//------------------------------// // Starswirl - Oh deer... // Story: The Legend of Trixie // by Ninjadeadbeard //------------------------------// By the Horn of Starswirl, 405 A.G. There come along moments in one’s life when one cannot help but feel the world turn on its axis. Those rare and almost ephemeral seconds in between breaths when you realize that nothing will ever be the same again or perhaps that it was never as you imagined it in the first place. I have had the opportunity fortune to have witnessed three such epochal moments in my life. One of these moments, and my proudest, was when I and the Pillars came together for the first time. To realize your dream of uniting the tribes, even on such a small scale, reinvigorated me in ways that nothing else had in my long, lonely eternity without you. And after that, when I first held the Princesses in my own hooves, and realized what you always saw in them. But before both of those, was when I beheld you, wresting control of the heavens themselves. The sun and the moon, shackled to your will, following the slow arc of your hooves as you stood amidst a maelstrom of magic. You were the eye of the storm, wreathed in such majesty that I had not ever considered possible. In hindsight, I should say that every moment with you, I could feel the world move beneath my hooves. I think that was the moment. The moment I fell in love with you. I’d always suspected something was different about you. But you confused me, as well. You were so powerful, so ingenious in your approach to sorcery, so creative in how you applied your talents. And yet, as I read this journal again, and as I recall some of our later talks— Even now, I can’t quite reconcile you. Your two selves. Trixie Lulamoon, the mare who practiced sleight of hoof and stagecraft, who thought she was a sham, a fraud living a life not her own. And Trixie, the Great and Powerful. The mare who inspired me to pursue magic, who saved my life, in that accursed forest. The mare who taught me that friendship could lift me from my despair. The mare who could move the sun and moon. Wherever you rest now, Trixie, know that you were never a fraud. My last words to you still ring in my ears. “I’ll make you proud,” I said, in the halls of Tambelon, as Grogar’s dark empire fell down around us. I can only pray that I have. There does, however, appear to be a small gap in your recollection here. Allow me to rectify that, this last time I hold your words myself. Daring here. Sorry about the silence. I know it’s been a few days. I tried to get to Canterlot on my own, but you know my family. Don’t worry about us; between Cab’s salary and my books, we’ve got more than enough to crash at one of the hotels in Canterlot. And, there’s a pool! So the kids’ll keep out of my mane while I get back to the project at hoof. Thank you, again, for allowing me access to the Royal Library. Research has been a breeze so far, and now I can check in with Moondancer and your other scholars directly, so that’s been helpful. I know you’ll figure out some way to help Trixie. I know it doesn’t always come across that way, but I really do— Appreciate? Respect? Not sure which fits more. Both seem kind of inadequate, you know? Still. Looks like another Starswirl passage. Which is fantastic! Hopefully, Swirly here is a little more informative with the historiographical stuff. While I love doing extra research for this, finding out about Equestria’s past from ponies who saw it first-hoof is better. With the eclipse, the spell was broken. Awe was suddenly replaced by fear as the world fell into gray shadow. I screamed, a numbing sensation of horror overtaking my senses, as I thought for a moment that the world had ended! Not my proudest moment, I know. Mother often talked, longingly, of the eclipse. Her parents were astronomers, I don’t think I ever mentioned, and she always held a fascination for such things. One would think I would have recognized it from her stories. Still, it was an emotional moment. I should be forgiven for panicking. The eclipse finished as soon as it began. The sky’s utter blackness gave way to day in a most peculiar fashion. The sun sank quickly to the horizon, scuttling along as though it were embarrassed to be out at such an hour, where everypony could see it. The moon retreated as well, though far more slowly. Somehow, it looked fuller, to my child-mind. Oh, if only we knew what had happened. Not like we could have stopped it, at that point. Nothing seems to survive a direct impact with the Great and Powerful Trixie, after all. Even the phases of the moon. But that was the least of my worries. All the grass and vegetation had burned away around you, leaving