Trixie seems to have run out of paper at this point and had to glue in a whole new stack. You can tell from the binding, and how she opens up this next bit, with a recap of what’s already happened to her.
It is, of course, in classic Trixie fashion.
Alright, Journal Junior. Journal Two. Magical Boogaloo. The Second One. Trixie’s Bizarre Adventure: Revengeance.
Where does Trixie begin?
If the first half of this journal is lost or destroyed or used as toilet paper by somepony who TRIXIE SHALL MURDER FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, then I would like to take a moment to recall what’s happened thus far in my journeys.
I, the Great and Powerful Trixie Lulamoon, most magical and mightiest of all unicorn mages in Equestria, was born on a Tuesday.
Skipping over my entirely epic-yet-tragic foalhood, Trixie became a Hero of Equestria by saving the world from the Changeling Queen on no less than two occasions. Other ponies might have been involved as well.
Hey, I was there for that second one! Everycreature was!
But after that, and after Trixie, Great and Powerful as she is, decided to settle down and become a school counselor, she was cruelly snatched away from the palace in which she lived by a spell gone awry! In an instant, I found myself trapped thousands of years in the distant past, where there is no Equestria, no Magic of Friendship, and where the villainous Grogar still rules with an iron hoof.
I managed to find myself an apprentice, the very famous wizard Starswirl the Bearded, who is only a kid at this time, and I am now traveling across the world, teaching him all that I know.
Or, I would be. Except that I’ve gotten myself mind-controlled by a lunatic dark wizard with delusions of grandeur. And he’s forcing me to retell how I managed to find my way to the city of Gallopoli, and subsequently destroy said city in my attempts to avoid becoming the leader of a rebellion against Grogar the Ram, since I know from history that Trixie Lulamoon didn’t lead anypony to victory.
No. At this rate, all Trixie is leading them towards is an early grave.
I’ve been dragging my hooves with this entry. Trixie hasn’t really had a lot of time to process what all happened in Gallopoli. She probably missed a few things. Like Blossom’s cooking. Wait, did I cover that?
Either way, it’s so soon. Too soon. I’ve spent a couple days writing this all out, and it still doesn’t seem real at times. Not helping matters is that I’m basically stuck helping Gusty work on logistics, Melody with her propaganda, Trixie still has to take time to teach Swirly, and of course there’s the little fact that the rest of my time is completely taken up with tutoring an egomaniacal, obsessive stalke—
As fond as I am of you, Trixie, and your wondrous magical knowledge, I must remind you to remain on-topic. We are fast-approaching the part of your story I truly wish to hear. Only you truly know what happened at the Battle of Gallopoli, and I greatly desire the secrets of Grogar’s power he displayed there.
I k3ep ttelling you, ppPppPookems (stop mak m3 sai thaaat) that t4e BELL u wahn is a trajedy waiti—
My Destiny lies in that Bell! I have seen it in your memories of the future-to-be. You even wore my House Sigil once! My Empire will be eternal.
King Sombra has such a nice ring to it, yes? Much nicer than Ba—
LLLLlis5ten TO MME
Did you just interrupt me? Wait, are you dictating me?
How marvelous! I’ll have to make a note of that. I could revolutionize magical communication this way. Imagine the Empire’s reach if I could merely think a thing, and have banks of pony scribes scratch it out precisely as I meant it to appear. Even when you defy me, you only make my eventual victory all the more complete! Princess Amore was a fool to hide her crystal ponies in the north. She could have ruled the world with the power soon to be at my hooftips!
She will have to accept me, once I present her with my greatest gift: Ascension!
Couldn’t just start with flowers, huh?
Fine. So, there were a couple things that happened during my two weeks of downtime. First, Trixie w—
And then, a splotch of thousand-year-old mold destroyed the following couple of pages. And everything written there. And Starswirl was, apparently, indisposed during large parts of Trixie’s downtime, so he doesn’t really remember what happened there either.
No. I’m not okay. I’m not fine. I—
Your Most Glorious Excellency, this is Doctor Quixote de Cervantes y Caballeron. The second. My wife is currently indisposed due to unyielding scholarly rage. I can honestly say I have not seen her like this since a first edition copy of the Poninomicon was vaporized in front of her during an archeological dig (it was an honest mistake, but the Mummy King should have known better). I am applying the boo-boo kisses and hot coco mugs of happiness as I write this missive. Daring will be back to work shortly.
It is a tragedy, of course. Losing such a valuable piece of historical knowledge. With all the bizarre revelations and heroics perpetrated by Trixie in her travels, one can only boggle at the incredible insights into our collective history we have lost here today.
“Row, row, row your boat,” Trixie sang in a half-slurred, slumber-deprived tone, “gently down the stream… Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily… life is but a dream…”
She gave an experimental tug at her left hindleg. The chains clinked, gently.
Nope. Still shackled.
She breathed, slowly, out her nose.
“Row, row, row your boat…”
Gusty, leaning beside the bed, took up the round.
“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream…!”
Trixie reached the beginning again.
“Row, row, row your boat…”
Gusty followed.
