//-------------------------------------------------------// You Shouldn't Have Missed Valentine's Day -by G r e y- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// Night Before Valentine's Day //-------------------------------------------------------// Night Before Valentine's Day “Wait wait wait! It was just a joke! I swear it was just a joke!” Sunset Shimmer raises an eyebrow at you, having seen something completely different than what you just said, namely on the slip of paper she saw. She’s not so much smug as she is unamused and almost annoyed by your perceived dishonesty. “My brain says things I don’t mean all the time! Doesn’t everyone’s brains do that?” “The only person here who sees more in Trixie than you do is Trixie herself.” Sunset crosses her arms. ‘Yeah, so?” “And it’s only by a little. Which is saying something. And that’s not including the love letter you wrote her.” You fumble over your words and thoughts you attempt to string together into a coherent, presentable narrative trying to explain yourself. Such an unfortunate trait of people like you who begin to not even believe yourself when you know you’re telling the truth, as soon as you’re being put on the defensive. “I don’t have a crush on her!” You defend yourself with a slight blush peeking its way onto your skin. “I wrote the letter as a joke!” “If it’s a joke then why do you think about Trixie every Valentine’s Day?” “I don’t!!” Sunset grabbed your wrist again before you knew she was reaching for it. There seriously has to be a rule against her doing that whole mind-reading thing without someone’s consent. “I noticed this pattern before!” Sunset tells you with sassily lidded eyes. “That’s just my brain freaking out again! I don’t mean half the things I think! It’s only there because you implied it, and then touched me with me knowing you can read my mind.” Sunset isn’t buying that. “Listen, I’m not trying to shame you for it or anyth-“ “There’s nothing to be shamed here!” “I just want you to be honest with me! Because Trixie is so lonely every Valentine’s Day! And I just saw you remember all the times during every Valentine’s Day thinking about her. What did you expect me to think of that coupled with you being the one who wrote the letter?” The look in Sunset’s eyes silently blares out “How could you? Trixie could have been in a relationship with you all these years instead of spending Valentine’s Day alone”. And that look only makes your cognitive dissonance force the narrative she just fed to you even harder. This wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t aware she was reading your mind, you’d just fantasize about Sunset herself or something like almost every other guy your age and move on. Ah, who are you kidding? She probably caught you doing that too at one point and isn’t comfortable with admitting that she saw it. But your main concern is your brain intentionally sabotaging you at every turn, only thinking what you know is the last thing you want to be caught thinking, right as the mind-reader makes contact with you. How in the world did humans survive through evolution with this BS going on? On the outside, you’ve been perfectly articulate and explaining your side of things, but your mind internally is not sound. And now Sunset doesn’t believe anything you say, because she can see everything you’re thinking… but not everything you’re thinking is reflective of what is actually true about you. “Look. All I’m saying is that the letter was just supposed to be a joke. You weren’t supposed to find out it was me!” You repeat, raising your voice but not enough for the other students to hear. “Not a very funny joke. You got her hopes up that someone else out there wanted to spend time with her tomorrow.” “She. Wasn’t. Supposed. To. Find. Out. Who. It. Was.” “Then why would you write it in the first place?! Entertaining YOURSELF with a fake love letter to a girl everyone knows is lonely?” “It was supposed to be one of those open-ended mystery types of things! Where Trixie knew someone out there who wasn’t her was in love with her but could only speculate who it was.” “I want you to ask yourself something. Does that really sound like a smart idea?” Sunset ripples her now tilted-forward forehead. “No! It doesn’t, I have really crummy ideas sometimes, okay? Can we at least start there?” “We can go there next if you can explain why you not only think about Trixie every Valentine’s Day, but also wrote her a love letter that’s supposedly a ‘joke’, one day before Valentine’s Day.” She’s right about one thing: that really doesn’t even sound like a smart idea no matter which way you look at it. And now you’re stuck with the consequences. Though, it was your horrible luck that let Sunset Shimmer make physical contact with you and see you remember writing the darn thing. The truth is, you just feel bad for Trixie and wanted to do a little thing to make her feel special. Erm… more special than usual. You figured that if she saw that someone who isn’t her wrote a love letter to her, maybe she’d stop being so annoying trying to prove something every day, because she’d feel like she already proved that people love her. Why didn’t you think about all the ways this could have gone awry until after it was too late? Maybe you really are just stupid. Worst part is, if you tell the full truth, you’re still the bad guy anyway for not only not minding your own business, but also imply that you don’t think anyone actually likes to be around Trixie. “Alright, well since you don’t have anything else to say right now, I guess I’ll just leave you with this since I don’t wanna be late to class.” Sunset resumes after your unfortunate silence that lasted longer than five seconds. “I’m just thinking!” “About what? You don’t have to think if you’re telling the truth! And I already saw what you were thinking anyway.” Sunset stops herself, feeling as though she’d gone too far. “There’s just a lot to unpack, is all. I know you probably saw that as an admission by silence. But I really just don’t like being put on the defensive like this! Will you at least give me a second to get my story straight?” “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry, maybe your thoughts really are jumpy because I came on so strong. It happens to people kinda often.” “Then why didn’t you think of that first?” “I know, I’m sorry. Let’s just… take a step back and start this over.” “Okay, cool. Thanks.” “Alright, so, you did write the love letter to Trixie. Yes?” Sunset begins. “I did. But it wasn’t genuine, I just wanted to… I dunno, make her feel better.” The distant sounds of lockers slamming and doors opening and shutting make you imagine which classrooms are empty enough to be better suited for a private conversation such as this. “So it wasn’t a joke?” Asks Sunset with a more open-minded tone. “No, I just said that because you kinda… It was the best way I could word it off the top of my head, okay?” You clarify with a sigh in your tone. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think it was something funny or anything like that.” “Okay. Okay okay okay. Okay, so it still wasn’t a real love letter.” “Correct.” “…But Trixie still read it.” “My idea was stupid. I’m sorry.” “Okay well, this means you have to go up to her and tell her yourself what you really did. Before this turns into something more than what it really is.” You groan, knowing full well that Sunset Shimmer is completely right in what she’s saying to you. And only now in this moment do you wish you didn’t get yourself caught up in this stupid mess you have no one but yourself to blame for. “I’m sorry but there’s nothing else I can tell you. You brought this situation upon yourself. I’m not rubbing it in or anything, I’m just being honest.” “I know. I know.” “Okay, so you really should go talk to her. And like, now.” “Now now?” “Now now.” Sunset sharpens her tone back up. “It’d only be worse if you wait until tomorrow to tell her, and let her know her great… discovery… was actually false on Valentine’s Day itself.” “Oh jeez.” You run your hand up your forehead and along the top of your head with an exasperated sigh and take a couple of mini steps as you look around. Sunset shrugs at you, only further solidifying that yes, Trixie is her friend too and it’s not just the rainbow beam crew. “Can’t I just wait until like a week from now and then tell her? So I don’t spoil the moment.” You suggest, not waiting to go out of your way to actually go through with this, and pray that everyone just forgets in a week. There’s a long pause before Sunset answers you. “Okay, hear me out. I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Responds Sunset with a gentle rasp in her voice. “She’ll have made fond memories tomorrow thinking she had a secret admirer for real for the first time. Surely you know how… immersed she can get. Especially immersed in herself. Just imagine how she feels about the idea of someone else now being that immersed in her. It’s probably rocking her whole world right now, and the longer this goes on, the more solidified this will become in her head. And the more it’ll hurt when she finds out it wasn’t true all along.” You curse to yourself under your breath. “Look, I know it’s not something you want to do, but you gotta do it. Because it’s the right thing to do. If the crush really isn’t real, then you need to be genuine about it and tell her, otherwise, you might be setting her up for heartbreak if she somehow finds out the truth on her own. I don’t want that to happen to her, I hope you understand.” “I see what you mean.” You internally give up on the hope that everyone will forget in a week. The two of you nod to eachother, and a couple of other students can be heard meandering on by not too far away, hopefully not the kind who would have just been eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. “Trixie has lunch next period. Can you tell her then?” “You sure you can’t tell her?” “You wrote the letter. She needs to hear it from you.” You gulp, now feeling the guilt crushing you like a boulder. Curse under your breath again before nodding with reluctant eyes. Sunset is no longer asking about why you had supposedly been thinking about Trixie every Valentine’s Day, however. Maybe she’s already sure you’re going to deny it whether it’s true or not. ~ Think to yourself in embarrassment and you get ready to get this over with and finally have it out of the way forever. The thing that makes your idea even more ridiculously stupid is the fact that you’ve never been much of a celebrator of Valentine’s Day at all. Aside celebrating casual platonic love for friends and family. But nothing pertaining to romantic or god forbid sexual love. You’ve also never been the type to avoid relationships or even conversations with girls because it supposedly makes you cool or something (it doesn’t). Nor have you then turned around to sing the blues about being alone on Valentine’s Day anyway and blah blah blah… In your case, your life is perfect the way it is and you simply don’t want to pop the bubble you got going on here, not even going out of your way to talk about it to your little circle of buddies. Not only do you figure that your approach definitely nothing unique, but you imagine there’s too much responsibility in being a boyfriend to someone. It’d get in the way of things you care about, and you’d rather not do that. Being only ever platonic friends with everyone you meet is an underrated thing. Besides, you’ve had no trouble simply talking to girls platonically all the time. Talking to people and making friend with them ain’t rocket science, makes no difference to you whether it’s a boy or a girl as long as they’re not weird. And because of all of the above, your little stint writing a fake love letter to Trixie to make her feel better makes even less sense to you. Why in the world did that idea pop into your head the way it did? Why did you actually go through with it? There was no reason for you to even remember where Trixie’s locker was, and you somehow just… knew. Why is that? Why did you suddenly believe you’ve thought about Trixie every Valentine’s day when confronted? Did someone out there hack your brain or something? All these unanswered questions buzz around in your head like a swarm of angry hornets, or a school of piranhas biting away at something in your mind you can no longer identify. None of this reflects who you even are, so why did you bother even going through with such a stupid decision that doesn’t even make sense? Your brain is nerfing you and itself on purpose, it seems. And even then, it’s not going to change who you actually are, as if you’re going to perform reverse-psychology on yourself and make yourself fall in love with Trixie for real. You’re already aware of that hypothetical scenario, and already know it’s not going to happen, even if someone like Sunset looking in from the outside may or may not think it will. Just because she can read your thoughts doesn’t mean she can understand them. The same would apply to her reading anyone else’s thoughts, your case is nothing out of the ordinary. So it should be clear to her that what she assumed isn’t possible to happen, you’re just not interested. There is nothing in this world that can change that fact, no one out there who can change how you look at the world around yourself and what you would like to do with it. Especially someone like Trixie, she’s too much of a handful to even talk to normally without going on and on about herself. You’ve even almost forgotten to go to lunch this class period and tell her. It really is that hard for it to even bother you, at a base level. Had Sunset not been a factor, this would have been one of those things the vast majority of the short-attention-span teenagers here forget after a week or two, yourself included. But all things considered, you are who you are. And you’re just glad Sunset isn’t going to put you in the spotlight and make you prove that as though it’s necessary. And you hope everyone else will forget about these inevitable rumors after a short time like you’re going to. All of the above about you does indeed make you pretty