The heavy iron gates creaked upon their hinges, sending chills down Trixie's spine as she pushed them open. Before her lay the asylum, nestled among the windswept mountains outside Hoofswell, isolated and blissfully forgotten by the world around it. A deathly silence hung over the place, so oppressive and complete that Trixie swore she could hear the heartbeats of her friends behind her. She took a step through the gates and looked around with a hint of trepidation.
“Where is everypony?”
Luna followed not far behind. “I have no idea.” The princess paused for a second in the gate before continuing down the gravel path towards the looming asylum. Trixie and the others trotted reluctantly after her.
The sun had set not long ago, and while Trixie had written her latest letter to Celestia, Luna had brought out the moon to begin its path across the darkened sky. The nightly orb now cast its pale white light upon everything, clothing the asylum grounds in an eerie glow.
“M-maybe they're s-sleeping,” Fluttershy whispered in the back, flying along close to the ground, her eyes darting back and forth in fear. Her wounded leg had been treated and bound up so that she had to fly most of the time, only briefly resting on three legs.
Rarity backed up a little to walk next to the shivering pegasus, offering her friend a warm smile. “All of them, darling? I am certain somepony must be around to keep an eye on things, even at night.”
Luna shook her head. “Celestia sent them a message to let them know in advance that we were coming. They could not have missed it, I am sure.”
There was a gasp from Pinkie, causing everypony to jump and turn around. At the sudden attention she quickly slapped a hoof over her mouth, staring back at them with wide, crazy eyes as if she had just stopped herself from blurting out some immense secret.
“What?” Spike, sitting on Luna's back, groaned irritably. The long hours of the past few days and the scare of the harpy incident had been rough on the young dragon, and his mood had dwindled quickly.
Pinkie removed her hoof from her mouth and trotted along past them with a big smile. “Nothing.”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “Let's just move on. The sooner we find somepony else, preferably sane, the better.”
* * *
The large main building loomed ahead, an ancient colossus draped in black. Trixie looked up at the darkened windows and the heavy oaken doors at the top of the stairs. Everything was silent except for their hoof steps against the stones. A shiver ran through her body as she took the first steps up the stairs and raised a hoof to knock. The hollow knocking echoed across the asylum grounds. Trixie waited, but the ancient building remained shrouded in silent, unresponsive darkness.
“I don't like this,” she whispered and pushed at the door, but it remained stuck. Trixie turned around and looked at Luna. “Something is wrong with this place. Can you open this door? I think it's locked.”
Luna nodded and stepped up next to Trixie. “I should be able to do that,” she said and focused her attention on the lock. Her horn glowed briefly in the darkness, but after a few moments she looked back around at Trixie. “It's not locked. I think it's barred.”
“Barred?” Trixie sighed and rubbed her eyes. Something was definitely wrong with this picture, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know what it was. “Can you force it open?”
Luna considered the door in front of her, shaking her head a little. “Not without breaking it down. Maybe we should look for another way in first; I would hate to break down doors if everypony is simply elsewhere or something.”
Trixie nodded faintly and turned slowly, looking around at the surroundings. She paused and narrowed her eyes, holding up a hoof as she pointed towards a patch of trees where something had caught her attention. “Do you see a light too, or is it just me?”
Everypony turned to look where she was pointing. A small light appeared to dance and flicker among the shadows of the trees.
“I see it too.” Rarity nodded, with Fluttershy cowering behind her. Pinkie was already off towards the light, striding cheerfully along as if expecting a grand party. Luna looked at Trixie before following the pink pony, Spike holding on to her mane with a bleary look.
Trixie looked at Fluttershy and smiled. “Come, my brave pony. There is strength and courage to be found in numbers.” The yellow pegasus let out a short squeak before hesitantly following Trixie. Rarity walked behind her with Opalescence hungrily watching Angel.
* * *
A soft orange light flowed out from a small, overgrown greenhouse tucked in among a grove of trees in the garden surrounding the main building. Trixie caught up with Luna and Pinkie as they trotted across the garden in silence. The door to the greenhouse was open, light flickering through the opening into the night along with a sweet, strangely soothing scent.
