Celestia dreamed.
Her dreams were pleasant ones. They were young again at Paradise Estate, running and laughing and playing through the hills, her and Lulu and weird little Dissy, three innocent foals who knew they would forever be best friends. A part of Celestia dimly knew that, one day, the harmony would be irreparably broken, but most of her enjoyed remembering this good day in a summer over two thousand five hundred years ago, when they were young in this cycle of incarnation and knew naught of cosmic struggles or high destinies, only love and friendship.
She wanted the dream to last forever, but of course it couldn't, any more than had Paradise Estate.
As she cycled into brief semi-wakefulness, she remembered sadly that Dissy was lost to her forever, that he had awoken to and resumed his role as her enemy, that love and kindness had failed to conquer all. He waited out there in the gardens, frozen in stone, kept near her because ... the excuse she gave herself was that she could watch him better that way, but the truth was that some part of her still cared, still wished, still hoped against hope that there was some way to bring him back to her, once again at least some sort of friend. The thought that there probably wasn't, saddened her, but then she breathed in a scent that restored her spirits.
Luna, she thought happily. Little Lulu. My dear sister. Back again, after a thousand years.
She was still so weak, so small. It had only been a few days since her return and redemption, and she had only just begun to regain a fraction of her true power. Luna hadn't remembered much, but she did remember that at the last, when the Shadow commanded her to slay Twilight Sparkle, Luna had instead turned on her possessor. She had nearly died exhausting herself in that struggle, one no less titanic for being waged within.
Of course you fought, little sister, Celestia thought to herself. You never would have slain our friends, no matter what someone told you to do. But then, it was always you who were the heroine, I just the smiling schemer. She wondered if, at a similar pass, she would have had Luna's courage, her determination, her sheer unbreakable integrity. I wish I could explain this to you, and you believe it. But then, I never could. I could manipulate you into anything, sister, save truly appreciating your own worth.
One crisis averted, she thought. One battle won. Not by myself, but by the Element Bearers and your own great heart. One loved one restored to me.
What comes next? I know this is not the end. The Shadows descended across Equestria that night, and though many of them were too weak to find good hosts, they will be working their ill in many places over the coming months, the coming years. They tried to destroy Manehattan -- had they succeeded, the economy of the whole Realm would now be lurching toward collapse, weakening us in the many battles we will have to fight in the near future. Something stopped them there -- something of my own order, I sensed the power -- but I don't know what or whom. Do beings such as myself have guardian angels? She chuckled quietly at the thought.
I can snuff out this or that pocket of resurgent evil -- indeed the weaker Nightmares will just rampage, and be completely vulnerable to ordinary troops or mages. But the stronger ones will also be more cunning. They will hold back, work to loose the greater evils, the many foes of Ponykind who have waited for just such an opportunity. The Ponies are good, but they are far from the only sapients on Earth, and there are some Ponies who will ally with evil in the belief that it will grant them their wishes. The attack on Manehattan was carried out by Ponies, after all.
What will they throw against me next? she wondered. Her mind could summon up a terrifyingly long list of foes, forgotten by most but far from gone forever, waiting outside the bars of spacetime she and others had built to protect Ponykind. How will I repel it? How many of my little Ponies will die this time, pay the price for my new errors?
She felt a motion, heard a soft whimper. Luna's sleep was restless, all four legs twitching as if she were trying to outrun some terror.
The nightmares, Celestia thought, the reason she's in here with me. She should be able to control her dreams. She can't control these dreams. I've told her not to worry too much, but it worries me. A lot. Something's after her. Something dark. Something wants her ... again.
Celestia embraced her sleeping sister, folded her wings around them both, let her own paramagnetic field cloak them. It was one of the most intimate postures which could be assumed by an Alicorn, something one would do only for one's best beloved, whether child, sibling or lover. It placed her defenses around both Luna and herself, while leaving her own self completely vulnerable to Luna's. There were few on Earth she trusted so completely. Luna was one, and another slept this night in the library at Ponyville.