a blackened ring once the spell had ended. I had only a few seconds of daylight before the heavenly spheres returned to their proper placements, and my shock at that had to fall by the wayside. I might have undersold just how badly the spell had drained you. I can remember the way you just lay there, completely drained of life, and vigor. Your mane clung to your sweat-soaked body, limp and unmoving. There were scorch marks all up and down your coat, from your nose to your tail, and from the tips of your ears down to your hooves. Especially your hooves. They were so scorched, so ruined by the Grounding Effect, that I thought you would never walk again. Worse was your horn. Blackened and cracked, it looked like you’d been struck by lightning. Raw pink mana oozed angrily from where your skin and keratin splintered. It turned my stomach to see. I attempted to rouse you, but you were held tight in Marepheus’ grip. I ran back to the wagon, and fearfully tore through the medical supplies Firefly had provided you. I had no talent for the healing arts, something I always envied about Mistmane, once I knew her, but I was not entirely useless. Marepheus, from what little I could gather, was an ancient Pre-Equestrian Dream Deity. Alicorn, more like, if the hieroglyphs are accurate. He created dreams, defended ponies from nightmares, and was known for being tall, dark, and handsome (seriously, that’s what the glyphs say!). He had a wife, according to most myths. An Alicorn who served as the Princess of Time, actually. Ask Luna or Celestia about it. And take a picture. I wanna see the look on their faces! Firefly had mostly given you bandages, which was helpful, but little in the way of poultices and salves, which was not. Working quickly, I wrapped your hooves as best as I could. It was a clumsy effort, all told. Your horn was worse. I had no idea what I was doing, only that a tight wrap had to be better than leaving it open to the cold air. I was too panicked to realize the weather had shifted. The sun and moon brought heat and cold all at once to the world, and a fine mist sprang up from the sudden imbalance caused by their rapid passing. I am sorry to say, it took me a considerable amount of effort to drag you back into the wagon. Not only was I of small stature, but you were surprisingly heavy. I’m sure it was the muscles. Your beautiful, well-toned muscles. Clover just called me a dirty old stallion. He’s been reading over my shoulder, apparently. Clover the Pest, that’s what they should call him. I’m suddenly very, very sorry for how I must have behaved around you. After securing you in your hammock, I lashed myself to the harness as best I could, and tried to pull the wagon myself. I was sure I could find somepony to help with your injuries if I could only get us out of there. I honestly don’t know how you did it. Perhaps I was a bit scrawny for a colt my age, but that wagon had to weigh a couple tons, at least! I struggled, and struggled, just to get the wheels rolling, and it took a whole minute to get past the boundary stones. I promised you I’d write this story down one day. I guess this is me finally keeping to that promise. If nothing else, the experience convinced me that you had been kind in how you described my physical fitness. I must have been the worst assistant to deal with, up until that point, complaining as I did about the marching, and the food, and the weather. I was a pampered brat who’d never worked an honest day in his life. And that might have been the death of us both had Gaea Everfree and her Children not found me just then, struggling along the forest path. I was surprised, later, that you had never heard of the Deer of the Everfree. In my recollections, I suppose we ponies may not have been the kindest of neighbors to that ancient people, but it still worries me to think that they have completely vanished by your time. Why did nopony tell me about this Mirror Universe!? I had to hear about it from Carmare! Apparently, I was lost in the jungles during my Marechu Pichu expedition (Daring Do and the Mummy Lord’s Revenge) when you made the public announcement, and I cannot believe it’s taken me twenty years to find out!!! The fact that there’s another me out there, but one who’s just an author (or so she claims) is freaky enough, but there’s apparently two of you over there? Somehow? And the other Trixie? So. Gaea Everfree. Not a lot about her on my end outside of a few references to a Queen of the Forests. She may have been another Alicorn, or perhaps some sort of primordial Spirit, like Discord— The Lord of Stupid Pranks just doused me in purple glitter and tree sap. He doesn’t care for the comparison, I think. Gaea