//------------------------------//
// Do Zebras Dream of Stripy Sheep? 
// Story: The Legend of Trixie 
// by Ninjadeadbeard 
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Right. Where was I?

So, Journal. I told a fib. While it is true that Trixie spent about two weeks tied down to a bed, she didn’t quite spend all of it tied down. Not at first.

No, first I spent a day laying about and napping. Then, a day talking to Joyous Guard and Melody Song.

And then, on the third day, I made my escape!

Trixie doesn’t like hospitals. Never have, never will. And I have much experience breaking into and out of such places, which I will add are built like evil, antiseptic dungeons. Fortresses, more like. And this place, the inn, was beginning to feel very hospital to me. Eating, sleeping, and not doing a single other thing whenever there wasn’t somepony else to take my mind off it.

That was not The Great and Powerful way I wanted to live, Journal. I may sometimes come across differently, but when Trixie is pampered and served by others, it is at her own request! At least then, I could take a walk or something.

So that’s what I decided to do.

Escaping the ropes was a non-issue. Sure, Swirly learned how to tie knots from me, and he’d used those skills well, but I hadn’t taught him everything. I studied all the tricks of the Great Hoofdini, and I’d read up on escape techniques developed by the famous Gentlestallion thief, Arson Loose Pin.

All I had to do was pull all of my limbs out of their sockets, and I would have enough slack in the ropes to escape! 

No problem!

A piece of cake!

Trixie is lying, it hurt like TARTARUS!



Three things:

One: OW. 

Two: Trixie’s obvious dislike for hospitals definitely stems from foalhood trauma. I’ve mentioned before that she never manages to stay in a hospital no matter what’s happened to her, and it may just be because of all the time she spent in them visiting her mother before the end. Records from Golden Hour Memorial indicate she spent more time there than home or school. Celestia made special dispensations, but there’s only so much you can miss before it starts to drag.

And three: Arson Loose Pin is a legendary figure in the adventurer community. The very original Gentlestallion Thief, he – or rather, his author/public persona LeFlank – pioneered the field of disguises. From makeup to acting, he could transform himself into anypony he wished, and he used that to get into big, high society functions where he could rob everypony blind. He never stole from somepony who couldn’t afford it, or who didn’t have a comeuppance deserved. Rob from the rich, and give to the poor, you know?

Yes, it does seem like every writer out there is secretly their own best character. The irony isn’t lost on me.

Now, his grandfoal, Loose Pin the Third? That colt needs to get his teeth knocked in. He’s an actual criminal, and not like Cabbie used to be. A real bad horse, that one. Like, could I get you to imprison him in a random celestial body when we’re done here? It’d be a public service.





Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle;

This is Carmare Sandineighgo. So sorry to bother you, but if my mom asks you to send my coltfriend to the moon or something? Please don’t. It will mean a lot of paperwork for you, and about a week’s worth of work for me to break him out again.

No. I’m not exaggerating. Love your work, btw! Let me know if you need something burgled in the name of Friendship or something!

Luv, C.S.



Trixie had to bite down on one of the ropes to keep from screaming too loudly. I was sure Blossom and Snuzzle would run right into the room at any moment, but it would seem luck was on my side. Nopony came to help or hinder me.

So, after disassembling myself, and then reassembling myself, Trixie was ready to take on the city! To paint the town red a lovely shade of azure!

Problem was, getting out of the inn. I first tried the main door to the room, and quickly found there was something wrong. Specifically, there was a lot more tension on the doorhandle than I remembered. I’d done enough work with Grey Prancer to know when somepony had a trap rigged up, so I knew the signs.

Blossom had been in the army. And Snuzzle had been running a business in the bad part of town for decades.

Sure enough, once I’d managed to wedge a little mirror (from the washbasin) under the door, I could just make out the sight of a crossbow with its latch connected by a length of string to the handle.

Gusty or Swirly must’ve said something, I figured. I’d mentioned some stuff about hospitals before, so they probably got an idea I might try this. 



Starswirl: Actually, it was the way she kept twitching and gnawing at the ropes when she thought we weren’t looking. Wish we’d acted a bit earlier, now. You can’t imagine how upset I was when I got back to the room for lunch with a new padlock, and found she’d flown the coop.



The crossbow had a primitive-looking net-canister slotted into it instead of a bolt, but that was still nothing to sniff at! They were trying to capture me!

Nopony captures TRIXIE LULAMOON!!!

Oof, reading that back, Journal? Irony. Super Irony.

Unfortunately, crossbows in this day and age didn’t have models, so I couldn’t tell where this one’s point of failure might be. No way to disarm it without the darn thing loosing at me.

For anypony in the future reading this, Trixie recommends Clash Kickoff’s brand of crossbows for your self-and-home defense needs. You can jam up one of Hackle and Coach’s garbage crossbows with some string, chewed bubblegum, and a silver half-bit.



It’s a little worrying how much Trixie knows about home defense and how to thwart it. I mean, I know this stuff too, but that’s because of my husband’s former career.

I’m starting to wonder (she says sarcastically) if Grey Prancer was a good influence on Trixie, after all.



Well, if life puts a crossbow in your face, it just means there’s a window waiting for you.

Trixie doesn’t know where she was going with that. Suffice to say, it took no effort at all for me to climb out the window and reach the streets of Gallopoli.

Gallopoli. It was a nice town, really. You know, before I killed

Stop thinking about that, Trixie. Tell Melody in the morning. Finishing this is important.

The place was just packed with creatures. Some were, sure, Grogar’s dragons and Troggles and centaurs and satyrs and other stuff. But there were also a lot more creatures living there, trading and living and all that good stuff, than I ever thought. It’s more creature-friendly than modern Equestria! Well, not really. About as diverse, if not as nice to each other, more like.

Kind of makes me wonder what happened between then and now now and then. If future Equestria ended up being a pony-only place, why were there so many non-ponies here in the past?

Oh. And what about Hearth’s Warming? Now that Trixie thinks about it, did the part about ponies coming here from a distant country not happen? Or did it, and we all forgot we came from here first?

Bah! Stop distracting me, Journal! Trixie needs to finish her recollecting! Despite how much of it is left to do!

Anyway, Trixie had a few silvers in her mane, and I was hoping to grab some nice lunch or a souvenir somewhere. Didn’t want to stay in town too long, but I always get something like a postcard, or a little Liberty Statue, or a bobblehead whenever I travel. Heck, part of the reason I accepted Starlight’s invitation to stay in Twilight’s Castle during the school year was so I could dump all my souvenirs into the basement.



Fun Fact:

According to Luster Dawn, the Friendship Castle appears to spawn little knick-knacks and souvenirs for visitors using magic. This has been locally attributed to the Tree of Harmony sharing cultural touchstones with visitors, in an obvious display of camaraderie and friendship.

Luster tells me she thinks the Spirit of Harmony is just trying to offload Trixie’s crap onto anycreature who’ll take it.



Trixie would only ever eat meat as a desperate, last-ditch move to avoid starving, but even I had to admit the griffon shawarma stands smelled delightful. There were also some tasty looking Yak hayballs, a soup stand run by a dragon who looked an awful lot like guy-Smolder-but-blue and used his own breath to keep the food cooking, and even a Llama selling papas a la huancaina!

Journal, you don’t know good food until you get it from a Llama. Those creatures know what they’re doing with potatoes, lemme tell you.

But there was a small problem with that plan. Well, two problems.

Problem one was, Swirly was performing.

Obviously, the performing part wasn’t a problem, Journal. Don’t be mean. In fact, Swirly was doing very well. No, the problem was that Trixie didn’t want to get caught five minutes into her break for freedom. And as much as that kid loves me, he wasn’t as much of a pushover as he’d been back in Hyneighria. He’d grown up, just a bit. He wouldn’t let me get away with something like this easily.

And judging by what happened after this whole mess, I guess Trixie was right to worry about getting caught.

Luckily, there was a conveniently located cloak nearby. The Yak who was selling it didn’t even seem to mind

It was one cloak, Journal. Don’t judge me.

There was a little square in the middle of this mini Restaurant Row, and Swirly had (Trixie will admit) expertly picked out a good spot before the other vendors had squeezed him out. He even managed to snag a corner spot, ensuring maximum visibility for his act. And with my new hood up, I could watch it and see just how my apprentice was doing.

He was alright. Better than last time, at any rate. He still had that adorable charm he’d had from before, but it was obvious his lessons in hoofwork with me were paying off. It was less ‘oops did I do that’ adorable, and more ‘when this kid is grown, you’re gonna tell your grandkids about how you saw him before he was famous’.

I mean. That’s just baseline Trixie. But the fact that he could manage even ten percent of my natural ability spoke volumes about his skill. He was still Starswirl the Bearded, after all. Most famous of all wizards.

But he was still wearing that red outfit from before. So, no points.



According to Starswirl: “Every colt goes through a red-and-black phase! Is it really my fault that Trixie has preserved my time of shame for you to see? And is it really my fault that she was teaching a prodigy in the mystic arts?”

They really are made for each other, aren’t they?



Swirly did the ‘Ring’ trick alright, to begin with. He hammed up the act and got the crowd interested first, which was important. But then he scuffed the landing by not being able to take the rings apart after he’d put them together. Just once, but I’d have to talk with him about marking again. He’d clearly lost sight of the break.