“… Row, row, row your boat…”
Then came Melody, nodding along.
“…Row, row, row your boat…”
“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…!”
“Row, row, row your boat…”
“Row, row, row your boat…”
“… gently down the stream…!”
Swirly sighed, and joined as the next round began.
“Row, row, row your boat…”
“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…!”
And then, Joyous Guard joined, with a scowl.
“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…!”
The door to the room opened, and Snuzzle the proprietor came through.
She came through, angry.
“I SWEAR BY MAREPHEUS’ MOON, I WILL END EVERYPONY IN THIS INN IF YOU DON’T STOP SINGING THAT TARTARIAN SONG RIGHT THIS INSTANT!!!”
Everypony in the room stopped, breath held tight. Nopony dared move, lest they prove that Snuzzle’s eyesight was based on movement.
After a few terrifying heartbeats, the green unicorn huffed and left the room, grumbling obscenities one only learned from a lifetime of working in the service industry.
The room was left utterly silent.
Except for Trixie. Who would have welcomed the sweet release of death on this, the eighth day of her confinement.
“One bottle of cider on the wall,” she sang. “One bottle of ciderrr…!”
Alright. I got my coco and my hubbie smooches. Let’s get back to it, shall we?
There’s some good news, at least. One section of the damaged text appears relatively intact. Everything before and after it are lost, and Starswirl claims he doesn’t remember what was in there (liar!) but at least we have a bit more of what happened while Trixie was tied down.
—and we’ll even give the Manticore Moon Shot a go!” I was getting excited, just thinking about performing again. “Sure, it might break the time-space condominium, but when haven’t we done that before?”
Swirly smiled at that, though maybe in retrospect it was more of a grimace. He dutifully held up the glass and straw Trixie was drinking out of, and then very un-dutifully waited until I was taking a long drink before he said something I’ll never forget, nor forgive.
“Master Trixie,” he said slowly, treacherously, “I think I should keep doing the show on my own, for a little while.”
“What?” I asked.
Don’t look at me that way, Journal. Trixie would never choke on ice cubes, no matter how shocked and surprised and outraged she might have been. She was calm and cool as cucumber sandwiches!
Are you talking to your journal?
Quiet, you! You want your Harmony Magic? You have to listen to Trixie’s narration! That’s the price!
Very well, slave. If it keeps you talking. Though why I ever wanted that I shudder to think…
Are you also writing my speech with ellipses? That’s so tacky.
Anyway, Trixie asked this perfectly reasonable question reasonably and without ice cubes in her trachea.
Swirly scooped up the broken glass from the floor - unrelated - and said, “I just think that I’ve been doing a good job so far! I’m finding a rhythm, like you said to,”
“A rhythm without Trixie!”
“Trixie, your magic is still recovering!” He reminded me, the twerp. “Another big use of your magic before its recovered, and you could burn out. Again! And this time, maybe forever!”
For some reason, the way he said ‘forever’ seemed to echo in the room. And with the syllables really drawn out. And in Pinkie’s voice.
Spooky. Also, I knew he was right.
“You’re right,” I said in a not-pout not-whine sort of way. “Of course, you’re right, Swirly. But it’s so frustrating! Do you know how many hospitals and doctors I’ve skipped out on?”
“From the way you describe medical ponies in general, I would have assumed they covered you with leeches daily.”
“No,” said Trixie. “Worse! They overcharge for their services!”
I think Swirly said something sarcastic just then, but I wasn’t paying attention. Like I’d been doing for the past few weeks, Trixie was too busy sulking about her horrible plight.
“You know me, Swirly. My magic is who I am! Without it, what even is Trixie?”
Swirly pressed one hoof into my side - one of the bruise-less parts - in a comforting way, and smiled at me.
“Trixie?” He said. Asked. Wait, if he’s asking a rhetanomical question, but he’s not wanting a response, do I still put a question mark?
Whatever. “Trixie,” he said, “you are a—“
And then an explosion happened. You’d think I’d be done with that sort of thing by now, but it still surprised me. Mostly because it was a few feet above my bed.
“DID SOMEONE SAY DISCORD?!”
Yeah. Him again.
“Nopony said Discord!” I protested from my prostrate position as the demented little ram descended onto the chair by my bed. I had to yell a little since his entrance had been just loud enough to leave a ringing in my ears.
Also, Swirly appeared to be screaming in terror. There was that too. Too bad we were practically the only ponies in the building at the moment, or it might have attracted help.
“Good,” Discord laughed. “I wouldn’t want to be where I’m wanted.”
He bunched up his stupid bushy eyebrows and looked across from me.
“What’s with him?” He asked, pointing at Swirly, whose back was against the wall, and who was still screaming.
Discord scowled, and then did something super freaky, even for him. He reached both forehooves up and, like some rich pony taking off opera socks, he delicately pulled his left hoof off!
Like, right off! And underneath it was his more familiar talon!
I thought you said Discord was a ram. What manner of—?
SHUT UP
There’s another ink-slash in the page here. I don’t think Sombra liked that.