Trixie found herself slowing down as they neared the door, breathing nervously. Only Pinkie Pie seemed unmoved by the gloomy atmosphere and deathly silence. She appeared in fact practically giddy.
Trixie took a quick look around her and over her shoulder, instinctively checking that they hadn't all disappeared on her. Luna offered a reassuring smile, although it was clear that she too felt nervous about the situation. Trixie straightened up, holding her head high. “I am the Great and Powerful Trixie,” her voice proclaimed with conviction in her mind before she stepped through the door, pushing aside the green curtain of plants and flowers.
Among flowering vines of a vast variety a lonely pony was sitting within a circle of lit candles from which the flickering light originated. Her back was turned to Trixie and her head bowed as in mediation. Her coat was a light indigo, and her short-cut mane and tail a dull blue with two stripes of different shades. A star-shaped black flower graced her flank.
Trixie stopped, feeling struck by a sudden sense of familiarity. “Y-you can't be—”
The pony's ear flicked a bit at Trixie's hushed voice. Her head lifted a little and turned towards Trixie and the others entering behind her. A pair of bright cerulean eyes, pupils focused like pinpoints, stared intensely into Trixie's. Trixie only now noticed the broken stump of a horn between those fierce eyes.
“You must have me confused,” the pony spoke. Her voice was calm, eerily contrasted by her seething eyes betraying a deep, burning anger, like a lightning storm barely contained within two orbs of glass.
She looked young and yet so very old, with a striking familiarity. The likeness with Twilight was undeniable if not nearly as obvious as Midnight's had been.
Trixie felt suddenly on guard, a sense of anger and fear. She felt like she was viewing the other unicorn as through a growing haze. “Who are you?” she demanded, lifting a shaking hoof as if to take a step but sat it back down quickly, too tired to carry through with the intended move.
“A kindred spirit,” she heard the unicorn speak, showing no reaction otherwise.
Trixie backed up and glanced over her shoulder, feeling a rush of panic. As she stepped back she bumped into Luna who was swaying slightly, eyes half closed. “Luna! We need to … get out,” she said, her voice feeble. Trixie felt her own eyelids drop against her will and her legs buckle under her.
She turned, trying to glare at the unicorn. “Stop it! Stop … whatever you're … doing,” she demanded, her horn flaring in the flickering light of the candles. She felt the magic surge through her and fade. She closed her eyes and felt the ground rise up to meet her.
Behind her, Trixie could hear Pinkie protest weakly. “Where's the … surprise party? Where's … Twilight?” The voice grew distant, fading into the night.
* * *
“Twilight?”
“Yes, dear?” Twilight looked up from her book, the light of a candle dancing across her face.
Owlowiscious was sitting on his perch near the window, head tucked under a wing, safe and warm within the old mansion while the rain and wind howled through Dappleshore's streets.
A hint of concern crossed Twilight's expression. “Are you alright?”
Trixie leaned against the door frame, reaching a hoof to her head and closing her eyes. “I think I had a nightmare … it's all so … hazy. I can't quite remember.”
Twilight got up and trotted over to Trixie. “Maybe you have a fever. You should stay in bed.” Twilight lifted a hoof to feel Trixie's forehead, her worried look quickly confirming the suspicion. “I'll make you some tea. You better get back to bed.”
Trixie's legs wobbled a little under her. “I don't want to be alone. Please don't leave me.”
Twilight smiled. “I'll just be in the kitchen, dear.”
“I thought I had lost you. I don't want to lose you …”
Twilight leaned in and kissed Trixie. “You know I would never leave you, Trixie. I will always be with you, no matter what.” She touched her hoof against Trixie's heart, smiling, a glint in her purple eyes. “Now rest, my dear. There is nothing to fear. I'm right here with you. Always.”
* * *
“Good, you're awake.”
Trixie groaned and blinked at the dim light around her. Memories started to flood back as she struggled to clear her mind and locate the source of the voice. Everything seemed hazy. Where was she? What was going on? Memory of their arrival at the asylum and their meeting with the unicorn in the greenhouse slowly returned to her. Trixie tried to pull herself up, but strong leather straps held her down firmly against the bed she was lying upon.