His coin tricks were better tolerable. We’d practiced a routine on the road, but this was the first time I’d seen him perform it live. He told a little story of mine as he performed, something made up but filled with little jokes and puns. I had to modify it to work in Old Ponish, but he carried it well. He even ad-libbed a few lines.

All while flipping, spinning, and sleight-of-hoofing a whole bag full of (fake) silver bits. They’d fly up, but never come down. Spin along his hoof or the brim of his hat. Appear and disappear like magic (but only the one at the end where he vanished, leaving the coins behind in a neat little pile).

It was fine. Good enough. Trixie is secure enough in her own greatness to see that.



Starswirl’s notes in the margin: “Good enough!? Did you not notice the part where I turned a coin into a cloud of doves? Of course not. You didn’t care back then that I’d finally gotten a teleportation spell to work without turning my clothes inside out. You were a demanding teacher. Makes me wonder sometimes if I’m too soft on Clever, trying to teach him your old routine. I should get the boulders out again.”

Clever’s notes, amended to Starswirl’s: “Thanks, Trixie. Now I know why Master Starswirl tied me to a boulder and threw me down a greased pit. Even if you were some sort of Hero back in the day, if you weren’t already dead I’d like to give you a piece of my mind.”

Starswirl, today: “It wasn’t a pit. It was barely six feet. He’s just being dramatic.”



One thing I should have noticed, however, was the lack of fireworks in his act. They were easy enough to make. Heck, Swirly had made some for me during our little hike through the Everfree. It’s not hard, just proprietary-information.

I don’t think I remembered to ask him about that. At least, not before it didn’t matter anymore. I noticed his hooves were way too clean, in the evenings. Like he’d cleaned them. Which nopony in the here and now really does. So it’s obvious in hindsight that he was washing off the powders and materials before coming home.

But one cannot blame Trixie for not seeing it yet. I had not yet realized the depths of deviousness to which my apprentice could sink.

So proud of him!

Angry, now that I know what I know.

But proud.

Good show. Needs some improvement in the legwork and in transitions. Left a little too much dead air for my liking. Four outta ten. Three stars.

Whatever. It’s not like he didn’t still need me, you know?

Because he does.

He really doesn’t, actually. I mean, he is Starswirl the Bearded, right? And we’d only been working together for a month or two. We weren’t like—

He was fine.

He is fine.

Right?

Anyway. Food. Trixie’s tummy was telling her to forget the kid for now and grab something yummy and scrumptious. So far, I hadn’t seen a Burger Princess anywhere in the past, but there had to be something good in a city this big. Heck, it was a pegasus city, so every building had a second and third story, some of which were obviously flyer-only restaurants but most at least had ladders. And with so many varied types of food all around me, Trixie was spoiled for choice, and for smell.

And what heavenly smell did I smell perceive? Nothing but the best! Wafting over all the other smells and tastes and foods of the market, Trixie could detect the indescribable, delicious sensa—

Delicious is a description, right?

It was ramen. Like, Good ramen. The stuff with eggs and mushrooms and garlic and green onions in it? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had real Eastern unicorn food, but that smell brought back a lot of good memories. Memories of CSGU. Memories of the road.

Trixie’s luck was turning around, I thought.

Ha.

I said, HA!



I spent a long time in college, getting my degrees in Literature and Archeology. Whether it was in the halls of Pranceton University, or the cramped undergrad dorms at Cloudsdale A&M (Go Storks!), everypony lived off ramen. Cheap, calorie-rich, and it had enough salt to keep you up for a week-long study-binge. But I bet you probably know all about study-tactics, eh?







Twilight slowly raised her head up from the newest pages from Daring.

A knowing smirk came to her face, and a low, menacing chuckle bloomed in her chest.

“Amateurs,” she laughed. “You know not what powers and dark magicks I employed in my study-binges. You know nothing, Daring Do! NOTHING!”

Her cruel laughter rattled the clocks and knick-knacks spread across her office, only momentarily interrupted as the Princess’s magic hefted up the noodle bowl to her lips. She swallowed several mouthfuls of the spicy, salty broth and ramen.

It tasted good.

It tasted… like Academia…







Mistmane, despite being an eastern unicorn, has no idea what ramen is, since it’s actually a completely different style of cooking from what she’s used to. Totally different part of Equestria. Different time period by about six centuries. Well, she’s learned about it since, but I guess the stuff we consider ramen is relatively recent and inauthentic. Kind of robs it of the mystery, doesn’t it?



So, Trixie said there were two problems, didn’t she?

Swirly was one.

You’ll never guess what the other one was. Never.

Go on, guess! Trixie can wait all day for—

Journals cannot wait. This was known to Trixie. That was a test.

So, you remember way, way back in Hyneighria? Everything that happened there? The fighting and the screaming and the fire? And the monsters chasing Swirly through the woods? The centaur, the satyr, and the manticore? The ones that I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, had to defeat using only my wits, and my cat-like reflexes?

Yeah. So.

They were enjoying a nice bowl of ramen when I walked up and bumped into the manticore’s flank.

“Hey, watch it you pony!” he snarled. The manticore stood up from his seat and towered over me. I actually forgot how they can stand on their hind legs. Made it easier, in his case, to hold up a freaking mace to smash my head in with.

Thinking fast, I pitched my voice down, and stuttered (on purpose), “Uh, n-no problem, g-good sir! I wasn’t looking for trouble…”

“Aw, leave it alone, Mark,” the Satyr – now no longer red and black, but a more normal grey and white like that Storm King’s creatures – said from his other side, and shot a one-eyed glare my way. “Ain’t worth it. Just eat your lunch.”

That was definitely different. That satyr looked like he’d had all the paint (tattoos?) stripped off him. Before, he was bright red and black, like Tirek’s colors. And I certainly didn’t remember doing anything to the guy to take out an eye, which now had an eyepatch covering.

Now that Trixie is thinking about it, the manticore, Mark, seemed a bit haggard as well. Mane not so thick. Coat not so bright. He kinda looked like he’d been trod on. The stitching on the top of his head, where I’d dropped that tree branch, I’ll take credit for, but these three were in one piece when I last saw them.



Asked Grogar about that. At first, all he said was that “Failure deserved punishment.” Which is pretty on-brand for him. After that, however, I managed to get him to elaborate.

I would not recommend doing that, in the future. Apparently there are ‘songs’ and ‘sounds’ he knows that can shatter bones and warp flesh. Or just age things into dust. Harmonic magic could make words heavy enough to break your jaw just from speaking them. Make your sight so sharp it cuts you from the inside.

He then took the last chocolate donut in the library break room, and scampered away. I hate him so much.



And then the centaur!

“Would you two shut up about ponies!?” he growled. “We been out on dis trip for months now, and I’m sick of ponies-this! Ponies-that! Ponies, ponies, ponies…!”

Woo, colt. That centaur, last I saw him, was kinda pudgy and ugly. Now, he was still really ugly, especially with a whole new set of scars and bruises covering him up, but he also looked practically starved. Loose skin hung off his bones!

The manticore rolled his eyes, and looked back at his other companion. “Jezzer? Would you quit complaining? All I’ve heard from you is complaining, and I’m sick of that.”

“Can we please just eat?” the satyr sighed. He sipped at his bowl, and added, “Seriously, we can get back to searching later. Just… lemme eat?”

“You can eat my hoof,” Mark grumbled back. “Slove, you lost yer edge? Ever since…”

“Cheese and crackers, what happened to you?” Trixie asked. Forgetting, naturally, that Trixie was trying to flee from these three monsters as fast as possible.

It’s just, they were so pathetic, you know? Like, they looked like they’d lost a fight. And not one with me, with somepony who’d really mess you up. Like that hayseed Applejack. Or her brother Big Mac, who almost killed me that one time. Remember?

Anyway. Stupid Trixie. Stupid mouth.

The three grew silent, and stormy. Maybe they didn’t hear me?

Apparently, not.

“My edge?” Slove the Satyr snarled, and then he picked up an axe as big as Trixie. “I’ll tell you what! When next I see that… that Trixie mare, I’m gonna show you what my edge is like.”

I swallowed.

“Not if I get her first,” said Jezzer the Centaur. He cracked his knuckles. “After what Emperor Grogar did to us for failing to catch her… I owe her plenty more in kind.”

I started walking away, slowly. Backwards. Quiet. Very.

Mark the Manticore shook his head, and set his mace down on the table, where Trixie could see the clearly agitated pony cook glaring at me for causing a ruckus.

“I just want to know how she did all that,” Mark sighed. “She… I mean, that was incredible, wasn’t it?”

I really, really should have kept walking.

Trixie is so, so stupid.

“Incredible?”

So. So. STUPID.

Mark glared at something over Trixie’s head. There wasn’t anything above me, so I tried to not move a muscle. Maybe that would help?

No such luck.

“We were tasked by the Emperor himself to capture a dangerous, evil sorceress,” he said, eyes still distant. “Dropped a whole tree on me, she did.”

I blinked.

“Did she?” I asked, knowing for a fact that I did not.

