Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Palm
“Tell me something, Twilight, how is it that the Magnificent Trixie managed to get herself in a situation like this?”
Besides Trixie’s sass, the only other sound that accompanied Twilight Sparkle where the crash of ocean waves and the soft bristle of palm leaves overhead.
“I thought it was The Great and Powerful Trixie. Also, I don’t know. I chalk it up to bad luck and your lousy spellcasting.”
“Whatever.”
Trixie pouted and crossed her arms as she laid against the single palm tree on the tiny island they had no choice but to call home. It was an incredibly tiny island and any sane person would say to themselves, “That is a very silly concept”, and they would be correct as it is very silly. Still, Trixie was not normally silly or willing to partake in silliness without a few glasses of hard cider and Twilight Sparkle normally shunned silliness in favor of reading it in book form.
“You know, I could really use a nice big glass of cider right about now. If it wasn’t for you I’d probably be in Ponyville right now enjoying some with a large crowd of my fans” Trixie remarked.
“I think that’s just one of the problems we have to deal with right now.” Twilight sassed back.
“And what do you mean ‘we’? ‘We’ are not doing anything. You, my little pony, are to find a way so that Trixie can get back home. And can you magic up some cider while you’re at it? I’m parched.” Trixie double-sassed back.
“You got us into this mess. I’m sure Trixie, the Great and Precious Magician, can use her oh-so powerful magic to whisk us back to Equestria.” Twilight triple-sassed.
“It’s Great and Powerful, you nimrod.” Trixie raised herself from her sitting position to show how serious she was. She was very serious.
“I thought you didn’t care, loudmouth.” Twilight Sparkle also raised herself to show her seriousness.
“Egghead.”
“Loudmouth”
“Bookworm.”
“Your hat is silly.”
Trixie withdrew in shock and removed her silly hat. “My hat is not silly! Trixie is a powerful magician and this hat is proof. Only a magician as powerful as I can wear a hat like this.”
The pointed wizard cap, unbeknownst to Twilight Sparkle, was in fact only given to magicians as powerful as Trixie, but only because of it’s rarity and because Trixie herself was the only magician in Equestria who thought pointy wizard caps and a cape were still fashionable. It was rare because the ensemble was packaged with a children’s magic play kit made years before she was born and managed to be saved from the clutches of a dusty old thrift shop she came across on her travels. To be fair, the thrift shop was incredibly dusty and it took at least 40 minutes to air out the decades old hat and cape. Twilight however, was unimpressed by her ability to procure and clean outdated headwear. There was still no accounting for Trixie’s choice in gaudy fashion.
“Look, Trixie, we aren’t going to get anywhere arguing. We have to wor-”
“That’s the Great and Powerful Trixie to you, Twilight Sparkle. Just because we’re stuck together on a deserted island with no food, water, entertainment, or mode of transportation does not mean I will be treated with disrespect.” Trixie crossed her arms and laid against the palm tree to drive her point home.
“I once read the entire Equestrian dictionary out of boredom but I don’t think a single word I remember can come close to describing you, Trixie. And I’ll tell you what, there were a lot of words in there. Like, a lot. Probably more than a-hundred. That’s a lot of words, Trixie.” Twilight Sparkle breathed a heavy sigh and fell to the sandy floor. “I give up.”
The next hour was spent by the two entertaining themselves by avoiding each other and thinking about how much better they’d be off somewhere that wasn’t a tiny deserted island. Twilight broke the silence by breaking into an impromptu singing session about the trials and tribulations of being stranded on a patch of sand in the middle of the ocean while Trixie took the opportunity to sing about how much she missed not being stuck with an annoying singing pony. After a catfight of epic proportions, several improvised swirlies, a censored word or two, and a spell that involved more fish than was needed, the two reached a stalemate.
“Time out! Trixie calls a time out!” Trixie said as she fished a salmon from somewhere inside her hat. “These don’t even live in saltwater! Eek!” Trixie promptly tossed the scaly fish back into the ocean.
