The last thing - last thing - that Trixie thought she’d be doing was spending her time shivering in some dew-dripping, ramshackle shack waiting for the end. Well, no. Doing the ridiculous jig she’d once ~~spied~~ spotted Twilight doing with that Princess of Love as an apology. That was the last thing the Great and Powerful Trixie could ever imagine doing.
Mainly because right after, she was certain her heart would beat its last out of shame.
Right now, though, that tweaking of her heart in her ears was all she could focus one. That, and the worrying creak in the floorboards. And Starlight's promise that no, taking on this little friendship problem before lunch wouldn’t kill them. oh yeah, how no one could ever have problems with breezies, as they were the tiniest, cutest things that Equus ever did make-
“Trixie, can you stop chattering your teeth and tell me what you saw?” Starlight's voice finally broke through the metronome of thwakthwakthwwaks ringing off in Trixie’s chest. “If you keep that up you’ll crack a molar. Nurse Redheart said she’s not going near that minefield of a mouth again.”
Trixie would’ve normally snapped about how ridiculous it was to call her magnificent maw that. Or that a quack like Redheart could claim a lifetime of Strawberry Frosted Sweet Spheres cereal was bad for her. But her problems were bigger now.
“Trixie a-already said what had happened! The second we found this… this disaster Tree Hugger called a home, and decided to dally about!”
“You mean when I tried to get Tree out of the basement? Alone?” Starlight lifted a worried eyebrow. “She said she was okay, though, thanks for asking."
"One, Trixie didn't ask, and two, that’s not the point!” And now Trixie’s cheeks were a fierce purple from her blush. “A giant breezie - ones you claimed could fit in my hoof - nearly squished Trixie while you were gone!”
Starlight tried hard not to smile through her sigh. Goodness, had imagination swept up Trixie this much? “Like I said when we went in here, Trixie, it’s very likely pranksters. I mean, bright flashes of light, the whirring noise we heard-”
“Trixie’s cart moved on its own, Starlight! And I saw your horn, it wasn’t lit! What explains that, huh?!”
“Clearly they could have a unicorn among them too, Trixie.” Starlight dragged a hoof along her sweaty brow. “Seriously, Trixie; I leave you alone for one second and suddenly-” Then shock gripped her. “Wait, did you say giant breezie?”
“Yes!! Have you gone deaf?”
“No!” Starlight stammered. “But… Tree did say the same thing, and thanks to this, you haven’t come in contact with one another. I’m not saying I believe it yet but… are you sure it was as big as you claimed?”
“Bigger than this house, little as it fits the definition! Look at the marks it’s left, Starlight!”
And Starlight’s eyes followed that blue hoof out the cracked window. There, past the flooring and various bird houses hanging from the roof, was a giant crescent like rut cut into the earth. Starlight’s memories of Tree Hugger’s confession - the green mare’s normally dreamy eyes shrinking into pinpricks, Tree’s statues ramblings of monsters appearing from nowhere - struck her as odd.
Especially when they were mixed with the word ‘breezie’. The tiny ponies she’d heard from in Twilight’s lessons, turned to… this? “No, Trixie. That’s just from the new trough Tree’s tried to make for the bears. “
Trixie did not look convinced at all. “Really? And what is that hole then, Glimmer?”
Starlight peered further up the road. Okay, yeah, a bit weird that there was a far more mare-made ditch filled with water up ahead. But she still refused to believe it was due to some gigantic intimidating enigma. Besides Trixie’s imagination, of course. “Look, if such a giant thing was here, wouldn't we have seen it earlier? We’re at a low incline into Everfree, after all.”
“Trixie is aware we’re in deep, Starlight, there is no need to patronize me. I know what I saw.”
And seeing that wounded look in Trixie’s eye, the one before she’d gone for that foolhardy trick so long ago, made Starlight break at last. “Look, Trixie,” she started, finally moving a hoof to stroke at Trixie’s shaking withers. “We’ll check together. Stay behind me and… and if it’s like you say, I’ll keep it at bay. This friendship problem’ll be solved today, one way or another.”
A small sniffle came from Trixie at that. “Then let’s go already.”
Starlight nodded, her smile returning at last. “Well there’s the Trixie I kno-”
“-and… thank you, Star.”