She could feel something trying to touch Luna, a stream of energy which Celestia knew without having to check was emanating from Earth's sister planet, a quarter-million miles away, her sister's own namesake. With a savage flex of her wings and the paramagnetic field emanating from them, she severed the connection. She could feel the far-off Shadows hissing angrily. She summoned her love for her sister, and had the satisfaction of hearing their shrill squeals of pain and fear as they scuttled back into their crevices.
Abominations! she thought angrily, looking up in that direction. You torment her because she's still weak! Wait until she's all the way back -- you'll be the ones tormented! There was something vile about them, something viler than any minds she had ever touched, as if their very structure was somehow opposed to everything wholesome, everything healthy and living. Simply sensing them made her angry, as if they were the essence of serpents which every primal instinct told her to trample.
She held Luna closely, let her own love wrap around her like her wings. Luna relaxed, settled into a calm sleep, comforted both by their psychic bond and by the simple warmth, the scent of her sister.
I wish I had more time for her, Celestia thought. But there's always so much to do. So much work, if the Realm is to survive the next few decades. All the routine business, and all the new business, and all the threats known and unknown. It'll be easier when I have more helpers closer to my own level. Soon ... She drifted back off to sleep on that thought, thinking of a certain lavender librarian ... and others.
Dreaming again. Back at Paradise Estate. She was a foal, now alone. She stepped over a log, into a glen, and suddenly she was adult again.
A pony awaited her there, sitting on a dry rock. A pony she'd seen many times before, both in waking and in dreaming..
"Wisedreamer?" she said in surprise, seeing the familiar long white beard, gray mane, sharp muzzle, keen blue-gray eyes twinkling at her under bushy eyebrows and the usual floppy high-peaked hat, elaborate pipe trailing smoke clouds.
"Well met, Celestia," he replied. "Pleasant to see you again. Haven't, lately."
"Well of course not," said Celestia logically. "Last I heard you'd discarnated again, from being White-Beard."
"Indeed I have," the wizard replied. "Needed, you see. Somewhere else," he added vaguely.
Celestia knew that it was very likely that the "somewhere else" of which he spoke was not even within her present spacetime. Wisedreamer was something of a troubleshooter. When he was needed somewhere, it was often because things had gotten very bad indeed.
"Are you planning on coming back?" she asked. "My sister and I could really use your help."
"You're handling it well," he pointed out. "Proof of which is that you are with your sister again. Congratulations, on that."
"Thank you," said Celestia. "Though my student Twilight Sparkle had more to do with bringing her back."
"Oh, good," he said. "She always seemed very ... promising. And I'm glad to see Luna free of her personal shadows. A good mare, if sometimes a bit ... headstrong."
"That's just it," explained Celestia. "I don't know how free she is, really. They still assail her. And they're beginning to attack all Equestria. We would really appreciate your help."
"Wish I could," said Wisedreamer. "But I'm really busy here. Dholes. Not the doggy kind. The mile-long planet-eating wormy kind. Unusually bad infestation." He did not elaborate on why an infestation by mile-long planet-eating worms was worse even than the norm for such a calamity.
"Oh, sorry about that." Celestia's ears dropped.
"You'll manage," he told her. "You and your sister are strong. She'll get better, you'll find more friends. It'll turn out right in the end.. I have a feeling that it's ... meant ... to get a bit darker first, though. So be wary."
"Is that why you've come?" asked Celestia. "To give me this warning."
"No, actually I came on ... another matter. My own former faithful student. Beatrix Lulamoon. The Great and Powerful Trixie, she's styling herself."
"The little show-mare? Is she in some kind of trouble?" Celestia asked. She vaguely remembered Trixie Lulamoon from her short time at her own school. Annoying, rebellious, but not really a bad pony.
"She's Manifested," Wisedreamer explained. "Long before she was really ready. There was something of a, hmm, emergency. I helped a little, but she needed to wake her Concept, to win through. It was her who saved Manehattan."
