Twilight refilled her quill, and started slowly on the next line. Now that the entire business with the Amulet had concluded, she had lots of paperwork to catch up on. Her report on the Amulet itself had already been sent in for fact-checking and editing, and the journals would publish it in due time.
Another load of ink, a fresh page. Twilight took a deep breath and smiled.
Her ear flicked. Her quill paused above the paper. She felt something. She tried to avoid resorting to cliches like “the calm before a storm.” They lacked descriptive effect and meteorological accuracy. Other things, however, fit into that pattern. The buzz before a bee sting. The foreshocks before an earthquake. The pressure and heat before a volcano spews magma and smoke.
Twilight looked toward the door of her office. She scanned the area, and nothing caught her eye.
She squinted. A thin wisp of purple-pink smoke poked through the crack of the door.
Twilight sighed.
The doors flung open, hitting into the wall with a heavy initial thunk and a smaller crack afterwards. Trixie stood in the doorway. Her cape billowed. Her mane billowed. Her hat billowed. Her eyebrows and eyelashes, somehow, billowed, if only slightly. The torrent of motion and wind thankfully left Twilight’s paper and quills alone, centralized solely on Trixie.
“Hello, Trixie.”
“Greetings, Twilight Sparkle.” Trixie waved a foreleg, and performed an exaggerated bow.
“To what do I owe the pl— presence…of you…in my office.”
“Fear not, Princess Sparkle!” Trixie unbowed, flung her cape wide. “The Great and Penitent Trixie heard of your attempt to disarm the Alicorn Amulet. She sped posthaste to your aid!”
“Ah, yes, that.” Twilight templed her hooves. “I’m grateful that you’re here, really, truly, I am. More or less. But the thing is, we already finished that.”
Trixie pressed a hoof to her chest. “Sparkle, you wound me! Certainly, the Great and Perilous Trixie was not at her best the last time we met, and she will be the first to admit an…awkward history with the Alicorn Amulet. But who better, then, to assist in its dismantling?”
“Trixie, I wouldn’t lie to a friend…of a friend.” Twilight scanned her shelves. “We really did defeat it. At no small cost, either. I could find the report for you…”
“Trixie expected this.” Trixie straightened her collar, and a flash of magic and an audible click echoed from behind her. She stepped forward, and the smoke dwindled slightly. “I am serious, you know. I will endure any cavalcade of paperwork, any interview or interrogation or inspection, in order to prove I am fit for this endeavor.”
Twilight pressed her face into her hooves. “That’s great and all, but we’re already done.”
“Preposterous!” Trixie slammed her hooves on the table. “The Great and Punctual Trixie arrived as soon as she received the notice! How can you be done already?”
“Maybe the mail was running late,” Twilight muttered.
“Did Twilight Sparkle perhaps postdate my notice?” Trixie leaned in. “Were you trying to get rid of me? The Great and Principled Trixie thought better of you, Sparkle.”
Twilight tore her face from her hooves. “Look, Trixie. I’m tired. There was a lot of stuff involved in dealing with the Amulet. I’m sorry if somepony intentionally mailed your notice late, but there’s nothing I can do. The Amulet is dead, defeated, kaput.”
“Where is it?”
“In a warehouse.”
Trixie raised an eyebrow. “A warehouse?”
“Yes, a warehouse.” Twilight wiggled a hoof. “You know, one of those warehouses that stretch on for eternity, and all the boxes have vague labels and look identical, so you can’t find anything even if you wanted to?”
“Oh really? Then what is…” Trixie reached a hoof into her cape, slowly and theatrically. “This!”
“A rubber-band ball.”
“Er, I mean…” Another grope, more theatrically. “This!”
Twilight’s eyes widened. The Alicorn Amulet's pieces sat in Trixie’s outstretched hoof. Even the little plastic bag with all the jewel residue. “Where did you get that?”
“The warehouse under your desk.”
Twilight’s ears flattened. “Okay, so maybe I haven’t found a good place for it yet. But that doesn’t change what I said. It’s still empty.”
Trixie chuckled. To call her laugh “smug” lacked the correct implication of condescension, and to call it “condescending” failed to convey how smug it sounded. “I see how it is, Sparkle.”
“You do?”
“You intentionally delayed Trixie’s invitation for a good reason.”
“Yes, of course I did.”
“For only the the Great and Persistent Trixie could handle such an important and secretive mission.”
Twilight’s ears flattened again. “…Mission?”
“Of course, the Great and Purposeful Trixie accepts!”
“You do?”
“You almost had me with these secret tests!”
“I did?”
“I accept this noble duty, to put the Amulet where no one will ever find it. It shall be lost to time and become the stuff of myths, after I have finished with it.”
Twilight slumped slightly sideways, rested her head on a hoof. “And what, pray tell, is that?”
“Trixie will go on a quest, a journey through the most treacherous parts of Equestria. She will travel to the very edge of the world, and throw the Amulet off of it, into the cessation of time, the abyss of memory, the—”
“You know where that is?”
