//------------------------------//
// Tonal Architect 
// Story: The Legend of Trixie 
// by Ninjadeadbeard 
//------------------------------//

So. Been a while, Journal.

Long time.

How have you been?

Whole month and a half, gone by. Bet you’re wondering what I’ve been up to? Just Trixie things, Trixie assures you.

Sadly.

It wasn’t good. Like, at all. You’d think I’d have learned how serious this all was when Hyneighria

Trixie doesn’t learn her lessons, Journal. I’ve broken the whole world. Gallopoli is gone because of me. Everything’s ruined.

Everything.

Yes, I mean it this time.

At least Trixie could potentially get a hot date out of this though, so that’s a small victory. Right? At least a moral one?

Didn't think so.

Where to begin…?





The days after meeting Gusty are all a sort of blur. Trixie’s whole body was in pain, and nothing worked right, so there wasn’t a lot I could do during the day. Or night, really. There was a lot of sleeping, that much I recall. And while that can be nice and cozy, Trixie is a mare of action! I need to be doing stuff, Journal. It is not in Trixie’s nature to sit around. Or sleep all day long.

But, when even your apprentice helps the three insurrectionists living in your room tie you down to your bed, there’s only so many ways to pass the time.

Yes, Swirly helped those three ponies two ponies and a kirin wait, kirin are ponies—

Are they still ponies without cutie marks? What is a pony, anyway? What’s the tex tack

Whatever. He was on my LIST. Which was—

TAXONOMY! I just remembered! And Sunburst says I can’t learn new words. Idiot. Super smart idiot.

I do not miss him, Journal. He’s like Twilight, but a colt. And with stupid hair. And a stupid vocabulation. Though he did know the most amazing recipe for carrot masala.



So, I asked around, and it sounds like Trixie, Starlight, and Sunburst made up a pretty perfect little group before Trixie went time-traveling. Professionally, and in terms of being friends. Prior to Starlight and Sunburst tying the knot and Trixie starting her relationship with Starswirl, Rarity tells me that the local chatter in Ponyville – You probably know this, but if you want information to get out fast, you tell it to Rarity in confidence – believed they were a herd, of all things.

I mean, they all lived together, worked together, and had adventures together (time-travel notwithstanding). Didn’t help that hooman Trixie was also best friends with Starlight and Sunburst’s first kid, Sunset Shimmer.

You really need to explain how that happened, by-the-by. Luster tried, but I really couldn’t keep up with half of it.



Swirly was on my list, which was unfortunate, since he was also one of the few ponies to really spend time with me for the two or so weeks I was recovering.

Yeah. Two weeks. I’ll relate a couple episodes, just to give you an idea of what I went through.

First off, the innkeepers were nice. Not nice enough to free Trixie, but they kept me fed and watered me like a plant (I miss Starlight, all of a sudden), so that was okay. They were a couple of old mares who’d owned the place for fifty years, and you could tell they’d spent pretty much all of that time being one: married. And two: bickering.

Blossom and Snuzzle. I’ll never forget listening to those old crotchety horses fighting each other from sun-up to sundown. Truer love Trixie has never seen.



To be fair, Trixie’s idea of Love was probably inspired by those trashy stage shows and romance novels that were really big twenty years back. Always with the drama and the ‘will-they-won’t-they’ plots. Real love shouldn’t be shown by two ponies fighting and bickering, only to collapse into sweaty, passionate smooching!

Okay, so what if Caballeron and I went that way? What of it? Don’t you judge me! Sometimes couple-fighting can be hot!



Anyway, when I wasn’t being cared for by the coolest lesbians I’d ever met besides Lyra and Bonbon, I was talking with Swirly, Gusty, Melody, or Guard. They took shifts after a few days.

With Swirly, at least, I could train him by proxy. So, at night I would give him lessons in magic and sleight of hoof, and by day he’d take the wagon out to do our show. It brought in some money, but more often than not, he’d come back fuming over something or other.