Discord snapped his talons, and I watched helplessly as Swirly’s mouth (and his screams) disappeared.
“That’s so much better,” said Discord, all smug-like. “I could hardly hear yourself think with all that racket.”
Swirly, now mouthless, started rolling on the ground. Muffle-screaming, instead of actual-screaming. Was still pretty nasty.
“Trixie hopes you’ll put him back the way he was!” I said. The sight of a mouthless pony dredged up a lot of memories I’d rather not dwell on. “I need him to be able to do his magic show.”
Discord shrugged. “Eh, maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. I kinda like him this way. Hmmm.”
He hummed, and drifted over me and towards Swirly. The little ram-thing scratched at his chin with his talon, and then hefted my apprentice up to his hooves.
“Hmmm,” he hmmm’d again. Swirly had stopped screaming by now, just looking dumbfounded at Discord in what Trixie can only suppose was sheer terror.
Then, Discord smiled. “You know, kid? You’re lucky.”
He snapped his talon again, and in a flash, I saw Discord and Swirly standing side-by-side, Discord now in an identical red robe and hat as Swirly!
“We’re twins!” Discord laughed. “Like I said, lucky! Born with such rare grace and handsomosity! I bet ponies will be confusing us for each other forever!”
Trixie didn’t see it, personally.
Starswirl has written in the margins here:
Neither do I! That wretched chimera is nothing but a hooligan and a scallywag!
Ooo! Scallywag! Seriously, do you kiss your hoof with that mouth?
And stop commenting on my commentary! I’m trying to honor a memory here!
This journal is getting crowded.
A section of water damage obscures the text
“Come on!” Discord whined some more. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t!”
“No!” I said for what felt like the umpteenth time that minute. “It’ll cause a paradox!”
I got it right that time.
“Now, now!” Discord pouted, and made his other hoof transform into an awful, stupid, not-very-like-me likeness of my head. “You even said, ‘The Discord I know isn’t that much of a jerk!’ So, I know that we know each other. But how?”
“Don’t tell him anything!” Swirly cried out, rather unhelpfully from the painting Discord had trapped him in. “You know what will happen!”
“Ooooh!” Discord shrilly cried. “What will happen? Tell me! Tell me tell me tell me!!!”
“I’ve told you a million times,” I told the not-yet-a-draconequus, “anything I say could cause a paradox! Trixie can’t risk it!”
“Paradox, schmaradox!” he pouted, and rolled his little red eyes around. “What even is a paradox? Who’s to say it wouldn’t be a hoot?”
“Starlight Glimmer, for one!” I snapped back. “She taught me everything I ever knew about this time-travel garbage! And if she says no—”
Cute as a tiny ram-Discord might be, I hated seeing that smug little grin on his face after he heard me say that.
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Of course, Trixie knows what a parapox is!” I lied. And despite how expertly Trixie is able to lie – Starlight sometimes says I can fool even myself, which is a great and powerful compliment for one so perceptive as Trixie – even I could tell Discord didn’t buy it.
Starlight once tried to explain it to me, but Trixie didn’t have her ‘listening-hat’ on. She had her ‘magician’ hat on, and that hat was more or less interested in hearing how Starlight’s time travel spell worked, not why I shouldn’t use it to simulate a ‘Disappearing’ spell for my act.
Are all hats sentient when you come from?
Her disappearing act? Was that actually what caused all this!?
I checked with Starswirl and Starlight both on just how bad a paradox could get. Starswirl bluffed and sputtered something about it being very bad, which tells me he never figured out what Trixie was talking about either.
From Starlight: I so totally told her what a Paradox did! I swear, it’s like in one ear and out the other with that mare.
What’s a paradox? The End of All Things. It’s the end of everything, everywhere, everywhen. Just me casting a time travel spell caused Sunset Shimmer’s entire timeline to get folded back in on itself to keep literally everything in existence from unraveling at the seams. Breaking the link between Cause and Effect, or inserting a new Cause into the timeline where it shouldn’t be, would overwrite everything that came after.
No, it’s worse than that. Because once everything was unraveled, it would stitch itself back together again. But DIFFERENT. And that means that every single moment in the timeline would get a proverbial reroll, down to the thermodynamic level. Best case scenario? One of Twilight’s friends isn’t born. Worst case is that the conditions necessary for LIFE to exist in our universe never form.
Uh, Daring? You’re awfully pale. Should I stop?
Oh, that was not a good look, Journal. Or should I be addressing Baron Sombra now?
Journal is fine, slave.
Cool.
Discord got this mad look in his eyes. Well, madder than usual. Or, just about as mad as he usually is, but this time it was a specific sort of mad.
It was ‘Thinking’ madness. And when you’re a reality warper, that’s never good.
“Why am I putting up with you?” he asked himself. “I’m the all-powerful, all-knowing—”
“If you were all-knowing…”
A zipper zipped my lip ship shut.
“Shut up,” he added, then continued in the same breath, saying: “I’m all-powerful, and about to be all-knowing! I’m DISCORD! The Great and Powerful! I don’t need you to tell me anything!”
I hated hearing two of those words in his mouth in particular.
