//------------------------------// // Silver Lining // Story: For Her Mistakes // by Onomonopia //------------------------------// The rain had stopped by the next morning, even if the sounds of the thunder could be heard off in the distance. Trixie woke up at the usual time to prepare for the day, despite it being the crack of dawn. She yawned as she got out of bed, looking around for Starshine. She found him on the floor in what appeared to be a cocoon made from the covers of her bed. He apparently had rolled up in them in the night before rolling off the bed. "Hey, time to wake up," she said as she kicked the giant cocoon, watching with a small smile as Starshine struggled to break out of his own wrappings. "And here I was half-expecting you to have come out with wings," she said, once Starshine had managed to break free--and put the covers back onto the bed before bounding after Trixie as she headed for the kitchen. "So when do we start training?" he asked her excitedly as she opened one of her cupboards and pulled out a box of dried hay, which she placed in front of him while she went to the fridge. "Um, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but are we really going to be eating wheat?" "And apples," Trixie said, as she levitated out some of the apples she had bought yesterday and tossed them over to Starshine. "Since my job doesn't have a set paycheck, I have to be frugal with my bits or else there might not be any food for us. Apples and wheat are the cheapest of foods in Equestria and are the best for ponies. Now stop complaining and eat up while I get the wagon moving." Starshine looked down at the small meal as Trixie left, not too happy about it, but he figured it was better than nothing as he started to eat. "Miss Trixie, what is your job, by the way?" he asked her once she came back over. A sudden motion told him that she had gotten the wagon moving again. "I'm more or less a bounty hunter. If a pony has a price on their head, I'll be the one to bring them in for the bits," she said with a shrug, while she grabbed one of the apples herself and took a bite out of it. "It may not be the most pleasant job in the world, but it does pay the bills." "So you go around fighting bad ponies and bring them in?!!!" he asked her, getting more and more excited. "So you're like a hero that stops crime?" Trixie chuckled a bit at the thought of her being a hero and looked at Starshine with a small shake of her head. If only he knew. "Trust me, when I say you're the only pony who will put me and 'hero' in the same sentence. No, I'm more like a...an assistant to the Royal Guard, who goes after ponies that they themselves can't get to. Not law enforcement--and definitely not a pony who is seen as a hero." Starshine's excitement died down a little from hearing her words, but his perky self came back once another thought crossed his mind. "So when are you going to teach me the magic like you promised to?" he asked her as he wolfed down the rest of the dried hay in the box. Trixie raised an eyebrow and turned the box upside down, making a mental note to buy more food in the next town. With the way this kid ate, being frugal wasn't going to cut it; she would have to get more. "When we come to a field, or someplace that is devoid of any kind of plant life, so that you don't burn it to a crisp," Trixie said as she looked out the window to see if the two of them had reached such a place yet. The wagon was still in a forest that seemed to have no end, and for some reason it made Trixie nervous--not the forest itself, but something that she felt might reside inside of it...Something powerful. "And the sooner we get out of this forest, the better. I do not wish to delay in reaching the Temple as well." "Star-Swirl's temple, right?" Starshine asked as he downed another apple, forcing Trixie to grab the bag from him so they'd have food for later. "Who is he?" "You haven't heard of Star-Swirl? Your parents really were terrible," Trixie muttered to herself, making another mental note to deck Starshine's parents if she ever came across them. She pulled a book off one of her shelves and opened it in front of Starshine, to show a tall stallion that had a long white beard under a hat with stars covering it, mirroring the long cape that he wore over his body. "This is Star-Swirl the Bearded, the greatest unicorn that has ever lived. He is responsible for discovering nearly fifty percent of the known spells that ponies use today. Every spellcaster sees him as his or her idol." "Wow. That's so cool," Starshine said as he got a closer look at the picture of the stallion. Trixie started to give the book to him when she suddenly lurched forward, and Starshine fell out of his chair. Trixie caught herself with her magic and quickly placed herself back on her hooves. "What's going on?" Starshine asked as he got back up, watching as Trixie raced to her trunk and threw it open, gathering battle armor which she placed on herself. "Something has stopped the wagon," she said quickly as she placed a golden helmet on. "And that shouldn't be possible considering I'm the one that cast the spell. Whatever stopped us is going to be trouble. Stay inside and don't..." Trixie's words died in her throat when she realized that Starshine had already rushed out of the front door and possibly