"Wait, another Magic?" Celestia asked. "Is that even possible?"
"Not Magic," the wizard explained. "Illusion. Not precisely the same thing."
"Is she able to ...?"
"No," said Wisedreamer. "Not at all. She barely understands being a unicorn, let alone anything else. She's a little, hmm, strange, you see."
"My student is a little strange," pointed out Celestia. "And you're stranger than either of us. What you really mean is ...?"
"Insane," Wisedreamer admitted. "Narcissistic. Almost a sociopath. I had to tell her to be worthy of her own gigantic ego, more or less, to make her even remotely safe around others. I wish I might have had more time with her, though. She liked me, listened to me. I don't know if she'll listen to anypony else."
"An insane Concept?" Celestia was alarmed. "The last thing we need is another one like --" She couldn't bear to finish that sentence with either of the two obvious choices. "She could fall into Nightmare!"
"Ah, hmm ... I think not," Wisedreamer said. "Not if there's somepony to ... look out for her."
"But you're saying she's --"
"They mostly are, dear filly," Wisedreamer said. His bushy eyebrows descended. "A librarian who is afraid that you'll clap her in a dungeon if she gives the wrong answer on a test. That little bouncy pink Chosen One of a whole lost timeline. A half-pegasus of the highest lineage and greatest power, who is afraid of her own shadow. Her best friend, another pegasus who imagines herself an entire army in one mare. Really, the only sane ones are the Apple clansmare and that dressmaker, and even they are a bit touched, sometimes."
"I know," admitted Celestia. "But they're who I have, now. They're the ones who attuned."
"You do know why this is happening?" said Wisedreamer.
"Yes," said Celestia. "You've told me many times before. I can't just ... how did you put it?"
"Grow Alicorns as if they were potatoes?" the bearded mage kindly suggested the missing words.
"That was, I believe, your phrase."
"And true," said Wisedreamer with some satisfaction. "You cannot force Concepts into being, and expect them to emerge wholly sane from the experience."
"I know," admitted Celestia. "But I had no choice. Nightmare Moon would have annihilated all the little Ponies."
"What was behind her still may," replied the mage. "Which is why you will need the help you have, perhaps foolishly, called up before it was wholly ready."
"What should I do?" asked Celestia.
"Watch over her," advised Wisedreamer. His face softened. "She is strange, but she is good. There is true nobility within her, under all the boasting. For all the anger within her, she's never really hurt anyone, and the closest she ever came to doing so was when someone made scurrilous accusations about myself. In her own way, she is honorable. She would prove a very loyal friend -- if she could ever keep one."
"Should I take her in, then?"
"No," the wizard said. "Hmm ... she's bad with authority, you see. The only reason I could control her was that she happened to like me personally. She won't listen to anyone she doesn't like."
"I'm likeable," pointed out Celestia.
"Yes," said Wisedreamer. "Unfortunately, in the wrong way. You're devastatingly charismatic. Everyone adores you. She hates that."
"You maker her sound impossible to manage," said Celestia, a little miffed at his analysis.
"You're too imposing," explained the wizard. "You don't cloak yourself as well as do I. Hmm, well, few do. She would feel threatened, challenged, see you as a rival."
"That's fairly arrogant of her," pointed out Celestia.
"Well, yes. 'Fairly arrogant' would be a good description of little Trixie. 'Incredibly arrogant' a better one." He smiled at a fond memory.
"You like that about her," Celestia accused.
"Hmm, well, yes. You might say she grew on me. Ridiculous little creature, thinks she's bigger than the whole wide world. I have a weakness for silly ponies like that."
She caught a motion behind him and saw a very small and stocky Pony peeping out at her from behind Wisedreamer. He was small, his head not even shoulder-height on the big stallion, but his breadth of barrel and muscular build indicated that he was no colt, but himself a stallion full-grown. "Who's that?" she asked.