“I saw an earth pony get their store knocked over by a troop of dragons!” he’d say. Or, “Some centaurs stole a poor farmer’s crop and called it ‘taxes’ for Grogar!”

“All taxes are theft, Swirly,” I explained, “That’s why they’re called taxes.”



Starswirl wrote “truth” in the margins. I’d audit them both, if I were you.



Trixie could tell he was worked up over the things going on in Gallopoli. And it took every bit of Trixie’s creativity to keep his mind on magic, instead of politics. Every night, he’d come in and go on about some new injustice, and I’d have to come up with another card trick, or coin trick, or even some of my actual spells just to calm him down.

And it didn’t help that Gusty and her crew were squatting with us. It shouldn’t surprise you to hear that a bunch of rebels will talk about being rebels with anypony willing to listen. So, I had to deal with that as well.

Can’t have Swirly join the rebellion, I said to myself. He’s too precious to the future! He could get hurt!

Now look at me. Crap, look at us. I’m sitting in a freaking cave up on Foal Mountain with—

Getting ahead of myself. Sorry.

Anyway, I guess the others weren’t too bad to talk with either. Except Joyous Guard. He’s a huge stick in the mud. He used to be like some of the pegasi in town, according to him, working for Grogar as muscle. He quit when he realized how much that sucked, and ran off with Melody instead of executing her like he was ordered to.



Joyous Guard was, until now, considered a myth. Even Flash Magnus thought of him as a Deer Tale, a story to inspire young cadets in the Cloudsdale militia. A proud warrior who had served evil, until he realized that his Duty was to the ponies, not to their rulers. According to legend, he was one of the leaders of the rebellion against Grogar, but the legends disagree on whether he was a unicorn or an earth pony.

I don’t have a high opinion of unicorn historians at this point, you understand?

Nopony agrees on his fate, either. Some stories say he mortally wounded Grogar in the final battle for the bell, but we know that can’t be true. Not unless the technical definition of ‘mortal wound’ has changed since then. Others claim he became an Alicorn himself, and vanished to join the rest of his kind. I’ll keep digging, but Trixie might be our best primary source on the guy. Yikes.



He’s not as dumb as I thought, actually. Especially considering how he used to be a guard. Joyous Guard spent most of his “shifts” with me grilling for answers.

Magical answers.

Which, to be fair, anypony would logically have done if they got to talk to the mare who’d broken the friggin’ moon.

I guess the phases of the moon aren’t a Luna thing, after all. Ponies around here seem to think it was normal for the moon to change shape. And Guard was really wanting to know how to fix that, since the moon had stopped making ‘faces’, as they called it.

Turns out, Journal, that these phases or faces or whatever are monthly things! I thought Luna just picked them for fun, but I guess not.

“When will the moon return to normal?”

“I don’t know.”

“What were the precise apsidal precession changes you made to the moon’s orbit relative to the elliptical plane?”

“I don’t know.”

“Using Stallemy’s Calculus, what level of magical output was required to move the sun per light-minute? Did you require 16 or 29 Megathaums?”

“Why are those two numbers…?”

“Please answer the question thoroughly, ma’am. Science will thank you.”

And you can see how that went.

Then, whenever he was busy, Trixie got to be foalsat by Melody Song. The Rarity-one. Green or not, pegasus or not, it was Rarity. From how she coifed her mane to how she kept using those little affectations and extra words all the time! Sure, they weren’t darling, but the Old Ponish she used doesn’t translate exact. Most literal one I can do is 'Mare of another mother', which is a mouthful.

So, darling it is.

Melody was more interested in converting me to their little rebellion than questioning me. According to her, she’s the morale officer of the group, and I believe her! Seriously, she could give Pinkie Pie lessons in smiling.

It was actually a little creepy. And sad. Ponies that smile that much usually do it because they need to smile more.

Anyway, she was originally from Hope Hollow, which explains a lot. Did a show out there once, and if it’s anything like that in the past as it was in the present, I think you could get sick smiling that much. Sounds like nothing’s really changed outside of it being called a Barony these days.

