Part Eleven
The Rariad
By Tundara
11: Gaea
The creak of working wood, the groans of taut lines, and gentle rush of water down the sides of the ship mingled with the low conversations of the ship’s crew. They were a mixed lot, earth ponies mingling with unicorns, soldiers standing beside the first true sailors of Gaea. Down the Saronic Gulf they flew like birds in the wind, a great tower of white drawing eyes from afar to gape at the strange creature far out in the sea.
Trixie took a deep breath of the invigorating air, and felt alive.
Truly alive.
A small knife of anxiety twisted in her chest. Reflexively she pushed it down. Amaymon and its horrors lay in the past, and her future lay ahead.
Mystalicus joined her in the bows, his cobalt mane tied back in a knot, and a simple jacket draping his muscular frame. His helmet hung by a leather thong at his side. He beamed with pleasure like a dog bounding through golden fields of wheat.
“Amazing,” he said in a gushing laugh. “We have outpaced even the swiftest galley by a good dozen leagues! Look how this ship cuts through the waves, propelled by Zeus’ own winds as if it were one of the clouds. And with but a mere half-barrel of ponies! A dozen up those ‘masts’, and another hauling on the ropes. Stout ponies of fine lineage to direct them properly, and away we fly!”
“Yes, it is amazing,” Trixie smiled politely at Mystalicus’ exuberance. “Unicorns have traveled like this on Ioka for over a thousand years. Some of the ships are hundreds of years old, and three times the size of this one. A shame we had to make her so small. She isn’t even a proper ship.”
“What do you mean?”
Trixie traced her hoof up the line of the mainmast, groaning under the press of canvass and taught cordage. “She only has two masts, and her low water-board makes her more a brig.”
“You know much of these matters, just like Lady Rarity, the great benefactor of Athens, I see.”
Trixie shrugged. “My aunt is the head of Equestria’s navy, and at one time wanted me to follow in her hoofsteps. But the Great and Powerful Trixie was destined for the open road, not minding ships perpetually at anchor.”
“It seems you were fated for both, then,” Mystalicus nodded. “Placed on a path with the knowledge you would need for this endeavor. And we will need your guidance, Lady Trixie, for it is into the jaws of danger we rush in this wonderful brig, as you call it.”
Standing at the rail, Trixie watched the crew of chosen stallions working the vessel. As sparse as her knowledge was on the subject, gleaned from casual conversations around dinner tables as a filly, it was still far more than that possessed by the ponies of Gaea. Adjusting sails, knowing how much canvas to press onto the masts, and even the effects of the currents on the steerage of the vessel were all things she’d heard about, but never had any practical experience. They were picking it up fast, and the Athenians skills at navigation were already beyond her own, so Trixie avoided the subject. It wouldn’t be long before they were more experienced than her, and she’d have nothing to teach.
Doing her best to dredge up the few bits of nautical terminology she’d heard as a filly, Trixie circled the Benevolence of Beauty thrice, speaking with the stallions working the lines or scrubbing the deck. Burly earth ponies who’d once been pressed below decks hauling on oars, they carried a look of wonder at how the vessel cut through the waves with only the wind for propulsion. They listened with rapt attention to the clumsy advice she gave.
Reaching where Mystalicus and the hoplites stood also marveling at the Benevolence of Beauty, Trixie let out a long sigh, and wished that there had been time to teach Athens how to make cannons. Sadly, the Athenian’s knowledge of metalworking was nowhere near the standards needed to cast a proper cannon. The few attempts they’d made using the diagrams Rarity had left behind all failed spectacularly. Honeycombed iron burst into deadly shards after firing only a few test shots. While impressed at the potential, especially when Trixie described the powerful magical artillery fielded by Ioka’s modern armies, nopony on Gaea save Hephaestus himself possessed the skill to make a cannon.
As such, the Benevolence only had a single ballista mounted on the foredeck for weaponry. Like the galleys she was intended to replace, she was dependent on the hoplites if there was a battle.
Trixie slept soundly that night, as she had done since the journey to rescue Chryseis had begun. The rocking of the Benevolence was soporific and lulled her into a deep sleep that even the nightmares of Amaymon had trouble piercing.