Discord lifted off the bed, and said something that made Trixie’s stomach flat and perfect stomach do a loop.
“Let’s roll the dice,” he whispered, “and see what we get…”
He held up his little talon, and I knew he was about to do his stupid Chaos magicky thing!
I struggled against the chains and padlocks and bonds that held Trixie down, but it was no use. It also wasn’t much use hoping Swirly could stop Discord either, on account of his being trapped still.
No, the only creature that could stop Discord at that moment was Discord.
Trixie still doesn’t know how to properly describe what happened—
Try anyway.
I was gonna!
Trixie means, she isn’t entirely certain about why it happened, but a thing happened then that definitely happened. It was just bonkers.
Because Discord showed up just then.
Yeah, Modern Discord. In all his draconewhatsit idiocy just popped into existence to one side of my bed.
I’m sorry, what?
Twilight Sparkle, sitting on her royal bed, stared at the page, donut hanging from her open-mouth.
“What?”
As did Daring Do, whose partner Caballeron nearly fell from his library chair as her own shout woke him up in the middle of the night.
“Wait… what!?”
Discord spat out his coffee.
“Oh snarfflepants!” Discord cried, instantly regretting doing that, as Trixie’s edited journal now had rather a lot of coffee dribbling down its pages. He snapped his talons, and hastily tried to soak up as much of it as he could before it stained.
Then he remembered why he’d spat it out just at that moment.
“Is it that time already!?”
With a panicked look in his yellow and crimson eyes, the Spirit of Chaos leapt up to his feet, and reached out with a claw…
Well, okay. It was more like a portal appeared out of thin air and he stepped through into the room, but it’s Discord. I try not to give that guy any more ego-stroking than I have to, even in journal descriptions!
And it was cool, Journal. Super cool. Extremely—
Anyway, Little-Cord just floats there with the biggest idiot look on his face. Admittedly, Trixie and Swirly must have also looked somewhat confused. I admitted it! Trixie doesn’t know everything!
“Uh… wait, what?” asked Little-Cord.
Big-Cord (okay, I’ll stop that now) just adjusted his tie—
Jeez, that was an ugly one, too. It was like, purple, yellow, and green-stripped with polkadots on it.
What does this have to do with anything!?
Wait, what colors? Last time I saw Discord was at a Wonderbolt event Dash invited me to a few months back. Discord had a tie on then as well. A real stinker, in fact.
When did Discord go back in time?
Whatever.
The modern future later Classic Discord shook his head, and frowned at Diet Discord. He stuck one of his paw-fingers into his mouth, and swirled it around a moment. Real awkward, let me tell you. Even the little Discord was sort of off-put by the whole thing.
And then, Discord reached out and actually stuck his finger in his younger-self’s EAR!
It was the worst thing Trixie has seen yet!
Didn’t you watch a town get slaughtered?
This was worse.
Little Discord’s eyes did all sorts of crazy things, by the way. They changed color, they grew and shrank in size, and they even spun around a few times for good measure. Up and down, like a slot machine.
While all this happened, Discord (old one) gives me this stupid smug smirk of his, and stepped back into the portal. I tell you, Journal, if I could have Trixie would have leapt at that chance to get back home!
I guess it would have been Discord’s home, but I’m sure I could have managed from there.
Actually, that would have been a mistake, probably. Trixie didn’t see much beyond a weird living room type place in that portal, but there definitely was a calendar on his wall. And I could tell from the date that ah who is Trixie kidding? I couldn’t possibly remember something as irrelevant as that sort of detail. Better just skip all that and get back to the story.
Daring, that’s not Trixie! When did Discord leave this message? I MUST KNOW.
I don’t know! It wasn’t there before I sent the edits! Is he intercepting our communications? I thought Dragonfire was secure?
Actually. This is good. Better than good. That looks like a coffee stain. A modern coffee stain.
Keep working, I’m chasing a lead.
Cozy Glow wasn’t an expert in human technology, nor pop culture. She’d only been over across the mirror a couple of times, and always under lock, key, and magical surveillance (as per her terms of parole under Princess Anarchy’s auspices). She had absolutely no idea what constituted ‘good’ music from a universe not her own.
But, at least to her mind, human Cozy Glow had some good taste, if the music-playing-machine her ape-like doppelganger sent over was any indication.
The formerly pint-sized pink terror slowly tapped her hooves to the odd, crunchy beat of some band called ‘Skullcrusher’, and found the wild fury of her soul somehow paradoxically tamed by the fury of the song.
If she listened to the music, she could almost tune out the sound of someling complaining in her general direction.
“Can we please listen to something else?”
Cozy frowned, and glared down from Anarchy’s pink-and-black bed where she and her dimensionally-borrowed music-player were still trying to groove. A slightly-less pint-sized green and blue changeling filly (nymph?) pouted on the floor, where she and Ann’s friend Cheese Slice Pie had been sitting, reading a book on particle physics.
No one ever questioned a Pie’s reading choices. Especially not within the Heart of Chaos, the very bedroom of Princess Anarchy herself.