Also just like the real Rarity, Melody loves to hear herself talk.

“Oh, darling! Should the poster label Grogar as a tyrant? Or an evil tyrant? One seems a bit redundant, don’tcha know?”

“Tell me, Trixie, what could generate more fame and praise than taking down a wicked villain like Grogar? If nothing else, it would impress me~” (yes, she said it like that).



I don’t know what to do with that information.



“You don’t suppose I could borrow those fireworks of yours?” she asked one day. “They’d go marvelously well with this little attack we’re planning. A dramatic finish to a dramatic stab at freedom and justice! It’d be simply divine!”

Should have been more suspicious about that last one, but Trixie was on some bombin’ tea whenever the subject of my fireworks came up. Probably on purpose. Actually, definitely on purpose.

I don’t like these guys, let’s be honest. If it weren’t for Swirly—

Trixie is getting ahead of herself.



Okay, unpacking some things real quick.

First off, Melody Song is well-regarded in the official histories of this time period. Mostly since she wrote a lot of the primary sources for this time period. Kinda smells funny to me, but from what I’ve seen and read, most of the weird inaccuracies we’ve been finding were added onto her original records decades or centuries later. Sometimes by literal sticky-notes.

The most complete version of her History of the Great War was lost in a fire prior to the Hearth’s Warming event, so there’s not a lot to go on, sadly.

But as for the moon thing? Trixie’s right on it. The Moon’s phases are a convenient way to tell time these days, but according to this text and a few fringe theorists in the academic community, Luna didn’t invent them! They were an original naturalist means of telling time, since the moon used to orbit the planet regularly. Astonishing!

I reached out to the head of your Astronomancy division, and presented this ‘theory’ under an assumed name. According to your secretary Abacus Cinch, Professor Starbright Bloom nearly peed himself laughing, and then dunked my letter in the trash.

So, once again, pleeeeease let this be published! I wanna see the look on his stupid face!



Gusty was the most pleasant to talk with, actually. Sure, she was worried like everypony else that the moon’s phases weren’t a thing anymore. And sure, she asked some hard questions when Joyous somepony noticed that the days weren’t getting longer as Summer approached.

So. That’s also not a Celestia thing. Wonder what the Princesses actually invented over the years?

But, really. Outside of that, she was a lot nicer company.

Trixie was, naturally, worried at first that she’d ask me how I knew about her tribe. But she seemed to buy Swirly’s story about me being a great wiz

She understood that I was a traveling magician, and though the distances are harder to travel in this day and age, she must have thought I was more than capable of it. I think kirin must not have changed much since this time to the present, since the few things I knew about their culture seemed to check out with her.

Theatrics, mostly. Kirin love that stuff. Any sort of art, or music, or theater, or whatever, they were always up for it. Melody might be a natural songwriter and lyricist, but that didn’t stop Gusty from trying to be the best dang actor/singer/writer/performer/circus-clown/dancer who ever lived.

And if she didn’t suck out loud at each and every one of those things, that’d be great. I mean, Trixie loves her, don’t get me wrong. But she sings like a dying bullfrog, and acts like a really, really, really bad actor.

That was oddly worded. I’m tired, Journal. Get off my back.

But being bad at art? Not a great time for kirin in any era, so she decided to leave home and seek her fortune elsewhere, doing literally anything else. I really admire her, honestly. Gusty’s a real adventurer! She’s seen the world, visited many mysterious places, plumbed the depths of the earth and crossed the highest mountain tops. She’s visited many wondrous civilizations, and even looted some of them.

Oh, right. She’s kind of a viking. Or, a former one. Don’t know how that works, exactly.



I will never forgive Trixie if she doesn’t share that story right now.

Rockhoof was good enough to explain what a viking is. I don’t know how or why Trixie knows about them, but it was a profession back before Equestria was founded. Like being a professional bandit, but a professional regardless. Earth ponies were big into it, for some reason. I guess he once tried to get Applebloom to go a-viking with him before he realized it’s illegal to raid towns these days (outside of Yakyakistan, oddly enough).