During the day they could still find her, anxiety plunging into her heart without warning, breaths growing frantic as inescapable dread pushed on her from all sides.
But, at night, at least, she found some peace.
For weeks they traveled south, until one evening Trixie was called to the deck.
“Trouble has been sent to thwart our passage,” Mystalicus said as Trixie approached. “Lord Poseidon has taken notice of us and has decided to test the Benevolence of Beauty, wonder of the seas she has become. Lo, one of Zeus’ storms looms, intent on barring our progress towards Sparta. Ever the brothers have worked together to thwart the journeys of galleys and ponies traveling on the seas, and this night is no different.”
Squinting at the black smudge growing on the western horizon, Trixie silently agreed with the assessment that a storm was brewing. Whether it was some alicorn’s plot or just a natural occurrence was unimportant. As Trixie watched, several fingers of brilliant lightning snaked down into turbulent waves.
“Trixie doesn’t like our chances tackling that,” she said, gripping the railing tight with her hocks.
At Mystalicus’ command and under Trixie’s direction, the Benevolnce’s crew leapt to action, swarming into the rigging, and gathering at the corded lines to haul the sails up and drop the topmasts to the deck. Trixie had little confidence in them surviving a fierce blow without falling, and if they did, they’d pierce the Benevolence like a spear. She didn’t know if it was the right choice, but if it wasn’t, it only meant some work after the storm getting them back up.
No sooner than the last stallion slid down to the deck, the former mountains of canvass reduce to a mere scrap of a headsail, and the mainsail heavily reefed to provide some stability, when the storm, racing across the open waves, struck. Wild waves slammed into the Benevolence, and she took off like a panicked mare galloping through an open field as she was chased by a pack of hungry wolves.
Lightning slammed around the vessel all through the night as they ran, thunder shaking her young timbers, as the waves crashed over her head and rushed across the slick deck.
It was the first taste many of the Athenians had ever experienced of a storm, galleys usually finding some sheltered cove to throw down their anchors, as they never strayed far from land.
The Benevolence of Beauty held no fear of deep water, even as she was hammered and battered by the roaring waves, wind screaming in her taut rigging like a chorus of banshees. She took to the open seas as they were her natural home. Free of the fear of striking land they sped on and on through the night, blown far by the cold winds.
Trixie stayed up all night long with Mystalicus. He was grim faced for the first hour, constantly glancing up at the masts with worry mixed with wonderment that gleamed in the lurid flashes that split the clouds above. Weariness never took his powerful frame as it became ever clearer that the Benevolence would best the storm. She rode high on a wave, and then crashed down with a shudder as water gushed along her length. On and on, as rain pelted down and lightning forked to the left and right.
On and on.
Out into the wide seas she ran.
A niggling worry scraped along Trixie’s own neck, some distant memory pricking at the back of her thoughts. The Benevolence was rising slower, her movements becoming a touch sluggish. Experimentally, Trixie took the helm beside the four burly stallions needed to keep her bearing true. Back and forth they spun the wheel, using the rudder to glide along the roiling waves. It’s response was far from the light touch that had been required early in the storm, the stallions and Trixie struggling to keep her head pointed south.
Worry built, and Trixie tried to figure out what was wrong with the Benevolence.
She was guided below decks, past where the stallions huddled in their blankets in fear, damp as water dripped on their heads where it soaked through the planking, and down to the hold. There she found water sloshing about almost knee deep.
Cursing, she rushed back to the deck, grabbing several of the stallions on her way.
“We must work the pumps!” Trixie shouted at the top of her lungs to be heard over the winds. “Her sides are working too hard and she is taking on water. Call the carpenter and his assistants! They must add more caulking to the inner hull! You lot, to the pump! She’ll start to settle if she takes on too much water!”
Trixie was rather proud of her use of nautical terms, and the stallions had only a moment’s hesitation as they grasped her meaning before they rushed forward to the pump between the foremast and capstan. For the remainder of the night a crew turned the pumps, spelling each other off after a half hour to rest and warm up near the galley while the next crew took over. The carpenter’s hammers sounded below, and just before sunrise he emerged, black from nose to dock with sticky tar and oakum, but smiling wide with success.