stuck in your ways, but they are your ways. There’s not a single person out there you’re aware of who can change that. ~ Principal Cadance sits at her desk at the end of the school day. Every year on Valentine’s Day, she has made it a tradition to pair up as many students as she can ever since she became Principal of Crystal Prep. She’s always been sure to do it in a non-intrusive, non-invasive way; she vows to simply teach her students the value of love and togetherness outside of hanging out and being friends and teammates. There’s a lot more focus, drive and enthusiasm in what one does when doing something for or alongside someone they’re deeply affectionate for, Cadance knows this and has seen it in real time. Love is a much more powerful thing than most people realize, even when they’re directly affected by it. Love makes people stupid, love makes people smart, love makes people weak, love makes people strong. Love is the most potent catalyst built-in deep inside of everyone and only needs a bit of waking up to make them reach their full potential. With this, Principal Cadance pairs her students up on Valentine’s Day every year to keep a string of nice and healthy romantic relationships so their hearts are more in it when they compete together in the Friendship Games. However, if the home team doesn’t win, that’s still okay. They had a great time doing these things with those they love dearly, and that is what truly matters at the end of the day. The power of love giving them a further boost in drive and all that is simply an extra perk in competing in the Friendship Games. Cadance will not end up like Cinch and make everything about winning and reputation. She will make it all about love and good spirit instead, with a side of hopefully winning (but it’s okay if you don’t). All of which is at least what a lot of the students from both CPA and CHS understand about Principal Cadance to at least some degree. It’s become sort of a running joke amongst some boys about how she’s gonna make it easier for them to get girlfriends using some elusive love magic to make them want to be in eachother’s presence more often. The ancient Greeks did something similar to this in Thebes and it apparently worked. But again, Principal Cadance’s methods are intentionally non-intrusive and non-invasive, at least as much as she can make them. It’s definitely a lot more laid back than some of the other bouts with magic that have gone on around these parts, and Cadance makes it crystal clear that she only uses it for good intentions. While on the inside, she’s developed this mantra that the power of love cannot fail no matter what. Maybe things will take a different turn after the school district’s ethics committee emails Cadance back, depending on how they respond to all of this. For for the meantime, the power of love and its potent practices are full speed ahead as far as Principal Cadance is concerned. And of course, some of the students might find this a little creepy, to put it lightly. Especially those like one student over at Canterlot High who may or may not have written a fake love letter to a classmate for a dishonest purpose. The power of love cannot be topped, and Principal Cadance proved this again and again, which is why she’s excited for Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Her phone rings. “Hello? Luna! What’s goin’ on? … Oh you know, more of the usual. Getting ready for tomorrow and everything. … Mhm… Really… Really? … Which one of your students? … Uh-huh… Well what did he do? … Mhm? … Say what now?” Principal Cadance’s eyes begin to form storm clouds of determination the more and more she hears about the blasphemous act that has been performed over at Canterlot High. One that has entirely to do with love problems, with a clear bad actor at fault who is refusing to be dealt with. He’s currently sat in one of the vacant classrooms with Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna doing everything they can to get through to him. “Is Trixie Lulamoon okay?” Asks Cadance into the phone, her heart slowly breaking for one student at the other school and slowly revving up in disappointed vengefulness for the other. “Okay, well did she stop crying now? … That’s terrible! … How could he do something like that? … I know! … Didn’t he realize how much that meant to her? … I see… Okay, I’ll see what I can do.” Principal Cadance soon hangs up the phone with urgency in her heart and a mission in her mind. It’s a good thing the students here will cooperate together without her presence; Cadance is going to be busy tomorrow on Valentine’s Day. Author's Note I will try to get the next part out TONIGHT. //-------------------------------------------------------// Two Days Later... //-------------------------------------------------------// Two Days Later... The way it happened was about as one would expect. Except with the inevitable theatrics added in by none other than Trixie herself. You’re already trying to repress it, pretending it didn’t happen as you lie in bed in the middle of the night, but you’ve been thinking about it every minute of the day whether you like it or not. As you wonder how Trixie Lulamoon herself must be taking in in this very moment, you remember the buildup to the event once again. ~ Lavender Lace and Fuchsia Blush were there with her, as they always were, perpetually prepared to back up Trixie in whatever she had gotten herself into his time. They were the first ones to see you; they watched you mosey on over with one arm behind your back, hand awkwardly cupped onto your other arm as each of your further steps got smaller and smaller. But biding your time in this only dragged it out. “Check it out.” Fuchsia had said to Trixie with a point of her hand in your direction, officially sealing your fate for your punishment for following through on a stupid idea. You now had Trixie’s attention, and of course, she already had the love letter out and in her hand; she must have read it a thousand times. Whether to try and identify which boy in school she figured it was through the handwriting, or maybe just to read all of the nice and pretty things about herself again and again… and again. Heck, she probably did both through the entire day. You gave her an awkward wave, and it barely took a couple of seconds for Trixie’s eyes to light up as she put two and two together the instant she saw you. You had pretty much never talked to her before, and didn’t have a recent reason to randomly walk up to her during the lunch period you don’t even share with her on your schedule. Her two closest friends were standing right there watching as you opened your mouth, getting ready to speak… ~ …Trixie loudly sobs on her bed, now in her room. She doesn’t even remember what she did with the love letter she had received, on account that she now knows where it came from: a place of sheer blatant LIES! All her heart had just built up today had come crashing down; crashing down too hard for her illusions Fuchsia Blush and Lavender Lace to stop the falling debris from pummeling her from the falling skies above. Trixie’s diary resting on her nightstand before her is nothing but an obscured blur through the thick clouds in her eyes. Her tears run down her cheeks like a monsoon as her wails of emotional agony echo across her walls. Her fast turbulent breathing accompanying it. Those clouds in Trixie’s eyes soon form flashes of lightning, shortly followed by a thunderous growl emitting from her lungs. Her glare turns into a dangerous maelstrom of hatred and thirst for revenge. Revenge for twisting her emotions around only to shatter them so. Trixie balls her hands into fists, glad she left school early after making such a scene over not being the perfect girl of that boy’s dreams as asserted in his love letter that read like a window into Trixie’s own mind. Trixie had never heard someone else say something like that, in a way where it sounded like she was listening to her own thoughts, her own heart… She didn’t even know who this boy was and she was already in love with him, and then he came forward and told her the truth, and forced her to fall right back out of love with him. Putting her on such a… rollercoaster of feelings! It inevitably made Trixie sick to her stomach, thinking about how humiliated and devastated she felt as her forehead ripples and her brow furrows; the event had warranted her subsequent moment of pettiness. How dare he do such a thing to the Great and Powerful Trixie?! Getting him sent to the principal’s office doesn’t feel like it was enough for Trixie. Although, it did help Trixie a little bit to immediately overemphasize her own crying immediately after he made that confession in order to make it seem like he said something punishment-worthy to Trixie and her friends right in front of where Vice Principal Luna was watching from. Had Trixie not played it up so hard, he might not have gotten into trouble at all. He would have gotten Trixie’s hopes up and then crushed them, and then would have gotten away with it. And even thought he didn’t get away from humiliating The Great and Powerful Trixie in front of her friends and all the students, Trixie still feels like she… lost. Lying on her side with her tears now trickling sideways to her temple resting on the dampening pillow below, she shuts her eyes and mopes herself to sleep, hoping to dream up a new way to exact her revenge for this humiliation. ~ God damn it, why did you have to let it sound like you had written a stalker letter to Trixie when Principal Celestia had confronted you about it? You stare at your bedroom ceiling in the middle of the night and grunt to yourself, regretting not having prepared for Trixie’s intentionally exaggerated reaction or for having to explain the context of what you did without looking like you’re the asshole here. All Vice Principal Luna saw was you walk across the empty middle of the cafeteria where barely anyone was walking around, drawing everyone’s attention, then talking to Trixie and her suddenly crying the blues like you had previously promised a wedding ring to her but then just told her she has seven days to live or something. It was enough for Luna to call you both to her office to try and figure out what the whole dramatic issue is that disrupted the entire lunch period and made everyone laugh and clamor like the gossip-y teenagers they are. With Trixie inevitably running away in tears and skipping the rest of the school day… taking the love letter with her. And thus leaving you the only one facing the brunt of the mess you technically started. You may not admire Trixie herself, maybe not a whole lot, probably, but you have to admit you admire her clever spite whenever her high and mighty view of herself is challenged or otherwise slightly invalidated. Maybe this is what you get for being such a fool, and not the kind of fool who falls in love. Maybe Vice Principal Luna was aware of this too somehow, and went along with it while understanding that Trixie’s reaction was deliberately embellished. Hell, maybe that’s why you yourself just went with it and relayed it like you had written something that really had been intended to make Trixie cry like that. Maybe it was your guilt that allowed you to do that subconsciously. Maybe that answers your question. Bit little did you know, that there is another much, much bigger mistake you make on Valentine’s Day that completely blindsided you as it happened. The day after Trixie lies in her bed full of tears and revenge, while you lie in your bed full of guilt and remorse, that subsequent day being Valentine’s Day, was a holiday you had intentionally missed. And you were unaware of just how severe this mistake was, having had no way of knowing as you were debating with your moonlight-lit bedroom ceiling regarding whether or not you should play sick tomorrow… You had resolved to skip Valentine’s Day out of a combination of shame and not wanting to confront anyone about this out of simply wanting it to be over already. You already told Trixie the truth like Sunset told you to… you already did your part. Or so you thought. Wrongfully thought. Your increasingly sleep-stealing decision to skip the next day resulted in repercussions that brought down upon you the wrath of the Goddess of Love herself. ~ The echo of the event shall reverberate on even two days later, and then even longer, but only because of this very conscious second and more severe mistake you make. And as you will soon sit around two days later with even more baggage in your mind, the second mistake that sprouted out from the first now plays again in your head: ~ What a beautiful holiday Valentine’s Day is. All of the students of Canterlot High gradually come to school like they’re supposed to, feeling the warm gentle flutter of love in the air. Boys and Girls all over send some sweet nothings to their crushes, a number of said crushes are reciprocated. There’s no feeling like finding out the one you go to school with who makes you feel funny, finally admits to you that you also make them feel funny as well. A boy will have been crushing on a girl for several months since the school year had started. Had been shy around her, very nervous and hesitant to talk to her, not knowing what his feelings are doing until they get paired up in chemistry class together and are both forced to interact in order to avoid flunking the assignment. Every single word the girl says to him makes him jitter and twiddle his thumbs; he’s afraid to even look at her because she just has that much of an effect on him. More so than any chemical reaction they watch and record occurring in the glass beakers. His very handwriting has become shaky and noticeably clumsily done. Thoughts about her won’t leave him alone and he wishes it would all end as soon as the bell rings, but then after it does, and everyone spills back into he halls, the boy switches to wishing it had lasted all day. Because he felt so uncomfortably good on the inside when she was around and talking to him. And then on Valentine’s Day, all the little moments such as that one suddenly come spilling out all at once through a cheesily