apparently made an appearance in the hooman world at some point, laying claim to something called Camp Everfree. I guess your counterpart and her friends later took down a hooman sorceress that was using her name, but beyond that, Gaea seems to have disappeared entirely from both worlds. So expect to have to fight her when she inevitably shows up again. Hey, it happened with Nightmare Moon, Tirek, Discord, and Grogar. I’ve adventured enough to know the signs. The Deer are more interesting, at least to me. They appear in a lot of pre-Equestrian art and literature, mostly as phantoms and ghostly, fey-creatures. Many of their myths focus on their ability to change shape or conjure illusions. Or, in the Great Seedling’s case, bless crops with eternal bountifulness. Despite the myths, a lot of researchers think they may have been the local natives of the area prior to Ponies entering the region where Equestria now sits. That fact gives me a bad feeling about what happened to them. Migrating populations aren’t usually kind to other creatures when they need a new place to live, and I’ve never heard of a living Deer in my lifetime. I’ve also noticed that Trixie’s travels have been taking her around Equestria during a time when there shouldn’t be any ponies around. So, I’m starting to think that stuff about an ancient homeland prior to the Windigos’ appearance is bunk or has been heavily altered by later storytellers. Dangit, Trixie. You’ve ruined Hearth’s Warming for me. A shame, considering their jaw-dropping beauty. They appeared from out of the trees just as I had almost given up the ghost. My legs were shivering, my lungs were aching, and my vision began to spin. Hauling you and the wagon, even a few dozen yards, was going to kill me. And you wondered where my sudden exuberance for exercise came from, after this. I never heard them approach. Perhaps that was my own exhaustion, but even still. I felt a spearpoint touch my neck before I saw the Deer. They were very much like ponies, only covered in thick, leafy hides and carapaces that shone like gemstones! Emeralds and blues and reds and all other colors besides! Gossamer wings carried them silently through the air and the trees. I’d never seen anything like them before. They were fantastical. Insectoid ponies, perhaps partly plant-based, yet swarming about me like a rainbow of locusts. And I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. That was, until Gaea herself appeared. She was tall. Very tall. As tall as the very trees, nearly half the height of the library back in Hyneighria! And her coat was made of some dark wood I had never seen before, topped with a flowing mane of leafy green around a skull-like mask of white. Seeing their Queen, I recalled what my father had said to me of the Deer, the Fair Ones, and their nature: Deer are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Deer are marvelous. They cause marvels. Deer are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Deer are terrific. They beget terror. Nopony ever said Deer are nice. Deer are bad. But with nowhere to go, surrounded as I was, I knew it was too late to run. The monstrous Everfree strode towards me, flanked by two similarly statuesque doe – one golden hued and the other sapphire – and a single near-mountainous stag of amethyst make, with horns to match his grandeur. These three, clearly royal deer, looked down upon me as if I were a muddy patch of road. Now, I would have stood tall in their presence. Cast them into another dimension if they sneered at me as they did so then. But I wasn’t Starswirl the Bearded, yet. I was Starswirl, the apprentice. The child. So awed was I, by their grandeur, that I began to kneel as a reflex. These three laughed at my nervousness, the sapphire one most of all, with a venomous cackle that has followed me to this day. Their followers joined in, mocking me for my size, for knowing when to ‘bow before my betters,’ as they said. Gaea commanded silence without raising her voice above a whisper. Her three followers hushed themselves without hesitation, their soldiers snapped to rapt attention, and even the trees about us ceased to creak and moan. I felt the wind itself slow at her command, and in that stillness I was gripped with terror at the authority in her tone. She fixed her cold, emerald eyes, like a green flame resting atop a black lake, upon my own, and said, “I am Gaea Everfree, Protector of this Wood, and all forests beneath the sun. Give me your name, and your purpose here.” I glanced around, and found at least a couple dozen eyes following me. The forest trail was packed with these shape-changing creatures, these Deer of the Everfree. A few, I could see, wrapped