The sun didn’t rise for the Benevolence that day as the unnatural storm howled in rage at being denied by the unusual vessel.
Eventually exhaustion gripped Trixie, and she headed to bed. Despite the heavy weight that made her hooves drag across the deck as she shoved open the door to the little closet that was her cabin, she fell into a turbulent sleep before her head hit the pillow. The violence of the seas echoed into her dreams, and for the first time since the voyage began nightmares plagued her rest.
The fog shrouded realm of Tartarus gripped her, and she saw Anchor, the dead pirate howling like the stormy winds. Trixie tried to run away, but Anchor always caught up to her.
“Look what you did to me!” Anchor wailed, grasping Trixie by the shoulders. “We were friends! And you betrayed me!”
“You betrayed Trixie first!” Trixie yelled back, tugging against Anchor’s iron grip, but the pirate couldn’t be shaken.
“Traitor! Traitor! You will betray Rarity! You work for Him! You work for Asmodeus! You work for me!” Anchor’s face morphed, stretching and cracking as it took on a reddish hue and a devilish grin.
Screaming, Trixie struggled harder to escape, but the demon king only laughed harder. Trixie found herself strapped to a table, legs spread and held by leather straps. Asmodeus grinned at Trixie and picked up a long, curved knife.
“Now, my dear, where were we?” He slid the knife into her belly, cutting open her ghostly flesh, pulling it open with consummate skill.
He cut and cut and cut, and sliced apart her soul. She was pulled apart, pieces removed, and then knit back together. For weeks he worked, the knife slicing down to the marrow of Trixie’s essence. When he was done Trixie was alive, flesh and bone again, the wispy existence of death replaced by the warmth of life. Through it all Trixie screamed and thrashed as madness threatened to extinguish what little remained of the pony who’d fallen into Amaymon.
Patting Trixie on the cheek, Asmodeus put the knife down and headed to the door. He paused on the threshold, bathed in golden light spilling through the open portal, “Remember, my dear, you are my gift to Rarity. She will be so pleased to see you alive. Stay with her. It is important.”
And then the door closed and Trixie was consumed by darkness. Darkness that lasted she didn’t know how long before the door opened again and she was taken from that room and brought to another, and then Rarity arrived, and Trixie was torn from her nightmares by firm hooves.
Mystalicus stood over Trixie, taking up most of the tiny space with his large frame as he shook her by the shoulders. “Lady Trixie, you wake at last,” he said, eyes taut with concern. “We had begun to worry that you’d been placed in some cursed slumber by Hypnos, god of Sleep, who guides ponies from and to the waking world, you screamed and thrashed about so mightily.”
Blinking away the sleep encrusted around her eyes, Trixie looked up in confusion. The nightmare slipped away and was lost, leaving only an unsettled weight lodged in her chest.
“Trixie… can’t remember what she was dreaming about.”
Mystalicus looked as if he wished to impart some advice, but just shook his head and went to find his own bed. Grabbing a thick rain cloak from a peg next to the colourful cloak and hat given her by Rarity, Trixie went to the galley to get something to eat before heading to her place on deck.
The storm had hardly abated in the night, and it continued to hound the Benevolence all that day, and into the next afterwards. With her inner sides more heavily caulked, and her hold pumped so that only a small amount of water sloshed back and forth, the Benevolence weathered the storm like a champion, and by the time sunlight at last found her again, she had as prized a crew as could have been found on any world. Weary but triumphant, they scanned the horizon, the Athenians knowledgeable in navigation attempting to affix where they’d been blown. To the north, east, and west, was only open blue waters. In the south, a dark line of land could be discerned by the keener eyed in the miasmic horizon.
“Terrible news,” Argentes said as he joined Trixie and Mystalicus. He was grim faced, and held in his green hued aura a clump of something. “The rats, vicious little monsters birthed by Perses, who ruins everything as the great lord of Destruction, have been into the food. There is hardly a barrel unspoiled by their gnawing teeth and filthy claws. We are starved if we find no replacements.”