He nodded. “She did,” he said. “A terrible, evil sorceress, that one. Weren’t our fault…”

“Turned the whole forest against us, she did,” Jezzer said, nodding along with his friend. “Smoke and mist came rolling in, and before you know it, wham! Like, a hundred ponies came out of the woods!”

“They did?” I asked.

They did not, Journal. It was Trixie, all by her lonesome, that had bested these three ruffians.

You may not be aware of this, but some lesser ponies and creatures feel the need to embellish their tales of daring do. Not the writer, the stuff that happens in their lives. Their adventures.

Stories like Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony? Probably true, considering how fantastical they are in general. Nopony makes stuff like that up. 

That thing your uncle swears happened to him one night in the San Palomino desert? Probably made up. Just a good story that he’s added onto so often you’d forget he wasn’t actually abducted by aliens and had all his feelings and emotions stolen—

Trixie just realized she might need to apologize to Uncle Roswell. And she might need to check in with Thorax sometime about rogue changelings in the desert.



Those were apparently not rogue changelings. A San Palomino police report states that one Mr. Roswell, a distant relation to Trixie on her father Jackpot’s side, was picked up in a state of distress and delirium a few weeks before your brother Shining’s wedding to Princess Cadance. Since he was covered in salt, no one believed his story about being abducted by “bug-ponies”. Thorax had no idea what I was talking about, when I went to ask him for a quote, but Prince Pharynx got really sweaty all of a sudden.

Anyway. Turns out (once I got to see Chrysalis herself) that her operatives did that sort of thing all the time to keep their Love stores topped up in between raids. Roswell was just one more pony sucked dry of emotion and tossed out into the desert on the Hive’s way to Canterlot.

She’s kinda cute, by the way. In a ‘used to be a tyrant’ sort of manner. But since about half of your acquaintances have the same vibe, I don’t judge. And she’s still more pleasant to talk to than Cozy Glow, somehow.



Anything they need to say to themselves, just to live with the fact that they are not quite as Great and Powerful as they claim to be.

Yup. Sad how that is with somecreatures. Sad, indeed.

Slove nodded solemnly at his friend’s words, and looked at Trixie, reminding me that I should have been running, but hadn’t.

Again. Stupid Trixie.

“And then, you’ll never believe it, she turned the whole forest into this, like, magical net!”

“Did she really?” I asked.

“Indeed, she did!” he snorted. 

“And that was before she and her horde of magical ponies blasted us!” said Mark.

“How did Grogar take that?”

Slove scoffed. “How do you think? He says no pony could do all that. Like we was lying, or something!”

“Not our fault, at all,” Jezzer grunted. “Not our fault we were beat by a great and magical wizard!”

“Great and Powerful, you mean.”

“Yeah, Great and…”

I really should have just run. But, as usual, Trixie has to stick her Great and Powerful hoof directly into her own mouth. And not literally, this time. Circus tricks tend to make money.

All three monsters stopped. They went totally still, like statues, and instantly stopped eating. Then, slowly, they turned their heads and whole bodies towards me.

Trixie swallowed, and tried to disappear under her new cloak and hood.

“Well,” I said, quickly, “I should be getting out of your manes, good sirs! Keep up the good work! I’m sure you’ll catch that nasty, no-good, evil Trixie wizard someday…”

And then, as it turns out, that one yak from before? He really did mind. He minded a lot. The cloak and hood flew off of me as he grabbed hold of it and pulled the darn thing off in a single tug!

“Why pony steal from Yak!?” he bellowed in my ear. If I could see his eyes under all that hair, he would probably have been glaring at me. 

That’s not tribalist, is it?

Eh, if I ever get back, I’ll apologize to Yona.

“You think it okay to take from Yak?” he continued to scream. “Yak is trying to sell real Yak fleece here! Is seller’s market! You no buy? Then guards can take you!”

All the while, Trixie was staring up at the three monsters. And they were staring back. With widening eyes, and slowly dropping jaws.

Finally, I ran.

I ran very, very fast.

And for a split second, it seemed like nocreature was following me. Unfortunately, I was wrong about that. Trixie half-turned her head, and I saw the entire ramen stand blowing up as all three monsters grabbed their gear, and bolted from their seats with all the fury of Tartarus at their heels. 

Maybe something worse than Tartarus, now that Trixie thinks about it.

Oh, except the satyr, Slove. He stopped for a second to down his ramen first. Trixie can respect that. Priorities.

But then, all three were on my heels. Well, four. The Yak was chasing after them, still demanding that they take me in for theft.

I mean. It wasn’t like he was using the stupid thing. Okay, so he was using it. Trixie, however, needed it more.

To hide from her own apprentice.

Don’t judge me.

Trixie ran as fast as she could, ducking and weaving through the ponies and other creatures with all the speed of a swooping crane, and the dexterity of a very dexterous sort of animal. I flew past stands and stalls, and slid under carts. The acrobatics training Grey Prancer put me through was paying off with dividends, I thought at first.

In no time, I’d cleared a whole city block, but it wasn’t enough. Because while Trixie was racing through the street with supreme skill and speed, the four creatures chasing me were just barreling through everything and everycreature they came across. There was an unholy racket behind me as they slammed through a wagon carrying what looked like a literal ton of fine porcelain plates, and kicked over a griffon covered in one of those one-pony band kits.

It was mayhem! 

And that was before I turned down the next street, and only realized a few seconds later that I’d just flown past a patrol of dragons!

Trixie is always in the wrong place and time when it comes to traffic guards.



Trixie Lulamoon currently has over fourteen-thousand bits in traffic violations and tickets on her file. But whenever I asked around, nopony in the Department of Roads and Travel seemed to know about the file, or thought it was a joke since they’d never have let something like that go for so long.

Starswirl isn’t talking. Thanks for the anti-memory charm, by the way. He tried that again. Just whistling guiltily and avoiding me for now.



Flip my life, there were over a dozen of them! Luckily, a malnourished and beaten trio of a satyr, a centaur, and a manticore aren’t the most nimble of creatures, so though I managed to slip past the obstacles before me with no problem, there was another explosion behind Trixie.

And, again. Stupid Trixie. I turned around! 

I can’t believe me either, Journal.

The first couple of dragons were now underneath the trio of monstrous pursuers, and a couple more had fallen on top of them. And about six different shop and stall vendors – ponies, mostly – were coming up behind waving ladles and broken bits of wood to hopefully beat on them.

Unfortunately for Trixie, the yak was fine.

“She thief! Catch! SMASH!” he called out.

Oof. That got their attention.

Now there was Trixie racing down another street, pursued by a couple of angry shopkeepers, a half-dozen dragon-guards, one peeved yak, a centaur, a manticore, a satyr, and then another half-dozen dragon-guards.

You’d think that would be enough.

You don’t know me very well.

Two griffons swept down from the sky, just as I had turned down what I hoped would be a narrow side street, wailing with some stupid head-mounted sirens. Hoof

Sorry, Claw-cranked sirens! They buzzed the street, which was mostly made up of laundry lines and looms, as far as I could tell. One of the griffons tried to snatch at my mane, but I was too quick for him, and dove down another side alley.

There were a lot of those, actually. Gallopoli was made of alleys, it seemed.



According to Starswirl, Gallopoli had a bit of a layering system going on, much like modern Cloudsdale. Roofs were usually just more area for griffon, dragon, and pegasi vendors, while the rest of the city below was left to sprawl into an urban jungle for the poorer earth ponies living underneath them. I’m told Trixie never saw it, but Gallopoli also had an extensive underground area because of this.



Trixie just kept changing direction, juking left and right as griffons dove down at me. But, every time they did, they’d catch on a clothesline, or I’d slip past another loom and let the stupid guards crash into those behind me.

Serpentine, that’s what they call it. Trixie perfected the technique while I was training for my knife-throwing act. Got to keep limber and dexterous when throwing sharp objects!

I couldn’t use magic, naturally, but that didn’t stop me from trying, once. Tried to focus on a simple telekinesis spell to pull some rope along behind me, once I’d run past a barrel-maker’s stall. Nearly blinded myself with the pain, so that stopped.

Oh, and I was already running out of breath. I was still broken, and burnt out from before. I had no magic, and my hooves were still messed up from the long march and all the damages I’d taken back at Ponhenge.

Trixie couldn’t keep the chase up. As I dove down another alleyway, this one made up of wood fences at the back of houses, Trixie knew she was in trouble.

Mark (the manticore) exploded through a fence just a few feet ahead of me. If he were only a foot lower, I’d be food right now.

As it so happened, somepony had tossed out a banana peel that morning, and hadn’t made sure it landed in a garbage bin (no, they don’t have those here, but still). I stepped right onto it, and immediately slipped under the charging manticore.

I don’t know how he even got ahead of me! That town was a maze!



Starswirl just told me something interesting. This has been bugging me since Springfall, actually.

Apparently, bananas were only imported to Equestria in the first century after the first Hearth’s Warming. Trixie found one banana back in that little village outside of Springfall, and a banana peel literally, by total coincidence, saved her life just now.

I bet five bits, Discord pops up again before too long.



*section lost to water damage*

… couldn’t believe this town, you know? And now it’s all gone, beca...

