kind of smile that explained why she’d made a living out of showmanship. “Well,” she said. “Not, uh, quite. I was hoping you’d find some treasure.”

“I mean, I really love this kite.”

“Aren’t you adorable.”

“Thank you!”

Trixie chose not to add anything else. Because Starlight really was adorable, Trixie liked her a lot, and sometimes you genuinely need to pick your battles.

It was the third day after the defeat of the Rat King, and it was time to clean around the corners.

The place was Starlight’s room, but it was in Twilight’s Castle, so the walls were purple crystal, all sharp edges and hard turns. The bed was small and wooden-framed, comfortable only if you romanticise back pain, and there was a small desk, and two small chairs, and kites hung on the walls.

So it was cozy, because it smelled like Starlight, but it was oppressive, because it felt like Twilight.

“I can’t believe it took me this long to look under my own bed.” Starlight hummed then flashed her horn and hung the kite in its rightful place—right above her bedframe. “So did you do anything special? To make me find the kite, I mean.”

Trixie was sitting on Starlight’s bed, holding a book. Neither of them were cleaning. “Not really?”

Starlight flashed her horn, and a little notebook and quill appeared in front of her. She opened the one and got the other ready. “Right. Were you thinking about something in particular when you asked me to look under the bed, or…?”

Trixie arched an eyebrow. “Why would I need to do that?”

“I don’t know. To suggest something useful?”

“Why would I need to do that?”

Starlight frowned. She looked at Trixie, then at the notebook, then at Trixie again. “Hold on. Is that a witch thing, or is it a Trixie thing?”

Trixie sat up, her back a little more straight, and then tilted her head to the side. “Are you genuinely asking me if I think before I speak?”

Pause.

“You know what, yeah, that was a dumb question. Sorry, my bad.” Starlight nodded, and then scribbled some words on the notebook. “Still, good to know you don’t need to do that to be a witch! You really were born for this, it’s uncanny.”

“I know, right? This,” Trixie leaned backwards, waved at her entire body, “is all talent. Do you actually think before you speak?”

“Hmmm.” Starlight poked her chin with the quill, and then scribbled some more. “Exhaustively.”

“It doesn’t show at all.”

“I know.” Starlight looked up from her notebook, and looked at Trixie. “And I’m taking that as a compliment, because I assume you mean I must think very fast?”

Trixie frowned. “What else would I mean?”

And Starlight closed the notebook, and smiled at Trixie. “You’re adorable,” she said.

“Oh. Thanks! That’s very nice of you to say.”

“I know.” Starlight sighed, and turned a page on the notebook. “So why did you tell me to look under the bed? Because this was witchcraft, right? We can both agree on that.”

Trixie groaned, and then jumped off the bed. “I guess?” she said, looking at the kite on the wall, and then at the space under the bed. “I didn’t really do anything.”

“You found my kite.”

“Because you asked me to do witchcraft! And I wanted to find some treasure, I guess. I don’t know, the bed was just there. I didn’t want to go down to the garden and start digging.” Trixie kicked the bed lightly, just enough to nudge it a little. “And I was expecting diamonds.”

“I don’t know why I would have diamonds under my bed. I guess Spike could use it to hide some snacks? Bit of a stretch.” Starlight shrugged. “The kite makes more sense. It’s always been there, but you’re the one who told me to look.” Then she opened the notebook again, scribbled some more, and closed it. “Still! You wanted there to be witchcraft, and so there was witchcraft, but you couldn’t get the specifics. That’s good to know.”

Trixie was looking at Starlight. “Does the dragon actually eat diamonds.”

“Yeah.”

“Actual diamonds?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s so decadent.”

“And Sugarcube Corner sells sapphire milkshakes! I think Ponyville genuinely doesn’t understand the value of money.” Starlight nodded at Trixie. “Try it again! Maybe focus harder on what you want?”

Trixie frowned. She looked around the room, and her eyes settled on the bedside table. “Okay. There’s a pile of gold coins in there.”

Starlight followed Trixie’s glare. “What? In the drawer?”

“Sure. Split it, half each?”

“Why would I have gold in there.”

“To go halvsies with me.”

“I—? I guess?” Starlight trotted to the drawer, all the while looking at Trixie. “Why are you obsessed with finding money, anyway?”

Trixie waved a hoof. “I live in a wagon.”

Starlight snorted, and then opened the drawer. No gold. Just some tissues, a photograph of Trixie and Starlight hugging, two half-read books, sleeping pills, and a pen. “I thought you loved your wagon? Also, there’s no money here.”

“I do love my wagon!” Trixie placed a hoof against her chest, offended. “It’s a great wagon! But we both agree it’s a bit too small, don’t we? I could get a second one, or some other place to sleep. Do you like your room?”

“I do. And there’s no money here, Trixie.”

Trixie frowned and looked around the room again. “You shouldn’t like it. It’s way too small.”

Starlight rolled her eyes. “I know, I know.”

“I love what you did with it!” Trixie pointed at the kites on the walls. They looked terrible. “These look great!” No irony in her voice, or her eyes. “You’re great at decorating.”

“Trixie, you’ve told me this a million times already, and.” Starlight turned around slightly, so that Trixie could see the drawer, and pointed at it. “There’s no pile of gold here. Can we focus.”

“But you can only do so much with a room given to you by Princess Twilight.” Trixie clicked her tongue, and then shook her head, and trotted to the drawer. “So!” All smiles again, looking at Starlight. “No money.”

“No money.”

Trixie pointed. “Are those the books I bought you for your birthday?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Starlight smirked. “Are you going to ask me if I treasure them?”

“You do?”

“I do.”

Trixie smirked back. “Of course you do.”

“Show-off.” Starlight giggled, and went back to her notebook. “No money, but a—well, a treasure of mine, I suppose, but you specifically asked for gold coins, so… Did you try to do anything special when you asked me to look here?”

Trixie thought about it. “I guess I was hoping to find some money? I don’t know how to tell you I don’t think about the things I say. I’ve no idea why I do anything.”

Starlight giggled, and then opened the notebook again and wrote some more. “Well, I appreciate your consistency. Makes it easier on me, at least.”

“So why is there no money here?” Trixie looked inside the drawer, rummaged through it a little. “Does witchcraft only work sometimes, or…?”

Starlight shook her head. “I don’t know. But, I mean, I open this drawer every morning. I knew there wasn’t any money. Witchcraft means whatever you want has already been there, right?” Scribbled some more. “It makes more sense if we’re not sure what we’re going to find. What’s behind that door?”

Trixie’s ears perked up, and she turned around to reply—and then shut her mouth. She leaned towards Starlight and looked at the notebook. “What are you writing anyway.”

Starlight didn’t look up, but she tilted the notebook to the side, so Trixie could read it. “You know everything I’m saying?”

“Yeah.”

“That. I’m writing that.”

“You can write and talk at the same time?”

“And I think about everything, on top of it all.”

Trixie looked at Starlight. “Wow. You’re great at this.”

“I have to, or you’d be too good for me.” Starlight tapped the quill on the notebook, and pointed at the door. It was closed. “What’s behind that door? Spike has been moving stuff around all morning, and we haven’t looked in hours. Might be anything.”

Trixie looked. Frowned. “Jewels? A pile of gemstones. Split it in half?”

Starlight looked at Trixie.

And Trixie frowned. “What. Come on, at least one diamond. One real, actual gemstone? I’m sure that’s not too much to ask for. Split it in half?”

Starlight did one of those sighs that sounded a little like laughter, and then put the notebook down and went for the door. She was still half-smirking, but truth is, she was a bit nervous about it. There’s something about witchcraft, it never makes you not jittery. Behind her, Trixie leaned forward, eyes shining.

Starlight opened the door.

Her own face greeted her at the other side.

A big round mirror, turns out. Spike had been moving furniture around, that’s what thorough cleaning looks like, and the round mirror from the hallway was sitting on the wall in front of Starlight’s room.

So Starlight blinked. “One real gemstone,” she said, looking at her own face. And then she smiled, really really wide. “A real gem! And it’s me! Aaaaw.” She giggled, and looked around to look at Trixie. Ears perked up, tail wagging. “You’re so sweet! Thank you!”

Trixie frowned, and walked to the door to look, too. “Oh. Oh, huh.”

“Show-off.” Starlight giggled again, and then pawed at Trixie’s mane. “Were you actually trying to flatter me?.”

Trixie immediately gave Starlight a winning smile. A smirk coated in silver. Eyebrow waggling. “Well, you know,“ she said.

“Not in the slightest, I take.”

“I really want some money! How is it this hard to get any?”

“Oh, well.” Starlight winked at Trixie. “I’ll take the compliment anyway.” Then she closed the door and walked back to the bed, all the while writing on the notebook. “You wish for money but desire to make me happy, looks like. Which is absolutely lovely, and also means that you can’t control witchcraft.”

Trixie arched an eyebrow, the smile still showing. “Not yet,” she said.

“Not yet,” Starlight repeated. She scribbled a bit harder. “There, I wrote that too. I underlined the ‘yet’ twice.”

Trixie nodded. “Good.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a real gem, it’s what I do.” Starlight hummed under her breath and swished her tail side to side a little more. Then she put the quill away, and flipped through the notebook pages. She’d written on more than half of them already. “We’re learning a lot,” she mused. “More than I expected.”

“You’re welcome,” Trixie said, nose up to the skies, trotting to the bed and jumping on it. “I suppose it’s to be expected when you’re working with someone like me.” She blew a strand of mane off her face, and then looked at Starlight. “You won’t get results like these working with Princess Twilight.”

Starlight rolled her eyes—though she chuckled—and then she flashed the notebook away, and jumped on the bed too, sitting next to Trixie. “So. Uh.”

Trixie perked her ears up. She recognized the tone. “Yeah?”

“Are you happy, being a witch? Like…” Starlight rubbed the back of her neck. “You like it, right?”

“Sure!” Trixie leaned back; she was lounging, rather than sitting. The pose fit her quite well. “It’s great. I’m great at it.”

“Yeah. We haven’t tamed witchcraft yet, that’s a bit worrying, but there’s no reason to fret yet. I’m sure we only need a little more work, and—”

Trixie’s mouth was a thin hard line. She didn’t frown, though, she was good at this. “I’ll control it,” she said. “I’m not going to hurt anypony.”

Which made Starlight blink. “What?”

“I said I’ll control it! I’m going to prove Princess Twilight wrong.” Trixie sounded fierce, here. “And I’ll love every moment of it.”

“Wha—I mean, yeah! Obviously! I know you won’t hurt anypony, that’s a given.” Starlight shook her head, scooted closer to Trixie, waved a hoof in the air. “I wasn’t talking about that.”

“Oh.” Trixie blinked. “You said it was worrying?”

“Yes, but I meant that—hm. That you don’t have to worry. Not that I…” Starlight sucked air through her teeth, and then started again. “Listen, is there anything in particular you want out of witchcraft? I meant more like, if you do, you’ll get it soon. So don’t fret or get impatient. That’s all.”

Trixie frowned. “Oh.”

“So is there anything you want?”

No hesitation. Immediate answer. “Piles of money.”

Starlight blinked. “Wait, for real?”

“Yeah!”

“I thought you were only asking for that because you were too lazy to come up with anything else?”

“Oh.” Trixie nodded. “That’s a fair assumption! But I really want money.”

“Right. I had no idea. Are you going through some rough times or something?” Starlight leaned towards Trixie. “I have some savings, I can just help you to—”

“No, no, I don’t need the money, I just want it.” Trixie rolled her eyes, and then she lounged a bit harder on the bed. “It’d be better if we both found some! So we’d split it in half.”

“You’re really obsessed with that.”

“Because it’s the best case scenario. That’s all I want from witchcraft, really.” Trixie looked at Starlight. “See? Perfectly harmless. Nopony’s getting hurt.”

“I know.”

“Just in case.”

“Trixie, you don’t have to be so—are you actually scared you’re going to hurt somepony? Is that it? You’re better than that. You’re a natural at witchcraft.” Starlight elbowed Trixie. “And in a way, you’re more powerful than me. Maybe even Princess Twilight! You love that, don’t you?”

Trixie grinned, and said: “Meh, it’s not bad.”

Pause.

Starlight blinked. “What.”

And Trixie blinked, too. “What?”

“What do you mean, ‘it’s not bad’. What do you mean, ‘meh’?”

“I mean—”

“I thought that’s what you’d been wanting for a while?” Starlight reeled back a little so she could look at Trixie a bit better, frowning now. “Weren’t you jealous of Twilight for being a princess?”

“What?!” Trixie jumped, here—she went from lounging to standing in a moment, eyes flashing. “Jealous? Of her?” The words came out like a hiss. Hatred made sound. “What for. I’m better than she’ll ever be.”

Pause.

Starlight frowned. “Wow.”

Trixie glared. “Yeah.”

“I thought you were—aren’t you at least a bit, I don’t know.” Starlight squinted. “Annoyed that she’s a princess and you’re not? I mean, it’s better if you don’t, absolutely, but I thought—”

“If she’s a princess, then being one was never that good anyway.”