A face began to form through the haze in front of her, and she felt something touch her horn, taking it in a firm grip. “Don't struggle or try any funny business. I would hate to have to break your horn, but I will do it if you don't remain still.”
Trixie hesitated, a brief moment of fear at the threat. Yet even through her clouded senses her mind picked up on something in the voice and eyes of the other unicorn. Trixie smiled, or tried to, she wasn't exactly sure her facial muscles were under complete control at this point. “You're a … terrible liar, you … know that? I say … you're bluffing!” Trixie knew how to deceive, it was part of every stage magician's act, and she knew how to spot it in others quite well too.
There was a moment of silence, a slight tic of one of those bright cerulean eyes. “Oh? Are you prepared to test that hypothesis?” The hoof on her horn tightened its grip slightly.
Trixie could barely contain her amusement. Even in her drug-addled state she could clearly see through this pony's pathetic bluffs. “Quite,” she managed to utter in a smug tone.
Another moment of silence passed. The unicorn glared at her, then gave a mildly annoyed sound and removed her hoof from Trixie's horn. “So I'm not much of a liar, and yes, your horn is quite safe. But don't think for a moment that it matters. You couldn't manage any kind of resistance in your current state anyway, so you may as well lie still and listen for now.”
Trixie tried to stare down the unicorn standing above her, but it was proving quite difficult to focus, and she no doubt looked more silly than menacing. “Where are my friends? Where is Luna? Tell me!”
“Your friends will have to wait.” The unicorn stepped out of Trixie's view. “But let me assure you that they are quite safe. Safer than they are around you, in any case.”
Trixie listened, trying to follow the echoing hoof steps of her captor as they moved around somewhere behind her. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The hoof steps came to a halt not far behind Trixie's head. “Manna Sparkle is the name my mother gave me. And what I want, Trixie, is revenge! For a lifetime I have waited for this moment, and now I have you to thank for it.”
Trixie's throat felt dry. She recalled Twilight's early family research, the family tree in that little journal Twilight had found at the fair in what seemed like ages ago now. “You're saying you're … Twilight's great-great-grandmother? Midnight Sparkle?”
“Do not call me by that name! I spit on the name of Midnight!” Manna hissed behind her.
There was a long silence except for a slow, deep breathing. Finally she spoke again, more calmly. “My name is Manna. My great-grandmother was wise when she changed our family name to Sparkle, and I was but a foalish girl when I changed the name she had blessed us with. A foalish obsession it was, with something long dead. It should have stayed dead!”
“How … is that even possible?” Trixie could hardly believe what she was hearing. Was her mind playing tricks on her? “You must be … how old?”
Manna’s face appeared above Trixie once again. “I don't look that old?” There was no mirth in those eyes as she looked up. “I stopped counting the years and decades long ago. I know what you're going through, Trixie, and my poor descendant Twilight before you. It is a curse that runs in the family, a curse I have known all too well.”
She sighed. “Midnight was not content to die and used ancient and forbidden magic to ensure that her spirit lived on through her family. Every few generations the curse finds a new descendant and inevitably drives her to research Midnight’s dark work in order to bring her back, at which point her undead spirit takes over their mind and body. That's what she did to Twilight, and almost did to me.” She lifted a hoof and tapped her broken horn. “But I broke her hold over me. I made myself useless.”
Trixie blinked through the hazy cloud of half-sleep threatening to overcome her, trying hard to follow the other unicorn's words. “You … broke your own horn?”
Manna nodded solemnly. “It was painful, but necessary. With my magic broken, I was useless to her. I denied her a body, but she never stopped haunting me.” She paused, looking down at Trixie, her eyes revealing the ages that had gone by. “I haven't aged or slept for a single hour in the decades since. She has tormented me for generations, one long nightmare, and in all those years I could do nothing but wait and scheme. Nothing, not until Twilight took my place and freed me from eternal torment.”
