Lunaverse Episode 2- Longest Night, Longest Day Part 2
As a consequence of having a mad alicorn trapped inside of it, everypony in Equestria feared the sun to some greater or lesser extent. Even the most obstinate and impious still sought shelter during the midday. Still, few ponies outright hated the sun.
Trixie hated the sun, at least right now. But not as much as it seemed to hate her.
The blue unicorn groaned loudly as she turned away from her window and buried her face in her pillow, welcoming the sweet embrace of darkness that allowed her to escape from the wretched rays of the tyrant sun. She didn't remember climbing into bed. She didn't, come to think of it, remember much of last night at all after the contents of the first bottle of bourbon had disappeared under mysterious circumstances, forcing her to find a second one. Or maybe a third. Whatever. Trixie let out a contented sigh as she snuggled closer into her pillow, or tried to. Her hoof was caught in something.
Opening an eye – argh the sunlight – and looking down, she saw that whoever had laid her into bed last night, as she sorely doubted that she'd been conscious enough to do so herself, had neglected to remove her cape first. It was now tangled about her front, trapping one foreleg against her chest awkwardly. Groaning, Trixie forced herself to sit up on her bed and used a combination of magic, her hooves, and a substantial number of impolite words to escape her cape and sling it from her shoulders and onto the floor. Instantly upon leaving her person, however, its warming enchantment also slipped off of her body, and she suddenly realized that her bedroom was freezing. With a gasp and a few additional curses, she quickly got back underneath her bed's covers. Unfortunately, the enchantment worked by making her retain all of her body heat – meaning that none had been lost into her bed. All she had succeeded in doing was to surround herself in ice-cold sheets.
"I hate my life," Trixie proclaimed loudly, which turned out to be a poor idea. The sound reverberated through her skull, attempting to shake her horn from her head from the feel of things. She groaned one more time as she climbed from her bed, threw on her cape, and tried to lie back down. It was no use, however: she was awake now, whether she wanted to be or not.
"Hate," Trixie repeated, though she had the good sense to be quieter this time as she stumbled from bed and resolved to brave attempting the stairs. After all, the worst thing that could happen to her would be falling and breaking her neck, and then she wouldn't have to deal with the sunlight or the pounding in her head anymore.
Trixie found the house empty but surprisingly clean, given what little she remembered of the party. There wasn't an unsoiled glass, mug, cup, or other such container to be found in the whole place, but they had, at least, all been organized into neat piles in the kitchen near the sink. The pantry was stocked with only the basics – bread and hay, mostly, and a few condiments – but despite Trixie's habits, she felt that nothing more complicated than toast and butter was probably called for right now.
Trixie's stomach roiled in protest at the thought of dairy. On second thought, maybe it would be better to skip the butter.
Trixie had just started to feel like an actual unicorn pony again – she'd gotten a fire going, eaten a few slices of plain toast, and was able to look out a window without going blind – when a series of explosions occurred at her front door. Or somepony knocked. Either way, Trixie supposed she should probably go and either inspect the damage, or else cause some of her own. Stumbling to the still-intact door revealed that the latter was most likely going to be the case. Sliding her hat on for extra defensive against the sunlight, she opened her door, and found herself staring and an earth pony with an orange mane and three carrots for a cutie mark, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and winter cloak.
Trixie blinked a few times as she stared. "Carrot Top?" she asked, then winced at her own voice reverberating through her skull again.
The earth pony nodded. "May I come in?" she asked, her soft voice doing considerably less damage to Trixie's brain.
Trixie stared a moment, before nodding "Yeah, yeah, it's just…what time is it?" Trixie leaned outside even as Carrot Top entered, trying to check the sun's position. She didn't even come close to accomplishing her goal before he pain of looking towards the tyrant sun forced her to retreat back inside and close the door, rubbing her eyes.
"Nearly midday, actually," Carrot Top admitted, as she appraised Trixie. "Are you…alright? What happened?"
"I don't know," Trixie explained, as she used magic to take Carrot Top's hat and cloak, and hung them and her own hat near the door, "you'll have to find somepony else who was at the party and ask them…" Carrot Top grinned wryly and nodded knowingly at that. "So what brings you here?"
Carrot Top bit her lip. "Business," she explained. "I had an appointment arranged with Duke Blueblood, but then he retired, and it's sort of an emergency, so I was hoping that I could speak with you…"
Trixie blinked a few times at that, before rubbing her head. "Uh, yeah. Okay. I probably have an office around here…somewhere…"
Had she been somewhat less hungover, Trixie might have been embarrassed that she didn't yet fully know the layout to her own home. Still, it took only a minimal of searching to find the room that would be serving as her office while she lived in Ponyville, since it was the closest one to the door. The office was small and only sparsely decorated – she'd have to change that provided she survived the morning – with a desk and comfortable-looking pillows on either side for sitting at, a bookcase with various dry tomes in it, probably the Ponyville legal code set against one wall and a large, old-style map of Ponyville set against another. There were also windows, but mercifully the curtains to them were closed over, so the only light came from the gas lamps that Trixie turned on as they entered.
"Okay," Trixie said, as she got behind her desk and settled down, intending to give a somewhat dramatic cape flare as she did but failing due to a combination of being hungover and…well, no, actually, that was it. All she succeeded in doing was dumping the contents of her cape's inner pocket onto the floor.
"Ugh," Trixie said, summoning up magic and lifting the three spilled envelopes onto her desk. "Sorry, sorry…not at my best…this is sort of my first real hangover…"
Carrot Top offered another knowing smile. "I remember mine," she said, though afterwards she paused and considered her words. "Actually, that's not true. It wouldn't be a real hangover if I remembered anything other than wanting to just be struck dead by Luna."
Trixie let out a slight snort at that. "Yeah. That's been arranged for me," she groaned, before closing her eyes and forcing her mind to focus regardless of how much she just wanted to die right now. When she opened them again, she found herself looking at her desk. "Okay," she said, as she used her magic to open the first midnight-blue envelope and slide out the paper inside. "What did you want to see me about?"
"Well," Carrot Top said, fidgeting slightly as she spoke, "it's…it's a difficult thing to ask. It's just that this past year's harvest season wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be…carrot sales weren't as large…and then the weather schedule called for an early start to winter for I don't know what reason…"
Trixie nodded sympathetically, as her eyes glanced over the letter from Luna. Despite being, officially, from her mentor, the letter was extremely formal, nothing more than an outline of Luna's intention to appoint Trixie to the position of Representative of her Night Court and outlining the duties and responsibilities that Trixie would be expected to uphold and carry out – nothing that Trixie didn't know already, in other words. The formality and distance stung at Trixie. She hadn't even received a 'good luck…' She folded the letter back up and looked to Carrot Top even as she started opening the brown-enveloped one. "So what is your request?"
Carrot Top shifted uncomfortably. "I'd like to request a tax extension from Her Majesty." She said.
Trixie considered Carrot Top's request. "You're petitioning her directly?" she asked. "Shouldn't you be taking this up with the Equestrian Revenue Service…?" Trixie's question trailed off as Carrot Top looked away, dejected. The blue unicorn bit her lip. "You already have?"
Carrot Top didn't look up. "Declined," she said. "Since I run the farm practically by myself 'til harvest season, I already receive some tax breaks. But I just don't think I'm going to be able to pay on time this year, not without some leave…"
Trixie nodded as she glanced at the contents of the second envelope. As she had suspected, this letter hadn't been sent from Luna at all, but rather one of her many secretaries. It was directions as to how to acquire her royal stipend for the month, as well as a list of tasks in Trixie's backlog as Representative, which was, surprisingly, very little. Duke Blueblood must have been an industrious pony to have left her so little work…
Trixie offered Carrot Top a smile as she opened the last letter. "Lucky we ran into each other yesterday," she noted.
Carrot Top looked mortified. "I'm not asking for payback for lunch or anything!" she exclaimed quickly.
Trixie gave a friendly laugh, as she turned her attention to her final dispatch. It was a series of sheets of paper, each looking older than the last. "I didn't think you were. I'm just saying, it was lucky. I'm Luna's personal student and I can…and I…" Trixie's voice trailed off as her eyes glided over the paper in front of her. She looked to the next page, then the one after that, eyes widening. "…and Luna can go and join her sister in the sun!"
Carrot Top's eyes widened and she stumbled backwards a little at Trixie's outburst, which went so far past obscene that the concept of obscenity itself seemed polite and well-mannered by comparison. The unicorn was staring at her desk and the letter she had dropped there, breathing heavily with barely contained anger.
"…Representative?" Carrot Top asked after a moment, slowly making her way forward. "Is…is everything – " she was interrupted at Trixie's horn glowed, and the newest-looking sheet of paper Trixie had held onto levitated up and in front of Carrot Top's eyes.
To Representative Trixie Lulamoon:
I am given to understand that you shall be my successor to the position of Representative of the Night Court of Luna to Ponyville. Congratulations on managing to displease Her Majesty enough to make her want to banish you from the Night Court, but not enough to make her want to appoint you as ambassador to the Griffin Kingdoms. Well done!
Now, the hard part is about to begin. Are you sitting down? Good. That's it. Is there a clock nearby? If so, then take a long, hard look at it, for you will come to know it well as you watch the glacial movement of its hands counting down the seconds until you can escape, by retirement or death, the prison that is your thoroughly meaningless appointment to this nowhere town, this wasteland of Equestria.
Well, that's it. I have ensured that there is a good stock in the liquor cabinet; there is no reason in Equestria why you shouldn't spend the better part of your days in a drunken stupor. Just make sure to clean yourself up for formal occasions. Also, you are the deciding member in any tie vote in Ponyville's town council. Don't worry, it almost never happens, and if it does, they'll call you.
Do not think me vindictive, Miss Lulamoon. I received a very similar letter from the pony whom I replaced in this position, and she received one of her own, and so on. I have enclosed a sampling of them with this dispatch, but in the safe behind the bookcase you'll find dozens more, dating back to the very foundation of Ponyville itself. The town has always been used as a site of exile for those who have fallen out of Luna's favor but were not so unfortunate as to elicit her hate.
Yours sincerely,
– Duke Blueblood, retired.
