Chasing Winter

by Raging Mouse


Trixie Sets the Downhill Sledding World Record

Chapter Eight:

Trixie Sets the Downhill Sledding World Record

“It’s pointing straight at the eye of the cyclone, isn’t it?” Visi asked.

The enchanted orb hovered above Trixie’s head a hoof’s breadth away from the tip of her horn. She had her back to the glacier so from her vantage point the crystal inside it wasn’t visible. Her five companions stood in a half-circle around her. Behind them the crystal ponies watched.

Terra nodded. “We’d have to get another bearing and triangulate in order to find out without simply going where it points. And that’s assuming the windigo stays put. But it sure looks that way to me. That place is eerie enough even without windigos.”

“Why? What’s there?” Crystal asked.

Terra took a deep breath. This enabled Trixie to begin her own response before the Earthen mare could. “The capital of Unicornia. There are a couple of old legends about it. An old earth pony story tells of how an evil king conquered their most fertile farmlands to sate his vanity and megalomania. There’s also a unicorn tale of how King Chromium II sought to unite the bickering pony kingdoms by establishing a capital at a strategic location rife with symbolism but his pacifistic endeavours were sabotaged by petty nobles who were scared of losing their own power. It’s not something Trixie would talk about to the normal crowds she gets. There aren’t even any funny or deserving deaths.”

There was a harrumph and Terra spoke up. “That’s what used to be there. We, the few who ever visit the place nowadays, call what’s there now ‘Frostmirror’. For some reason there’s a smooth surface of ice about two kilometers in diameter, almost perfectly circular and so polished that it mirrors the sky above it. No snow pools into drifts on its surface. Based on comparisons between the few preserved maps of old noting terrain altitude and modern maps of the glacier there’s over two kilometers of ice between that mirrored surface and the actual ground, and that’s not accounting for the weight of the glacier possibly having pushed the bedrock down a bit. Trying to peer down into the ice reveals nothing. Some ponies claim to have seen strange flashes of colour at night but that’s most likely just old mares’ tales passed along the scouts.”

A chuckle issued from Broth’s direction. “Terry, in case you need reminding: we’re chasing an old mare’s tale.”

There was a brittle silence. “Thank you, Broth, but no. I don’t need reminding.” Terra nodded at Trixie and High Life. “We’re entering the territory of magic and the supernatural now. From this point onwards expect anything. Take nothing for granted! With that in mind we’ll do final preparations for the rest of today. Assembling a cage is first priority. Then we’ll familiarise ourselves with the enchanted crystals. Crystal, Visi, I want you flying around in the thermal flightsuits. Get used to what you can and can’t do in them.”

She turned to the crystal ponies. “Crystal Guard, you’re on housekeeping. Sort through our rations and stash them carefully. Make what repairs you can. Keep the tower interior free of snow and ice. Practice your combat drills!”

******

Day 18

Today was spent preparing for the last leg of the journey. The six of us will set out pulling one repackaged wagon and one cage. Terra says it’ll take us two days of easy travel to reach Frostmirror. We don’t of course know if the windigo really is there, or if it actually is somewhere else along the line drawn by the pointing crystal, but there’s a certain finality in the idea that the lords of winter would be resting in the eye of the snowstorm.

Poetry aside any snowstorm in this place and at this time is actually in reverse. The skies are crystal clear except for some very thin swirls of cirrus clouds a very long way up. The ground, on the other hoof, is veiled by a mist of fine particles of ice. The mist glows so brightly in the noon sun that you need to squint at it or risk blinding yourself. It billows and moves with the gentle wind and stops at only about three pony heights above the ground. From our modestly high vantage point it is like standing in front of a gargantuan and very sluggish whirlpool of glowing cloud. We can’t see as far as the hub where Frostmirror lies but we can see far enough to spot the slow rotation. It is both an awe-inspiring and humbling sight. Trixie feels honoured to be among the few to ever see it.

If the windigo is somewhere further away than Frostmirror then we’ll keep walking for two more days, allowing us to go as far as the far end of the Crystal Glacier before turning back. We are taking ten days’ rations with us.

