//------------------------------// // Trixie Is Apprenticed to Starswirl the Bearded // Story: Chasing Winter // by Raging Mouse //------------------------------// Chapter Nine: Trixie Is Apprenticed to Starswirl the Bearded Green. Her dreams were in shades of green. That was stranger, if only marginally, than the fact that they played out in reverse. She saw herself fall up, out of the hole. She was fighting with High Life but they managed to gradually calm down. The six of them retreated from Frostmirror and backed up all the way to Pinewood Tower. She told the story of how the three pony tribes left paradise in order to colonise the frozen northern wastes, where they managed to warm the climate by arguing amongst themselves. Then she told the story again but the right way around. And again, backwards. All of a sudden there was a face looking at her. It was distorted by waves of green but she saw the joy in the eyes. Something about those eyes scared her but she didn’t understand what or why. There was a sound as if somepony had spoken to her while she was submerged in a bathtub. “Culuv Hufer...” She felt a tingle of magic touching her head. All of a sudden colour returned, riding on a cresting wave of memories. An entire life’s worth in a single blow that crashed over her. She was swamped underneath it and lost herself among its eddies. ****** She dreamed that she was choking. Something was pressing against her throat. A cloak? She vaguely remembered something about her cloak catching on something... No, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t choking, she was drowning. Her lungs were flooded! Panic ensued and she thrashed wildly, hooves beating against a yielding, rubbery surface until something went pop. There was a loud rushing sound and then she was tumbling along a floor, retching and coughing up fluid. She realised that her eyes were clenched tightly shut so she relaxed her face and opened them, blinking cautiously. The first thing she saw was a puddle of greenish slime that she’d apparently coughed up. The nauseating fluid lay on a floor of stone. Walls of marble enclosed a large room. Copper sconces held enchanted globes that shone a bright sun-like light. “Clo? That you?” Her ears flicked. That voice! She tried calling out to it but managed only to croak something unintelligible. She coughed some more and cleared her throat before trying again. This time she managed to speak though her voice was hoarse and generally wrong. “Ellie?” Ashen white hooves wrapped themselves around her slimy shoulders with a squelch and then she was being smothered by a hug. “Clo, I’ve missed you so much!” She was pulled into sitting. Clo felt her brow furrow. “But... I haven’t left yet? Did something happen? I was supposed to leave in the morning. Just what is going—" A hoof on Clo’s lips silenced her. “Please, now isn’t the time. Let’s clean you up. Mother said she wanted to speak to you as soon as you woke up.” Clo’s expression brightened. She turned to the mare hugging her and smiled. “Has she changed her mind? Will she return with us all?” Ellie’s breath seemed to catch in her throat. The normally so graceful unicorn mare looked so guilty and sad that Clo was aghast; she couldn’t understand what brought on the sudden mood swing. She studied her friend: Ellie looked more radiant than Clo could ever remember her being. Her gray coat had a wonderful metallic sheen and her dark yellow mane positively glinted in the magical light of the wall bulbs. To see such a beautiful image of youthful energy and health bear such a distraught expression was heartrending. “Ellie? What’s wrong?” “You... You’ve been out of it for a long time. The expedition is long gone.” Clo lowered her head. “Am I being punished?” “No! No, Mother is very happy she managed to – er – save you!” “But I don’t understand. What is—" Clo was looking around while she talked and she’d just glanced back over her shoulder and seen what she’d emerged from. The sight stunned her into silence. Ellie looked on with an unhappy frown as Clo slowly turned large, incredulous eyes towards her. “Ellie, could you please explain why I’ve apparently burst out of a changeling pod?” The broken pod was one of a large cluster of fluid-filled semi-translucent sacs that towered higher than a standing pony. There were some empty ones, but they were the exception. The rest were filled with changelings and Clo couldn’t figure out if that was surprising or not. Ellie rubbed a hoof gently against Clo’s slime-coated shoulder, making the confused mare realise just how messy the hug Ellie had given her had been. “Clo, you were almost dead when I found you. We have found that changeling magic is a superb healing tool but for it to work you must be in a pod. It... costs... a lot but Mother said to do it. She stayed by your side for a long while as you healed, you know. I haven’t seen her so long away from her throne in ages.” Clo was horrified and enraged. “But... changelings?! Whatever they