P.S.: One more thing. Should a crisis strike Ponyville, you technically can override any decision the town council makes. Princess Luna looks poorly on such abuses, however, and doing so haphazardly is a sure way to get an appointment to that ambassadorship I mentioned. Still, if the tedium becomes too much to bear…
Carrot Top blinked a few times as she read the letter, before Trixie pulled it away. She swallowed a few times as she looked over the other letters. Each one followed much the same pattern, a depressing legacy of ponies who had realized the mediocrity of their position and, out of a sense of solidarity, had seen fit to warn their successors. "The Duke wasn't lying…" Carrot Top observed.
"Baron," Trixie corrected absent-mindedly, though from the look on her face, she was doing so almost subconsciously. "Duke is his name. Baron was his title before he retired…"
"Oh. I never knew that…"
Trixie blinked a few times. "Exile," she said softly. "I've been exiled. I was exiled. I knew Luna was furious with me, but I didn't think that…"
Carrot Top bit her lip as she regarded the unicorn. "I'm…I'm sorry," she said, stepping forward. "But Ponyville isn't so bad. We're the site of the Longest Night festival this year!"
Trixie glanced up at that, eyes wide. "N…no!" she exclaimed, taking several rapid steps towards Carrot Top. The earth pony backed away, but Trixie kept advancing. "Don't you get it? I've been banished! And Luna hated me enough to send me here! Here, where everything was heading into the sun already! She's an alicorn, she must have known about the Everfree storm, somehow knew that Fluttershy couldn't perform! She knows the Apple Trust runs the festival, knew that the food would be nothing but apples and she knows she's a picky eater, always said it was her one vice, which means she knew that the catering was going wrong too, and then I don't even know what's going on with the decorations but there must be something awful…"
Carrot Top had been backed against a wall by the desperate-looking unicorn. "Representative – " she began.
"And I've been exiled here!" Trixie exclaimed, backing away from Carrot Top and turning around. "She's still mad about the argument and the ice palace and so decided to punish me by sending me here and making me suffer for a little bit before trapping me in this position for the rest of my life!"
Carrot Top blinked rapidly. "This…this seems like a bad time," Carrot Top ventured, as she began making her way to the door. "I'll come back later…"
Trixie turned in place at that, eyes darting back and forth over Carrot Top, the map of Ponyville set onto the wall, and her desk, where Blueblood's and his predecessors' letters lay. After several moments, her eyes narrowed. "No," Trixie commanded, her voice dropping several octaves from the high-pitched panic it had been at. "No. Stay. I'm going to need your help."
Carrot Top grimaced. "Help?"
Trixie snickered a little. "Oh, I know what you're thinking," she said. "I've fallen out of Luna's favor. I can't help you with your tax problems anymore."
Carrot Top shook her head. "No," she said. "Well…I mean, it's on my mind, but really I think you need to be alone – "
"No," Trixie repeated, stepping forward. "No, I need your help. I need to know how fast you could put together a vending stall of carrots for tomorrow."
Carrot Top blinked a few times. "What?" she asked.
"Carrots. Tomorrow. How fast?"
"Well…if I work through the night…but I heard you weren't able to convince the Apples to let me set up a stall at the festival – "
Trixie grinned. A plan was forming in her mind as she trotted up next to Carrot Top. "Forget the Apple Trust," she said in a voice that was probably intended to be warm and inviting, but came across to Carrot Top as having a cold center to it. She guided Carrot Top back over to her desk. "You need money, right? Why pass up the opportunity of the Longest Night?"
"I don't have any of the paperwork filled out for – "
Trixie chuckled slightly, tapping the side of her nose with one hoof. "I think you'll find," she said, "that the paperwork is strictly for food that is intended to be sold on the grounds of the festival. But if you were to, say, use my front lawn, which just so happens to border the town center, where the festival will be happening…"
Carrot Top stared. "That could make the Apple Trust mad – "
"Forget the Apples!" Trixie repeated, although louder this time. "Why should they get all the benefits of the Longest Night and leave you out in the cold?" Trixie leaned close to Carrot Top. "It's their fault, you know. That gigantic apple farm of theirs. Probably snap up all the good workers during harvest season too, huh? And they don't struggle. You know they don't struggle no matter what that Applejack claims."
Carrot Top opened her mouth to object, but then shut it as she considered. "Well…"
"You've got to take a stand!" Trixie exclaimed, a manic gleam to her eyes. "Show her you're not just going to lie down and take what she's trying to stick you with! It's her fault you're stuck here! Her fault you needed to ask for a tax extension!"
Carrot Top blinked, as Trixie trotted around to the other side of her. "This way," Trixie observed, "you won't need a tax break. You'll be able to make enough bits during the festival to stay on your own four hooves. You won't need anypony's help!"
The earth pony blinked a few times, thinking deeply about what Trixie was saying. "I don't want to antagonize the Apples, though…"
Trixie blinked a few times, then shrugged. "Fine," she proclaimed. "Let them trot all over you. But you can forget the tax extension." Trixie walked around to the other side of her desk, but didn't break eye contact with Carrot Top. "Even if I could convince Luna to entertain your request, which after this I doubt I could," she magically waved Blueblood's letter in the air, "I'm not sure I'd be willing to do so for a pony who'll just let other ponies have their way with her."
Carrot Top blinked. "Wait, you won't even send in my petition?" she demanded.
"Why should I?" Trixie asked. "Her Majesty needs to know that a tax extension wouldn't be wasted on you."
"But – "
"However, if you do what I said, then I'll send in the request. But by then you won't even need it! You'll have the money you need to pay your taxes from the sales on the Longest Night!"
Carrot Top stared, wide-eyed, at Trixie, who had a grin that wouldn't leave her face. "I…" the earth pony began to object. "but…the…" Carrot Top continued sputtering for a few moments, before her expression changed from one of shock and betrayal to one of anger. "Fine!" she shouted, with surprising volume given how quiet her normal voice was. "Fine. I don't know what you think you're doing, but congratulations, your blackmail worked."
Trixie beamed. "Good," she said. "Now go. Go! You've got a lot to do and only a day to do it!"
Carrot Top glared at Trixie for only a moment more, before turning around and stomping out of Trixie's office. The unicorn let her go, and in fact ceased to even look at her as she folded up the letter from Blueblood and tucked it back into her cape's pocket, then quickly reviewed how to acquire her royal stipend. She was about to spend just about all of it.
Trixie entered the town hall's auditorium to the sound of ponies arguing.
"No means no means no, Miss Cheerilee!" Rarity's voice objected as Trixie approached the stage upon which Princess Luna would be making her initial appearance. Standing upon it right now was the cream-white unicorn and the magenta earth pony, the two of them glaring daggers at each other. Trixie took a moment to take in craftsmanship, and found it exactly in-keeping with the drawing Rarity had shown Trixie the previous day.
Neither of the other ponies noticed Trixie as she approached. "Miss Rarity," Cheerilee said, "the students worked hard on their art projects – "
"You've said that before – "
"I was promised a spot in the festival right there – " Cheerilee pointed to a point on the wall that would be the first part seen by anypony coming in from backstage
"By the mayor, but she gave me final say on all decorations – "
"Your own sister has a piece!"
"Yes, and it's very lovely," Rarity said with a flick of her mane. "Truly, it is, but to even think that the Princess wants to come up on stage and have the first thing she sees be crayon and macaroni and construction paper thrown together by school foals…oh, Miss Lulamoon!" Trixie winced at the sound of her second name as her fellow unicorn at last noticed her. She saw the Rarity's eye twitch slightly as she took in Trixie's appearance. "I'm so glad you arrived, I was just finishing with Miss Cheerilee here…"
Trixie nodded to Cheerilee, who returned it, though the grimace didn't leave her face. "What brings you here?" she asked.
"Oh, you didn't know? Miss Lulamoon, here, is the Representative of Luna's Night Court to Ponyville." Rarity said as Trixie opened her mouth to respond. She closed it, and grimaced. Strike two, Trixie thought, counting the usage of 'Lulamoon' as strike one due to having made clear the previous day that she hated the name to Rarity.
"I knew that," Cheerilee pointed out.
"– And, she is the official Longest Night festival overseer." Rarity looked Trixie over again. "And darling, I am so glad you're here. I realize I was perhaps a little…insensitive…yesterday about your…" Rarity waved a hoof over Trixie's body, indicating her hat and cape. "…ensemble."
Trixie blinked. She hadn't been expecting an apology. "Um…that's alright," she admitted. "Now, I'm kind of – "
"So I stayed up all night working on this!" Rarity exclaimed, horn glowing as she grasped something that had been carefully hidden behind the stage's curtains, withdrawing something long, frilled, and looking distinctly like a dress. It was probably beautiful. It had taken Rarity all night. But Trixie didn't wear dresses, not even to the Grand Galloping Gala.
"Much more fitting, don't you think?" Rarity asked. "You can keep the clown suit if you wish, darling, but I simply insist on seeing you in this tomorrow night!"
Strike. Three.
Trixie saw, here, an excellent opportunity to get back at Rarity and Luna both. She looked at the dress and put on a false smile. "I love it," she lied. "Though I came here to inspect the decorations, like I said."
"Oh, of course," Rarity said, settling back onto her haunches. "Inspect away, darling, but I'm sure you won't find – "
"There's a problem," Trixie interrupted.
Rarity sputtered slightly at that. "P-problem?" Rarity demanded.
Trixie nodded solemnly. "It's a good thing I was here, too, to overhear what Miss Cheerilee wanted. See, Princess Luna? She adores children. She's always regretted not having foals of her own, but between running Equestria, raising the sun, lowering the moon, seeing foreign envoys…there's just never been enough time. Not to mention that she's most active during the night, when foals are asleep. So she rarely gets to see any. But she loves them. In fact," Trixie grinned, "she has an entire room of the royal apartments dedicated to pictures and letters that foals have sent her."
Rarity blinked rapidly at Trixie's words. "W…well, I see," the unicorn said, "but I don't understand what that has to – "
"Being able to see crayon and macaroni and construction paper made by foals?" Trixie asked. "That would make her night."
Most of what Trixie had just said was a lie. Luna did love foals, that much was true, but everything else had been more-or-less a complete fabrication. Still, Rarity didn't need to – and never would – know that. The white unicorn's eyes were wide.
"So," Trixie said, smiling, "as festival overseer, I have final say over the decorations. And I say that there's going to be a spot set aside for Luna to admire the art projects of the foals."
"But – "
"End of discussion." Trixie interrupted, as she turned and trotted off, leaving Rarity and her dress behind. She thought she heard an overly dramatic cry of frustration, and couldn't stop herself from letting out a contented sigh at the sound.