We have assembled a cage. We hope it is large enough; one of the Princesses could easily stretch their wings inside of it without touching the walls or the ceiling. It consists of two layers of long and slender crystals joined together with iron bands and arranged into a mesh of triangles. One end of the cage is hinged and serves as the main door. The opposite end has a small hatch just large enough for a pony. The crystals of the outer layer are clear, translucent and gleaming from the slightest source of light. Trixie cannot explain it but the outer crystals are pleasant to touch. They seem to radiate warmth and everypony who came in contact with them lingered nearby when the cage was finished, occasionally touching or brushing up against it. It affected Terra as well but she shook it off and told the rest of us to get busy with our remaining tasks. The inner crystals are dull and opaque. They are unnerving. Touching one was extremely unpleasant and it affected everypony’s mood. Terra had to break up several arguments while we assembled the inner walls of the cage.

To everypony’s chagrin Terra gave us all more powerfully enchanted versions of both crystals in the form of pendants. Then she made us try them on. The enchantments are very scary: Trixie has an intense dislike for anything affecting her mind. Wearing the bright crystal might not sound very unpleasant but it has its downsides. When Trixie wore it everypony was suddenly her best friend. She felt loved, cared for and safe. Happy. Then I looked at High Life. He seemed to be a handsome stallion and I was ready to forgive and forget all his deeds. That’s when I screamed and tore the pendant away from me. I truly hope we never have to defend ourselves by wearing these.

The pendant with the dark crystal was worse. It felt like wearing a blindfold but instead of blocking out sight it was blocking out all that was good with the world. All Trixie could feel was pain, sorrow, anger and hate. Terra didn’t have us all wearing them at the same time, explaining that everypony but High Life and her would stand well back when the time came to capture the windigo.

Watching High Life don the dark pendant was unsettling. He seemed to shrug off the effects completely. How does he do that?

While on the topic of High Life: being spurned and ridiculed certainly hasn’t improved his mood. It remains to be seen what it did to his attitude though if supper tonight was any indication it did nothing good. He started arguing with Terra that he deserved a larger share of the reward money since he was going to do the riskiest job. Terra told him that if he felt it was too risky he only had to say so and Terra would lure the windigo in his stead. High Life interpreted this as an insult against his courage.

Terra took me aside after supper. She asked me to avoid antagonising High Life tomorrow. I said I would keep away from him as long as he kept away from me. Then I apologised to Terra for not being a better morale officer. She said ‘you can’t win over everypony to your side, Trixie’. It seems The Great and Powerful Trixie’s audiences will always contain at least one angry pony.


Day 19

We’ve travelled for sixteen hours today and Trixie only feels pleasantly tired. The smooth surface and the small drifts of snow means that the going is swift and easy. Hornwalking feels almost unnecessary now but Trixie kept it up anyway.

There’s almost zero visibility at surface level out on this glacier thanks to the slow cyclone and this mist of ice. Terra anticipated this and tied the wagon to the cage via a long rope. Not that there is much risk of being separated and losing the others since the mist hugs so close to the ground that Visi and Crystal can easily keep track of us from the air.

We have arranged ourselves so that Terra is leading us and I walk beside her. We’re both tethered to the wagon containing our equipment and supplies. High Life and Broth are pulling the cage. They were never farther away than the end of the rope but I usually failed to see them whenever I glanced back. All I’d see was the end of the rope disappearing into the bright mist. Still, keeping your bearing is very easy. The sky is almost fully visible so we can use the sun to navigate. Also, we’re heading for the center of a giant circular weather system so all we need to do is travel at right angles to the wind. Even if we didn’t have that all we’d need to do is take out the enchanted orb and see where it is pointing. We did that too a couple of times to check if the windigo had moved. The crystal kept pointing in the same direction.

