We Remember Everything

by Thunderscourge

So Hard To Talk To You

Things had been running more and more smoothly as the damage from Lorelei’s rampage was undone piece by piece. The many men who lost their lives to her wicked game would not return, but those who lived were on their way to recovery and to rebuilding the castle they once guarded.

Merchants and members from the town helped support the effort however they could, having been sealed off from the castle and kept from assisting prior. Their support allowed for much relief on the now strained forces of Asgard, though there certainly was an uneasy feeling amongst the entire nation of how vulnerable they were now that they had been forced to fight one another.

The relief allowed Lady Frigga, however, to tend to a personal project she had created for herself. Since they had less wounded to handle, she spared a medical room to examine the Elf left in her care. He had proven useful in subduing the foe who had disgraced her family, and if she could manage to get around his insanity she might be able to find them a strong ally in these trying times.

After some time of studying him her assistants came to join her, some of them being free due to the lowering amounts of severely wounded soldiers and how not all of them were required for what little work was to be done.

With them now joining her in observing him on the medical table that gave those around a view of the inner workings of who lay on it, Frigga began to explain her findings.

“His entire body is running off of this crystal,” she pointed to the jagged structure lodged in his chest cavity. Under normal circumstances, this would appear to be a fatal happenstance, but in this instance it appeared to be all that was keeping him alive, “He also burns through energy at a sickening pace as a result of his dark magic affliction. It has made his body reliant on it, similar to Loki’s lover.”

“If we remove the taint from him, he may become less of a magic sponge,” Frigga continued as she heard footsteps of a very familiar person approaching, “And he may be a good subject to try my book on mental magic on. He is insane, so any damage done will be redundant, but any successes can gain us a powerful ally.”

Frigga glanced over her shoulder to find that Thor was rapidly approaching her, so she decided to wrap up this information session.

“Tend to him only after you have finished healing our men, but I would not be against having a foreign ally who could either become a diplomat or a tool, depending on whether he forces us to use that harness again.”

By this time her son had reached her and the Queen of Asgard turned to face him fully, instantly noticing that he appeared distressed, “Thor, whatever is the matter?”

“Mother, Heimdall reports that there is are disturbances on Midgard and that Jane is missing,” he took a moment to breathe, letting out a sigh right after as he took a moment to think about their situation, “I know I am needed here to help rebuild, but I must see that she is safe.”

Given how Thor had been so despicably abused by Lorelei recently and likely was harboring grief over causing her escape, Frigga saw no reason to disallow him from seeking out his human lover. Keeping him here, even though they needed every hand they had, could not be healthy for him mentally and so she decided to send him off.

“Very well. Retrieve her and bring her back with you. I would enjoy meeting her,” Frigga smiled at him as Thor’s face warmed up. Despite this, she added in a warning tone, “Do not take too long though. We are not in a position to have our forces split with what few we have.”

Thor nodded, a promise escaping his lips, “I will return with haste.”

“M—mother?”

Trixie was beyond confused by the sight of her biological mother standing before her. The mare was quite similar to Trixie in many regards, having a similar coat of fur, mane, and even the same lanky body type. In fact, she appeared nearly as tall as Trixie was after the latter’s growth spurt.

While better than her stunned daughter, Ms. Lulamoon did not appear to be fully comfortable herself. She kept her focus on Trixie though, ignoring the glare being shot at her by Luna and the looks of confusion from all others, “How are you doing, dear?”

Trixie looked back to Luna momentarily while biting her own upper lip, her thought process shattered as old emotions began to flare up, “Wha—what are you doing here?”

Trixie had a good reason to not assume she would ever see her mother again. She had a great reason, actually, and that started with how her mother said she never wanted Trixie to come back.

Despite this, Ms. Lulamoon did not appear to be holding the hatred and vitriol a parent who abandoned their child who they once abused might hold. She was even almost giving a smile to Trixie, “I have not seen you in quite some time. I wanted to stop by and congratulate you. You’ve been quite busy these past months it appears.”

“I—”

Trixie’s response was cut short by a booming interjection from Luna, who could not take this anymore.

“What are you doing here?”

Trixie’s mother rose an eyebrow at Luna’s words, almost appearing surprised by how accusing her voice was, “What is so wrong with visiting my dear daughter?”

Luna snarled and narrowed her eyes at the mare, her voice creeping upward in volume with each word, “You know damn well—”

To return the favor, Trixie cut Luna off, though it was with a raised hoof that was meant to silence her. As Luna abruptly cut herself off, Trixie cast her gaze to the floor to think.

After a moment, she looked up to Luna with near-wincing eyes.

“Princess, I…” she paused to let out an exasperated breath, “Can I talk to her alone?”