I suppose that needs explaining.



YES



Since Gusty (Gusty Flame, full name) couldn’t make her way in the art scene back home among the kirin—

Ah, not the Peaks of Peril! The kirin in the here and now live way, way away, in some place called the Kirin Grove. I didn’t want to ask about it, since that would tip my hoof to Gusty, but it sounds like some sort of migration might’ve happened at some point. Wish I asked Autumn Blaze more about it, actually.

So, she left home and became a wandering adventurer. Saw the world, met all sorts of creatures, the usual. She even knows about Nomad Marks! I tell ya, Journal, I can get along with this mare! The fact that she’s used to beating up ponies and creatures for money sort of sours it, but she had a good reason.

Sucking at art is a reason, right?

Honestly, it sounds like she had a real change of heart once she saw how bad ponies here were getting it from Grogar and his monsters. Not that she really talked all that much about it.

Like, here! Day 2 of my little imprisonment:

“So, what’s a mare with a mysterious past and crazy cool magic doing in a dump like Gallopoli?” she asked me.

Trixie was about to answer when Gusty, admittedly, got me.

“But enough about me!” she super fake-laughed. “What about you? Not every day a traveling magician can break the moon.”

“It was a one-time, special event,” I laughed back, though I think one of my ribs cracked a bit when I did. “Had to be there.”

She smiled, and lowered another spoonful of Blossom’s awesome veggie soup to my mouth. I fully credit that mare’s cooking with giving Trixie the will to get better, while also making me want to stay in bed a bit longer. She never— 

Blossom never told me the recipe. Dangit.

*small passage lost to water damage, tears?*

“… could use that kinda power, you know?”

Joyous Guard was a bit of a jerk, and I don’t think he trusted me – then or even now – and Melody always pushed a little too hard for me to join them without outright saying it. At least with Gusty, she was direct, if blunt.

“Not interested,” I told her. “I gotta get Swirly back to his family. Wherever they are. I’m too busy, and he’s too young to get involved in your little rebellion.”

“Sure, sure!” she said with a nod, but Trixie could tell she was straining a bit. “I get that, really. No worries… hey! Did you know I learned some stage magician magic myself?”

That got a smile out of me. I knew she was deflecting, but it was a good deflection. Game recognizes game.

“So, you’re the Great Gusty now, are you?”

“Gusty the Great, actually,” she said with a proud sniff. “I haven’t practiced in years, but lemme see if I can…” She brought out a tiny coin, and started spinning and shifting it around, not unlike how I’d taught Swirly, just a few weeks before.

Trixie will admit, Gusty was good. Not as good as the Great a me, however. It was obvious she’d not practiced in a long time in the way she slid the copper coin from hoof to hoof, but it wasn’t bad. Just rusty.

Now, her acting on the other hoof, was just awful! Trixie already said it, but Gusty’s acting is worse than Celestia’s! By a lot, too. Half the act, for most magic tricks, was getting the audience on your side, getting them to want to be tricked.

The only thing Gusty could get an audience to want is cotton balls.

Ah, but Trixie is stalling, Journal. You probably want to know about the other stuff. I get that. I do.

Tough. This is my story! And Trixie shall tell her story as she wills!

Even if she’s going crazy talking to a book.

Aw, heck. You’re a better listener than most. I shouldn’t be so hard on you.



There’s a missing page here. From the way the paper tore, it looks like Trixie might’ve bitten it out and eaten it. I don’t think I want to know what she wrote.

Also, Celestia? Acting? Is there a story I don’t know about?



“Be-hold!” Gusty said in that really slow, fake type of acting we all some less-than-Trixie actors start with. “Now watch… wait, watching is beholding, right?”

“Right.”

I swear, the nervous smile she gave me was just like that Sunset Shimmer pony.

If you haven’t met her, Journal

Trixie has only ever met Sunset a few times, but every time I could tell she used to be so much more than she was. She was like Trixie, actually. She used to be brave, and powerful. She used to know what she wanted out of life, and took no guff in trying to achieve her dreams, no matter what other loser ponies thought about it.