Trixie chuckled the same smugly condescending chuckle. “You needn’t worry, my dear princess.” She raised the Amulet aloft. “Perish any and all panic or fears from your regal posterior! Trixie knows every intimate secret of our world, the end of it included.”
“‘Kay.”
A flash of light lit the room. When Twilight stopped blinking and rubbing her eyes, Trixie stood in the same position, the Amulet missing from her hooves.
Twilight leaned forward, and let out another heavy sigh. “Okay then, Trixie. Let’s assume I trust you with this…task. We still don’t know exactly how the Amulet works.” Her horn ignited, and a diagram of symbols swirled in front of her. “We drained all its magic, but there may be something, or some thing, that could recharge it.” The diagram faded, replaced with a cartoon, pointy version of Trixie, holding the Amulet aloft. Her condescendingly smug grin looked apparent even in the doodle.
Twilight leaned forward. “Imagine if something brought the Amulet back to life. Imagine what might happen to its ward.” The diagram flickered. Tendrils of magic extended from the Amulet. “Imagine what failure might mean for that pony, and for all of Equestria.” One coiled around the pointy Trixie, and she valiantly and ineffectually tried to break free of its grasp.
The tentacle crept upward, pushed towards the dots that represented Trixie’s eyes. Trixie’s avatar screamed, but no sound escaped from the magical drawing.
The light faded, and Twilight straightened her posture. “There’s a lot of dangers out there. Beings of every race, monsters of every shape. A lot of…things that don’t have any better word, because describing them is too difficult.” Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Things that would do anything for the Amulet, things that crave power more than they desire life. And they don’t know or care that it’s dead.”
Twilight blinked slowly, took a deep breath. “Can you handle that?”
Trixie unfurled her body. She shook her cape, straightened her hat. “Well…”
“I won’t think less of you if you say ‘no’,” Twilight whispered.
Trixie took her own deep breath. “You have my word, Twilight. I won’t let you down.” She shifted her eyes, stared at a chunk of wall. “I need to prove it to myself, too. I need to make certain that it never takes hold of anyone else.”
“And, I must warn you…” Twilight leaned forward. “We’ve done everything in our power, but we still don’t know everything about the Amulet. There may be some scrap of power left hiding in it, too deep for us to detect. It may have enough energy left for a final temptation. It might whisper to you. Lie to you. Try to trick you into putting it on. Are you strong enough to deny it this time?”
Trixie stared at the floor for a moment. “I would be lying if I gave an unqualified answer. If I said I was a hundred percent positive in my own ability.” Trixie looked up. “I’ve been weak before, I know. The Amulet tore me apart, and I had to piece myself back together. There may be some cracks left.” Trixie smiled. “But what sort of illusionist would I be, if I didn’t try and hide any of that?”
Twilight smiled. “Alright. I’ll contact the other princesses, and we’ll start preparing your supplies and equipment. Clandestinely, of course.”
Trixie smiled as well. “Thank you, Princess Twilight.” Trixie bowed. A clunk echoed through the room as the Amulet's left half fell out of her hat and onto the ground.
Neither pony moved.
Trixie slowly reached for the Amulet chunk. She slowly put it back under her hat. She slowly stood up. She slowly took a step backward, then another, until she slowly backed out of the room.
The doors slowly closed shut. When they had softly clicked closed, Trixie shouted from the other side. “Trixie will talk to you tomorrow!”
Silence fell back across Twilight’s office.
She pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, took a deep breath, and started writing.
“What time is good for you?” Trixie shouted through the door. “Trixie can be ready around ten or so!”
“Yes, fine, great!” Twilight shouted. “See you tomorrow, now go away!”
“Very well! Trixie will begin her preparations!”
Twilight stared down at the paper she had been writing on. A requisition form for space inside the Manehattan Museum’s Auxiliary Storage Warehouse. Once something went in there, it disappeared among a sea of identical crates, with obtuse labels and vague serial numbers. To find something in there took more bureaucratic knowledge and patience than even Princess Celestia possessed.
But someone might find it. If the Amulet had any power left at all, it would call out to anyone it could, lure them to it, sink its teeth into them.
Twilight crumpled the paper, tossed it away. She pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment, and began writing.
Perhaps it will be for the best, Twilight thought to herself. Trixie has her own…unique qualifications. She itemized all the supplies one would need for a journey to the edge of the world. Food, water, magical wards, a clean set of handkerchiefs.
“What could go wrong?” was another cliche that Twilight tried to avoid. A proper plan allowed for unfavorable outcomes, of course, but it felt pessimistic to ask such a question. It made it harder to focus on the positives.
Twilight frowned. Trixie had changed, there was no denying that. But the cliche still clawed at the back of her mind. She fought against it, all its pessimism and lazy distrust. But the answer still bubbled out of her subconscious like a methane bubble from a swamp.