“Okay, yeah, this runs way deeper than I thought. I mean, good that you’re not jealous?” Starlight rubbed the space between her eyes. “There’s a lot to unpack here. Don’t know where to start.”

“I’m not jealous. I hate her, but I’m not jealous.”

“Yes, no, that much is clear. Okay! That’s a conversation to have in the future. Twilight is a good pony, okay? You don’t have to like her, but I love her like a—”

“I know.” Trixie sat down again, her glare softening a little. “Just making things clear. I’m okay with her because you like her. But I’m not.” There was the hiss again. “Jealous of her.”

Starlight nodded, slowly. “Oooo-kay. Right. I just… I don’t know, I thought you resented the fact that she was more powerful than you?”

Trixie puffed her chest out. “She wishes she were.”

“…Do you actually believe that.”

“Yes.” Pause. “Well. No. But I’m still better than her where it counts!”

Starlight nodded again. A bit faster, this time. “Then you don’t think she’s looking down on you.”

Trixie snorted. “I do not.”

“But—when we were at the library, remember? Researching rats?” Starlight frowned, poked Trixie on the side. “You asked me if I was tired of her looking down everypony! I thought you were self-conscious about how Twilight and I are more powerful than you?”

“I wanted to know if you were self-conscious about it!” Trixie said. “I asked if you were tired of her looking down on you. Not me!”

“What!” Starlight was the one reeling back here, hoof against her chest. “I’m not! Why would—she doesn’t look down on me!”

“She doesn’t?”

“Why would she?”

“I don’t know, because she’s terrible?” Trixie frowned. “I just wanted to know if you were tired of living here, is all. You’re a bit too good at overthinking, sometimes.”

Starlight snorted again. “So all that talk about her living in a castle, and how uppity that was? Was that—wait.” She blinked. Poked Trixie again. “Wait, so that wasn’t you saying she thought she was better than you.”

“I would literally never say that. She knows I’m better than her!”

“You were—oh my gosh.”

Starlight ran it all through her head again. Aren’t you tired of living in her shadow, Starlight? She lives in a castle, and I live in a wagon, and isn’t that better, Starlight?

I love my wagon, but we both know it’s too small, Starlight.

Your room is too small too, Starlight.

We should split the money, Starlight, it’s the best case scenario.

Starlight’s eyes went wide. Like, wide. Like, in actual danger of them falling out. She looked at Trixie and for a moment she was short of breath, she was very nervous, and she had no idea why. “Oh my gosh,” she repeated, leaning closer to Trixie. “You want us to live together.”

Trixie looked at her.

Then she looked down, and fiddled with her hooves. “I mean,” she mumbled. Mumbled. The Great and Powerful Trixie was mumbling. “If you want to.”

“Oh my gosh. You want to move out with me! You want us to live together?” Starlight grinned, and she leaned even closer. “You want us to live together!”

Trixie looked at her, saw Starlight was smiling, smiled again. Shyly. Try to picture that. “I mean—”

“Trixie, I would love living with you! Oh my gosh!” Starlight barked out a laugh, and then hugged Trixie, nuzzled her on the side of her face. “Trixie, I had no idea! You want to live with me? Really?”

Trixie hugged her back. She giggled. “It would be great,” she said. “Wouldn’t it?”

“It would be wonderful!” Then Starlight opened her eyes, and let Trixie go. “Well. That, or we’ll kill each other. Do you think we’ll kill each other? I mean, that roadtrip—”

“Was great! I mean, until it was terrible and we wanted to kill each other. We will need separate rooms, or something like that. You snore.”

“I snore! I snore a lot!” Starlight’s grin came back. Eyes full of stars. “And you still want to live with me!”

Trixie grinned back. Eyes full of stars, too. “I do!”

And then they hugged again, and laughed, and kept on hugging.

Eventually, they let go—though they did not stop grinning for a while.

“Aaaah.” Starlight hiccuped a little from the laughter, and then kept a hoof on Trixie’s shoulder, and looked at her. “Trixie, I’d love to live with you. I’d—uh. Do we need to buy a house?”

“Do you want to sleep in my wagon again? Because I’m not living in this castle.”

“Right. We need to buy a house.” Starlight frowned. “I mean, I have some savings, but—”

“I should find some treasure?”

“You should find some treasure, yes. That would make things easier. Let’s split it in half.” Starlight frowned, then, and pointed at the window. “So… Wait, you want to live here, in Ponyville? Forever? With me?”

“I could settle down.” Trixie shrugged. “I am a travelling magician, but I wouldn’t mind staying here. Ponyville loves my shows, doesn’t it? And sometimes the road gets lonely.”

Starlight smiled, and pressed a hoof against her chest again. “You’d settle down for me!”

Trixie gave her a coy look. The kind a seductress would use. It looked good on her. “Oh, well, I can always do a yearly tour around Equestria. Ask for a higher price. Make it exclusive, don’t you think?”

“That’s a wonderful idea!” Then Starlight cocked her head to the side, and scooted closer to Trixie, so that their sides were touching. “But, wait. So all you wanted was to move in with me?”

Trixie nodded.

“Then why did you want to try witchcraft?” Starlight asked. She noticed, perhaps with a bit of embarrassment, that her tail was still wagging—so she stopped it, and then went on. “I thought you just wanted to, well. To be more powerful. But if you really don’t want that…”

“I had power once, remember?” Trixie asked. She did not try to stop her tail from wagging, she just went on with it. Harder if anything. “Alicorn Amulet? Didn’t end well.”

“Right. So why were you so excited when we saw that book?”

Trixie leaned forward, gave Starlight the kind of look that would make a child go through puberty in an instant. “Scientific curiosity,” she purred.

“We both know that’s a lie.”

Same exact look, same exact purr: “I thought it’d make you happy.”

Pause.

Starlight half-chuckled. “Pfwhat? What?” Then she went serious. “No, for real. Seriously?”

And Trixie blinked, and the purr went away. “Uh. Yes? You sounded excited about it, so I thought—”

“I thought you were excited about it!”

“What! Why would I be!”

“Because you wanted to be more powerful! Because you were self-conscious about Twilight and me being—oh my gosh.” Starlight looked at her hooves. “Oh for the love of—”

“I’m not self-conscious!” Trixie said. “I was never self-conscious! Not once in my life.”

“Yeah, I’m realizing that now! Oh, for Celestia’s sake. You just did it cause you thought it’d make me happy, and I did it cause I thought it’d make you happy, and...” Starlight scooted away from Trixie, ears flat against her head, annoyance in her voice. “We both did it for each other? Seriously?”

Trixie backed off, too. “I thought you were into scientific curiosity!” she said, pointing at Starlight. “Are you telling me you don’t enjoy investigating this?”

“I havea degree of scientific curiosity, yes, but I also understand priorities!”

“You were taking notes! You wrote down everything I said to you!”

“I mean, if we’re doing this, might as well? But that’s just like, a plus!” Starlight held her face in her hooves, and groaned. “I can’t believe we were both doing this for each other. This is such a stupid misunderstanding.”

Pause.

Starlight took her face out of her hooves and looked at Trixie, suddenly smiling. “Aaaw,” she said. “We were doing this for each other!”

Trixie smiled too. “What a stupid misunderstanding!”

And they hugged again.

For three seconds. “Wait.” Trixie broke the hoof and pushed Starlight away. “Wait. Did Princess Twilight know about this?”

“Uuuuh.” Starlight thought about it. “I mean, I told her about it on my end.”

“Shoot.” Trixie looked to the side, frowning. “I told her, too.”

“Then, yeah, she definitely knew what we were doing.” Starlight puffed some air through her cheeks. “I mean, she probably saw it coming? Princess of Friendship and so on. Wow, she must think we’re idiots.”

“Ugh. She’s going to be so smug about this.”

“What? No way. Twilight wouldn’t—” Starlight saw the look Trixie was giving her, and bit her tongue. “Okay, fair point. This is you we’re talking about. She’s going to be pretty smug.”

“Great.” Trixie pouted, and then kicked her legs up and down. “I mean, I’m already a witch, though, so.”

“Yeah, not much we can do. Look for treasure?”

Trixie smirked. “And let’s buy a house.”

“Let’s!” Starlight chuckled, and then relaxed her shoulders. “Aaah. You’re a good friend, Trixie.”

“I know.” Trixie winked at her. “You’re not half-bad either.” Then she stopped, and then rubbed her forearm, and lowered her head a bit. “…You trusted me with witchcraft just to make me happy?”

Starlight got closer again, and elbowed Trixie. “Of course I did. I told you, didn’t I? I trust you’ll do the right thing.”

Trixie nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “I won’t let you down.”

“You couldn’t do it if you tried,” Starlight said, and this time it was her winking at Trixie. “Plus, so far witchcraft has been really gentle, hasn’t it? You’re really good at it.”

“Oh, well, you know. I’m just generally great like this.”

“You really are. Which is,” Starlight said, reaching over and poking Trixie on the snout, which made them both giggle, “why I know you’re not going to hurt anypony. You’re just generally great like that.”

And then there was a flash of green flames that filled the room.

FLASH!

And a note appeared, and slowly fell like a feather, facing them—and so they both could it before it reached the ground.

It was signed:

TWILIGHT SPARKLE.

And it read:

I’M IN THE HOSPITAL. GOT REALLY HURT.

IT WAS WITCHCRAFT.

They didn’t laugh anymore that day. Nopony really did.

Bubbly Brews

Twilight Sparkle was, like. Super happy.

“You two,” she said, and the manic grin in her face was so self-congratulatory it made Trixie look humble, “are such good friends! Look at you! You’re so sweet to each other! You’re so mushy!”

Trixie scowled. “Shut up.”

“Acting all tough, talking about good and evil. You just wanted to live together! You were worried about each other!”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up. Shut up!”

“Aaaah.” Twilight giggled. “Friendship truly is the gift that keeps on giving. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Trixie glared. “Aren’t you supposed to be in terrible pain?”

And Twilight said nothing, and just grinned a bit harder.

The place was a hospital, because Ponyville might be small, but it housed Rainbow Dash, so it really couldn’t do with just a clinic. Twilight’s room was small, with green walls and white curtains, but the air didn’t smell sterile. It was cozy, and smelled of wood and perfume.

Twilight was in a full body cast. All four legs, neck and back; there were band-aids on her ears, and her left eye was covered up with her old black eyepatch.

Starlight and Trixie were standing on each side of the bed. Starlight was carrying a bouquet of flowers, which she left on the bedside table—and then she sighed. “Twilight,” she said, putting a hoof on the bed. “What happened? How are you like this? You didn’t say anything in that letter.”

“Oh, this?” Twilight looked down at her own body. “A book fell on me. And then the rest of the bookshelf followed.” She wagged her tail a little more. “It’s not as bad as it seems!”

Starlight blinked, and looked at Trixie. Trixie arched an eyebrow. Starlight squinted. “The doctor told us you’ve broken, uh. Pretty much every bone in your body? Save the face?”

Twilight nodded. Her neck noticeably cracked. “Yeah!”

“Then…?”

“I’m really used to this by now. Did you know a piano fell on me once? That was a doozy.” Twilight wiggled her legs a little, and made a point to not wince in pain. “So this is not a big deal. Give me a day or two and I’ll be perfectly fine.”

Trixie was still arching an eyebrow. She flashed her horn, and one of the flowers from the bouquet on the bedside table floated across the room towards her. Trixie bit it in half. “You’re going to heal every bone in a couple days?”

“Alicorn princess! We heal fast.”

Trixie swallowed. “Uh-huh.”

“But how could this happen?” Starlight pressed, nudging the bed so Twilight would look at her. “A bookshelf fell on you? You could have teleported away, or shielded yourself, or…?”

“I was sleeping.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ultimate power doesn’t mean anything if you don’t see it coming. But it really isn’t that big a deal! Mostly I’m annoyed I’ll have to clean my room again. Which reminds me…” Twilight smiled. “I’m so glad you two finally worked out that misunderstanding. You’re moving in with Trixie, then?”

“…As soon as we get the money, I suppose, yes. Do you mind?”

“Oh, you don’t need my permission to do anything, Starlight. You know that.” Twilight’s one visible eye mellowed. “I’ll miss living with you, though. You were always the best roommate I could’ve asked for.”

“Aaaw. I’ll miss you, too.” Starlight smiled, and caressed Twilight’s hoof. She flashed her horn, and a flower went flying towards Twilight—and another towards Starlight herself. “So you’re… okay with witchcraft, now? Or do you still think it’s a bad idea, or…?”

“Starlight. I’m in the hospital.”

“Yes, that literally doesn’t answer my question.”

Twilight nibbled on the floating flower. “Mmm. I love daisies.” Then she swallowed, and looked at Starlight. “Well. I still think it’s dangerous and silly to try witchcraft. Me getting hurt was the best-case scenario.”

“I mean,” Trixie muttered, frowning. “If you’re just gonna say it.”

“But,” Twilight said, looking at Trixie for a moment, and then going back to Starlight, “I do appreciate why you thought of witchcraft, and I understand that, well. Your intentions were good! And if we’re discovering new schools of magic while we’re at it, then that’s wonderful.”