Gusty was the same, I think. Joyous and Melody, they liked talking about how they met. They loved going on about “inequality this” and “persecution that” when they talked about the things they’d seen that made them want to fight Grogar. But with Gusty, every time I think she’s about to open up about what made her found this silly rebellion thing, she goes and zags away with some new story.

Admittedly, good stories. Like how she tricked a dragon into flying her across the Himallama mountains with an egg and a giant feather. She—

*smudged ink stains and mold makes the next page unreadable*



I hate everything.



I haven’t cracked that code yet, but I’ll get there. Sunset got blown up by the Elements of Harmony. Whatever hurt Gusty, and made her doubt herself and her Greatness, must have been pretty bad.

She lit up her horn, and transformed in front of my eyes. Not into a nirik, no. She turned into an exact duplicate of Melody Song!

Well. ‘Exact’ might be pushing it. It was a really good illusion, no doubt about it. But I could tell, even without my horn being able to scan the spell Gusty used, that she was burning through mana like nopony’s business.

Freakin’ Record’s Syndrome. I can’t get away from it. Why couldn’t Trixie have been born with some freaky genetic disease, huh?



Yikes. If she only knew, right?



“Pretty cool, right?” she asked me with a half-winning smile. “I may not have been great at the whole ‘acting’ thing, or singing, or dancing, or…”

She coughed, and made a good attempt at shuffling her ‘wings’. I take it back, actually. Her physical acting was pretty great, all things considered.

“But magic? I can do magi… uh oh.”

The illusion began to crumble, first with Gusty’s thick, kirin-mane slowly cracking through Melody’s chest, and then more so as the wings fell apart like a campfire burning down to embers. It was like watching cheap glass turning into lightning, and then dust.

She scowled bitterly as the last of her disguise flecked away. “Ah, phooey,” she said with a pout. “I’m really out of practice. Been using practical and combat magic so long… guess my endurance hasn’t held up.”

“You’re really just powering through with pure magical power, aren’t you?” Trixie asked, though I already knew the answer.

Gusty’s ears drooped.

“I guess I am,” she admitted. “I’ve always had this… this power, you know? But magical theory and spells are so hard to get right. Nopony teaches this stuff, especially not since Grogar took over.”

She sort of rambled for a couple of minutes after that, about how Grogar had gone out of his way to destroy any school or magic teacher he could get his hooves on when he’d conquered the place. It sounded awful, of course, but by this point I was a little wary of Gusty and Melody’s pitches to join them, so I didn’t give it much thought.

I really should have. I really, really should have.

Because what she told me next almost blew my mind.

Grogar only allowed a few bits of magic in his realm. Unicorns could still use their horns for everyday stuff. Earth ponies could farm (though it sounds like plants grow naturally here; weird). And Pegasi could fly and move clouds.

But anything more advanced had to be done under his watch… OR use Musical Notation.

Journal.

JOURNAL.

Musical. Notations.

That’s my thing!

No, no. This isn’t a “Trixie” thing. I’m not that conceited. But Grogar is using Musical Notation in his spells. I should have seen it earlier, with the bells and the chimes and the whole ‘music ram’ theme his whole operation is going for!

I know what this means!

I just didn’t realize it then.

If I did, Gallopoli wouldn’t be gone.

Can’t think like that, Trixie. Mustn’t think that. That’s too much. Too big.

I gotta tell Gusty. How do I tell Gusty? Oh jeez, how do I tell Melody? Technically, she killed Gallopoli. AND I HELPED.

I need a minute, Journal.

Scratch that, Trixie needs some cider.

Grogar is the same as Trixie.



Trixie drew several lines through her journal here, indicating a break in time, I guess. And depending on what, precisely, she meant by that last bombshell, I don’t blame her.

Remember what I got out of Grogar before?

“So, Grogar’s empire was based on Disharmony. Like, the literal bastardization of harmony, song, melody, magic, and even harmony like with relationships. It all fueled his dark magic and allowed him to alter reality basically on a whim. He built bells that could erase whole towns from existence. He had chimes and cymbals that could change the way ponies thought.” 