It was very silly to question such things.
“What, got another one of those Bug albums?” Cozy sighed.
Chrysalis (formerly Queen, also formerly adult under the terms of her own parole) shook her head, and scooted closer to Cozy. “It’s the Beetles, and no! There are other bands I like from that human world!”
“Name one.”
“That’s beside the point!” Chrysalis snarled. Then, noticing the way Cheese half-turned to stare at her outburst, she grumbled and kicked at the carpet. “I mean… I guess? It’s my turn, anyway.”
“Is not!” Cozy snorted, a typical teenager.
“Is so!” Chrysalis snorted back, an atypical one.
“Is not!”
“Is so!”
“Is not!”
“Is so!”
The door to the room, currently found on the floor and in the shape of a submarine’s airlock (Chaos Realm, remember?), slammed open, cutting off the argument before it truly began.
“You never saw me!” Discord cried out, and charged through with a stack of folders and papers beneath one arm. He leapt over Cozy and the bed, and dove below Chrysalis and Cheese – made easier by the fact that the floor was more a guideline than an actual rule in this dimension – and charged towards one of the nearby stain-glass windows.
A window depicting Discord, fleeing from a platoon of Royal Guard. Odd, that.
As he got the window to open, and managed to get one leg up on the sill, he finally paused.
“Hm?” he asked, turning around. “Where’s Ann?”
Completely unfazed by Discord’s antics by this point, Cozy Glow simply tilted her head towards the wooden door drifting along one nearby wall at a 67% angle.
“Taffy room,” she said, and in an almost bored tone of voice. “What’s going on?”
“Twilight’s got a trace,” Discord said, quickly pulling open a nearby drawer as it skittered past. “I’ve got to get out of here before she can force me to explain myself!”
“Oh no,” Chrysalis smirked, rolling her eyes, “how awful!”
“It is!” Discord said while using his magic to snap up a couple of hot dogs, a flashlight made out of bees, and a scale model of a triangle completely made out of right angles out of the drawer before him, before he shoved them all into a suitcase. “I’ve been dragging this out on purpose! If she finds out now what I’m up to, EVERYTHING’S RUINED!”
Then, he looked back to children in the room, and whispered, “You never saw me!”
He backflipped out the window, and disappeared from view. A moment later, the sound of an engine roared to life, and a sleigh drawn by disembodied cat grins took off for parts unknown.
Little Cheese blinked, and dragged one hoof through his pink, frizzy mane. “Wow, that… wow. He looks worried.”
Chrysalis simply frowned at Cozy Glow. “This is why I don’t like visiting your place. At least my room only has three dimensions.”
Yet once again, their conversation was halted as something else interrupted.
A perfectly geometric, glowing purple hexagon, so perfectly precise in its design and its dimensions that the room – nay – the very Realm of Chaos itself began to tremble, appeared in the air above the floor, prompting Little Cheese to scoot several feet to one side as a veritable platoon of Equestrian Royal Guard, clad in their shiny gold and purple armor, materialized from the portal.
A grey-maned Flash Magnus hit the ‘ground’, and shouted, “Quickly! Secure the perimeter! We can’t let the fugitive get away again!”
“Sir!” a griffon molly snapped one talon to her helmet in a sharp salute. “There is no perimeter! I don’t think objective reality’s a fact here.”
Not even missing a beat, the old Pillar of Equestria laughed, and said, “Then secure the undefined spatial region of chaos we’re currently inhabiting! Come on Gertie, this isn’t your first rodeo!”
Cheese Pie, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis all stared as if this was as routine as things got for all of them. Then again, considering all the strange things that kept happening these days, and that this was the literal Realm of Chaos… maybe it was?
Regardless, they unblinkingly turned towards the Taffy Door, and began a silent countdown.
Then, just as all three silently reached ‘Eight’, it also slammed open, allowing a creature that looked almost exactly like what you’d expect a perfect fusion of Discord and Fluttershy to look like to enter her bedroom.
“DID I MISS MY CAMEO!?” Anarchy cried out. “IS THE SCENE STILL GOING!?”
Twelve guards crashed down on her before she had a chance to say or do anything more in the chapter.
So, there I was. Just lying there, tied down, with a baby Discord sputtering on my bed with insane, time-paradox-caused ramblings. Swirly was back to normal, Discord’s magic apparently not working while his brain was doing whatever it was doing just then. My mouth was no longer zipped—
Also, I’ll remember that, Discord! Trixie hereby bans you from all her shows! Yes, even the ones you’ve already attended.
After a few moments, I considered interrupting his bizarre little trance. But then I’d have to talk to Discord again, and that wasn’t very high on my list of things to do that day. It was above getting nabbed by Troggles, but not by much.
And then, Discord screamed.
“Fluttershy!!!”
Yeah. Fluttershy.
WHAT.
Okay. No. WHAT? ANOTHER PARADOX?
Hold on, how come this one didn’t destroy the universe? I asked Starlight about it, but the explanation just made my head hurt. Somehow, all of Trixie’s little screwups and paradoxes are self-contained, a closed-loop if I remember right. So, unlike with Starlight’s original version of Starswirl’s time travel spell, no alternate universes or timelines will result from Trixie ANYTHING Trixie has done so far.