She paced slightly as she talked. “I had hoped I could save Twilight, but I was too late. When she died, I was sure I would once again be tormented by the undead spirit of my ancestor as before, but … things changed. Twilight changed the rules.”
She stopped her pacing and looked deep into Trixie's eyes. “I see much of Twilight in you, but I also see something else. When Twilight died, she passed on the family curse to you, and with it, Midnight’s undead spirit.”
Trixie stared at her, unable to find a single word.
The unicorn continued without waiting for a response. “You have been haunted lately, I am certain, and did you ever stop to wonder what in Equestria brought you to this forsaken place?” Manna nodded knowingly before Trixie could say a word. “You came here for 'answers', or should I say certain forbidden knowledge by a certain long dead pony?”
“You are a puppet, Trixie, and guess who's pulling the strings? In time she'll drive you mad, and before you know it you'll be digging up graves and performing unspeakable magic to bring back the dead. And I dare not think of what will happen should she gain possession of the body and power of an alicorn such as yourself. Nor do I plan on hanging around long enough to find out.“
Trixie's mouth felt like a desert. She tried to lick her lips, but it didn't help much. “So … what do you intend to do with me?”
Manna disappeared briefly out of sight and returned carrying a cup of water, holding it against Trixie's lips. Trixie drank the cool liquid greedily, not stopping to worry if it was more than just water.
“You are valuable to me, Trixie. As long as you live, I am free of Midnight’s spirit, so I am going to keep you alive and safe. But as valuable as you are—” She paused, looking serious. “—I could never trust you. I know what she is capable of. The moment I turn my back, you'd slit my throat and dance in the rain of my blood. I'm going after her, and I'm going alone. I will not be kept from my just revenge! Midnight is mine, and I will see to it that she suffers eternally for what she did to me, to Twilight, and what she is doing to you!”
Trixie jerked, the sudden movement causing the cup to fall and shatter against the floor. “You're mad! And how would you even do that?”
“Am I? Perhaps, but I'm going to do what I should have done ages ago. I'm going to kill Midnight, and make her stay dead, forever! I have studied, and I have uncovered her weakness, the only way in which I can touch her. It is called the Mirror of Souls, an ancient artifact of the alicorns from time immemorial. It has been long lost, but I know how to find it. With it, I can enter the realm of the soul and confront Midnight's immortal spirit. All I need in order to do so is the blood of an alicorn, and how fortunate that you brought one with you.”
“You won't touch Luna!” Trixie pulled against the straps holding her down, but despite the anger burning inside her at the threat of hurting Luna, she felt too weak to do much except to hiss helplessly.
“Calm yourself. I won't need much, and she won't feel a thing. You have my word.”
“Then take mine, but keep your hooves off Luna!”
“Sorry, Trixie. I can not be sure that your mixed blood is sufficient, nor safe given Midnight's influence over you. You must understand that I can risk no mistakes in this endeavor. No, all I need from you is sleep.”
She turned and gestured at the room. “In this room, and the rooms where I have left your friends, are tubs containing a mix of herbs. These particular herbs are usually burned as incense in small amounts to cause relaxation and sleep for those who find it hard to achieve this on their own. In larger doses they are very effective at subduing ponies, as you are witnessing.”
“It is something I envy you, Trixie, as sleep has ever eluded me. The lovely scent you may have noticed is the product of a slow fermentation going on in the tubs behind you. A somewhat crude, but much more reliable long-term administration than burning incense. Flames can go out if not tended, but the fermentation carries on.”
“For the next few weeks or months you will sleep, waking up only for brief moments like now.” She gestured again but this time closer to Trixie. “There is water and hay within reach, enough for months I should think.”
“You're insane! Let me go, we could … help each other against … against Midnight!” Trixie felt tired and weak. She could barely feel her body now, and her eyelids were getting heavy as she struggled to stay awake. “We don't have to be … enemies!”
“Midnight is mine, Trixie! And I won't risk having you close enough to betray me when she inevitably takes control of you.” She leaned in close, staring into Trixie's eyes. “Sweet dreams, Trixie. And Midnight? I'm coming for you!”