“Yeah,” Twilight spoke between gasps of air. “I think we should...take a little break.”
As the two stared each other down the air quickly settled and they walked closer to the center of the island, defeated. Twilight Sparkle tried to shake the water from her mane but only managed to bury her face into the sand as she laid down, tired as she was from having to cast spell after counterspell.
“Hmphmmphmphhhh.” Twilight sanded.
“You make a good point, Sparkle. But I don’t suppose you know of any spells that could just whisk us away from this dreaded island.” Trixie said, grunting as she struggled to peel away a sea star from her behind.
“Hmpph!” Twilight murfled.
“You do? Well why didn’t you say so? Trixie was beginning to think she might actually have to do something! Go on, tell me all about it.”
As much as Twilight would have enjoyed to talk Trixie’s ear off with her head in the sand, she propped herself up and showed her instead. One of Twilight’s favorite spells was the aptly named “teleportation spell” where she would focus magical energy on herself, and sometimes others, in order to flash from one place to the other by bending reality around her. It is an advanced technique taught only to some of the more adept unicorn students who have either a strong handle on magic or have studied enough spells to do so efficiently, and then there’s Twilight who just happens to be Celestia’s understudy. Still, despite the brainy purple pony suffering from “being-stranded-on-an-island-with-Trixie syndrome” she was able to efficiently teleport herself several feet from the island and into the middle of the ocean. In her defense, not many ponies can say they warped reality and dunked themselves into an endless expanse of water.
“Ahhhhgblb! Help me Trixie! I can’t swimblblbl!” Twilight yelled as she began to drown.
Trixie thought fast and plucked a coconut from the lousy palm tree on the atoll and flung it towards Twilight in the hopes that she would grab onto it and swim to safety using a coconut as a flotation device, which was a stupid idea. Unfortunately for Twilight, the one thing Trixie happened to be good at was tossing coconuts and it struck Twilight in the head knocking her out cold. Trixie gave a disappointed shrug at Twilight’s inability to catch quickly oncoming coconut-sized projectiles and took a nap shortly after, seeing as there was no point saving the doomed mare. Twilight washed up ashore after a few minutes of unconsciousness hoping that she had landed somewhere that wasn’t populated by Trixie and hairy tropical fruit.
“Oh so you made it back after all. For a second there Trixie thought she was going to have to actually find a way back home.” Trixie mumbled lazily.
Twilight Sparkle stared at Trixie with rage in her eyes and water in her ears. She couldn’t believe the little water-muddled bits of speech she was hearing and kicked the palm tree, sending a lone coconut falling onto Trixie’s head which knocked her out. Twilight was winning for now, but she feared that she’d sooner run out of coconuts to get back at her with instead of leaving the island.
Eventually the two took to their own devices and by the second hour on the island the two had managed to mellow out due to the massive amounts of energy they had spent arguing about who had better hair or whether that shadow off in the distance was either a boat or another seagull. By the third hour things were looking desperate for the two as they began to talk about their feelings and made promises to never fight again if they made it back home. By the third and a quarter hourTwilight was already planting crabs inside Trixie’s silly hat as she slept. The fourth hour brought the most drastic change, however, as they began to cope with the reality that they might never see Equestria ever again. Twilight was taking it pretty hard. Harder than usual, in fact.
“Twilight Sparkle, I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier about working together. Your increasingly disturbing attitude has had me thinking that maybe constant sun exposure isn’t so good for you after all.” Trixie said as she placed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “You need help.”
Twilight responded by turning her head a full 180 degrees like the bastion of sanity she was. “Help? Maybe we should get SPIKE to help us. Isn’t that right Spike?” Twilight grabbed the coconut she had in her hooves and shoved it into Trixie’s face. Twilight had magically painted the coconut purple and stuck several springs of palm leaf into it.
