Trixie got up in the midmorning and had a light and tasty breakfast. The train to Canterlot she had tickets for would be departing soon. She took her medication and began packing up a few things to take along.
Remembering the plant that Zecora had given her, Trixie checked it, happy to find that it looked healthy. Apparently the new pills were working well to keep the radiation under control.
Trixie put on her purple cloak and hat, picking up her machine gun and getting onto her skateboard. The morning was pleasant, and she made it to the train station with plenty of time to spare.
The passenger train pulled up to the platform and Trixie boarded with the rest of the ticket-holding ponies. She found a nice window seat to sit in and closed her eyes, savoring the warm sunshine. Everything about the morning so far indicated that it would be a good day.
Drifting off to sleep, Trixie spent the trip in quiet slumber, awakening only when the train pulled into Canterlot. After a good yawn and stretch she disembarked and headed towards the castle.
Being located further up the mountain than the rest of the city, the castle was not pleasant to skateboard uphill towards. Trixie noted with satisfaction, however, that when it came time to leave she would have gravity on her side.
She eventually reached the front gates and spent several minutes trying to get the guards to let her through. “The Great and Powerful Trixie” had a bit of a reputation even in Canterlot. It eventually took a discussion with a few senior Royal Guard members to get her approved and into a meeting with the Princesses.
Celestia looked pleased to see Trixie, probably because her visit took the Princess away from her regularly scheduled government duties. Luna was attentive, looking rather tired since it was the middle of the day but interested to see what Trixie wanted.
Trixie bowed to the two of them as formality dictated. Valiant had never bothered, but then he didn’t respect the Princesses, or at least not as rulers.
Since he’d explained his ideology to Trixie, she had come to regard the diarchs a bit differently, however. Celestia had a streak of subversion in her, which was often used for playful pranks but there was also an undercurrent of something more secretive. Luna was largely innocent of that, probably less jaded because of spending so much time alone on the moon. She kept secrets too, but generally they were not centered on her.
“Princesses, I’d like to place this in your care.” Trixie showed them the dimension-hopping rock. The two alicorns traded a glance, both knowing what Trixie had brought to them.
“I think that would probably be a wise idea,” Celestia decided.
Luna nodded in agreement. “Honestly, we probably should have locked this thing away sooner.”
“Valiant will probably want it back when he returns,” Trixie commented. “I don’t know yet if he will continue to live in Equestria or go home. The creators of this world seemed to want him out, but he has been successful in ignoring them so far.”
The creators, a group largely composed of Valiant’s exes, had inadvertently sparked a virtual reality located in the collective unconscious of the universe into an actual world. Once the inhabitants, like ponies, had gained their own sapience, there had been no going back. It was a little strange to think that Equestria really wasn’t very old at all and their history and the legacy of the alicorns was all manufactured, but most ponies just preferred not to think about it. That, and the Princesses had worked to quash as much knowledge of it as possible. While Valiant wouldn’t agree, Trixie appreciated how royalty got things done.
“We’ll have this placed in the royal vault,” said Celestia.
Trixie nodded. “Thank you.”
“How long has Valiant been away?” asked Luna. Her tone sounded slightly concerned.
Trixie knew instantly where the conversation was going to go, and steered away from it. “Long enough.” She paused and changed the subject. “While I’m here, what can you tell me about Twilight? I was wondering if she was going to come back to the Ponyville library.”
Celestia and Luna traded glances.
“I haven’t seen her in a few weeks,” said Luna.
“It isn’t like her to just disappear, or at least not without leaving a triplicate checklist of forwarding addresses.” While Trixie was not one of her closest associates, she did feel some friendship towards Twilight for the time they had spent together while Trixie recovered from her age spell induced second childhood. It seemed right to at least ask about Twilight.
Celestia shrugged, seemingly unconcerned and putting a close to the matter. Trixie said goodbye to the Princesses and turned to go.
The spiral stairs down from the meeting room through the center of the castle ran all the way to the basement. Trixie hopped the railing and rode it all the way to the bottom, accidentally missing her dismount point at the first floor.
It was possibly the most sicknasty rail grind in all of Equestria, yet there was nopony waiting to congratulate her. Trixie turned towards the stairs to go back up but stopped, noticing a nearby door with a strange green glow coming from beneath it.
This part of the castle was not used much. Back in the old days it might have been dungeons. Trixie propelled her skateboard forward to the door, pulling it open to see what was inside.
There were machines and other pieces of equipment arranged around the room. A few lights blinked. In the center of the space was a tall glass tank filled with some sort of liquid. Wires and pipes trailed inside it, some of them connected to the still shape of a purple unicorn.
A few long seconds passed. Trixie pushed off and rolled backwards out of the room.