Shadows
“Shadows!”
I awoke with a start, matching the shout of inspiration from my dream to reality. Remembering anything from my unconscious was a lesson in futility, however, so I mumbled the same word on repeat while scanning the hotel room.
Keen Sight was as lax as ever. Some days, I believed a hurricane could rip off the roof without waking her. At the same time, I doubted a slip of sunlight could slide past her gaze unnoticed, as she would be peppier than a schoolfilly on her first day of school when the glimpse of morning peaked the horizon on others.
Snoring would make it seem like the noise emanating from her lips was irritating, but my mind was hazy. Whatever it was called, her noise breaths calmed me as I noted the darkness outside our window.
The dream interrupted my slumber far too early, as my continued incoherency proved. And yet, the word continued to resound in my mind until I gave up on the bed and stumbled for the door. A light moan drew my attention back to Keen, but she turned over and lay still once more. Once sure I hadn’t interrupted her sleep as well, I carefully made my exit.
Magitek lights created a close facsimile to candles, but they were too intense to be considered the same. I squinted in pain, drawing a hoof over my eyes until they adjusted. Once able to see again, I wandered the halls and attempted to remember why shadows were important again.
“Coffee, coffee, coffee…” I heard somepony mutter from the next corridor. We were heading the same way, as her voice got louder the closer I got to the intersection. I stopped early, afraid of bumping into the early riser and give them a bad start to their day, and watched a poorly bandaged and horribly bruised mare shuffle her way around the corner in front of me. Pacing after her, I tried to remember any details I would need for later, as my superior had told me to practice doing many times.
Her mane was a mess, as to be expected from a “coffee zombie”, as some circles called one in her state. What wasn’t expected was the mismatched lengths on either side of her head and burnt, frayed ends. I shifted to look at either side of her, noting the extra-think bandaging along her barrel and right shoulder. A few cuts ran along her face and flanks, though anything too deep was most likely covered already. Surprisingly, her tail was completely undamaged, and I finally realized her colors matched the mare from the previous night in the lobby.
“Trixie?”
She halted immediately, whipping her head back towards my voice with wide eyes. In a flash of magical light, her appearance matched the perfection of her tail. “What are you doing awake at this hour?” she accused as she shirked away. There was fear and shame hidden behind her infuriated eyes, but I couldn’t place how I noticed it. I chalked it up to my tired state before responding.
“I woke up in the middle of a dream, couldn’t fall back asleep, and decided to go for a walk. Why are you hiding your injuries, Trixie?”
“Trixie is not hiding anything! Trixie is simply keeping her appearance presentable for the public.” I raised an eyebrow. “They are two different things!”
If she wanted to play semantics, it wasn’t my place to tell her otherwise. It wasn’t important, anyway. “Did somepony attack you?”
“Are you suggesting Trixie cannot defend herself from the peons of Ponyville?”
“So it happened recently?” Either my brain was finally activating or something about Trixie triggered a spark of intelligence. Something was telling me not to leave her side if it was the latter, or maybe it was telling me to pay attention. Keen must be rubbing off on me.
“I-I mean, Trixie can handle any pony in Equestria. Nopony, especially the hicks in Ponyville, could lay a hoof on me. It’s not like Trixie lost a duel or anything!”
So her injuries were caused by magic, most likely via a duel in which she was outmatched, and it was somepony here in Ponyville. If she keeps throwing information like this away, maybe she’ll reveal something related to the case. I’d have to play it safe, though. Between last night and now, she’s obviously a prideful pony.
“Stop looking at Trixie like that! She can feel your judgement, and it is unwanted.” With a huff, she turned away and stomped down the hall. “Now please excuse Trixie, as she cannot think without the nectar of the coffee bean.”
There was no way we were parting just yet, so I chased after her. “Hold on,” I called, but she didn’t slow. “By the authority of the crown, I command you to yield!” It was a half-truth—Celestia may have hired us and given us a bit of leeway in our investigation, but she never gave us explicit use of her name—and maybe a bit illegal, but Trixie immediately stopped.
“By my right as a Freemare of Equestria, the authority of the crown only permits you to ask questions related to the security of the nation. If you have no such inquiry, I will continue on my way.”
A Freemare, one legally allowed to travel within Equestria’s boundaries without citizenship, was exceedingly rare. That Trixie was supposedly one of them, and a high-profile suspect for our case, complicated matters. While what she said was true, my exclamation wouldn’t hold her if she learned of my bluff. If we did get the authority, we couldn’t use it against her again, even if it was under false pretenses last time. Any information I could get from her had to be now. Unfortunately, she now stood stiff and alert, which would make it even harder for me to get the information I wanted.