I think this has something to do with that. It fits too well.

I’m a little scared, if I’m being honest. Trixie not being so Trixie-ish gets a little worrisome, you know?







Okay, Trixie is back.

So. Journal. Have you ever

Nameless reader of the far future. Have you ever considered the Magic of Friendship? Like, what is it? Where does it come from? What does it do?

See, there’s a reason that Trixie

There’s a reason why I am appear to be so Great and Powerful. And it might not surprise you, if you’ve read thus far, that my greatness and powerfulness are not from being a naturally magical mare. No, far from it.

Trixie is a 3. On that stupid, stupid scale they made us use back in magic elementary, Trixie Lulamoon registered only a measly 3 out of a total of 10.

“But, Trixie!” I hear you say. “You’re so talented! So magical! You are the most magical, most skilled unicorn in all of Equestria! How do you do it when you have less magic than a magic-surging foal?”

One, that’s quite rude of you, future reader. Accurate, but rude.

And there is an answer. As you well know, Trixie learned long ago that in order to cast most spells, I would have to rip them apart. I taught myself how to remove all the safety equations and bits that didn’t really matter to what I wanted to do.

Cloud-walking spell? Great, I can use a part of its equations and coding to reduce my weight so I could go super-fast!

Need a spell to boil water for cooking? Take a banana or some nuts, and cast a low-energy blasting spell at them. Voila! They start radiating heat, fast!



Bananas and nuts contain a large amount of potassium. Which thautomic mages Prance Pen and Madame Cutie discovered could be excited with low-magic impulses in order to produce extreme thaumatic events.

Trixie’s been irradiating herself, essentially.



But that is but one half of my success, reader. Journal. Whatever.

I write my spells in musical notation.

Why, you may ask? Because it’s so much easier! Think about it: to cast a spell, a unicorn needs to think up a big long series of equations, and pump enough magical energy into each part or array of runes, symbols, and numbers to get what they want to happen. Sure, emotion can help push one to casting more and more powerful spells, but ultimately, it’s the amount of mana you got, and if you did the math right.

Sorry, Starlight. If you ever read this, I didn’t really need the transmutation lessons. Those started because I figured you needed the confidence boost. Don’t be mad at Trixie. I meant well. And the teleportation lesson was still real! Trixie still isn’t great at that sort of thing.



Right, cut that bit out before you publish this. Pretty sure Starlight would go back in time to beat on her for that.



So, Trixie gets by on the mana thing by 1) cutting out everything in the spell that’s nonessential, and 2) I write it in musical notation.

Music uses symbols and signs with extra meaning to them. Notes on a page describe something that’s mathematically true, while also describing how that math affects reality! A note describing an A-major isn’t just a dot on a scale, but a tiny symbol describing how the airwaves are changed by that note being played.

Musical notes take up a fraction of the same amount of space as raw math. So, I can cut down on the inputs of a spell in order to make it even more efficient!

Don’t you see? I’m double-cheating! Double-dipping on mana-cutting. My spells are tiny, efficient, and easy to cast.

It’s still cheating. A con. But Trixie is more than okay with that.

And yet, for all my cutting costs and corners, I know that I’m not—

I’m

This is really hard.

I’m not all that magical. My best tricks could be done by Twilight in her sleep, if she put any thought into them.

And that’s because musical notation isn’t a great cheat. It cuts down on the power needed to cast spells, sure, but it also limits just how expressive my spells can get. Let’s face it, no amount of semihemidemisemiquavers are gonna fully explain a levitation spell like spelling out the raw numbers would.

I’m good, Journal. I’m really good. But there’s only so much that skill can make up for power. That’s why my fireworks are partly alchemical. That’s why acrobatics, mirrors, and sleight of hoof are still a big part of my act. I can bend magic to the breaking point, but I can’t break it.

Alright, that’s a fib.

Because there’s still one trick that musical notation can do.