"Oh ... hmm ... he's Delver," the wizard explained. "Old friend, came to help me with the worm problem. Good underground, natural sense of direction, you know." He turned to his smaller friend. "Delver, this is the Princess Celestia of Equestria."
Pale green eyes gazed shyly at Celestia.
"Delver is pleased to meet you, Your Highness," the diminuitive Pony said in a soft voice, almost a whisper, bowing to her.
Another one speaking about himself in the third person, Celestia thought, smiling to herself as she remembered Trixie. Something about Wisedreamer seems to attract them.
"And I am pleased to meet you too, good Delver," said Celestia kindly. "Should you ever come into my land, know that you are welcome at my Court."
"Thanks to you, Great Grand-Mother," said the very little Pony. "You are good to Delver, yes, Delver is your friend. Delver hopes to some day visit your noble Court!"
Very strange speech patterns, Celestia thought. I wonder what he really said, in his native language. Celestia was more than a little bit familiar with the principles of transformation and translation, and well-aware that Delver's native form might not be even remotely equine. Wisedreamer traveled to some very strange places.
Celestia nodded and smiled at Delver. "I look forward to your coming, good Delver. May you fare well with my old friend!"
Then she gazed at Wisedreamer.
"Very well, old friend," she said. "I shall watch over Beatrix Lulamoon, without making it obvious that I am doing so. If I can figure out how to do this, and if I can even find her."
"Oh, I imagine that you shall find her," said Wisedreamer, his eyes twinkling merrily. "She's not very good at keeping quiet." He got up off his rock. "Come, Delver, we have work to do!" He smiled at Celestia. "Fare thee well, Sun Maiden. And your sister as well."
"Fare thee well too, old wanderer," replied Celestia.
The two figures, the big old stallion and the little one, stepped through a gap in the trees. Light shone behind them. For a moment they were both impossible bipedal things, one tall and leaning on a staff, the other still short and stocky but also bipedal. Then they were something else, with far too many legs and what looked like insectile wings and some sort of tentacles. And then they were gone, into the wastes of the Cosmos, back to whatever worm-menaced world they had been saving.
Celestia made a note to her subconscious to remember the promise to watch over Trixie. Then she returned, happily, to the deeper Dreaming.
***
"Bridleway!"
The Great and Powerful Trixie practically bounced up and down in excitement, but of course did not, because such would have been undignified behavior for such an experienced and professional show-mare. The sound of hooves clopping repeatedly against Bottom Billing's wooden floor must have come from somewhere else in the office building.
"Yep. All the major theatres. They want to see your act." Bottom Billing looked smug, chomping down on an unlit cigar. "Told `ya that with the help of an experienced agent such as myself, you could get the best engagements."
"But I thought you said ... never mind. Which parts did they like in particular?" Trixie was already mentally flipping through her routines, trying to figure which supplies she would have to buy, which tricks to rehearse.
"Well, they liked all of it -- `cept of course the fireworks, can't do that kind of thing indoors," Bottom chuckled.
"Tell me about it," said Trixie. "Try even a simple illusion of that sort, and ..." The Judicious and Diplomatic Trixie did not finish the statement, considering it unwise to mention how close she had come to burning down that one theatre. That was the kind of talk that made promoters nervous about her, though she wasn't entirely sure why they lacked a sense of humor in this regard.
"There's just one thing they really wanted ta see, though," continued Bottom.
"Ooh! I bet I can guess. My little playlets! With the lights and the music and the narration and the sleight-of-hoof! The Clever and Dramatic Trixie is very good at that!"
"Well, Trixie," said Bottom, "I don't know how well that translates to a big house. Can the back rows even see your little figures?"
"The Crafty and Artistic Trixie can make bigger figurines," she pointed out. "As big as they need to be. Six foot tall plushies, even! Large-scale illusions are well within the Great and Powerful Trixie's capabilities!"
"Yeah," said Bottom, "that kind of gets to what the producers really want." His eyes grew shifty.
The Wise and Perceptive Trixie was alert to such significant changes in facial expression. And that phrase sounded sinister.
