For a few moments, or maybe an eternity, Trixie -- or rather, the concept of Trixie -- didn't know which way was up or down.
It had no sense of time, no sense of direction, no sense of self. It was merely a consciousness lost in a roiling sea of thoughts and feelings. In this state it could see raw emotion, it could smell and taste memory, hear and touch the threads of sanity woven throughout the chaotic sea that was the subconsciousness.
And for a time, that was all it knew.
It would've screamed had it the mental capacity to do so.
One thing it did know on a deeply instinctual level, was that if all this madness continued, it would be lost -- broken and buried under the endlessly confusing and conflicting sensations it was experiencing even now.
What was its name again?
It was getting harder and harder to remember.
The bottomless abyss was drawing nearer, sucking it into its endless depths, never to be seen again, never to think, or feel agai--
"FOCUS, BEATRIX LULAMOON! IF NOT FOR YOURSELF, THEN FOR THE SAKE OF THOSE COUNTING ON YOU! REMEMBER WHAT YOU ARE! REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!"
A voice.
It... no, she knew that voice.
That boundlessly confident, infinitely regal, imperiously commanding voice. It was impossible to ignore, and she didn't want to. She desperately needed something to cling to -- something to pull her out of the bottomless depths of the subconscious mind.
She didn't belong here.
She was more than a mere concept -- a mere consciousness destined to be tossed and turned and dragged under by this churning sea.
She was a pony.
She may have been small -- a pony not nearly old enough to be called a mare -- but she had already seen some of the best and worst the world had to offer. She had a family waiting for her, she had a hero whose hoofsteps she had yet to follow in, she was Great, she was Powerful, she was--
Trixie Lulamoon's eyes snapped open and she inhaled sharply.
She looked around in a panic, panting, sweating and shaking with fear and confusion. She felt her heart beating a mile a minute and her eyes were wide and frantic.
After several moments of nothing happening, she gradually began to calm down -- her heart slowing to a normal speed as she took in her strange surroundings. She was in what appeared at first glance to be a small empty room.
The walls were made of some kind of light grey stone and the room itself was brightly lit, though looking around, Trixie could see no obvious source. She took a moment to look herself over.
She no longer had the light blue, almost white, coat of her disguise. Rather, she was back to her normal azure self -- well, normal wasn't the right word. She was shocked to see that her body was somewhat transparent, fading in and out slightly at random intervals.
She raised a hoof and stared at it in equal parts horror and amazement.
That's when it all came back to her.
She had cast the Mind Walking spell to enter Wild Evergreen's mind and erase her memories of her and the other fillies.
No, that's not her real name...
Trixie furrowed her brow in bemusement.
This mare... her real name is... Fell Wind, but... how do I know that?
A moment passed and Trixie decided to chalk it up to an effect of the Mind Walking spell.
"W-Who are you?"
Trixie whipped around to face the voice that had spoken and took a surprised step back at who she saw. Curled up in a far corner of the empty room was a fully grown, dark green pegasus mare with a black mane and tail, and wide golden eyes that stared at the azure filly with fear and mistrust.
She was a pitiful sight.
Even from a distance, her coat looked ragged and coarse. Her mane and tail were ratty and unkempt and many of the feathers in her wings were either bent at odd angles or missing entirely.
Her face was gaunt, golden eyes sunken and lifeless, and the rest of her body fared no better. She was terribly thin to the point where Trixie could see her ribs through her thinning dark green coat.
Trixie felt sick.
She didn't know what to expect when she entered Fell Wind's mind, but it most certainly wasn't this.
"F-Fell Wind?"
"H-How... how do you know m-my name?" the broken looking mare demanded in a weak voice. She tried to stand, but it seemed the effort was too much and she sunk back to the ground, wincing in apparent pain, "who a-are you? How did... d-did you get in here?"
"I..."
Trixie found herself unable to come up with anything to say to the pegasus. She was still trying to recover from the shock of her current situation and couldn't focus enough to gather a coherent thought.
"You know what? It doesn't matter," the mare said after a long moment of silence. She turned from Trixie to stare at the far wall -- her demeanor suddenly cold and apathetic, "you're probably just another brat trying to escape, though I don't know why in Tartarus you'd come here of all places. I ain't in any condition to help you, kid."
She ruffled her tattered wings and chuckled mirthlessly.
"I don't know what kind of 'special talents' got you thrown into this place, filly, but they won't--" she broke into a fit of heavy coughing before she continued "--they won't help you. They'll catch you eventually, and when they do, well..." she turned to the stunned filly before her, "...let's just say you're gonna wish you looked as healthy as I do now."
She let out another mirthless chuckle before falling into another coughing fit. Trixie slowly shook her head and took a hesitant step forward.
"What's going on here?" the filly asked. She looked around the grey room before returning her attention to Fell Wind, "where is this place, and what happened to you?"
Fell Wind gave the filly an odd look before snorting in irritation.
"Great, another amnesiac, just what I needed," she muttered, shaking her head and looking back to Trixie, "look kid, I don't know how you got in here, but for your own sake you need to leave before they--"
The click of a lock and the sound of tumblers shifting about brought both their attention to the large metal door Trixie had failed to notice upon her arrival.
"No..." Fell Wind whimpered, the fear Trixie had seen earlier before making a return, "nonononono... it's not time yet. It can't be that time already!" she snapped her terrified gaze to Trixie, "hey, I don't know who you are, but forget what I said before! You gotta help me!"