Crystal and Visi were flying above us the entire day. Both were immensely relieved at being able to remain in the air for a longer period of time and the shadows of gliding pegasi kept passing us by. Another reason they remained airborne is that taking off and landing seems to be very difficult while wearing those thermal flightsuits of theirs. The suits are thick and stiff with thin slivers of fabric extending out to cover the leading edge of the pegasi’s wings. It’s a trade of agility for warmth. I watched some of their practice yesterday. They had to run at full gallop with their wings flapping madly before they gained altitude. Landing was a similar affair of descending while gliding and contacting the ground at running speeds. Hovering is impossible. So today the pegasi elected to remain flying once they’d made it into the air. Terra would shout up to them asking if we were on the right track. The answer was affirmative every time. By evening they told us that we were closer to the eye of the storm than to Pinewood Tower.

At this rate we’ll reach Frostmirror before noon tomorrow.

******

The bright, glittering mist ahead thinned and disappeared, revealing a smooth and grayish-blue surface of ice ahead. Trixie looked back and to the sides noting that the roiling clouds of icy mist ended very sharply. The border undulated gently but didn’t deviate much at all from a perfectly smooth circle, leaving the deep blue-gray ice exposed to the noonday sun overhead. True to its name Frostmirror reflected the sky with uncanny clarity. Trixie made the mistake of looking at the sun’s reflection and had to make do with its afterimage burned into her retinas for a couple minutes. The ice was anything but slippery, contrary to Trixie’s expectations. In fact her hooves seemed almost to stick to the surface. Terra explained it to her when she commented upon it. “The temperature here is far below freezing. It’s too cold for ice to be slippery.”

That made Trixie examine herself. She hadn’t even thought about needing insulation against the cold for several days now. Her coat was now shaggier than ever before in her life. The dryness of the air lent it a powerful static charge, making it rise and stand out in tufts. It was undeniably warm but almost criminally unkempt by Equestrian standards. Her fetlocks overflowed past her hooves and dragged along the ground with each step. Her mane and tail at least was the same as always but they were an incongruous patch of neatness on her otherwise wild appearance, nearly lost among the chaos of cyan fur.

Terra stopped at the approximate center of Frostmirror. She told Boiling Broth and High Life to park the cage next to the wagon. Then she looked up. Crystal was a minuscule speck high in the sky. Visi was much closer and the Earthen shouted up at her. “Do you see anything special?”

Visi’s voice was bereft of almost all echo by the featureless terrain, making it appear weak even though she wasn’t that far away. “There seems to be some kind of opening in the ice a couple kilometers away that is venting air, judging by how the mist is billowing up into the sky.”

Trixie watched Terra raise an eyebrow and mutter. “An opening, huh?” Then she looked down at Trixie. “Check the globe.”

Trixie nodded and opened the wagon door with her magic. The globe was where she’d put it so she didn’t even need to look to pick it up and hover it in front of her. Everyone gathered around it. Visi called to Crystal and soon the pegasi were making tight circles overhead, trying to watch the globe and listen in on the discussion.

For a while nopony talked. Everyone was just staring at the orb floating in front of them. The crystal was pointing almost straight down.

Terra was the first to break the silence. “Broth and High Life, take two nails from the wagon’s supplies and hammer them into the ice so they form a line to where the crystal seems to be pointing.”

When the nails were aligned to Terra’s satisfaction she walked away from the wagons at right angles from the implied line. She called over her shoulder for Trixie to follow with the orb and for High Life and Broth to come along with another pair of nails.

After a couple hundred meters she stopped and repeated the reading. When the nails were hammered down Terra looked up at the pegasi overhead. “Can you girls triangulate this? Is there anything close by where the lines cross? Take a line each and fly along it. Look around where you meet.”

Visi banked to align herself with the closer line and Crystal flew off to the first line. The four groundbound ponies watched the pair silently. The pegasi met unexpectedly close by, circled around the area a couple times and returned. Crystal shouted down the news.

“It’s close to the fountain of air that Visi spotted but other than that we didn’t see anything!”

“The blasted mist could hide anything!” Terra mumbled.

High Life spoke up. “Wasn’t the idea that we’d lure the windigo to us? Let’s just see if we get a catch where the cage is right now. We have no idea how far away a windigo can sense ponies’ emotions, after all.”