themselves in fire, transforming into Timberwolves, Ursas, and even a Cragadile. They were preparing for trouble, if I had a mind to give it to them. Recalling what I could from the Old Tales, I knew I could not give them my real name. They said that Deer could steal your soul if they had that. I know now, through my studies, how nonsensical that was, but I was twelve, I will have you recall. “Call me… Star… Book,” I said, “Yes. Star Book. The Great… and, uh, Powerful!” I can hear you sniggering, somewhere in the back of my memories. Or that’s Clover again. Pest. Gaea smiled, or perhaps smirked, at this foalish display. “Well met, Star Book,” she replied in a not-unkindly, courtly manner. She then quickly introduced the towering deer at her side. The sapphire one, fangs inching out of her maw, was Caprecilia. The gold, with her green mane tied into a long set of loops, was Pupotinae. And the last, the mighty stag with the amethyst carapace, was Cervingetorix. They were her children and the leaders of the Deer Tribes. It might seem obvious by this point, but on a hunch, I contacted Ocellus and Prince Pharynx when I read those names. And you won’t believe what we found. Queen Chrysalis had destroyed most of her people’s records centuries ago, probably for some sort of crazy bug lady reasons, or in a fit of pique. Whichever day of the week came first. But King Thorax has spent the last three decades seeking out his hive’s lost knowledge and its history. I’m very tempted to join up with his researchers, once everything with Trixie is concluded. But his research has born some fruit. Including the name of Chrysalis’ mother and Thorax and Pharynx’s grandmother: Queen Cilia. Queen Caprecilia, if the thousand-year-old records are correct. Now, what caused the Deer to become the old, black and holey changelings we used to know and despise? Immediately, Gaea demanded to know what I was doing in her domain. Tired as I was, I was apparently not as quick as I could have been to answer. Caprecilia shouted at my impudence for ‘taking the Queen’s precious time’ in vain, and nearly struck me on the spot! Were it not for Gaea’s flash of rage at her daughter’s actions, she may very well have killed me there. “You would raise your hoof to a child?” Gaea admonished. Caprecilia spat, and said that it was no different to what ponykind had done to their people. “They have driven us from our own lands and into this place!” she cried, “What right do they have to protection?” Gaea clearly did not like that at all. “Cilia, my child,” she said, in deathly silence, “a venom has entered your heart. A venom that shall leave holes as surely as the knots in my trees. I foresee only sorrow if you continue as you are.” At their Queen’s command, I was then given water and asked to tell of my tale. It took what felt like hours, but I told them everything I knew, besides where and when you had come from. Again, Caprecilia wanted to kill you. “She has corrupted the Cycle!” she snarled, “Interrupted the passage of the ages! The Arc of Time has—” “Do not speak her name!” Gaea shouted her down, “She has an annoying habit of turning up whenever one does so.” But in this case, Cervingetorix came to his sister’s aid, decrying you, fair Trixie, for what you had done to the sun and moon. He called for your destruction and, indeed, the destruction of all ponykind. Gaea would not hear of it. “This has all been foreseen,” was all she said. She reached out and pulled you from the wagon with her own magic, and turned your sleeping form over. I may have said some unkind things in my foalish attempt to protect you from her. I suppose the direst of threats from a twelve-year-old foal don’t have much of an impact on the Spirit of Nature itself, if that is what she was. She didn’t even notice though her guards had their weapons at my throat again, lightning quick. “You do not die this day, Trixie Lulamoon,” she hissed, and to this very day I could not say if it was with malice or not, “Your Doom lies far from here, in a country unborn, beyond the horizon of eternity… “As does mine,” she sighed. She set you down in the wagon once more. Then, with a simple gesture, she drew Pupotinae to her. The golden doe reached under her wing and produced a vial of something I could not identify. A substance that burned as blue as the sun shone yellow. Gaea commanded her to bind up your wounds with the strange substance, and that was when everything began happening at once. The stag screamed at the top of his lungs, and Caprecilia tried to swipe away the potion, only to be stopped by her sister’s outstretched hoof. I couldn’t follow what they said. Even now, I couldn’t rightly tell you what precisely