*section lost to water damage*

“… said you knew me,” he said, scratching his little chinny chin-chin with his one talon. “And I’ve been puzzling over that for a while now…”

“Look!” I shouted down the drifting pseudo-draconequus, “Trixie doesn’t have time for you right now! She’s being chased!”

I hopped over a dragon, and kicked off one of the griffon guards. Well, I hope it was a guard. Otherwise, I think Trixie just kicked a random griffon. Oops.

“Also, do you just have one talon now?” I asked. Or, I think I asked. I was sliding underneath another stall just before Jezzer landed on the poor pony selling seashells in a seaside port.

Discord nodded, slowly, and slipped his mutant appendage into a glove. 

I still don’t know how Chaos Magic can make a glove turn into a real hoof, but whatever.

“Just in case Dad starts asking questions, you know?”

“TRIXIE DOESN’T CARE!”

And it was true, considering how many creatures were chasing me. This, however, seemed to offend the little Prince, who huffed mightily.

He flew over me, and sniffed. “Very well, I can see you’re busy. I shall return soon enough to see about this, however. And you’d better have a better explanation than ‘time travel’.

“Also, turn left up ahead,” he added, before fading away in a most un-dramatic fashion. “Should help.”

I really, really hate him, Journal. Because Trixie decided to turn left at the next street.

Which meant that I ran straight into the freaking Goose again. And Slove the satyr. And about a dozen dragons who I’d previously thought I’d given the slip. With a duck and a weave, I managed to slide under them all, and let the griffons behind me crash into them again. But that would only buy me a few seconds at most.

“How was that helping!?” I cried out in frustration.

Annoyingly, I heard him answer.

“Oh, help me, I meant. This chase scene is too much fun!” 



And there it is.







So, let’s now recap.

There was Trixie, sans one of her boots.

Then that freaking trio of monsters, Mark, Jezzer, and Slove.

Then the Yak and the ramen-pony.

Then six griffons, all with magical sirens and lights.

Then, after them, a bunch of dragons. Like, a whole bunch. Over a dozen by now.

At least a whole gaggle of Troggles. Unless they travel in herds? Do they travel in herds? Maybe they’d be a drove.

And then, behind even them, the hippogriff clowns, the priests of that weird rock-god thing, and that freaky goose were all chasing poor, innocent Trixie through the streets of Gallopoli. I swear, I half-expected some diamond dogs to show up next. This town was a madhouse, I tell you. A madhouse!

Thankfully, that was when my luck changed.

As Trixie broke out into another square, she was met with a terrifying sight. A small army of pegasi, all clad in that shiny bronze armor like Flash Magnus, stood and/or flew in front of me! There were dozens of them, half holding up shields while the other half leveled crossbows and spears in my face.

There was nowhere to go. I was trapped.

Trixie slid to a halt, and almost fell directly on my flank. I let out a gasp, and tried to hold back my shock, and my fear.

I don’t know if it worked. I was really, really shocked. And really, really afraid.

This was it, I could remember thinking. It had all finally caught up to me. All the lies and the running and the other stuff besides. I’d be imprisoned, if I was lucky. More likely? I’d be gone. And Swirly would be alone with those maniacs, Gusty Flame, Melody Song, and Joyous Guard. 

Not like that hasn’t basically happened, but still.

But then, something amazing happened, Journal.

These guards, ostensibly working for Grogar, looked right at me. Had me completely dead-to-rights. Could have done literally anything, right then.

But they looked to their commander. This white, red-maned pegasus with a face (and a build) like that Tempest pony back home, scowling up a storm right in the center of their line. And she looked back at them.

And then?

She tilted her head towards an open alleyway, and said, “Go.”

Just Go.

And Journal, I got!

Never let Trixie ever again say that police corruption never helped her out! Ha ha! Oh, if there’s one nice thing about pony tribalism, it’s that even back then, no matter how bad things got between unicorns and pegasi and earth ponies, you could always bet they’d stand together against a common enemy!



Starswirl is looking really smug right now, and I’m gonna hit him.



I leapt right to it, and dove into the narrow street that pegasus had pointed towards. And just as I did, the entire cavalcade I’d been stringing along for ten minutes now crashed into the pegasi phalanx.

It was terrible! It was frightful! The sound of crashing steel and bronze! The clash of spear, mace, cooking ladle, and hoof!

Trixie heard all about it later, after the fact. For at just that moment, I was gone. Flat out. Made like a tree and skeedaddled on out of there!

I should enter the Running of the Leaves, next time I’m back in Ponyville. I’d probably do well!



Records show Trixie joined the Running the very next year she was back. She came in fifth place, narrowly losing to Applejack, Bon Bon, and Fluttershy due to excessive – and premature – celebrating just a few feet from the finish line. Rainbow Dash also beat her, coming in first place, because Rainbow Dash is Rainbow Dash. 

There’s no fascinating insight or odd occurrence here. Just a nice reminder that Trixie eventually got back. How lovely!



Trixie continued running until I couldn’t hear anything behind me.

And then I ran some more. 

And a little more after that.

And at the end of that run, I collapsed onto a deserted street. I think even my mane hurt after what I’d been through. Despite all that I’d done before, what with the sun and moon and the burnout and all the rest, it was only then that I realized what was wrong with me.

No, Journal. Not that I’m too Great and Powerful for my own good. But thank you.

Everything ached. My hooves felt like cracked glass, and my legs and other walking bones felt like I got hit by a wagon. Even lying down in the dark where I thought nopony could see me, I got no relief. Just twitches and shivers up and down my muscles.

I overexerted, again. I probably pushed my recovery time back, pulling this stunt. And for what? Seeing the sights? Getting out of that hospital

Inn.

It was basically a hotel. And I decided to run away. Again.

Trixie suspects she may have issues to work on when she gets back home.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I was just trying to get back up on my hooves when Slove finally caught up to me.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. If I thought he looked bad before, it was way worse now. Slove was covered in bruises, cuts, burns, and bumps. One horn was now cracked along its length, and the other one had a bread knife stuck in it.

With terrible slowness, and an obvious limp, he followed me down the alleyway.

And, for the first time in a while, I was just done. There was nothing left in me. Not even enough to care what he did with that stupidly large axe he was dragging along the ground behind him.

“Well,” I remember saying, still lying in the street, “Trixie doesn’t suppose you’d care to hear her side of this, would you?”

Slove raised the axe high above his head, and just said, “No. Not really.”

“Fair is fair,” I said again, and looked around for, well, anything to get me out of this mess.

No dice. No luck.

This was finally, finally it.

Until it wasn’t!

I honestly wouldn’t blame you if you had whiplash from all that, Journal. It was that sort of a day, to be sure. Just one calamity after another.

The satyr raised his axe, and held it there for several long seconds. Maybe he was savoring the kill? Maybe he was just as tired as I was and needed a moment? Don’t know. Don’t really care, either. All Trixie knows is that one minute, he’s about to cleave her in two with that stupid thing, and in the next, he’s taking a big old blast of pink sparkly dust to the face.

For a second, I laughed. A glitter-bomb? Really? Here? Now?

And, yeah. Kinda. The blast hit Slove square in the jaw, and burst all around his stupid head. The pink smoke cloud disappeared quickly, only hanging around for a few seconds before it fell away. Must’ve been heavy stuff, remembering how the dust fell now.

Slove froze in place. And then, his eyes glazed over, and the big palooka dropped dead away!

Not actually dead, mind. The Princess-awful snore he let out was proof of that.

Trixie wasn’t surprised. But only because her luck had been swinging back and forth so hard, I had karmic whiplash by this point. So, I may not have had much of an expression on my face besides “bored surprise” as I turned around, and looked at my savior.

In the doorway of a darkened building stood a stallion. A zebra stallion, at that. He was tall, and built like an Apple (the big buff ones, why did I need to explain that?), just one with a stripy black and white coat. Well, black, white, and blue in a few spots stripes. Especially around his head, where his mane was styled like some weird cross between Zecora’s mohawk, and that one weird pony who hangs out with Fluttershy. Tree Something, I think. The one with the dreads who smells like she needs to stop sitting so close to her campfire every night.



Tree Hugger, I think she means. The pseudo second in command of Zecora’s little indie village in the Everfree. Their commune actually ranks in Equestria as the twelfth largest dye and pharmaceutical supplier. All-natural products, straight from the most magical part of the country.

Caballeron loves their soap. New Sweet, they call it. Never tell him I actually like the smell too, or I’ll never hear the end of it!



The zebra smirked like a badflank from one of those trashy romance novels, and quickly galloped over to me.

Actually, speaking of flanks, he didn’t have one. A Cutie Mark, I mean. So I guess that means I win the bet with Pinkie Pie. Nice. 



The bet she’s talking about was if zebras had Cutie Marks or if Zecora just had a tattoo. Pinkie says she made that bet as a joke, and was quite frustrated to lose 40 bits of “cupcake money” over it. 

Zebras, for what it’s worth, don’t get Cutie Marks. Zecora’s sun symbol was self-chosen during her Naming ceremony, which from what she tells me is part of her tribe’s initiation into her profession as an alchemist, and as a member of a cult! Surprising? Yeah. Me too. Apparently the cult believed that a Night Mare would one day plunge the world into eternal night, and Zecora herself was sent to Equestria to avert her return. 