into the danger. She growled about how stupid he could be and raced out after him, only to come to a stop when she saw where they were. They were still in the forest, but it was far different from the one she had seen just moments ago. The trees were filled with light and were greater in number, making it impossible to see more than twenty feet in any direction from the clearing where the wagon stopped. And that's where all of Trixie's focus was, the center where another pony was standing. "Who are you?" Trixie growled at the pony sitting in the center of the clearing. The pony was silver in color, as was the cloak she wore that covered her body, and the hood that covered her face. Trixie noticed that while Starshine didn't have the sense to stay in the wagon when Trixie mentioned danger, he had at least stayed by it and hadn't gone running up to the mysterious pony. "Um, I'm Starshine, Trixie," Starshine said in confusion as he looked around. "I was talking to the silver pony sitting in the center of this field," Trixie growled, not taking her eyes off of it. She could feel the power coming from the silver and while it didn't feel destructive in nature, it was still a power that might rival her own. "Trixie, nopony's there," Starshine said, even more confused than before, as he looked around. Trixie wondered if there was something wrong with his eyes when the silver one sat up and looked at Trixie from under her hood. 'Do not bother. He cannot see me unless I choose to let him,' the silver one said in an ethereal voice, making Trixie even more nervous than before. 'Now then, as I was saying--' "Then let him see you," Trixie said. "I won't listen until you do.' The silver mare frowned, but her body shimmered a bit and Starshine let out a yelp. "Where did that pony come from?" he asked, only to get silence as his answer. "Who is that ghost freak?" "You actually listened?" Trixie asked, wondering what this pony's agenda was. 'All that matters is that I speak to you,' the silver one said as she started to walk towards Trixie. 'I have a limited amount of time here and I must speak with you.' The silver mare stopped walking as Trixie sent a blast of magic flying by her head. "I would recommend staying over there," Trixie said as she prepared another blast. "I will not miss again." 'It matters not if you hit me; your spells are no match for the magic I wield,' the silver one said in a tone that sounded like she was trying to hide hints of rage, but Trixie knew rage when she heard it, and this pony was mad at her. "Care to tell me why you're so angry with me? Is it because of my past or is it a whole new reason? Because at this point, I'd really like a pony to come up with something original to insult me with." The silver pony's form shimmered again and her glow seemed to get brighter, which Trixie figured meant that she was getting angrier. 'I am not angry with you in particular, but rather what you could have been,' the silver mare responded rather cryptically, making Trixie feel her rage start to boil. This pony wasn't giving her any straight answers and she hated ponies like that. 'So if you would just listen and--' "Sorry, but until I get some answers from you, you'll get nothing from me," Trixie responded with a snort as she pawed the ground. "Like what do mean, 'what I could have been?' And how did you stop my spell that I cast on the wagon?" 'Because, as I said, your magic means little to me,' the silver mare responded with a sigh of frustration. 'I am the strongest pony in the multiverses in terms of magical might.' The silver mare moved her head to the side as another blast of magic sailed by it. "Prove it," Trixie said with an evil smile as she let loose a torrent of azure magic towards the silver one. The mare sighed and summoned a silver barrier to protect her, watching with a concealed smile as the spells bounced off of the barrier without cracking it. She lowered the barrier just in time to see Trixie launch herself towards the mare with an arm brought back to strike...a blow that passed right through the mare. Trixie rolled to avoid falling on her face and came up half-crouched, looking from her hoof to the mare with no emotion. "That's curious," she muttered to herself. 'Do you see now that you cannot best me?' the mare asked, only to growl in frustration as Trixie let loose a storm of blue spikes towards the mare, that forced her to throw up another barrier to protect herself. The blasts were once again deflected, but the mare could see that Trixie wasn't going to give up. 'You are even more stubborn than the other you. I will end this now.' This time the silver mare shone with a brilliant light as her power flooded into the ground, creating massive tendrils of energy that shot out of the ground, trying to entangle Trixie. Trixie fired up a barrier of her own, but instead of blocking the tendrils it instead destroyed them, reducing the magic to dust. "I still don't see it," Trixie said in a mocking tone as she raced towards the mare again, this time duplicating herself into three as she surrounded the mare on all sides, each of her clones preparing a different spell. "Let's see if you can handle three separate spells all at once," Trixie's said with a laugh as they all fired at the mare, who vanished in a flash of light. The clones looked around in confusion until the silver mare appeared over one of them, blasting her to the ground with a silver light. 