It took all I had to keep up my sultry grin and nod along at the stammering moron requesting my services.

“So, you wish for Trixie to be Princess Celestia tonight?” I asked, leaning in close to my potential customer.

Not that I didn’t like my job. It was fun to play so many different roles, and I was good at it. But this was one of the more common fantasies I was asked to fulfill back then. Everypony wanted the Princess. If only Luna had been around then too I might’ve gotten a bit more variety in requests. Sometimes I think about going back to my old job, just to try out playing as the Princess of the Night.

The red earth pony nodded eagerly, her mouth curled up in a nervous smile. I chuckled, and I was close enough I could feel my breath reflected back at me off of her cheek.

“Trixie would be more than delighted to give you your day in the sun,” I said. She blushed and scraped at the ground. They always liked that line.

“So delighted, in fact, that it’ll only take three hundred bits, up-front,” I said. They always liked that line a lot less.

She blinked and leaned back away from me. “R-really? Three hundred? I… I don’t have that much.”

With a small magical effort I replied in Celestia’s voice. “A small price to join the Princess in her private chambers. You wouldn’t ignore a royal summons, would you?”

I sometimes wondered whether this were the most ethical strategy. But what I didn’t wonder about, what I knew for certain, was that everypony who “didn’t have that much” suddenly found themselves a bit richer if I gave them a little free sample first.

She nodded again, breathing heavily. “O-okay. I… I mean… yes, Princess.”

I grinned. It wasn’t my favorite fantasy to fulfill, like I said. It was dull and making myself look like somepony who was so much bigger than me took a lot of effort. But I still loved closing the deal. So I kept the voice up, for her.

“Then, let me lead you to my chambers, and I’ll show you everything from sunset to dawn.”

She started following me when a sudden crash followed by a chorus of screams interrupted us. If only I’d been a little faster reeling her in maybe she even would’ve paid before she ran off.

I whipped around to look to the source of the crash and I shivered as I looked up at a white dragon’s wings and tail thrashing about. I could see pieces of wood and stone launched into the air as it effortlessly shattered homes. I was frozen in place watching the destruction.

It leapt into the air and landed on the house just in front of me. Debris sprayed out all around me and I stepped backwards instinctively, but I couldn’t seem to bring myself to run. I didn’t know what to do. There was a //dragon//. In the middle of the city. It wasn’t the kind of situation where you //could// do anything. You just hoped it never happened, because if it did you were going to die.

It lowered its face towards me and I could feel its hot breath. I could //see// its breath rippling in the air and I was instantly sweating. Its green eyes narrowed as it focused on me.

There’s something strangely freeing about knowing that you’re about to die. You just think “well, there’s nothing I can do to make this worse, right?” So you can find yourself suddenly doing things you wouldn’t have expected. And in a sudden flash of inspiration, I was Princess Celestia.

I stomped a golden-clad hoof on the ground and shouted in a deep, royal voice. “Stop!”

As the dragon suddenly pulled back with wide eyes, I contemplated for a moment that perhaps that mare who wanted to bed her Princess so badly had saved my life. But as the dragon’s surprise faded I stopped contemplating this and started wondering what I would do to keep from dying in the next moment.

I dispelled the Celestia illusion because it was too taxing, and as soon as the dragon started moving in again I cast two copies of myself and we all ran away from one another. I kept the two illusions close enough to one another in the hopes that the dragon might favor those odds and go after them.

I was right, and the dragon leaned back down and exhaled a fireball that surrounded both of the illusory copies. I dispelled one of them and turned myself invisible, and made the other illusion shriek and crisp up as realistically as I could. I imagine the dragon had likely seen more ponies burn to death than I had, but since it grinned and stood back up it seemed my trick was lifelike enough to fool it. I exhaled in relief and sat down to rest my pounding heart.

But when the dragon resumed stomping around and smashing houses and starting fires I realized that perhaps I was less safe than I had hoped. Being invisible didn’t protect me from its feet or tail, nor from falling debris, nor from fires.

As soon as it was turned away from me I made myself visible again. I would need all my magic for this. I made a picture in my head, imagining as many details as I could and fixing them in my mind. It wouldn’t do for it to be missing pieces or for its shape or color to change as I was casting it.

When I was finished, a large orange dragon soared through the sky above the city. And the white dragon raised its head and its gaze followed it.

It snorted a burst of flame from its nostrils. Ponies didn’t know a lot about dragons. But one thing we did know is that they were territorial. Outside their yearly migrations, adult dragons did not take kindly to seeing one another. They knew what was theirs and they jealously guarded it, and they tended to include //everything// in “what was theirs.”

The white dragon spread its wings and took off, angrily chasing the illusion. I knew I couldn’t keep it up forever. It was already so far away it hurt my head to keep focusing on it. But hopefully by the time it vanished the white dragon would be far enough away that it wouldn’t want to bother with coming back.

When I couldn’t keep it up any longer I collapsed in the street, panting. It was only then that I noticed the crowd of ponies around me. They were staring at me with wide eyes. I was used to that much. I got a lot of stares back then. But this one was different. It was… admiration.

“You… you saved the city!”

“That was amazing!”

“I can’t believe it! I’ve never seen illusions like that!”

“Thank you!”

I blinked and blushed. But then I grinned. I always liked attention. And this was a whole new and exciting kind of attention for me.

“Three cheers for the great and powerful Trixie!”

I smiled and waved as they all cheered my new name. The Great and Powerful Trixie. I remember thinking then that it sounded a little silly and overblown. I was used to being a little more subtle and, well, private in my previous work. But at the same time, I remember thinking… I could get used to this.

—-

**BSB Comments:((

This was really cool! I like the idea that Trixie specializes in illusion magic because there’s definitely canon to support it, but I never thought that she’d be as powerful as this. I liked how you wrote the action scenes; they were exciting and easy to follow. I liked this portrayal of Trixie as an intelligent mare just trying to survive and ending up lauded for her talents. I liked it! Good show!