“My intentions. So, friendship.” Starlight smirked. “You’re okay with it because it’s about friendship?”

“I’m okay with it because it’s about friendship!” Twilight said. “You were both lying to each other to be nice without the other noticing! I can’t be annoyed at that. That’s precious.”

Trixie snorted, and mumbled by the side. “You don’t have to be so smug.”

Twilight spoke with unfiltered glee. “I really, really do, Trixie.” She savored every word like fine wine, swishing it around her mouth before letting it out. “I taught Starlight everything she knows about friendship, and she taught you. So, you’re welcome.”

“Shut up.”

Twilight chuckled, and then looked at Starlight. “So what have you learned about witchcraft? You haven’t actually told me.”

“Yeah.” Starlight bit on her floating flower, too. “She has control over witchcraft so far, but it’s more unconscious than conscious. Wishes versus desire, you said, right? Pretty much that. We’ve been trying to find a treasure, but all that’s happened so far is that Trixie keeps being nice to me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“More than usual, I mean! She’s always sweet. Right, Trixie?”

Trixie swallowed the rest of the flower, perked up her ears, and gave Starlight a look of honey and sparkling water. “I’m always amazing, yes. Only the best for the best.”

Starlight waved a hoof in the air, and then looked at Twilight. “She found my favorite kite! Stuff like that.”

“Hmmm.” Twilight looked at Starlight, then at Trixie, then at Starlight. “Uh-huh. Right. So—no treasure. No money, you mean?”

Trixie was the one replying this time. “I kept asking for it but nothing came.”

“Right.” Twilight nodded—her neck cracked again; once more she didn’t seem to notice—and then she looked at Trixie. “Say, Trixie? My back itches a lot. Can you go out and ask Nurse Redheart if she can bring that scratching stick of hers?”

Trixie frowned, and looked at the door. “Why would I do that.”

“Because I’m asking you?”

“That literally doesn’t answer my question.”

“Actually,” Starlight said, speaking a bit louder than necessary, “would you mind bringing me a drink while you’re on your way? I saw a vending machine downstairs, and there’s something in the air of this room that makes my throat hurt.” She gave Trixie the puppy look. “Please? If it’s not too much to ask?”

So Trixie left.

The moment the door closed behind her, Starlight turned to face Twilight. “You wanted her out of the room?” she asked.

“Yeah, thanks for catching that.” Twilight flashed her horn, and floated another flower towards her. She took a bite, and then pointed at the door. You could still hear Trixie’s hoofsteps in the corridor. “Starlight? Are you and Trixie just friends, or is there more…? I mean, are you two…?”

Starlight’s eyes went wide, and she leaned closer to the bed. “Oh my gosh,” she said, suddenly whispering. “So you’ve seen it, too? Like, it’s not just me.” Her ears perked up. “This is definitely flirting, right?”

“Yes. It is actively uncomfortable to be in the same room as you two.”

Starlight grinned, but it was a nervous grin. She fiddled with her hooves a little, still whispering. “I know!” she said. “I’ve been wondering—I’m not really good at this whole thing? So I didn’t know if, if I was reading too much into it, or… You know?”

Twilight took another bite of the flower, and swallowed. “I don’t,” she said. “I really, really, don’t. But you two are definitely flirting.”

“Yes! She’s flirting back, isn’t she?” Starlight giggled, and then looked at the door. “I keep second-guessing myself, because she’s very good at getting compliments? And I feel I’m the one who initiates every time, so I’m worried she might be just playing along and not really…”

“Starlight.”

Starlight looked at Twilight. “Yes?”

“You know how Rarity and Applejack get when they talk to each other?”

“Yes.”

“You two are like that but more blatant.”

Pause.

Starlight covered her mouth with a hoof and giggled again. Her tal swished side to side a little. “I know,” she said. “I’ve been trying to see how far I can push it, but she just plays along every time. And she really only uses witchcraft to be nice to me, it’s like she’s a natural.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, though there was a hint of a smile to the gesture, and finished the flower in one last bite. “So… Are you together, are you going to be together…?” Twilight squinted, trying to find the words. “You’ve done anything romantic already, or—?”

“Not yet! But, I mean, we’re moving together, so I guess that’s a possibility? Do you think we’re going to do anything soon? Does it look like it?” Starlight frowned, looked at the door again. “Maybe I should try to do something now instead of waiting?”

Pause.

“Starlight, look, I realize I’m not your literal mother, but I definitely am your mother figure, and I don’t know how comfortable I am discussing what you do or don’t do with—”

“I’m talking kissing, Twilight,” Starlight said. “Making out.”

“Oh. Oh!” Twilight’s ears perked up. “Well!”

“I am literally never going to discuss anything else regarding the topic of romance with you, trust me.”

“You have no idea how relieved I am after hearing that.” Twilight let the air out of her lungs, and then frowned. “So, I take it you want to…?”

“Yes.” Immediate reply. Then Starlight blinked, and looked to the side. “I mean. Mostly I just don’t want to make Trixie uncomfortable, and I am really bad at this, so I’m trying to, uh. See where we stand?”

“Well, you’re literally moving in together.”

“We are! I can’t wait.” Starlight smiled, and then rubbed the back of her head. “You know, it’s actually kind of relieving to hear it’s that obvious. It means I’m not just reading too much into things, right? We’re still new to this whole thing, so it’s a bit scary to—”

The door opened, and Trixie came in. “I got you a soda! Catch!”

Starlight sprung to action immediately, catching the can in midair with a burst of magic. Her back was straight, her tail was naturally curled up and unswish, and there wasn’t even a hint of a blush in her face. “Thank you!” she said, winking at Trixie, and cracking the can open. “How much do I owe you?”

Trixie waved a hoof in the air. “My treat.” Then she looked at Twilight. “I didn’t talk to the nurse, by the way.”

“Figured.”

“You just wanted me out of the room anyway.”

Starlight sipped her soda, and cast a glance at Twilight. Twilight shrugged, which made her entire back crack. “Perhaps.”

“Pfft.” Trixie rolled her eyes, and looked at Starlight. “What did she do? Say you can’t move in with me because I’m terrible?”

Starlight finished her sip, and frowned. “Trixie! Twilight would never say that.”

Twilight smiled. “That is literally what I said, yes—”

Starlight glared. “Twilight.”

“—But we both know Starlight would never listen, so.” Twilight smiled at Starlight, and then looked at Trixie. “I actually asked Starlight about what you did with witchcraft, in case she was hiding something from you. She wasn’t.”

This made both Starlight and Trixie perk up, and look at Twilight with the exact same expression.

“What?” That was Trixie.

“Why would I do that?” And that was Starlight.

Twilight regarded both, and then flashed her horn and floated another flower towards her mouth. “Because, you know,” she said. “Maybe something witchy happened without Trixie noticing. I can see you lying about that just to protect her, Starlight.”

This made Trixie look at Starlight, while Starlight herself just looked down. Trixie frowned. “What do you mean, to protect me?”

“Well,” Twilight said. “Let’s not beat around the bush—what happened to me was obviously witchcraft, Trixie. I’m sure that shelf was always going to fall on me while I was sleeping; I put too many books in there. But then the cats came after me once I was under all the rubble.”

This made Starlight look up. “The cats, too?”

And Twilight wiggled one of her legs in full cast to vaguely point at her own face. “Why do you think I’m wearing the eyepatch?”

“Ew.”

“I didn’t try to do anything to you,” Trixie said. She was still frowning, still looking at Twilight. “I never tried to—”

“Trixie, you can’t control witchcraft,” Twilight interrupted. “You said it yourselves; you’ve been trying to find a treasure, and all you could do was to be nice to Starlight, right?”

Trixie’s ears went flat against her head. “Mhmm.”

Starlight gulped, and forced a smile. “It was very nice, though! I really liked that, Trixie.”

“Mhmm.”

“Not wishes; desires,” Twilight said. “You don’t get what you consciously ask for—you get what you subconsciously want. You wanted to be a witch, so you got your broom and your cats. You like Starlight, and nice things happen to her. But you and I, we don’t like each other a lot, do we?”

Trixie smiled a little. Ears still against her head, tail still between her legs, but she smiled a little. Simple happiness in her voice. “We don’t.”

And Twilight smiled, too. Because she knew friendship comes in many forms, and platonic hatred can be one of them. “We really don’t,” she said. “You keep throwing books at my face. So, sure, consciously you weren’t trying to hurt me. But, subconsciously—”

“She made an entire bookshelf fall on you,” Starlight finished, looking at Trixie. “Because deep inside, part of her wanted this to happen. Oh, Trixie…”

Trixie looked at her, heartbroken. “Starlight, I—”

“Right, let me stop you right there, because I know where this is going,” Twilight said, speaking louder than the both of them. She flashed her horn, and the can of soda floated towards Starlight, who took it. Then a flower floated towards Trixie, who also took it. “Okay, so, Trixie, Starlight is not disappointed in you. She’s just worried about you because you might hate yourself for hurting me.”

Trixie blinked, and took a bite off the flower, looking at Starlight.

Twilight looked the other way. “And Starlight, Trixie doesn’t hate herself for hurting me, she’s just scared you might be disappointed in her.”

Starlight frowned, and sipped from the can, looking at Trixie.

Twilight nodded, and looked up at the ceiling. “So none of you is angry at the other or anything, and you’re just really good friends. That’s it. No drama whatsoever, okay? Also, nopony feels guilty about the fact that I’m in the hospital. Which is actually kind of sad, now that I say it out loud, isn’t it?” Pause. Smile. “Well, except for Fluttershy. She thinks she could have talked the cats out of attacking me. Fluttershy’s so nice. I should take her out for dinner some time.”

Trixie swallowed, and then pressed a hoof against her chest. “You aren’t angry? You were just worried? For me?”

Starlight gulped, and pretty much melted on the spot. “You were only afraid of disappointing me? Oh, Trixie, you could never do that!”

And then they both laughed, and crossed the room, and hugged each other.

Twilight said nothing. She just saw them laugh and make cooing noises at each other for three, five, fifteen seconds, and then she cleared her throat with a cough. “You done?” she asked.

Trixie gave her a sneer. “Not at all.”

“Actually.” Starlight giggled, and pushed Trixie aside. “Visiting hours are going to end soon, so we should probably wrap this up.”

“Aaaw.”

“Yes, well.” Twilight sighed. “Trixie, your task now is to work on controlling witchcraft. Ideally you would get it to listen to your conscious wishes only, but if that’s too much, you could try to make it so it only happens when you want it to.”

Trixie frowned. “And how do I do that?”

“You tell me. You’re the ones who have been researching witchcraft.”

“Well.” Starlight rubbed her chin. “The only thing we know about witches is that they’re wicked. And lately you haven’t been wicked at all, you’ve just been lovely. So maybe…?”

“I should be a little bit worse?” Trixie asked, cocking her head to the side. “I could do that! I could go and annoy your whole town if you want to.”

Twilight snorted. “I’m sure it won’t take that much of an effort.” Then, for the first time since Trixie and Starlight had been there, she winced. “Eugh. My back itches a lot. Starlight, can you go talk to Nurse Redheart? The scratching stick? I’d ask Trixie, but she won’t do it.”

Starlight arched an eyebrow. “Wait, you actually wanted that?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you just wanted to get rid of Trixie?”

“Yes.”

Pause.

“Are you asking me this because you want to get rid of m—”

“Starlight.”

“Right. Okay.” Starlight nodded, took another sip of her soda, and waved a hoof. “I’ll be waiting for you outside, Trixie! See you tomorrow, Twilight. Take care, and if you need anything, send a note, okay?”

“Sure, sure.” Twilight nodded towards the door. “See you tomorrow, Starlight.”

Starlight left.

Trixie turned to Twilight, flashing her horn so Starlight’s soda would float towards her. “So,” she said. “I threw a bookshelf at you, Princess.”

“Yes. But I know you didn’t choose to, and I’m not mad. Redemption takes time, and you couldn’t control it.” Twilight shook her head. “Not what I wanted to talk about anyway.”

“What.”

“Trixie.” Twilight’s stone was steely. Her one eye pierced Trixie like a spear. “Are you and Starlight just friends? Or are you…? You know. Together? Don’t make me say it.”

Trixie’s eyes opened wide, and then she cocked her head to the side, a smirk on her face. “Ooooh?” she asked, walking closer to the bed, ears perked up. “And why do we want to know, Princess?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Listen, she’s an adult, and she can do whatever she wants, but—we both know I don’t like you.”

“So, what? You don’t approve?”

Twilight thought about it. “I wanted to ask you not to hurt her,” she said. “But to be honest? I don’t think I approve of you in particular, no. You’re—”

“I,” Trixie interrupted, “am perfect for her. And I’ll make her extremely happy.”

Twilight frowned. “So you aren’t just friends?”

“Aaah, hah, hah.” Trixie finished Starlight’s soda in two big gulps, and then threw the can over her shoulder. It missed the garbage can by a long shot, but she didn’t pick it up. “We’ve never been just friends, Princess Twilight. You already know that.”

And then, she left, cackling all the while.