See. The Magic of Friendship? It’s all about Harmony.

Harmony is when lots of different things work together to become one thing bigger than all the little parts alone. Harmony is also when you get all sorts of sounds, and pitches, notes, chords, etc, to play together nicely.

Somepony might say that those are two different definitions of Harmony.

They’re wrong. Though, admittedly, even I only fully realized that after Twilight taught me what friendship was.

Friendship is magic. Magic is Friendship. The ability that ponies and creatures have to work together. To add their strengths together. My student-friend Gallus, for instance? The magic of friendship means that even though he suuuucks at cooking, all he has to do is ask Sandbar, his friend, for some tips.

And that omelet was absolutely wonderful, by the way. Just in case either of you miscreants are reading this one day. Best thing I’ve had in years!

And just, like, a few weeks ago, they were using their Friendship to shoot a rainbow death laser at those three idiots with Grogar’s bell! See!? Friendship is Magic!

But Harmony is more than just creatures getting along. It’s a physical thing, something you can measure in the real world. And it’s effected by sound. By music! Why the heck do you think ponies can spontaneously break into musical numbers? It’s because when we’re too full of emotions, they bubble over into our magic, and explode outward.

Friendship is Magic.

Magic is Music.

Music is Harmony.

Harmony is Friendship.

I learned all this back in Celestia’s School, so I can’t tell you why nopony seems to have ever figured this part out. I just don’t get it. It’s so easy to boost your power, just by doing the notations, but more than that, using Music as part of your spellcasting lets you cheat more!

Everything is music. The entire world. Everycreature in it. We’re all just notes in a song that’s bigger than the entire universe.

How else do you think I could change Rarity’s mane into a nest, when mane magic is obviously impossible? I just changed the notes that made her mane a mane. How did I grab Rainbow Dash’s rainbow-afterimage? I just changed the notes, again.

And that’s the great tragedy of Trixie. The true sadness I must grapple with. I know how to change reality, but I can’t. Even with all that I know, Trixie only has so much magic to her name. There’s only so much I can do with all this knowledge.

But Grogar? His magic is ridiculous.

Bells that can drain magic?

Bells that can cause pain when you lie?

Sirens that can destroy cities.

It’s too much. Too, too much! He really is a monster. Or, he’s just like me. A con. But if he’s a con, and he’s not so powerful, then how can he break the rules so much harder than me!?

And—

It’s too much.

We can’t win.

How do I tell Melody? That song, that Heartsong she got started as we took back Gallopoli, was the worst possible thing she could have done.

If you know how to Musically Annotate your spells, Journal, you can always tell when somecreature else is doing them. When that Pain Bell hit me back at the Troggle camp, it hurt really badly. But I could tell there was something off about it. And now I know.

When that Siren destroyed Gallopoli, I could hear the notes.

Grogar can hear ours too. If I was him, and I’m glad I’m not, that’s what I’d do. Why not? Just build a big old bell that told me whenever anycreature used music in their magic.

He wouldn’t even need spies, would he?

I can’t let anypony sing.

I have to get Swirly out of here.



That’s exactly what Grogar said. Almost word-for-word. The music, the harmony, all of it. Divine Synesthesia. Friendship is Magic is Harmony is Music is Friendship.

Why don’t unicorns use this more? Why is it I can’t find a shred of information on Musical Notation in magic, outside of a few long dead academics who no one took seriously, or who just seemed to vanish from public life? Even Trixie’s ancestor, Night Song? The one who served Luna as her own Court Mage?

Yeah, his notes are buried under a mountain of critical research papers without proper sourcing. And newspapers with character hit-pieces from after the Nightmare Rebellion (but before Celestia covered up Luna’s involvement) that practically blamed him for the whole affair. And there’s outright pseudoscience and pseudomagical conspiracy rags providing “““Evidence””” that proved the whole Harmony field was bunk.

This is almost conspiracy theory territory. No, scratch that. This is conspiracy theory central. I sound like I’m one of those nuts who think the planet is round. Or those crazies who think nature can work without ponies—

Oh. Crap. That’s not crazy, is it? We’re so far down the rabbit hole at this point. Nothing adds up.