Mystalicus, moments from giving the command for the Benevolence to turn back north so they could return to the mission of saving Chryseis from Sparta, came over to his good friend and examined the offered mush. His nose crinkled, and he passed the ball to Trixie.
She recognized it as a sopping wet former biscuit. Giving it a sniff Trixie almost gagged on the rancid smell. Tossing the rotten food overboard, Trixie offered several choice curses in Celestia and Rarity’s names.
“We’ll have to set ashore in these lands,” Mystalicus indicated the dark lands beginning to resolve in the horizon. “And find replacements then. Pick several stallions, and I will form a second group and we will go down either side of the shore. But do not go inland, not in these unfamiliar hills. I grow uneasy looking upon them. Trixie, as you know the Benevolence of Beauty and whom without we would have been sunk by the storm, stay here and see to any repairs that may be needed.”
Trixie shrugged and agreed to the plan.
Mid-afternoon saw the Benevolence of Beauty drop anchor in a placid cove surrounded on either side by rocky shores, a narrow strip of beach in between where a small stream flowed into the sea. Small shrubs and scraggly trees dotted the sun-burnt yellow landscape as far as the eye could see. Other than a few weathered pillars and toppled down walls near the stream, there were no signs of civilization. While a small group refilled their water, the others set off, and Trixie went below to inspect every inch of the Benevolence.
Night came, and neither Mystalicus nor Argentes’ groups returned.
Trixie frowned, and figured they must have pressed on having had little luck finding edible foodstuff.
Strange howls and feral growls echoed over the cove throughout the night, pierced by sharp yipping laughter that jangled everypony’s nerves. The crew was tense, and for once Trixie wasn’t alone in having a fitful, anxious sleep. Groaning at the return of her nightmares, Trixie sat beneath the stars, watching the shore for some sign of her friends, but there was none.
Another day passed, and Argentes returned, his group scuffed and dirty from clambering over rocky cliffs with little results. Lertandes, brave son of Alconus, who’d been among the first to volunteer for the rescue of Chryseis, and who’d long watched the priestess from a distance, heart torn at having no chance of courtship with the lovely mare, his household being of the least among Athens, had a bandage over a leg, blood seeping through where he’d been bitten by a large, dog-like creature.
One of the earth pony crew who’d joined the hoplites, Pumiceous, was less fortunate. He was carried on a litter, his throat torn out and a large swath of his flanks gnawed to the bone where he’d tried to flee into the night alone in wild panic.
“The king has not returned?” Argentes noted as he met Trixie near the stream.
She wrenched her gaze away from the body being, several ponies setting about digging a grave and sending his soul on its way to the Underworld. Trixie shook her head, worry playing at the edges of her jaw.
“What happened?”
“Some breed of a vicious, large mastiff or wild dog attacked our camp,” was all the explanation Argentes gave. He sat down heavily next to the boat to think, spear resting against his shoulder and shield at his side, dirty mane hanging over his eyes. After some time he again stood, and said, “We will go find the king. You will remain here, and should we not return in three days, continue with our divinely mandated mission. Rarity commands we rescue Chryseis, beloved of the gods, and so we shall.”
“Without you and Mystalicus, and the soldiers with you, Trixie won’t be able to even get into Sparta,” Trixie pointed out, returning to the boat to retrieve her star-studded cloak and pointed hat.
Cloak resting around her shoulders, she cast a simple spell used to find paths and the shortest distance between towns. It was a spell she’d used many times as a traveling performer. The only difference now was she set the end point as ‘Mystalicus’. Without knowing his precise location, the spell had a high chance of fizzling, only going in a straight line, or take her in circles. Her horn glowed blue-white, and a hoofball globe of light floated from her horn’s tip, wobbled in the air, and then formed a large arrow pointing in the direction Mystalicus had gone the previous day.
“Come on,” Trixie said as she led the way, everypony gawking at her before nodding and setting off, a small group of sailors heading back to the Benevolence to tend to the vessel.
“The God-Blessed are truly a wonder to behold, the gods’ gifts plentifully heaped on their withers,” Argentes noted as they made their way up the cliffs and then along a scraggly plateau overlooking the sea.
