Trixie's remark did not go unnoticed. Midnight raised an eyebrow and frowned. “I beg your pardon?” she asked.
“Where exactly in the Everfree did you find her?” Princess Luna asked the guards, her face a mask of calm.
“In the clearing where Miss Lulamoon and Miss Sparkle had been taken,” The first guard said.
As the two guards talked with Princess Luna, Trixie stared at the foal. She... It was just… sitting there, like it didn’t know what was going on at all. There was nothing of the manic look Antithesis had possessed. If anything, actually, it looked… afraid.
She noticed Midnight was staring at her. “She just reminds me of somepony I encountered a while ago.” She explained.
Midnight’s gaze moved from the foal to Trixie, and back again.
“Is she not one of the foals of this town?” The mare asked. Trixie wanted to make some kind of remark about how she would’ve remembered an actual alicorn filly if she’d seen one. But she didn’t. Instead, she just said “No.”
“It’s a long story.” Trixie hurriedly added. Midnight in all likelihood wouldn’t have believed her if she’d said she’d been to another universe, much less one where Corona was sane, and pleasant, and rational, instead of an angry ball of anger threatening to burn anything that remotely annoyed her. Heck, Trixie had been there, and she still couldn’t believe all of it.
If Midnight had any dissatisfaction with Trixie’s statement, she didn’t show it, as Princess Luna finished talking with the two guards and dismissed them. She turned, and glanced towards the filly, who flinched at the sight of Luna’s stare. She wasn’t even staring aggressively, she was just… actually, if anything, she looked intrigued.
“Your Highness?” Shining Armor spoke first. “Is something the matter?”
“No.” She said instantly, and Trixie could at least tell that was a total lie. “Nothing is the matter.”
“But that’s-” Twilight Sparkle began, before looking amazingly self-conscious. Luna nodded.
“Indeed,” she declared. “It would appear to be.”
“Appear to be what?” The captain asked.
“You Highness,” Midnight spoke up, “Does this foal have some connection to the temporary disappearance of Lulamoon, yourself, and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony some weeks prior? And the sudden reappearance of Miss Sparkle?”
Princess Luna looked at the pony, then to her captain, then to her majordomo. She motioned towards the two guards, that they were dismissed. With a nod, the guards proceeded back outside again. Once the door was closed, Luna’s head drooped.
“Apparently, yes.” She said, staring carefully at the foal for several moments. Her gaze moved around the room. “Captain Armor, Professor Nexus, what I am about to tell you does not leave this room under any circumstances.”
“Of course.” Shining Armor said.
“Likewise.” The professor said.
“Due to an unfortunate series of circumstances, Twilight Sparkle and Trixie both wound up in an alternate universe. One…” Princess Luna shifted uncomfortably. Not that Trixie could blame her, meeting another version of herself had been tremendously weird, and her duplicate had just been annoying. “Dramatically different to our own.”
Luna paused momentarily. “While there, due to an equally unfortunate set of events, that universe’s Element of Magic became broken.”
At this both Shining Armor, Professor Nexus and, in what Trixie would later realise was probably a first, Midnight looked terrified and amazed.
“Is that…” Nexus asked breathlessly, “is that even possible?”
“As a result of the circumstances we found ourselves in, yes.” Luna stated, staring directly at Trixie as she spoke. Trixie just stared at the floorboards. Even if it had all eventually worked out for the best, even if Princess Luna said she was not embarrassed, it had not been anywhere near her greatest moment.
Luna continued onward. “As a result of this, an entity was created. Malevolent and cruel from the moment of its birth, seeking only destruction and mayhem, and the deaths of Trixie and Twilight Sparkle.”
She took a deep breath. “It was called Antithesis. It…” There was another pause, “caused some trouble before Trixie and Twilight, and their counterparts, were able to defeat it.”
Shining Armor looked towards his sister. “Seriously?” He asked. Twilight was rubbing the back of her neck, and grinning nervously.