As much as Luna wanted to kill this intruder outright for trying to interject in a family situation she no longer had a place in and for all of her previous crimes, Luna sighed as she realized that this was Trixie’s battle. If Luna interfered it could have innumerable effects on Trixie and cause regrets to stir in her, whereas Trixie confronting the issue herself would either break Trixie’s will outright or instill some kind of resolve in her.

Luna could help pick up pieces of a broken Trixie. She had done it before. She could not, however, counter whatever doubts may arise and grow in Trixie to cause a catastrophic event like the Ursa incident.

Fully hating herself while saying it, Luna cast her gaze to the side while relenting, “Go ahead,” she shot her glance over to the still standing waiter, “These two will require a table.”

The waiter brought Trixie and her mother to another place to sit in the restaurant, making sure to keep them far away from the nearly seething Princess. Once this was done, he returned to take the orders he meant to very long ago.

“Do you wish to order now, Princesses?”

Luna shook her head slowly, her eyes tracking the two blue ponies who left them a moment ago, “I apologize, but I believe I have lost my appetite. You order, sister.”

Celestia and Twilight were still in the dark as to just what was going on, so the elder sister decided to address what just happened, “Luna, what is the matter? Is that truly her mother?”

Luna lowered her head and let it almost droop as she thought about what she had been able to piece together about her student’s past, “I have done my homework on Trixie,” her head lifted gently as she shot a venomous glance over to the table that Trixie and her mother now sat at, “That mare who just arrived? She abandoned her. Abused her. She does not deserve the title bestowed upon her.”

That title, Luna regretted, she could not fully claim for herself. Not so long as there was Trixie’s true, living, and breathing mother. As terrible as Ms. Lulamoon had been and as great as Luna had tried to be to Trixie, the sheer fact that one was her biological parent and the other someone she looked up to as a parent made things complicated and difficult.

Twilight was the next to speak, also concerned about the whole issue but knowing even less than her mentor, “Then why didn’t you just throw her out? Nopony like that should be allowed near their kid.”

Luna’s reasoning brought a sad frown to her own face, “I am not sure Trixie would have forgiven me for fighting this battle for her,” she pounded a hoof down on her seat with enough force that it almost broke beneath her, “Every ounce of my being wants to forcibly remove that terrible being from her life forever.”

Celestia, sensing the immense anger that Luna was holding back, decided to make one thing clear about the issue, “Luna, I will not condone killing her, no matter her crimes.”

That didn’t seem to perturb Luna too much, though that likely was a result of how she likely had assumed that was the case to begin with, “I would be lying if it had not crossed my mind.”

Not happy about the death talk, Twilight spoke up again with a sheepish smile in an attempt to put a positive spin on things, “How terrible of a pony could she be?”

After being seated down, both Trixie and her mother were left in an awkward silence. Neither knew exactly what to say to the other, though Trixie found herself marveled at just how identical her mother appeared to herself. One might even be challenged to tell which of them was older, or if they were mother and daughter or just two similar looking sisters.

The first to speak was her mother, who glanced over to the table Trixie had been sitting at with slight annoyance, “Will your teacher be fine?”

A glance revealed to Trixie that her teacher and surrogate mother, Luna, was in fact not doing well at all. She appeared quite irritated actually, making Trixie even more nervous in the process, “Likely not.”

Another awkward pause resulted when the two met eyes again. Over a decade of no communication had brought them to this point of not knowing what to say. Where could they even start? Bringing up the past? Talking about the present?

The elder Lulamoon gave her daughter a small smile that revealed some pride as she tried to broach the latter of the two possible subjects, “So, you have been crowned the Equestria Games champion for the magic competition. A gold medal recipient. You have come a long way.”

Trixie just lowered her gaze to the table, not able to look her in the eye any longer, “Yes, I have.”

“I must say that humiliating that royal brat in front of such a crowd was quite the treat for you after what her friends did.”

Trixie’s eyes lit up when she realized that her mother knew about what happened. Which means she was keeping track of Trixie to some degree…but what could that mean?

Still, Trixie did not really want to talk about her recent victory in the light her mother was putting it under. While it was immensely satisfying to have defeated Twilight in a fair duel, and she could completely agree with what was said, Trixie didn’t feel much like gloating, “Twilight indirectly ruined my life, so I directly humiliated her. Our score is settled.”

“And what of ours?” came the response, completely catching Trixie off-guard. Now the first possible topic was being brought up, and it was by none other than Trixie’s failure of a caretaker.

Trixie stumbled over her words as she tried to take in all of the memories that flooded her with that one sentence, “I—I—” she shook her head and her voice shifted into anger as she looked at how passive her mother appeared, “How can you just act like nothing has happened? After everything you’ve done to me? After throwing me out, starving me, abusing me—”

Ms. Lulamoon seemed to have expected this response, as she just shook her head in a slow manner as she spoke in a tired voice, “I came to congratulate you, not for a lecture,” she narrowed her eyes at Trixie and her tone grew a tinge of anger as well, though this was anger born of indignance, “And you left of your own free will. You ran away.”