ask in return just can’t be worth it!” She’d shouted the words and her voice sounded wrong to herself. She blamed being drowned in changeling goop for who knows how long. A new voice answered. “Allow me to decide what is worth doing and what is not, Cloven Hoof. It is not up to you to judge your betters. I’d be especially reluctant, if I were you, to criticise an action that saved your life. Not very clever is it?” The newcomer had appeared in a doorway. She was an adult unicorn mare of otherwise indeterminate age. Her mane and tail were both a shimmering light gray with the mane being slightly darker. Her eyes were blue and cold and the smile she wore didn’t reach them. Clo – Cloven Hoof – gasped and bowed quickly. “Princess, I—” The gray unicorn raised a hoof. “You’ve been away from us for quite some time, Cloven Hoof. I have been coronated Queen in your absence. I shall forgive your slight this once.” Cloven’s eyes bulged and she stammered. “Th-thank you, Your Majesty. I apologize.” The Queen’s eyes shifted over to Ellie. “Electrum, my daughter, I trust you’ll gladly show Cloven Hoof to her quarters so she can wash and rest? I am impatient to talk to her, I must admit, but her stay among the barbarians have obviously drained her severely. Once she’s clean and recovered I want you to bring her to me.” Ellie – Electrum – bowed her head. “Yes, Mother.” Electrum and Cloven Hoof watched the queen leave in silence. Then Electrum gave a quick nuzzle to Cloven’s shoulder and walked towards the same doorway. Cloven followed mutely. They walked through murky corridors and up dark stairwells lit by a few magic lights at great intervals. They passed no guards, servants or anypony else. The floors and walls were bare with no carpets, tapestries, paintings or other ornaments breaking the gray monotony. The sole exception was a banner hanging beside a doorway. Cloven looked at it curiously: it depicted a gray unicorn mare wearing a crown and carrying a scepter in her magic. She was standing on two other ponies, a pegasus and an earth pony. Text adorned the bottom of the banner: ‘United, Under The Rightful Rule of Queen Platinum, We Shall Prosper’. Cloven Hoof sighed, rolled her eyes and cleared her throat. “So... Queen Platinum huh? I’m sorry about your grandfather, Ellie... Or should I say Princess Electrum now?” Ellie chuckled. “Not you, Clo. You never have to be formal with me. As for Chromie... I wasn’t there. Mother said he grew frail and passed away in his sleep.” “Last I remember he was very healthy for his age. He and Master so liked to debate philosophy and their discussions were very entertaining to follow. I’m saddened to hear he’s passed away.” Ellie shrugged gently while walking. “It was a long time ago, Clo. We’ve all moved on since then.” “You keep saying that but just how long-?” “Here we are: your quarters! Mother instructed the servants to leave it untouched. Except for dusting of course.” Cloven Hoof paused at the indicated door and peered at Electrum. The princess was shifting nervously from hoof to hoof and avoiding her gaze. “Ellie, I know you are hiding things from me. The ‘barbarians’, as your mother so affectionately call them, don’t call me ‘Clover the Clever’ for nothing. I trust you are trying to help by doing so but in my experience keeping secrets from somepony is rarely beneficial.” Electrum regarded her hooves disconsolately and whispered. “Clo, Mother is... not the same. She’s done so many things since you’ve been gone. I must love her, of course, but... Well... I’m trying to let you know things as gently as possible.” She looked up into Cloven’s eyes and smiled a brittle smile. “I guess the first step is making a nice, hot bath for you. You’ve trailed mucus all over the floors!” Clover looked back down the corridor. There was indeed an easily spotted green trail leading away from her. She chuckled. “Your will be done, Princess. You could use one yourself after hugging me like that.” She channeled magic to her horn and unlocked the door to her quarters. The old mechanism creaked and her magic felt clumsy and out of practice but the door swung open after a few seconds. The room beyond was the first place she’d seen that could be called welcoming. This was doubly true for her since she’d been the one to furnish it. Everything was where she remembered. Centrally located was a large oaken table with eight chairs. Stacks of books covered it. Shelves lined every vacant wall, their dominance broken only by four doors and a fireplace. The room was large enough to fit a noble and showed the favour Clover had earned as court mage. She breathed in the dust of home with a wavering smile – had she been gone for so long that home smelt foreign to her? – before walking forward and entering the room. A glance at the table told her the books were in bad condition but she didn’t want to approach them for a closer inspection in her current state. She opened the door to the bathroom and walked in. Magic lights flickered and