But Discord? Is it because Chaos can bend those rules? Is that how it works? I swear, once you have him, I want a solid hour with him in a dark room. I NEED ANSWERS!!!
Trixie didn’t really know what to say, or do. This pint-sized Discord just flipped his lid (literally, whole top of his head flew off for a bit. Surprised Swirly didn’t freak out over that but I guess he was all freaked-out), and started hyperventilating.
The more Time stuff I get involved in, the more I wonder just how much the creatures in my life already know. Or knew.
Did Discord know this whole time? Like, thousands of years? Then why be such a jerk for so much of it, to where he got turned to stone? Why make such a big production of things?
There I go. The Great and Powerful Trixie questioning somecreature else’s sense of showmareship. Whatever reasons he had, I suppose they’re his.
I asked him, “Hey, kid? You okay?”
Oof. Journal? The way he looked at me was like something I’ll never forget. Like he saw a movie monster right in front of—
ENOUGH.
What do you mean, enough?
I have been patient, Slave. I have allowed you room to elaborate on your ridiculous adventures, but you seem more interested in focusing on trivialities rather than tell me what I want to know.
How. Did. Grogar. Do. It?
Hey, this is my sssss—
*text damaged by pen slash, possibly due to Sombra’s psychic attack*
I will brook no more delay, Trixie. You will tell me the secrets I desire. And you will do so now. My Bell requires finishing.
These aren’t trivialities, dork! Life is trivialities! A whole heck of a lot of them, all in a sequence! You want to know what I know? Then you have to hear about it. All of i—
*another slash damages the text*
F~*/*i1ine!
Fine! I’ll speed up. Just, stop.
Please.
If he wasn’t already dead multiple times over, I’d like to kick Sombra in his stupid teeth.
It doesn’t matter all that much anyway. That conversation ended a few seconds later, after another bomb went off in the city. Gallopoli was always exploding at the time, what with Gusty and her crew being loose and uncaptured.
Oh, if I’d only known then what I know now!
Nothing would change all that much, actually. That’s kind of the problem.
What is?
This. Trixie—
I’m trapped here, Sombra. Nothing I do can stop what’s already happened. But it kind of has? If not, I don’t know what was up with Aeva. All I know is, I’m just along for a ride at this point. Time flows one way. I can’t even convince you to stop this stupid plan of yours before you destroy yourself.
Or turn into a shadow monster. I’m still not sure what’s going on with you in that regard.
Simpleton! That’s the whole point of this! With your knowledge, I shall ascend! Just because you think me a monster does not mean that it is not the optimal path before me.
You’re really hopeless, you know that?
Since when do lions concern themselves with the opinions of sheep?
Shows what you know! I’m a pony, idiot!
…
Just… just finish the blasted story.
Trixie skips another couple of weeks here, and I almost pulled my own teeth out before I remembered that we had Starswirl to fill in the gaps! Huzzah!
I just wrote ‘huzzah’ into a block of text being read by a Princess of Equestria. I think this job is beginning to mess with me.
It’s true, we were interrupted at that point by an explosion. There were a lot of those happening in Gallopoli at the time, and it was by luck and luck alone that Trixie never caught on to how the Resistance could whip up so many explosives so quickly, when before we joined, they’d never been able to strike so many of Grogar’s assets so often.
I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out I was not actually performing all that much, in those days. No. Reverse-engineering Trixie’s magic rockets into high-grade explosives took up most of my time.
In retrospect, I wish I’d told her earlier, but I know she would have tried to stop me sooner if I had. She was always against joining, even though she was now our spiritual leader, of a sorts. You might be aware of Trixie’s crippling self-doubt, yes? I didn’t really understand it at the time, but she’s always had a dark place in her mind where confidence feared to tread.
During this time, Gusty, Melody, Guard, and I all tried to build as many explosives as we could. Recruit as many ponies as we could. The Resistance grew daily, but in order to keep Trixie (who was still wearing a magic suppressing ring for most of this, and was utterly miserable let me tell you!) from spoiling things, we fashioned a series of lies and stratagems to keep her busy.
In short: we pawned her off. First to Snuzzle and Blossom, who had Trixie work with them at the inn. She proved startlingly good at cooking for guests, but that plan fell through when somegriffon insulted her by adding salt to the pasta she made. Turns out, neither Snuzzle nor Blossom cared much for a mare who ladled their clientele.
Next, we asked Captain Flash Thunder to watch her. That could have gone better, since Flash was incredibly, stupendously abrasive under ideal circumstances. She was a diehard fanatic, as far as I remember her. More interested in Trixie’s tales of daring do (ha) than even Trixie herself was. I couldn’t believe it when Trixie begged me to get the Captain off of her case.
Turns out, ego-stroking can go too far.
Eventually, we had no choice. None of the other Resistance members knew about Discord then, and they surely wouldn’t have liked the idea of depending on Grogar’s own son to maintain our deception. But I had no choice in the matter.