Trixie’s voice almost cracked as she fought tears from flowing down her face, “I came back! You wouldn’t let me in!”

Her mother kept a more calm voice as she continued to look at Trixie, her eyes focused but not displaying any emotion, “If I just let you back in the first time you knocked I would be reinforcing your rebellious behavior, letting you think you could just keep acting out to get your way.”

With her mouth hanging and brain confused, Trixie found it difficult to respond. This gave her mother the opportunity to continue on without interruption.

“I would have let you in after the first time, but you did not come back after the first. In fact, when I reported you as missing there was no trace of you,” she sighed sadly, “I take it you learned how to hide well on the street.”

Having been forced to steal food to sustain herself, Trixie had done little but hide and she especially did her best to avoid the police. They likely had stopped looking for her long after she would have stopped hiding in alleys, though that was only if they ever were looking for her to begin with…

Trixie’s head hung down as she felt tears stream down her face, “How could I possibly believe you?”

Her mother sighed softly and shook her head, a small cough escaping her lips, “I have copies of the reports I filed back home. There should be official records of them as well. Would you care to see them?”

“No…” Trixie had spent years in suffering because of this mare. A simple act of trying to find her would not absolve her of her other actions, “Why didn’t you help me when I came back the other year? I was broke, humiliated…”

For the first time in the conversation Trixie’s mother snapped, her voice full of anger, “And what would I have done? Let you sleep in your old bed that you no longer can fit in?”

Trixie found herself surprised that her mother would yell at her like this, as she never used to in public and she expected her to perhaps play nice now that she came back. Perhaps try and act like a sycophant and mooch off Trixie’s success. What could she want if she wasn’t about to act like that?

Ms. Lulamoon sighed, though it came out partly as a wheeze, “I don’t know if you know this, but when you ruined yourself my own reputation suffered as well. I could not have afforded to keep you around, especially since you could be out working to help yourself recover from your loss, which is what you ended up doing like you should have.”

Trixie weakly looked up at her mother, tears still falling down her face, “It’s been so long, I have so much to ask you,” she sighed as the obvious questions rattled through her mind, “Why did you come back? Why are you here? To catch the gravy train and mooch from me now that I am successful, even though you couldn’t be bothered to help me in the past?”

“Not quite,” her mother gave Trixie a sad smile, a tear almost falling from her own eye, “I just wanted to come and apologize. I was a foolish teenager, and my actions were and are inexcusable.”

One word in that last sentence shattered Trixie’s thought process just like her mother’s arrival had.

“Te-teenager?” she stammered. Trixie was a filly, maybe six, when she ran away…and her mother was still a teenager then?

With another hard look at her, Trixie could see that her mother was just beginning to hit what most would call middle age. Given Trixie’s own youth, her mind shut down as she tried to find an explanation. She didn’t want one or to even think about it.

Her mother gave an even sadder smile, “I don’t look that old, do I?”

Trixie had to admit that, no, she did not appear old. One would be forgiven for assuming her to in fact be an older sister. But what that meant, Trixie seriously did not want to know.

Seeing Trixie’s face made her mother sigh, another cough escaping her lips. She moved to get up from her seat at the table while stating, “I will not bother you any longer if you do not want me to. I should probably go…”

Trixie shook her head, tears flying from her face. All she had now were more questions, and she would hate herself for not figuring them out down the road even if they brought more pain in the end, “No, I want to know. Why now?”

Her mother stopped leaving, though she gave no instantaneous response. She even averted her eyes completely, looked down to the floor, then back up to Trixie before even giving a sigh and speaking.

“I…I was in town, and this would be my last chance since I should be dead in the next month or so,” she could see fear light up in Trixie’s eyes, so she gave a small laugh, “Do not worry. You do not have a genetic predisposition to what I have, unless of course you are prone to making bad decisions too.”

This said, she turned to leave, but Trixie quickly called after her.

“Please don’t go. We…we can bring you back to Canterlot with us.”

Her mother did not seem to believe Trixie, her voice sounding concerned as she turned to face her, “Even after everything I have done?”

Trixie glanced over to the other table and at Twilight before looking at her mother again with a sad smirk, “I’m in a forgiving mood today. And if I don’t, I’ll always question that decision.”

Before her mother could say anything else, Trixie jabbed a hoof in her direction and put on a tough face, “Don’t think you’re getting away with everything. I still hate you. But I’m a better pony than you, and I won’t just let you wither and die when I still need to talk to you.”

Trixie got up while gesturing for her mother to stay put.