brightened in the darkness, casting their illumination on a large bronze tub set in the floor. A shower nozzle was suspended above it at the end of a pipe running into a ceiling. A spark of magic made water gush out of the showerhead. Steam rose from where it pooled in the tub before draining. Clover climbed gingerly into the tub and sat underneath the stream of water. A glance over her shoulder showed that Electrum was gazing at her intently with a hint of... fear? Apprehension? Clover frowned. “What’s the matter? Did you want to go first?” Electrum swallowed. “N-no. I just think I should be here for you.” “I’m not made of fine porcelain, you know.” Clover sighed and scrubbed herself, letting the water wash away the changeling slime still clinging to her coat. She noted for the first time how shaggy her coat was. It seemed pale as well: a washed-out cyan rather than the deep green she was used to. Then her attention travelled to her foreleg. Cloven Hoof was named at birth for the most notable feature of her pony anatomy: a congenital birth defect had left her with four neatly chipped hooves. But the chip was nowhere to be found on the raised leg, the hoof unblemished and smooth. That by itself would’ve been welcome but the changeling goo had washed away completely, leaving no green colour behind. The leg she was staring at with mounting terror was pale and cyan. It wasn’t Clover the Clever’s leg. Now that she realised it she picked up on everything else. The horn was wrong. The magic felt wrong. She stood too tall. Her vision was perfect with all signs of nearsightedness gone. Her sense of smell seemed too weak and the scents she did smell were subtly wrong somehow. And her voice... The hoof in front of her was trembling now. “Ellie.” Clover whispered. Electrum’s hooves were around her shoulders in a heartbeat. “Ellie. This isn’t me. This isn’t my— This—” Clover the Clever’s mind shattered like fine porcelain. She screamed and thrashed. She yelled, cursed and cried. Through it all her friend held her and whispered soothing sounds into her (not that they were her) ears. When Clover regained her ability to think she was lying on her side in the tub with Electrum on top of her and still hugging her. She heard the princess crying softly into her mane. A minute or two passed as she sorted through her thoughts and feelings. Then she turned to look into the desperate and tearful eyes looking down at her. “Ellie... Whose body is this?” “I-I don’t know! The windigos disappeared and Mother sent me to inspect the tunnels and she was lying there! She was dying and I begged Mother to save her and she agreed! Then later she stormed into my room and declared joyfully that the pony was you! She went on about how the barbarians had made you insane but that she’d rescued you with a memory spell...” Clover groaned. “By Starswirl’s beard! She’s injected some innocent pony with the sum total of my memories up to my second departure... That’s heinous, Ellie!” Electrum sobbed quietly and spoke with a wavery tone. “Mother’s sick. She’s wrong in the head somehow. I don’t know what to do! I have to love her and I don’t dare try to argue against her!” “You have to love her? What’s that supposed to mean? I get that she’s your mother but—" Electrum let go of Clover and turned away, rubbing her right foreleg over her left. “I don’t know if I should tell you. It would only make you even more upset and you’re having a hard time as it is.” “I’m a guest in somepony else’s body, put here against both our wills most likely, and you tell me there’s something about this that’ll make me even more upset? I’m sorry, Electrum, but now I’m really curious!” Electrum closed her eyes and angled her face to catch the stream from the showerhead. She held still for a moment, letting the water flow down her coat, before turning away and climbing out of the tub. She nodded at Clover. “All right. I guess we’d better get this over with.” Magic dried their now clean coats and manes. Electrum led Clover downwards again and as they walked through the halls Clover took note of the darkness outside the windows they passed. “What time is it anyway?” Electrum simply walked on and spoke in a nonchalant monotone. “I don’t really know. The last functioning mechanical clock broke down a long time ago and we don’t know enough about gears and metal to fashion replacement parts. It’s light and dark here according to Mother’s whim.” Clover stopped and stared at the receding pony. When Electrum realised she wasn’t being followed she looked back over her shoulder. “What is it?” “Did somepony smash all the clocks? Some of them should run just fine for centuries.” “No. Like I said: they wore out their gears and broke down. We tried to conserve the more intricate ones by only having one at a time up and running but it was only a matter of time.” Clover’s eyes were by then as wide as they could get. “Just... how long have I been ‘out’?” “Come.” There was now something bitter in Electrum’s voice. “Let