decorated slip of paper coated in hearts and corny yet sweet lines from movies such as “stop, you had me at hello”. As Principal Cadance steps through the doors early in the morning, she can sense this all over the place as she hugs herself in serene delight. It is thick in the air: the power of love is in good company here. And Principal Celestia greets her from her own office. The two principals shake hands, their mutual plan between their palms, Aphrodite and Eos, Venus and Aurora, ready to teach a mortal man a valuable lesson about love as he should be entering the school any minute this morning before homeroom. But he’s late… at best. But Trixie isn’t late, though she must have forgotten a bit of her usual self-confidence at home today. Lavender and Fuchsia sit beside her on either side, early into homeroom, patting her on the shoulder and cheering her up. Exactly where Celestia and Cadance expect them to be and doing exactly what they expect them to be doing. Trixie swears that she never really cared about you anyway, her eyes still slightly bloodshot with bags under them from a night of not-so-fake crying. Things may be gloomy right now, but today is going to be a triumphant day for Cadance, as it is going to be a triumphant day for the power of love. Valentine’s Day is going to prove to be a great turning point in your life as soon as you walk through those front doors, a pivotal moment. But the bell for homeroom soon rings… and then the bell for first period. But that’s fine, Cadance’s plan can still go into action anyway. Trixie is called to the principal’s office, which automatically signals to her that she is most likely in trouble for skipping out in tears the day before. But she’s already too bummed out and not feeling that need for self-preservation right now to do anything about this. She figures she might as well just go to Celestia’s office and face the music that she over-exaggerated her reaction to the fake love letter thing on purpose just to make a scene. But when she enters the office, she is greeted by not only Principal Celestia, but also Principal Cadance from Crystal Prep, quaintly standing there in her formal suit uniform very neatly fitting her with her hair tidy and in perfect order. Great, now she has to explain herself to TWO principals instead of one. “What will be the length of Trixie’s suspension?” Trixie immediately begins by asking. “There won’t be a suspension.” Clarifies Celestia. “But we do need to talk about yesterday.” Before it can hit trixie like a ton of bricks and open up old wounds she’s currently trying to close, Cadance steps in. “He really does feel something for you, Trixie.” Trixie knows these two wouldn’t go out of their way to lie to her, which means they must be wrong without thinking this isn’t true. They continue to talk about you without you in the room with them. Trixie’s eyes almost start to tear up again, but it is reduced to her just sniffling as Cadance continues on and on. “I don’t know if you knew this, but he thinks about you every Valentine’s Day.” She reveals. “And this year, he was about to finally declare his feelings for you through that love letter, but was too shy to do it directly.” “Why are you saying this? How do you know it’s true?” Trixie says. It had been established to Trixie that you wouldn’t have gone and told her the opposite of what she believed had your feelings been genuine, and Trixie tells Cadance and Celestia this without a shadow of a doubt. But Cadance rebukes this by simply asserting that it was just you chickening out, and that love makes people do stupid things. “He doesn’t realize it yet, but his feelings for you are… genuine. He’s just afraid that you wouldn’t return the sentiment. You see, he’s just as afraid of rejection as you are, and the two of you were kinda doomed to have a bit of a rough start on account of unfortunate luck.” Cadance tells Trixie. “Wh-what?” Trixie’s glancing back and forth between the two principals is full of confusion. “What she mens is that you have to show him first that you return the sentiment.” Adds Celestia. Trixie gives her an even more confused look as she sits in the cushioned chair, the backdrop of the wallpaper behind her contrasting with her light sky-blue hair. “Do you think you can… write him something back?” Asks Principal Cadance. “Celestia and I already talked this over, and we feel that this is the best way we can help. As in, the best way we can help both of you.” Trixie only just now noticed the blank slip of paper resting flat on the surface of the principal’s desk, one corner slightly jutting off of the edge as if beckoning for her to swipe it up along with the pen resting next to it. “Th-this must be some kind of a mistake.” Trixie forces a laugh and raises her hands up slightly. “It’s clear he just wanted to perform some ill-willed prank on Trixie. Why should she be nice to him?” “Because he’s afraid he ruined everything.” Says Principal Cadance. “And once he sees that he hasn’t, and that you’ve shown him that you understand how he really feels, and feel the same way back, it’ll all come bubbling out of him. Trust me.” “H-how do you know Trixie even REALLY likes that heartless weirdo anyway? He should feel lucky that Trixie was impressed by his fake love letter!” “Why did you cry so much?” Brings up Cadance with a rather humble but interrogating tone. “We all know your first reaction was an act. But-” “W-well yeah! Of course it was an act! Because Trixie doesn’t care about him!” “But you’ve been crying all night, Trixie. While you were in private with no one around. I can see it in your eyes, you’ve been crying all night.” Trixie blushes hard and crosses her arms with a defensive pout. Principal Cadance continues anyway. “It’s clear you care about him. And I promise you that he cares about you too, but he’s too afraid to admit it. And today is the perfect day for the both of you to start over on the right foot. You two can start something so beautiful together!” Insists Cadance with a wide grin, flaunting her ‘expertise’ on this topic. “Trust me! I know this stuff when I see it!” It takes a little bit more convincing, but Trixie (now with the pen and paper in her hands) soon figures that she can now do you you what you’ve done to her. Write a “love” letter to you and then slip it into your locker, then approach you as you’re thinking she actually likes you and wants to apologize for her counter-antics upon you. Then she’ll pill the rug out from under you like you did to her, and then you’ll finally understand how it felt, and on Valentine’s Day too! Meanwhile, in Cadance’s mind, the true power of love with erupt in both of you as soon as one of you starts believing the other one actually has genuine feeling for the other, which has already happened when Trixie heard you talk about her like it was her talking about herself, as Celestia had put it earlier. There’s something funny about the way love works. Knowing that someone feels a certain way about you sometimes, just sometimes triggers a contagious flurry of feelings in return back for that person, solely for them feeling that way and showing it. And once the second letter is given to the other party in this, the first step towards a beautiful and wholesome romance between a young man and a young lady. They’ll both fall for eachother entirely with a little assistance from Principal Cadance. “He’s apparently late to school today. So you have time to write your heart out before he arrives. I’ll let you skip your morning classes to achieve this if you want. Just because today’s a spacial day, I’ll make an exception for now.” Celestia lets Trixie know. “How would you like to give him the letter during lunch today?” With a grin fueled by intentions different than those of Principal Cadance, Trixie responds: “Trixie would love to give it to him during lunch today!” After a couple more minutes, Trixie skips out of the office door without a single tear in her eye. But not before a slight flashing pink glow shoots over from Principal Cadance’s fingertips to the back of Trixie’s head, unbeknownst to her. Cadance makes sure to do this in a way where only she can watch it happening and no one else notices. Those other students with the rumors about her still assume whatever they want, since they’re impressionable teenagers, but they can’t actually prove anything, because she never let them actually witness her Poetry In Motion in real time. Cadance is still waiting for that response from the school district’s ethic committee to her emails she sent. Meanwhile, Trixie begins to happily skip through the hallways during first period, knowing that Principal Celestia has contacted her Calculus teacher to make clear that Trixie is completing an “extra assignment” today. Who doesn’t love to be allowed to skip classes solely because it’s Valentine’s Day and they’re experiencing “love problems”? She has no idea why this is happening, but Trixie starts to get oldie love songs stuck in her head, those really hauntingly classic and wholesome ones with those echoing wall-of-sound vocals and seemingly innocent narratives in the lyrics superimposed over classic late 50s to early 60s love song chord progressions and motown-esque instruments. Really is a sort of specific vibe going on as Trixie gets all giddy with herself in the halls, knowing that yes, someone actually does like her for real, but he just doesn’t want to admit it. Principal Cadance, just out of sight, watches from afar as The Great and Powerful Trixie nods her head to “A Teenager In Love” playing in her head. She silently celebrates to herself as she watches Trixie vibing to the tiny little extra bit of the spirit of love she snuck into her heart. It works every time, and Principal Cadance has always been the optimal matchmaker for her own students at Crystal Prep. The students over here at Canterlot High should be even easier to get through to since they’re even more in need of true love in their lives, because they lack the already existent history with Cadance’s careful, non-invasive reign that only comes from good intentions. Principal Cadance loves to be matchmaker. Not play matchmaker… be matchmaker. It’s her calling, it’s what she knows best… what she does best. The room number of the vacant classroom Trixie was given was easy to find, and she soon sits in one of the empty desks and begins jotting down everything she wants to say to you. “By the way…” Principal Cadance asks Principal Celestia after she returns to her office. “How did you figure he always thought about her every Valentine’s Day?” “I had gotten word from one of my students.” Responds Celestia. ~ Sunset Shimmer glances out the window from time to time from her desk in fourth period Physics class. She is thinking back to the scene that was made yesterday, mostly about how Trixie reacted to you. And about how she volunteered to talk to Principal Celestia after school privately about what her own personal interpretation of the whole situation after you were let out of the vacant classroom so you could go home. Something about this makes Sunset feel like this was all her fault. She is the one who made you tell Trixie when you clearly didn’t want to. If you hadn’t, maybe it could have been kept a secret and Trixie could have accepted that she’ll never know who her finally genuine secret admirer was. Yes, your original idea was stupid as well, but Sunset is starting to think that her own idea for what you should have done about it didn’t exactly help at all. Maybe stupid problems call for stupid solutions. Maybe stupid solutions lead to even stupider problems… Meanwhile, you yourself are being driven to school like a little kid now, since your plan to stay home didn’t exactly work. On account of your acting abilities being even worse than Trixie’s acting abilities. Your parents didn’t buy the fake coughing and sneezing for a single second, but you’re really just glad they didn’t ask you if you have a girlfriend this Valentine’s Day. It’s just like that funny chess meme from the internet: Your parents ask if you have a girlfriend. If you say yes, your dad won’t leave you alone. If you refuse to talk about it, your mom won’t leave you alone. If you say no, they’re both going to be on your case about it. So you’re absolutely pleased that they’re not nagging you about it like some of your peers at school do, but they’re the ones forcing you to be around your peers at school anyway. The minivan drops you off in the chilly February air and drives off. Instinctively head into the building where it’s warmer, making your way over to the Vice Principal’s office where you’ll undergo being jotted down as late attendance. There are only a few cringeworthy Valentine’s Day decorations lining the walls, but it’s enough to mildly annoy you. You already know a lot of your classmates are going to be on your ass about yesterday, which is pretty much the reason you didn’t want to be here today. You were absolutely aiming to avoid that screaming bullet for your Valentine’s Day. Part of which being another over-the-top set of theatrics by Trixie Lulamoon. Because of this, your defenses have gone way up, and you’re on edge about what may happen as you’re being basically thrown into this cage against your will. As soon as your teenage classmates see you, they’re gonna turn into a pack of lions, and guess who gets to be the raw steak that was just thrown into their den? Yeah, your defenses are so up… way up. Wait a minute, is that Principal Cadance from Crystal Prep? The one who… does magic stuff with her students so they fall in love with eachother? What is she doing here? She already caught a glance of you, and she rushes over to Vice Principal Luna to wake her up so she can take your late attendance. You reluctantly, solemnly, hesitantly proceed into the school like you’re trotting down the lane at your own funeral procession. The lion’s den is just past this checkpoint. They’re gonna ask you a million questions at once, they’re gonna gossip, whisper in eachother’s ears, pester you to no end while you sit in your desk, tired as a flight control employee, not wanting to be at school anyway. Have you