Twilight waited until the echo of Trixie’s hoofsteps disappeared before cracking a grin, and then a hearty laugh. Almost a cackle, really. Very similar to Trixie’s.

Because that’s the thing about Trixie, wasn’t it? She was a contrarian. You had to play the game with her.

“Starlight,” Twilight muttered, still laughing, “you’re very welcome.”

Flying Brooms

“THANK YOU, PONYVILLE! I’LL BE HERE ALL WEEK!”

Thunderous applause. A shade of guilt to it—hard to notice, but Trixie was a professional, she could read audiences. Today was cleaning day but they were here watching her instead, and she was just entertaining enough to distract them, but not enough to make them forget. The perfect guilty pleasure.

She loved it, but she didn’t want to love it.

She was so good at it, though.

“AND NOW!” Flick of her tail, tip of her hat. Trixie flashed her horn, and opened the box next to her, and the children in the first row went absolutely buckwild feral.

Because she’d revealed the fireworks.

“FOR THE GRAND FINALE!”

The children went from excitement to a genuine religious experience. Even the teens and adults whispered among themselves. It was a little past noon. Magic made everything possible, but for fireworks to work under broad daylight? They’d need to be strong. They’d need to be spectacular, to shine that bright.

Trixie flashed her horn, and the fuse lit, and everypony held their breath.

Ponyville was a rural place. There were no roads; it was all dirt, and earth, and dust.

Imagine cleaning that.

Not just a room, or a house. The entire town. Imagine dedicating every waking moment of your routine to clean, to scrub, to wipe, to rinse. Imagine scheduling daily rainfalls so some of the grime on the streets gets washed away, and imagine that being not nearly enough.

Picture the cat hair, the rat droppings, the filth. Picture the smell.

It was the fifth day after the defeat of the Rat King. Five days of this, Ponyville had lived; anything outside of cleaning was a luxury. But they were so close to wrapping up, so close to finishing the last touches.

And then Trixie had thrown an impromptu show in the middle of Town Square.

A good one, too. She’d flown in a broom, tamed wild cats, found long-lost items. She’d turned a frog into a rabbit and then into a frog again. And honestly, you go and try to be strong enough to avoid that kind of entertainment after five days of torturous cleaning, see how that goes. The crowd felt guilty, they should've been working instead, but they were still there.

Trixie rose a hoof. The fireworks moved, pointing upwards, at the open sky by the side of the stage, right above Town Square. The fuse flared.

“THREE!” she yelled.

The crowd went wild.

“TWO!”

The mechanism supporting the fireworks cracked.

“ONE!”

And then it snapped, and the fireworks fell.

Slowly, methodically, gravity pointed them down. Away from the audience, away from the stage, away from Trixie—and towards the very center of Town Square.

Ponyville was a rural town. There were no roads; it was all earth, and dirt, and dust. And they’d scheduled daily rainfalls, to wash away the worst stuff from the streets.

There was a lot of mud in Town Square right now. The place was nothing but mud. You could drown in the stuff if you weren’t careful enough.

“WAIT!”

Too late.

The fireworks burst, and they shot downwards, and they hit the pool of mud dead-on. It was borderline a trickshot; some of the rockets had to bend their trajectory to get it right, but Celestia be your witness, they sure did. There was a wet splash, a blast, the fireworks exploded…

And everything went brown.

Less than a second later:

FLASH!

“Gagh!” Trixie tried to land on her hooves, failed, stumbled, fell. But she fell on soft, fluffy blankets, so it didn’t hurt—and by her side, Starlight fell too, face first, groaning something.

“Gaagh.”

Trixie sat up, rubbing her eyes, blinking the lingering lights away. A quick check of her surroundings made it clear they were back in Starlight’s room—on her bed, more exactly. The curtains were drawn, so everything was dark, but Trixie could hear screams outside, in town.

Didn’t sound good, that.

It took Trixie a moment to get all her senses back, but when she did she poked Starlight, who groaned and got up too. “Uh. Starlight?” Trixie asked. “What just happened?”

“Uuugh. My ears are ringing.” Starlight pressed a hoof against her forehead, frowning, and then looked at Trixie with a little bit of a smile. “I don’t know, I acted on reflex. I didn’t have time to think. Are you okay?”

Trixie blinked, and looked at herself. Not a spot of mud on her. “Looks like it. Did you teleport us to your room?”

“Yeah. The moment I realized the fireworks were going to go off, I panicked and—” Starlight let her own forehead go, and then looked at herself. “Oh. I’m spotless! That’s some impeccable timing.” Then she looked at Trixie. “Say.”

“Yes?”

“I think you just exploded all the mud in Ponyville into the air?”

There were still screams going in the background; louder, if anything. Glee and hatred mixed together, quite the melody. So, without saying anything, Trixie turned to the window and flashed her horn, and the curtains drew open.

There was mud raining from the skies, covering the entire town in a new, fresh, wonderful layer of filth.

Trixie drew the curtains close.

“I just exploded all of Ponyville’s mud into the air,” she said. And then she looked at Starlight and added: “Uh. Whoops?”

Starlight arched an eyebrow. “I’m going to go and guess that wasn’t on purpose, then.”

“I would never waste my fireworks like that!” Trixie made a huff. “They’re expensive.”

“We were so close to wrapping up the cleaning!” Starlight said, flashing her horn and drawing the curtains open again. The mud was still falling from the skies; there was a lot of it. “Ooof, they don’t sound happy about it.”

Trixie lowered her ears, flat against her head. “Sorry,” she said.

That made Starlight blink, and look at her. “What?” And then reach for Trixie. “No, that’s—Trixie, this wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do it on purpose, right? The fireworks stand just broke, it was an accident.”

Trixie pouted. “Was it?” She took off her hat and looked at it. “I’m not so sure.”

Starlight bit her lip, and then looked out the window—and giggled.

That made Trixie look.

“I mean,” Starlight said, pointing at the window. “Come on! It’s pretty funny. Listen to them! It’s been like two minutes, and they’re still screaming?”

Trixie looked out the window. The mud had settled; everything looked terrible. She could hear ponies cursing to Celestia and back all the way from there.

Sne snorted. “Okay,” she said. “It is a bit funny.”

“Plus, it’s just mud! After all we’ve been through, this is nothing. A little bit of rain and everything will be clean again, this is just an overreaction.” Out the window, Starlight saw a bunch of pegasi take flight from town square, and start rounding up clouds. She smiled. “See?”

Trixie jumped off the bed, and got close to the window. Her ears perked up again. “You’re right,” she said.

Here Starlight pressed a hoof against her chest, just like Trixie always did, and spoke in her best Great and Powerful voice. “Of course I am! I’m me.”

“Hey!”

“What.”

“I don’t sound like that!”

“Hmm.” Starlight thought about it. “Yeah. You sound way better.”

“Yeah! Exactl—ah huh. You’re good!” Trixie smiled at her, and then pointed under the bed. “And you’re going to find some treasure there!”

Starlight jumped off the bed, and then looked at it. “Seriously?”

“Come on, I just covered Ponyville in mud. That has to count, right?” Trixie pointed. “There’s a treasure there, and it’s going to get us a house. Go look!”

“Okay, if you insist.” Starlight kneeled down, and peeked over her bed. “But we looked in here yesterday already, and we didn’t find—whoa!”

Trixie took a step forward, eyes shining. “Did you find something?”

“Yes! But it’s not a treasure!” Starlight flashed her horn, and pulled. “Hnng. Hnnnnng—gagh! There!” And she got up, keeping the thing in her grasp, showing it to Trixie. “Look!”

Trixie looked. “...A broom?”

“A struggling broom!” Starlight said. And she was right—the broom was noticeably wiggling side to side, trying to get out of Starlight’s grip. “It’s the one we told to clean my room! It was trying to sweep the floor under my bed!”

“Oooh.” Trixie frowned. “That’s not a treas—wait, we didn’t turn it off?”

“We didn’t turn it off!” Starlight said, eyes wide. “We left the Castle when we got that letter about Twilight being in the hospital, and yesterday I spent the night at your wagon!”

Trixie winced. “And Spike is with Princess Twilight in the hospital. So… Nopony turned them off?”

“We’ve left the brooms sweeping the castle for almost twenty four hours!” Starlight winced when the broom did a particularly strong tug, and then she poked it with a hoof. “You! Stop already!”

The broom struggled even harder.

Starlight sighed. “For the love of—Trixie? Mind helping me? They never listen to me for some reason.”

“Sure.” Trixie got closer, and then poked the broom with a hoof. “You,” she said. “Stop moving. I’m trying to talk to Starlight.”

The broom went limp immediately. Starlight let it go, and it fell on the floor, laying perfectly still.

Both Starlight and Trixie looked at it, and then Trixie looked at Starlight. “Why didn’t you break the spell? Because it’s still alive, right?” She looked at the broom again. “You still alive?”

The broom rattled.

Starlight rubbed her horn, wincing, and then shook her head. “I can’t. Twilight is the one who enchanted them—have you ever tried to break an alicorn’s spell?”

“I thought you were better than her at magic?”

“Not quite, she's still got me beat in raw power.” Pause. Starlight kicked the broom lightly. “For now. I go to the gym every Sunday. We really left every single broom on, didn’t we? We should probably fix that.”

Trixie cocked her head to the side. “You think?”

“This is not really a good spell. I can see from here that it didn’t sweep the corners.” Starlight walked to one of the walls and pointed at the dust in the corner. “See? And, I mean, it got trapped under my bed.”

Trixie groaned, and rubbed her eyes. “I guess.”

“Come on, it won’t take long. You just have to ask them to stop moving.”

“Yes, yes.” Trixie whistled, and the broom on the ground immediately started floating at knee level. So she jumped on it, and then offered Starlight a hoof. “Want to ride with me?”

Starlight looked at her. “Is that safe?”

“Of course it is! There’s no way for you to fall. As long you hold on to me.” Trixie waggled her eyebrows. “Tight.”

So Starlight jumped on the broom without a moment’s hesitation.

They flew slowly, because it was more about the journey than the destination. There were autonomous brooms on every corridor, and some on the bigger rooms, which meant they had to take a little tour around the entire Castle.

Which means that, eventually, they made it to—

“Uh-oh.” Trixie pointed at the giant doors in the middle of the corridor. “Is that the Library.”

Which made Starlight grimace. “Shoot. It is.”

The Ponyville Castle Library. So big you could see it from outside, sticking out like the building had grown a conjoined twin. It was as spacious as the rest of the floor combined; bursting with bookshelves on every wall, on every column, every five feet give or take.

Completely trashed.

Not a single book in place.

“Right. We completely forgot about this, didn’t we.” Starlight mused, giving the place a lookaround, biting her lip. “Did you topple every single bookshelf?”

“I did! It took literally hours.”

“Then it’s going to take days to get it back to normal.” Starlight waved at the room. “I don’t think we can make it in time before Twilight gets out of the hospital. She’s not going to be happy.”

“I can honestly live with that.”

“I won’t be happy either, Trixie.”

“Oh. Well, that’s just blatant emotional manipulation.” Trixie snorted, but then she cleared her throat with a cough, and then yelled into the room: “Hey! This room is going to clean itself!” And then she turned to Starlight again. “There. Let’s get out of here.”

“Was that witchcraft? Do you think that’ll—whoa!” Starlight had to hug Trixie tighter to avoid falling off, so fast was the broom’s turnaround. Before you knew it, they were out of the Library, and back in the corridor. “Do you think that’ll work?”

“I’ve no idea! I don’t want to clean it, though, that’s for sure.”

“Right.” Starlight said. And then she leaned forward, resting her cheek on Trixie’s back, and frowned. “Trixie?”

“Hm?”

“Why are you feeling so blue? Earlier, at the stage—your heart wasn’t into it. You didn’t want to be there. What’s wrong?”

Trixie winced so hard they almost fell off the broom a second time. Starlight was holding on tight, though and Trixie was good enough at riding that she could get back her balance with a little swipe to the left. “What!” she said, looking ahead with eyes the size of plates, pupils the size of peas. “What are you talking about! That was a great performance!”

“It was!” Starlight said. “But your heart wasn’t in it. Come on, Trixie, I know you.”

“You two!” Trixie turned to the right on the next corner, and barked at the two brooms completely ignoring the corner by their side. “Stop moving right now!” Then she mumbled something under her breath. “Where do we go now?”

“Keep on straight until we can turn left, and then turn right, that’s the eastern wing.”

“Right.” Trixie clicked her tongue, and then sighed. “I had fun during the stage show,” she said.

“Oh. If you don’t want to talk about it I can change the topic, I don’t—”

“I’m not changing the topic. I had fun during the stage show. That’s why I’m annoyed.” Then she pointed. “That way?”

“That way.”

They got to the eastern wing.

Trixie started again. She didn’t look at Starlight as she talked. “I was supposed to annoy Ponyville with that stage show. I loved that. But I just wanted to make them feel guilty.”

Starlight nodded. “Right.”

“But the mud thing just…” Trixie continued. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, it wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Trixie, it was an accident.”

“It wasn’t! I—hold on.” Trixie flashed her horn opened a random door to their right. “You! Stop cleaning!”

The two brushes scrubbing one of the walls fell to the ground, limp.