“Well… I had friends helping me.” She murmured. Shining looked over towards Trixie dubiously, but if he had any remark to make about that, he kept it to himself. Actually, from what Trixie could tell, he was probably slightly surprised.
“Then how exactly did this happen?” Professor Nexus asked. “If she was defeated-“
“Destroyed.” Twilight Sparkle cut in.
“If she was destroyed in another universe, how could this “Antithesis” be here?”
Luna said nothing. Meanwhile, Trixie found the demented pony’s last words replaying, along with far more details of those days than she really wanted.
“She said something about returning.” Trixie stated. “”If”. If she returned.”
“Your Highness?” Midnight spoke up.
“I don’t think she arranged this.” Twilight said. “She couldn’t have. She was just reacting to everything with hate and anger. She wasn’t a planner, or a schemer. Or at least not anything beyond “smash and kill”. And she spent all of the day she was alive trying to kill us. She didn't really have time for anything else.”
Trixie shrugged. "A coincidence, maybe?"
Twilight frowned. "I... don't know. A few months ago I'd have said no, but now..." she turned to look at Princess Luna, "have you ever heard of anything like this, your highness?"
Luna stared carefully. "I have encountered something similar to what has apparently happened before, yes. Long ago. But as to someone coming back from beyond, that is... incredibly rare, and would take more power than that ritual took. Of that I am certain."
She paused thoughtfully. “Even more so given Antithesis met her end in another universe.”
“Your Majesty?”
“So maybe it was some part of the ritual…” Trixie mused. Of course, if it came down to the highly technical details of magic, Trixie had to admit she was not an expert. She tended to learn by doing, by watching others casting spells. She knew a few terms, if only from hearing them repeated often enough, but beyond that, the technical details were just that to her: details, and usually boring ones at that. But even with her knowledge of magic as it was, she knew creating a foal whole-cloth was beyond even the most insane of accidents.
And then another thought occurred to her. She looked towards Twilight. “During what happened, did you feel like-?”
“Something was inside my mind?” Twilight said, uncomfortably. “Yes.”
“It felt like a spell I’ve used…” Trixie murmured, “But different. And no-one kissed either of us.”
Suddenly the mood broke, as Twilight, and Shining Armor, stared blankly at her.
“Kissed?” Shining repeated.
“The spell works best with mouth-to-mouth contact.” Trixie responded hurriedly. Quickly, she tried forcing her mouth to stay shut, but her mouth treacherously decided to add “via the tongue.”
“If I might-?”
“Excuse me, everypony,” Spell Nexus spoke up, “But I believe Miss Midnight has a problem.”
Trixie first turned to look at the professor, then to aforementioned mare, who she now noticed was staring at her desk, her head tilted at an angle. For a moment, she tried to work out what the mare was doing.
“What are you doing?” She found herself asking. Midnight turned to look at the room.
“While you were conversing, the foal made her way under your desk.” The mare paused thoughtfully as she glanced at the disorganised piles of paperwork on top of it. “At least, I presume this is your desk, Lulamoon.”
Trixie looked back to the filly, or where the filly should have been, where there was a now nothing at all.
“How did we not notice that?” Twilight Sparkle asked.
“One can only assume your conversation had you sufficiently distracted.” Midnight responded. “Now, as to the matter of this desk…”
Without a word, Luna’s horn lit up, and the desk was wrapped in the familiar glow of her magic, revealing the foal, scrunched up into a ball. On seeing the desk had been moved, it stared again at the assemblage of ponies looking at it.
Trixie was, by her own admission, a lot of things. But one of her foremost weaknesses, too much bourbon aside, was children. Even though she was looking at a perfect scale recreation of a monster, one that’d spent its dying breaths telling her it’d come back to destroy everything she (and Twilight) cared about, she was finding it very, very hard to resist the basic urge to try and comfort it.
“She doesn’t seem particularly possessed of any great malevolence, your highness.” Midnight stated, as she stared at the foal, who had by now gotten to her feet.
“If anything, she seems…” Suddenly there was a strange, low rumble. Trixie looked to Princess Luna, who looked to Shining Armor, who looked to Twilight.