"Trixie?" Cheerilee asked as she caught up with the unicorn outside of the town hall. The blue unicorn ignored her as she focused on her target, a dark blue earth pony mare wearing a brown, hooded winter cloak, though its hood was down at the moment. Trixie was holding up a small bag with magic, and with more magic was levitating ten silver bits into it.
"Lyra Heartstrings," Trixie said. "She's staying with her parents at 12 Hayseed Lane. Find her and get her to come to the Representative's residency at six o'clock."
The mare stared blankly at Trixie. "Do I look like a message runner to you?" she demanded.
In response, Trixie's magic placed the bag atop the earth pony's head. "Everypony looks like a message runner when I'm paying them another twenty bits if they do what I ask."
The mare's eyes widened a little. She flicked her head, and the bag fell from it, though she caught it in her mouth as it fell. "Fohld," she said as best she could with a mouth full of cloth and money as she trotted off, joining a couple of stallion friends.
Cheerilee blinked as she came up alongside Trixie, staring at the unicorn. "You could have just asked me," she remarked.
"No, you're going to be busy," Trixie remarked as she began cantering away from the town hall, towards the Equestrian Royal Bank. "You've got that little stand of art projects to set up. You're welcome, by the way."
Cheerilee's eyes narrowed. "You know, I wanted that spot. I really did. But I didn't want to leave Rarity an emotional wreck just to get it."
"Please," Trixie snorted derisively. "She'll be fine."
"That's not the point," Cheerilee objected. "You don't know how much of a perfectionist Rarity is – "
"And interestingly enough," Trixie said, stopping and glaring at Cheerilee, looking at the earth pony for the first time since she had come outside, "I don't care, either. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."
Cheerilee matched Trixie's glare. "If it's anything like what just happened in there," she said, pointing back to the town hall, "then the festival is going to be ruined."
Trixie's lips curled into a sadistic smile. "Fine by me," she hissed as she turned away and began walking again. Cheerilee stared after her for a few moments, before shaking her head and trotting off towards BonBon's Confectionarium. Lyra may have been theoretically living with her parents, but Trixie obviously didn't know the mint green unicorn very well if she honestly thought that she'd be staying with them for a significant portion of any given day.
Trixie entered the post office and found it in a considerably better state than it had been when she and Lyra had entered yesterday, with no mess of fallen shelves and turned-over carts confronting her. Instead, on entering, Trixie found herself staring into the wide, yellow eyes of a unicorn filly sitting behind the counter, where the receptionist was supposed to be.
"Hello!" the young unicorn exclaimed at Trixie entered, eyes closing and offering a bright grin.
Trixie froze as she stared at the filly. She looked like nothing so much as a miniature, wingless, horned version of Ditzy Doo. The filly was even wearing a mail pony's cap, though it was too large for her head. Despite her ebon-hued mood, Trixie couldn't help but feel her heart swell slightly at the sight, most likely because her brain was failing, at the moment, to fully process what she was seeing.
"How can I help you?" the filly asked. Her hat almost slid off her head, but the filly stopped it with one hoof and forced it back into place.
Trixie blinked. "Uh," she managed, before her brain settled into a comfortable autopilot. "I need to express deliver this letter." Her horn glowed as she telekinetically withdrew an envelope from her cape and holding it aloft. "Same-day delivery to Cloudsdale."
The filly frowned a little, closing her eyes tightly. Small sparks sprang from her horn, and a faint lavender aura wrapped itself around Trixie's letter. Trixie relinquished her grip on it, and the envelope haltingly made its way over to the filly, though she nearly lost her grip a few times. At length, it settled down in front of her, and the filly opened her eyes again, panting heavily as she looked at the package. "Okay…" she breathed. "Okay. Um…to Cloudsdale? Same day? That's…" the filly's nose scrunched slightly as she looked over a chart in front of her, and tapped out a rhythm with her front hooves to aid with basic arithmetic. "Twenty bits!"
"Twenty-two," a voice whispered from under the counter.
"Twenty-two bits!" the filly corrected herself.
Trixie managed to last a few more moments before coming right up to the counter, peering over it. Sure enough, sitting on her stomach on the other side was a gray-coated pegasus, hat missing but otherwise in uniform and keeping one eye on the filly, while the other had previously wandered towards the ceiling but was now looking at Trixie.
"Hi," Ditzy Doo said.
"Hi," Trixie returned. After several moments of silence, she stepped back from the counter, and looked to the filly again. "Twenty-two?" she asked. The filly nodded, and Trixie removed the bits from her moneybag. Like any good sales pony, the filly began counting them out, as Trixie once more looked over the counter. "Little sister?" she asked the mare 'hiding' there.
Ditzy Doo shook her head. "Dinky Doo's my daughter," she explained.
"I'm my momma's muffin!" Dinky Doo exclaimed happily as she closed her eyes again, using her nascent telekinesis to move the bits into a cash drawer behind the desk. It was slow going, giving Trixie plenty of time to take in the little filly and compare her apparent age to that of the mare who was her mother. The pegasus didn't look like she was much older than Trixie, and for Dinky to be as old as she looked, Ditzy Doo would have had to of given birth to the filly when she was younger than Trixie was now. It did, at least, explain the maternal authority that she had brought to bear against her and Rainbow Dash yesterday.
"Why is she here?" Trixie asked.
"No school today," Ditzy Doo explained, "so she's helping me out. First she helped with my morning rounds – "
"That was fun!" Dinky Doo interrupted. "But a lot of walking…"
" – and now she's helping out around the office. Mail mare for a day!"
"Yay!" Dinky exclaimed, as she finished putting away the silver bits and began using her telekinesis to lift Trixie's letter once more. Unfortunately, she tried too hard, and the envelope began crumpling up. "Ah!" the unicorn exclaimed, lavender aura instantly dropping from the letter. It fell to the desk as Ditzy Doo stood and Dinky Doo stared in horror. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I thought I had it but then I grabbed it too hard and I only started doing tele-connectics a few weeks ago and sometimes it's really hard but sometimes I grab things harder than I mean to and this is just like the cup I broke but I didn't mean to – "
Trixie held up a hoof even as Ditzy Doo placed a reassuring one on her daughter's back. Trixie's horn glowed, and the letter instantly began to smooth itself out. The creases remained, but the letter was flat once more. "There we go," Trixie reassured the filly, "good as new."
Dinky sniffed a little, but nodded and smiled, at least until she noticed her mother eyeing her. "Cup?" Ditzy Doo asked.
Dinky offered a guilty laugh, rubbing behind her head with a hoof. "Um," she explained.
"We'll talk about it later," Ditzy Doo promised as she looked over Trixie's letter to Cloudsdale. Her eyes widened a little. "A weather-for-hire service?" she asked.
Trixie decided not to wonder how the pegasus knew where the letter was going from nothing more than a cloud address. "Yes," she confirmed. "That Everfree storm is getting worse from the looks of things, and the weather patrol told me yesterday that they're going to be completely at a loss without their captain. So, weather-for-hire. A dozen pegasi ought to equal one Rainbow Dash, right?"
Ditzy Doo made a face at that. "Raindrops isn't going to like that."
"Why not?" Trixie asked. "She's the one who was complaining about the storm and not having Rainbow Dash. Besides, it's not her decision. It's Cloud Kicker's."
Ditzy Doo stuck out her tongue at that. "Cloud Kicker just goes along with anything Rainbow Dash tells her to do. Raindrops is the pony who actually keep the patrol together during bad times. She completely, honestly loves her job…and she hates weather-for-hire services."
This wasn't precisely news for Trixie. Even from her brief interaction with Raindrops, she felt she had a pretty good bead on the pony's personality. In point of fact, to an extent, she was counting on it. "Well, she's just going to have to pony up and deal with it," Trixie retorted, drawing a glare from Ditzy Doo. Trixie didn't relent. "Princess Luna is coming tomorrow. Those skies have to be clear for the festival, and if Rainbow Dash isn't going to lead her team like she should and the pony who is supposed to lead the team isn't going to be of any use, then as festival overseer it's my job to get outside help to make things run smoothly."
"I think it's a bit more likely that Raindrops will start a fight with the weather-for-hire ponies."
Trixie managed to conceal both her grin and a response of I hope so. Trixie was either going to fix this Longest Night festival or completely ruin it for everypony, and at the moment she was finding it hard to care which happened, even with two hopeful participants in front of her. "We'll just have to risk that," she said instead, then looked down to Dinky Doo. "So I need this letter to be sent as fast as possible, okay?"
"Okay!" the filly exclaimed, taking it in her mouth – apparently she wasn't trusting her telekinesis at the moment despite Trixie's re-assurances – and scampering off through a door, out of sight.
"Leeroy Wingkins is doing the express today," Ditzy Doo explained as she watched her daughter go with one eye. "It'll be in Cloudsdale in no time." She turned to look at Trixie again. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"'Course I do," Trixie lied – sort-of – as Dinky Doo came back and got back up on the box that had allowed her to be at the desk. She looked to the filly, and found herself unable to resist doing something memorable – like Luna, she loved foals. The blue unicorn reached over and rubbed the filly on her head, nearly knocking her hat off and tossing her mane. "And thank-you, Dinky Doo."
"Hey!" Dinky objected, though she giggled a little too. "Stop that!"
"Okay, okay," Trixie relented. "It's just that there's something caught in your hair, under your hat."
Dinky blinked a few times, then took off the cap and checked her head – and found a silver bit falling out. She – impressively for her age – caught it with telekinesis, eyes wide as she looked at Trixie, to her hat, which she hadn't noticed leaving her head at any point. "How'd you do that?" the young unicorn demanded.
"Magic," Trixie responded.
"But your horn wasn't glowing!"
"That's why it was magic," Trixie responded knowingly, turning around and trotting from the post office in a slightly better mood than when she had entered. Seeing the sun's descent across the sky, however, towards the horizon, turned her thoughts dark again. It served as a potent reminder of how little time remained before the Longest Night festival began tomorrow – and how Luna had exiled Trixie to Ponyville, though not before setting her up with a no-win scenario.
Regardless of whether the result of the day was a saved or ruined festival, though, Trixie still had work to do. Grunting, she set off for her residency.
"So, Lulamoon – " Lyra began. Trixie's glare at the name could have frozen the sun from its coldness. "We're back to wanting Trixie, then," the unicorn observed.
"Back?" Trixie demanded.
"Last night. You insisted I call you Lulamoon. You might have been slightly very drunk." She paused a moment as she considered. "About half of everything you said was in Prench too, I think."