seen how weird Valentine’s Day makes high schoolers? Even without something like yesterday happening… “Hey!” Principal Cadance’s voice is bright and cheerful, almost as sturdy as her posture. “Aren’t you Crystal Prep’s principal?” You have the stories you’ve heard about her resurfacing in your head. “Mhm!” You pause for a second as the metal door with a large cold window loudly shuts behind your back, thankfully without locking. Principal Cadance smiles over at you as Principal Celestia emerges from her office for a brief moment. “Why are you here?” You can already sense this is about you. “Don’t the prep students… miss you right now?” “Oh, it’s okay. The staff can take over for a bit while I’m here.” “…Why are you here?” You express your suspicion as lightheartedly and playfully as you can with a slightly turned face and corny grin. Cadance looks back at Celestia, while Luna peeks out of her office with bags under her eyes with a lethargic groan before retreating back inside. Cadance and Celestia exchange glances at one another before together looking back over at you, silently telling you all you needed to know. “…So why are you here?” You ask the now useless question. “You remember Trixie Lulamoon, yes?” Cadance begins, changing her posture to something less stiff and intimidating the instant she sees you subconsciously start to back away. “Okay, hold on, it’s alright.” “I did my part already. I didn’t want to, but I told her the truth.” You explain, instantly thinking of ways to now avoid the lion’s den. “A-also… I’m sick today. I don’t have a doctor’s note, I’ll just take the absence.” Principal Celestia raises an eyebrow at you while Principal Cadance softens her tone. “It’s alright. We’re not here to put you on the defensive.” Cadance immediately says something oddly familiar. Did they… talk to Sunset? What did Sunset tell them? You have no way of knowing for sure. You begin anyway. “Alright, look. I just wanna go about my day, okay? Everyone’s already going to bug me about what happened, surely you know this. I just wanna be left alone. I did my part and told Trixie the truth. I’m sorry I did what I did, it was stupid and I wasn’t thinking. But I did everything I can do at this point. I already tried apologizing to her, but she ran away. Can you at least tell her I said I’m sorry and feel bad about what happened?” You drone on and on before trailing off when you realize that what your saying isn’t going to make a difference with Principal Cadance. There’s something about the face she gives you that tells you “yeah, you’re not getting off the hook that easily”. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? What else do you want me to do?” “We talked for a bit, and we personally think you could do more to patch things up with Trixie. And today just so happens to be the best day you can do that.” Oh boy, here we go… “But again, we don’t want to put you on the defensive.” Continues Cadance. “But it’s still true that Trixie is still kind of heartbroken, but I understand that if it’s out of your hands to do anything further, then I’ll respect that.” You’re not sure if she realizes how her words really sound when she says them out loud. She absolutely is putting you on the defensive right now, only, she’s giving you the soft-sell about it. “Just… what is it you want me to do?” You decide to capitulate ahead of time so this doesn’t drag out any further. “I’ll apologize to her in person if you want. Okay? I’m tired, I wanna be left alone today. Sorry if I sound grouchy.” “That would work, if you feel up to it.” Principal Celestia joins in as Cadance smiles and nods. “Okay, cool. Can I just get it over with now? I didn’t sleep a lot last night.” “I see that.” Cadance begins before failing to hold in her next bit of totally not putting you on the defensive. “And I feel like there’s a reason behind that.” “…Huh?” “Um, Cadance. I think now is a good time to remind you that he is still my student.” Celestia interjects. “Right, right, sorry.” Cadance quaintly nods, her hair bobbing back and forth before she turns to you. “I’m very sorry. I don’t want you to feel pressured. It’s just that… I really really care about this kind of stuff.” She turns back to Principal Celestia. “Is it okay if I tell him really quick?” Celestia sighs and nods after a pause. “Quick. We don’t have all afternoon.” “Okay, look. Everyone out there in the world has someone else who is perfect for them. And when you wrote Trixie that letter, she felt that you are that person.” Explains Cadance. “Which is why it made her act out so hard when you told her it wasn’t true what you said. And I think that is the reason why you were losing sleep last night.” “Well… that might be part of it, yes.” “I’ve seen this countless times before. And if it’s not addressed, you’ll end up regretting not saying what you could have said.” “So… apologize to Trixie, yes?” “I um… I think that if there is anything in there you’re feeling for Trixie. No matter how small… I think it would be amazing if you expressed it. It would really make her Valentine’s Day a lot better. And yours too, if you two were to spend the day sort of hanging out and patching things up… just out of spirit is all.” You tilt your head a little bit, almost offended. “But… there’s no crush on my end.” “It’s okay if there’s not, just think about this as a possible little Valentine’s Date! Nothing serious, just a cute little holiday activity that would set you and Trixie off on the right foot. And if it doesn’t turn long term, that’s okay! I don’t want to force you either way, all I’m doing is suggesting this based on everything I’ve seen over the years.” The more you talk to Principal Cadance, the more you believe the stories are true. “So… you want me to not only apologize to Trixie, but spend the day with her?” “Not the whole day, just enough to celebrate the spirit of Valentine’s Day with her. I think she’d appreciate that a lot. I know I would.” “What do you mean?” “Well, this day means a lot to me as well. And I saw you and Trixie had a little bit of a run-in that could be started over on the right foot if you just… tried this out together.” In her head, unbeknownst to you, Principal Cadance is waiting for you to eventually enter the classroom with Trixie, where she’ll hand her own love letter to you. And after having taken a look at it after Trixie showed her the semi-final version, whew, is that love letter an absolute banger. What’s better than a love letter? A love letter combined with an apology. It’s one of the sweetest things Cadance could imagine, and she knows Trixie wrote it from her heart. No way it isn’t genuine. All Cadance really wants to see is you and Trixie get together this Valentine’s Day and make things right between you two again. She’s actually expecting it, while not wanting it to look like it wasn’t you making your own decision to do this. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m just not really into Trixie. She’s a cool girl but I’m not interested in spending the day with her.” You decline. “Maybe not right now. But she’s interested in spending the day with you. And maybe you two could have a great time together, that’d be a great way for you to spend your Valentine’s Day this year!” Cadance softly insists. “I only want the best for you, and this day means a lot, it really, really does. I think it would be really sweet. I can get Trixie to agree not to annoy you too much, if that helps.” You insist back, but not so softly. “Alright, well hear me out. I’m not really into doing Valentine’s Day stuff at all. Just in general. And honestly, I didn’t wanna come to school today… because I’m sick.” You reinforce the lie you originally planned to reinforce anyway. “But… you do celebrate Valentine’s Day, right?” Asks Principal Cadance. “This is the best time and place to do it. It’ll be alright, I promise.” “I do celebrate V-day, I just…I guess just not this year. Too much drama happened and I think it’s better if I sit this one out and get better.” “But you don’t have to sit this one out! You and Trixie can patch things up right now, and you can do it in the sweetest way, it doesn’t have to turn into a serious relationship if you don’t want it to. H-how else are you going to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year if you don’t?” She’s probably expecting you to come up with another way you’ll celebrate this holiday she loves so much instead. But you’re too tired and defensive to think of anything. You just wanna go back to bed. “Look, I’m not celebrating it this year. Okay? I’m sorry I’m not, but… it’s just too much for me this time. I hope you understand.” Principal Cadance stares at you. “You mean… you’re skipping Valentine’s Day anyway? Even though you could easily do something really sweet and help Trixie feel better?” “Yes. I am. I’m sorry. I hope you understand. It’s nothing personal. I’m also really sick and would rather just take an absence on my record for today. I don’t mind it.” “Are you sure?” Asks Principal Celestia in a tone that implies that she doesn’t believe a word about you being sick. “Are you sure you feel too sick to be at school?” “I am too sick, but even if I wasn’t, this whole spending time with Trixie thing just isn’t really my speed. I appreciate the offer, but I just wanna apologize to her and move on. And I’ll do it tomorrow if necessary. I’m skipping Valentine’s Day today, I’m really sorry.” “Well uh… what if we uh…” Celestia begins as Principal Cadance stands there as petrified as a statue. “What if you what?” “What if I told you that we… accidentally told Trixie something else already…” “…You what?” “Sorry, that was our fault. We don’t want to force you to do anything, right?” Celestia turns to a perplexed Cadance, finally starting to step in more. “We’ll revise what we said and say you’re coming over to apologize really quickly. You can do that and then you can go home if you want. But the absence will permanently remain on your record, and you’ll have to make up your assignments. “L-luna! Back me up, here!” Principal Cadance turns to her sleeping best friend who isn’t registering anything she’s saying. “Luna?” Celestia places an apologetic hand on Cadance’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Cadance. We tried. We really did. But I can’t force him to do this thing if he doesn’t want to. It’s not under school policy.” “B-but… this is the perfect day you can make things right with Trixie…” Repeats Principal Cadance to you. “It’s Valentine’s Day. Are you saying you don’t even want to give love a chance?!” “I don’t think that’s what this is about.” Celestia continues to step in more, seeing that this has dragged on long enough. “I think he’s just tired.” “But he’s still obviously not sick!” “No, but I technically can’t force him to stay in the school if he refuses. The most I can do is write him up and contact his parents unless he’s being actively disruptive, which he’s not. But if I recall correctly, both of his parents work during the week, and I doubt they’re going to come pick him up if they hauled him off to school just now.” Principal Cadance turns to you, her eyes now filled with desperation as her voice starts to break a little. “You’re… not really going to choose walking all the way home in the cold over spending one innocent Valentine’s Day with Trixie, are you?” You can’t lie, the way Cadance sounds so hurt right now is wrenching your heart. “Please…” Cadance continues. “She really cares about you. Even after what happened. Don’t you wanna give this a chance?” It so obvious she’s actively trying to get you to cave in. But god damn it, it worked. “Okay, I’ll do it.” You give in, at least in the immediate moment to tell Principal Cadance what she wants to hear. “Thank you! Thank you so much! You’ll love looking back on today, I promise!” Cadance lurches forward and tightly hugs you. “I hope you and Trixie have so much fun together!” As Principal Cadance lovingly embraces you as though you just saved her life, mashing her soft chest onto you and getting you feeling a little torqued on the inside, you can sense that she’s relieved that you gave this a chance. As though it means everything to her. Part of you imagines her sneaking some magic into your heart through your back, after having heard those stories about her. But after seeing how genuinely worried she was that you were about to simply decide not to do this, maybe you’re not so concerned about her capabilities in this moment. And so, you sign in and continue into the school. But after you’re out of Principal Cadance’s eyesight and earshot, you begin scouting for the best side door to sneak out of. You’re not going to do it juuuuuuust yet, but the plan’s all coming together as you calculate in your head how to make it across the field outside. As soon as Cadance leaves, you leave. Right after she’s gone and can’t see you leave. If possible. Celestia’s going to bring the metaphorical hammer down upon you for what you’re about to do, and you’re prepared for that, and preemptively accept that well deserved punishment for when it will happen. If only you knew that your biggest concern wasn’t what Principal Celestia is going to do if you go through with this… but was what Principal Cadance is going to do if you go through with this. Stepping up to the slim metal door you’re used to, you remember your locker combination. Trixie wrote a poem for you and stuck it into your locker, and you have a feeling that Cadance knew about this and was waiting for all this to tug at your heartstrings and maybe convince you to start dating Trixie because this is kind of what that principal is somewhat known for making happen somehow. You had waited until Cadance stopped looking around the corner for you, blatantly letting her know that you don’t want to be followed. But also waited until right before you know the next bell will ring so the hallways flood with students, aiding your escape. You’ll have to dodge a couple of lion claws in the process, but it’s a sacrifice you’re willing to make. Start reading the poem before entering the vacant classroom you see Trixie sitting in. She sees you reading the paper, glancing out at you