Trixie shot him a sour look, unsure whether he was teasing her or not. Like almost all Athenians, Argentes had no cutie mark. Before the sudden influx of marked young ponies, only three marked ponies lived in Athens; Chryses and Chryseis, as the head priest and disciple, and Hector, who Trixie never met.
Now, of course, there were dozens, most with what Trixie would have thought as pretty common or mundane cutie marks back in Equestria.
She didn’t get the reverence placed on the marked, her own being nothing special. A talent for showmareship and trickery. A stage magician. An entertainer.
The ghost of a smile flickered across Trixie’s mouth.
It had been so long since she’d done a magic show she couldn’t remember the name of the town. She did remember Shyara, the alicorn filly enthusiastically acting as her assistant as they went through the usual routine. Sawing Shyara in half. Making her disappear and transform into a cloud of butterflies. Levitating without the appearance of an aura. The usual sort of stage magician acts.
In a world where powerful unicorns could summon balls of fire, transfigure a rabbit into a dragon, or split the ground with an earthquake, Trixie’s magic was paltry by comparison. Ponies like Starswirl the Bearded or Clover the Clever, or more contemporarily, Archmage Shimmer, Velvet Sparkle, or Twilight Sparkle.
Or Hypocemia.
A hot flash of irritation wormed through Trixie’s chest at the luck of some ponies. A second surge followed, directed at the jealousy worming its way through her heart. Hypocemia was such a genuinely nice pony, despite her passive nature, that Trixie couldn’t be angry with her. It wasn’t Hypocemia’s fault that she had such a natural talent with battle-magic, or that it had been stoked by the direct intervention of an alicorn. Even in Equestria, both were very rare occurrences individually. Actually, until Hera had ‘blessed’ Hypocemia, Trixie didn’t even know it was possible for an alicorn to give a pony a cutie mark.
The number of fillies and colts that would swarm Canterlot if they ever learned that little tid-bit…
Part of Trixie wished Hypocemia had joined the expedition.
A large part, in fact.
With Chryseis and Rarity both gone, Hypocemia was the only pony Trixie could even consider close to a friend on the whole disc.
But, Hypocemia was growing larger with pregnancy, and Mystalicus refused to allow her to leave the city. Besides, somepony had to manage Athens, and she and Queen Hecuba would have their hooves busy keeping the city together.
Trixie was brought out her ruminations as the group approached a scuffed patch of land some distance from the cove. Blood was splattered across several stones, and a pair of broken spears thrust from the earth like mangled limbs. Of Mystalicus or his group there was no other sign. The floating arrow directed them onward and inland. Nodding silently to each other, the small group picked up their pace. Night was fast approaching, and none of them wished to be anywhere near the grim site when dusk swept across the disc.
The noises of the night were louder, and nopony got any sleep. They huddled around a large fire, spears and shields at the ready, eyes darting at the slightest movement in the shadows. The sharp, unsettling laughter was louder than the night before, drawing closer, and closer, and then breaking into a frenzy of yelps and snarls just beyond the ring of light.
Beastly shapes lunged and darted, a massive form blotting out swaths of the stars, and in the narrow sliver of moonlight Trixie saw the flash of large fangs. A horrendous yelp followed, then the crunch of bones, and finally silence.
Nerves frayed, spears pointed outwards, the ponies waited. Their breaths misted in the chilly desert air, cold even for early autumn.
Rosy maned Dawn at last flowed over them, and they were met by a horrendous sight. Body parts littered the rough rocks, the ground still damp from spilled blood. A jawbone lay half crushed, snapped limbs were piled high, and atop them were placed the skulls of some sort of hound or dog, the flesh removed so that the bone glistened beneath the sun. Giant paw prints scuffed the area.
Fighting back a gag reflex, Trixie recast her tracking spell.
They needed to find Mystalicus and his ponies, and get back to the Benevolence. Fast.
Into a wild land of scraggly trees and prickly bushes they marched. Desolate and dry, with Hemera’s light making the rocks blistering hot, there was little in the way of hospitality. Where the night had been cold, the day was blasted by a sweltering hot wind that scratched the face with sand, getting in the eyes and filling the nose. Lowering their heads, the group used their cloaks to ward off the worst of the biting wind. Their throats grew parched, and the water skins were rationed.