Trixie stared a few moments, before letting out a groan. "No it wasn't," she objected hopefully.
"It was," Lyra responded, nodding sadly. "Also fell back into what I can only guess is a Neigh Orleans accent. And you called me and BonBon cute."
"BonBon?"
"My mare-friend. I'd feel threatened, but again: drunk, and you're not her type anyway. Plus you thought everypony was cute at the time, even yourself." She leaned forward. "But in purple, you're stunning. Apparently."
"Never again," Trixie swore as she regarded her purple, star-studded cape.
"Don't make promises you can't keep."
"Meh," Trixie objected. The two were sitting in Trixie's office, Trixie behind her desk. She had just, in fact, poured herself a glass of something amber-colored to see if it could steady her nerves or at least brighten her mood, but after Lyra's revelations she was thinking water would do just fine. The blue unicorn began pouring her drink back into its bottle as she eyed her mint-green counterpart. "Anyway. Lyra. First, I want to thank you for showing me around most of Ponyville, and leaving me in capable hooves before ditching me. Which I'm not mad about, I swear."
"No problem."
"Which brings me right to why I just paid some random pony thirty bits to get you here. I need your help."
Lyra grimaced slightly. "Cheerilee warned me about that. Said you were wandering around town today basically on the warpath. Conning Carrot Top into opening a stall on the Longest Night, making Rarity freak out about her decorations, ordering weather-for-hire ponies and using up just about your entire monthly stipend on them…" Lyra blinked a few times. "What are you going to eat, anyway, for the next month?"
Trixie shrugged. "I dunno. I'll think of something. But that's not important right now. What's important is that Fluttershy is refusing to do the music, so since you're a musician – "
Lyra's eyes widened a little as she realized what Trixie that going to ask. "No," she intoned.
"Is that a 'no, I'm not going to do it,' or a 'no way, I can't believe it?'" Trixie asked with a smile on her face, sure of the answer.
"No, I'm not going to do it," Lyra responded evenly.
Trixie's smile dropped. That was not the answer she had been expecting. "What?" she asked.
"The festival is tomorrow night. I'd need more time to prepare. A set list at least – "
"Just play the anthem!"
"For the raising of the moon, sure, but what about the rest of the night? And besides, I'm spending the night with BonBon."
Lyra matched Trixie's hard stare without effort. The two unicorns were silent for some time, before Trixie whickered in annoyance, trotting around from behind her desk and horn glowing as she took a letter from her cape's pocket – the letter from the former Baron Duke Blueblood, which she shoved in front of the mint green unicorn. "This is where I am, Lyra," Trixie intoned after giving her a few moments to read. "I have one chance, one, maybe, of getting back in Luna's good graces, and that's saving everything from going straight into the sun!"
Lyra shook her mane. "If that's true," she asked, "then why does it seem like you're trying to ruin everything? You're going to start a fight between the Apple clan and poor Carrot Top – "
"Not just her!" Trixie objected quickly, sliding the letter back into her cape's pocket. "I've actually arranged for a few other stalls, too, spent most of the afternoon. But there won't be a fight because they're not selling on festival grounds."
"That's semantics and you know it. You think the Apples will care?"
"Of course they'll care! But they can't do anything about it. And it'll give Luna more to eat than just apples."
"And leaving Rarity as an emotional wreck?" Lyra asked. "She's still at the town hall, you know. She'll probably be working her hooves off until right before the festival's to begin, and it looked great and you know it. But now the decorations will probably end up looking like they were done by a school filly. And weather-for-hire ponies? You'll be lucky if the weather patrol doesn't break in here and kill you in your sleep."
Trixie rolled her eyes. "Raindrops herself said that she couldn't promise anything. If that storm over the Everfree is as bad as she said it was going to be, can I be blamed for wanting to hedge my bets?"
Lyra sighed, conceding the point. "It's going to end poorly, that's all," she promised. "And you want to add me to all this?"
Trixie shrugged. "Know any other musicians living in Ponyville? Ones that are good enough to play for the princess herself?" The unicorn took a step forward. She was playing her entire hoof here, faster than she normally would, but if that was what it took… "If you do, for the love of the stars tell me now. Otherwise, I've heard you play that harp – "
"Lyre," Lyra interrupted, with the same kind of force that Trixie put behind her demands about her name.
" – lyre, sorry, that lyre of yours, and you're good. And you've just graduated from the magic school so I'm guessing you know a lot of spells to enhance your playing. Imagine how that must look on a music résumé."
"Music résumé?" Lyra asked, one brow raised. "You have no idea how being a musician works, do you?"
"I know that ponies with more consistent jobs would never pass up an opportunity like this."
Lyra's brow arched higher. "More consistent jobs?" She echoed. "You don't think very much of me, do you?"
Trixie blinked a few times. "No! Wait…yes. No – whatever! I think you're just fine. I just…well, it's just that you'll be totally depending on the…goodwill of ponies for an income."
"Goodwill here being synonymous with charity," Lyra growled.
"No!" Trixie objected, stomping a hoof on the wooden floor. "Look, the point is, you're just out of the magic school on a music scholarship and your first job would be playing for Princess Luna!"
Lyra's glare didn't drop for several moments, but eventually she did look away, tapping a hoof to her chin in thought. Trixie was silent, though she shuffled from hoof to hoof in anticipation. At length, Lyra looked back to her. "The national anthem only," she acquiesced. "And only for raising the moon."
Trixie blinked. "What about midnight, or the drawing down of the – "
Lyra stood up and turned for the door. "See you tomorrow night, Trixie."
"Wait wait wait!" Trixie objected, dashing forward and in front of Lyra. "Okay. Fine. Just the moon – and the stringing up of the stars. They're part and parcel, you can't do one without the other. It'll be all of five minutes."
Lyra waited a moment, before nodding her head once. "Deal," she agreed, and watched Trixie let out a sigh of relief. After a moment, Lyra leaned in. "But only because this really is a once-in-a-lifetime gig. I don't like you basically calling me a jobless bum."
She didn't wait for Trixie to apologize before pushing past the unicorn, heading for the residency's door. Trixie let her go. Had Lyra waited around, Trixie was certain she would have apologized – or said the words, anyway. Her heart would hardly be behind it, as after all she did end up with what she wanted.
Instead, Trixie trotted back to her desk, running over a mental list. Catering – saved, at least to her own satisfaction. She had just enough bits left for a decent meal tomorrow. Music – saved, the most important part, anyway. Weather – still iffy, but at least the matter was now in hoof, if volatile; Raindrops seemed far too professional to do anything more than complain about the weather-for-hire ponies. Decorations – well, admittedly, Trixie had possibly ruined them, but if that was the case it was so worth it to get back at Rarity for the dress and her shallow behavior.
Speaking of getting back, Trixie still had one particular pony she needed to lash out at. Trixie was certain that come tomorrow, Luna would see that Trixie was capable of bringing a festival back from the brink of disaster, that she was more than ready to handle the more demanding responsibilities of the Night Court and to finally put both her sociological studies and her magical knowledge to practical use.
So the final step, then, was to show Luna how Trixie would waste that talent - and all the long years of teaching that the shepherd of the moon had invested in her - if the princess really did intend to simply dump Trixie in Ponyville like so much trash.
The remainder of the day passed without incident, as did the night and at least the first part of the following day. Carrot Top arrived with her cart early in the morning, before any of the Apple clan showed up, as did the other produce sellers of Ponyville that Trixie had, by hook and crook, been able to drag into her scheme. None of them seemed particularly confident, but Trixie managed to re-assure all of them in various ways – mostly, helped out by random ponies passing by, who seemed confused as to what was happening but, when Trixie explained her intentions, at least put on a show of being happy to have more than just apples to eat tonight.
The arrival of the Apple clan's veritable armada of stalls, at around three o'clock, was where the problems began, although for the rest of her days Trixie would treasure her memory of the look on Applejack's face.
"What in tarnatation am Ah lookin' at here?" the orange earth pony demanded as she stomped up to Trixie's home.
Trixie paused a moment as she chewed thoughtfully, looking to the ensemble she had in her telekinetic grasp. "Well," she said, "first I started with a few carrots, which I diced up and mixed with butter, or I meant to anyway but I was out, but there was still some cheese, and what they hay, it's all dairy anyway, right? So then – "
If looks could have killed, then Applejack's glare would have depopulated the entire region.
"Oh, you mean the food stalls," Trixie interrupted herself, glancing behind her. "Well, I thought over our conversation from a few days ago, and I thought to myself, hey, I've known Princess Luna for a decade now, and I know what she likes to eat and what she doesn't, and I know for a fact that if she doesn't have anything but apples to look forward to, she'll probably go crazy and let Discord loose or something."
Applejack's glare managed to grow deadly enough to wipe out all of Equestria and a good portion of the surrounding nations as well. "Ah thought we were on the same page here," she intoned. "Ah thought y'all understood just how much mah family depends upon the sales from tonight."
Trixie nodded. "Yeah, but then I thought how much they," Trixie jerked a hook behind her, at the vendors who were trying their hardest to look any direction but towards Applejack, "need the bits as well."
"But they weren't expectin' none!" Applejack exclaimed. "They get by just fine every year all the same! This ain't nothin' but tramplin' all over centuries of Ponyville tradition – "
Trixie pulled out one of her most unpleasant smirks. "Applejack," she intoned, "are you worried that you can't compete?"
The orange pony backed up several steps as though Trixie had struck her. "What?" she demanded. "Mah apples, mah family's apples, are the best in Equestria! Mah family's recipies are the best!"
"But do we really know that?" Trixie asked, as she tapped her two front hooves together. "Every year you get the three biggest holidays all to yourselves. Must be comfortable up on that throne you've built from apple cores. Must be a scary thought of having to actually fight for your business – "
Applejack's glare returned with a force that could have knocked the sun and moon from orbit. "Ah think you may want to stop talkin' now," she said – ordered – in a low voice. Trixie obeyed, but her grin was loquacious to a fault. After a few moments of regarding it, Applejack trotted up to Trixie, her face getting very, very close to the unicorn's own. "Ah don't know what y'all are playin' at," she said, then looked past Trixie, at the other farmers. "Any of y'all! But it looks like you want a fight. And Luna as my witness Ah'm willin' to oblige."