I think you know how well that turned out. Suffice it to say, Zecora felt a little embarrassed about missing the Summer Sun Celebration, and decided to make a clean break with her old life once she realized Princess Luna wasn’t evil. 

So. That’s why Zecora lives in the Everfree. Made a new life for herself. Awesome. 

And why am I bringing this up? Oh, just you wait. 



“Are you alright?” he asked me, and lent me a hoof to get back up onto my own. He had a curious accent that, quite frankly, I don’t think you can replicate in writing. So I won’t even try.

I coughed up some dirt from the street, and answered, “Better now. What was that you just used? Looked like a powder. Lotus Puff?”

Yes, Journal. Trixie knows a few bits of alchemy and the discipline’s ingredients. Grey Prancer, again, gave me a crash course, but I never was any good at it. At best, I can remember a few common ingredients and side effects. Used to take Lotus Puff for sleep apnea, actually.

The zebra shook his head. “Not now, and not here. Please, come with me!”

I noticed then that he had a small leather pouch tied around his neck. I guess that was where he got the powder. He pulled a yellow vial out of the bag, and yanked the cork free. The contents wafted out, and I could definitely smell something like lemon or lime coming out of that thing.

Trixie has been around the block enough to know what a magic potion is, Journal. And that thing reeked of magic. There was something familiar about the scent, however. It tickled the edge of my memory, but I couldn’t think what it was.

“Drink this!” he said, and really clearly considering the glass in his mouth. “It will give you back your strength for a time!”

Memory clicked then! I’d bought something almost exactly the same from Zecora only a few months back! Well, a few thousand years in the future. But a few months before even that. I went on a disastrous trip with my Bestie, Starlight, and even though it all ended well, I was dog-tired when I finally resumed my regular road trip schedule. Which included an all-nighter to Whinnyapolis.

I don’t know much about Zecora and her past, despite calling her a friend. But I do know that she makes the best stuff around if you need to stay awake for a few days straight but Pinkie Pie’s Good Stuff gives you mad gas.



Lovely image there.



What this zebra had on him wasn’t half as good as Zecora’s, but it did the trick. Right as I quaffed it, every bone in Trixie’s body vibrated. I could feel it drip down my limbs from the inside, like a live electric current jazzing me up. Even my hooves tingled as the drink cracked open my mana channels and applied a hot, soothing burn.

And then, we were off. The zebra was the one leading, but for the first time in a long while, I felt like I could have run circles around him. At the time, I probably could have done it. The streets around where we were, were all but abandoned.

Yeah, should have thought of that then. Oh well.

Nothing good ever happens in a warehouse, Journal. That’s a Grey Prancer rule right there I should have listened to. The zebra led me to a row of them down by the docks, all painted different awful colors, but Trixie wasn’t really thinking all that straight by this point. The drink had already run its course, and I was back to being run-down by all the running from before.

Oddly, the one we walked into had a small front office. Well, ‘office’. It was more like a little pawnshop, with a bunch of display cases between the owner and his marks customers. Said cases just had a bunch of jewelry and little powders, which should have been the first red flag. Nopony just sells little powders. Little powders are a thing you sell in addition to something else.

The room ran the whole width of the warehouse, but wasn’t more than ten feet deep, if that, and completely filled with smoke from a hookah sitting with another zebra behind the counter. This one was pale (not including the stripes, obvious—

Wait, are zebras black with white stripes, or white with black? Dangit, now I’ll be asking that for weeks!

Anyway, he had this hookah-thing, and it was steaming up the joint like nothing I’d ever seen. He was a little guy, with a long, full mane trimmed in green, which makes me wonder now if Zecora is just oddly under-colored for zebras, or something.



Zecora, when I asked her, said that she is particularly rare amongst zebrakind. Being colorless is a sort of rare genetic mutation, it sounds like, and zebras consider it an omen. On the plus side, it marked her as special, and so she was given a lot of free education and training to become an alchemist and a shaman. Downside? It sounds like she wasn’t really given an option. She loves what she does now, but I get the feeling there’s a lot of stuff she wishes she could have done with her life besides that. 



He put the pipe into his muzzle, and drew a deep, deep draw of smoke.

“Still got that cold?” the one who’d saved me asked him.

The one behind the desk snorted a deep lungful of smokey mist out, and hacked into a tissue. “This humidifier is useless!” he snarled miserably, and continued hacking again.

Yeah, so. Humidifier. Didn’t know they had those back then.



They shouldn’t, but then the zebras of Farasi were always weirdly advanced compared to Equestria, all the way up to the last few centuries when Celestia started subsidizing certain industrial technologies. Cabbie is interested in all the legal and business theories about that time, but it just makes my head swim. Not enough punching, and too much ‘tax code history’.

Farasi (for completeness’ sake) is the far-off and little-understood nation of Zebras, Kelpie, and Abadas. They’re a bit of an odd reflection of Equestria, but I left the write-up on them to Caballeron, if only so that he’d stop talking to me about how Celestia busted the Trusts. Again.

Yes, I italicized myself for emphasis, wanna fight about it?



“Never mind that,” the boss said with a shake of his head. “Bring out some Ukulawula powder. Can’t you see our guest is exhausted?”

Sniffling, Zebra Number Two hooked up his humidifier, turned around, and headed through the beaded-door behind him, presumably deeper into the warehouse’s main room. I couldn’t see much past that, but there was a funk to that place. It probably sat right on top of a dock sticking into the Maretime Bay.

I assumed it was MB. If Gallopoli was really Baltimare, in any case. I swear, if I ever get back home, I’ll actually attend the next TrixCon. After all this nonsense, I could use the familiarity.

“That satyr nearly had you,” the zebra said to me. “Are you alright?”

His voice was deep, and calming. Like one of those Sleep spells that played pre-recorded sounds of ocean surf and meditative music. I love those things. Starlight only ever plays ‘gardening sounds’ and ‘forest ambience’ ones, for some reason. At least Sunburst, when he sleeps over, goes for something fun like ‘thunderstorm’.

Nopony ever appreciates the dulcet tones of ‘Fireworks’ for some insane reason!

“Now that I’m not getting chased, yeah,” I told him with a happy sigh. “Trixie thanks you, by the way. If you hadn’t come along, I don’t know what would have happened.”

“You would probably be dead,” he laughed.

“Yeah… yeah,” was more or less what Trixie said in reply. “I didn’t catch your name.”

He smiled – a real charming smile at that! – and bowed slightly.

“That is because I did not give it. But I do so now, and willingly. My name is Z’Ngue. But amongst my friends, Zombie will do.”

He reached out and, ignoring the way Trixie’s face totally falling for my trusted and patented Face of Pokering, through which my confusion thinking deeply about his name could not be surmised, he kissed my hoof like a true gentlecolt!

Trixie blushed. Now here was a stallion of style and—



Trixie wrote a sizeable paragraph detailing how suave and ‘smexy’ she thought Zombie was, but for some reason it’s been rendered almost entirely unreadable with a bunch of silver magical ink.

Starswirl admits to nothing, naturally. Since it’s all fragmented on top of that, I just went ahead and skipped it for you. Suffice to say, Trixie was wowed by Zombie. And his ‘assets’.



… his flank wasn’t half bad as well!

What? Trixie can admire the scenery, Journal! She’s not beholden to anypony.

Well. Not then. Now? Sure. Trixie would never consider betraying the heart of her most wonderful pookems. Lord Sombra is the most handsome, greatest coltfriend, most nklli dawojp master Sombn= qjwdl kj

DoN’’t tell him aa-b.ou1 FUTER

*section becomes illegible scrawls after this*



Starswirl wants it known that Trixie was under Sombra’s control when she wrote this bit, and was obviously (unsuccessfully) fighting back. He likely had her continue her normal routine, journal writing and all, to not arouse suspicion from Gusty and the other Resistance members. Still, that low magic score was biting her in the flank really hard just there. Unicorns usually have a heightened resistance to mind control due to their type of magic giving them a sort of familiarity with it, but her own magic is so minimal that she just can’t push back hard enough to break free. And Sombra’s mind control is supposed to be extra nasty on top of that.

Trixie was, luckily, not in Ponyville during his last takeover. She was actually off performing in Neighbraska. But, true to form, as soon as she heard what happened, she got on the overnight express home to make sure Starlight was okay.

Trixie can be cute, sometimes.



“Zombie?” I asked.

“Heh,” he heh’d back, “it’s an old nickname. Got it from running the nightshift once too often on the ship.”

Trixie laughed along with Zombie, though I wasn’t sure if he was really laughing now that I think about it.

“And does ‘Trixie’ have some hidden meaning as well?” he asked. “I admit, it is a very strange name I have not heard before.”

I tried for my best performer’s bow, though without the hat I don’t think it held up all that well. “Trixie hides many things. Usually, her own Great and Powerful skills as a magician.”

Zombie narrowed his eyes, and scratched at his chin, where I noticed he had a tiny little black-and-white striped soul-patch. Very cool.

“A magician, you say?” he mused. Then, nodding, he added, “That is quite impressive, considering your Emperor’s ban on such magic.”

My ear twitched. At first, I thought it was the sound of brewing tea in the back rooms that I could just make out over our conversation – and the clinking of glass and the quiet curses of the poor sick zebra as it sounded like he might’ve accidently broken something expensive – but I couldn’t be sure.