me show you how I measure time.” They ended up in a cellar vault similar to the one where Clover had woken up. This one, too, had changeling pods but instead of one single cluster there were several with only narrow passageways between them. The pods were about equally filled with developing changeling shapes... and developing pony shapes. Five changelings moved among the pods. A sixth changeling observed from atop a flight of stairs, her form the tall and slender one of a changeling queen. Her back was to the pair of unicorns but she turned around when Electrum called out. “Nana!” The changeling queen’s expression went from neutral to bright and smiling. Clover thought the effect was spoiled by how this made the changeling’s fangs all the more apparent. She held back as Electrum rushed forward while giggling and embraced the changeling queen in a hug. “Hello, little Ellie. You haven’t visited your Nana in such a long time I’ve forgotten your voice!” The changeling’s voice would have been pleasant enough were it not for the buzzing interference it contained. Her eyes rose until she was staring up at Clover who backed away uncertainly. “Ellie, who’s your friend here?” Electrum stiffened in the changeling’s embrace and turned her head to glance back worriedly. “Nana, this is Clover the Clever – well technically anyway. Clo, this is Queen Furmici. She raised me.” Clover’s brows met in confusion. “What are you talking about?! You had a nanny – a dear old earth pony!” “Yes, I know, but... come. See for yourself. It’s all right, Clover.” At Electrum’s beckoning Clover approached carefully. Queen Furmici seemed to inspect her with curiosity. When Clover was right in front of them the queen spoke. “Ellie, she doesn’t look like the Clover I remember.” The unicorn in her embrace sighed and looked at the floor. “I know. It’s not really her. It’s complicated. Mother thought it was her and helped her... remember.” There was a gasp from the changeling. “No! She didn’t!” Mournful insectoid eyes met Clover’s. “I’m so sorry, Clover. I hadn’t realised she’s in that bad shape.” “Have we... met?” Queen Furmici chuckled slightly. “In a way yes. In two other ways, no. Back before the exodus was called I was a courtesan. The nobles who desired my company often bade me accompany them to court to brag and display their affluence. I didn’t mind, of course, but that means I saw you from time to time.” Changelings had infiltrated the unicorn court before the exodus? Clover digested this for a moment, hoof raised to her chin. “All right... how did you end up like this?” The changeling queen glanced down uncertainly at Electrum who returned the glance with a nod urging her to answer. “Well, do you realise how defenseless changelings are against windigos? We are naturally incapable of feeling true love. It would be consumed by ourselves or other changelings. That means the most powerful positive emotion keeping windigos at bay is absent from our repertoire. Add to that our poor ability to maintain a constant body temperature in cold weather. I had maintained a small hive here in the capital but I knew we’d never survive the journey the exodus called for. When I heard that Platinum intended to stay behind I decided to risk throwing myself at her mercy. I made her an offer... and she accepted it eagerly.” The gears were already turning in Clover’s head. “You offered to share your longevity, didn’t you?” Furmici nodded. “In exchange for protection and the permission to maintain a small hive I promised to extend her lifespan for as long as she desires. She saw it as perfectly natural: she told me that I had previously stolen her subjects’ love and affection when it rightfully belonged to her. So I was simply returning what I had taken without permission. She ‘graciously’ granted me the pony title of duchess as well and instructed me to ‘tax’ her subjects.” “Because it is the love that you harvest that fuels your long life.” There was a long, drawn-out sigh from the changeling. “Correct.” Clover’s hoof gestured to take in the entire room with its pods. “But what’s all this then?” “This is part of the arrangement. In order to ensure the maximum ‘taxable’ love, Platinum ordained that all pony foals would be given changeling foster parents... and all changeling larvae would be cared for by pony parents. She extended this to her own daughter.” “But... Electrum here didn’t need any more fostering, surely? I mean, she was twenty-three when the exodus was called.” Furmici made to answer but Electrum’s hoof stopped her. “Nana, I want to show her this.” This was met with a silent nod. Queen Furmici backed away to give Electrum and Clover free passage down the stairs. Clover passed the large changeling warily but Furmici only looked at the much smaller pony with sad eyes. Clover was so preoccupied with watching Furmici over her shoulder that she bumped into Electrum who’d stopped in front of the closest batch of changeling pods. The golden-maned mare simply glanced