“What was that?” Professor Nexus asked. Midnight fixed her gaze on him.
“… That, Professor Nexus, is the sound of an empty stomach.” She turned back to the filly. “This one’s, in fact.”
Midnight gazed at Trixie. “Kitchen?” She asked. Trixie blinked, before realising the mare was asking where it was.
“Down that corridor,” she supplied, “can’t miss it. And please,” she said as Midnight began moving, “don’t rearrange anything.”
Without a word, the mare took off toward the kitchen. As she looked back, Trixie noticed Luna was focusing on the filly intently.
The filly, meanwhile, just looked nervous. Trixie had to admit this wasn’t adding up. Antithesis had been a roaring, raging thing, purely focused entirely on putting an end to Trixie, Twilight and their counterparts. She hadn’t done fear, or hesitation.
Sparkle, meanwhile, was keeping a good distance from the foal. But there was an odd look in her eyes. Not one of concern. More a cautious curiosity, like the child was a puzzle of some kind.
And then there was Princess Luna, whose intense stare was probably the cause for the foal’s nervousness, now that Trixie thought of it. She’d been there before, and there was very little in the world as unnerving as Luna staring at, and through someone, as if she was reading their very soul. Trixie was reasonably certain that ability wasn’t in her purview. She had telepathy, certainly, but she never used it for invasive purposes. Luna just always had a way of knowing things.
Shortly, Midnight returned from the kitchen carrying a small bowl, which contained something steaming. Carefully, she set the bowl down near the foal.
“It is soup,” she stated. “That’s food.” She added, when the foal’s expression didn’t change. “You eat food.”
She looked at the bowl again, “or in this case, drink.”
The foal blinked, and looked at the bowl. She sniffed the air, and slowly approached, eyeing the bowl like it would potentially explode. She took an experimental sip…
And then she looked incredibly distressed. Midnight stared at the bowl.
“Lulamoon…” she began, not noticing Trixie rolling her eyes, “if you were having soup, hypothetically speaking, what would you add to it?”
Trixie blinked for a moment. “I… uh… well, it’d depend on the soup, I guess, but I suppose for a start I’d add musta-”
Without a word, Midnight turned and walked back toward the kitchen, returning a few seconds later with what was quite clearly a jar of mustard, and a small bread-knife.
“You’re not actually…” Shining Armor began, “you’re not actually going to put that in-”
“I have a hypothesis.” Midnight replied, as she unscrewed the lid. She held the jar over the soup, and then gently inserted the knife. After a few seconds, a sliver of mustard gradually emerged, and fell unceremoniously into the soup.
“Try it now, little one.” Midnight said, with all the warmth a bureaucrat could muster. After a few seconds, the foal gradually returned to the bowl, and took another sip. This time, she seemed to like what she tasted, and began merrily drinking away, not stopping until it was finished. Then it looked over towards Midnight. And made a tiny, almost inaudible noise.
“Thks.”
Having only ever met a grand total of two insane alicorns, Trixie wasn't absolutely sure she could speak for all of them, but she was pretty certain none of them ever said “thanks” for anything.
“So, what now?” She found herself asking. The question was answered by everypony in the room staring at her.
“What?” She declared. “Somepony had to ask it.” She looked towards the filly, who had by now shuffled over toward Midnight. This led to the actually kind of funny sight of them staring at one another.
“She’s right.” Twilight Sparkle stated, just above a whisper. Princess Luna paused for some time.
“Professor Nexus?” She declared, the elder stallion jolting slightly.
“Yes, your highness?”
Luna took a deep breath. “Thank you for your assistance tonight. It has been most useful. Just allow me a few moments, and I shall make sure you are returned to your school.”
“Thank you, your highness.” The pony smiled. “I would probably say I could get back on my own, but I…” the smile turned awkward, “due to the rushed nature of my departure, I don’t actually have any money on me.”
“Wouldn’t matter,” Trixie said, “the trains don’t run this late anyhow.”