"Excellent," Trixie responded, stepping back a few paces, but only so that she could wave her hooves in a shooing manner. "Now trot off, 'cause I have a lot of – "
"I am going to murder you!" an almost impossibly loud voice shouted from straight above, reaching and maybe even surpassing volumes that Trixie had previously thought only Princess Luna capable of. Trixie and Applejack both looked up to find a small, jet-black cloud hovering directly overhead, cackling with barely contained lightning. Standing atop it, panting heavily with wings spread wide in threat, was a jasmine-coated pegasus.
Raindrops leapt from her cloud, landing with a thud next to Applejack. She briefly turned to look at the earth pony. "Hi," she said.
"Howdy," Applejack returned, tipping her hat.
"You might want to stand back."
Applejack glanced at the miniature thundercloud overhead. "Ah reckon Ah might do just that," she said, cantering away and to her clan. She kept an eye over her shoulder, however – locked on Trixie. The mare had the distinct sense that Applejack was trying to preserve the look currently plastered on Trixie's face so that she could treasure it for the rest of her days.
Raindrops' attention was turned once more to Trixie, and she took a single step forward, though with enough force to actually crack one of the cobbled stones beneath her hooves. Trixie blinked at that. She had expecting Raindrops to be angry. She had not been expecting a pony who could break stone with her hooves – her bare hooves, as it seemed that Raindrops, like most pegasi, went without shoes.
"Weather-for-hire ponies." Raindrops said, her voice now frighteningly calm. "I got up and brushed my mane and went to work this morning and I found a dozen of those reprobates swarming my weather patrol station!"
"It's not really your – "
"Don't care!" Raindrops exclaimed, taking another step forward. "Now as it turns out I happened to recognize one of them. Oh yes. I recognized him – and he's their leader, mind, of that group of…of…" words failed her for a moment before she could resume. "He was kicked out of flight school. Not flunked out. Not dropped out. Kicked out. Do you know why, Trixie? Ask me why he was." Trixie didn't. Raindrops once again stamped a hoof and broke stone beneath her. "Ask me why, Trixie!"
"Why?" the unicorn asked, in a small voice.
"It doesn't matter why! Pegasi? We're pretty rowdy as yearlings and in Cloudsdale that's always taken into account so the kinds of things that would get somepony expelled from school down here would probably just get you a detention in Cloudsdale. So for him to do something so bad it got him kicked out? It's a miracle he has any job at all, and it's a sin that his job is leading a weather-for-hire team! So, Trixie, I'm going to murder you. Then I'm going to murder him. And I am going to enjoy it."
"I didn't know!" Trixie objected. She gathered a modicum of courage, stepping forward. "You're the one who told me 'no promises' about that storm!"
Raindrops didn't budge an inch. "So you don't trust us to do our jobs? You think this is the first major storm to roll out of the Everfree? The first time we've had to deal with something like this? But no, you have to go and hire a bunch of flight school flunkies – "
"He has the job," Trixie interrupted, "he came highly recommended, so whatever happened in flight school it clearly didn't have anything to do with his weather abilities, and I spent just about my entire monthly stipend on him and his team!" She leaned forward once more. "You're the one who complained about missing your weather manager, I was just trying to help!"
Raindrops' teeth ground together with such force that Trixie was surprised they didn't crack. "One full day," Trixie said, pressing what little ground she had gained. "Just one day and one night. That's all they're hired for. Just to keep the storm from rolling into Ponyville and ruining everything. After that they're gone."
The jasmine-coated pegasus leaned forward, right up to Trixie's ear. "Sleep with an eye open," she intoned, before beating her wings, ascending slowly to her thundercloud and carting it off. Trixie watched her go, then let out a huge sigh of relief. From somewhere near the town hall, she heard chuckling that somehow managed to be accented with a country drawl, but chose to ignore it as she turned back to her home. Carrot Top and the other ponies were staring at her.
"What?" she demanded, stomping down the path that lead from the street to her front door. "You have work to do! Get to it!" The last was punctuated by Trixie opening her door, stepping inside, and giving as hard a slam as she could manage.
Despite being the culmination of two straight days of standing on the surface of the sun, the beginning of the twilight, about two hours later, was almost a relief. By now, the stalls had been set up, and several unicorns were working in concert surrounding the town center to create a bubble of warm air for the multitude of ponies that were even now making their way there. More than a few were surprised by the additional stalls from Carrot Top and the rest – but more than a few were happy to have more than just apples to eat, though the Trust itself was cleaning up nicely regardless. As the sun began to approach the horizon, the pre-festival spirit was fairly high for most ponies. In addition to the food stalls, there were games of chance and skill, like hoof-throwing balls at a target or bobbing for apples (the latter, surprisingly, having been set up by somepony not related to the Apple clan); there were several open areas where vinyl records were playing music for dancing.
Trixie was paying attention to none of it. Earlier in the day, she had finally gotten around to seeing the mayor of Ponyville, formally introducing herself, presenting her credentials, engaging in light and friendly banter that served as a pleasant temporary escape from the last few days, but most importantly of all, rushing through approval for a last-minute performance to be added to the Longest Night's retinue. Given that the music that was supposed to have been provided by Fluttershy was now largely absent and had to be provided by phonographs, it wasn't hard to arrange an hour-and-a-half break from the sometimes dubious-quality records and instead put Trixie's scheme into full motion.
That was for after Luna arrived, however. Right now, Trixie was standing in the crowd of hundreds of ponies inside the town hall – warmer than outside was, even with unicorn magic, albeit stuffier. Through a window, she could see a darkening sky, red and purple and not a cloud in the sky. Ringing the auditorium were Apple clan stands, but more than a few ponies were carrying foodstuffs acquired from outside, from Carrot Top and the others as well. The decorations, despite Lyra's warnings, looked just fine – not as fine as before, but they had been adapted to take the arts-and-crafts projects of the school foals into account, Rarity apparently deciding to spread them around throughout the auditorium to turn the place into almost an art gallery. And Lyra was with her mare-friend BonBon, dressed in a fine white-and-gold gown and with lyre slung over her back, ready to play. Everything had worked out.
Trixie was alone.
This was a feat in and of itself, because she was, properly speaking, never more than six inches away from anypony. But it was as simple as that: she was alone, despite being in the middle of a crowd. She wasn't talking to anypony, she wasn't outside celebrating, she wasn't doing anything more than just sitting near the middle of the auditorium, next to a dark blue pegasus mare who was chatting amicably with a gray-coated pegasus stallion – he looked like an off-duty royal guard – and doing little more than just counting down the minutes until Luna arrived and wondering how she had managed to, in a mere two days, get everything right and yet screw everything up at the same time.
Trixie let out a long sigh. Whatever. This was the course of her life now, and nothing would change it.
"Fillies and gentlecolts!" A voice exclaimed. Trixie's reverie was interrupted at the sound, and she saw that the mayor – an older earth pony with a beige coat – had made her way to the center of the stage and was trying to get everypony's attention. At great length, she mostly succeeded, though a few quiet conversations continued, including the unicorn and stallion sitting next to Trixie.
"Fillies and gentlecolts," the mayor repeated, "I hope you're all having a good time so far. I hope you slept in this morning as well, because all the fun and games have only barely begun! The shortest day of the year is drawing to a close, and it is now time to truly begin celebrating the Longest Night!"
There were cheers and hoof-stomps at that, but they were relatively subdued. Everypony knew, after all, what was coming next, and they wanted to get to it as quickly as possible. "Now then," the mayor continued, turning slightly to face the curtains that obscured most of the stage. "As mayor of Ponyville, it is my greatest pleasure to officially introduce and welcome our guest of honor. Our ruler, our savior and our protector. The Shepherd of the Moon, the Caretaker of the Sun, the Mistress of the Star Beasts, the Sovereign of the Three Tribes, the Ruler of the Land of Equestria…Her Royal Majesty, Princess Luna Equestris!"
The curtains pulled back, revealing…nothing.
Technically untrue – there was some more stage, a wall, and another curtain that hid the backstage area. But as for the alicorn herself? Totally absent. Some ponies gasped in horror. Some ponies sputtered in confusion. Some ponies simply stood stock still, completely dumbstruck.
But the pegasus pony standing next to Trixie had continued her low conversation as if nothing was wrong – a surprising oversight on her part and one which utterly ruined her disguise. Trixie let out a long, low sigh, reached over, and poked the pony next to her. The pegasus turned in temporary confusion, before her eyes widened.
"Oh," she said softly, beating her wings a few times and taking to the air, soaring over to the stage and landing there. She turned to the mayor. "My deepest apologies, mayor," she said, then turned to the confused Ponyvillians, "and to you all. This festival is delightfully distracting. Give me just a moment to collect myself…"
There was a midnight-hued flash and a pop from somewhere in the crowd, and quite suddenly, standing next to the pegasus was her unicorn doppelgänger – identical in every way except for the lack of wings and the presence of the horn. Following that, an earth pony, once more identical to the other two ponies, simply leapt on stage from where she had been standing in the crowd – more than a dozen feet away. The earth pony landed evenly and smoothly despite the impossible distance of the dead-start jump, and as soon as the three were together, each began to glow with soft, blue light.
The pegasus and the unicorn moved first, turning to each other and simply stepping into one another, features becoming indistinct for several long moments before coming together once more, revealing that they had become as one, and also changed in appearance slightly – a longer snout, mane and tail length longer, though still light blue, and a somewhat more slender, delicate frame. The pony that had resulted had both wings and a horn.
She didn't remain still for long, turning instead to the earth pony, who also stepped into the other pony. Once more, they faded from clarity for a moment – but the single resultant pony was markedly different, taller than most stallions, frame still slender but no longer delicate in appearance, instead more like that of a trained runner, with tight, well-worked muscles under her midnight blue coat. Her mane and tail were no longer hair at all, but rather a glowing, aura of midnight blue, studded with stars and rippling as though water catching a clear night sky. The pony's flank glowed, and her star cutie mark was replaced by a nebulous black cloud, but one that was overlaid by the presence of a white, crescent moon. Following this, the pony's hooves, chest, and the tip of her head behind her horn glowed momentarily, and in a moment she was clad in the royal regalia of blue shoes, a deep blue chest plate with a crescent moon emblazoned on its fore, and a black, three-pointed crown.
The Ponyvillians stared in awed silence. Trixie managed to suppress a loud groan of exasperation as the alicorn who stood on the stage spread her wings wide. "My little ponies," she said, her voice soft, yet firm, perfectly regal yet still carrying a slight hint of embarrassment over her earlier distraction – albeit one that she had managed to turn into an impressive display of her magical power. "Your Princess of the Night has arrived."