'Like I said, you cannot win,' the mare said as she used her magic to pin the real Trixie to the ground, resulting in the other two copies vanishing into magical energies. 'Why, you are indeed skilled, but you still have your arrogance and that is why you will lose. I have you trapped.' "And right where I wanted you!" Trixie said with a laugh as she fired up her barrier again, watching with a smile as the energy holding her down was blasted apart and the barrier slammed into the mare, sending her skidding back. The silver mare tried to brace herself, only to look down and realize that one of her legs was now missing. 'How?' she asked in disbelief as Trixie got back up, Starshine running over to her with awe on his face. "What happened Trixie? Her leg's gone!" Starshine pointed out. "How did you hurt her when nothing else seemed to?" "The answer's simple, Starshine, it's because I hit her with a barrier that was created specifically to destroy any magic that it comes into contact with," Trixie said with a smug smile, a smile that grew even larger when she saw that the sliver mare visibly reacted to the news. "I wondered why you felt ethereal when I first faced you, but I figured that it was because your magical energies were so strong it was just a side effect. But then I passed right through you when I tried to hit you, despite having increased my own strength with magic. Now this would have all shown the signs of a great wizard, except for the fact that you have no unicorn horn and therefore shouldn't be able to perform magic." "That can't be right. All unicorns need horns to do magic, and they're the only kind of ponies that can," Starshine said, pointing out what Trixie already knew. "That might be true, but look at her hood. There's no room for a horn under there," Trixie said. "I had my suspicions, but I had to try one last thing to confirm them. So I allowed you to trap me in hopes that it would get you to lower your guard and walk over to me, where I could hit YOU with the anti-magic barrier. And just like I predicted, it managed to damage you. Which can only mean one thing. You're made of magic." "Wait, how does that work?" "It is rare that a being can be completely magical without a physical form, but the fact that I couldn't hit her with physical attacks showed that she had no real body, while the fact that the barrier could hit her told me she was magic-based. So what are you? Are you a pony casting a spell to make it seem like you're here when you're not, or are you something else?" The silver mare stood stunned, unable to think of an answer to the perfectly reasoned explanation that Trixie had figured out in just under a few minutes. Nopony had even come close to figuring out what she was before, but Trixie had done so in seconds. All she could do was chuckle to herself as she looked down at her missing limb and channel magic through that area to make the leg reform. 'You truly are every bit the master of magic and deduction that I heard you were, but I had to test it for myself,' the silver mare said with a defeated smile as she walked towards Trixie. 'Yes, my entire being is made of magic, but I am not casting a spell, I am living magic. You can say that I chose this form instead of being a ball of magic. And you are correct in saying that I have no physical form, and that physical attacks will not even touch me, as many have found out.' "But you can still be hurt by anything that can destroy or screw with magic," Trixie added. The silver mare nodded to show she was correct. "And the reason that you threw up the barriers to protect you from my spells is that magic can still touch you, can't it?" 'You speak the truth. Magic can still hit me, even though it causes no pain because I do not feel. All it does is mess with the form I have taken for myself.' "Well, now that we are acquainted with each other, why did you want to talk to me?" Trixie asked. 'I come to warn you, warn you that a darkness will soon fall over this land,' the silver mare said in a more ominous voice, the forest around her becoming colder to reflect her tone. 'And while the child of the knight will seek to stop the darkness herself, she will be unable to do so without your help. You must find that which you have buried away, and bring it back to the light or else the Dark Knight will fall. If the sixth is claimed, that is your signal to go back to where it all ended. Find what you are missing." Trixie opened her mouth to answer, but the silver mare let off a flash of light that blinded both her and Starshine. When the two of them could see again, they were in the middle of a meadow with the wagon, and no trees visible for miles. "What just happened?" Starshine asked as he looked around. "Where'd that mare go?" "I think the question isn't, 'where did she go,' but to whom did she go," Trixie muttered, knowing that if the Dark Knight was to be involved, that her warning must have been serious. "And if she is getting the 'whom' I think she is involved, then our world might be in trouble." "So what do we do? Do we go find this somepony and warn them?" "No, she said if the sixth is found, I will need to go back to where it ended," Trixie said. "And that means I'm not needed yet. But to be safe, I want to get to work on Star-Swirl's temple. That is where we go next. Come on, back into the wagon." Starshine did as she asked and climbed back inside with Trixie, who looked behind her one last time to make sure that the mare was gone. She didn't know who she was, but she wasn't certain if she could trust what she was saying, at least not without proof. 