Plus, he seemed to enjoy the heckling and tormenting he got up to with Trixie, as she herself notes when she took up the pen once again following Sombra’s threats.
Seriously. I want a piece of that jerk once you catch him. He’s got all kinds of explaining to do!
*some text lost to water damage*
“Why are you still here?” I asked him once, after a particularly long and trying day – he wouldn’t shut up, I had to spend time with Captain Flash “Crazy” Thunder filling out fake paperwork so Grogar’s Troggles wouldn’t card me, and my magic was still under quarantine for the time being.
“Well, if you must know, I’m under orders to find you,” he said.
Didn’t even make a big deal out of that bombshell. I think he was eating a pickle covered in chocolate frosting.
“What!?”
“Under orders,” he said, slower. “To find you. I’m not sure how much easier I can make this.”
For a moment, and just a moment, Trixie panicked. If Discord was here to spy on us the rebels, then we were all in very real danger.
Until Trixie thought about it a moment.
And then another.
About when Diet Discord polished off another pickle, I had a thought.
“Why haven’t you gone back then?” I asked. “Reported us?”
“I was under orders to find you,” he said again. “If Dad forgets to tell me to bring you back, or do something about you… well, that’s his fault, isn’t it?”
Of course. Of course, Discord would always adhere to the letter of the loophole.
Before I could ask about that, or anything really, an odd sound drew Trixie’s attention. It was so eerily familiar, so intoxicatingly sweet, that I nearly had a heart attack just standing in the marketpla—
Trixie.
This matters! This is exactly what you want to hear! Just give me a moment.
It was a sound that I had almost forgotten, hiding out in that inn. Sitting with a nutso pegasi Captain who had deluded herself with dreams of stamping on Grogar’s face. Walking around town with a baby sheep that kept flinching at shadows whenever a squad of Troggles (or that one freaky giant seapony) came around.
Starswirl got paler than usual, when he saw that bit again. Then he hissed, “Lady Rhapsody,” and I think a window pane shattered somewhere off in the palace.
I got a bad feeling about this.
That sound was applause.
There was a show! I’d almost forgotten what that sounded like! Most of the time, Gallopoli was a miserable place those days, what with the whole sun and moon thing.
Oh. Right. Um. The moon hadn’t done phases in a while by this point. And it got a bunch of ‘mad prophet’ types to start screaming at ponies in the town square. There was also something about the length of the day not changing, but you can’t expect Trixie to listen to such boring stuff whenever Joyous Guard decides to talk about literally anything.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you just how intimidating it is getting to sit down and interview Princess Celestia about solar mechanics. She’s really something else. Like, she’s basically Equestria’s Mom, in a way. Ancient beyond all reason. Truly divine in the scope of her life.
But I was actually more surprised how down-to-earth she is! And so much better at explaining crazy arcane nonsense than someponies I know (three guesses who, but he wears bells). Trixie was obviously pressed for time there, but she’s clearly talking about how daylight shifts in length over the course of the year. It’s always been a bit of a mystery, to be honest. And until I had to do side-research for this project, I didn’t ever realize how many academics argued furiously over the question of why the length of a day isn’t consistent when it’s under the control of an all-powerful alicorn.
Apparently, the sun used to orbit the planet in an elliptical loop, way back when. Not sure why, but that’s how it was. Celestia normalized the days for a long time after this story happened, before suddenly reintroducing longer summer daylight hours and shorter winter ones some time after Luna’s banishment. According to the Princess, she went through a bit of a funk after that night, and kept the sun out for a solid week!
Once she’d come to her senses and realized she’d have to start moving the heavens again without Luna’s assistance, Celestia apparently changed the length of days throughout the year and started the Summer Sun Celebration as a way of reminding herself about “The Night the Sun Stood Still”, and everything it’d cost her and her sister.
Oof. Too serious. Back to Trixie.
“Well, fine,” Discord said, I think. I don’t really know. I was running too fast. He added something else at the end as well, like, “I guess we’re doing this now.” Maybe.
As I turned the corner, I had to duck behind a melon-vendor to avoid the small group of Troggles watching the show from the edge of the (actually kinda impressive) crowd. There had to be dozens of ponies and a few other creatures to boot! The Troggles themselves seemed confused by what they were watching, however.
Which, naturally, ended up being Swirly. Juggling a set of rubber balls through a hoop made out of (illusory) fire. And even half-distracted by the Troggles, I could tell he was doing the trick almost seventy-three percent as well as I would have.
“So… is that a wizard?” one Troggle asked another.
“Nah,” a second one said, “that’s a sorcerer. Completely different.”
“How is a wizard and a sorcerer different?” asked a third. “And if they’re not different, does that make them synonyms? And if they’re synonyms, does that mean we still have to arrest them like Lord Grogar said?”
The first one scowled.
“Um…” he said. “It’s something to do with hats.”
“Stop thinking, you gits,” a fourth one said, and Trixie’s blood ran cold when she heard him.
If you hadn’t read yourself up until this point, Journal, you’d never believe it.