“There we go.” Trixie tapped the broom, and they kept moving. “It wasn’t an accident,” she said. “I wanted it to happen. Same with Princess Twilight being in the hospital. I’ve wanted to throw a book at that stupid face of hers for years.”

“Trixie—”

“I didn’t plan it, and I hate that it happened, but I still wanted it.” Trixie blew part of her mane out of her face. “It’s not witchcraft that goes haywire, it’s me. I try, Starlight, I swear I try as hard as I can, but I can’t stop myself from thinking these things. I know it’s wrong, I’m sorry, but I can’t—”

“Trixie!” Starlight raised her voice, and shook Trixie’s shoulder to get her to stop—almost falling from the broom while doing so. “I knew all of this already! It’s perfectly normal, there’s no reason to feel guilty about it!”

Trixie’s ears perked up, and she stopped the room mid-flight. It made a screeching sound as it came to a halt.

“Hold on,” Trixie said, finally turning around to look at Starlight. “What? You know I’m still evil?”

“You’re not evil. I’m telling you, what you’re describing is perfectly normal. That’s literally how brains work.”

“…You’re telling me everypony wants to throw a book at Princess Twilight’s face?”

Starlight blinked. “Uh, no. Not that.”

“She does have a stupid face, though, you have to give me that.”

“Trixie, stop changing the subject.” Starlight shook her head, and then held Trixie’s hoof between hers. “I’m serious, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Listen, growing into a better version of yourself is never easy. We all struggle.” She smiled. “Or, what, you think I’m any different?”

Pause.

Trixie looked down at her hoof—the one Starlight was holding—and then back at Starlight. “What? No way,” she said. “Starlight, you’re a good pony.”

“And so are you.”

“I mean—”

“Trixie, whenever something gets a reaction out of you, the first thing is what you are, but the second is what you choose to be—and that’s all I care about.” Starlight leaned closer to Trixie. “Your first instinct was to want Twilight to get hurt, okay. Did you like wanting that?”

Trixie didn’t look away from Starlight’s eyes. “No.”

“There you go, then. If you choose to be a good pony, that’s all that matters.”

“Right, but.” Trixie frowned. “Ponyville is still full of mud. And the princess is in the hospital.”

“Yes, well, witchcraft listens to your desires, so we have to work on that, but…” Starlight bit her lip, made sure to pick her words carefully. “I think the hardest thing about growing, Trixie, is that self-awareness is not the last step. It’s the first. You need to know that you’re bad before you stop being bad, and that never stops being painful.”

“Hmmmm.” Trixie freed her hoof from Starlight’s grasp, and then turned around, kicked the broom, and kept on flying. “So you say you’re the same? That’s hard to believe.”

Starlight chuckled, hugging Trixie from behind. “Oh, is it? I told you the other day, Trixie—I overthink everything.”

“Oh. Oh?”

“Yeah. Every time something happens, my first instinct is to wipe everypony’s mind and then run away, but that’s not who I am anymore.” Starlight shrugged. “My brain is just a little slow on the uptake, that’s all.”

“…You still think like that?”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever not think like that at all. I spent most of my life doing nothing else.” Starlight cuddled up to Trixie. “So, yes, I know that you still struggle. Twilight knows, too. None of us blame you for it. You’re a good pony, Trixie. The best I’ve ever met.”

Trixie straightened her back, perked up her ears. Starlight couldn’t see her face, but you could still tell she was smiling. “Well, obviously,” Trixie said. “I am wonderful after all.”

“No, I actually mean it.”

“So do I!”

“Trixie, no. I actually mean it.”

Pause.

They turned left, then right, then left. A dozen brooms stopped dead, and that was pretty much it for the eastern wing—so they went back the way they’d come, in silence. Trixie didn’t talk, and Starlight didn’t push it.

And eventually, Trixie did talk.

“Do you mean that?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“For…. real?”

“Trixie.” Starlight closed her eyes, and didn’t move. She just kept on leaning on Trixie. “I love Twilight, I love my friends and this town, but they’re not like us. They don’t know what it is like, to struggle with your own thoughts, or to… to be ashamed of who you were, and to have to live with that.”

Trixie nodded. “But you do.”

“And so do you. I didn’t know how lonely I was until you came to Ponyville and I wasn’t alone anymore,” Starlight said. “You don’t even have Twilight to guide you, but you still chose to become good for my sake.”

“When you put it like that.” Trixie smiled again, though this time it didn’t quite feel like a grin. “So we’re the same, then?” She flicked her tail a little, just to poke Starlight with it. “Explains why you’re so great.”

“Right back at you,” Starlight giggled, brushed Trixie’s tail away from her face. “You know what I’m thinking.”

“Oh, I always know what you’re thinking.”

Starlight giggled again, but then she went on anyway. “I think that it’ll get easier with time. It might never go away—our past is part of what we are, and we’ll never change that. But it’ll get easier, if we’re here to help each other.”

“Right. Starlight?”

“Trixie.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Starlight sighed. “Now it’s just a matter of controlling witchcraft so it feels the same way we do—but I don’t think that’ll be an issue. You are a natural, after all.”

“I am so great at it,” Trixie said, nodding. She waved and a rogue broom across the corridor stopped moving. “But we never found any treasure under your bed, right?”

“Not really. You did use it during your show, though. And it was great, by the way! Even if you felt bad while at it, it really was one of your best.”

Trixie turned around to look at Starlight, mid-flight. “You think?”

“For sure! I didn’t know witchcraft could be so flashy.” Starlight shook her head, smile on her face. “And keep in mind I knew how you were doing it. Did you see the ponies in the audience? Their faces? I’m sure you blew their minds with some of those tricks.”

Trixie stuck her chest out, smug grin on her face. “Well, yes, that’s the point. You don’t meet a witch as perfect as I every day, I must say.”

“You don’t meet a witch period. You’re the first one in centuries, remember?” Starlight reached forward and poked Trixie’s hat. “I’d be surprised if most of the ponies out there even knew that witches existed. Not everypony’s as well-read as Twilight and I.”

Trixie arched an eyebrow, and then—slowing down the broom so she could control it—inched closer to Starlight, sneaking under her reaching hoof. “Ooh. Is that a brag?”

Starlight winked at her. “It’s a fact, actually.”

“Well, isn’t that—”

And then there was a ring outside.

Starlight blinked. “Was that the doorbell?”

“I think yes? Are we expecting somepony.”

“Not at all.” And then it dawned on Starlight that they had heard the doorbell, which meant that… “The screaming outside stopped. For the mud explosion?”

“Oh. Huh. You’re right.” Trixie perked up her ears. “But it isn’t raining yet, is it? No way they cleaned it up already.”

The doorbell rang again.

“We should probably go check who it is.” Starlight shrugged. “Who knows, maybe this is witchcraft happening. Maybe somepony’s here to clean the library! You asked for that, after all.”

“Oh, that’d be great.”

They opened the door.

“There it is!” said the voice of an old mare. “See? I told you!”

Most of Ponyville was on the other side.

Dozens. Hundreds, really. Pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies; every single one staring at Trixie and Starlight, stern looks in their eyes. Some of them were carrying ropes. Some were carrying torches. Most were covered in mud.

In front of them all, the one who’d rang the doorbell—an old yellow mare with green eyes and a gentle face. She had poofy hair and smelled like cats. She was wearing a pink shawl and spoke with a southern accent.

She was Goldie Delicious, the Apple Family record keeper, and owner of the cats that had taken over Ponyville.

And she was holding a book in her hooves.

“A hat! Check.” She pointed at Trixie’s hat. “And she’s flying on a broom, and there’s a lovely lady with her that she’s seducin’—hi there, Starlight, how are you today—and my kitties, too! See?” She turned to look at the crowd behind her. “It’s all checks. I told you! That one’s a witch.”

Starlight and Trixie leaned to the side so they could take a look at the book Goldie Delicious was holding. Familiar cover. Tales of the Macabre. This one wasn’t a knock-off, and it didn’t have any typos.

“And the hat looks exactly like the one in the picture!” Goldie Delicious added, waving the book side to side. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“Er.” Starlight jumped off the broom, and awkwardly stepped to the door. “Goldie Delicious?”

“Starlight!” Goldie Delicious grinned, and shook Starlight’s hoof. She was surprisingly strong for such an old mare. “It’s been a long time! How are you doing, dear?”

“Right, yes, nice to see you too. Doing fine. Um.” And Starlight pointed at the crowd. “What is this?”

“We’re a mob!”

“Right.”

“Mmm-hm, mm-hm.” Goldie Delicious nodded, and tapped the book. “Well! You see, I saw that little show your friend put at Town Square, and even with the mud and all, why, I couldn’t help but think it all felt familiar. And I was right!” She grinned.

Starlight looked at Tales of the Macabre. “You own that book too.”

Goldie Delicious tapped her temple twice, winking at Starlight. “I’m a record keeper! I know aaall there is to know about the Apple Family, see?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And one thing the Apples were always good at was takin’ care of witches! And that friend o’ yours.” Goldie pointed at Trixie again. “That’s a witch. And you know how’s it with ‘em witches.” Goldie shrugged, apologetic smile on her face. “You gotta burn’em at the stake! It’s tradition.”

And behind her, the crowd got closer, raising the torches a bit higher.

Starlight and Trixie gulped at the same time, and the sounds harmonized.

Secret Spells

“Well! This was way easier than expected. But I ain’t complainin’!” Goldie Delicious said, stomping on the ground with a hoof with a determined look on her face. And then she looked at Starlight, smiling sweetly. “Are them ropes too tight?”

Starlight, who was tied up to a chair, glared at her. Then she flashed her horn.

And Goldie Delicious licked her hoof and gently tapped it.

FLA—fsssssssh.

The magical shimmer went out just like that.

“No, no, no magic, please,” Goldie Delicious said, nudging Starlight. “Ain’t no escapin’ here yet, sugarcube. But! You’re comfortable, right?”

Starlight blinked, and looked up at her own forehead. There was a bit of smoke coming off the tip of her horn. “What. What the. Did you just.” She squinted. “Did you just snuff my magic?”

“Eyup!”

“I… didn’t know one could do that?”

“Aaah, we old mares know ‘em old tricks! They used to do this aaaall the way back in the day, when earth ponies and unicorns didn’t get along.” Goldie Delicious tapped her temple, and winked at Starlight. “Anyway, don’t you teleport away.” Then she turned around, to look at the rest of the room. “Y’all! How’s the fire going?”

The fire was going okay.

So the place was the Library, because it was the largest room in the Castle—and it was spotless. Every book back on the shelves, every scroll back in the drawers. The floors had been swept and the tapestries had been dusted. This was a mob, but it was a very organized mob, and Ponyville was good at cleaning after a whole week of practice. Funny that; witchcraft has a sense of humor.

All the wooden furniture was currently getting piled up in the middle of the room. All the brooms the mob could find, the mops, pieces of cardboard, splinters, hay from the kitchens. Anything that could burn.

Another team was dousing everything with oil.

On top of it lay Trixie, tied up. About to burn.

Screaming.

“Okay! For real!” she yelled, squirming around, glaring down at Goldie Delicious from the top. “I feel like this is a bit of an overreaction! It was just a bit of mud! STARLIGHT! HELP ME!”

“I’M TRYING!” Starlight yelled back, and then she looked at Goldie Delicious. “Goldie! Goldie, please, for the love of Celestia, listen to me. This isn’t you. What is going on?!”

“Aaah, that’s one good pyre.” Goldie Delicious said, and then she waved at the mob. “Keep ‘em comin’, y’all! You’re doin’ a great job! We’ll be done in no time!” Then she turned at Starlight and licked her hoof again. “Gaah, I wish I could help ‘em, really. Burnin’ witches is a team effort! But I really can’t carry all that weight around nowdays. These old bones ain’t got the strength anymore.”

Starlight glared. “Goldie.”

“Aye, that’s my name.” Goldie Delicious licked her hoof, and tapped Starlight’s horn. “And don’t you go blastin’ around, you! Ain’t gonna fool an old mare with old tricks!”

FLA—fsssssssh.

Starlight winced, and she felt her magic snuff out a second time.

In the background, Trixie yelled some profanities.

Starlight took a deep breath, and then glared bloody murder at the old mare. “Okay. Look. Listen. Goldie Delicious.” She tried really hard, and failed very much, at keeping a neutral tone. “The mud thing was an accident, Trixie and I have done nothing wrong, and you’re genuinely threatening to burn her alive at the stake. This is stupid even for Ponyville standards! And I live here!”

Goldie sighed, and then tapped Starlight’s horn again. Magic fizzled out. “I know, I know,” the old mare said, shaking her head. “I don’t like it either. Burnin’ folks, well, that ain’t right no matter what. Barbaric, is what it is, yeah?”

“Then why are you leading the angry mob into doing exactly that?!”

Goldie frowned. “‘Cause she’s a witch!” she said, pointing at Trixie. “We all saw the hat. Also she’s told us. TRIXIE! YOU’RE A WITCH, AREN’T YOU? HENCE THE HAT!”