“To announce yourself as a Freemare without producing proof as such is a crime, my lady. Present it now, or face charges against—”
A small flash of light shone above her before steadying into the mark of Clan Illus, a group of unicorns who originally appealed Princess Celestia and founded the law of Freeponies. Their mark, a seven-pointed star to represent the seven original founders with an eye in the middle and surrounded by a circle, became the basis for all other Freepony clans to copy and modify. Most are only seen in the oldest of history books now, and to see theirs still alive made me nervous. Clan Illus had power, nearly enough to rival Equestria’s royal family in political sway, and I didn’t want to see what would happen if I angered them as a whole.
“I don’t show this mark to let you gawk at it, Inspector. Submit your inquiry now,” Trixie demanded as her magic faded and she turned toward me with a glare.
“What were your intentions on arriving to Ponyville?”
“Trixie was under orders to amend the situation with Twilight Sparkle, de-facto leader of the Elements of Harmony, and explain herself.”
The Freeponies don’t give orders, or take them, even within a clan. I heard of exceptions to the rule, normally from direct family members with high rank, and that Trixie had been given one lead me to believe she was somepony to be feared. “How did you go about this task?”
“Trixie entered the public library, home to Twilight Sparkle, and relayed the story of her life. Once an apology was given and received, we went our separate ways.”
That couldn’t be right. The idea they amended the issues that easily, that Trixie had arrived recently, going by how she was still here, with Twilight acting oddly was next to impossible. “Your wounds are recent, which means you attempted to resolve things with Twilight Sparkle while she was planning to submit herself to The Institute for Not-Sane Ponies. I have reason to believe you are being less than truthful with your story, Trixie of Clan Illus.”
“Whether truthful or not, I have answered your questions as I am required. If you have nothing else to add, I request releasing me.”
“What really happened when you entered the domain of Twilight Sparkle?”
Trixie’s glare hardened for a moment, then evaporated with a sigh. “Mother will be furious…”
Trixie stood outside Ponyville’s library treehouse with mixed emotions. Instead of ruminating on them, however, she wondered how she didn’t see it before. How could this thing be iconic if a visitor doesn’t even notice it? she thought. Just the idea of Sparkle hiding in plain sight and slipping past the master of illusions’ sight like she did infuriated her.
But she wasn’t here to yell at Sparkle. No, she was here to apologize. Just the word alone added to her anger, which built more when she remembered how she was ordered to do so. A Freemare, ordered to do something! The very idea was laughable, but her mother called on one of the clan’s old laws and did just that. Ohh, the humiliation she felt, like she was a foal being told to clean her room; it brought her to the peak of indignation.
With no more words for anger coming to her mind, she stomped up to the library door and threw it open with a blast of telekinesis. “Twilight Sparkle!” she screamed, her head held high with all the haughtiness she could muster. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has returned! She demands your presence immediately!”
She regretted her… mistake isn’t the word she wanted to use, but she could think of no other synonym at the time, when her rival—yes, rival is good—appeared before her in a blast of iridescent light.
“Oh GREAT and POWERFUL Trixie, how WONDERFUL it is to SEE you!” Sparkle exclaimed mere inches away. “Just WHAT do I owe the PLEASURE of your visit?”
It was good to be respected, Trixie thought. Sparkle never bothered to treat her like the great and powerful magician she was before, but that she was doing so now calmed her. Then, her mind facehooved. She backpedaled to the doorframe and tried starting over. “Twilight Sparkle, it is good to see you. I would like to apologize—”
“Apologize, you say? My, my, what do we have here? Spike, do you know what we have here?” At his name, the dragon assistant peeked around the door he was dusting before being smashed into the wall. His gaze turned to Twilight in nervousness, then Trixie in worry.
“Run,” he whispered before addressing Twilight. “I don’t know, maybe an apologetic mare?”
A pitiful grin grew on Sparkle’s lips before she patted his head. “Isn’t that cute? But it’s WRONG!” She engulfed him in her magic and threw him into a chair near the check-out table in the corner. “Come on in, Trixie! I’ll be right with you after I educate my assistant here.”
Trixie followed nervously inside until the door slammed and locked shut behind her, halting to stare in fear at her closed escape. When Sparkle looked at her, she rushed to sit at the table in the middle of the library holding some sort of bust, but of who she had no idea.