That wasn’t part of the Trixie she knew, though. The words were feather-light, broken from misuse, ones Starlight were sure she wouldn’t believe if she wasn’t staring at Trixie as she said them. And yet Starlight’s spirits felt higher than Luna’s moon as a result.
But with that admiration came worry, especially when they set out and Starlight’s eyes caught upon the same crescent grooves dug into Trixie’s cart. Trixie’s thanking me? Star didn’t say. What she saw in that clearing must’ve really shaken her. Hope it’s just what I thought it was.
It was not.
In fact, Starlight now wished she was as high as Luna’s moon at that moment.
But she stayed in her crouched pose all the same, remembering her promise to protect the mare quivering behind her. The pony before her, though, looked like it was ready to squash those hopes and Starlight as one.
Trixie was right; this monster she was staring at was gigantic, and yet was clearly once a breezie. The curling pink hook-like antennae, the colossal wings, the bug-like eyes; it was like it’d stepped off a Manehattan parade and right into Glimmer’s nightmares.
“Um… she started, before slapping herself as the giant breezie listed toward her. She probably couldn't even be heard way up there, why was she whispering? “What are you doing here? Who are you?”
No response came from this altered bead. Nothing, but the continued wobble of its still wings, and a keening cry from its gaping mouth. It made Starlight herself feel like… well, like a breezie.
Starlight shot a guilty look back at Trixie, saw how white her lip looked as she was biting it, and found her resolve. “I-I asked you a question!” Starlight began again, staring up at the titan. “My name is Starlight Glimmer, and I want to know why you’ve scared my fellow ponies so!”
A collection of chaff and petals kicked up in the wind, at that point, forcing Starlight to cower back. She lit her horn, but it felt like a torch against an inferno. Did something this big even care for what words Starlight could throw at it?”
Apparently so it was, as its bulbous head was craning toward Starlight now. It almost sounded like creaking, and Starlight’s teeth were soon chattering at the sound. Goodness, she’d run now, but even if it didn’t risk Trixie being left alone to this thing, it’d take too long to convince the Mane 6.
The ones that fought changelings before this, and library wrecking centaur kings before that? her mind pointed out. Nevertheless, Starlight didn’t budge, and soon the giant breezie’s head returned back to its arch high above the two tiny mares.
“Starlight…” And Trixie had found her voice at last. It stunned Starlight that Trixie could be so speechless so long. “What do we do?”
Starlight’s tongue felt like lead in her mouth, Starlight, lit her horn brighter, the storm before them finally parting. But that inner part of her, the one that she’d thought long buried, scolded her for being so indecisive in the middle of a stalemate. The next move was hers, and it’d have to count. No Fluttershy was here to soothe the beast’s nerves. No Twilight to think her way around it.
“If… if you don’t leave,” And Starlight gritted her sore teeth. “I’m going to make you Ieave! Do you understand? Even titans have a weakness, and I can find yours!”
Another keeping cry, even sharper than the howling of the wind, broke through, and one of the giant breezie's hooves lifted up. Clearly, they’d end up smeared under it if Starlight didn’t act.
“Don’t open your eyes, Trixie.” Judging by how subdued the affirmative him from Trixie was, those eyes were likely already closed. But Starlight had to be sure. She’d already happened upon enough trouble for not taking Trixie’s opinions - and her feelings - seriously.
No more.
Slowly, Starlight gulped, aimed for the center of that hoof, and silently begged Fluttershy to forgive her. Then she let a silvery bolt of light fly. It would only sting, make it draw back, allow her to gather enough sorcerous might to lift herself and Trixie out as she planned her next attack.
But the magical missile did something weird upon impact; it burrowed into the plushy skin of the breezie’s hoof. And though it didn’t flinch, a ripple ran through it, almost like the shock had blown through its system.
Then, it started to fall. Right onto both screaming mares.
After a minute, though, Starlight Trixie decoupled her own wails from Trixie’s own brand of bloody murder bloody murder of bawlings to realize she wasn’t currently paste. Neither of them were - for this giant was apparently the only thing in Equestria full of less hot air than Prince Blueblood. Underneath the folds of ‘skin’ and the bright sky peeking through it, there was nothing, and less of it eve as Starlight successfully pried it away from her.
Soon, she and Trixie were free, and staring at…
“... a giant balloon?” Trixie asked, staring dumbfounded at it. “The Great and Powerful Trixie nearly wet herself for the first time in five years over a balloon?”