“I WILL LITERALLY EAT THE HAT IN FRONT OF YOUR IDIOT GOONS IF THAT MEANS YOU DON’T BURN ME ALIVE, IF THAT HELPS.”

“Yeah, see?” Goldie looked at Starlight, and then took Tales from the Macabre from her little saddlebag and opened it, paging through fast as lightning. “Eatin’ hats. Classical witch. Fire’s the only way to get ‘em for sure; anythin’ else they can escape. Dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it before it gets dangerous.”

Starlight’s eyes were so wide they were in danger of falling out. “Before it gets dangerous?!”

“Witches are tricky! Devious. Can never be sure with ‘em around.” Goldie paged through the book some more, and absent-mindedly licked her hoof, snuffed out another teleportation spell before talking again. “They start small then get real big. And from what I’ve heard, your friend has the chops to be the worst kind. Not makin’ many friends in town, has she? This was an easy mob to gather, let me tell you.”

“Trixie is a literal national hero! She’s saved the world at least twice!” Starlight bared her teeth. “So have I, for that matter!”

Goldie frowned, and looked up from the book. “What? Really?”

“Yeah!”

“Well, I’ll be darned. Nopony told me that.” Goldie Delicious turned around, and waved at the first stallion she saw, carrying a wooden table on his back. “Oi! You! What’s your name!”

The stallion blinked, looked around, pointed at his face. When Goldie nodded, he frowned. “Uh,” yelled back. “I’m Caramel!”

“Caramel! Is that witch a national hero?” And Goldie Delicious pointed at Trixie. “‘Cause Starlight’s tellin’ me she is! And my Applejack’s got better sense than to befriend ‘em liars!”

“I mean… She did save us from the changelings once, I guess? I think she’s got a medal for it!” Caramel replied. “She also enslaved the entire town, though!”

Goldie blinked. “What?”

“Yeah!”

“Enslaved?”

“Took over the town, turned us all into slaves! Real evil stuff!”

“Darn tootin’.” Goldie Delicious looked at Starlight again. “That true?”

Starlight blinked, looked at Trixie, looked at Goldie. Squinted. “...I mean,” she said. “Technically, yes, she did that once, but—”

“Real three-dimensional character, this friend of yours, huh.”

Something in her tone made Starlight smile. Nervously, yes, she was still tied to a chair. But she smiled.

That last sentence had sounded very Applejack. Apple blood is thick, after all.

“Tell me about it,” Starlight said. “But she’s one of the good ones. One of the best ones, I swear. Listen, if you’ve been reading those books, I get why you’d think witches are terrible—but this is just a silly misunderstanding. Princess Twilight herself has given us her approval; this is an experiment. Nopony needs to get burned. See, it all started with… ”

And then she told her the whole story, except for maybe the saucy details. And at first she kept stuttering, repeating herself, speaking too fast for her own good—but then she saw Goldie Delicious was nodding along, and she relaxed, and took her time to make a good point.

She relaxed.

Bit of a mistake, that.

Trixie was a coward.

“AGAIN!” she yelled at the next pony who walked by, piling wood at her hooves. “I AM NOT A MONSTER! NOPONY’S GONNA GET HURT!”

The pony—green pegasus mare—gave her a look as she placed a chair next to her. “Well, easy for you to say,” she said. “You’re not the one standing next to a witch.”

“YOU’RE GOING TO BURN ME ALIVE!”

“In self-defense! You started it!” The mare turned around. “Somepony douse this with oil, please? It’s very lacquered, won’t burn otherwise.”

Trixie was low-key panicking.

Being tied up isn’t fun, that’s the harsh truth. Usually, Trixie would’ve made a quip about how it can be fun, under the right circumstances, wink wink, nudge nudge. See Starlight giggle at it, get a reaction from her, usual business.

But she didn’t do that. Instead she felt the ropes scratch against her legs and wrists, and kept thinking she was bleeding. She tried to take a deep breath, but there was a scream trapped in her throat that wouldn’t come out no matter what, and it choked her. She felt her tail cramp up, her eyes itch, her voice break.

“PLEASE!” she yelled. “I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! STARLIGHT!”

Starlight was talking to Goldie Delicious, and not paying attention to her. Which absolutely, no doubt, one hundred percent, meant that she was saving Trixie and fixing everything. Trixie kept reminding herself of this. She knew that’s what was going on, rationally speaking.

Emotionally speaking, though, Starlight wasn’t paying attention, and Trixie was going to die, and nopony was listening.

Tied up.

Wood around her.

The smell of oil, she could see ponies carrying torches. Was she bleeding from the ropes? She felt like she was bleeding.

She was going to die.

Trixie was a coward. But she wasn’t weak, she wasn’t meek. Fear was hot and burning in her chest, it was bared teeth and angry tears. Trixie felt fear like most of us feel hate.

So when somepony else came by, with the can of oil, and started dousing, what she thought was not “I’m going to die”. What she thought was, “I have power in me now.”

“I could hurt them for this.”

And it was a hard thought to battle. She knew this might happen from a while ago, she knew Starlight was on the case and Goldie Delicious seemed to be listening, she knew this was scary but she had to wait because these ponies were very clearly terrified of her. But she also thought, they’re hurting me, and I can hurt them, and it made perfect sense to do that.

Witchcraft means you can get whatever you want with just a thought, and you’ll face no consequences.

And Trixie wanted to hurt them so badly. That was the truth. Awful truth, but truth nonetheless.

“JUST LET ME GO ALREADY!” she yelled at the next pony, “COME ON!”

She wanted to make them suffer.

“LET ME GO!”

She wanted them to burn instead.

“YOU IDIOTS!”

Only she didn’t want to want to hurt them. That’s what mattered.

Because Trixie was lying to them, but not to herself.

“I DON’T WANT TO HURT YOU!” Trixie yelled, squirming again. “AND I DON’T WANT TO USE WITCHCRAFT AGAINST YOU! BUT YOU’RE MAKING IT REALLY HARD, AND I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN CONTROL IT! STARLIGHT! STARLIGHT!”

Trixie’s voice broke in that last one. That made Starlight look up.

There was a little earthquake.

“...And then I jumped on the broom and held her really tight,” Starlight said. “From behind. But I mean, she asked me to, right?”

Goldie Delicious nodded, frow burrowed in concentration. “That sounds like y’all got somethin’ going on, alright.”

“So you think that too?”

“Well, I ain’t an expert on love or nothing, sugarcube, but I ain’t dumb either. You ever seen my Applejack talk to the real pretty one? What’s her name. Rarity?”

Starlight nodded. “Rarity, yes.”

“Well, you’re like them two but more blatant.”

“That is genuinely such a flattering thing to say. Rarity and Applejack are so great.”

“They are, aren’t they?”

“So, uh.” Starlight bit her lip. “Can you please untie me? And not burn my best friend to ashes due to some old superstition? If you don’t mind.”

“Well! I’ll be darned, that’s a yes from me indeed. Mighty sorry, Starlight, this was all a very silly misunderstandin’. Ptooie!” Goldie shook her head, and threw her book over her shoulder. Then she turned around. “Y’all! Everypony! Guess what! We got everythin’ wrong! Turns out witches can be good after—”

“STARLIGHT!”

Trixie’s voice broke, there, and that made Starlight look up. Her pupils shrank.

“Oh, no,” she said.

There was a little earthquake.

Nopony got scared, because they didn’t have time to; by the time they got worried the earthquake had stopped already. But still, it was potent enough to shake the room, make ponies stumble, knock books off the shelves.

And one of them fell right in front of Starlight and Goldie. One Starlight recognized, because it had a picture of a cat violently eviscerating a rat on the cover.

The title was: Of Mice and Mice: How to Deal with the Pests, Critters, and Small Animals that are Currently Ruining your Life.

It fell open on the chapter titled: Cat Conquest: How to Deal with the Inevitable Uprising when a Magical Mishap turns Feline Friends into Foes.

Trixie screamed again. “STARLIGHT! I DON’T THINK I CAN CONTROL IT! HELP ME!”

Starlight’s pupils shrunk. “Oh, no.”

Goldie Delicious, who’d seen the signs too, bit her lip. “Trouble?” she asked.

“Massive trouble. TRIXIE!”

FLASH!

And she teleported away, leaving the chair and the ropes behind.

So Goldie Delicious was left behind. She looked at the book again, and then made a face. “Well! I’ve done goofed up today. Aaah. Granny Smith was right! Age’s made me one silly goose. Could’ve sworn I was smarter than this.” She turned around, and waved at the crowd. “Y’ALL! GOOD NEWS! AIN’T A WITCH, WE DON’T GOTTA BURN NOPONY! BUT Y’ALL SHOULD RUN ANYWAY!”

She was met with silence, at first.

And then that one stallion, the one carrying the table earlier. Caramel, was it? He talked. “What?” he asked. “I’m sorry. What?”

“RUN!”

“Why?”

And then there was a crash, and the monsters burst into the room.

FLASH!

Starlight teleported right next to Trixie, flashing her horn left and right, pushing away anypony remotely near them—and untying the ropes with one swift spell. “Trixie!” she yelled.

“STARLIGHT!”

“Oh my gosh, Trixie, I’m so sorry I took so long, I swear I was—whoa!” Starlight stumbled backwards, almost fell down the pile of oiled furniture, because Trixie tackled her into a hug as soon as she could. “Trixie!”

“Thank you thank you thank you.” Trixie pressed her face against Starlight’s neck. “Oh gosh that was terrible. Am I bleeding?”

Starlight hugged her back, and looked. “No.”

“Thank Celestia. I’m way too beautiful to have scars.” Trixie pressed herself against Starlight a bit tighter, and tried to slow her breathing. “Oh gosh. Oh gosh that was the worst, that was the worst thing I’ve ever—did you fix it?”

“Yes.”

“So I’m not getting burned alive.”

“No.”

Trixie laughed, and then nuzzled Starlight’s neck. “Celestia, I love you so much. I could kiss you right now!” Then she let Starlight go, grabbed her face, and gave her a very flashy peck on the lips anyway. “Muah!”

Starlight giggled. “Well, that’s—” and then she stopped. “Gosh, I’m so sorry it took me this long. This must have been terrifying, I swear I tried to be as fast as possible, I just—I was afraid Goldie Delicious would only give me one chance to explain myself, and I wanted to be thorough, and—”

“I really, really don’t care,” Trixie said, swallowing, still trembling a little. She was still pressing herself against Starlight. “I’m not being burned alive anymore, that’s all that matters. Who’s Goldie Delicious.”

“Old mare who literally almost killed you.”

“Oh.” Trixie frowned, and then looked around. “The one that’s yelling right now?”

Starlight looked. “Yes. Her, in fact. What’s she saying?”

Goldie Delicious’ voice came to them, clear as day: “RUN!”

“Why?” replied a random stallion.

Trixie blinked, and frowned. “Uh-oh. Starlight?”

“Trixie.”

“I think I might, uh. I might be trying to kill everypony in sight?”

Starlight nodded. “Yes. Well. I was afraid you’d say that.”

And then there was a crash, and the monsters burst into the room.

There’s something in the way a cat walks when it feels it owns the room, tail up, eyes shining. Cats move like predators, fast and sleek and silent, perfect killing machines.

Picture that, but very, very big.

Three cats entered the room. That’s what the monsters were, because the cats were the size of five ponies put together. They came in, faster than a thing of such size should move, blocking the door.

They looked at the mass of ponies with stilted, cold eyes.

Goldie Delicious was quick to move. “Okay!” she yelled, waving a hoof in the air, walking towards the cat. “Hold on! I know these kitties! They’re mine!”

Starlight visibly relaxed her shoulders. “Oh, thank Celestia—Goldie Delicious! You can control them, then?”

“What? Oh, absolutely not. They’re cats! You don’t control ‘em.” Then she turned to the crowd. “EVERYPONY PANIC! THESE LIL’ ONES LIKE TO PLAY WITH THEIR PREY!”

The cats hissed.

The ponies screamed.

Hell broke loose pretty hard.

You’ve never seen a cat hunt, because they don’t want to be seen, so just picture them swatting at the little ponies between their paws—jumping side to side to corner them, slapping them across the room with no forewarning.

The ponies tripped among themselves, almost ran on top of each other to get away, and the cats noticed it and played with it. The smallest one of the three took a liking for butting the ponies with its forehead. Really cute, if murderous, but then again that’s a cat’s whole deal overall.

Trixie and Starlight were standing on top of the wooden pile, and so they were away from the crowd at the start, and could get away from the cats. “This is bad!” Starlight said, speaking close to Trixie’s ear so she could be heard among the screaming. “This is definitely bad!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be! Kind of their fault, this one!” Starlight said. They hid behind the pile of wood so the cats wouldn’t see them. “Can you fix it?”

“I don’t know! I’ll try!” Trixie gulped, and then peeked from the side of the pile of wood, and glared at the cats. “You three,” she whispered, “are going to stop right now! And shrink immediately!”

Nothing happened. Just more screaming.

Trixie frowned, and talked again, focusing harder. “Stop listening to what I’m feeling. Listen to what I’m telling you. I’m not what I think, I’m what I do, and what I’m doing is telling you to stop the cats!”