I’d heard something though. Something that I wasn’t yet aware of. 

“Well, he’s not my Emperor,” I said with some distaste. All this talk about Grogar had been wearing down on me for days, as had the weeks of talking and traveling with Swirly.

To put it mildly, I was sick of talking about Grogar, and I didn’t like the cut of his jib.

“Ah, of course,” was all Zombie said, clearly getting what I was getting at.

And that was all he said.

Which got my ear twitching, again.

“Hm,” Trixie hm’d.

“Is something wrong?” Zombie asked. “You’re giving me an odd look there.”

“Am Trixie? Er, I?”

He nodded. “Haven’t I proven myself a friend so far?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, though the odd sound was still there. And it definitely wasn’t the tea set getting dropped behind the counter, followed by more swearing and sneezing. “You helped me out back there with Slove. That was impressive, actually. Trixie has only seen such powder-work once before. 

“But it does beg the question: Why?”

He blinked, and tilted his head curiously. This had the bonus effect of making one of his blue dreads droop adorably across his brow. 

Yes, that detail was important, Journal.

“Why?”

“Yes, why?” I insisted. “Nopony does anything for free. At least, not around here, it seems. Everycreature out there seems more than happy to help Grogar. Why not you? Why’d you save Trixie?”

Zombie chuckled, and shook his head again. “It is such a sad thing, that ponies cannot trust anymore these days. Is it so unbelievable that I might have seen a cute mare and wanted to help her in her moment of need?”

Yeah, he was good at that sweet talk. Too good.

“Cute?” I asked. But I did it in that cool, heroic way. Not with the blushing and the hoof twisting and the nose scrunching an—

Shut up, Journal.

I wasn’t completely smitten. In fact, that darn twitching was back.

And finally, I knew why.

It was because I was expecting something very specific from him, but it wasn’t there.

“You don’t rhyme,” Trixie pointed out. “You haven’t rhymed even once since we got here.”

This time, Zombie said nothing. Nothing at all. He noticeably didn’t move a single muscle in his face. Not to smile. Not to frown. Not to blink.

“Sorry?” he said, finally letting out his breath. “Did you say rhyme?”

“Yeah, I thought it was a zebra thing,” I explained. His eyes were beginning to twitch, the more I spoke. “My friend Zecora always speaks in rhyme. Never wondered about that until now…”

Trixie did indeed trail off there, since Zombie looked like he was about to have a heart attack. If the bits of blue in his mane and stripes wasn’t natural, I was afraid the sweat pouring off him would have washed it away.

“You… know a Zecora?”

Yeah. He said it like that. A. Like, a Zecora.

That’s new. That’s very new, and very interesting. I might have to ask her about that someday.



Zecora and Trixie actually are good friends, from what I can tell. Zecora took in the showpony the night of that Ursa Minor incident, after Trixie ran off into the Everfree to escape the embarrassment of getting shown up by you. Zecora gave her a shoulder to cry on and a warm couch to sleep on until she could work up the courage to sneak back into Ponyville and drag her wagon out of there under cover of night. It was even Zecora who convinced Trixie to do one more show before giving up showbusiness.

Granted, that show went down in flames and Trixie ran off to work on the Pie Rock Farm, but it’s the thought that counts.

The ‘a’ Zecora thing makes sense, in context. I had to ask her about it, and she was predictably hard to parse with how much rhyming*** she managed in her explanations, but I got some fascinating information out of her!

Zecora isn’t a name. It’s a title! A zecora is what they call their shamans. That’s actually a bad translation though, since zecoras are like a combination doctor, priest, guard, and community leader. The fact that our Zecora moved all the way to the Everfree is kind of a big deal, regardless of her exact reasons for doing so. 

Farasi, from what Zecora said, lies atop a sort of natural dimensional rift into the Dreamrealm. Spirits can use the rift to cross over, and it’s led to the zebras developing a potent system of alchemy and dream magic, they being (oddly) the Magic member of Farasi’s three-state system. Kind of like unicorns, actually. But part of developing said system is the renunciation of one’s name, since the Farasi breed of spirits seem like they can’t harm somecreature without knowing their true name.

It’s odd, but fascinating stuff. Cabbie’s going in deep on that branch of research. I’ll have a write-up on the Commonwealth of Farasi ready for you soon.

Oh, and Zecora wanted to say something:





***
Much is said and thought about my tongue,
But for the sake of this, your compendium,
An admission here, the first of its time,
A reason why we zecora rhyme.

In Equestria, Doctors learn from books,
In Farasi this would get you curious looks,
For Spirits may change what is wrought in ink,
Pour your memory right down the sink.

But memory and thought are guarded well,
By the same -mancy of Grogar's Bell,
Harmony's magic takes many forms,
As Trixie knows well, that unicorn,
Who sings the song of celestial spheres,
Whose ways are guile, smoke and mirrors.

Rhyming is but a step from song,
And the Spirits hate it, call it wrong.
But more on that, I will shed light,
For when you know spells, recipes, rites,
A system helps you hold it tight,
A library of the mind, my dear Twilight.

The reasons I have to speak in rhyme,
I hope are clearer now? Sublime!
But there is another, I must admit,
Besides the cause of memory and spirit.

And this is the most important one,
For speaking rhymes you see... is lots of fun!





Huh... the more you know.



But today wasn’t that day. When I pressed Zombie on it, he asked me where my Zecora was.

“Not here,” I said, not for the first time wondering how to answer without accidentally-ing a time paradox. “She lives a very long way off from Gallopoli.”

By now, I’d caught my breath just a little bit, and so had time to notice things. And to think. So, it should make you think well of Trixie that she realized how suspicious it was that this Zombie pony instantly calmed down the moment he realized Zecora was nowhere near him.

But, before Trixie could question him, the little one came back with a tiny snuffbox.

Nothing good is ever in snuffboxes, Journal. Nothing.

So, taking into account how suspicious Zombie was being, plus the snuffbox, plus the fact that at that exact moment a big old heavy bar dropped down behind me and locked the one door into the warehouse—

Yeah, I’m gonna say it was a trap of some sort. But Trixie was wise to their games. This was a trap to capture me?

Oh no!

It was now Trixie’s turn to spring a trap of her own!

“Hey, what’s that!?” I cried.

You would be shocked how often that works.



Caballeron: If I had a bit for every time Daring thwarted one of my plans simply by asking my henchponies to look behind themselves, I would be stupendously wealthy indeed. With a pool, and a house in the Baahamas, and a pile of money so big I could swim in it. Anyway. Stop calling me ‘Cabbie’, Daring. You are embarrassing me in front of her Royalness.

Daring: Fine. Sugarcube.



Zombie and his little buddy, halfway to doing whatever they were about to do, actually looked behind them. And that was when I struck!

I spun around, and gave the snuffbox a mighty buck, which sent it flying off through the air!

Whereupon, it bounced off the wall next to where the other zebra had gone. It ricocheted back, and skipped off the countertop, which sent it spinning over to the front door to the warehouse. It hit the door-bar, slapped into the floor, and shot straight up into the air, cracking across the small, wooden chandelier set into the ceiling.

And finally, the snuffbox came back down, and crashed directly into Trixie’s head.

And spilled its contents all over me.

I’d like to pretend that was planned, but even I can’t spin that.

No, not exactly the most glorious way for the Great and Powerful Trixie to get taken out. A red powdery mist dropped down onto Trixie’s head, shifting to midnight blue as it dusted my mane, my eyes, and even got into my nose.

Trixie felt her whole world shift. Light and sound melted. Up became down. Left became Thursday. I felt like I was falling and rising at the same time.

In short, Trixie was tripping. And once I hit the ground, I even bit my tongue! How unfair is that?

I never touched anything stronger than cider, Journal, but I could remember Grey Prancer’s stories. The ones he’d tell when he thought nopony was listening. The ones he told when he was warning me away from Las Pegasus.

That town is a hard one, I’ll leave it at that.

Anyway, Trixie doesn’t personally know what it’s like to shoot a bunch of wacky-dust up one’s noes on purpose, but I’m fairly certain this was close, if any of those stories are true. The air around me turned into a soupy, rainbow mess, and everything felt like a flashing, waking nightmare!

“Well, thank you for that, Trixie,” Zombie said to me. “Both for applying the mind control powder and for silencing yourself. I was afraid you’d sus me out before too much longer.”

Trixie wasn’t sure what she responded with, since my brain was somewhat melting at the moment (and my tongue hurt). Both zebras were climbing the walls from my perspective, and Zombie had three hooves too many. I wasn’t even sure, at first, which Zombie I was talking to, since there was more than one.

Eventually, the real one – who did not have a hat made out of antlers – revealed himself, saying, “You are drooling, Trixie. No matter, though. With my mind control magic, we’ll have you good and properly trained-up yet.”

“Uh, boss?” the little one piped up. “I thought Grogar put out a bounty on a mare named…”

“Zoolo,” Zombie sighed, and half-turned away from me, “you can’t just drop a wizard down in front of the Emperor. She could try anything.”

“Grogar?” I asked. Maybe. “Mind control!?”

