Tricks, cloaks and wands: The Lost Tales of a Traveling Magician

by divinearcadia


The Burden a Soul can Carry

To get this out of the way, I have no control over the characters of and related to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This is a piece of literary fiction, the events of this story are not intended to reflect the actions or incriminate anypony.

Chapter Eleven: The Burden a Soul can Carry

'Anima. The soul that resides within all living things. The soul is a fragile thing, easily shattered by even a few careless words. It is also an indomitable force, capable of astounding things. Magic. The outward manifestation of a ponies soul and mind acting in concert. What kind of pony would have the ability to use the soul of another against their will? To reach out to another living thing and consume the soul, the life of another? Would they be callous and cruel? Not thinking about the life they extinguish or would they carry the burden of these souls, eventually breaking the pony who used them out of necessity? I think you would know what kind of pony you are. This is the last magic you will learn before you go out into the world to become a guardian of the light. We do not teach you this magic lightly. We teach it to you now for we now know what it is that you lack to complete the five pointed wand and would have you know what it is that you do to others.
'This magic has been sealed away for hundreds of years, forgotten to all but the Princesses so completely they destroyed all knowledge of it. It was your dreams that gave us the hint about your last true talent, also to as why you have been so stunted in your power when you should be much more powerful than you really are. When you know this last magic, nopony could ever stand against your power aside from the most potent of souls or one of the Alicorn Princesses so great and terrible your power will be.'


