A Great and Friendly Visit

[Trixie Lulamoon]

It had been sometime since Trixie had last arrived in Ponyville, where yet again she had a momentous occasion. At least that time it ended well, having befriended Starlight Glimmer and giving one of her best performances ever. Definitely an improvement over her last few trips to this town. But for once, her decision to come had nothing to do with putting on a show or her ‘apology’ tour. That she had been doing for a while, and it was quite frankly time for a break. And what better place to take a break than here in the town with her best friend?

Of course, she still felt a tinge of being mocked by the fact that in order to do that she had to be knocking on the door of “Princess” Twilight’s castle. While she and Twilight had made peace with one another, Trixie still felt some level of annoyance at the thought. Not only did Twilight best her twice, she then became an alicorn princess and got a castle. But, well, there was no reason to try and get jealous or upset. This visit was to see Starlight Glimmer, not fall into those…habits.

Walking straight inside, enjoying that as a castle it was sort of public property as well, Trixie realized that she didn’t actually know where Starlight Glimmer would be. After all, the last time she was in here she had been taken to some dining room with ‘exquisite’ tableware as Twilight kept emphasizing for some reason. Exquisite or not, the spoons still bent quite easily into a Trixie shape. Too bad Twilight probably fixed that: would have probably improved whatever dinner party she was having. But since that was the only room she had no idea where to look for Starlight, and she didn’t think it a good idea to just go snooping around the castle, no matter how much fun it sounded.

”Hello, is anypony home? The Great and Powerful Trixie is here to visit a certain best friend” she said, making sure to be loud enough so her voice echoed, a small lilt in her voice at the end there.

[Starlight Glimmer]

"OW! Owowow, agh, darn it, horsewhackers!" Starlight sputtered, dancing in place and shaking out her foreleg. There was a good, bit-sized patch without hair there now—and her skin under it was getting angry red. She whimpered and gave it a couple of tender licks. No blood, but it still hurt… With a sigh, she floated the popsicle stick—coated in adhesive, now a generous patch of lavender hair—into the little rubbish bin by her room’s worktable. Then, she lifted another stick from the jar, dipped it in the plaster bottle, and started laying down a fresh line over the side of her model. It was a generously sized workspace, and severely organized; her materials were on the left, mediums on the right, and everything came together in the center. And so, in the middle of the worktable was a big (and growing) model of the Castle itself—room by room and at an exacting scale, measured thrice and cut once each time. She had the entire first floor done, and now she was up to the second; rather than doing a sweep from north to south, as she had with the groundwork, she was starting from those double-tall rooms and radiating to what surrounded them, so her work was easier to see fit together. Slow going, of course. The floors were all modular, with the idea being they could be spread out like a map and then stacked up for full-scale storage. But there were bits in there, scraps and pieces that provided a sympathetic link to the rest of the Castle. And once she had that together… all she would need is a power source, and— Wait. What was that noise? She turned back and craned her ear. It sounded like someone was calling out a name from downstairs. Wasn’t Spike, he always came face-to-face if he needed something. And wasn’t Twilight because she preferred to send Spike. And none of the guards were that casual, and they didn’t often have the shouty kind of guests in the public areas. So who…? She gently laid the adhesive stick back in the bottle and quickly wrapped a spare hoofcloth around her little bare patch, then trotted out of her room, into the hallway. ”Uh… hello? Someone need help down there?” she called back out, her quick steps echoing through the crystal halls as she descended the staircase. Luckily, with her work, she knew the layout fairly well by now… the first floor layout, at least. But she still couldn’t wait for it to be finished and all these problems of self-location to become a thing of the past.

[Trixie Lulamoon]

After a bit of time passed with no immediate reaction, Trixie was tempted to amplify her voice with a spell to make it louder. It was always handy to have such a spell when one was an entertainer and had large crowds. Fortunately for the ears of any pony in the building it would not prove necessary. Just as she was about to cast the spell, she heard another voice and the echoing hoofsteps of somepony coming. And, based on what she could hear, it sounded like it was the exact pony that she was looking for. With an increasing smile, she waved to her friend.

”Ah, there you are Starlight! Trixie was taking a break from her apology tour and decided to come visit Ponyville. And of course, Trixie couldn’t stop by Ponyville and not come visit her best friend” she said as she started to walk towards Starlight.

It was then that she noticed that Starlight had apparently injured herself, causing Trixie to raise a bit of an eyebrow.

”Uh, what happened to your leg there?” she said as she pointed at the injury.

[Starlight Glimmer]

As she stepped down into the first floor's main corridor, Starlight heard the familiar tinkle of dispelled magic—and upon turning, immediately brightened when she spotted who it was! She'd recognize that purple pattern anywhere. (Mostly because it was the loudest Celestia-slapping shade of mauve in all the land, but that just made it all the more charming on her, she thought.) "Trixie!" she said, trotting down the hallway to meet her, and immediately went in for a shoulder-bumping neck hug. She'd had to work up to that with Twilight's friends... but then, Trixie wasn't some second-hoof friend. She was all hers. "Wow! I wasn't expecting you so soon, I'm really glad to see you. Where'd you come in from? Are you staying long?" Trixie's question stopped her up short, though, and she stepped back to take a second glance at it. "Oh. That. That's, uh, nothing, it's just a... a magic burn!" She smiled unconvincingly. "From all the... the magic I've been practicing here, you know how it is with complicated spells, you do one teensy thing wrong and bang! Fire all over, heheh, eehhh..." ... And she dropped the pretense, rubbing the back of her mane with a more bashful look. "I... glued a popsicle stick to my fur. It's nothing. Seriously, how've you been?"

[Trixie Lulamoon]

Like Starlight, Trixie didn't exactly have a strong history of friendship and getting along with others. Being on the road alone sure didn't help matter either. But she was perfectly content in reciprocating the hug. The sudden barrage of questioning was a little much, but there would be time to talk about all that later though whenever they sat down to chat. At least the sudden turn to the injury kept the tide of questions from being unmanageable.

"Huh, should have stuck with the lie. Trixie is actually quite skilled at treating magic burns....mostly from when Trixie was a filly and first learning Trixie's fireworks spell," Trixie replied, laughing just a little,"But anyway, Trixie is doing pretty good. Just needed a break from the road was all."