with a giddy smile on her face. It’s pretty lengthy, but you’re honestly kind of blown away by the fact that Trixie wrote all of this in about a day. You can see that she both said really sweet things about you while also apologizing to you for overreacting on purpose and getting you in trouble. The part at the end is the part that matters, however. Trixie wrote one of those little things that says to read the first letter of each line of the poem, catching you completely off-guard. And as you do this, the true message of the poem reveals itself to you: “Sike, you are an asshole, Trixie writes better fake love letters than you.” Your shock as you glance back into the room to Trixie giving you the middle finger is actually real, and she can see it in your face, with a smug grin on hers. Yeah, she got you back. Well played, Trixie Lulamoon. Well played. You could have just waited until after the bell rang, which it does right now, and left without even letting Trixie see you read the poem, but you feel better knowing that Trixie got the last laugh she probably deserved anyway on account of your initial dumb decision. Whatever, you’ll take the L. You won’t lose sleep over this one, it’s fine. Pull out a pencil and write a quick response on the paper before slipping it under the door, prompting Trixie to stand up and come over to see your reaction and response. A couple of your classmates pouring out of the classrooms immediately recognize you and start making a big fuss out of yesterday. With this, you make your escape through the loud crowd. Trixie watches, perceiving it in her head as you running away in shame as the students heckle you roundly. While she still has her “poem” and your response written on it they all saw you slip back under the door. Trixie reads what you haphazardly wrote on the back in a rush: “Well played, Trixie. You got me. See ya” Trixie gleefully pumps her fist in the air in victory, knowing that you HAD to be impressed by that even after she pulled the old bait and switch on you. She looks out the window at you hobbling across the muddy, slippery field outside towards the edge of the school grounds in “defeat”. She cackles to herself. Whatever, you feel better now, Trixie feels better now, both of you won with Trixie thinking only she won. Perfect solution. …Except for one small problem… From another window on the same side of the school facing the same field, Principal Cadance watches you after having seen you clearly not even enter the classroom Trixie was sitting in before students started walking around the hallways and obstructed her view of everything. You told her you weren’t skipping Valentine’s Day after all, only to display through your actions that you lied right to her face. Having no contentions about betraying the power of love on the very day love must reign supreme. Having no contentions about opting to walk all the way home in the cold just to abandon the very thing Cadance has meticulously set up just for you and Trixie. She had literally just been smiling to herself about the thought of you and Trixie holding hands in the hallways after you had surely went into the classroom after she couldn’t see anymore… before she looked out the window. A stake drives itself into Cadance’s heart, followed by a painful lightning bolt sending a wave of emotional despair crashing through her body as if the stake in her breaking heart doubled as a lightning rod. Her pupils dramatically contract, but her shellshocked smile only gets wider, not knowing what else to do. ~ Just like that lost student surely is doing in his own room, Cadance sits at the foot of her bed, two days later. It was actually two days later the whole time, but to Cadance, it’s still been Valentine’s Day. She continues to play out the events in her head again and again, thinking about what went wrong, how things could have gone differently, how love could have been saved. She’s not used to this outcome; she doesn’t know how to process this. The only thing that is certain is that your future fate is sealed, and it’s only going to become more inevitable the longer you run away from it. Principal Cadance will not let this stand! The power of love must prevail at all costs! //-------------------------------------------------------// Broken Candy //-------------------------------------------------------// Broken Candy Principal Cadance sits alone on Friday night, still thinking about all that could have gone better. As the clock on the wall continues to tick away, Cadance struggles to hold it all together. She never thought something like this would happen. And to think it happened on one of the most important days of the year to her. Surely, there must be some kind of mistake. Some sort of misunderstanding that made things not appear as they are. Maybe Trixie had her first kiss in that classroom and Cadance simply didn’t see it. Maybe you had given her flowers, or asked her if she wanted to go to the movies. Or a restaurant, or even just the park where the two of you could sit together and begin to bond as a potential couple. It’s completely okay if it doesn’t work out, as long as love was given a chance! Right?! Cadance mulls over it again and again and again in her head, desperately beating back at the unrelenting onslaught of cope and cognitive dissonance threatening to make her sky come falling down. The pillars of heaven cannot hold everything up when the crushing weight of its collapse becomes too much to bear. Cadance had always thought she was strong enough, had always believed that the love she introduced to others would always come out as the true victor. Love has always been such a potent, beautiful thing. An unstoppable force of nature that no immovable object can resist after everything eventually boils down to the primordial truth of human nature. Even if through lust, love always finds a way. And that had to be what happened with Trixie, her broken heart had to be mended! That must be why she wasn’t there when Cadance re-entered the vacant classroom that suddenly had a couple of clamoring students laughing about some blasphemy saying this didn’t work out even for a minute. Surely Trixie had run after you across that field, with you just waiting to take her into your arms like the end of a movie as the gentle rain poured down upon you two. Pitter pattering all over the ground to only barely mask your mutually exchanged apologies murmured in between sweet nothings. There was no way this plan failed! Even if failing at first, nothing backed by the power of love is kept from prevailing in the end. Love is something that is eternal, it is unstoppable, and it is something that is built into every person in the world. Hard-wired into everyone’s brains, as far as Cadance is concerned, even if it’s only a little bit. Cadance does everything she can to convince herself that you and Trixie are currently watching a TV movie together in one of your living rooms. Munching on popcorn as the glow of the screen is the only light source illuminating your interlocked fingers as you hold hands, with her eventually resting her head on your shoulder and tickling the side of your neck a little with her hair. There’s no way Cadance can allow these students to stay single when they can have moments like that instead! And they are, Cadance needs herself to believe this. So she knows that love cannot die, and that Valentine’s Day is just as sacred as she always knew it was. It’s the day of love! Love made it to the end of the day like always! Cadance just knows she doesn’t now have to try something for Veneralia next to avenge anything. Principal Cadance stands around still in her full uniform, slowly realizing that she still saw you running away across that murky, sloshy field not even a minute after you had failed to enter the classroom and truly meet Trixie for real like she had intended. Cadance wants to believe her heart telling her that everything’s okay and love prevailed in the end like always, but she has no choice but to believe her own eyes more. Her own eyes and the stake that is still in her heart as she stands before the mirror in full uniform as principal of her school Since she knows she saw what she saw, and still sees it in her head right now, Cadance figures it’s still not too late. And she’s still in Canterlot High and there’s still time to convince you to change your mind and share a moment of romance with Trixie Lulamoon. Maybe the two students went to Crystal Prep instead, where Cadance has more authority. Maybe that’s why she’s still not in Canterlot High anymore, but her heart knows that there’s still hope somehow. Cadance’s heart drives her to turn on her personal radio/mp3 player device and sift through romance-laden oldies she loves listening to. She just needs something to remind her that love didn’t fail, and that it always comes roaring back like she always knew it would. She just needs to feel it! Cadance walks around her bedroom in full Crystal Prep uniform, pretending Trixie and her to-be-boyfriend are right here in the presence of their benevolent matchmaker. Their benevolent matchmaker who’s starting to feel a little dizzy, only slightly lightheaded. She begins to hear the haunting echo-y vocals superimposed over romance-drenched chord progressions of late 50s and early 60s hit songs about love and how potent it is. One old hit song after another plays and reminds Cadance of what a real victory would have felt like, and how different it would be to seeing that trail of footprints spanning across the muddy field, only going in one direction as the sky darkens and Valentine’s Day ends. It’s too much for Cadance to take, to imagine this, even though she knows it’s one hundred percent true but she doesn’t want to face it. It can’t be true, but it simultaneously has to be true. “Now now, it’s alright. You two can still date! It’s not too late to spend a romantic Valentine’s Day together… r-right?” Cadance stutters, trying to keep her neatly done hair from getting all ruffled up. She begins to stumble around the room, resorting to removing her high heels so she can balance more easily. But then continues to almost lose her balance anyway, becoming disoriented. Her eyes shoot wide open with shaking, contracted pupils as her hands begin to tremble. The oldie love songs continue to play for Cadance, and she’s doing her best to have this make her feel better. Her breathing gets heavier, and she begins to feel hot in her clothes. Something is just… Cadance doesn’t know what she’s thinking anymore. She’s just… She’s getting so hot in here. She doesn’t know what’s going on. Cadance tries sitting back down atop the foot of her bed, then stands back up and paces around, twiddling her thumbs then soon swinging her arms back and forth, trying to think. But she can’t think. Her mind becomes a confused flurry of conflicting emotions; her feelings clash and battle it out hard enough to make her jerk herself around the room as though she’s surrounded by a swarm of bees. “Th-there… there HAS to be a way~!” Cadance’s voice becomes breathy and high-pitched as she falls back onto her bed, letting her hair now flail around more than her arms are. “Ohhhhhh… there’s gotta be a way!!” Something keeps telling here that there isn’t a way… that it’s too late to find a way, because the footprints in the field stayed lonesome in one direction as the sky grew dark and the day concluded. “No… no no no NO NO NOO!! It can’t be over! Today was supposed to be love’s day, it can’t be over!” Cadance cups her shaky hands onto her face and releases several hot breaths into her palms, kicking her stockinged heels into the wooden side of her bed. Her gasps for air become louder, her soft chest heaves up and down while she lies on her back atop the bedsheets, letting her hair messy itself up against the quilted surface. Her whole world is spinning as her voice pushes itself higher as the feeling inside boils up like water inside a tea kettle. “You can be together! You can still BE together! I know it! You two are in love, you HAVE to be in love! I knew it was a good match, don’t be scared it’s not too late!!” It’s not too difficult to hear Principal Cadance’s increasingly emotional wails and cries from the outside after she flings herself back to her feet and endures the tizzy fit trying to take control of her pierced, broken heart. Two people who absolutely can’t hear her are the two she thinks she’s talking to. Hyperventilating while she tries to calm herself down, Cadance continues to talk to herself, then whimper to herself as the truth refuses to stop dawning upon her. She continues to fling and flail her arms around, burning up so much in her suit that it might as well almost be in a literal sense if this continues as it is. Her wide gazing eyes dart around wildly, her lip quivers… the stake in her heart burns as the lat 50s and early 60s oldies continue to play on her speakers… “This can’t be the end for love! Love is everything! It’s.. it’s… Ohh, please just give it another try!” Wheezes Cadance, throwing her head back, letting her ruffled hair messily dangle at her back. Her jutted out chin points almost to the ceiling, with the front of her neck swelling with each hot labored breath as her skin begins to glisten. She groans and sways herself around, unable to shake the feeling that she can no longer define to herself internally. Her eyes shoot open once more, vacantly gazing up at the ceiling, then look down as she starts grabbing her hands around trying to grip that stake in her heart before it sends her into any further of a frenzy. With heightened, quickening breaths, Cadance fails to even find that stake, only becoming even more driven by the love songs that were always meant to comfort her and motivate her to follow wherever love takes her. She paces back and forth, tussling around with herself and losing. A slight tingle can be felt forming at the base of Cadance’s spine. “Please! You can’t let this happen to me! You have to get together, you can be such a sweet couple, I know it~!!” Principal Cadance fervently tries to get to the stake in her heart however she can. Principal Cadance’s clumsy shaky