Without the guidance of Trixie’s arrow, they would never have found Mystalicus or the other missing members of their crew.
Where the land was broken by rocky crags at the base of jagged hills, they were led to a narrow path that went down into a dark crevice. The bones of large beasts littered the ground, snapped open by powerful jaws, acting as warnings to any who dared intrude further.
Argentes took the lead, his jaw set and spear leveled to strike anything that would attack in the narrow confines.
Trixie glanced up and swallowed as she followed in the middle of the group. Fear wrapped around her like a blanket as cold as the desert was hot. A whimper entered her throat, and was quelled. In every shadowy turn she saw demons waiting to pounce, talons already dripping with her blood, tongues curling over yellow fangs.
She could feel eyes on her, watching her, waiting. Eyes lurking somewhere above.
Once or twice she was certain she saw a shape in the corner of her eye that darted away when she turned her head.
Her heart beat faster and faster, the flush of adrenaline and danger coursing through her.
Deeper and deeper into the hills the crevice went, the bottom growing dark, and sharp edges grinding into Trixie’s shoulders and flanks at every corner. A foul, fetid air lingered, coiling in Trixie’s nostrils and making her gag. Somepony nickered in fright, and was shushed by the pony behind him.
At last the crevice opened up, blossoming into a wide grotto bowl with an oasis. Towering cliffs surrounded the grotto, their faces smooth and glassy. Sand covered the grotto floor, broken by agave fronds and swaths of golden flowers, petals radiant in the noon light filtering down through. In the center of the grotto, surrounded on three sides by a crystal clear pool filled with small fish, was a large acacia tree, limbs stretching out in a green umbrella. At the base of the tree sat Mystalicus and three of his party, heads bowed forward and eyes closed.
Tapping a hoof to his lips, Argentes signaled for the others to fan out as they left the crevice. Their motions were slow, precise, bodies tense for any sign of danger. Argentes, Callitos, Dexos, and Alfe went to the left, while Trixie, Delatros, Triumes, Attis, and Thryxium moved along the right wall towards the pond.
A cold sweat trickled down Trixie’s neck. Her ear snapped towards the slightest sound in the stillness. She clenched her jaw tighter, a dread terror squirming along her spine.
Mystalicus raised his head, his eyes going wide with surprise… and fear.
Next to the King of Athens, Kastor also looked up. Jumping to his hooves, he started to sprint across the grotto, while Mystalicus shouted for him to come back.
A swift flash of black struck from the broad canopy of the acacia tree. Young Kastor, who’d been only a few weeks too young to join in the battle at Salamis, and had joined the expedition at the stern protests of his aging mother, Aredne, worried for the safety of her only son on such a dangerous voyage, was torn in half by arcing, giant claws.
Trixie stared in shock, her stomach lurching up into her mouth, and turned to retch into a bush.
An obsidian leopard dropped from the tree, landing silently on paws as vast as a wagon. It was as tall as four ponies, with a coat that shimmered like a shard of midnight. Fangs like sickles descended past its chin, and its eyes were hateful golden globes.
“Flee, you fools, flee!” Mystalicus commanded in a brassy roar. “This is a spawn of Nyx, glorious mother of the Night and all the creatures that skulk in her darkness, birthed to wage war against the Olympians and left to wander the world when the war was lost. No weapon or spell of mortal ponies can harm its divine hide!”
There was a moment of shock following Mystalicus’ warning, the resolute Athenians standing their ground. Any chance of escape was lost as the Obsidian Leopard bounded over the ponies’ heads and landed before the exit.
“Form ranks!” Argentes ordered.
A short slaughter ensued, the Obsidian Leopard leaping at the Athenians. Delatros, a brawny unicorn getting on in years who’d helped in training Mystalicus and Argentes and been a constant companion in the years since, lost a hind leg, his death screams cut short by fangs clamping around his throat and his body hurled into the pool, a crimson stain leaking across the surface of the disturbed water. Callitos died next, crushed beneath massive paws as he attempted to drive his spear into the giant feline’s exposed belly, the bronze spearhead scraping harmlessly over it’s magically enhanced hide. Dexos followed, the proud stallion knocking his half-brother, Alfe, with whom he’d always quarreled, never agreeing on anything in their twenty years, out of the beast’s path.