I’ll keep digging, but maybe you ought to ask around your own sources? I bet the Princesses know something about this. Unless they’re in on it.

But we’ve got two wrinkles to deal with first. The next couple pages (chapters, really) are funky. Like, Trixie’s in the middle of a panic-attack right now. Or, a thousand and more years ago, while she was writing this entry. But after this, she instantly calms down. I don’t buy that. Largely because of wrinkle two.

Starswirl left a message here, as well.







And so now, my dearest Trixie, we come to this section of our journey. It’s strange, reading this and realizing how much time passed between events and your chronicling of them. Right now, in your narrative, you and Gusty are talking magic. You’re still recovering (and haven’t run away yet) from your trauma. We hadn’t needed to get out the leather belts yet, or the padlock.

And yet, as you wrote these words, He was in your mind. Plying his wicked magicks in the hope of winning a future that was never his.

Oh, but I suppose, despite how much I hated that stallion, I shouldn’t speak ill of him. His life was a tragedy, after all. Destined to walk a path that would never bring him happiness or what he desired most.

I wonder, at times, what would have become of the Baron de Penumbra had he turned aside from his black desires, even just before the end?

I suppose I’ll never know.







The Baron de Penumbra. Now that’s a name. A name to run away from very, very quickly, actually.

The Crystal Empire has never been all that massive, historically. Even in the ancient, mythical days of Princess Amore the First, who supposedly built the Crystal Heart, the weather dome around the city stretched many, many more miles out from where it currently covers. Most of the Empire is, in actuality, under snow and glacial ice that’ll likely never be melted again. Not unless Cadance can suddenly master her ancestor’s true power and make a second heart.

One of the CE’s many little constituent parts is the Barony de Penumbra. It’s actually just within the dome itself. By law, it is a holding of Princess Cadance directly. The Barony was founded by a unicorn mare by the name of Blackfire Shadow, and was by tradition the most ardent and loyal of all Amore’s followers.

The trouble is, her son was the only actual Baron of the barony. Somber Heart, the Baron of Penumbra. History, however, remembers him by a very different title. His regnal one.

King Sombra.

Look, I know things will turn out mostly okay. Time travel, and all that. But this is Sombra. And just about every story he ever factored into was a tragedy. I can’t help but worry.







Princess Twilight sighed, slowly, and looked up from her reading. She sat in her room, atop the deep purple covers of her bed, where she’d been reading all night. And all day.

And into the next day, as well. But that was fine, since the Simulacrum Spell was still working, so she was also drafting a bill on griffon import tariffs down in the throne room, and was spending a few quiet minutes with Gallus down in the labs where the new Thaumo-spectrometer was busy trying to get a bead on Discord’s magical signature.

So far, no luck. All three copies of the princess sighed at this lack of progress. Two of them snorted at the thought that Sombra of all ponies factored into Trixie’s tale now.

The one with Gallus sneered, and tapped the magical device irritably, willing it to finally find the sneaky draconequus.

Nothing happened.

Nothing except for a small puff of green dragonfire, which dropped a small, crumpled note onto Twilight’s desk.

And once she’d read it, both of her mentally-linked clones promptly vanished in a flash of light, recombining, and allowing the now sole Princess of Equestria to storm out of her rooms, and sprint towards the Royal Library. Every guard along the route either fell back in surprise, or tried to get a magical warning sent ahead, to at least buy time for their fellows to get the civilians out of the way.

For when Princess Twilight Sparkle was held in the grip of her madness-place, a crazed scholarly drive that could only be satiated by answers, it was no wonder that no sane creature would stand before her.



Dear Princess Twilight;

Starswirl just entered the library. He’s wandering around right now, I haven’t spoken to him yet. Cabbie is gonna distract him, but ever since that creepy Hearth's Warming thing he wrote, I know you've wanted to talk to Starswirl yourself.


Hurry.
Daring