Everypony was cheering. Great, raucous hoots and hollers emanated from the huge mass of ponies who had originally come out to witness a mere magic act. They came for a good show, and they got far more than that. They had gotten some… additional entertainment. All the blue unicorn had wanted was for them to gaze in awe as she performed spectacular feats before their very eyes, not this… disaster!
“Amazing!” cried out one pony from the crowd.
“I can`t believe it!” followed another cheer. That attention, the praises and shouts, all the things she had ever wanted in her entire life, her one most precious, fulfilling goal in life, had been stolen from her. That mare, that accursed purple mare, sat panting in the middle of the town square.
“You… you dont hate me?” the lavender unicorn asked breathlessly to her friends, who resided across the clearing in the square from Trixie. *Of course I do*, thought Trixie, though she knew the question wasnt addressed to her. She hated Twilight. She hated her, and her friends, and Ponyville, and more than any of that, she hated who she had become.
The thing she hated the most wasn`t the insults those insolent fools had given her, nor the fact that she had been shown up by a mere bystander. No, those she could live with. They would hurt, but not as much as the truth. And the truth, the undeniable truth, was that all those things she was called by those feather-brained idiots… were true. She was arrogant. She was rude. She was stuck up. And she had nopony else to blame.
No, that part wasn`t true. She knew exactly who was at fault here. It had all started when she was nothing more than an innocent little filly, all those years ago, when she had run away from home. But right here, right now, everything was terribly, horrendously…
Perfect. That was the only word that came to the young blue filly`s mind when she tried to describe what the day had been like. As she stared up at her ceiling and at the various posters of the many magicians and showponies she admired so much, her mind wandered and she found herself reflecting on the wonderful day she had. She could still remember word for word how the main event had gone.
She was standing in the middle of the fairgrounds with her parents on either side, her gaze fixed on the pony who was standing on the stage. He was a magician, a self-proclaimed expert on the subject, and he stood tall before the crowd of ponies. His crisp, blue-eyed gazed swept over the crowd, as if assessing their abilities to watch him, looking for those unworthy to stand in his presence. Finding none, apparently, he turned to a table bearing a small red piece of cloth, upon which he placed his soot-black top hat, before turning to the crowd.
He cleared his throat, and then said in a velvety rich voice that carried to all corners of the central clearing, “I see you all have gathered here to witness great feats of my magical prowess. Well, unfortunately folks, I bear solemn news." he paused. "You will not have the privilege of bearing witness to spectacular feats today.”
Several ponies in the crowd murmured disappointedly as what they had heard sank in. Trixie stared up to her father, a tall stallion with lean shoulders, a perfect example of a hardworking Canterlot citizen, with a sad expression on her young face. Her ears perked as she heard the performer begin to speak again.
“What you will see today will far surpass anything you have seen before. That, mares and gentlecolts, which you are about to observe, is the greatest feat in the entire history of Arcana!” as he finished, in a flash of light, a bolt shot from his horn directly at the hat, turning it into a rabbit, who then proceeded to pull another smaller rabbit from the hat upon its head.
Cheers and applause nearly deafened Trixie, and while she joined in on the whooping and hollering, the show-pony took hold of the rabbits and hat, and began juggling them between his nimble hooves. He then cast a spell to summon a clone of himself who appeared just to his side. His hoof pushed the hat higher than it had gone before, only to land in the waiting hooves of his duplicate, who deftly kept the balance alongside his copy, alternating between catching them in his own hooves, and throwing them towards his counterpart.
At this point, Trixie was staring in awe at the entire display, her eyes not missing a single detail as the performer went through his repertoire of tricks and illusions. He had entranced her into a spell of her own, her rapt attention not even breaking to glimpse a carney spilling his chili all over his clean costume.
As the magician pony gave a final bow to the crowd, Trixie finally snapped back to reality. She stared up at her parents with her best puppy-dog eyes and begged them permission to talk to the alabaster-white unicorn who had just kept Trixie`s attention for a whole half-hour straight, more than her parents could ever imagine. They gave each other a quick glance, her mother nodded slightly to her father, and he gave her his consent.
She beamed up at them both, and raced over to the stall where the magician was only just starting to disrobe and relax.
She gazed up at him when he turned to face her, his deep blue mane reflecting the sunlight in a shiny highlight where it curled upwards. He looked down on her thoughtfully, waiting a moment before inquiring in his smooth voice, “Yes? Did you need something, my little pony?”
Awe-struck, Trixie froze up for a brief second. What was I going to say? Was there something I was going to ask for? Wow, his eyes are pretty. I wonder if his mane curls naturally. Oh, right, I had a question. What was I going to say?
The magician chuckled, and then raised his hooves apologetically. “I`m sorry, did I accidentally cast a spell that prevents you from speaking? I seem to do that quite often when it comes to fans, sorry.”
Trixie finally managed to get in a coherent sentence. “Y-You were amazing!” she breathed. Suddenly all the questions she had seemed to have lost came rushing back to her head. “How did you do that clone thing? Was it hard? Did it hurt when you smashed that boulder with your head? Is that your natural hair color?”
The magician remained calm and collected despite the barrage of questions, and said with some amusement “I am no more than you or any other pony you see here. What I`ve learned through trial and error is that if you set your mind to it, you can accomplish any goal. All it takes is practice.”
Trixie stared up at the pony as if he were the lost Prince of Equestria. “When I grow up, I`m going to be just like you”, she promised.
A weary smile appeared on the magician`s face, making him seem at least a decade older. “Let us hope that you may find even better paths than the one I have tread, little one.”
Trixie gave him a puzzled look. What could be better than showing an entire crowd of ponies what you could do and make them happy, Trixie wondered?
“What was your name, little one?” inquired the magician before she could ponder things too long.
“Trixie”, she proudly stated.
“Well then, Trixie”, he told her, “If you do your best, you`re sure to make it to whatever you set as your goal. But, there is one thing you must never, ever do. I need your word on this. Under no circumstances, should you ever, not even once, give up.
“I won`t”, she swore.
With these thoughts still fresh in her mind, the young filly slowly let her eyelids droop, allowing sleep to finally creep across her exhausted mind.