The carnage was as swift as it was violent, the four dead in the span of moments. The others attempted to regroup, but a dreadful weight lodged itself in their stomachs. Everypony knew that they would never defeat the beast and that the grotto was to be their inglorious grave.
Nopony felt the fear as sharply as Trixie. It dug through the terrors inflicted in Amaymon, past the despair and dreary weariness of Tartarus, and found purchase in the final, gasping moments of life as her head had been filled with fire. In the Obsidian Leopard she saw the face of the demon who had slain her on Ioka.
She saw the doshaa licking its bloody lips.
“The demons have found me!” She sobbed.
In its face, reflected from the depths of memory, a primal ember ignited into a howling inferno.
Trixie felt a spark of the power that had flowed through her the day she died, when Twilight Sparkle’s aether had used her as a conduit to destroy the doshaa tormenting Diamond Downs.
She took a step back from the Obsidian Leopard, a hoarse cry issuing between dry lips, “No, not that. Anything but that. Not the torrent that consumed me.”
Lavender flames manifested in towering plumes around Trixie, leaving the ground untouched, but causing the air to crackle and dance with hazy heat. Around Trixie appeared a ring of stars, their light growing from dim to a blazing intensity that the other ponies had to shield their eyes from to avoid being blinded.
An electric intensity of aether coursed through Trixie’s veins, energizing sinew and muscle, filling her with a resplendent surge of burning power. Her heart beat faster and faster. Her breaths came quick and shallow as the sensation built. She felt like she was about to burst, she was so full of aether.
It was like the moment before her death.
“No! Not again!” Trixie screamed, head tossed side to side as if she could shake off the rising torrent of energy building inside her. “Twilight! Not again! Rarity, help me!”
Trixie’s cutie mark blazed with an intensity to rival the ring of stars about her. From her horn a beam of oscillating blue-purple-white energy cut skyward, and detonated in the heavens.
The sky turned black, as if day had been swallowed by sudden night.
Then came a rain of stars streaking down like encrusted lavender arrows.
Argentes and Mystalicus cried warnings to the surviving hoplites. The ponies scattered, diving for cover along the walls of the grotto or in the deep pond.
The Obsidian Leopard looked up just as the first star crashed into it’s back. A hundred stars followed into a crescendo of booms that shook the grotto and land beyond. In the space of a moment the beast that had seemed impervious to spear and magic was blasted apart, stars ripping through its impenetrable hide as if it were paper. Within the tiny space occupied by the beast the destruction was absolute, while just beyond was left pristine.
Task complete, the stars twinkled and vanished, and the sky returned to its beautiful blue hues.
Trixie slumped forward, her body suddenly light and head spinning from a void left by the expulsion of so much aether in such a short period.
Argentes and Mystalicus were both there on either side to catch her. They looked at the smoldering pile of burnt bones and scattered flesh.
Mystalicus shook his head, “Truly, a hero without compare. A single blow to kill such a beast formed by Nyx’s own horn.”
“Aye, the God-Blessed are truly a wonder to behold,” Argentes said, repeating the words he’d spoken the day before with far greater reverence. “Come, brother, we must hurry. There may be more beasts made for the wars between gods lingering in these misbegotten lands, with their sun-burning stones that dig into the hoof and refuse all the goodness of the soil imparted by Demeter, the wise goddess who could coax life from even the most desolate ground.”
Legs almost unable to hold her up from aether drain, Trixie staggered in a daze, helped along by Mystalicus and Argentes, while Attis retrieved the largest intact section of the Obsidian Leopards hide. Nopony wanted to take the time to explore the grotto and see what treasures the beast had amassed, instincts warning them against such a delay.
As quickly as they could, they traversed the crevice.
Coming out the other side onto the sun-scorched desert they were met by a hundred black painted ponies with shields locked and spears leveled. Their manes were dyed a stark white, and on their foreheads they had a crescent moon just beneath their stubby horns.