hands begin unbuttoning the front of her uniform jacket without realizing it at first. She continuously hyperventilates, soon going back to fix up her hair some more as the love songs she knows so well keep playing, desperately trying to comfort her in her hour of weakness. It’s okay if she unbuttons the front of her uniform jacket just a little bit… she’s not breaking her school’s dress code as long as… Upon looking into the mirror, it’s clear that Principal Cadance’s cleavage is now mostly in plain view. She tries to button her top back up, but can’t bring herself to, feeling like she’s only getting hotter and hotter. She becomes increasingly jittery, something’s trying to get out. Cadance fumbles around with her trembling hands all over the front of her uniform jacket, breaking the dress code of her school more and more until the jacket falls to the floor with a soft plop. A feeling of risk overtakes her as she still believes she’s in her school, and that she still has a chance to save the relationship Trixie almost got into. “I… I-I… I jus… nnnnNGAH~!” Squeals Cadance in her desperate breathy voice, over the sound of a lengthening tear expanding down the front of her thin light turquoise blouse; the cool draft becomes more able to assert itself all over Cadance as her top gradually gets torn open. ~ Hopped up on haunting love songs, Cadance returns to the mirror over the sink in a light grey tank top and tight black leggings, her eyeshadow and lipstick gone as the fluorescent light shines down upon her smooth bare shoulders. Her wild gazing eyes lock onto their crazed reflection with a single eyelid twitch and swirly irises with bright heart pupils; her deranged grin widens and ever so slightly continues to quiver at the curved-up corners. That tingle creeping its way up Principal Cadance’s spine could not be gotten rid of; it only persists and makes Cadance shudder with a quiet squeal between hot shaky breaths. Cadance knows that she cannot go back outside like this until she sleeps it off; until she waits out the severe storm that is her unhinged wicked side. She’s not Cadance right now, she’s not even Decadence or Decadance. She’s Broken Candy. Broken Candy giddily glares at her reflection in the mirror, still seeing her potential to be the most effective and potent matchmaker she wants to be… at all costs. If love can’t win alone, then lust will lend a hand. With this, she waits for the next song to start before she begins to prepare and plan her next move, and Poetry In Motion begins to play on the speakers as she further ruffles up her messy hair. Broken Candy cartoonishly prances around her bedroom to the song, seeking a pen and paper to write and draw up a blueprint of her next move. She bites her lip and moves each of her smooth bare shoulders up and down at a time in a lewd shoulder dance as the music she’s hopped up on overtakes her completely. Oh does the potency of love excite her so! All of her plans are put down onto the slip of paper, both in writing *and* art. Broken Candy knows *exactly* what she wants to do with mainly you, but it’s going to be a little bit before you can properly fall into the snare she’s setting up for you. Maybe it’ll be Trixie whom you’ll fall for, maybe another girl, but sooner or later, Broken Candy is going to find the girl you’re a fool for. But she can’t set her poetic plan into motion until she turns back to normal. She must become Cadance again. Upon feeling the need to keep herself from becoming too unhinged, Broken Candy decides to put herself to bed and sleep her wickedness away for the night, leaving herself free to be her regular self Cadance again by morning. It takes a little while for her to settle down enough to enter the feasible region of sleeping in the first place. But she’s already dressed for the occasion, and find herself drifting off within the next couple of hours after turning everything off. Cadance must sleep now. She must slumber until her darkness goes. //-------------------------------------------------------// "...Trixie?" //-------------------------------------------------------// "...Trixie?" With the weekend finally over, you fully expect everyone at school to have a little timer within counting down the days until they completely forget about the incident. They’ve had the entire weekend to gossip about it to no end, maybe even prank call you or something while they were at it after Trixie humiliated you while you simply allowed her to do it for the sake of her ego. If you really do care about preserving her annoying ego that much, maybe you really are feeling something for her after all; anyone else would have just told her to screw off with her trickery. They probably would have known it was trickery to begin with before walking right into her trap like you had. Almost like you were blinded by something. There’s already a few glances coming your way as you make your way down the hallway, but no actual words are being said, but you know there are a lot of classmates looking at you. You can feel their eyes giggling at you. Taking a long silent breath, you lean against your still closed locker and just take the few moments to recollect yourself until Sunset Shimmer’s voice catches your attention. “I know it sucks, but you did the right thing.” She says to you. You simply begin to laugh awkwardly and glance up at the ceiling as you face away from her. “If you want, I can try to approach her next and talk this whole thing through with her. Maybe get you and her to end this once and for all on agreeable terms now that she’s satisfied.” “That won’t be necessary.” You sigh with a quiet laugh. “You sure?” “Everyone’s gonna forget anyway. Who cares?” Both of you keep your voices quiet enough to keep other students from eavesdropping on what you’re saying. “I care. Because this is still bad for other people who have to deal with Trixie.” Sunset’s tone become a little nagging. “It’s not like we don’t know how she is. You may have learned something from this, but she’s been needing to learn something for a while too.” “I don’t see how it’s my business anymore. She’s feeling high and mighty like she always does anyway, I’m gonna be gossiped about a bit but it’ll die down. No one even remembers what Rainbow Dash did five weeks ago, or at least no one’s talking about it anymore.” “Oh come on, how can you not see the bigger picture here?!” Sunset’s voice starts to sound more shocked. “What?!” You finally turn around to face Sunset. “I did my part! I took my L. I was a dick, I deserved it. Trixie got her revenge and that’s the end of it. She probably would have acted out even more if she didn’t, then kept trying to pull funny business until she finally got what she wanted.” Sunset just raises her eyebrow at you. “It’s true! Think about it.” “Why do you think she’s like this to begin with?” Asks Sunset. “Shouldn’t you know that way better than I do?” You refer to her ability to read minds. “How am I supposed to know?” “Some things about people are obvious whether you can read minds or not.” Says Sunset. “And Trixie’s arrogance really isn’t a mystery to most people. She’s unchecked.” “Okay fine, she’s unchecked. I don’t see how that’s my problem. I basically just met her.” Sunset lets out a deep breath and shuts her eyes. “Okay, look. It may not have been your problem before the note, and maybe you’re right, maybe it isn’t necessarily your problem now. But you yourself and what happened between you and her is now the main reason Trixie is going to now be extra… um…” “Trixie-ish?” “Probably the best way to put it. And that’s gonna kind of be a nuisance to others.” “I see what you mean.” You respond. “But I’m not seeing it happen yet.” “Trust me, she will.” Promises Sunset. “I know her better than you do. She’s going to annoy the rest of us if I don’t at least sit down with her and get the two of you to at least finish this on good terms.” Sunset isn’t wrong about her suspicion about Trixie getting extra braggadocios. Which would surely happen if she feels like rubbing this in your face because you might still have hard feelings about it. “Okay, so what do you think is going to come out of it if we talk things out even more with her? What do we even say?” “That there shouldn’t be hard feelings between you two. That you still acknowledge what you did was wrong and aren’t going to try to get revenge back on her. So she doesn’t think this is turning into a feud where she has to constantly prove how much better she is.” “And how do you know all th-… oh.” “Like I said. I know Trixie a lot better than you do.” “Okay well…” “Look, all I’m saying is you two should settle this on good terms. The way she left you hanging like that might not mean much to you, but it's going to feed her ego too much and the rest of us are going to have to face what that brings.” “I guess you’re the designated referee in this whole thing because you can read our minds, right?” Sunset Shimmer gives you a nod. You give her a sigh in return. “If nothing happens, then I’ll leave you alone.” She adds. “I’m just saying it’s not likely Trixie’s going to let it go. Even if she feels like she absolutely won. She shoved her spelling bee trophy in everyone’s face for over a month one time, if you were here for that.” “Okay okay, I get the point.” You politely raise your hands up. “But you’re saying you’ll leave me alone about it if nothing happens, yes?” “Absolutely. I don’t wanna put up with this any more than you do. All I’m saying is that I’ve seen this movie before. Maybe not quite like this, but I know enough to have a good idea of how Trixie’s going to go about this in time. It’s Trixie, you should probably have at least… some idea of this too.” “You’re not wrong.” You say to her. “But all I know is-” You’re interrupted by the first bell ringing. The two of you look around at the other students beginning to make haste and gather their things, scattering off into the directions of where homeroom is. You then continue. making cheesy chopping motions with your hand to emphasize. “All I know, is that I shook her off of me and she’s satisfied enough to leave me alone after walking away from me like the ending of a movie.” “I can promise you this movie might be longer than you think.” Sunset tells you. “This is Trixie Lulamoon.” “And it’s only been over the weekend and nothing happened, so maybe you’re right and I’m being stupid by assuming what I’m assuming on the first day back.” “I was about to mention that too. You haven’t even seen her again yet.” Points out Sunset. “Well once I do, she will either continue to make a thing out of it or she won’t. You say she will but I don’t think I believe you yet. I think she’s just gonna smirk at me then screw off.” “Yeah, she’ll screw off to bugging the rest of us about how she ‘totally put you in your place’, or however she’s going to say it.” “Well can’t you maybe just show her that none of your care? Like… you and your friends.” “Like.. what?” “Like… I dunno, gaslight her or something! Make it look like no one cares about this but she does, which really shouldn’t count as gaslighting if it’s true anyway.” “Do you really think it’s true? That no one AT ALL cares enough to listen to Trixie blab on and on about how she got a guy swooning over her then totally broke his heart?” Sunset raises her other eyebrow at you now. You groan. “Maybe we’ll have to wait and see if she’s given any fuel to do that.” “She will.” Insists Sunset. “And I’m just so tired of her getting like this from time to time. I do see her as a friend, especially more recently, and as her friend it’s MY responsibility to at least try and keep her in check so she doesn't fly too close to the sun one day. If you need me to put it another kind of way.” “Come on, now. You can read minds, but you can’t see the future.” “Do I have to see the future to know that Trixie’s full of herself?” “No, but maybe she’s full of herself enough to leave the situation alone forever now that she’s the one who had the last laugh.” You suggest. “Alright look, we gotta get to homeroom now, and I guess I can’t force you to do anything either way, but at least come talk to me about it if she does start trying to rub her little ‘victory’ in your face, or someone else’s face. Please? I just want her to stop being so annoying. She’s my friend but she’s gotta stop being so annoying. Rainbow Dash used to have this same problem and she’s also my friend. I know how this goes.” You slowly nod after Sunset finishes her monologue. “If nothing happens, you have to leave me alone. If Trixie, say… makes a power point presentation about how I’m supposedly still simping for her, then I guess you’re right and I’ll have learned something.” “That’s fair. If I’m right, you’ll learn something. And if you’re right, I’ll learn something.” “Heh, I like that quote.” “I know you do. I learned it from you.” Sunset lets you know. “I- wha…” “Don’t worry, I never look at anything personal. I just saw when you saw that on TV once.” “Can you like, not do that? Or at least keep it to yourself when you remember something you read from my mind? It’s kinda creepy, no offense.” “Oh… sorry.” Sunset’s tone immediately changes. “I’m not mad or anything, I’m just… I’m just saying. It’s kinda weird.” “No, no, you’re right. I apologize for that. You’re right. That was kind of weird. I just felt like that quote kinda fit what both of us were talking about. And it’s not like the quote itself was a dark secret only you knew or anything, so I thought it was cool. I’m sorry I mistook it that way.” “It’s okay, I just don’t really know how else to approach it when someone’s got literal mind reading powers. It’s not really a conversation anyone can really prepare for.” “I get that, I get that.” You notice a blush come across Sunset’s face. Coupled with that face she’s making, you start to sense a possibility that maybe she saw some of the… not so appropriate… things you’ve thought about her in the past. But there’s no time to dwell on it; you both go to your respective homeroom class rooms and let the school day begin. You immediately go from thinking about how you could prevent Sunset from ever reading your mind again to worrying