they spoke of. But, in my best recollection, Caprecilia thought you and I were monstrous for your handling of the sun and moon, and that all of ponykind should be subjugated for our ‘crime’. I believe Cervingetorix disliked wasting such a precious resource, a rare potion of his own design, more than he agreed on punishing ponykind. Pupotinae seemed startled, nearly shrinking away from the both of them as they snarled and hissed. I noticed that, as the three fought, their warriors began to shift. Some drew to Cervingetorix’s side, their armored coats shifting to brilliant purples and red. Some drew opposite, their transformative magic turning them blue as Caprecilia’s own colors. I worried, for a moment, that I was about to bear witness to a civil war. It was only Gaea’s own vehemence that brought them into silence. I remember little of what she said, sadly. The years have erased much of that night. “This world is no longer my concern!” she cried, “A new age has dawned. Literally. This world belongs to Them now. The time when nature shall be inviolate and its own master has passed forever! It is now in the ponies’ hooves whether or not this change shall spell disaster and doom for the whole world. That is their burden.” She turned to me and explained the potion’s use. I was to bind up your wounds and liberally apply the concoction. You would sleep for a time, but awaken refreshed and restored. Even in my state – confused, hungry, and tired – I maintained as much decorum as I knew how to give. I turned back to the wagon and went inside. You lay, prostrate, on the floor. I hadn’t the strength to lift you up into the hammock before, and so I tried my best to help you where I could. Behind me, I wish I’d paid attention now. The whole forest erupted into screams and curses. I was too tired to care. While I could hear the Deer raging at one another, I slowly ripped off your bandages. I winced as I saw the cracks in your hooves, your horn. You would never walk again. Never cast another spell. Not without this miracle cure. There were more cries, of outrage and of pain, as I took the salve in that potion vial, and I applied it to your wounds. It had a sandy texture to it, that strange concoction. I wish I’d asked what it was made of. Perhaps greater healing secrets were at my hooftips that night. But I was tired. And you were in pain. When it came time to bandage you back up, however, I nearly collapsed. There was nothing left. It had all been bled from me, in stress and worry, from Ponhenge and then through the ordeal with Aeva. Trying to haul you out of that place, with the loaded wagon, was simply too much for me. A moment passed. Then, your body began to glow. For a moment, I thought something terrible was happening, again. But the emerald shine was merely Gaea, who stood now at the wagon’s door and held you in her aura. There was nothing else in the surrounding woods. Not a sound, even. I asked what had happened. Her people had fought, and they had chosen their paths, she said. Caprecilia’s heart was poisoned, and she would leave the land forever, an endless hunger within her. Cervingetorix and Pupotinae had stayed true, and would follow Gaea away from this world, wherever that ended up being. She held you aloft and allowed me the time to bind you up once more. As she set you up into your hammock, she did me one further kindness. She had shrunk in size, til she was little larger than yourself, and she tied the wagon harnesses to her. “Sleep, ye both shall,” Gaea Everfree spoke, and my eyes began to falter, “for three days, and three nights. When the cockatrice calls on the fourth dawn, ye shall be awakened. Until then, permit me a moment to keep you safe from the Ram’s reach.” I knew no more as sleep took me. When I finally awoke, there was no more Gaea, and no Everfree forest. Only you, snorting fitfully as you returned to me. And that seems to be a wrap for Starswirl, at least for now. And in his wake, I am left with more questions than answers. Again. That seems to be a running theme, I know. My hooman self said she’d look more into the Everfree thing and see if any clans, tribes, or civilizations in her world might have some legends pertaining to Gaea, Cervingetorix, or Pupotinae, but I don’t have a lot of faith she’ll find anything. Not a real adventurer, that one. It’s just so frustrating that Trixie and Starswirl keep bumping into these mysteries, and only seem to answer one question for every five they introduce! It’s maddening! Carmare wants to know if she can donate anything to help. Time, magic, whatever. Ahuizotl already got back to me on the ‘life-extending artifact’ front, but that’s a dead end. Sorry. Word choice. Moving on...