From the black ponies’ ranks stepped forth a statuesque mare, finely honed muscles rippling with every precise movement. On her flank glimmered a full moon cutie mark surrounded by five stars. Yellow eyes bored into Trixie.
“Queen Dido sends her greetings, ponies of the north, who bask closest to the mighty gods’ gazes. You have slain Techatallicus, the beast that has plagued these lands for thirty and two hundred years and she would invite you to Nyx’s bastion on the desert shore. Come, Alnyxandria awaits.”
Patting Trixie on the shoulder, Mystalicus stepped forward, “Such an offer, made so passionately and backed by force, could hardly be refused by even the most resolute. Wearied by our travels and having lost brave comrades, we can hardly refuse. It would give us great pleasure to see the fabled city forged by Athena, the mighty guardian of our own city, as a gift to glorious Nyx.”
Taking flanking positions around the Athenians, the Alnyxandrians lead them to the west where their city lay.
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Well bombarding something with stars is one way to get rid of a problem. Points for style there!
Trixe sure managed to cast some impressive magic and I wonder how she managed it. They seem to have been blown far out of course by that storm since I have the impression that they aren't in Greece or Asia Minor at this point.
Also at one point it says Benevolnce’s instead of Benevolence's.
10299868
My goal with Gaea is to showcase it as a land of legendary heroes and their mighty feats. Trixie and the Nyxian Leopard will be but one legend she spawns.
10299626
Indeed!
Queen Dido, hmmm? Trixie had better hope that neither she nor Mystalicus are playing Aneas...
10299937
Well... Trixie did go to the Underworld...
Trixie is really going to become the mare of legends!
Next, I have to wonder if Queen Dido has a son of age she will encourage a union with Trixie. 🤣
I am particularly fond of the description of the power she draws forth and unleashes upon the Obsidian Leopard. It is poetic and epic.
as sad as it was to see some of those soldiers die, I am quite fond of that entire scene. Especially Trixie's "power surge" (or whatever you wanna call it). While the words you used to describe it, would have caused exhilaration in many other characters, and made them smile grimly in the face of death, with Trixie it called back to her actual and literal death.
She is rightfully panicking, and fears that she will die again, or even meet the demons once more. You get across her manic fright quite well, even as the other ponies there focus only on the awesome power she unleashes.
One has got to wonder, too, if said magic is a remnant of Twilight's, or if it's actually her own? From her PoV, it's a remnant of Twilight's magic coursing through her, and it's shaped as a bombardment of stars. However, earlier in the chapter we're privy to her cutie mark being about showmareship and trickery, and even how she's able to levitate without an aura.
If she can do that, would it not be possible that she could change the colour of her aura? Perhaps doing so unconsciously, tricking herself?
I do like the idea of Trixie being much stronger than she thinks she is, but just having yet to unlock that power. I suppose we will see if I'm pulling stuff out my arse, or if there's some merit to my musings.
10304999
There are some merits, but I am not going to say where they lay.
A lot of interesting thoughts and ideas you've come up with there.
10305689
I hope we'll get to see where those merits are!
10306146
Well, Trixie is stronger than she thinks, that much is obvious. Enough so for Sombra to take notice and teach her.
As for her spell, which I will now call 'The Grand Cascade of Stars', because super powerful spells need names, I find the idea that the lavender in the spell was due to her subconcious tricking her into thinking the spell came from Twilight is interesting. We'll have to see how it plays out. I have plans for Trixie and just /what/ she is now after everything happened.
10306597
I am quite fond of that idea as well. It seems like a bit of subtle set-up and (unseen) pay-off, with how we're told just in this chapter, what her Cutie Mark means.
As for What she is, Hmm... There's something there, yeah. Because Trixie went from Living, to Dead, and while still a Soul/Spirit she was shoved into literal Hell and forced to survive there for however long, and then they just teleported back into the world of the living.
She never went through proper reincarnation. She's a "soul" wandering the real world. She really shouldn't be where she is. I bet that has something to do with her sudden surge.
So what was that magic? Was she still channelling Twilight's power, or was that Rarity answering her call? Or does Trixie have more power than she realizes?
10306794
I'm keeping the answer to that under my hat for the time being. If it turns out not to be answered in the story itself I'll give the low-down.