Yes, mind control. The most depraved and cowardly of all magical arts. Only practiced by the most degenerate, the foolhardiest, and the most idiotic, stupid, bad-smelling, tiny limp-di— 



Trixie’s quill appears to have slashed through the page here, her following horn-writing becoming highly scrambled and chaotic for a sentence or two. It’s a little hard to read, I know. But considering her hornwriting suddenly changes style altogether right after? I thought it important to send you the original.



Y0u d-00nh’t liokc that, -d-80 ya, SZombbra? Goo a hed an sk-weeze mnah brain, cuz wen i get gooder an fin -SWIRLY an fix TAnTabUS u r guna git ur rump kikked so hard—

Now, now, my Dear. Let’s not be too hasty. Finish the story, and do it correctly. I do so wish to see how Grogar features into this tale so far, and Gusty isn’t the one to know how Gallopoli was smote.

Be nice. I can make this far worse for you.

Mind control is the best. I love it. Starlight gets a bad rap.

Good girl.



Well, crap. That’s horrifying. This is getting really complicated, and now I’m worrying even more about whatever’s coming up.



“Grogar?” I think I managed to say again as I stood up, but my legs gave out. Or turned to mush. Or into spiders. Don’t remember, really.

Note: I should make cover-art for metal albums.



It took me a bit to realize she meant the music genre, which was always super-niche in Equestria before formal contact with hoomans (yes, I noticed Trixie spelled it humans, but I prefer this way). Trixie actually got Starswirl to do an album about himself. It’s not even that bad.

 I booped the snoots of four-thousand mares…



“Yes, Grogar,” Zombie explained. “He’s put quite the bounty out on you. More bits than I could ever spend in ten lifetimes, actually!”

Zooloo nodded happily, and took up his hookah humidifier again. “Yeah, and the Boss spends money like he’s giving it away, so you know…”

Zombie growled, which seemed to shut up Zooloo real fast. Maybe. Again, world was a Potluck painting at the moment for me.

“I wouldn’t have ever tried collecting on that bounty, you understand?” Zombie said as he started slithering around the room and changing colors. “I don’t deal with zecoras, nor your Equestrian wizards. Too much risk, and never enough reward. But seeing you face off against that satyr…”

“You waited till it was tired,” I pointed out. Maybe. “Waited till I was tired.”

“You’re drooling, dear,” he said back. “And, in any case, yes. Why not? Minimizes the risk. Which does remind me, I should really start the procedure before we go any further.”

Now, Journal, I know Trixie was seeing things. My world was literally melting and reforming before my eyes. But I swear, I saw what I saw next. It was real. Like, really real.

His eyes changed. Not like hallucinating-change. Like, in between blinks, Zombie swapped out his own eyeballs for a field of stars. Blackest night filled with tiny flashing dots of silver light, all twinkling and flickering like cheap mood lighting.

And he smiled. Really creepily, too.

“Don’t worry, Trixie,” he said, and took a step towards me. “You won’t remember a thing.”

“About?”

“Anything,” he laughed again. “Usually, I use my Dreamwalking to erase the memories of potential slaves, to keep them compliant. But I take a… particular joy in eradicating the minds of wizards. Teach them a lesson in humility, and in keeping their prying minds out of other creature’s lives.”

Trixie tried to lick her lips, and think of something, anything to say. 

“I think you’re projecting.”

Yeah, that was the best I got.

“Maybe,” he said back. Kinda surprised about that one. “But that’s neither here nor there. Now, open up your mind, and let me step inside…”

I italicized that for a reason, honestly. Because, as Zombie began to walk towards me, a few things happened. 

First. He began to sing. Even villains have Heart Songs, you know.

Ah, poop. Another villainous coltfriend! Another one. How does this keep happening to me? Am I cursed?



Yeah, another one. Her list of former coltfriends seems to include Hay Guevara, Starswirl (depending on your thoughts about his ‘Windigo’ thing), King Sombra (on which Starswirl refuses to elaborate, jerk), Jack the Glitter, and even Flim and Flam Skim.

Yes, both of them. Although only because Flim didn’t mention that he wasn’t Flam at certain times. According to a guard report from Los Llamamos, Trixie shoved both of them into their Cider Squeazy device when she found out. Or, “an unnamed mare” did so. Despite there being over a hundred witnesses, nopony came forward to accuse her.

I know they’re not quite full villains, but I thought it was still telling.



Whatever. He began to sing. Which is bad, cuz Harmony and junk, right? I didn’t think of that, at the time, but now? Songs are weird, and they let you bend reality like mad. Heck, I always get the feeling that Pinkie Pie is perpetually humming something when she’s near me. 

Certainly answers a lot of questions about her, now that I think about it.

But, oof! Villain Songs are bad news. Grogar having access to Harmonic Magic consciously is already a nightmare! Can you imagine another villain realizing how powerful they could be just by tapping into pure harmonic song? I mean, sure, you’d have to be a total tool, an ultramaroon, a batcrap craz—

*quill stabs obscure a few lines*

Got it. Keep to the script.

The second thing that happened was this: the warehouse disappeared. From my perspective, it all just fell away, leaving behind a sort of melty, mottled mess of colors. It would have been more calming, had this jerk not just told me he was about to use some sort of zebra dream magic on me and erase my memories.

Why do I keep getting put at the mercy of evil or misguided ponies who can just zap me away whenever? It’s getting old.

Anyway, so. He’s advancing on me, and his eyes are glowing like the night sky, and the melting world around us starts to bend again. The ‘sky’ turns dark, and swirls of starlight begin to fill it all up. The ground turns into a wide, green field. Still swirly. Still all inky and painty and blah blah blah.

So. I fibbed again. Or forgot to mention something. Whatever.

There was a third thing.

One, Zombie sang.

Two, the world melted and became all floaty.

Three.

Zombie stopped.

He stopped just a few feet from me. But his smile was gone. He stopped singing, and the first strands of his villainous monologuing music paused. I think there was even a record scratch.

His eyes slowly rose up, and his jaw dropped.

And then? He screamed. Like, the scream of the DOOMED. The kind of scream you make when your whole world explodes. The kind where you stub your hoof on the coffee table at two in the morning.

Both lungs. Full stop.

“It’s REAL!” he screamed, and flailed backwards. “THE NIGHT MARE IS REAL!!!”

Zooloo, who was currently taking the form of a ladybug with a zebra head, had to snatch his humidifier up into his forelegs before his boss slammed into the display case and cracked the glass.

“Boss? What’s…?”

“They weren’t lying!!” Zombie snarled and screamed some more. He crawled over the display cases, and threw himself through the open door, crying, “IT WAS ALL REALLY REALLY TRUE!!!”

Trixie was very confused by this point. Very much so. I turned around, as best I could while the world was still spinning, and looked behind me, to where Zombie had been looking.

Whatever was in that powder, I guess it did something with dreams, since all I could see besides the night sky and the swirly grass was that little Tantabus filly.

Yeah, just the Tantabus. Little alicorn cut-out of night sky with a little bob of a manecut and two big old adorable eyes. She was smiling, I think? Can’t be too sure with golems. The little top hat was a nice touch. While I don’t remember every dream I had while laid out, I do have a recollection of a few giving the little dream-tyke a crash lesson in being dramatic. But right here, she wasn’t doing anything that co—

Ah. Wait. Dramatic.

I bet she did something, and then didn’t let me see it, right? Clever girl. Very clever.

Clever enough to break herself free of Sombra’s mind control bullsh—

*page torn by quill, another Sombra mind-attack?*

Almost gotcha that time.



Zecora laughed when I told her about Zombie. Apparently, she knew of him. Not really so surprising, to be honest, when in Farasi he's known as Saint Z'Ngue the Prodigal. Left home as a colt because he hated "the system" and wanted to strike out on his own. I guess the Zebrican Dream Magic is a bit different from Luna's, not least is the fact that instead of being able to perceive the distant past like we now know the Princess can, zebras can manipulate Dream-Stuff to foretell the future. Z'Ngue sort of rebelled against being sorted into a monastic lifestyle because of a vision somepony had, and so left to become a pirate and a smuggler and a slaver.

Fast forward to after this all happened, and he makes it back to Farasi. He becomes a monk. He rededicates his life to others. He even spends fifty years in prison to make up for his crimes, and campaigns for just about every good cause there was at the time. 

Then he writes a bunch of books. Like, a hundred books. Some are religious devotions. Some are philosophical treatises.

And then he wrote The Night Mare and the Tyranny of the Sun, a best-seller about his experience seeing the Tantabus (and whatever vision it offered him), which confirmed for many that the Old Zecoras' Tales about an evil mare who would bring about eternal night were real. A group of sun-worshippers took his texts to heart, and founded a cult.

So. Zecora is intimately familiar with old Zombie, one of the most famous zebras in all of history. Which led her to attempt to stop Nightmare Moon. Which she failed at (she does claim she knows firshoof what 'the stars will aid in her escape' means, by the way, and won't share it until you make time to have some tea with her again soon so do it do it doitdoitdoitdoitdoit). Which led to her changing her ways and becoming a more moderate zecora and local alchemist/pharmacist for the local ponies. Which led to her helping Trixie get back into showbiz, indirectly causing part of Trixie's mad spiral towards that darn Alicorn Amulet fiasco, and indirectly made her the perfect pony to befriend Starlight Glimmer, which meant she was around to help Thorax liberate his people from Chrysalis' tyranny, which

ALL OF WHICH put Trixie on the path to go back in time in the first place! It's always Trixie! It's all Trixie!