The applause was just shy of instantaneous. Princess Luna beamed at it, offering her best royal smile. After a moment, she raised a hoof for silence, tucking her wings against her body once more.
"This imminent night carries deep meaning," she said. "It is a time of endings, and a time of beginnings. Since the height of summer, the days have been growing shorter and colder, the world withering as the leaves died and had to be taken from the trees. The last harvest was taken in as the pegasi began the three months of winter. The first snowfall sealed the fields from the light of the sun and moon, and the cold hardened the ground and turned the water into ice. The old year is dying, and tonight it shall finally pass on, consigned to the realm of memory.
"But take heart, my little ponies. Though this year passes, a new one is to begin tonight. The days shall grow longer and warmer, the snow shall melt, the ground will soften, and the earth shall once more become receptive to your care, stronger and better for having had the winter time to rest. Tonight the old year dies, but we do not grieve for it, for its passing makes way for the new year, and the endless possibilities that year contains." She smiled. "I walked amongst you tonight, disguising myself as pegasus and as unicorn and as earth pony. I spoke with many of you, danced with a few of you, shared food and drink and laughter. And from all of this, my little ponies, from your character and your actions, I have reached a decision about this nascent, incoming new year: it shall be a good one."
The collected ponies looked amongst each other, smiling. More than a few were blushing furiously, likely being ponies that Luna had interacted with while in disguise and even now mortified at the things they may have done or said – but happy, nonetheless, for Luna, the Princess, the Shepherd of the Moon and the Caretaker of the Sun, had just blessed the new year due to their actions.
Luna's smile never faltered. "Now then," she said, turning to look at a mint green unicorn, wearing a white-and-gold dress and who was holding a lyre in her magical grip, "I believe a little music is in order for what comes next."
Lyra stared blankly for a moment, before realizing what Luna was asking. She nodded as professionally as she could, before settling down into a position that looked back-breakingly uncomfortable to most ponies, hooves at the ready. At a nod from Luna, she began to pluck her lyre, horn glowing to amplify the sound – and to provide backup music despite the lack of a band. To Trixie's surprise, the sound that came out wasn't the national anthem at all, but was instead something far simpler in arrangement.
Luna nodded approvingly, before turning back to the ponies. "Close your eyes," she said, as her horn glowed and midnight energy washed from it like a wave over them. The ponies obeyed, and instantly they were no longer in the auditorium – they were outside, high above Ponyville, standing in the sky as Luna spread her wings wide. Behind her, to the west, the sun slipped down beyond the horizon, the last of its light disappearing, and for a brief moment everything was utterly black.
Then in the east, the first sliver of silver light appeared on the horizon. The sliver widened, becoming a beam, then a wide ray, before finally a silver, full sphere began to rise from the horizon, bathing the entire countryside in soft light. Everypony gasped at the sight, though any further reactions were cut short as Luna leapt, appearing atop the rising moon. Despite the distance, everypony could see her clearly as she stood there, utterly still as she guided the moon fully over the eastern horizon, before leaping again – but this time, not alone. From behind the moon, following her, came a million points of light, following her like a wave as her mane and tail flared with magic along with her horn. Luna began dancing amongst the sky – hopping, skipping, twirling and spinning, a deep, primal dance as the stars chased her across the sky. She would wave her hoof and string up dozens at a time, swing her mane and imprint them in the patterns of the familair constellations. The stars would move of their own accord as well, twirling around her body as though trying to embrace her, and sometimes she would let them, holding them all close before releasing them against the sky one more.
Nopony knew exactly how long they watched Luna dance. Eventually, the stars following her began to thin out, until finally only one was left. This one, she placed firmly above all the rest in the north, nuzzling it before drifting away, back to the awestruck ponies. As she landed, the ponies found the world fading back to normal – they were once again in the auditorium just as Lyra brought the musical accompaniment of Luna's moonrise and star dance to a close.
Silence prevailed for several long moments, before Luna bowed, wings spread wide. That set off the Ponyvillians, and it was surprising that the entire town hall didn't come crashing down from the force of their hoof-stomps. Luna smiled widely.
Trixie, meanwhile, let out that exasperated groan she'd been holding back, since it wouldn't be heard over the sound of the ponies anyway.
"Great," she said in a low voice as she turned around. "That's the act I have to follow…"
Were the immortal alicorn anywhere else, it would have been impossible for Trixie to even attempt to avoid her – but as it stood, tonight Luna was powerless precisely because she was the princess. Everypony wanted a moment of her time, to ask for advice from a being with the wisdom of millennia behind her. Everypony wanted her blessing on some task they wanted to undertake. Everypony wanted to give her some kind of gift, and her accepting it would be taken as a sign of royal approval. But mostly, everypony wanted to simply bask in her presence.
It was interesting. Many ponies feared Luna, for her power and for being essentially the physical embodiment of the night, and rare was the pony who didn't have a hundred opinions about the Night Court and the dark, shadowy competitions enacted by the noble herds of Equestria that affected the lives of thousands of ponies – and similar opinions of Luna, who orchestrated the Night Court to her whims and was often seen as some kind of manipulative schemer who was directing all of Equestria in a game to which only she knew the rules.
But on the other hoof, she had just done for them what some ponies were describing as the most beautiful sight of their lives, and up close and personal, Luna seemed surprisingly warm and approachable – which meant everypony except one blue unicorn wanted to approach her, and that blue unicorn was doing a far better job of keeping away from her mentor than she thought she would have been able to manage.
Trixie took a deep breath. She had finished clearing out a large space in front of her new home, cordoning it off with a few chairs used to create an impromptu acting arena. She wished she had a proper stage to work with, but then again working on street level had its own charm, or at least that's what her grand-père, Quartermoon, had said about his early days in showbusiness. Not as many ponies would be able to see her, but they would hear her almost as well, and their curiosity would be all the greater.
Trixie had a moment of doubt as she stood still, invisibility spell wrapped around her form. Once she started, there'd be no going back. She didn't fully know what Luna's reaction would be, but it certainly wouldn't be pleasant. Still – Trixie reminded herself that Luna had banished her to Ponyville. Had dumped her here to rot. Steeling her resolve, Trixie channeled magic through her horn – fortunately, her invisibility spell did its job of hiding her presence – and she cast two spells simultaneously: an illusory, bright fireworks, not quite as good as the real thing but certainly attention-grabbing; and a ghost sound copy of the noise of a fireworks display to accompany it.
There was, of course, a crush of ponies nearby anyway, as everypony wanted to be inside the unicorn-created bubble of warm air. Still, she had succeeded at getting a large number of ponies looking her way, eager to see what was coming up next in the night.
"Fillies and gentlecolts!" Trixie exclaimed – still invisible, and after wrapping another spell around her throat, which would enhance it enough so that everypony nearby would hear it without trouble. She set off more illusory fireworks, these ones streamers that mostly spun in place as a lightshow. "Come one! Come all! Come and see the greatest show in all of Equestria! Tonight on the Longest Night, see the astounding magical prowess of the one – the only – descendent of the legendary Star Swirl the Bearded – " technically, actually, it was Star Swirl's sister-in-law, but the Ponyvillians didn't need to know that, " – trained in the arts of sorcery and spell-shaping by Princess Luna herself – the Great and Powerful Trixie!"
And with that, Trixie threw down a final illusion and let her invisibility spell slip as a bright flash and cerulean smoke filled her staked-out area. The smoke dissipated quickly, leaving only Trixie – clad in her hat and cape, of course, but also wearing a dark blue undershirt and a deep purple jacket with loose sleeves for her front legs, buttoned across her chest and stomach. It was part of what she'd worn it to the last Grand Galloping Gala, and fit her 'theme' perfectly.
She already had a small crowd of ponies standing in place, ready and waiting for her to live up to her introductory speech. Most particularly, with such an overt and bright display of color and sound, she had attracted what Grandpapa Quartermoon had always claimed was the key to a successful magic show: Foals, little colts and fillies who were so much easier to fool with sleight-of-hoof and always had a much less critical eye.
"Now then," Trixie said to the audience, "quick note before we begin. All that?" she waved a hoof behind her as though referencing the light show she had just put on. "Some spells. Little illusions and ghost sounds and flashing lights that any unicorn could do with practice. And I, Trixie, am not saying it was easy, and I'm not saying that it wasn't, in its own way, magic." As she turned around, she flicked one hoof, and from seemingly thin air produced a pair of scissors, which she caught with telekinesis. "But the really impressive stuff," she said, flicking her other hoof and producing a large, white quill, "well, that's what Trixie intends to show you!"
Trixie produced four more items that she had found around her home – a deck of cards, a carrot, a flask, and a pair of silver bits – as well as a sheet of paper and separate, black writing quill. Using her telekinesis, she laid out the first six items in front of her, from left to right in the order that she had produced them in so that the scissors were furthest to her right and the bits furthest to her left, while the black quill and paper remained separate from the pile. Smiling at the audience, she wrote a few things on the paper, then folded it in half and moved her line of items forward, while appraising her modest audience. She smiled when she noticed one filly in particular, wrapped in a foal-sized winter cloak and sitting close to her gray pegasus mother.
"You there!" Trixie exclaimed, pointing a hoof at Dinky Doo. "Come over here for a minute."
The unicorn filly's eyes widened a little, as she looked to Ditzy Doo as though for permission. In response, Ditzy smiled and nudged Dinky with one hoof. The filly trotted forward eagerly at that, stopping on the other side of Trixie's line of items.
"Say your name for the audience," Trixie said, waving a hoof at the ponies watching.
"Dinky Doo!" the filly exclaimed brightly as she looked at them, though she turned back to Trixie quickly. She leaned forward a little, and spoke in a quieter voice next. "I figured out how you made that bit appear on top of my head."
Trixie smiled. "Did you? Well, here's a new one." In a louder voice, and looking more at the audience than Dinky, she continued. "Now then, Dinky Doo. Name a number between one and six."
"Five," Dinky said, eyeing the flask.
"F-I-V-E," Trixie spelled out, hoof pointing to the bits first and then moving backwards, until she ended up on the deck of cards. "Oh, thank goodness. I don't know much magic involving carrots." As she said that, she unfolded the piece of paper hovering behind her, showing that she had written deck of cards on it. Two colts seemed impressed by the trick, but most everyone in the audience seemed underwhelmed.
Dinky pouted a little. "That wasn't magic," she objected.