about Trixie appearing out of nowhere and floss dancing at you as soon as you step back out into the hallway. Just the thought of her continuing that attitude of hers only has you beginning to agree with Sunset Shimmer more and more. Not only that, but maybe you only don’t see Trixie around any corner you turn because she’s busy annoying someone else about what she “did” to you in return for what you did to her. You’ve made it to your next class safely without any shenanigans being pulled upon you. With this, you start to finally relax, estimating that maybe you were right after all and Trixie really did just stop caring along with everyone else, at least on the outside. Maybe all you really do need to worry about is the gossip and the rumors. And that’s going to die down soon anyway. Inevitably so. ~ You’ve been wandering around at lunch, having finished eating and decided to loiter around in the hallways to get away from all the noise. A couple of classmates were calling over to you, and you know for a fact Trixie has to be in the cafeteria somewhere, so you figure you’ll disappear into the halls before she sees you. And you figure just skipping the rest of the period and not staying in the same hallway is a great idea. Hopefully no one is following y- A hand grabs onto your shoulder, forcing you to jump and spin around with a loud gasp. “What the hell?” You stumble back. “…Trixie?” There she is, standing right there before you: Trixie Lulamoon. Everything you had been expecting from her earlier today starts running through your head, and you start trying to think of something clever yet hurtful to respond with at first. “Is there something I can help you with?” You blurt unintentionally. Trixie doesn’t respond, just stares at you with heavy breaths entering and escaping her lungs as she gazes directly into your eyes. “Wh-what do you want now? You got your revenge already! Leave me alone.” She steps towards you, you step back. The speed at which she steps towards you outpaces the speed at which you step back. “What the heck do y-mmmphhh…” It took you a couple of seconds to realize what just happened, but by the time you realized, it was too late to willingly pull away from the kiss. Trixie’s lips softly lock with yours, and continue to re-lock onto yours over and over again while you feel her hand cradle the back of your head to hold your face against hers. You’re petrified in place at the development that blindsided you out of nowhere, at a loss regarding how to react to it. You feel ambushed at first, but Trixie’s warm breath gently beating against your face along with her soft lips mashing against yours quickly placates you. “Mmmmmpphhh… mm mmmph!” You said something into her mouth but instantly forgot what it was supposed to be before it came out only for the kissing to muffle it. Trixie responds by letting out a long low moan into your mouth, enthusiastically holding you tighter against her body and kissing you deeper. Every time you moan while trying to verbally protest in confusion, Trixie just responds with her own moans and sighs, like she’s forcing you to speak a certain language with this kiss and then responding to what she made you say in that language. You didn’t make much of an effort to push her away from you after the first several seconds of struggling. The longer the taste of her lips is asserted unto you, the more it stuns you. You almost instinctively begin to embrace Trixie back, which instantly feel… amazing, holding her as she’s holding you. There’s no way of proving it, but you almost suspect that this has to be some sort of way of her messing with you. You just know it. S-somehow… right? If this is a type of ruse, it’s a really confusing and seemingly unnecessary one. Trixie kisses you deeper and deeper until you can blatantly just taste her saliva at this point, and she definitely knows this, softly groaning into your mouth without breaking the kiss in a way that can only be done out of a place of genuineness. She’s not trying to convince you of anything, she’s just kissing you because she actually wanted to. You can somehow tell. You can feel it, you can hear it in her voice, you can taste it… Trixie really wanted to kiss you for real. And she’s still going! It’s been at least an entire minute by now. If this wasn’t genuine, she’d have let go of you by now. Trixie’s only getting more and more into it, now only gently embracing you without forcing you up against herself. Running her hands up and down her back, prompting you to do the same to her. You hold Trixie’s warm soft body up against yours, feeling her breasts pushing onto you with all of your clothes in the way. You don’t even remember when it was you gave in, but you and Trixie are willingly making out with one another. She finally lets you break the kiss first, so you can breathe a little. So she can breathe a little too. Neither of you allow your faces to stop being so close, not wanting this to end just yet. You’re too stunned to say anything, or think of anything to say. The look in Trixie’s eye right before yours has nothing fake about it; her eyes are lidded and very blatantly pleading for more of… you. Even if you were able to talk, Trixie’s lips returning for another deep kiss with you would have silenced you. She definitely wouldn’t have needed to do that if this wasn’t for real. You’re already done questioning it, you just slowly close your eyes and kiss Trixie back, now on the same frequency as her, whatever the hell this frequency is or where it came from. Feel a growing stiffness in the front of your pants as an erection starts to form; Trixie guides your hand to her chest and lets you give her a slight grope as the make-out session continues. Neither of you speak; you must have been making out together for at least five minutes non-stop before the bell rings. Upon briefly opening your eyes during the kiss while Trixie had briefly done the same… you noticed an odd glow in her eyes. But you barely register what you saw in that moment as the fact you you and Trixie secretly made out for five minutes out of nowhere takes over your entire brain for the rest of the day. And eventually the rest of the week. During which, nothing else happened from Trixie. She just did that and then… nothing else. …Trixie? ~ //-------------------------------------------------------// Timeskip where lust for Trixie makes your brain melt //-------------------------------------------------------// Timeskip where lust for Trixie makes your brain melt ~ After the long kiss, you cannot stop thinking about Trixie Lulamoon. Everything feels so suddenly different now after you made out with Trixie Lulamoon… Time itself suddenly seems to go by faster than it should, but you’re afraid to see her in the halls again. After the first week was finally through, you managed to put your defenses back up, but something that had now broken it was inside of your fortress with you, and you were trapped inside your own walls you put up with it. No more events are happening for the moment, but how are you going to forget about THAT thing that happened with Trixie? You’ve never been kissed like that in your entire life, and she probably hasn’t either. From now on, you’ve been eating lunch away from the cafeteria, thankful that a new schedule swap in the school year left you with no other class periods with Trixie. Hopefully, you can continue to ignore her and slowly forget about this (again). You have to, you absolutely must. You’ve been hyper-focusing on your school assignments now, but everything just feels so muddled and mixed up inside now. You’re all stirred up. Perpetually. As the end of February approaches, this thing stirring you up inside that you’ve trapped with you within the walls you had built to keep it out… it’s occasionally erecting monuments to Trixie. Erecting stiff monuments to Trixie Lulamoon inside of your underwear… As more days do try to go by, you make your best attempts to ignore this, to forget that time when you made out with Trixie Lulamoon in the hallways while thankfully no one was around to catch you two. Why can’t you go back to February when you were more stable? When you were safe from these intrusive thoughts about Trixie Lulamoon? Keep your head down in early March as you remain focused on your school work as you remember that deep long kiss from Trixie you can still feel and taste in your memory. It’s getting you all clumsy and scramble-minded. What has she done to you? No, you promised you’d have moved on by now, but the only way to have that happen is by going back in time and no longer slipping into the future where the pressure upon you is getting stronger and stronger. You just… you gotta have more… Everything feels so suddenly different now after you made out with Trixie Lulamoon~ You start thinking like an idiot as more days go on… can’t stop thinking about it all in a silly cartoonish way that completely warps your entire character with yourself somehow. Does that even make sense? You can’t even see if it does through the fact that you need Trixie Lulamoon again! You miss her so much! You miss her taste… you miss her touch… you miss… her… Can’t get enough of how she willingly made you touch her chest like that, made you feel up her soft boobies… You got to touch Trixie Lulamoon’s soft boobies while she ferociously kissed you on the lips, making out with you and making you taste her saliva in your mouth… More time goes on, which means more erosion of whatever it was that was keeping your mind off of Trixie Lulamoon. Now you can’t stop whispering her name to yourself. You can’t let her win… she wants you to simp for her! That HAS to be why she kissed you! But if that was the only reason… it wouldn’t have lasted so long… Feeling her great and powerful body up against yours as you held eachother in your arms, her sweet lips interlocking with yours… It’s driving you crazy, what are you thinking to yourself?! You CAN’T allow yourself to love Trixie! You have to resist… somehow… As late March closes in, the hardest part of this becomes apparent to you. The hardest thing to resist. She WANTS you! The fact that she kissed you for so long and encouraged you to grope her, the fact that you loved it so much and need to have more, is only magnified by the fact that if you wanted to do it again right now, she would absolutely welcome it! How the hell are you going to resist a hot girl you want who wants you too?! How have you already forgotten about how dramatic and theatrical she was about everything? Does it just not matter to you anymore? Why can’t you think straight, why can’t you be your normal self whenever you think about Trixie Lulamoon? This is spiraling out of control, especially when you’re alone in bed. The kissing incident was so long ago now, yet it feels like it still just happened! You need Trixie… You NEED Trixie~! Waking up one morning, or maybe it’s early enough to still be the middle of the night, you hear the last part of your sleep-talking: “I long for you, Trixie Lulamoon~!” April Fool’s Day was yesterday/today, which also happens to be Veneralia… You may not remember a lot in this moment, but you only just now realized that Principal Cadance was visiting the school on that very day. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence. With your brain half-working, you can only hold the mental capacity to figure out that you have very strong morning wood going on in your boxers, and all sorts of thoughts about Trixie Lulamoon in your mind. And you’re mentally still in a dream-like state. Not really thinking critically, just honest and raw about your base urges. And it is in this moment when you make the mistake that will cost you your free will; you complete the ritual by stroking yourself to the thought of Trixie Lulamoon, saying her name the entire time. And as you finish, the deal is sealed. Cadance probably sensed that from far far away… The phase one that was snuck in is now complete. What a way to kick off the beginning of April; you aren’t meant to make it to the end. //-------------------------------------------------------// Pull Yourself Together //-------------------------------------------------------// Pull Yourself Together You now continue to go about your day each day trying to avoid thinking about Trixie Lulamoon too much... or at all for that matter. Now able to focus in class a lot more effectively with your new routine you don't talk to anyone about, your conversations with Sunset Shimmer don't tend to involve Trixie a lot anymore. You suspect that she caught wind, directly or indirectly, of what your secret thing for Trixie has become. And maybe she caught wind from Trixie something that convinced her it's time to stay out of this. At this point, you're not even sure. But all you know is that Sunset is sort of giving you a look whenever Trixie is nearby, but she doesn't bring the topic about her up anymore. Not that you're complaining about that. The alternative would be Sunset getting involved with trying to hook you up with Trixie after seeing that she kissed you in the hallway which sent you on this downward spiral of falling for her. Wouldn't be uncharacteristic of Sunset to understand that this is no longer her business. At least for the time being. The main stressor in your life is now figuring out how to deal with Trixie. ... Trixie's always putting on a show for you. No one else knows about when she snuck up on you that one day and made out with you, but it's also apparently she didn't tell anyone about it either. You're innocently sitting there eating lunch in the cafeteria on one really warm Friday when Trixie puts no subtlety into how comfortable she is around you. "Heads up!" One guy sitting next to you pats you on the shoulder blade before Trixie sits herself down on the other side of you. Everyone else at the table begins exchanging smirks and murmuring giggles, remembering that other time Trixie made a scene in this very room. It's been long enough that they should have forgotten about it by now, or at least mostly forgotten. Except that gets thrown out the window when, in their view, Trixie willfully opens up old wounds by walking