“That’s okay,” the princess said, looking at Midnight momentarily. “But I have something else to ask of you before you leave.”
There was a brief pause, but to Trixie it felt like minutes. “Trixie?”
“Yes, Princess?” Trixie asked, quickly.
“Will you be able to travel to Canterlot tom-… well, later today, actually.”
Trixie nodded slowly, before the question of why occurred to her. Princess Luna had a look about her that made Trixie nervous.
“I think perhaps we should see if…” She stopped, and looked at the filly, who was curled upon around a moderately annoyed looking Midnight’s hooves. “Goodness, all this talk, we haven’t even asked if you have a name.”
“Does she require a name?” Midnight enquired.
“Well, we’re not calling her “You”, now are we?” Trixie retorted.
“But this assumes that there will be a point to her having a name.” The mare turned her eyes toward Princess Luna. “What exactly is it you had in mind?”
“I think perhaps we should have this foal examined, by experts.”
One of Midnight’s eyebrows raised slightly. “Are there not three experts present here already?”
“Yes,” Luna stated, “but one of them is under house arrest," Twilight briefly smiled at that, before forcing it back down, "and all three require sleep.”
“No kidding.” Trixie commented. As if on cue, she found herself yawning. And for some reason the room had started swaying about.
“I still think we should probably give her a name…” Twilight said. Trixie tried staring at Twilight. She managed to stare at Twilight’s right ear.
“Such as…?”
Twilight blinked sheepishly. “I don’t know. Something nice, and normal. Like… Twinkle?”
“You wanna name her after Grandma?” Shining Armor asked. Twilight just looked down at her hooves and mumbled something Trixie didn’t catch.
Trixie looked at the slumbering foal. She hadn’t really ever given much thought to having foals, on account of issues with the very idea of… physical intimacy. It was making her feel all weirded out just thinking of it then and there. Not that she was opposed to the concept of foals in general, though. One of her goals had always been to become a noble and found her own House, which did sort of require an heir to come from somewhere. But given the timescale require she’d always assumed it would have been years before that was an issue.
“Stardust?” she offered.
“Taken.” Midnight cut in. So much for that then, Trixie thought.
“Star Burst?” Shining Armor suggested. “Or am I not allowed to suggest names?” he asked, when Midnight glanced at him.
“At last census, there were no less than seven Star Bursts living in Canterlot alone.” Midnight stated.
Princess Luna was frowning (not that she was necessarily the only one). “Well, Midnight, she seems to like you the most. Have you anything to suggest?”
The mare affixed Luna with a deadpan stare. “If I were capable of choosing a good name, your highness, do you not think I would call myself something other than “Midnight”?”
“Well, you already shot down all the good names.” Trixie retorted. “And Trixie is taken as well, so we can’t call her that.”
“A thought occurs.” Midnight said. “If she is some recreation of this… Antithesis character, why not call her “Thesis”?”
Seconds passed, as everypony stared at the foal. Finally, Trixie could contain herself no longer.
“That’s a terrible name for a foal. She should have something fun! Dramatic! Alluring and enchanting!”
“Such as Lulamoon?”
Perhaps it was because she was tired, perhaps it was because Princess Luna was in the room, but Trixie felt no better retort sufficed than sticking her tongue out at the officious mare. True, she didn’t like being called Lulamoon, ever, but that was totally different. Besides, it was her name. She was allowed to dislike it. She had perfectly justifiable reasons not to like it.
“Thesis…” Twilight Sparkle mused. “It’s… it’s not terrible.” She suddenly blinked, and shook her head, “I mean, there are worse names for a foal, right? It’s good?”
“Yes.” Midnight said, “We understood.”
“I still think it’s terrible.” Trixie muttered.
“By all means, you can spend the small hours of the morning devising a new one.” Midnight stated, “if that is your wish.”
“I’d rather get some sleep.” Trixie said under her breath. Sleep really was sounding good at that moment. Perhaps, she thought, if she got enough sleep, the events of the last several hours would make sense. But she very much doubted it. That alone would’ve suggested her life made much sense in the first place.