“I will go inform my…” her voice trailed off as she forced herself to not say a certain word, “teacher. It may be best if you stay here.”

Loki let out an exhausted breath as he finished his long climb up an impossibly high cliff. He expected to see some portal or way of leaving when he hit the top, but the exhausted Asgardian instead was met with the sight of a temple-like building and little else.

“Almost there, she implies. Top of the cliff, she implies, because she doesn’t talk even though she can dreamwalk and do so there,” Loki mumbled as a green and black portal appeared beside him. He had stopped caring about the sudden appearances and disappearances of Lady Death, who happened to be his very own daughter.

Seeing Luna’s face on her still unnerved Loki, who was not so keen on meeting a child he did not yet raise, but that did not stop him from complaining to her, “Tell me, do you just take amusement out of my misery or is there some greater purpose to this all you are not telling me? This could all be so much easier if you just let it be.”

She gave a small shrug as she exited the portal, though this time she had company as she did so. It was a man taller than Loki and who had the purple skin he now associated with Illidan more than he did Thanos. Thanos had graciously decided to not ruin Loki’s stay in Hel it seemed, but Loki was not about to thank him for his absence yet. Loki still had not escaped after all, unlike Trixie and that damned bird.

Loki snorted as he looked over the newcomer, whose eyes shone brightly in complete contrast to the being of darkness he stood next to, “So you’ve brought a friend?”

She was not wearing her usual hood, and Loki could actually see a smile on her face. Unlike her usual crazed look, she almost appeared calm. Was this a later or earlier form of the same being who paid him a visit oh so often? The answer to that could either be a blessing or a sad look into the future ahead.

Loki observed the man more and found himself intrigued. Whereas Illidan had a bulky frame and was much larger, this one appeared quite slim despite his height. His face was even similar, though the exact color his eyes glowed reminded Loki of another…

“You remind me of Illidan,” Loki decided to try and make conversation with him. After all, if he was accompanying Lady Death than he might be able to interpret her, “Slimmer. Less monstrous.”

The man looked him over but gave no response. Having had no companion to have a good talk with in quite some time, Loki was profoundly pissed at this. What he would give to have some good banter.

With a sneer Loki looked at his deranged child, “No wonder you find him agreeable. Another mute.”

The man’s voice actually caught Loki off guard when it came out, “I can speak. I only choose not to.”

Loki stood up straight and brushed himself off as he continued to complain jokingly, “Now what is the fun in that?”

No response, though his daughter appeared amused at the interaction for whatever reason.

Loki would keep going though, for he wanted a response. It was about time he could talk to someone who wasn’t trying to kill him, “Tell me, Elf, do you know of what happened to that blind father of yours?”

That made the stoic man react, his mouth opening to respond before shutting closed. Lady Death snorted, or at least did the action of snorting since no sound came out, and looked up at her tall companion who still had not introduced himself.

“Didn’t think I could tell, did you? After all, you Elves must all look alike to outsiders such as myself,” Loki reveled in being able to be smug towards someone. The feeling was nice, and he could remember why he would often do it before, “But that Warden was awfully obsessed with trying to kill him, her hate being on a level I have only observed in spurned lovers and myself on occasion.”

There was once again no response, and Loki found himself growing increasingly irritated. No wonder his daughter could find this good company, given her own lack of verbosity. She must appreciate silence in her own deranged way.

Still, she was bringing around another being with her unlike usual…Loki did not like the sound of that. He may not have had the opportunity to be a father to her in any way, but the fact still stood that this unknown man was standing side by side with his own flesh and blood. Some boundaries would need to be made.

Loki leveled the two blades he had used to scale the cliff at the Elf, “Fine, be silent. I don’t know what she keeps you around for, but I would have to cut you down after all your father did for me. Know your place,” Loki lowered the weapons slightly before giving a small shrug, “Your mother was less kind, though I’ll forgive her actions given why she did them in the first place.”

As if to mock his attempt at being a tough dad, Lady Death took the hand of her companion in her own and tilted her head back in laughter. Loki had to wonder if this was just one more way she was trying to mess with him, though he was giving up on trying to interact with them. He might have the opportunity to leave soon, and that meant not having to deal with every form of torment the mistress of Hel could think of any more.

“And this is why I always wanted a son. No need to be the overprotective father…”

The companion spoke up as Loki began to leave towards the temple, “Then you should—”

Lady Death quickly shoved a hand over his mouth, with the interruption causing Loki to turn around and raise his brow at them. What was the Elf about to say that Lady Death did not wish to let him give away?

A rising fear in the back of Loki’s mind brought a scowl to his face.

“Don’t tell me that Luna and I changed our minds and had more than just you?”

The complete lack of response from either gave Loki all he needed to know. Chances were, Lady Death was only one of a set.

Loki was beginning to regret certain nights he could have spent reading.