right up to you and sitting next to you. "Trixie hopes you don't mind if she chats with her friends here for a bit." Trixie tells you before looking at the group of guys and girls who may know her, but barely her know her on a friend-basis if at all. "Not at all." You still refuse to look at her, wanting to deflate the situation as much as you can. A classmate or two quietly "oooh"'s seeing you and Trixie sitting together. Oh of course this group of high school students are gonna play into it, being as impressionable as they are in this boring environment with nothing better to do anyway. Trixie proceeds to converse with them, not knowing what to talk about. She can't help but let it become obvious that the only reason she's here is to sit next to you, and a couple of the others pick up on this within minutes. It's not going to be long before they all begin filling in the blanks themselves, even if they also have to draw the lines under those same blanks themselves. People this age have a tendency to make up whatever narrative they want in their heads according to whatever they want to be true, which is often inspired by unrelated occurrences they've seen in their own lives or in movies. Trixie suddenly bumped her hip into your side before you realized she did it. You can't think of a response to this as you now notice a tension in the front of your pants refusing to go down. You have no idea if anyone else saw this, but you pray they didn't notice. They all begin to giddily exchange giggling glances as soon as Trixie gets up to leave as abruptly as she appeared without saying goodbye to you. You're not sure why you're even thinking about whether or not Trixie said goodbye to you, but the still-hidden stiffness in your pants and the glances from your classmates. They insist on knowing more about whatever is going on between you and Trixie, but you counter-insist that it's nothing and that she's clearly trying to turn it into something on her own. You heavily consider just spilling the beans to them about the whole thing with Sunset reading your mind, and how this was all because of her making you talk to Trixie before she and her ego found out the first love letter was fake. Surely, they'll understand since they go to school with this same girl with mind reading abilities. You can even confidently trust Sunset to be honest enough to corroborate your side of the story in the event one of these guys asks her if it's true. But there's two sides to that coin: dragging Sunset into this mess and making this a more public issue might definitely come off in a bad light. But screw it. You have changed your mind. You were sitting here minding your own business when Trixie herself went out of her way to come over and underhandedly tease you with her... very presence. You've been able to get yourself off to the thought of her, but her sitting next to you, letting you hear her enchanting voice, feel her bumping up against you, it just... it's making the secret wanna spill out in ways you're not even about to tell your classmates right now. Its effect is making pretending impossible... you loved it when she sat next to y- Don't say it. What you do say is exactly what you want and need all of your classmates to hear. Everything about Sunset's involvement in this, everything about how Trixie tricked you and you just let her have her revenge so she'd leave you alone, basically everything except the surprise make-out session with Trixie that sparked all of your secret masturbation sessions to her. Right as the lunch period is ending and you need to distract yourself from your boner enough to make it go away, which luckily works enough to be able to hide it as you stand up. Had you not thought about seeing down Trixie's top a week ago in bed last night, this wouldn't have been possible after encountering her in person while she has such an effect on you. But the reaction to what you said goes about as expected: they don't believe you and you have to challenge them to confront Sunset Shimmer about this. But it's still clear that Trixie really wants you to consider things about her. Maybe it'd have been more understandable in a way if your classmates knew you made out with her, because the way she's acting would have made more sense. Except, it would only confirm what they're rightfully and correctly suspecting: There's something going on between you and Trixie. And you can't help but really, really like that fact. Even though you're trying not to, especially since Trixie is playing it up so hard. You're torn between wanting to fully surrender to this situation and just hook up with Trixie already, and not wanting to give this arrogant girl another inch but somehow still be left alone by your gossiping classmates. Not to mention wanting to address how much of this you think is Sunset's fault. Why must Trixie affect you so? ... "Why did you tell them that?!" Sunset approaches you alone on the outside of the school with an angry glare after what you said in the cafeteria had a couple of days to get around. "It's already gotten out of control, Sunset!" You respond in your own defense. "Also, where's the lie? All I told them was what you actually did." "Which was...?" She begins to interrogate. "You made me admit to Trixie that the first note was a lie! And I had to make it up to her, where she then flipped the whole love note thing around on me and that was the end of it!" You say to her. "Anything else you heard from them about me isn't what I told them." "They weren't supposed to know about it! Now everything's going to get blown even more out of proportion!" Sunset almost looks like she's ready to shove you. "Well to be blunt, if you didn't want me to involve you in this, you shouldn't have involved yourself in it!" You say it before even fully processing how painfully true it is. "Yeah I fucked up by faking the love letter, but that should have just stayed my problem!" "MY problem is Trixie being an arrogant ass every time something nice happens to her!" Sunset hits her chest with her hand on the first word of each sentence. "MY problem is having to know that it was only because YOU wanted to mess with her, good intentions or not!" She points directly at the tip of your nose. "Yes! That's your problem!" You respond without realizing how callous that sounds. "My problem that YOU started!" Sunset raises her voice. "What the hell is wrong with you?!" "Why couldn't you let Trixie just eventually forget she got a love letter?! She was gonna be arrogant about something regardless, right?" You angrily shrug. "It could have been one less thing she'd be bragging to everyone about!" "Why? Because she had too many nice things happening to her?" "Oh don't you dare try to spin it that way!" Sunset squints at you with a slight smile almost enjoying her anger. "Get this straight. I don't mind nice things happening to Trixie, I just hate how she acts about it. And what I hate even more is how that one thing she was acting that way about was something you completely made up for no reason!" "The reason was to make her feel better but never find out who it was! I'm sorry you can't ignore her inevitable bullshit that was gonna sprout from something else anyway!" "Ugh! I can't believe you!" "I'm sorry, okay?! I tried to do my part but you involved yourself and now it's out of my hands! If you're so bothered by Trixie being arrogant then that's your problem!" "Oh of course you'd start defending her now." Sunset starts to walk away. "What's that supposed to mean?" Sunset spins around before responding to you. "I know you made out with her! I saw it!" She finally drops the bomb. You stare at her in some paradoxical unsurprised disbelief. "Yeah, that's right. You think I'm mean now? You better get it over with and start openly dating Trixie soon, or else I'll get even meaner and tell everyone what you two did together!" "You wouldn't dare!" "You think that corny-ass response is gonna change my mind? I should have known I was right before this." "No, but... I still don't have to do what you say anyway. Because you did start this whole thing!" "You're making me do this." Sunset angrily groans. "You made me talk to Trixie first! You involved yourself first, so now I involved you." You finally repeat it directly. "You should know by now how un-ignorable Trixie's narcissism is..." Sunset responds. "It's not the same as your deal with her and if you saw what you saw then you'd know that!" "Right, so just get with her already and give this soap opera its finale already! So she stops annoying the rest of us with the attention it's getting her. What you're feeling for her is real now, right? It's not fake this time?" "It's not supposed to be real!" You feel your legs shaking. Sunset stares at you, considering what you said, possibly going over probable scenarios in her head. Maybe issues involving magic in the past. "Whatever actually happened, it didn't come from within!" You suddenly blurt, hoping that just winging what you say next will deliver as much un-rehearsed honesty as needed to convince Sunset that maybe there's something else going on neither of you know about. It was a total shot in the dark, but you place a hand on her shoulder and let her see that you're thinking the exact same thing in your mind as you're saying out loud. "You better be right." Warns Sunset. "Because this is now more my problem than I'd rather it be." "Welcome to the party, pal." Sunset cringes at you for saying that and you just shrug back. "Whatever, you better be right." She walks away. "I hope I am!" You really do hope you are. ... A few more days later. For some reason, Trixie is now in your chemistry class for a couple of days. Something about her having to make up for a missed lab assignment and somehow pulling enough strings to do it during this class period that still hasn't completed the assignment yet. How savvy does this girl get? It has got to be more than just card tricks she's good at. Damn, she'd make either a super fun or super terrifying girlfriend. Part of you really wants to find out which is true. Luckily, there are no classmates from your lunch table sitting in the room with you, just a student or two who actually gave a slight bother about the rumors that have been spreading. But even they don't say much as Trixie sits in the desk next to you. The first thing you notice about Trixie is how much cleavage her top is showing today. There's no way this wasn't also intentional. As the teacher is getting ready to pair up the students, everyone reaches into their book bags to get the necessary school supplies ready. Trixie reaches down for her things, and your curious eyes wander over with the memory of having glanced down her shirt at her enticing cleavage in the past. Trixie Lulamoon really likes to show it off, especially to you. And this time is no exception: she likely already knows where your eyes are going, but doesn't do anything to cover herself, and lets you sustain this view down her top at Trixie's soft sexy tits only halfway inside of her low cut top... The very slightly sway to her movements while fumbling around for her notebook, one of them getting gently pushed onto the other from Trixie's arm reaching inward and bumping into it. The upper "collar" rim of Trixie's low cut top folds outward as her arm pushes her soft boob, helping reveal even more of Trixie's inappropriately sexy cleavage. You can even see the rim of Trixie's purple bra cup. Almost everyone sitting next to one another basically choose one another as lab partners as to minimize the time this boring class takes from them as much as possible. You couldn't resist accepting Trixie's offer to be your lab partner... not after seeing... that. Basically any other girl in the entire school would have been self conscious about a boy looking down her top while standing on either side of the higher up lab tables for the assignment. But Trixie Lulamoon deliberately leans forward as much as she can to give you the best view down her top. Your brain isn't on critical thinking mode right now, which is severely hindering how you're gonna perform on this assignment. At the corner table where no one can bother the two of you, your fix a sustained, uninterrupted gaze down Trixie Lulamoon's low cut top for pretty much the remainder of the period. Admiring the connecting bridge between her purple bra cups that does what it can to hold everything together. As those soft and reasonably busty breasts almost trying to spill out of that half-open top give you something to look at while you fail to fill anything out on the lab assignment. Trixie can't fill anything out either, completely blowing her second chance to avoid getting a zero on the assignment. Grinning every time she "catches" you peeping down her top at her partially exposed boobies, Trixie both bites her lower lip, then licks both of her lips before mouthing the words: "Take a picture~" ...The first couple you take are of the amazing view of Trixie Lulamoon's sexy absolute cleavage from across the lab table; she was luckily facing away from the rest of the class while you were in the corner hiding your erection in your pants. The next picture takes in right after Trixie "accidentally" makes her pencil fall across the table and to the floor on your side. She came over and reached down to the floor for her fallen pencil, letting her low cut top do the same thing it did while she was sitting in her desk, except more intensely and with you leering at an even better angle. Trixie's soft breast mashes against the force of her knee pushing onto it, her top's rim widely folds outward as her purple bra cup gets pushed harder enough on one side to make the side you're ogling at slightly lift away from her skin... making it malfunction enough to clearly reveal Trixie's soft perky nipple pushing onto the exposed thinly padded interior of her bra cup~. This and the wink Trixie gave you is all you can think about after class ends with you staying after, completing your own work packet with the answers you'll loyally give Trixie tomorrow. Pull yourself together? You can't. And a certain principal from another school knows you can't.