"And precisely what," she quietly asked, in her most refined and upper-class tone, "do the producers 'really want?'" She could think of a number of things they might 'really want' which she would never give them, not even for more bits than they were likely to be offering. She gave Bottom what she considered a very direct and honest gaze. Her eye was barely twitching, one hoof just starting to gently scrape the floorboards.
Bottom wilted before her regard.
"Nothing that ain't classy, Trixie, baby, you have my word on it!"
He seemed to say that confidently, which caused the Decent and Respectable Trixie to relax a bit along one line of worry, but left all the others open.
"Then what do they want?" she asked.
"They wanna see the Alicorn Illusion!"
"Ah ..." she said, caught for once in her life at a loss for words. "There is a slight problem with that ..."
"What kinda problem?" Bottom asked. "Is it a matter of supplies? Preparations? I can get ya anything ya want for this. Legal or illegal. There's a lotta bits riding on this, if ya need some kinda drugs ..."
"No!" squealed the Clean and Sober Trixie. "Nothing like that!" She rarely drank, especially since that incident in Baltimare, and avoided anything stronger than alcohol as the poison it was to any serious performer's career. Even in her relatively short time on the stage, she'd seen too many others collapse under the pressure and swirl down the drain of one or another sort of strong soporific or stimulant. This was not going to happen to Trixie!
"Well then, whattaya need?"
"It's nothing I need," replied Trixie. "It's just that -- I don't think I can do the Alicorn Illusion again. Not on purpose, anyway."
"Whattaya mean by that?" Bottom asked. "It's just a trick, right? One'a yer illusions?"
Normally, Trixie would have been furious to hear one of her routines described as "just a trick" by a talentless talent agent like Bottom. She was certainly annoyed. But there was something important she had to get across.
"I don't know," confessed Trixie. "I don't know how I did it in the first place. I needed something impressive -- there were these hecklers, you see. Or band of terrorists. I can't remember exactly what they were, but they were a very nasty gang. And I reached ... I reached in some direction I can't describe ... and She was there. She came out to face them, to save me. I think maybe She is part of me. And She is the one who did all the really impressive magic at the end. Something like that." She looked at him helplessly. There was no way she could explain this any better. She normally wouldn't have been so open with someone like Bottom, but the whole memory frightened her. She wrapped her forelegs around her chest, shivering.
"That's a nice bit 'a patter, Babe," Bottom told her. "But save it for the stage. Seriously -- how much money do ya need to do the trick? Cuz I think I can onager those cheapskates up a bit, if ya can give `em the goods. Know what I mean?"
The Great and Powerful Trixie did know what he meant. He meant that to himself, the most truly magical experience of her entire life was just some cheap act, something to be bought and sold like a bale of hay. To him, she was just something to be bought and sold in a like fashion. In every fashion that she let herself be bought and sold, which was why she could never trust other ponies, because they were always looking to take something from you at a bargain price.
She wished uselessly that she might have been able to discuss what had happened with Master White-Beard. He loved her, would have taken what happened seriously, might even have been able to explain it. She missed him so much sometimes. She'd never see him again, but he was her reminder that not all ponies were jerks, that every now and then one might find somepony who could be trusted.
Even Piercing Gaze -- there had been that one unfortunate night, but all the other times he had been a real friend. She had told him her hopes, her dreams, and he had listened, taken her seriously, offered her constructive advice. He would never have just thought she was asking for more money. Yes, he'd been a true friend, and she'd been a fool to let that one misunderstanding tear them apart.
She wished she could go to Baltimare, drop in on him, pick up their old friendship. But no -- it was too embarrassing. The way they'd parted, the things he'd seen, the things they'd done -- her face flushed with shame at the memory.
But maybe ...
Bottom mistook her expression for interest in his proposition.
"Yeah, now you see the light, Babe -- I can see you're gettin' excited by my offer. Ya got the hots for some more dough, and I --"
Trixie glared at Bottom. The crass way he intruded on my most intimate memories! she thought furiously. The disgusting, base, common little dog!