“And what about her?” Luna nodded at the slumbering, and newly minted Thesis.
“Oh,” Trixie said, “I’ve got a spare room, she could stay in there for the night, I guess?”
“That…” Midnight said, “may not be a good idea.”
“How, exactly?” Trixie asked, defensively.
“You talk in your sleep.” Midnight replied, in as casual a tone as she could apparently manage. From the other side of the room, Shining Armor suddenly found himself coughing.
“I do not.” Trixie quickly managed to get out, in-between glowering furiously at Midnight, to no avail. "And I've soundproofed my room anyway a- oh, shut up!"
"Trixie," Princess Luna cautioned.
Twilight coughed. “I’ve… ah, I’ve got a spare bed in the library. If staying with Trixie is a problem, she could stay there for the night.”
“It’s not a problem.” Trixie shot back, “Why would it be a problem?”
“I said “if”.”
Before Trixie could retort, there was a cough from Luna, which managed to effortlessly silence both ponies.
“That is a very generous offer, Twilight Sparkle.” The Princess said, “Thesis will stay with you for tonight.”
Trixie decided it best not to try and argue with the Princess at that moment. It wasn’t like she would have been able to win anyway, even if she wasn't five minutes away from collapsing onto the floor.
“Trixie, you had best show Twilight back to the library now. Don’t worry about tonight, I shall pass a message along to Ponyville’s mayor about what happened. And Midnight…” she looked at the mare, who was gently lifting the slumbering foal in her magic, Thesis still very much asleep.
“Right, yes,” Trixie said, “c’mon then.”
As the three ponies walked out the library, Trixie heard Shining Armor beginning to discuss something with the Princess. She didn’t hear much of it before the doors to her residency closed, but Shining didn’t sound especially happy about something. Probably leaving his little sister with Thesis.
The walk across town was amazingly quiet, neither of the other two saying anything, the only real sound coming from the guards moving around outside, and the occasional noise from the slumbering filly. After but a few minutes, they reached the town library.
Inside, the ground floor looked like a small hurricane had hit it. Trixie took a quiet appreciative whistle. “Guess those nutjobs had to make a mess when they got you, huh?” She grinned. “And just when you’d gotten a chance to tidy everything up.”
Twilight just looked about the room nervously. “Actually, this was me. I’m still trying…” there was a wince from the mare as she looked at a stack of toppled atlases.
“Well, I can do it in the morning…” she said, her voice unnervingly distant. Trixie looked toward Midnight, to see if the mare was going to be any help. She was looking about the library, and if Trixie knew anything about the mare, greatly resisting the urge to tidy everything herself.
“Yes.” Trixie stated, “in the morning. Bed for everyone.”
With a swift jab to Midnight’s ribs, which successfully caught her attention, the three began moving toward the stairs, which lead up to the second level of the library. There were two beds, on opposite sides of the room. Both of which looked so soft, and tantalising, even the one Sparkle clearly wasn’t using.
Trixie shook her head. Just a few minutes longer, and then she could get some sleep for herself.
“Well,” Twilight said, “It’s definitely been… weird, today.”
“Yeah,” Trixie nodded. “It definitely has.” The two looked as the third mare gently set down the slumbering foal on the bed, and without a word turned and walked past the two mares.
“Anyway…” Trixie said. “Good night, Sparkle.”
“Good night, Trixie.”
Trixie looked over to where Thesis, and goodness didn’t it feel strange calling her that already, was slumbering. “Take care.” She decided to add. Twilight, apparently getting her meaning, nodded.
“You too.”