“I… guess so.” Starlight mused. Her chest was tight with still-ebbing shock and laughter all at once. “But how did it do what it did? How’d it even get here-” And her perceptive eyes quickly found a new target; a bright light where the trailing scraps of the balloon’s tail led off too, “Follow me.”
Within seconds, Starlight had charged through the bushes, and after a few rustling cries of “Please don’t hurt us!!” pulled out with a pair of actual-sized breezies, hanging from their tails that were stuck in Starlight's mouth. One of the breezies was pink and clutching a giant megaphone in her hooves, the other one canary-yellow and with a giant horseshoe slung around its neck.
“Oh. So these are the… real breezies then?” Trixie trotted over, her own grin widening to shocking lengths on seeing the grapefruit-sized ponies struggling between closed Starlight lips. “I think I owe you another thanks. And a swatter.”
“W-wait!” cried the yellow breezie. “We can explain everything, we swear! Just don’t squish Puckshot, I just wanted her to feel big for once!!”
Starlight’s jaw dropped open, letting both breezies flail in the air again. “Puckshot? And who are you, now that we know you can speak?”
“Rayday! Well, Rayday III, but I don’t like talking about Mom,” panted the yellow breezie. “‘Specially since she said all that junk about you being cowards n’stuff.”
“How so?”
Rayday set down the megaphone, sat onto it, and let out her own squeaky sigh. “Well… it started when we saw this float hanging in Manehattan.”
Starlight almost fainted upon hearing those words. Trixie clapped her hooves together, however. “I knew I saw those somewhere!”
“Yeah…“
“But Mom said that even though we were small, the rest of you were a buncha fraidy-cats, and that we could soar just as high as you if we were as big. So… us two pioneers got the weight off that thing when it turned a corner…” Puckshot sheepishly pulled up the giant horseshoe. “And we rode that baby for miles till it landed here! I didn’t even believe it at first, but when that green mare ran screaming from this, and Puck stopped looking all glum, I… I just had to keep that smile going, and…”
Even tiny as she was, Starlight could see the tears sparking under Rayday’s eyes. And she could feel her own heart tighten too. Apparently ponies really were the same all over; little or small, they wanted to stand by their friends. Like Starlight did with Trixie.
“Do you… do you want us to bring you back to your mothers?” Starlight offered.
“Yes,.” Puckshot finally mewled out. “It’s nice here, but… it’s so lonely, and damp, and… I just thought that we could make something with this float. But you just showed us that it isn’t size that makes somepony strong. It’s overcoming all that fear and doubt, too.”
“Indeed.” Trixie bragged, puffing her chest. “Let this be a lesson, to you both; Trixie would have easily shown it earlier, but she felt Starlight needed some time in the sun too.”
Now Starlight was swaying on her hooves for a different reason. “Really?” she hissed.
She wasn’t the only one mystified by the blue unicorn’s words, though. “Wow, you’re the Great and Powerful?” Puck burbled. “Your posters are still all over the alleys in Manehattan! We thought you were a myth!”
“Goodness, even my own reputation precedes me-wait, alleys?!” And scandalized shock took over Trixie’s face. “Trixie paid top bits for those to be on the sides of the Crystaller Building! I’ve been deflocked!”
Starlight laughed as Trixie galloped back to her carriage, still closely pursued by Puck, loudly asking if Trixie really had faced down an Ursa Minor. “You two breezies are like this often?”
“No, Puck wasn’t at first. But it's a nice change,” Rayday grinned. “I got you two to thank for it, too.”
Starlight’s heart finally leaped in joy.
“Guess we’re gonna be outta your manes soon, huh?”
Starlight sighed, finally shuffling past the fallen remains of the fallen burlap enemy. “Suppose so. But hey; maybe one day, you’ll find somecreature you can be giants next to.”
“Hey, you’re right!” the yellow breezie said. “Gotta ask though - what do you think you’d do if you ever faced a real giant?”
Starlight thought back to the stories she’d heard from Twilight - of dragons, and hydras, and great beasts besides. Even that lion she’d seen Trixie about to shoot herself into, and the horror that’d gripped her then and prompted her epiphany about her now first true friend.
With a chuckle, she finally responded to the curious Rayday.
“Probably spit in its eye.”