Trixie sits in a dark room within a rundown building in the poorest slum of Manehatten. She sits in silence, staring into the darkness but not seeing it as her attention is focused on what her left eye sees. Flickering across her vision is what the feed from several oculi. Twenty of the constructs move about with purpose, invisible to all but her. The invisibility was no special talent of hers, simply a skill any unicorn could learn with the proper tutelage and focus. But the skill served its purpose in her capacities.
This night she sought a specific group of ponies who have been dealing in the lives of others, stealing them for the pleasures they would unwillingly give, making money off of misery and despair. The look that passes over Trixies face in the darkness would have made most stallions tremble at the thought of the retribution she would dish out. These ponies wouldn't die, not by her hoof. They were not worth her wiping the stains from her hooves. She was going to let the Night Guard deal with them when she was through.
With a blink of her eye, she stops the visual input from the oculi but leaves them where they are instead of dispelling them. She glances about with her temporarily enhanced eyesight and leaves the building after putting on a very worn set of saddle bags. The feeling of somepony having just been there the only traces she leaves behind. The darkness and clutter of the alleyway doesn't hinder her silence as long practice has ensured that. Two blocks east of the building where she was sits a pony in the early autumn chill as he waits for any signs of trouble or a likely target. It doesn't take Trixie a large stretch of her talents to make herself look like one of the poor mares these guys would take. As she nears the lookout, she shifts her stance into something dragging and weary, making sure she creates noise a good ways off. It doesn't take long for him to take the bait as she watches from one of her oculi.
“What's a sweet little thing like you doing out here at night? I know a place where we can get you off your weary hooves and a nice meal for the right price that's not too far from here.” The approaching pony says with a deeply smooth voice. It was the kind of voice that could mistakenly make a mare think was kind. He makes Trixie sick. “How does that sound? If you don't have any bits, we got some easy work you could do and have some extra in your purse besides.”
Trixie just stands there as disgust rises in her throat. The other pony reaches a hoof out to place it on her shoulder but she side steps it, lashing out with a hoof to the throat. He steps back with a gurgle passing his lips as his throat clenches in spasms. She steps forward quickly while whipping her hoof around and up in a blow to the corner of his jaw sharply, his eyes roll back as he collapses soundlessly. She steps over his prone body as she goes on to the next.
Ten minutes after clearing the perimeter, she finds herself standing in front of a small warehouse in slightly better condition than its neighbors. She can sense five ponies inside with her magic, she can sense even more below her. She knocks on the door strongly after briefly casting a voice masking spell replicating the voice of the first pony she dispatched. She waits a moment before a slightly muffled voice sounds through the thin door.
“Whaddaya want?”
“We just want to put our hooves up and have a good meal.” Trixie responds remembering the ploy he tried to use.
“Well why didn't ya say so? Come on in!” The door opens revealing a thin earth pony. Quickly looking behind him reveals two pegasi, another earth pony and a unicorn. “Huh? Where's Suede?”
He doesn't get a chance to even think anything else as a hoof slams into his head with enough force to make it bounce off of the door frame. Trixie sidesteps the limp pony as she runs into the large room. Ignoring the other ponies at the table as they shout suddenly, she closes the gap to the unicorn who hasn't even begun to light his horn. She flips over with a tumble a pace away, lashing out her hind legs to hit him squarely in the chest with enough force to send him through the chair he sits in. Three left. She twists on the ground to kick her hoof out at the edge of the table, sending it into the leg of one of the pegasi as the others had quickly moved away from the table causing him to go sprawling on the ground. She rolls over just in time to avoid the stomping hoof of the earth pony who had gotten around the table. He rears to lash out with heavy hooves but she steps in as he lashes out, hooking his hoof under her left foreleg and throwing him with a rolling twist of her body over the table. He hits the table hard, causing it to buck him over the edge and onto the pegasus who was beginning to get up.
She turns to the pegasus who had circled around to her rear. He stands with his wings spread out low to the ground, silvery glints coming off of pinion blades attached to his wings for lethal wing fighting. He rushes her, pivoting to the left as his right wing lashes out towards her neck. She steps in quickly to get inside his range of lethal effect, pivoting to the left as her right hoof strikes the middle of his straight wing at the joint. The tendon snaps at her blow causing his wing to bend the wrong way. Twisting around quickly, she grabs his left foreleg in a hold that causes him to come crashing down hard. With well placed hind leg and a sharp motion she dislocates his shoulder with an audible snap and a scream of agony before he passes out.
Two left. She walks quickly over to the two ponies who had just disentangled themselves from each other. She shoves the table hard at the earth pony causing him to jump back to avoid getting hit. Trixie rushes the pegasus who had been temporarily distracted by her action. A quick blow to his jaw stuns him as she follows through with another blow to carry his head into the one chair which had miraculously remained standing. One left. He was running to the ajar door. Her horn flares briefly as she sends a chair leg whipping through the air to hit him in the back of the head. He lies there dazed as she walks over to him.
“What are you?” He asks in breathless fear. She doesn't say a word as she whips her hind leg into his face as she passes him. She levitates a small blue crystal from her bag which disintegrates at a slightly brighter pulse of her horn in a flare of effervescent white sparks. A few moments later the sound of rushing wind greets her sensitive ears and a bat winged Night Guard Captain walks through the warehouse doors. He looks around the room quickly and raises an eyebrow at the tightly controlled carnage.
“There's a hidden trapdoor around here leading into the basement. You and the Guards can take care of the rest.” Trixie says before she walks through the door. There are two other Guards waiting outside which look at her askance before they go inside at the barked command of their superior. With a deep breath, Trixie walks off to one of the all night public baths in the foreign district. Three blocks away the beat of wings causes her to stop and look as the Captain lands a few paces behind her. She raises an eyebrow at him in question.
“We secured the gang members you left scattered about the area and those you left behind. There were twelve mares we found in the basement. They're going to be fine. I never would have thought we could have dealt with them in two days.” He stops a moment to gather his thoughts. “I don't know where you came from, and I don't think that matters much. Not at all, but where you are right now and doing what you just did matters. We could have taken care of it, but not as effectively or as quickly and cleanly as you did. Some of the other Guards don't like individuals like you having such power over us, but I welcome your command, Colonel.” Trixie nods in dismissal and watches as he turns to fly off. Such strange roads we travel through life. She thinks as she continues on to her destination and to ponders what her next assignment will be.