The door was suddenly thrown open and two dark shapes rushed in. Trixie yelped in both surprise and fear, clenching her eyes shut as they closed in. She opened them a second later when she heard frantic screams coming from behind her.
She turned to see Fell Wind desperately struggling in the grip of the black, vaguely pony looking shapes.
"No! Let go of me!" the struggling mare cried, "it's not time yet! I got at least another hour or something! Please don't--"
One of the shapes struck Fell Wind in the face and the other in her stomach, causing the mare to double over in pain. She slumped in their grip and the two shapes immediately began dragging her towards the entrance. She looked up at Trixie and the filly saw a rapid shifting of emotions play across her face.
First was confusion, then surprise, followed by hope and a hint of desperate determination.
"Red... Storm..." Trixie heard her mutter weakly as she and the two shapes passed her by, "Stormy... find him... please..."
That's all she was able to get out before the dark pony shapes pulled her through the doorway, the metal door slamming shut behind them.
Trixie had no time to register Fell Wind's request before the room began warping and twisting violently.
"W-What?" Trixie cried in alarm, "what's--"
She screamed as she felt herself being yanked backwards through the twisting, darkening mass that was once an empty grey room. With a surprised grunt, Trixie hit solid ground and rolled to a stop.
She groaned and slowly rose to her hooves.
"What the hay..."
She blinked and rapidly shook her head a few times before looking up to see what had happened. It took her a moment to realize her voice had gained a tinny, echoing quality, but even when she did, that took a backseat to what she was seeing.
The space all around her was as black as the void, but it wasn't empty. Surrounding the filly were countless motes of light of varying sizes and intensities. It was as though she was in the very night sky the Mare of Dreams had shown her in her own dream, and she found this as breath taking as that had been, if not more so.
She did say the spell was inspired by her love of the night and her own ability to dream walk...
An odd sound caught Trixie's attention and she turned to see the light nearest to her giving off a strange warbling hum as it flickered and sputtered rapidly. After a moment it stabilized and was once again silently and brightly glowing like the rest.
The azure filly eyed the small mote of light warily before turning her attention to the rest of the starry looking abyss before her. As she took it all in, she thought on what she had just seen.
It was a memory the filly realized. Not only that, but it was a memory that she had somehow managed to interfere with. She had a presence there -- at least to Fell Wind. Whatever those pony things were, they didn't seem to realize Trixie was even there.
Trixie didn't know how to feel about this.
Now that she had had a direct influence on that memory, would Fell Wind recognize the filly if she were to see her in the real world? Did Trixie already manage to screw something up?
No.
It didn't matter.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember what the Mare of Dreams had told her about the spell. It was all a matter of will. If you willed yourself not to be seen, then you wouldn't be. By default, no being other than the owner of the memory could see you unless you willed it.
That explains why those things didn't react to me when they came in.
In order to change or completely erase a memory, all you had to do was will it's existence to change or disappear. In these instances the owner of the memory has no power to stop you, for they themselves are still part of that memory.
Trixie had all the power in this situation.
The thought caused a chill to run down the filly's spine and her heart to beat a little faster -- nevermind the fact that she didn't have an actual heart or spine in her current ethereal state.
Still, the feeling was there.
She was scared.
Despite how young and inexperienced Trixie was -- or perhaps because of it -- she knew this was far too much power for anypony to hold, let alone a small filly like herself.
This shouldn't have happened.
The Mare of Dreams had to more or less sear the knowledge of the spell into Trixie's mind, as it would've been completely beyond the filly otherwise. Once she had figured it out, however, she realized that the spell didn't even really take all that much mana to use if done correctly.
For her to just be given this much power...
What could the Mare of Dreams have possibly been thinking?
What was her plan?
What were her goals?
Trixie had been given a task to accomplish, but wasn't told why she'd needed to accomplish it. She didn't know what the mare's endgame was, but she was that much more afraid of and awed by the ebony alicorn.
She would even go so far as to say she respected the Mare of Dreams.
Trixie shook her head, setting the thoughts aside for the moment and focusing on the task at hoof. She needed to find the right memories and erase them so she could get back to the others. She also needed to see if she could find out more about these rebel ponies.
But what about Fell Wind herself?
Trixie frowned at the thought. The pegasus mare had tried to kill Ancient Scroll and foalnap Twilight... but she was also clearly suffering from something that happened to her in the past, just like Trixie, Sunset, and Twilight.
Would it be right to just erase what she needed and leave Fell Wind to suffer these horrible memories alone? Looking at Fell Wind in that weakened state had been like looking at herself back then, and despite the mare's actions, Trixie couldn't help but feel sorry for the mare.
The filly could both empathize and sympathize with Fell Wind, and the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that just leaving her like this was the wrong thing to do.
Trixie had the power to help her, and she would use it. Her friends... her sisters might not have wanted her help, but memory or no, Fell Wind had begged the filly to do just that.
With a set frown of conviction, Trixie closed her eyes once more and concentrated.
With a thought, the mote of light that was the memory she had stumbled into previously appeared before her again, but rather than enter, she used that memory to locate the one closest to it.
As much as she didn't want to, Trixie would have to go into the memories if she wanted to erase them. She didn't like it, but that was how the spell worked and she was willing to do it for the sake of the obviously hurting mare.
After a second, another mote of light appeared and merged with the one already in front of her. She opened her eyes with a victorious grin and stepped forward towards the light.
"Just like Twilight, Sunset, and the Mare of Dreams, the Great and Powerful Trixie will not fail you, Fell Wind."
With those final words, Trixie pushed herself forward and everything went white.