Once Sparkle was satisfied with Trixie’s place, she turned on Spike, whom had started to shake in horror. A saddened look overcame the unicorn then, and she trotted over to hug him. “Oh, Spike, I’m so sorry! It happened again, didn’t it? Just a little longer, okay? If I can figure out the cause of this, I can leave it to the authorities and stay in the INSP. Please, just bear with me a little longer. I’m so sorry…” she pleaded as she stroked his spines.
Just as his trembles ceased, she continued. “Oh, yes, SO SORRY for teaching you your PLACE!” She toppled the chair he sat upon and watched him roll backwards when it hit the ground. “Sorry I have a USELESS assistant who can’t even FIGURE OUT a false mare when he SEES one!” Trixie wanted to interrupt, telling Sparkle she is anything but untruthful in the matter, but a glare silenced her.
“Trixie comes to town, riles up the ponies until a few FOALS bring an Ursa Minor to her doorstep, then blames me for ruining her reputation after saving said town. Then, she returns to get revenge using an ILLEGAL amulet to prove her strength, which wasn’t even hers! Now, she’s here to trick me into another duel to show Ponyville she’s my better!”
“Oh, but see, she’ll never be my better! I’m faster, wittier, more intelligent, and stronger than her And she’s too STUPID to realize it. She didn’t even recognize sarcasm when I answered her ‘summons’, if you can believe that, which you can’t because you didn’t even understand the situation to begin with!”
She slapped him physically, then levitated him again with her magic concentrated around his neck. “But we’ll solve that, won’t we? I have a spell that will let you UNDERSTAND everything like I can! I’m sure you’ll figure out your own lack of intelligence on your own then, and maybe decide to do something important for once!”
With a twist of her neck, she flung him into a bookshelf, then shot a polychromatic beam at him before the books could fall. He hung suspended for a moment before dropping to the floor and getting covered in paperbacks. “OOPS! That was the WRONG SPELL! And you even messed up the bookshelves. I’ll have to teach you to be more careful, won’t I?”
Twilight stopped and glanced at Trixie. “Oh, but we have COMPANY! Don’t go anywhere, Spike. We’ll have a bit of Twilight Time when she’s gone.”
Trixie sat slack-jawed. That wasn’t Twilight Sparkle, and she was prancing towards her now. The windows were barred—why would a library’s windows be barred?—and the door was locked. A short inspection spell proved it was spell-crafted as well. There was no way out.
“Trixie! Trixie, Trixie, Trixie, turning tricks to get some licks, eh?” Sparkle said when she sat in the opposing seat.
“What?!”
“Oh, come now, with a name like Trixie, you must get around. Am I right or am I right?”
“What?!”
“And with as many times as you come around, you must have a hard-on for me.”
“WHAT?!”
“Is ‘what’ all you can say? I seem to recall you also knowing the words ‘great’ and ‘powerful’, although you must have learned the wrong definition for those words. I seem to recall them meaning something more closely related to me.”
Trixie didn’t know what happened next, but she had Sparkle pinned to the floor when her consciousness came back. “Ohoho, so you do want me,” Twilight said in a sultry voice with half-lidded eyes. “Right here, right now? Oh, but Spike might be watching.”
“I will destroy you, Sparkle!” Trixie screamed as she pulled as much magic as she could into her horn. When she tilted her head to aim, she released her spell. Twilight was engulfed in magical fire, burning until the last vestibule of energy was used and Trixie began panting for air. The flames turned physical, continuing to smolder where Twilight had lain.
As the seconds ticked by, she realized what she had done and held her breath. Murder. Clan Illus would forsake her. She’d become a drifter, and Celestia would take her privileges of Freemareship away. She’d be hunted, even outside Equestria, by any who called ponies allies. And in Equus, there wasn’t a single being she could think of that didn’t.
“Was it good for you?” came a voice beneath the dying flames. They dwindled to nothing, revealing an unharmed Twilight still laying beneath her. “Tut tut, Trixie. And you wanted to duel THIS?!” Sparkle teleported. “Let’s say we have that duel now, Trixie? Or have you finally gotten some sense in that little brain of yours to realize who your betters are?” her voice continued from the aether.
“Very well,” Trixie said with a sigh. Lifting her head in pride, she continued. “If you are so adamant about a duel, then Trixie challenges you, Twilight Sparkle!”
“As the challenged, I have the right to the terms. I give that right to you, Trixie. Maybe you’ll finally get it.”