"Not really, no," Trixie confirmed as she put the remaining objects on the ground behind her and used her telekinesis to withdraw the fifty-four cards within and spread them out in front of Dinky. "Now then. Pick a card. Any card! Show it to the audience, but do not show the Great and Powerful Trixie!"
Dinky considered the cards in front of her with the same kind of weight that an older mare would have given to her wedding dress. At length, she indicated one. Trixie nodded as she pulled the deck together again, shuffling the cards thoroughly as she trotted forward, so that she was next to Dinky Doo. As she did, she flourished her cape slightly. "Alright," she said, holding up the deck of cards and looking them over, considering. "The Great and Powerful Trixie thinks…it was…" she reached the end of the deck, looked confused a moment, then stamped her left hoof in realization and pointed. "That one."
Trixie didn't point to the deck at all, but rather straight down, at Dinky's hooves. The filly looked down, and her eyes widened and she backed up several paces in surprise at the card lying face-down right beneath her right front hoof, which nopony had seen arrive there. There were gasps from the audience, as well.
Trixie telekinetically lifted up the card, considering its face for a moment before turning it to Dinky and the audience. "Seven of clubs?" she asked rhetorically. Dinky's face – and that of the surprised audience – told her the answer already. Dinky nodded, as did Trixie, even as she turned back to her piece of paper and unfolded the remainder of it, where she had written seven of clubs.
Cue the hoof-stomps, Trixie thought with a smile even as the applause came, reserved but appreciative from the adults in the audience but very enthusiastic from the fifteen or twenty fillies and colts watching. Trixie bowed, and encouraged Dinky Doo to do likewise before sending her back to her mother, Dinky's brow furrowed in thought as she tried to figure out Trixie's tricks.
Good luck, kiddo, Trixie thought with a smirk, as she got ready to pull out the nails and get to more impressive magic. She'd shown herself as competent enough, now it was time to wow the audience. With a wave of her hoof, she pulled from its resting point far behind her a stool, a bright white ball, and a trio of metal cups.
"Now," Trixie said as she placed the items in front of her, the ball and cups on top of the stool, "this is one of the oldest tricks in the book. One ball, three cups, you all know it, some of you have probably done it, you know how it works, and where's the fun in that?" Trixie hefted two of the cups, considered a moment, then shrugged and tossed them over her shoulder, back where they had been. "One ball. One cup – "
Trixie glanced at the audience, and saw her. Princess Luna had made her way to the front row of adult ponies, just behind the fillies and colts that were making up the front row of her audience. The ponies had noticed her and were bowing in respect, and Luna acknowledged these with a nod even as she sat down on her stomach amidst of the foals, offering them a bright smile. Then her gaze was focused entirely on Trixie.
Trixie offered a formal, curt bow of her own. "Princess Luna," she acknowledged.
"Trixie," Luna confirmed, bowing her own head. "My most faithful student. Please, don't let me interrupt you more than I have already."
Trixie wanted to grimace, but she hid the expression well. "Alright," she said pleasantly instead. "As I was saying: one ball, one cup. Try to keep up…"
Quartermoon the Magnificent was considered the greatest magician of his era, and probably the greatest magician to have ever lived, a feat made all the more impressive by his being an earth pony. When he went on stage with nothing more than his signature top hat, cape, and beard, he'd been able to receive applause; when he brought props to work with, that applause transformed into standing ovations and cries of encore.
Trixie was Quartermoon's petite fille – his granddaughter. Growing up with him in the house in Neigh Orleans, Trixie couldn't help but try to pick up his tricks, and she'd always displayed a natural talent for what Quartermoon called 'real magic.' Spells? Spells were impressive in their own right, but one in three ponies in Equestria could not only cast spells, but did so almost every day of their lives. No, to Quartermoon, magic was supposed to be deep, and primal – hardly surprising for an earth pony to think such – but above all else it had to be wondrous. If one saw an act of magic and yawned or thought of it as ordinary, then it wasn't real magic at all, just a cheap facsimile.
Of course, everything that she'd learned from her Grandpapa – the sleight of hoof, the art of misdirection, the smoke and mirrors – she was supplementing, tonight, with her own unicorn spell casting. With her horn carefully hidden under her hat, nopony had any way of knowing when she was casting a spell, and she made a point of taking off her hat and performing through pure sleight-of-hoof for a good portion of the show.
Trixie felt somewhat bad for using spells to supplement her street magic, but her Grandpapa himself had said that it was alright for Trixie to do so, as long as the sense of wonder and mystery remained. Plus, while she really was enjoying herself, she was here for a purpose.
You want to dump me here? Trixie thought, as she finished up another act, this one supplemented by an illusion spell Luna had taught her not two months ago. You want to just leave me here and forget about me? Fine. This is how I'll waste your teachings. The magic taught to me by an alicorn – squandered on street magic.
Trixie felt herself getting more than a little flustered – though she didn't show it – as the show went on, and Luna had the audacity to not appear angry, or incensed, or even disappointed. She watched impassively, for the most part, her alicorn senses more than capable of keeping up with sleight-of-hoof attempts. Once or twice, however, Trixie was able to pull off a stunt that baffled even her – and needless to say, those particular tricks were the ones that got the most applause from the audience, foals and adults alike.
Eventually, she ran out of tricks, about half an hour before midnight. She had, at least, closed with a bang, a complicated mix of several illusion and sleights-of-hoof that had seemed to make the house behind her outright disappear, 'proven' by shining beams of light 'straight through' it, before returning it – it was her home, after all, she remarked. By now, her crowd had grown to impressive proportions, with her having to pause the show about half-way through to ask for anyone watching to sit on their stomachs in order to ensure that everypony who wanted to see her at work could.
"Fillies and gentlecolts," Trixie said with a bow, before offering a deeper, seemingly gracious one to the Princess. "Princess Luna…you've all been a wonderful audience, and the Great and Powerful Trixie looks forward to entertaining you in the future!" With that, Trixie threw her front hooves wide, conjuring illusory smoke and a ghost bang noise once more, using the distraction to make her exit straight backwards and into her home. By the time her illusory smoke cleared, nopony could see her.
Trixie let out a long, low sigh, standing still with her head pressed against her home's door, eyes closed as she tried to decide whether she was angry, depressed, scared, all three, or something else. Regardless of how she felt, that was that. She hung up her hat near her door and trotted towards her living room, intent on getting a fire going and just spending the rest of the Longest Night awaiting the wrath of Princess Luna –
"Hello, Trixie."
Trixie wasn't even surprised that, on opening the door to her living room, she found herself face-to-face with Luna. She paused a moment for posterity's sake, before making her way in slowly, glaring at her mentor.
"Princess," Trixie said once fully inside, bowing. "If you'd give me a moment to get a fire – "
One of Luna's eyes twitched, and a blue-hot flame ignited in the empty fireplace. A moment later, Luna levitated a few logs and tinder into place, and let them start burning. It took a few moments, but at length the fire cooled from blue to a more comfortable red, orange, and yellow as the logs and natural reactions took over for Luna's magic. She's angry, then, Trixie noted.
She sat back on her haunches, staring at Luna and waiting. Luna stared back, her own position matching Trixie's. For some time, the only sound was the cackle of the flames and the occasional snapping sound as the fire found a pocket of moisture or air in the logs.
"Is it better," Luna asked at length, her voice carefully neutral, "for a leader of ponies to be loved, or to be feared?"
Trixie blinked a few times. Trixie had not been learning just magic from Luna. She'd been learning rhetoric and politics as well. And that particular question was among the first that Luna had ever posed to her. "Both," Trixie answered, confused at the conversation's turn. "It's best to be both, if possible – "
"And if it's not? The ability to create such feelings in others can rarely be found together in a single pony."
"…then it depends on the pony," Trixie continued. "Some ponies do better with love, some with fear. It depends on the circumstances of the times. Love is more sure but is outside of a leader's control, fear is totally within her control but can lead to – "
"Yes, yes," Luna responded, leaning forward. "But whether a leader is loved or feared, what must she always avoid?"
"Hate," Trixie responded. "Contempt."
Luna nodded, leaning back. "Trixie," she said. "You have spent the last year moaning and complaining, without end, about not being able to put everything I've taught you to practical use. You have been wasting your time rather than continuing your studies. You have grown arrogant and self-assured about your own abilities, such that you managed to drive away the very, very small number of ponies left in Canterlot willing to give you a chance. And after you melted the ice palace in a bout of stupidity, you somehow managed to convince me that it was, in a way, my fault, that I was squandering your talents, that you were right, that it was time you were given a real job, real responsibility within my Night Court."
Luna stood. "Two days," she said, as she began to pace in a long, slow circle around Trixie. "You have been in Ponyville for two days, and what have you managed to do? I have been assaulted by ponies all night, Trixie, asking me to intervene in their problems. And can you guess, Trixie, what name has often come up tonight?"
Trixie could, but she remained stoically silent, staring straight ahead rather than following Luna's pacing form. Luna's eyes narrowed at that. "Your name, of course," Luna continued. "I had one Carrot Top, asking for official royal sanction of her food stall tonight because she feared reprisals from the Apple Trust. When I asked her why she dared set up the stall in the first place if she was so afraid, she said that it was because she was blackmailed by you.
"Next I was confronted by a weather pony named Raindrops, who asked me to officially outlaw weather-for-hire ponies and do… extreme…things to a certain few in particular. When I asked why, she outlined how you had brought a dozen into town on short notice and, by doing so, essentially told her and her entire weather team that they were incapable of doing their jobs. This was especially stinging at her, because it appears that the storm over the Everfree Forest, which the weather-for-hire ponies were brought in to deal with, has dissipated utterly over the past few hours.
"Following this, I met a unicorn named Rarity, who was quarreling with an earth pony, Cheerilee. Rarity alternated between informing me that Cheerilee had ruined everything, and apologizing profusely for the decorations. When I remarked that they seemed adequate, she almost fainted, and went on at great length about how they used to be different – showed me her wonderful sketch, even – and how you had forced her to change everything for Cheerilee – this despite Cheerilee not asking you to do so.
"Then there was Lyra Heartstrings. A graduate of my own academy whom I happened to bump into. When I complimented her music – honestly I was expecting the anthem and her last-minute change of mind was both surprising and more appropriate – and remarked that I was grateful that at least somepony seems to have benefited from your presence…well, the look on her face told me much of what I needed to know anyway, but at my insistence she went into the details of how you, by insulting her chosen profession, conned her into playing."
