Friendship Is Mind Control

Focusing Trixie

The room was still and quiet. Morning sunshine poured over the meadow outside and the trees beyond, a light breeze ruffling the highest leaves of the forest canopy. Princess Luna and Trixie stood gazing at her, without making a sound.

First, she had to deal with Trixie. No other pony, let alone one as given to revenge and jealousy as her, could be trusted with the charm. Then she had to figure out how to best hide her returned memories from Celestia, if her teacher asked any awkward questions. Then, dismantle the charm and understand it. Then rebuild it to take on the Princess of the Sun, devise defences against it, and fully prepare for a second assault on Canterlot. In between all of that, have some seriously frank conversations with the ponies she had controlled, and find out if they wanted what she wanted.

Her train of thought was interrupted as she fully took in the expressions of the other two ponies in the room. Princess Luna looked tense, hopeful, but for some reason, her cheeks were a deeper purple-red. Now that she noticed that, she couldn't help but see that Trixie's face was also flushed, and she didn't seem to know quite whether to look at Twilight or not.

Twilight frowned slightly. "What is it?"

Trixie stammered, "Y-You were-" before Luna's dark blue magic wrapped around her mouth and firmly, irresistibly, gagged her.

Luna looked down at the floor for a moment and cleared her throat, before she lifted her head and spoke with determined matter-of-factness. "Whilst you were recovering your memories, you made some noises, Twilight Sparkle. Of a distinctly pleasurable nature. At considerable volume."

Twilight's lips parted, and then closed. Vast, pink embarrassment filled the air.

Well, she knew one way out of the situation. "Um. Thank you, Princess Luna. I think that explains everything." Without ceremony and without warning, Twilight swept her horn into the well-practised lines of the charm, and fired it at Trixie.

"Mmmmf!" the other unicorn protested through the gagging magic, and to Twilight's considerable surprise, a spark of Trixie's magic flashed out to meet the incoming spell. Unable to stop it, she deflected it to the side slightly and threw herself in the opposite direction.

Twilight certainly hadn't expected that. Luna really had been right to choose Trixie for this, Twilight thought, as she smoothly threw a second casting at Trixie. The other pony crashed headlong into the sofa, and the spell hit home. Twilight immediately called loudly, "Awaken!"

A fraction of a second later, a horrible realisation hit her. Her hands shot up to cover her ears, but too slowly, and she couldn't help but hear Trixie and Luna reply.

"I am awakened, my Goddess."

"The Great and Powerful Trixie is awakened."

Twilight's heart thumped wildly in her chest, and she became aware she was hunched over, clutching her ears. Very slowly, she let go and straightened up.

Okay. She wasn't focused. She hadn't locked all three of them into a loop, where they'd stand mutely facing each other until they all starved.

Celestia's ass, that had been close. She'd been saved from her own thoughtlessness by the charm itself, somehow. It had to have some kind of safeguard that prevented the awakening recitation from triggering the person who'd focused them in the first place, for exactly this reason. But how did it work? Would it keep her from accidentally causing Trixie or Luna to awaken her and cause the same problem?

Well, before she risked that...

"Trixie, Luna, each of you please say the word that ends the charm, now."