“You’re right. Let’s give it a try!” Broth and Trixie, I want you two to pull the wagon to a safe distance... huh.” Terra blinked in confusion.

Broth and Trixie glanced at each other. Then they went back to looking at Terra. Broth chuckled. “Would you define ‘safe distance’ for us, Terry? We’re going to potentially piss off a being that can shape the climate of an entire country, so... Canterlot? Saddle Arabia? The moon?”

Terra waved a hoof in irritation. “Yeah, yeah. Forget I said that. Just move the wagon away a bit and keep your pendants close.”

Trixie and Broth decided to define ‘a bit’ as about one hundred meters. They debated for a while whether they should secure the wheels with nails hammered into the ice but decided not to. Then they waved to Terra and High Life. The cage was ready with both doors open. There was a short conversation after which High Life put on the dark pendant.

Everypony quieted down from the resulting tension. Trixie could hear her own heartbeat, and the ever-present hiss of billions of ice crystals colliding in the mist surrounding her. Occasionally the flutter of wings heralded one of the pegasi flying past.

After a while Trixie felt Broth nudging her. She turned her head and the stallion leaned in to whisper at her. “Check the orb. See if the crystal is moving.”

A nod and a burst of magic later the orb was placed on the ground between the two ponies. At first they watched the crystal intently but when they couldn’t detect even the slightest quiver from it their attention wavered. Soon Trixie was watching the circling pegasi and not thinking very much.

A shout brought her out of her daydreaming with a start. She looked around wildly but failed to see anything other than Terra beckoning at her and Broth. They walked towards the cage and saw that High Life had removed the pendant.

Terra nodded at Trixie and Broth. “I decided to call it quits. High Life’s eyes were turning green. I was warned this might happen by the mage who gave them to me. The magic is leaking a bit and could affect the wearer negatively in the long run.”

High Life huffed. “I feel fine!”

“Good. But we’ve been here now for half an hour or so and we’ve seen nothing. So let’s go closer to where the tracking orb is pointing once you’ve rested a bit.”

“I think it’s a waste of time but whatever.”

Terra raised an eyebrow and stared at High Life for a moment before turning to Trixie and Broth. “Could you two fetch the wagon? If we’re going to try this in the mist then it’s no longer a good idea to be spread out. Oh, and Trixie? Could you carry the orb please?”

Trixie nodded and walked back to the wagon together with Broth. She had packed her hat and cape in it so now she took the cape and stuffed the orb into one of its pockets before wearing it. She had trouble fastening the clasp around her much thicker neck and for a moment marvelled at how long she’d gone without it. She hadn’t tried to put it on for more than a week. It looked silly on her now thanks to her shaggy coat.

When she and Broth returned with the wagon in tow High Life announced that he’d rested long enough. Terra seemed dubious but nodded. “All right, let’s go. Keep close together in the mist. Crystal and Visi will tell us where exactly to go.”

They entered the white smoke and were instantly isolated from the world. Trixie walked behind Broth on the left side of the cage. Visi shouted a course correction and had to follow up with further instructions as judging how big of a turn one was making proved difficult in the directionless fog. The walk couldn’t have lasted long but felt like an eternity without any way to judge progress.

Eventually Crystal called down to them. “You’ve reached the edge where the mist billows up. Be careful! We can’t see what’s really down there from up here!”

Broth shouted back. “Can’t you clear away this mist at least for a while? I don’t want to walk into a hole I can’t see!”

“Maybe if we could hover but the cold would get to us quickly without the suits!”

Trixie decided she’d had enough. As a stage magician and storyteller she had some experience with problem solving so she applied herself. “We’ve got rope in the wagon. How about if Trixie, who is the lightest of us, were to tie the rope around herself so she could scout ahead while you three held on to the other end of it?”

Terra’s voice floated over from where she was pulling the cage the cage, any visual sign of her lost in the mist. “Sure sounds like a plan.”

Trixie entered the wagon and took the coil of rope hanging from a hook on the wall. She used her magic to tie one end of it around her barrel behind her shoulders. The rest of the rope she tossed to Broth and Terra who coiled it around their forehooves so they could keep it taut while feeding Trixie more of it as she advanced. High Life just sat and watched disinterestedly. Trixie cast him a suspicious glance before nodding to Terra and walking forward into the mist.