It came as an enormous surprise to Luna and Rime Ice as Trixie began to accelerate her studies a within four months of study. She had been taking on a heavy load since the beginning, learning three to five spells a week with hardly any preparation or foreknowledge. She takes on more as she begins to manage her sleeplessness, dedicating entire nights to the study of a single school of magic as she becomes almost obsessed with learning. By the end of her fourth month of study, Trixie has mastered four schools of magic. The fact that she didn't have the magical strength to cast most of the spells above the intermediate level didn't stop her from learning the matrices of the spells.
Whetstone is the first to notice the changes in Trixies personality as she slowly becomes slightly introverted as she constantly thinks about the spells she was learning. When she wasn't studying, she was at the base of the mountain training with Flickering Shadow. Whetstone would make it a habit to spend more time with her to slow down the introversion and keeping her mind from becoming subsumed. He even asks the Elements of Harmony to come visit her on occasion to help their friend. Trixie was happy with life.
He informs Rime Ice about Trixie which brings about her new accelerated courses which removes much of her self study time as Luna and Rime Ice began to teach her personally each day. They are forced to advance the pace even faster as the synergistic schools of magic began to allow Trixie to learn spells at the pace of a starved genius. Then she is introduced to the hidden archives. The spells herein fill the bare spots in her knowledge that she constantly poked at. She reads all the books the small room has to offer within a month, but there was one last school of magic that touched so many other schools. One last spell that would define the warp and weft of the stardust cloak. The Anima.
The spell would allow the caster to catalyze the life of anything living into pure arcane power. It was terrible. It was magnificent. It was the power of retribution and justice that she now held. Once she absorbed the matrix of the spell, it changes her. Now, when she looked at a pony, she could see the ebb and flow of life within them. She could even sense the life of other living things a good distance away.
She was taken to a hospital where she could see the withered essences of the very sick. Her knowledge sprang forward and a small miracle happened that day. With a quiet voice, she asked for help because she wasn't strong enough for what she had to do. With the help of Rime Ice and every unicorn doctor in the building she healed every terminal patient in the expansive wing of Canterlot General Hospital. She went throughout the hospital with a long trail of ponies, to each room and each patient, leaving each afflicted with smiles or tears of happiness. For the first time since its construction, the old hospital was empty of any and all patients. It was in the last room she had visited where Luna found her. She was crying softly on the bed a small colt had occupied only hours ago as the moon rose to light the room with its gentle radiance.
“Why dost thou cry amidst the happiness you hath created this day?” Luna asks quietly.
“Because there will be more tomorrow. Because I can't heal all the ponies who are hurt or gravely ill through no fault of their own. Because I know things that could help all of Equestria, yet I can't teach any of it to anypony else because I know what would happen.” She gets off the bed, heartache and agony painting her face. “I can't do this ever again. I have others to protect, I can't just heal the sick. It's not right for me to only fix these lives. There are those who are well, yet live with the same sadness and despair. Never again...”
Luna watches Trixie as she leaves the room with her head down. She lingers a moment in the room as her heart echoes the same feelings Trixie has at this moment. It is the greatest burden we carry, my little pony. The hearts of we immortals are not impervious to the plights of life. This was the last lesson we had to teach thee. It may have been the hardest one of thine life, but thou had to learn it nonetheless. Though it does not stop mine sister from visiting each hospital in Equestria once a year to heal a pony in secret. She thinks with a sad smile.
Luna turns to catch up with Trixie. A comforting wing is draped across her weary student as they walk back to the castle. They spend the night in Trixies study, drinking tea and talking of inconsequential things until the time comes for the day to break. Trixie doesn't leave her rooms for the next day, only Whetstone and Venerable Service come to visit her shortly to assuage their own fears. The next morning she wakes, her heart tempered and asks Luna for her first assignment.


She was introduced to the Night Guard the next night. Her abilities granted her the status of Colonel in their ranks placing her just under all but the most senior officers. She could not be given orders by anypony except Luna herself and her commands could only be negated by a pony of higher rank with significant justification. She was first amongst officers of the same rank. It is needless to say that she put the back of many a pony up by the announcement.
She was assigned one squad of Guards for her first assignment. She was to seek out and eliminate a small group of ponies who had begun to capture ponies and sell their pleasures against their will. They were very difficult to track due to the presence of a gifted unicorn who prevented scrying and they could disband and reestablish their group with relative ease. They just happened to know the area they set up because of a lucky tip from an informer. The Guard who was briefing her on her assignment gulped audibly at her expression. He finishes quickly and she leaves to prepare for her departure. She is ready in less than an hour, taking a military transport with her detachment of Guards. They establish a base for the Guards two days later on their arrival to wait in concealment so that they wouldn't scare their targets off while Trixie begins to survey the area day and night. It was the second night when she deals with them.


Trixie left the bath house an hour after she arrived there. After making her way back to the base they had established, they left a few minutes later with the gang members restrained in shackles bindings and arcane null rings for the unicorns of the group. Arrangements had been made for a group of medic ponies and the local police force to handle the liberated mares. The train ride back to Canterlot left Trixie time to talk with some of the Guards while they were awake. Aside from some individuals who were slightly cold or moderately condescending to her, they treat her with respect. She also has some time to ponder her actions that night and her feelings at accomplishing her assignment. She feels that she passed the physicality portion fairly well, but she still needs more experience outside of sparring. But her feelings about the conclusion? She felt the fierce pleasure of having done something worthwhile. There were no regrets about ponies now in custody, no matter what life they had led. They willingly gave up their right to it when they kidnapped mares for the things they did to them. Trixie looks out the window in the bright morning sunlight to spot the unblemished alabaster and gold towers of Canterlot Castle rising from the side of the mountain which brings a small smile to her lips. I wonder what's next for me to do? She thinks as the warmth of the sun banishes the chill of the night from her coat.