'Crazy mare.' Trixie thought as she closed the door to her wagon and re-activated the spell that got it moving, sitting down with Starshine in the center of the wagon. "Alright Starshine, now we're going to try and get that...combustable part of your magic under control. Now, do you know what a unicorn needs to do if they want to get better at magic?" "Practice for hours on end?" he asked. "Sure, if you want to end up like Twilight," Trixie said with a smirk, but then she started to think about Twilight, and how she could use a bit of confirmation about what the silver mare had said. And very little went on without Twilight knowing about it...at least for the most part. "No, what you need to do is concentrate and clear your mind of past failures and mistakes. Now concentrate while I go write a letter." Starshine nodded and started to concentrate, while Trixie floated a quill and some paper over to her seat, taking a brief second to think about what to say before she started to write. 'Hello, Twilight; it's me, Trixie.' 'I know it has been a while since I last wrote, visited, spoke to you, etc, but I need to talk to you now. A crazy pony told me that if the sixth is found, then all of Equestria will fall into darkness. Battling the forces of evil is your department, and I was wondering if you knew anything about it.' 'Trixie.' Trixie started up another spell that the dragons used to send letters to Celestia, except this one sent letters to Twilight. The paper vanished in a burst of green flame and Trixie looked back to see that the paper wasn't the only thing to catch fire. "How in Equestria did you set the bath ablaze?!" Trixie screamed as she started up her dousing spell and raced over to the burning tub, while Starshine tried to figure out what had gone wrong. >I< About an hour later and a number of things in the wagon having been set ablaze, Trixie figured that it was time for the two of them to take a break, especially since she was tired of casting her extinguishing spell every few minutes. Plus, the two ponies had just reached the outskirts of the last town before they reached the location where the temple of Star-Swirl was supposed to be. So as the wagon came to a stop, Starshine came bursting out of the wagon with a huge smile, and he looked around the entrance of the town. "I can't believe we're finally here! It feels like it took days to get here," he said with awe in his eyes. "It only took a day," Trixie reminded him as she stepped out of the wagon too, covered head to hoof in a black cloak that had a hood to cover her head so that she wouldn't be recognized. When she was by herself, she was fine with fighting her way out of the town, but she didn't want to put Starshine in danger. "And this will be the last stop before we get to the temple, so I need to stock up on supplies since I do not know how long it will take to get there. Don't stray too far..." Trixie sighed when she realized that Starshine was already running into the town, leaving her behind once again. "I swear I don't know why I don't put a leash on him," she grumbled to herself as she walked after him, moving her hood over her eyes to be a bit more cautious. The town was a relatively small one, so the market place wasn't too hard for her to find. All she had to do was look for where the largest crowd was. She did her best to keep an eye out for the colt, while she navigated the crowd as best she could so that nopony would bump into her. She found the colt staring at a magic act that was going on, eyes wide, as the pony on the stage performed a number of tricks. "And just why did you run off like that?" Trixie asked as she sat down next to him, looking up at the pony on the stage with a shake of her head. His tricks were amateurish at best and she could see through his entire act. But she didn't want to spoil the show for anypony else, she sighed and stood back up again. "I'm going to go shopping. If I leave you here, do you promise to behave?" Starshine nodded as the unicorn on stage started to dance with fire. Trixie left Starshine there gazing in awe, shaking her head as she walked. 'How many years has it been since that was me up there?' she asked herself while she went about her business, stopping first at the places that sold food so that she could replenish her rations. And this time she didn't spare any coin, since she figured that if she went with the usual supplies, Starshine would clean her out in a few days, tops. So she had to buy carrots, celery stalks and even some sweets that she would normally never touch herself. 