Luna's slow pace had brought her full circle, to right in front of Trixie. She did not sit back down as she glared at Trixie, the blue unicorn matching it evenly. "And lastly," she said, "I met the local leader of the Apple Trust, Applejack. She had a lot to say about you, about you trampling over Ponyville traditions, about you challenging the quality of her family's produce, and essentially, about you being rude, confrontational, and in all ways unbecoming of a Representative of my Night Court. But there was another recurring theme besides your name, Trixie. Do you know what it was?"
Trixie remained silent. Luna's scowl deepened, as she spread her wings wide, and took several steps forward, getting close to Trixie. "Trixie, answer me," she said, evenly.
Trixie clenched her teeth. "They want me gone," she guessed, "don't they?"
"Immediately," Luna confirmed. She lingered close to Trixie a moment more, before withdrawing, closing her eyes and shaking her head sadly, then wincing a little and rubbing one temple with her hoof. "And all this is not aided by the fact that I have had the worst headache I've had in centuries all through the night…" after a moment, she turned to look to Trixie. "Oh, but that reminds me. Your magic show. I am very, very disappointed, Trixie."
Trixie suppressed a grin. "Why?" she asked. "You don't think I'm squandering your lessons, do you?"
"No," Luna responded. Trixie's eyes widened at that, as Luna continued. "In fact I wish you had hit upon this idea sooner. You are a vain, arrogant, attention-seeking pony, Trixie, but being on stage, with ponies watching you and giving you praise, is exactly what you need as an outlet for that." Luna turned around to fully regard Trixie. "No, what I am disappointed in is that I know you, Trixie. I know you were hoping I would believe that you were wasting your talents, that this wasn't a genuine effort on your part. This was you trying to make me angry. Although don't fear: you have succeeded in doing that."
Trixie felt something snap inside of her. "You're angry?" she asked, shouting. Luna's eyes widened a little, as she was clearly trying to remember the last time anypony had dared raise their voice to her. "You're angry? You send me here with everything falling to pieces and you have the gall to be angry? You exile me and – "
"Exile?" Luna demanded, her own eyes narrowing as she stomped a hoof down. The room shook a little from the impact, but nothing broke. "Trixie, you're the one who demanded more responsibility, and I gave it to you!"
"No you didn't!" Trixie exclaimed, horn glowing brightly as she ripped the former baron's letter from her cape pocket and hurled it at Luna. The alicorn princess caught it, looking it over. Trixie didn't wait as she stomped around. "You send me here with the food being all the same thing which I know you'd hate and the weather spiraling out of control and the music being handled by the most introverted pony I've ever seen so that I can suffer for the ice palace before I get to spend the rest of my days in this stupid town…"
"You were not banished, Trixie!" Luna shouted back as she finished reading the letter.
"Then why am I here?"
"Because you asked to be!" Luna retorted, once more stomping a hoof. "Trixie, you have never held any position in the Night Court! What, did you expect to be given a position in Manehattan? Fillydelphia? Neigh Orleans? Did you expect me to shower you with land and titles? Ponyville is a large but comparatively quiet town, making it an excellent first appointment!"
"That – " Trixie began, then choked on her own words as enlightenment struck as hard as any lightning bolt. "That…that makes a lot of sense, actually…"
Having gained the upper hoof, Luna pressed it as she stepped forward. "Duke Blueblood – the entire Blueblood family – are entitled, overdramatic snobs."
"But…but the previous representatives…" Trixie began, turning around and rushing from the room. Luna followed, watching as Trixie ran into her office, producing letters from the other ponies who had held the title of representative in the past, pulling aside the bookcase and tearing open the safe hidden behind there to produce a dozen more.
Trixie levitated them all for Luna to see. "They're all the same," she said, though her eyes were wide and her voice shaky. "They're all – "
"Trixie, I have used Ponyville as a site for informal banishments. But the difference between exile and opportunity is a thin one, and the fact that I sent them here, inside of Equestria still, was usually more than enough of a hint that they only needed to get their acts together and they could return to Canterlot!" She looked over a few of the letters. "Many of these ponies were back in my good graces long before their retirements. I do not know why they wrote these letters. Perhaps it became a sort of hazing ritual, or sense of vindictiveness lingered – "
"But the Duke said he wasn't vindictive!"
"Yes, Trixie, and because somepony says something, they must be telling the truth," Luna responded dryly. She glared at Trixie. "So, let me see if I understand your line of reasoning. You trusted somepony whom I'm not certain you've ever actually met, when he told you that I exiled you here, in a letter written weeks ago. Then because you thought you were exiled, you believed it a good idea to make everypony in Ponyville hate you, and following that, make an attempt to make me angry at you?"
Trixie's mouth open and shut a few times as she tried to speak, but no intelligible sound came out. Luna shook her head in disappointment. "You owe Ponyville an apology for what you've done," she said, trotting up to beside Trixie and using a wing to begin nudging her student towards the door to her office, and from there the door to the residency. "You owe several ponies in particular apologies. You owe me and apology. And after all that," she looked Trixie in the eye as she opened the door. Outside, the moon sat high in the sky – it was midnight, or close to it. "I will have to seriously consider whether, after all of this, anything I have taught you has been absorbed, and whether or not continuing your apprenticeship…"
Luna's voice trailed off as Trixie continued moving forward mechanically, eyes wide still. It wasn't until she reached her home's front gates that she realized that Luna wasn't beside her anymore. Blinking a few times, she turned to regard her mentor, and found Luna staring wide-eyed herself, straight ahead. Due to the alignment of Trixie's house, it meant she was staring almost perfectly to the east, where in the far distance dawn's first light was beginning to creep over the horizon –
"Wait," Trixie said, her trance-like state of despair shattered. "Wait. Princess. Why are you raising the sun?"
"I'm not," Luna said in a quiet voice, even as the golden disc appeared fully over the horizon. It was definitely dawn – even as the moon and stars were still perched high in the sky overhead. The sun, in fact, was moving with speed Trixie had never seen the celestial body move at before, charging straight towards the highest point in the sky as though it intended to shove the moon from orbit. The stars themselves were also moving in the sky, hurrying out of the way of the burning orb of fire, clearing a path in the brightening sky. Some of the stars were not fast enough, however. As the sun touched them, they would flare, suddenly – and then vanish utterly.
"Is it really a good idea to have the sun and moon in the sky at the same…" Trixie began, looking back to her teacher. Her words died in her throat when she saw the expression on Luna's face.
Trixie had seen Luna angry. She'd seen her sad. She'd seen her happy. She'd seen her confused, irritated, tired, excited, enraged, ecstatic, embarrassed, and a million other emotions. But she had never before seen Princess Luna look frightened – and properly speaking, she still hadn't, because to Trixie, Princess Luna did not, right now, look frightened. Princess Luna looked terrified.
"Princess – " Trixie began, when Luna's eyes snapped shut and her horn glowed. Her form dissolved into blue, starry mist and shot away, towards the center of Ponyville. Eyes wide, Trixie dashed off after her.
Princess Luna arrived in her mist-form in the center of town as the sun was nearing the moon, which, itself, seemed to be either shrinking in the sky, or else drawing backwards, moving away from the planet it orbited and making room for the sun even as its edge appeared to touch the edge of the moon.
Most ponies in Ponyville, or indeed Equestria, did not have experience with seeing quite as wide a range of emotions on their Princess' face as did Trixie, but even still, none of them had ever expected to see the look of abject terror that was transfixed on Luna's face as her mist-form rematerialized in the town center, eyes darting from pony to pony.
"Run!" Luna exclaimed in volumes she normally reserved for making public proclamations from atop Canterlot's tallest tower. "Run, my little ponies! This sunrise is not my doing! Flee to the forests and hide! Co – "
She was interrupted by a cry of pain – her own – as the sun continued its movement, beginning to eclipse the moon. The moon itself began to blacken, as though being burned by the sun, and though the burns did not physically appear on Luna, her front hooves gave out as she howled at the fiery sensations that felt like they were spreading across her body. Unfortunately, this produced the exact opposite of what she wanted to happen – ponies began rushing forward to their tormented princess, looking to help her.
Screaming in frustration, Luna spread her wings wide, with enough force to shove the ponies back a good thirty feet. "No!" she exclaimed in spite of her pain. "You need to – "
The words died on her lips as there was a hiss and a snapping sound, followed by the air around Ponyville igniting. As Luna watched in horror, a line of yellow and orange flames raced around the edge of town, becoming a wall of fire fifty feet high. Several terrified pegasi tried to fly over the flames, but they would flare up as they drew near, forcing the pegasi back. The only sound that could be heard above the cackling of the flames – which, at least, did not seem to be burning the buildings of Ponyville – was the screams of terror, fright, and confusion.
At length, the moon was completely eclipsed by the sun, which flared brightly once – then a second time, even brighter – then a third time, so bright as to turn everypony's field of vision white, even Luna's.
Then, silence – a terrible silence, obviously magically created since everypony was still trying to scream in terror. They only stopped when the futility became obvious, and their vision began to return.
"My little ponies," a voice broke through the silence, as the sound of wings beating steadily in long, slow sweeps permeated the air. "My precious subjects. Rejoice."
Everypony, Luna included, looked up at the unnatural midday sky, and saw her: A large, white alicorn, taller than even Princess Luna even without her horn, with majestic, swan-like wings beating steadily to perfectly control her descent to the world below, though features beyond that were difficult to make out as she glowed almost as bright as the unnatural sun. At length, she settled down on the cobblestone plaza that surrounded the town hall. Only then, as though touching the earth somehow lessened her, did the glow that permeated her fade, and the ponies could see her in detail – her mane and tail made from animate flames, her cutie mark of a golden, full sun, her regal, subdued smile – and her eyes, completely white, lacking iris, pupil, or anything else that would mar to their appearance.
"Rejoice," the alicorn repeated, a broad grin on her face. "Your true queen hath returned."
Luna forced herself to her hooves, ignoring the pain she felt all across her body, a pain that was lessening, at least, as her moon continued to withdraw from Equestrian orbit. She was breathing in great gasps, and realized she was trembling in fear. She stopped only with a supreme exertion of effort, and only for the benefit of her ponies.
The white alicorn's smile warmed slightly as she regarded Luna. "Ah…" she said, taking a few steps forward. "Sister. Thou hast grown since last I set eyes upon thee."
Luna could utter only a single word in response.
"Corona."