Terra called out to her after only a few steps. “Keep talking to us, Trixie. Tell us what you see.”

“Well that’s just it, isn’t it? Trixie sees mist, mist and more mist!”

“All right, all right. You’re walking in the right direction, at least.”

Being alone in the mist with neither wagon nor pony beside her was unnerving. Even seeing where the white mist ended and the ground began was difficult, only given certainty when she watched her hooves contact the dark surface. Then she noticed a change. “The ice is beginning to slope a bi— ah!”

Trixie had slipped on the suddenly treacherous surface. The unexpected loss of balance caused her to fall sideways. She landed hard, knocking the wind out of her and hitting her head. Then she slid, the ice sloping more and more. Shouts of surprise echoed from Terra and Broth. Just as she felt the ice disappear beneath her forehooves there was a sharp yank on the rope and she stopped.

She was dangling just inside the lip of a funnel-like hole in the ice, so smooth that it lacked any sharp edges. It was perhaps five meters across and a constant torrent of warm, moist air spewed up from it making the ice slippery. The moisture froze as it mixed with the freezing glacier air above her head, adding to the tiny ice crystals floating around. She saw beads of moisture forming on her coat.

High Life’s irritated voice carried through the mist. “What did you do now?”

She was too rattled to snap back at him just then. Instead she looked around and down. “The ice became slick and I slipped! There’s a large hole here. It looks like... great Luna, I can’t see how deep it goes! It just seems to continue down into the darkness without changing!” She was gripped by a sudden fear of heights and scrabbled futilely against the smooth wall of the vertical tunnel, only making her bob a bit on the rope. “Help! Pull me up!”

High Life’s voice floated over to her. “Will you calm down?! You’re pulling out Terra’s teeth the way you’re thrashing! Just keep still and let her and Broth do their work.”

Trixie forced herself to be still and was almost immediately tugged out of the hole.

“Pull back more! The ice is too slick here!”

Returning to level ice also meant returning to freezing temperatures. Her shaggy coat had collected a considerable amount of moisture which now turned to large droplets of ice. She staggered to her hooves and let herself be tugged back to Broth and Terra while cursing and trying to remove the ice without pulling out hairs. The three ponies waiting for her looked anxiously at her before breaking out in laughter.

“You look like somepony dipped you in sugar!”

Trixie sighed while trying to untie herself, a task made harder by her coating of ice. “There’s a steady stream of warm and moist air flowing from the pit. It’s probably what makes this mist. The moisture caught on my coat. Anyway, we can’t go much closer than this without risking to fall in.”

Terra nodded. “All right, then we’ll just have to test where we are now. I don’t want to lose sight of anypony while we do this so that means we’re sticking close to one another. That raises an issue however.” She glanced between Trixie and High Life. “We’re on mostly friendly terms and theory says the windigos don’t like that. We’ll need to correct that... which means we’re all wearing the dark pendants this time.”

Broth groaned, saving Trixie the effort. She settled for a deep sigh instead as she clambered quickly up into the wagon to fetch three dark pendants from their storage case. She floated over one each to the earth ponies before placing a third around her neck on top of the cloak. Her mood was instantly fouled. Doubt and anger boiled within her but she breathed deeply to calm down. High Life donned his just as she was placing her hooves on the ice again. He fixed her with a scornful stare and walked a little bit away from the wagon towards the pit.

Suddenly Trixie was very annoyed at High Life’s constant solo act. “Where do you think you’re going? Terra said we’re to stick together!”

“Yeah well you can stick together with the rest of the pansies if you want oh ‘Great and Powerful’ Trixie. This is a job for true ponies, not show-offs.”

Trixie checked herself just before she’d have bit his head off. She hadn’t realised how bad her mood was. Instead she just sighed and turned away in disgust. One little comment still managed to escape with the sigh. “Oh, please.”

High Life stopped dead and his voice rose in anger. “Oh please what, you fraud?”