“Sparkle, maybe you didn’t understand me. When I said I was thinking earlier what I really meant is that your increasingly disturbing behaviour has caught my attention and I want you to stop. Now.” Trixie cringed at Twilight’s display.
“Sorry but Twilight isn’t here right now. I’m Spike, her number one assistant.” Said the coconut.
“Twilight please. This is getting a little out of hoo-”
“It’s Spike the Dragon to you miss pointy hat!” The coconut screamed.
“Twilight! I am trying to-”
“Don’t you get it? You see the scales? I am! Spike! The Dragon! Hahuehuahaha.”
Trixie smacked Twilight across the face twice, once to bring her back and another time because she knew she’d never have another chance to do that again.
“We have to get off this island.” Twilight said with a blank stare in her face.
“I agree. It’s been fun so far but you’re creeping me out and Trixie misses not having her adoring fans around at her beck and call. I’m pretty hungry too.”
“Then it looks like we’ll finally make some headway. I have an idea too. We can use the palm tree to make a makeshift boat and with your cape as a sail we can make it to land. I’m pretty sure we’re not that far away from the shore given the formation of the island, and you can help. Speaking of hungry, I’m getting a little starved too. What did I do with Spike?” Twilight asked.
Trixie looked at Twilight as she finished devouring the last of Spike the Coconut. “I’m sorry were you saying something?”
After a vicious hat-stomping, Trixie agreed with Twilight’s plan to carve a boat from the single palm tree on the island. They felled the tree and worked furiously as two young ponies could to hollow out the inside of the palm tree to Twilight’s specifications which were not only shoddy, but questionable, considering she only read half of “Building Boats: A Boat-Builder’s Guide to Barges and Brigantines” before falling asleep due to how boring that particular book was. After gutting the trunk and attaching the shoddy sail on the makeshift hull of the absolutely dingy-looking lifeboat they were nearly done.
“You know, Sparkle, this boat looks absolutely shoddy.” Trixie squinted her eyes in a futile effort to see if the boat would look better if it was seen through the eyes of the legally blind.
“Well we gave it our best shot. The only way to see if it’s seaworthy is if we get in it.” Twilight Sparkle said reluctantly.
“Alright then. All aboard the S.S. The Great and Powerful Trixie!” Trixie hoisted herself onto the boat and took her place at the front.
“I hope we hit an iceberg or at least get washed up on a place with more coconuts.” Was all Twilight said as she pushed the boat into the waves before teleporting herself onboard.
The mighty winds pushed the blue fabric of Trixie’s cape as the boat began it’s maiden voyage off into the big blue. Trixie was thoroughly enjoying herself as her newly forced position as captain by bosing Twilight around while the poor purple pony tried her best not to toss herself overboard in an effort to literally drown out her constant Trixie-ness.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie will not tolerate laziness aboard her ship. Quickly, Twilight Sparkle, to starboard!” Trixie demanded.
“We don’t even have a rudder!” Twilight yelled back angrily.
“Wait. Are you saying that we have no way of steering the S.S. Great and Powerful Trixie?” Trixie asked wide-eyed.
Twilight sat back and pondered this sudden realization as her gaze became just as wide as Trixie’s. Not only did they have no way of steering the boat, but there was also a severe lack of navigational tools to guide them and Twilight was becoming increasingly concerned that Trixie might not be a licensed captain at all.
“Well, Sparkle?”
Twilight could do little more than scratch the back of her head. “Oookay. Well, maybe being stuck in the middle of the ocean without a compass or a rudder isn’t so bad. Actually, we don’t have a compass either do we? That’s not good. Tell you what, how about we just cup our hooves over one eye and squint really hard like if we actually had a telescope too?” Twilight meekly suggested.
“Oh, and you suppose we just eat imaginary coconuts as well?” Trixie huffed.
“Well, we can’t do that either since there’s nothing to break them on. Maybe we can use an imaginary coconut splitter or something...” Twilight could see the fire slowly grow in Trixie’s gaze. “Okay fine. Watch duty it is. But if I start getting heatstroke I’m taking your hat.” Twilight cupped her hooves together as she kept watch of the horizon.