"What's wrong, ya want me to lower my share --?"
Trixie cast a very simple spell. It was just a matter of telekinesing the air out of a sphere and then letting it flow back within. It made an impressive sound, but was best performed outdoors, because ...
WHOOM!!!
Every window in Bottom's office, including the glass-frosted one on the door, blew out simultaneously. Every loose piece of paper in the office -- and he was a rather messy Pony -- blew all over the place, some of it out the windows. Bottom himself staggered backward, hooves clapped over his ringing ears. Trixie, who as the caster had of course expected the report and pinned her own ears back the instant before casting the spell, smirked with satisfaction.
"Ya crazy nag!" Bottom bellowed, his voice harsh because his hearing had been temporarily destroyed. "Do ya know what you just cost me! You can forget about me finding ya a gig in this town ever again! Ya can forget about ever workin' in this town again! When I get through with you yer name'll be mud in Manehattan!"
Smiling sweetly, Trixie stepped out the door, projecting a small shield over her own hooves as they crunched the broken glass from the frosted window. I'm through with Bottom, she thought, and everypony like Bottom. He's a fool, and he doesn't deserve his cut of my take. He has no class, no vision, no heart.
She walked down the hlll, Bottom's angry shouting fading away behind her, just as he was fading out of her life forever. She trotted to the main ramp, began walking down.
I am the Great and Powerful Trixie, she thought. That's not just my stage name, it's my self. I faced down a coven of black magicians who meant to kill me, and I defeated them. I summoned something -- I don't even know what yet, but it was something special, something maybe akin to the Princess herself, and it saved me in my hour of need. I really am better than any other living magician. Even in her moment of pride, she could not see herself as better than Master White-Beard, who -- if she was one in a million -- was one in a billion, for certain.
She stepped out the front door of the office building. The clatter and noise of the great city were all around her. It's been only a few days since that terrible long night, she thought to herself, and now it's like nothing bad ever happened. Business as usual. This city is amazing. I've got to come back here someday.
She hitched herself to her caravan, pulled it out into the street, turned onto Bridleway.
Someday, she thought, but not now. Bottom was not merely bluffing. He could make trouble for her in this town, especially since her last outburst had been literally criminal. Better to leave town before the law caught up with her for that one. And even if he didn't proscute, he certainly could get her blacklisted, the more so because she couldn't summon the Alicorn, Illusion. Not at will. Not yet.
There are other towns, Trixie told herself. Other places I can do my act, build my reputation, until I don't need an agent because their agents will be calling on me. I'm not just a normal show-mare, she thought. I'm the Great and Powerful Trixie, the One and Only Trixie, and this whole big world is mine.
She picked up speed as she cleared the downtown. The Blueskin Bridge lay before her, huge and gleaming, stretching out westward. I can go anywhere, she thought. Canterlot? Maybe when I've built up more of a reputation. Morgan? Eh, they're kind of stuffy up northeast. Baltimare?
Baltimare was tempting. She wanted to renew her friendship with Piercing. Sometimes -- not most of the time, but sometimes. when she was in a certain mood, she wondered if she wanted to renew something more. Maybe, if we hadn't been drunk ....
No, she firmly told herself. That's common, unthinkable. Disgusting! For mundane mares, not for the Great and Powerful Trixie!
But friendship -- that would be nice. It's been so long since I've been able to really relax and just talk to somepony ...
Not as a supplicant, though. She had to make her chops, build up her reputation. When she saw Piercing Gaze again, he too would marvel at the fame and fortune of the Great and Powerful Trixie. He would be the one to want to make up with her.
She felt confident now that she could succeed. She had faced the worst, and she was still alive, still trotting along, pulling her van.
West, she decided. I'll just go west. Then maybe south a bit. There's a whole wide world out there, and it's going to belong to me. To the Great and Powerful Trixie!
Singing a merry little song, she trotted across the bridge, toward her destiny.
END.