'Foals do seem to love sweets, from what I've read, though, so it should be fine as long as I don't touch them.' The next stop for her was a place that she had some reservations about going into, because she was always reminded of who it made her look like in a way. That stop was the town's local bookstore, where she wanted to look for more spellbooks and potions recipes to add to her shelves. She didn't know if it was Twilight's fault or her mother's, but for the past ten years she had loved to learn new things in written form. So she felt a bit more humble than usual when she opened to door to small store, which only had one floor, that was filled with books. "Hello there," a small old stallion said as she walked past the desk, giving her a smile that made her feel like she had been his first customer in a while. "Can I help you find something? Or are you here to browse?" "Just to browse right now, thank you," she said in a slightly deeper voice as she pulled her hood tighter over her eyes, not wanting to run the risk of being seen. She didn't know how far the rumors about her had spread, but once before she had been surprised by how far gossip could go. She silently looked through the shelves, always feeling a bit more reserved and respectful in stores with books. She didn't know why; it could have been that this was a place of quiet, or that so many ponies' stories and life works were all collected here. She found the section on spellbooks in the back, noticing that this selection was smaller than the rest. A certain black book with a golden covering caught her eye, although why it was on the floor she had no idea. "Let's see what secrets you hold," she muttered to herself as she started flipping through the pages, her eyes growing wider and wider with each page, while an excitement that she had suppressed since the battle of Canterlot came shooting back to the surface. Spells that she had never heard of, magical theories that would make Star-Swirl confused: it was a book of the unknown. And she loved it! She quickly bolted to the pony behind the counter and placed the book down, doing her best to hide her smile. "How much for this one?" "Oh my, I didn't know that we had any of these left," the old stallion said, slightly surprised, as he looked over the book. "Now I can sell this to you, but I must warn you that some of these spells can be quite dangerous. Is that fine with you?" Trixie nodded excitedly as she placed the bits on the counter, grabbed the book as the stallion rang her up, and shot out of bookstore, heading back to where Starshine was, so that she could grab him and hurry back to the wagon where she could start reading. Much to her surprise, she found him where she had left him, watching the pony perform. "Come on, it's time to leave this second rate act," she said to Starshine, who looked up at her with a frown. "I don't wanna go just yet. I want to see the finale," he whined with a pleading look in his eyes, but Trixie shattered the pleading eyes with an, "I'm not arguing with you" look that caused him to sigh and stand up. However, the stage performer had been listening the entire time and didn't like the pony in the cloak taking away one of his audience. "Excuse me miss, but I couldn't help but hear you call my act 'second rate'," the pony said as he teleported himself in front of her with a poof of smoke, gaining him a chorus of 'Oohs' from the crowd--and a glare for Trixie. "I hate to talk back to one of my audience, but I am one of the greatest performers. I am Gregory the Great, and I have performed everywhere from Stalliongrad to Canterlot." "So you get around. Please get out of my way," Trixie said, wanting to avoid what she figured was coming. "And I see that you are a unicorn as well, so I propose a magic showdown," he said more to the crowd than her. The crowd started to chant for the magic showdown and much to her annoyance, even Starshine started to chant as well. "So what do you say miss? You versus me in a showdown to see who has the superior magic?" Trixie hated to do it, but at this point her fastest way out of the town was through him. So she set down her bags with a sigh as she let her horn began to glow. "You get three tries to beat me. If you can't surpass my magic by then, I win by default," she said in a tone that said it wasn't open for debate. He bowed graciously and started to twirl around in a flashy manner, giving Trixie plenty of time to cast her own spell that turned the bricks at his hooves to mud. He let out a yelp as his back hooves sunk into the mud, as well as his face turning red a bit as the crowd began to laugh. "Very well, madame, you have bested me in the first test. But I will not lose again," Gregory the Great said as he prepared another spell without the flare or spinning, aiming between Trixie's eyes. Trixie yawned as she bounced the spell off of a barrier and watched as the spell fizzled out in the air above her. "Last try," she said as Gregory's face turned a blazing red. He looked down at the ground to debate what to do next when an idea came to him. He smiled and fired a spell into the air, causing Trixie to look up to predict where the spell would land. and in that moment she looked up, Gregory took that chance to race up to her and grab her cloak, ripping it off of her body with a flourish. "I have bested you!" he cried in victory as he dropped the cloak. "What do you have to say to that miss..." His words, along with any courage he had, died within him as he looked into the face of the pony from whom he had ripped the cloak. Trixie sighed and the crowd was silenced, as if shot, while she slowly turned to face him. "The name's Trixie. Trixie Lulamoon."