It was that one Troggle Captain! The one at the guard post! The one who nearly sussed me out from before? No, not that one. The other one. I’d recognize that hat anywhere!
You’re talking to the Journal again.
“Um, aren’t we paid to think?” asked one of the lesser Troggles.
“You’re paid to follow orders,” the Captain sighed. “Thinking is just a side effect. Either way, that isn’t a wizard. Looks like a stage magician. Grogar hasn’t banned those yet.”
Trixie was never so happy to learn that cops in every era are dumb. If he’d recognized Swirly from this distance, we’d be in real, real trouble.
The Captain snorted, and started walking away. “Eh, I’ve seen this trick before. Let’s get some grub, you pigs.”
Trixie held her breath until the troop had marched back around the same corner she’d just run around.
But when I allowed myself a single second to sigh in relief, Discord happened again!
“You know…”
I hit my head on the stupid melon stand. Discord has a habit of just popping up when he’s least wanted.
“… if he had two more brain cells, they’d just fight.”
Again, I tried to ignore him, and focused back on the stage.
Except there was nothing there.
“Wait, there was a show!” I gasped. The stage was completely empty, bits of wafting smoke all that there was left of Swirly’s performance.
It was over. Just over! No fanfare! No encore!
I mean, besides the fact that Trixie was pretty sure Swirly had only gotten through a third of the routine! It was intolerable!
Something was fishy.
Okay, considering what happened next, bad choice of words.
Trixie spotted Swirly’s hat bobbing away through the crowd, and I was bound and determined to get to the bottom of things. Where was he off to? This was entirely too suspicious. Even I was starting to suspect something off was going on–
Wait, off was going on? I really need to–
FINISH. THE. STORY.
Yeah, yeah!
Anway. Trixie started after her wayward apprentice, snarking Discord behind me all the while. Seriously, he’s the most annoying creature I’ve ever met.
Still. I guess I owe him one.
For just at that moment, the crowd began to thin. Trixie thought the lunch rush was ending, and she could track Swirly in relative peace, without having to juke back and forth around everypony in town. But, alas! No such luck.
The crowd was thinning because somecreature was coming the other direction. Somecreature that was big.
Like, really big.
“I don’t care for excuses, Captain!” Trixie could hear her voice before she saw her. “You see a pony using magic, the Emperor wishes to know about it! I don’t care if it’s a colt, a filly, a stage magician, or a clown!”
The Captain from just before was coming back again! That, Trixie knew, was bad.
What was worse was the way Discord grabbed my tail.
Though I nearly took his head off with a precision kick from my toned and mighty legs, and despite my better judgment, Trixie hesitated. There was something going on in little Ramcord’s eyes just then that actually started to worry me.
Discord smirks. He smiles. He snarls.
He doesn’t afraid. He doesn’t afraid of anything. Mostly cuz he’s too stupid. But little kid Discord? He’s not old enough to be his usual self.
Before I had a chance to ask what was wrong, the answer became clear.
Towering over the rest of the crowd, I could see the ‘She’ I’ve been expertly referring to all this time. A mountain of dark, rosy red scales. A slithering, hooved monstrosity from out of the scariest sort of comic books. A creature from ponykind’s collective nightmare!
It was a Siren.
It was THE Siren.
“Lady Rhapsody,” Discord whispered.
And that was the last thing I heard before the SNAP.
“I’m sorry, but the patient isn’t receiving visitors right now, miss. You and your friends will have to come back later.”
“We aren’t going anywhere.”
“Uh… well. I can leave your names with Miss Trixie, and when we restart visiting hours tomorrow, you can–”
“Listen, Pony…”
“Dagi…”
“... Listen… Nurse Match Stick… my sisters and I have come a very, very long way. It’s late. We’re tired. And we need to talk to Trixie right now. Before she..”
“Ahem.”
“... gets any worse.”
“Um… I can ask her if she wants to see you. But just for a moment.”
As the nurse pony rushed off to check in on her patient, Adagio Dazzle tilted her head towards the sister on her left.
“Happy, Sonata?” she asked.
“Don’t be rude, Dagi,” Sonata pouted. Then, crossing her forelegs - currently earth pony legs, as it so happened by the quirk of jumping through an extra-dimensional mirror these days - she added, “Not sure why we had to gallop over here so late.”
Aria Blaze, the third of the sisters, sighed. “Please don’t say ‘gallop’. I already miss my hands.”
“Least you got wings, Aria…”
Adagio half-spun about, and it was clear from the menacing look the recently transformed unicorn shot her sisters that she was not playing around today. Night. Tonight.
Sonata and Aria quieted quickly, but in the sullen silence that held, they clearly weren’t thrilled by their sister and nominal leader’s sudden obsession with seeing this… this pony-copy of a human they mostly just saw as a casual acquaintance back home.
She gave a little nod. ‘Good’, she seemed to say. She didn’t feel like explaining herself.
Not yet.
Not to them. To the one who was too young to remember, and the one who had clearly just forgotten.
“Trixie says she can see you. But only for a little bit, alright?”
Not until Adagio got her answers.
Not until she learned what happened to Mom…