Trixie had enough. The last straw had broken the camel’s back. The cup had, oh so verily, run over. She turned around and walked up to High Life until there was almost no space between them, staring him in the eye. “Oh please, as if you knew anything about true ponies! Your smile is false, your looks are fake and your idea of charity is anything that benefits you!”

High Life raised his voice higher and brushed away some of his mane that had been displaced by the wind. “That’s rich coming from ‘The Gweat and Powahfull Twixie’! You have so little grip on reality that your stage persona is taking over! You, living in lala-land, accuse me of not knowing what’s true? I work for a living!”

Trixie laughed in his face and shook her head to free a couple of hairs that had blown into her eyes. “You call being a noble work? I actually have to earn bits to eat! That’s work! Work isn’t some hobby that happens to give you extra spending cash on top of whatever your inherited investments pay you! And yes, work screws with your head! But it also means I’m out there in the real world, enough so that even The Great and Powerful Trixie can tell the difference between a good deed and taking advantage of somepony in need! It’s something you Bluebloods can’t seem to figure out even if somepony holds your hoof!”

By now High Life and Trixie were pressed snout to snout and screaming at each other. Hooves landed on Trixie’s shoulders trying to tug her away but she shrugged them off. High Life was laughing back as harshly as she had done previously. “Oh that’s rich coming from you! Lulamoons sure know how to take somepony else’s merits and twisting them to make them look bad! Only somepony as convinced of their own perfection would have the gall to take another pony’s kindness and interpret it as cruelty! I heard about your little performances, Trixie! You’re the worst of your pathetic family! At least your siblings have the guts to compete with other nobility, but not you! No, you had to go and stomp all over some commoners in order to feel superior to somepony because you are such a failure at being a noble! Not even King Sombra, whom you took such pleasure in mentioning the other day, oppressed his subjects for the sake of ego inflation, making him better than you! You’re an all-round horrible pony, Bellatrix Lulamoon, and I can understand perfectly how you could annoy Granny Lobelia to the point where she wants you dead!”

Trixie gasped in shock. Her idea of the stallion in front of her went from insufferable jerk to dangerous assassin in a heartbeat and she acted on pure instinct. Her horn flared as she leaped backwards and her magic shoved High Life roughly. For a fleeting moment she noticed that her aura wasn’t the usual pink but a sickly green.

High Life stumbled backwards but didn’t lose his balance. Terra shouted something but Trixie was too distracted to hear what. High Life reared his head and a look of pure rage stole over him as he let his horn flare. He shoved her hard with his magic, his furious eyes flashing green and his mane and tail flapping in the fierce wind. Trixie tumbled backwards but before she could fall on her back she found a pair of massive legs seizing hold of her around her barrel and stopping her.

Terra shouted into Trixie’s ear. “Take off the pendant! Do it now!”

Trixie returned to her senses and stared in shock at High Life, noting the sickly green aura around his horn. Then Broth appeared behind him and pulled him backwards.

Trixie fumbled with the medallion but something kept tugging at her coat and distracting her. She took in more of her surroundings and noticed the wind for the first time. This wasn’t the gentle current of the cyclone anymore but a fierce stormwind tearing at her... and it was centered on the now clearly visible hole.

And out of that hole flew not one, not five but dozens of ghostly forms, their constant braying chilling her blood. The windigos looked like translucent equinoids with horribly distorted snouts and misproportioned forelimbs. Their back bodies didn’t exist, their torsos simply petering out into a wispy trail of blue smoke. Their eyes glowed a fierce blue, much stronger than the rimewolves, and their mouths were open in a constant, distorted whinny. They shot into the air above and assumed formation in a circular dance centered on the hole and the air turned with them, picking up strength.

Panic gripped Trixie as it had only a couple times before in her life and she fought madly to find her hooves. In the process she accidentally hit Terra, causing the large Earthen mare to stumble and lose her grip on Trixie. The back of Trixie’s head hit the ice before the rest of her, causing her vision to narrow and for stars to dance in front of her eyes. When she managed to recover she found herself skidding along the icy ground and she scrabbled madly to dig her hooves into the unyielding surface. She succeeded and turned to face the wind with her eyes closed, minimizing her profile against it. The wind tore at her coat like nothing she’d ever experienced.