It's Trixies all the way down!!!



Trixie must have been tired. Bone tired. So tired her soul felt tired. And maybe being in contact with the whole dreamrealm thingie didn’t help. But, any case. I was beginning to drift off, lying there on the floor.

Which was when the world exploded again, naturally.

One whole wall fell in, actually. And a blur of ponies jumped Zooloo as he tried to run. I couldn’t really make out who they were, between me being so tired and so hopped up on that powdery stuff, but I could take a few guesses.

Gusty is really amazing. Like, turned into a freaking comet, going all nirik. She smashed through the glass display cases, and tore off after Zombie. I didn’t see much of what she did, but there were explosions, and crashes, and a lot of bad language and some cool one-liners.

I’m more hoping there were cool one-liners. Didn’t hear them myself.

Joyous Guard came in right after her, though, and I bet he was part of the reason why the rest of the display cases and the wall behind them fell apart so quickly. Like, I once watched Iron Will (before he left the circus) smash through a whole porcelain shop, and even that didn’t cause half as much damage as I could remember seeing there.



Iron Will, going by the immigration and police records kept since his youth, had a troubled childhood. He came to Equestria as a calf from Chimeria, the kingdom of centaurs, gargoyles, and other chimeric creatures. As a teen, he always got into trouble with the law, and was heading for a rotten life when he was given the choice of prison time, or joining the circus.

According to him, showbusiness saved his life. He worked with Trixie on and off, but they were apparently okay-friends back in the day. They recently reconnected, just a few months before all this health stuff with Trixie started up.



But just as Trixie finally, mercifully collapsed into a dreamless sleep, I could remember hearing singing. Like, really nice singing. Another Heart Song, I thought. Melody Song’s green greenness filled my senses for a moment, just a moment as she led some sort of charge.

And, I thought at that time, I couldn’t help but wonder at the faceless ponies charging in with her.

Especially the colt in a red magician outfit.





Well. What would you expect to happen after that?

Trixie woke up in a freaking cocoon. That’s what it felt like. I tried to shift around, and find a comfortable spot, but there wasn’t an inch of give to my sheets, and it became very clear as to why once I opened my eyes.

My bedsheets were wrapped around me.

They were strapped to me by at least ten belts, and each one of them had been tied together with string, and then padlocked shut!

There were more ropes, of course, and a couple of heavy chains with their own padlocks. And a few smaller chains holding them down to the bed and down to the floor.

I saw a weight, Journal. Somepony had dropped a hundred-pound weight in the middle of the floor, and tied my bed to it.

And as Trixie struggled against these new bonds, it became clear that I had one more impediment placed on me: My horn. Somepony had actually placed one of those Magic Suppressing Horn Rings on it! Who would do such a thing!?

I shall tell you who! Starswirl the TRAITOR! Gusty the JERK!

And I told that to their faces, since they were still in the room, playing cards by candlelight.

“Quislings!” I called them. “Traitors! HOW DARE YOU!!??”



Starswirl, one thousand years back, wrote the following:

If you only knew how bad of shape you were in. Those suppressors weren’t easy to come by, either. Melody had to promise a lot of non-paying writing work to the local Troggle Captain to sneak out a set (who knew Troggles liked poetry so much?). I swear, if you hadn’t taken our advice and let yourself sleep for the next few weeks, I think I might have turned you to stone just to get the point across! Assuming I could even do that back then. Which I couldn’t, but whatever. Shut up, Journal.

Oh good heavens, now I’m doing it.



But, it was to no avail. They wouldn’t budge. The ponies, not the chains. Although those didn't budge either, to be fair.

"Trixie, I think this city has just about had enough of you for one day," Gusty said, tiredly. She was definitely favoring her left legs as she turned to face me. "Captain Flash was barely able to keep those monsters preoccupied, the market square will probably smell like onions for a month, and now we have to move out of the warehouse district before..."

"Captain Who?" I asked. I probably should have let Gusty finish, in hindsight, but being tied up was a bit unnerving at the best of times for Trixie.

With the clatter of metal plates, an all-too familiar pony stepped into Trixie's visual range. 

"That would be me," she said in a low, husky voice. In the candlelit lighting inside the inn (lit, light, inside, inn, good grief I'm a hack) she really did look like a slightly recolored Tempest Shadow. Trixie had to fight the urge to check and see if she only had one wing, or something.

She snorted with a laugh, and then winced. Maybe she had both wings, but I could tell she was wearing a sort of civilian-style leather armor more for the rib-support than outright protection. "Thanks for the riot, Trixie. My colts and fillies loved a chance to kick Grogar's monsters' plots around a bit."

"You're not in trouble for helping Trixie?" I asked.

Flash Thunder (cool name) shrugged in the way only someone about to feed me a line would shrug. "Nah," she said, "the City Council's played nice with Grogar for so long that he usually takes our side with these things. And since nopony or creature mentioned your involvement..."

Well, it was nice to hear that Trixie's involvement hadn't brought down the wrath of Grogar. At least, not yet. Those three monsters were probably too scared to admit they'd lost me again, thinking about it now.

Still. What Flash said stuck with me.

"So... the pegasi aren't on Grogar's side?"

Captain Flash shook her head again. "No. Well... yes, but no. It's a lot easier to subvert the Emperor's plans if he thinks you're a part of them. But that means playing along, most of the time. Waiting for a moment to strike.

"And now that we have a Great and Powerful Wizard on our side..."

"The what and what and what?" I asked. Eloquence was out the window that night. Trixie was too tired for all that.

Flash Thunder smiled, and nodded.

"Once we heard about Hyneighria, the City Council knew that the time was nigh! General Bray had destroyed an entire town on Grogar's orders, all to catch... The Wizard."

I think her eyes literally shone, Journal. Like, a filly seeing her birthday cake and realizing it was big enough to make a cake-fort out of. It was almost the purest smile I've ever seen.

And then what she said registered with me. And a deep, dark pit opened up in Trixie's stomach.

"The fabled Wizard," Flash went on, almost dreamily. "The legendary figure of prophecy, whose appearance was to herald our redemption. Our Revolution! How could we not join the Resistance led by such a mare?"

"LED!?" Trixie cried. "I'm not the leader!"

But before I could clarify further, Swirly (the little rat that he is) hopped up in front of me.

"That is to say," he said, hat off and pushed into my face, "Trixie isn't the sole leader of the Resistance. Gusty and the others are... her most trusted advisors and fellows. Her allies!"

"First amongst equals," Melody sang, "that's us!"

"I'm not one of you!" I protested, managing to speak past the red hat sticking out of my mouth by this point. "I don't even like half of you!"

Flash Thunder blinked, and frowned.

"Weren't you the one who moved the Sun and the Moon?" she asked.

"Well, yes," Trixie admitted. "But that was..."

"And you defeated Grogar's Hunters!" Flash continued on, smile returning. "Your ward told us of that particular exploit. And today's carnage only made it plain how much those three despise and fear you!"

Trixie was a bit stunned. Partly to hear that Swirly had been talking about me, but also that so much of my talent and abil—

I really can't stop bragging, can I? It's like a disease at this point. I agreed with Flash's words. Technically, she wasn't wrong. I did defeat Grogar's goon squad. It was through trickery and astounding levels of luck, but it still sort of counted.

"Then how could we lose with the Great and Powerful Trixie at our head?" Flash finished, and by now I could tell what she was. That gleam in her eye said it all. 

She was a Super Fan.

They suck all the fun out of being famous and beloved, Trixie will say. And now? This was probably the Ur example. To Flash, Trixie was already a hero. And all she'd heard about me was lies. Then again, that's kind of all there really is to me, so what difference did this make?

Realizing that I was about to be properly hijacked into being the leader of a doomed revolution — predestination or not, it was Gusty, not Trixie, that won the first time around — in a doomed down, in potentially a doomed timeline depending on what I do next, Trixie felt suddenly light-headed, and collapsed onto the bed.

Or it could have been a lack of blood circulation. Those stupid ropes were too tight!





And so, Journal. That’s it. That’s the end of my account of what happened in Gallopoli. Nothing else happened. I went to sleep, and woke up a month later in this cave with a psychotic sorcerer who can’t take a hint that PRINCESS AMORE WILL NEVER LOVE YO—



There’s a rather worrying burn here that seems to have destroyed much of the next page. And left a few traces of some sort of salt?

No, wait. Hang on.

Had to run and get it analyzed. Moondancer was up doing some sort of personal research, and helped me out.

Yeah, it’s crystal. Dark crystals.

I’m going to get some shuteye now. Cab just brought in another bundle of research notes, and I realized he left two days ago but I’m still sitting in the same chair. Starswirl is sleeping in the self-help section. He says the ‘overcomplicated nonsense provides ample insulation against the cold’. Whatever that means.

I’ll hit the journal again in the morning. Let me know if any huge, earth-shattering revelations pop up in the meantime, alright?

Daring, out.