back at her before returning her gaze to the pods and speaking. “Queen Furmici grants the longevity of the changeling queens only to Mother. She’s done so faithfully over a period of time that we’ve failed to keep track of but it’s surely thousands of years by now. So, Clover the Clever...” Electrum turned to look at her. “...you are no doubt wondering: where does that leave me, her daughter? This question distressed Mother greatly but she arrived at a solution after a bit of research. I would be granted eternal childhood, youth and adolescence, forever cycling through a pony’s development stages... aided by your master’s amniomorphic magic and the memory transfer spell.” A form of nauseous horror gripped Clover. Electrum was fondly stroking the nearest pod, inside of which floated a pony – a small filly. The green slime distorted colours but when taking it into account Clover estimated the filly to have a golden mane and a silvery coat. It was a much younger copy of Princess Electrum. “I am not the only occupant of these pods. Some of Mother’s favourite courtiers are remade from time to time as strikes her fancy. They must love her or be discarded. She can always try again later, you see. The amniomorphic spell lets her create ponies directly into these pods. They grow up as unconscious, blank slates ready to be ‘reminded’ of who they should be according to Mother.” Clover collapsed. She stared at the pods as if her world was crumbling. And still her inquisitive mind forced her to investigate just how thoroughly her princess and queen had perverted everything she and her master, Starswirl the Bearded, had worked to create. “How... many... times..?” Electrum raised an eyebrow at Clover. “Have I been reborn and discarded? Well, I usually wake up in a pod around age eight or so and manage to feel some love for Mother up to maybe my twenty-fifth birthday. You asked me earlier how long it’s been? This is my two hundred and seventeenth time being age twenty-two.” “Do you remember it all?” “Hah, no. I know how many times it’s been because I’ve taken to leaving messages to my later selves in my quarters. Most of the times Mother just gives me my first memories up to my physical age, not even bothering to explain where all the ice came from. She rarely bothers using her magic to preserve my later memories because I grow too independent to really love her and she discards me quickly.” Clover was regaining her composure and with it came an instinctive drive to plan for actions and contingencies. “Why must you love her, Ellie? Wouldn’t the obvious affection you feel for Nan – um, Queen Furmici – be enough?” “Love isn’t a finite resource that can only be directed to one target at a time. Besides, she’s long ago learned how to sense love like a changeling. Don’t ask me how. I have to love her... or she discards me and tries again.” “Discards... how?” “She gave me my memories. She can take them away. The changelings can make my empty, mindless shell love them and do some basic menial work.” Electrum shuddered. “I think the previous me is still somewhere down in the crystal mines. I’m not really in the mood to check.” By now Clover’s eyes were darting this way and that. She raised herself to sitting and kept asking questions. “When you said you don’t know the time of day... are we snowed in? Are the windigos still here?” “We aren’t snowed in, Clover. There’s a mountain of ice on top of us. Mother keeps a magic shield up with the excess love that doesn’t go towards extending her life, both to keep the ice from crashing down on our heads and to keep the windigos away. She sometimes extends it upwards, trying to breach the glacier. Some of my early selves remember seeing the sun shine through a hole far above their heads but that hasn’t happened for many, many generations of me now. The windigos are almost constantly outside. Mother feels them probing her shield. That’s how she could tell they had left. That’s how I was sent out and found... well, you. They are back now by the way. They returned while you were healing.” “All right. Do you know how long I was healing?” “We have a sand clock that we think runs for about a day and it ran out of sand three times while you were in the pod. We’ve probably lost some of the sand over time but it gives you a maximum I guess.” “One last question, Ellie. What, in the name of all that is holy, does your mother hope to achieve with all of this?!” “She... intends to wait until the windigos grow tired and the ice recedes. She’s convinced that the rest of the world has descended into barbarism without the royal unicorns to guide them. She intends to establish a new empire built on the natural superiority of the unicorn species.” Electrum looked down at the floor. “She’s completely insane isn’t she?” Clover tilted her head and gave a wan smile. “Most likely. Let’s find out just how insane she is before we do anything else though.” “How do you intend to do that?” “I’m going to talk to the mare whose body I’m in.”