Not a pony to be outplayed, Trixie vanished in turn and spoke from everywhere as well. “No holds barred,” she proclaimed. “Winner lives, loser dies or flees.”
A gasp rang throughout the library, a mix between a young colt and a horrified mare. “Trixie, you fool!” cried the pile of books in the corner, only to be overpowered by the female voice.
“Trixie, you imbecile! My mind is fractured, and you’re trying to prove nothing! You’re as strong as you need to be. We can’t be rivals, because we are from two different worlds. Don’t do this, and run!”
She scoffed, then. “Or stay. We can have so much fun together.” A beam of purple light shot the door and blasted it off the hinges. “Stay and die with honor, or flee and be a coward forever.”
Nopony calls Trixie a coward, she thought. “I, Beatrix Lulamoon of Clan Illus, with sound mind challenge Twilight Sparkle of Equestria to a no holds barred duel to the death. May Equus have mercy on any who intervene.” Her horn flared, sending a small blue star through the ceiling to hover above Ponyville and warping into Clan Illus’ mark
Laughter rang off the walls and bookshelves, one haunted in pain and lunacy combined. “I, Twilight Sparkle of Clan Mustr, accepts.” A second star, tinged purple, followed the first into the sky, but didn’t change from a simple six-pointed star.
Trixie barely had time to be surprised at the proclamation before the walls started to glimmer and a bubble formed in the shape of the room. It shrank and solidified at the same time, confusing her with its purpose before it engulfed her and disappeared into her body.
“Tut tut, Trixie. If that wasn’t an illusion, you’d be dead by now!”
“Don’t underestimate me, Sparkle!” she shouted before throwing small fire wisps in all directions. They danced in the air, some wagging their tails in the air while others formed a conga line in search for their target. The spell took a toll on her and her invisibility ended.
“Tuckered after one spell? Maybe you don’t turn tricks after all, Trixie. You’d need more endurance!” Twilight’s voice rang once more before the room fell into a chill and the wisps died. “I hope you know I”m playing with you, and you’re boring me.”
“ ‘Anything you can do, I can do better’, right?” More wisps filled the room. Blue flames danced the mambo (number five) faster than Trixie could blink as they dove towards her. She fired ice bolts with pinpoint accuracy, but was still too slow to stop them all. She screamed in pain, three of the wisps finding a mark, and forced herself to continue with blades of wind.
None of them hit more than inanimate objects. “S-stop hiding in the shadows, Sparkle,” she grunted, forcing another wave out of her horn and doubling the number.
“Ask, and ye shall receive!” Twilight stepped forward out of the sunlight without fanfare, almost like she was made of the very light she left. “You like? Celestia taught me that one,” she continued as all the blades homed in on her.
Every single one phased through her and redirected towards Trixie. As she tried to halt the spell, she was overpowered by Sparkle and resorted to dodging as best she could. Twilight laughed again. “You look so silly!” she exclaimed and let the spell go. “I thought I was a bad dancer.”
Panting, Trixie stood with cuts and burns on her body. Her tail was near gone and half her mane had been cut by a blade getting too close for comfort. She tried to steady herself, but pain and adrenaline prevented it. Twilight wasn’t damaged in the least, though Trixie noticed the strain and sweat she was trying to hide.
“Bah, I’m tired of playing,” Sparkle said, and shot small magical blasts from her horn. “I think I’ll trample you to death. That sounds like a normal way to die in a quadrupedal world like ours, don’t you think?”
Trixie caught on fast enough to avoid a few, but any ball she dodged beneath slammed down on her, feeling like a stampede of hooves. She couldn’t take anymore, and she decided death was not preferable to cowardice after all. With a cry of shame, she bolted for the door and never looked back.
The sun’s rays were peaking over the horizon when she finished her tale. At some point, we had walked down to the lobby and poured ourselves some coffee, but mine had gotten cold. Trixie’s eyes were drooping, even after her fourth cup, and she didn’t seem to have anything else to say. There was little I could do, and even less, any more information I needed from her, so I left her to her introspection. My superior would like to know what I learned.
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Well well well, the day has finally arrive where the fourth chapter of this has been brought into being.
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Woo
I like the sociology, not sure if that word fits but whatever, you've created for Equestria. The different clans are simply fascinating
I do hope you will continue this as you did a good job
MOAR!
I hope Trixie comes back into the story.
Wonderful! A new to chapter to this exellent story.
This story is just so criminally underrated, you're doing a great job.