Time went by and the sun began to fall out of the sky as the two ponies continued to drift along in their boat held together by nothing more than strips of palm leaves and well-enough intentions. Trixie had already eaten through her coconut rations and Twilight Sparkle was too busy keeping watch to take care of her own her own.
“Sweet Celestia, I’m starting to think we might never see land again.” Twilight said with tears in her eyes. “And my eyes are getting teary because of the salty air too.”
“Say, Twilight, we’ve been out at see for a good while now haven’t we?” Trixie asked.
“I wouldn’t call it a good while exactly. Maybe a bad while. Why?”
“Isn’t that the island we were stuck on?”
Twilight zipped over to the starboard side of the boat and peeked over the horizon to see a small patch of sand, pebbles, and strewn coconut carcassas littering what was indeed their small island of despair. Twilight let herself fall backwards onto the boat and began to cry as the reality sunk in that she would be left to die with Trixie. Truly, a fate worse than death.
“Come now Sparkle, don’t be such a little foal. I’m sure the Great and Powerful Trixie can perform a miracle of sorts to whisk us away.” Trixie said as she conjured up several fireworks in an effort to cheer up Twilight.
“B-b-but you don’t understaaaand. W-we’re stranded h-here f-foreverrr.” Twilight said inbetween sobs.
“Nonsense, Twilight Sparkle. We’ll figure something out. We just have to work together. You and I, we will conquer and overcome whatever hardships we might face. After all, you are one of my only fri-” Trixie was cut short in her extravagantly mushy speech as she spied something off in the distance. “Holey Moley! Is that what I think it is?”
And it was. Coming over the horizon and heading directly towards them was a large ship at full sail. As the two began to wave and wail like monkeys on hot coals the large wooden vessel eased up and slowly sailed besides their rickety lifeboat. A small rope ladder was thrown overboard and the two hurriedly climbed up.
“I can’t believe our luck! We’re saved!” Twilight said excitedly.
“I can finally take a shower! Do you think they have any low-fat cucumber and tomato sandwiches on rye?” Trixie asked.
“That’s an oddly specific dish and while I doubt that a ship like this carries them there’s only one way to find out. Cmon, climb faster.”
The two climbed onto the deck and their happy smiles turned into looks of confusion as they looked at the bare deck of the ship.
“Where is everyone?” Twilight asked as she looked around.
“Where are the sandwiches?” Trixie asked as she poked around the deck in desperate need of low-fat vegetable snacks.
It seemed that the mysterious ship was completely deserted except for a handful of coconuts that populated the the top deck. Their tough outer shells banged lazily against the edges of the ship as it bobbed up and down.
“Hey Twilight, I didn’t find any sandwiches but I did find this.” Trixie burst through the cabin door holding what looked like a coconut wearing a captain’s hat. “Oh, and I also found the sandwiches I was talking about. If it makes you feel any better they’re all coconut flavored. Actually, you can have them all since I’m starting to think they might be actual coconuts.”
“That’s alright Trixie. We’re saved. We can finally go home. And with this much food and equipment we’ll be well stocked for our voyage back home!” Twilight said triumphantly.
After having their fill of not-sandwiches and scouring the deck and ship for as much navigation supplies as they could, they promptly made their way back to their dinghy and set sail for parts unknown.
“Hey Twilight.”
“Yeah Trixie?”
“Why didn’t we just take the big ship we were on and sail away on that?”
This idea vexed Twilight and the more she thought about it, the stupider she felt. Twilight did not enjoy feeling at all like somepony who had abandoned a perfectly fine ship with working sails and a cabin full of of coconuts but she did enjoy strolls by the park. Seeing as there were no parks in the immediate vicinity she simply shrugged and continued to peer through the telescope in her hooves as they sailed away.
“Shut up, Trixie.”