Canterlot was the center of Equestria in many respects. Politics, arts, science, business, all these and more meant that the capital city of Equestria was almost always active and bustling, and especially at night, when the Princess and her Night Court did their work. This meant the streets of the mountain-side city were always packed in one way or another, even in the middle of winter, and it was easy to get lost in the throng of ponydom. Fortunate, if someone wished to hide themselves from sight, as one such figure was doing. Doing but not attempting, since trying to act inconspicuous would have drawn the attention of pretty much anyone in such paranoid times. Cloaked and hooded figures could have been anything, but in a city that not even a full year ago had been threatened with total immolation, it could have been an agent of mad Queen Corona, and therefore to be treated with utmost caution and unreason, even if everyone else was wearing them. Agents of Corona were tricky like that. So instead the figure went without their hood, trotting along like everypony else in the crowd, taking great care not to look at anything in particular, as they went along the high streets of hotels, and bars and restaurants and coffee merchants. Then, out towards the residential areas, not the larger places and estates belonging to the nobles, but the regular houses for the ordinary ponies of Canterlot. Not great buildings designed by as creative a mind money could buy, with opulent marbles and high walls, but simple, ordinary and astoundingly identical buildings, all perfectly nice and normal and ordinary and utterly inconspicuous.
The pony made their way inside one such unremarkable house, making as little noise as possible, before removing the cloak and allowing themselves a deep breath of relief. After a few moments of sitting, they made their way from the front hall of the house into the small sitting room, which was already occupied by at least half a dozen other ponies, crammed into the room and saying very little, many of them looking battered, tired and put out, or any combination thereof.
“Ah.” The figure, a unicorn male, declared. There was a pause as everyone stared at everyone. “Are you alright?”
“We’re all fine.” Came the response from a tall unicorn mare, crammed toward the back of the room, “a few injuries, and slightly cold, but nothing severe, all things considered.”
“My mane got burnt.” Came a noise from a unicorn, barely older than a colt, who was sitting in the corner and quite patently sulking. “If I go into the school looking like this, they’ll think I had an accident with my own damn magic.”
“Also,” the mare said, ignoring the sulking pony’s angry nothings, “Kicker continues to suffer from a deplorable excess of personality.”
“Bite me.” Declared a pegasus mare, her wings ruffling in offense (inadvertently hitting the ponies next to her).
“Well, I don’t think there’s anything we can do about that.” The figure allowed themselves a small smile, then sighed. “Is this everypony?”
The unicorn mare looked about. “Everypony that was there. Well, everypony but Wedge, since he was... well, you were there. You saw what happened.”
“Speaking of what happened,” Kicker spoke up, “mind telling us what the buck that was even about? One minute I’m minding my own business, the next I get peeped that we’re all throwing a midnight get-together in the freaking Everfree. And I wanna know why.”
“As unclean as it makes me feel,” the mare said, ignoring the look Kicker gave her in response, “I agree. And I’m not the only one. What was that all about?”
The figure looked at the room, of several tired and unhappy ponies, all looking at them. “Testing a theory.”
“On the Princess’s student?” Kicker asked, “and that nutjob pony who brought a Star Bear to Ponyville?"
“Vicereine Twilight Velvet’s daughter.” A different pony, quite evidently a male, supplied.
“Yeah, her,” Kicker muttered. “Why'd we have to test something out on about the worst possible choices imaginable, at the worst possible time imaginable? And when it was utterly bucking freezing?”
"I thought pegasuses were resistant to the cold?" the tall mare asked.
"Which shows how bucking cold it was, a'right?" Kicker snapped.
“All the same, she is still right,” the mare said, ignoring the unbearably triumphant grin that produced. “We revealed ourselves to the Princess, so she’ll be looking for us. Is that why... they aren’t here, now?”
“That, and they had work that needed doing.” The figure replied. Golden-orange eyes flashed in the low light. Suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed, as every pony who had previously been tired or weary suddenly looked with rapt attention.
“But all things considered,” the pony said, in a completely different voice from a moment before, “everypony did remarkably well tonight.”
“Yay.” Kicker intoned. “That makes missing precious sleep, freezing our butts off and nearly getting arrested and / or killed all worthwhile.”
“I wasn’t finished.” The figure intoned. “There has been a interesting development.”
There were several confused glances. Finally, a hoof rose. "Meaning?"
"The experiment has borne unexpected results..."