Again: nothing.

Trixie clicked her tongue, and turned to Starlight. “Give me two minutes.”

Starlight was grinning. “That sounded good. You took the talk seriously?”

“I take everything seriously. I’m a very serious pony.”

Starlight smiled, and nuzzled Trixie on the cheek. “You sure are,” she said. “And what you said is completely right. Were you talking to the cats, or to the abstract idea of witchcraft?”

“I have no idea. Both?”

Behind the pile of wood: “HISSSSS!” and then a lot of screaming, and the sound of a bookshelf falling over.

Starlight and Trixie both winced at the sound, and then looked at each other. “We should help,” Starlight said.

“We should?”

“Maybe witchcraft will work if we go and do something.” Another scream. Starlight sucked air through her teeth. “There was a book that talked about this, and the cats always listen to you. You try to calm them down, I try to research?”

“Sounds terrible.”

“That’s a plan, then. Good luck, Trix. Don’t get hurt.”

“Geez. Love you too.”

And Starlight teleported them both.

FLASH!

Trixie appeared in the middle of the room, almost to be trampled by three ponies running around, carrying Goldie Delicious among them. The old mare—who couldn’t run, hence the preferential treatment—noticed and waved. “Oh! It’s you! Sugarcube, I’m really sorry, I’ll make it up to you, promise! Y’ALL TREAT STARLIGHT RIGHT TOO, SHE’S WORTH IT!”

And then she was too far away for Trixie to hear her.

“Wow,” Trixie said, frowning. “I've already forgotten who that is. OKAY, YOU THREE! HEY!”

The cats stopped moving, and looked at her. Ears perked up.

Trixie took a step back, gulped, but kept on talking. The ponies around her stepped back, too, so she was standing in the middle of an empty circle. Reassuring, that.

So Trixie blew some hair out of her face, and pointed an accusatory hoof at the cats. “I’M THE WITCH HERE! AND WHEN I TALK, YOU LISTEN!” Around her the crowd gasped, and retreated a bit more, which made her puff her chest out. “Well, yes, you’re all welcome, by the way,” she said. Then, back to the cats: “And I don’t want to hurt anypony in here! Okay? That’s behind me. I already hate myself enough right now, don’t need you three making it worse. So stop.”

And the cats stopped.

And approached Trixie, moving slowly this time.

Around her, the crowd muttered again, this time looking at her with a mixture of fear and respect, and Trixie saw it.

So she put on her showmare voice now; after all, if you find yourself on a stage, the least you can do is own it. “Yes! I have been telling you this, you idiots,” she said to the crowd. “But I guess you were too awed by my brilliance to listen! I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, first witch in a thousand years, do not wish to hurt you!”

The crowd gasped. Oh, and it was a good gasp. She had them in her pocket.

“Indeed! For I have mastered the dark arts—they do not master me!” Trixie still had her cape on, so she flung it to the side, dramatically. “And you’re welcome!”

More gasps, more positive muttering. No cheers, but, well, give them time. And—

“—Whoa you’re, uh, close.” Trixie took another step back. The three cats were right there, looking at her, cocking their heads to the side. They leaned forward, wiggling their tails in the air, and Trixie frowned. “Uh. Are you actually listening to me or…?”

The cats’ pupils were wide and black. “Meow,” one of them said.

“Mrrp,” said another.

“Huh. That’s—I genuinely can’t believe this worked.” Trixie looked at her own hooves. “Being a witch is so confusing. So you just listen to me now? I’ve mastered witchcraft? Is that is?”

The cats’ pupils shrunk into terrifying slits.

One of them got its claws out.

And Trixie clicked her tongue. “Right. Of course.”

The closest cat swatted at her, too fast for the eye.

FLASH!

Starlight teleported right next to the book about pests—Of Mice and Mice—and rushed to the chapter about cats. “Come on, come on, come on.” Her eyes darted left and right; long book, very dense, lots of cases tackled: infestation of many cats, one single rebel cat, cats with mystical powers, cats which jumped through dimensions. Nothing useful so far. “Come on, come on, come on, come on.”

She heard Trixie talking in the background. No more screams, though. And was that Trixie’s showmare voice? Either everything was going great, or everything was going terribly, but she couldn’t spare a glance.

“Come on come on come on come on—THERE IT IS!” Relevant paragraph: what to do when giant cats attack. Starlight hadn’t read something so fast in her entire life.

“Cats are natural predators, strong and fast for their size. An unwieldy or feral cat of massive size is no joke, and can’t be easily dealt with; thus, the safest, and most reasonable way to deal with them is to shrink them back to normal size.”

Pause.

Starlight blinked, and looked at the book. “I’ve put Trixie’s life at risk for this?”

“GAGH!” And Trixie bounced off the floor once, and crashed against the bookshelf next to Starlight, knocking down all the books. “Gaaagh.” She got up from under them, rubbing her forehead. “Oh, this is going to hurt in the morning.”

“Hi, Trixie.” Starlight closed the book, and looked at the cover in annoyance. “You know what? I think I hate books now. I’m a scroll mare from now on. How are you doing?”

“Cats out to kill me.”

“Lovely.” Starlight turned around. The three cats were right there, getting ready to prowl, looking at Trixie with murder in their eyes. “Got your back.”

“Celestia I love you.”

The cats jumped.

Starlight spared a side smile at Trixie, and cast a spell.

FLASH!

And literally nothing happened.

“Uh-oh.”

“GAGH!”

So the cats prowled, and jumped, and then swept at Trixie and Starlight again, since cats are nothing if not playful, and so they went flying again. Starlight, however, was quick enough on the draw—and teleported them away to safety.

Whereupon the second cat swiped at them again.

So they went flying, anyway, and crashed against another bookshelf, knocking books down again. The cats hissed—and Starlight teleported them a second time.

FLASH!

At the other side of the room, the entire crowd between them and the cats.

What ensued were screams, and ponies running around, and the cats getting ready for round two—and Trixie and Starlight, wobbly on their knees, looking at each other.

“Okay.” That was Trixie, panting, looking at the cats as they approached. “You’re still great, don’t get me wrong, but what in the name of Celestia was that.”

“I—” Starlight gulped. “I couldn’t break the spell.”

“What.”

“I tried to shrink them, but there’s a spell on them, and I’m not strong enough to—I can’t shrink them!”

“What do you mean, you can’t shrink them? You’re the single most powerful unicorn in the whole—”

“I know! But I can’t break the spell anyway! Oh shoot they’re here.”

The cats swiped at them.

Starlight wasn’t as quick on the draw the second time, so the cats got to play a bit more. Pleasant, it wasn’t. The bruises turned into scratches. The scratches started bleeding. Something cracked, and Starlight’s left hind leg started hurting really, really bad.

FLASH!

Starlight got them out a third time.

“My head hurts,” she panted, not even trying to stay up. “I don’t think I can teleport us again.”

“Everypony ran away,” Trixie said, looking around. “We’re alone in this place. Are you sure you can’t teleport us, like. To Manehattan or something? As far away as possible?”

“I really can’t.”

“Just my luck.” The cats approached again. Slowly, this time. They were savoring it. Trixie winced. “I hate this.”

“Why can’t you control them? Why are they attacking us?”

“I don’t know. They listened to me earlier, I don’t understand why… I can’t get witchcraft to listen to me.” Trixie rubbed the space between her eyes. “It doesn’t do what I want it to do. It listens to, to the bad part of me.”

Starlight gulped, looked at Trixie. “To the first thing you think, instead of the second?”

“Yes.”

“That is so judgemental on witchcraft’s part.”

“I know.”

The cats were already there. Starlight looked at her leg. It wasn’t broken, it just hurt a lot. “And you want them to attack you?” she asked. “Why? Are you—oh.” She frowned. “You feel guilty about trying to kill the room. You hate yourself right now.”

“Mmm-hm.”

“Because you’re afraid you’re disappointing me? Trixie, you hurt nopony, and they were literally trying to burn you alive.”

“Right, well, I can’t control what I--”

“I know.” Starlight saw a cat raising a paw, unseathe its claws, and lick its lips. And instead of flinching, she grabbed Trixie by the shoulders, and looked her dead in the eye. “But whatever happens to you, happens to me. Listen to me, okay? Feel this. Do you want me to get hurt?”

CRACK!

Silence.

The sound had come from below. There was a noticeable crack on the floor, between them and the cats—the crystal had shattered. The crack looked like a rogue lightning; just a few inches wide, but it spread across the entire room, and all the way up to the walls.

The cats had noticed, too. One still had its paw in the air, but they were all standing still, looking at the crack with wide eyes, ears perked up. Completely frozen.

So Starlight gave a low whistle, and looked at Trixie again. “Wow,” she said. “You genuinely love me, don’t you.”

Trixie winked at her. “Only the best for me.”

“You’re such a charmer.” Everything hurt so much that Starlight’s laugh came out more like a moan, but she was trying to smile at least. “Please save us, Trixie.”

“Yes.” Trixie closed her eyes and laid there. Didn’t even try to move. “Please save us. Anyone, anything. Get these stupid cats away from us.”

“HISSSSS!”

Pause.

“HISSSSSSSS!”

That was a different cat from the first—and soon the third joined them, too. Hissing and huffing, clearly angry or scared, or maybe both. Starlight took it all she had in her to look, and then she had to do a double take.

Brooms.

Dozens of brooms, floating all around the Library, zooming in circles around the cats, making general sweeping motions in their direction.

And the cats were clearly terrified. Back arched, tail down between their legs—they tried to sweep at the brooms but the brooms were faster, and the cats kept retreating, clearly, visibly trembling.

“Oh my gosh,” Starlight said, rubbing her eyes to take a second look. “The cats are scared of the brooms. I forgot that.”

“The ones they used for the pyre?” Trixie asked.

“Yeah. They must have heard you right now.” Starlight smiled. “And, I mean, I guess the cats were shedding hair, with all this playing around, so technically speaking they’re just cleaning everything up.”

“Right. So this was going to happen anyway, and maybe I did nothing?”

“I—”

CRRCK-CRACK.

The ground shook again, and the cats hissed. The brooms kept talking. The crack in the ground got wider.

And the Library folded, and split in two, and half of the room—weighted down by the three gigantic cats—tilted down, and outwards.

And fell.

Two walls, half the bookshelves, and half the floor—it all fell with a crash; there was a loud THUD! when it hit the ground outside. The Library was on the second floor, after all, hanging from a branch of the magical crystal tree that held the Castle.

Starlight and Trixie were left in a room that now had a giant hole that led outside. They could see all of Ponyville in front of them.

They hugged each other.

“That,” Starlight said, “was probably overkill.”

“Right. Well.” Trixie shrugged. “I never really liked this room, to be honest.”

“Oh, I can tell.”

And that’s when Twilight Sparkle, full-cast in plaster, awkwardly lounging on a wheelchair that Spike was pushing, made her entrance.

“GIRLS!” she yelled. “ARE YOU OKAY? I CAME HERE AS SOON AS I COULD!”

Pause.

She looked at the flying brooms, zooming around aimlessly. The books on the floor and the broken bookshelves. The pile of oiled wood on the side.

The giant hole that stood where half the room had been minutes ago.

Starlight and Trixie, hugging each other, bloody and tattered.

And then Twilight squinted. “What in the name of Celestia is this. Did you just break my house in half.”

The one who answered was Trixie. It took her a moment—she had to swallow first, and then breathe a bit to calm down, and then get her voice back—but she managed.

What she said was: “Yes.” And then she added: “You’re welcome.”

Witchy Laughter

The place was the hospital.

Of course it was the hospital.

“Okay.” Twilight was flashing her horn, and there was a cat floating in mid-air. Normal-sized, now, looking cuddly and cute, squirming left and right, meowing softly. “That should be it.” And then she flashed her horn again, and the cat fell on the bed, meowed, and jumped into Goldie Delicious’ arms. “Starlight?”

Starlight had bandages here and there, especially on the leg, but she could walk, and had taken enough pills to not be in pain for the time being. “Right,” she said. “Let me see.” She flashed her horn, and the cat glowered a bit, then stopped. “I don’t feel any magic left in it either, so I’d say it’s clean.”

“Great. So that’s all, Goldie Delicious.” Twilight gave the old mare a smile. “Sorry for messing with your cats.”

“Aw, shucks, there’s no need to say that! They look mighty fine to me.” Goldie coddled up the cat in her arms and poked it in the stomach. “Ain’t that right, you?”

“Meow.”

“That’s a yes.”

“Mrrp.” The cat squirmed in Goldie’s arms, and then jumped down to the floor and rubbed its head and back against Starlight’s legs.

That made Starlight chuckle, and she leaned down to pet it, but Twilight, she just frowned. “Goldie Delicious?” she asked. “Has it ever occured to you that your cats might be a little bit, uh. Bipolar?”

“What! Naah. That’s just how them cats like to behave.” Goldie opened her saddlebag with a quick flip, and then grabbed the cat with her hooves and stuffed it in there. “In you go.” And then, to Twilight: “They’re lil’ sweethearts! It’s just all that magic, see?” She tapped her muzzle. “They can smell it, cats. Some don’t like it, is all. Gets ‘em grumpy.”