She opened her eyes ever so little to see what was ahead and saw Terra some distance in front of her trying to shout to her and beckoning with a hoof. The Earthen mare’s coat and mane was being sucked in front of her by the wind, shading her face and making it difficult to see her expression. Trixie noted the desperation anyway, it was that obvious. She tried to shuffle forward carefully against the ever-increasing wind and managed a couple of steps when a new problem made itself apparent. Something was choking her.

Her cape. The wind was tugging at it so hard that it was throttling her. Her vision was already tunnelling again. So she risked a gamble and raised a hoof to fumble with the clasp.

In the next moment she was tumbling. The wind buffeted her, preventing any attempt to regain her balance. She screamed but could barely hear herself over the howling of the storm and the windigos. For a brief moment some stunned part of her reflected on how warm the wind was. Moisture was gathering on her coat and forming droplets on the ice. Unfortunately, said the same part, that meant the ice was now very slippery. She no longer tumbled but skidded along. Then she felt the ice underneath her curve into a slope.

The wind actually relented but it was too late. She was at the lip of the hole, legs flailing futilely on the ever-steepening ice.

She slipped over the edge and fell straight down into darkness against the rising, humid air.

******

Trixie hurt so much. She’d already been sobbing when she’d come to her senses. There was water around her body but not enough to risk drowning her. She could feel and hear it flowing by and its near-freezing temperature was welcome due to how it dulled her senses. She’d tried moving her legs but the great explosion of pain that had resulted in snuffed whatever scrap of willpower that had lent her courage enough to do so.

The darkness around her was total. She didn’t know how far she’d fallen (and slipped, slid, tumbled, crashed...) but it was far enough and curved enough not to permit even the faintest trace of daylight. In her current state finding the focus to channel magic was impossible, not even taking into account that her horn was likely injured as well. Normally such a prospect would be terrifying enough but there and then it was just another thing that would kill her eventually if it was as bad as it felt. Now watch in awe, my little ponies, as the Great and Powerful Trixie dies from no less than three simultaneous causes! Trixie’s train of thoughts had long ago lost any coherency or sense. Time was impossible for her to measure.

Then there was a new sound mixed in with the drip and gurgle of water: a rhythmic splashing that was slowly strengthening. Superimposed on that was a feeling of warmth. The pain was fading along with her sense of touch. Her sobs stopped with a deep, rattling sigh and she just lay there. Her thoughts fled into the past and for once the memories were only happy. Her mother was lifting her with magic, letting Trixie pretend she could fly. The day she learned telekinesis. Her tenth birthday when she’d dared a colt to kiss her and been utterly, delightfully shocked when he’d done so on her lips. The school play that earned her her cutiemark. The times when there weren’t any hecklers in the crowd and everypony cheered at the end; all three of them.

Suddenly there was light of a beautiful gold hue that made the now visible walls of ice glisten warmly. The rhythmic splashes were now very close. They paused briefly before resuming at a quicker pace. Then something nudged Trixie, making her viewpoint bob.

A vision of divinity appeared in front of Trixie, slowly entering from the edge of her sight. A face of a mare with silvery coat and golden mane and with dark chestnut eyes that looked at her with such compassion and sorrow that Trixie fought an impulse to reassure the mare that nothing was wrong – she was just dying and that was all right. Instead Trixie just tried to smile even though she couldn’t feel her face anymore.

The apparition opened her mouth and spoke but Trixie didn’t understand a word. It didn’t matter. The tone was so soft that she understood the spirit even without the letter of the message. This was a herald of the Great Roaming Grounds of Concordia. Trixie was dying and the mare was there to take her to Concordia as reward for a reasonably blameless life. Trixie felt safe and ready. True, the method and time were not satisfactory and she doubted anypony would ever bury what remained of her but (and there was a twinge of regret there) she’d be mourned by at least a couple ponies and that was enough for her.

Knowing everything would be fine she closed her eyes and let herself go.