“Oh, is that it?”

“Explains how they react to the brooms,” Starlight said.

“Yes,” Trixie added, squinting. She was also there, wearing her signature hat—and covered in even more bandages than Starlight. “And why they tried to murder us.”

“Oh, no,” Goldie Delicious said. “That was just them playin’ around.”

“Chances are my magic affected their mood anyway,” Twilight said, ears flag against her head, looking at Trixie and Starlight. “I’m really sorry, you two. It was the only thing I could think of back then. I thought it’d be a nice distraction; I didn’t think they’d go feral on you.”

“There, there, go to sleep. Good boy.” Goldie Delicious coddled the cat inside the saddlebag a bit more, and then closed it, and looked at Twilight. “So you made ‘em cats big, then sent ‘em to your own Castle? What for?”

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders were there at Trixie’s show, and they saw you rile up Ponyville to go burn Trixie at the stake.” Twilight glanced at Trixie, and then back at Goldie Delicious. “Which is entirely understandable, by the way, and I told you girls this would happen.”

“Shut up,” Trixie said.

“Well, nopony burned in the end, right?” Starlight said, elbowing Trixie, who grumbled. Starlight smiled. “So that’s a happy ending on my book.”

Goldie Delicious nodded, but she was frowned. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “If there’s anythin’ I can do to help you from now on, y’all just need to tell me. Old Goldie Delicious will be here lickety split!”

“Yes, that will literally never happen,” Trixie said.

“One can always dream!” Goldie Delicious winked at Trixie, and then looked at Twilight. “I’m sorry, you were sayin’?”

“Oh?” Twilight blinked. “Ah, right. Well, Apple Bloom told me the crowd was too dense for them to run to you and tell you not to, you know, lynch an innocent pony. So they came here instead, because they knew I was at the hospital, and told me to stop you. Only, I can’t exactly teleport like this.”

Goldie Delicious arched an eyebrow. “So you cast a spell on my cats?”

“I tried to create a distraction to keep you busy till I made my way there. Spike can only run so fast. There are cats everywhere, and I just did some quick thinking.” Twilight bit her lip. “It… backfired a bit.”

“Two different ponies have tried to murder me today!” Trixie said, not without a hint of pride in her voice. “And I’m the bad one. Please.”

Starlight snorted, but still elbowed her again. “Trixie, come on, she was trying to help.”

“As much as it paints me to say it, Starlight, Trixie has a point. I didn’t really have much time to go over the details, but it was still a silly plan.” Twilight sighed, and looked at Trixie. “We could spend all day theorizing that maybe witchcraft is the reason why it happened, but that still doesn’t change that I was the one enchanting the cats.”

“…Which is why I couldn’t break the spell,” Starlight mused after a moment. “I should really train on my magic power a bit more, instead of focusing so much on technique.”

Twilight smiled. “Want to be better than me already?”

And Starlight rolled her eyes. “Twilight, we both know I’ll never be as good as you, it’s just—”

“I respectfully disagree with that,” Twilight said. “As a friend, yes, but mostly as a teacher. Your potential knows no bounds, Starlight. If you truly work on your weaknesses, I have no idea how far you’ll go, but you’ll go far.”

Trixie looked at them, and then sighed. “I should train a bit more, too,” she said, fiddling with her hat, swishing her tail left and right. “Witchcraft still makes no sense. I get that it listens to my subconscious? But, like, half the time it straight up doesn’t work at all.”

“Trixie,” Twilight said. “No offense, but you broke my library in half with that.”

“Yes, but I didn’t mean to do that.” Trixie clicked her tongue. “And I still haven’t found any money. Can’ you believe how—”

“Actually,” Starlight interrupted, rubbing her chin. “About that. I’ve been wondering—remember how last time we tried to find some treasure, all we found was a broom?”

Trixie blinked. “Uh. Yes?”

“Right. So. Twilight?” Starlight leaned closer to the bed. “You’re going to fix the library, right?”

“Obviously.”

“And you’re going to do that, how…?”

“Oh. I mean, I don’t know. I guess I’ll just get the room to grow back?” Twilight frowned. “I’m kinda busy healing all the bones in my body first, Starlight. The castle really isn’t my top priority, much as I love the library.”

Goldie Delicious cocked her head to the side. “You’re goin’ to do what now?”

“I live in a tree!” Twilight said, turning to Goldie Delicious. “An ancient magical crystal tree, sure, but still a tree. The Castle can just grow anything back if I want it to.”

“Which means there’s half a room out there that’s up for the taking,” Starlight continued, looking at Trixie. “And it’s a very spacious one, too. You said you wanted a house, right? The brooms got us one.”

Trixie frowned. “It’s literally two crystal walls and a floor.”

“It’s that for now.” Starlight turned around. “Goldie Delicious? You said you owed us one, right?”

“Eyup. That’s what I said, alright.”

“You Apples are great at building. I’m sure you could do wonders with that room, right? Build a toilet, a kitchen? Turn it into an actual house?” Starlight thought about it, and then smiled. “We only need one bedroom, though.”

“Ooooh, hoh, hoh!” That was Trixie, suddenly puffing her chest out, tail swishing side to side. “Well, that’s just bold on your part!”

Starlight winked back at Trixie. “Only the best for me.”

“A house with crystal, huh? Well, that can’t be that hard. We’ve built worse things.” Goldie Delicious rubbed her chin, and then nodded. “That plumbin’s gonna be interestin’! I’m sure Applejack will like the challenge. Well then!” And then she winked at Starlight. “I’ll let you two lovebirds to your thing. Always a pleasure to see you, Twilight. See y’all later.” And then she went for the door, but—

“Goldie Delicious!”

Twilight stopped her.

“The book! Before you go? You said you’d brought it, right?”

“Ah! Darn tootin’, this head of mine. Yes!” Goldie nodded, and opened her saddlebag and rummaged through it till she took out Tales of the Macabre, the authentic edition. “‘Ere you go. Treat it right, it’s a rare one!”

“I will! Thank you very much. Just leave it on that shelf on that wall, please?”

“Sure!”

And so she did, and after that, Goldie Delicious left.

Starlight watcher her go, and then turned to Twilight. “Why did you ask for that book?” she asked. “Still researching witches?”

“It talks about ‘the Mare who Desires’, so the translation is correct in this one. It might have more information than the knock-off.” Twilight shrugged. “Breaking a castle in half is no small feat—it was always going to happen, obviously; I probably overloaded the room, and the cats were too heavy. But still, that was impressive, Trixie.”

Trixie smirked. “Obviously.”

“So, some more research can’t hurt us.”

Starlight’s ears went flat against her head, and she pressed a hoof against her heart. “You’re so on board with witchcraft now, aren’t you? Twilight, thank you so much. I know you still don’t really like it, but I really appreciate the gesture.”

“Don’t remind me, really.” Twilight snorted. “I’ve just been thinking—witchcraft takes time to work, because there’s no magic involved, everything was going to happen anyway, right? But there was still a sense of timing to it all. Why did it stop the cat at that moment, and not earlier? Before it got to hurt you? Stuff like that is why I want to investigate it.”

“Well, that’s… a fair question.” Starlight scratched her muzzle, blushing a little. “I don’t want to sound too full of myself, but if I were to take a guess…?”

Trixie rolled her eyes, elbowed Starlight, getting a giggle from her. “Because that’s when you asked me,” she said. “Obviously. Again.”

“Eheheh.” Starlight pushed her back, silly grin on her face—but then she kept on talking. “So far, witchcraft listens to what she feels rather than what she says. But in the stories, witches have total control over what they do, so there has to be a way to make witchcraft listen to what you wish. If the cats stopped when I asked, that means… maybe that’s it? The power of friendship?”

“No. That’s not friendship.” Twilight tried to sit up, but then she winced and just kept on laying down. “I’m speaking as a professional, here. Your presence helping Trixie control witchcraft is a possibility? But that’s not the power of friendship. We could consult Cadance about it, though. She might have some insight on it.”

That made Starlight grin even harder.

And it made Trixie frown. “Who.”

Twilight and Starlight looked at her, eyes wide. “You’re kidding,” Twilight said. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Trixie, we’ve met her,” Starlight said, frowning. “She’s attended some of your shows!”

“A lot of ponies come to those. I’m amazing!”

“Trixie,” Twilight said, speaking slowly. “There are literally five alicorns in existence, and we rule the world as you know it. Are you seriously telling me you don’t know the name of every single one of us.”

“I don’t know, I’m a busy mare. I have better things to do with my time!” Trixie waved a hoof in the air, and looked at Starlight. “So who is that? Another princess?”

“Princess of love, yes.”

“Oh. Well.” Trixie blinked, and frowned. “That’s bold. Again.”

“You complaining?” Starlight asked, tilting her head to the side.

“You know I could never.”

Twilight groaned. “Get a room.”

“We just did!”

“Meow.”

The three mares stared.

The cat was back in the room, sitting on its haunches, looking up at them. “Meow,” it meowed again. “Meow meow.” And then it rubbed itself against Starlight, asking for pets.

Starlight smiled, and gave it some. “And how are you here? Kitties can’t roam hospitals, we only let you in here because it was an emergency.”

“Mrrrp.”

“It probably jumped off the grandma’s saddlebag when she took the book out,” Trixie muttered. “Doesn’t seem to like her much.”

“Well, it’s hers, so I hope it better does,” Starlight said. She grabbed the cat and held it in her arms. “Every cat in town is hers, actually, I don’t know if you knew that.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Wow. That sounds unsanitary.” Trixie arched an eyebrow. “If she dies, they’ll eat her corpse.”

And Starlight elbowed her. “Trixie!”

Blink. Frown. “Right, sorry,” Trixie said. “When she dies, they’ll eat her corpse.”

Starlight rolled her eyes, and then coddled up the cat and went for the door. “I should get it out of here before a nurse sees it and we get in trouble. I’ll be right back.”

And she left.

Twilight looked at them, and then at the clock on the wall. It was right next to the bookshelf that had Tales of the Macabre in it. “Visiting hours are about to end,” she said. “You might as well leave already.”

“That’s the first time I hear you come up with a good idea, Princess,” Trixie said, and then her killer grin turned a bit smaller. “Say,” she said. “You meant that?”

Twilight frowned. “What do you mean, ‘that’.”

“The love thing. You approve of us?”

Twilight chuckled. “Trixie, come on. We know each other. You know already.” She gave her a look. “Do you even care about my opinion?”

“No.”

“Then that’s all the answer you need.”

Trixie thought about it, and then nodded. “Yes. I guess. You know, the day we get married, Starlight and I?” And here, her killer grin came back. “You will be the one saying the toast.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. “You don’t mean that.”

“We’ll have to invite you whether I like it or not, and you’ll hate every second of it, won’t you? So will I. But Starlight will love it.” Trixie’s eyes were fire and acid, here. She was diamonds and glitter and silver. She was a full-blown witch, in that moment, and her hat fit her better than ever. “And isn’t that what this is all about?”

“Gosh.” Twilight thought about the possibility, and shivered. “You are wicked.”

“I keep telling you. I’m a natural.”

“So you’re going to marry Starlight, now?” Twilight asked, frowning. “You’re not even officially dating now, as far as I’m aware, and you’re already talking about marriage? You know that’s not a given, right.”

“Oh, it is a given, trust me. Goodbye, Princess.”

Then Trixie opened the door so hard that it slammed on the wall. Which made the bookshelf shake, and that made Tales of the Macabre tilt forwards, and then backwards, and then forwards, right above Twilight’s face.

And then slowly, almost in slow-motion, the book fell—

“Not on her face,” Trixie said.

—the book felt backwards, against the wall.

Not on Twilight’s face.

That made Twilight blink. Her horn was shining already, even though she hadn’t had the time to cast a spell. She let the magic die out, and then looked at Trixie with wide eyes. “You didn’t actually want to throw a book at my face?”

“I did,” Trixie said. “That is genuinely my deepest desire right now. But it’d be a bad thing to do, so I chose not to do it.”

“…And it worked.” Twilight looked up, at the bookshelf. She couldn’t see the book now, though. “It was never going to fall on my face—so that was witchcraft. You can control it, after all. Maybe the power of love is the key.”

Trixie swished her tail side to side, snout to the heavens. “Well!” she said, voice bursting with pride. “Who knows. But seeing how I’m on a roll, I guarantee you, Princess.” And here she pointed at Twilight, right at her face. “That I am going to become the greatest witch who ever lived, and I’ll make Starlight the happiest mare in Equestria. And I’ll literally do it just to spite you.”

And then Trixie left, leaving Twilight alone, and closed the door behind her with a slam.

Once more, Twilight waited until Trixie’s hoofsteps were out of earshot to smile. But smile she did, and in a way, even though she wasn’t wearing a hat, even though there were no brooms or cat in sight, even though this wasn’t Trixie, this was Twilight Sparkle—

That smile almost looked a little witchy.

“Classic witchcraft, Trixie,” she mused, flashing her horn, fluffing her pillows, and getting ready for a well-deserved nap. “We both know all those things were gonna happen anyway.”