//------------------------------//
// I am Trixie Lulamoon 
// Story: Memoirs in Ink and Blood 
// by Corah Il Cappo 
//------------------------------//

Studying magic under a Zebra is perhaps the strangest thing I have ever done. For one thing, there was no formal study. Instead, everyday my teacher asked the same question of me.

She asked me to show her what I knew.

I always did. Yet no matter the spell, it didn't seem to matter. She was entirely unimpressed with me.

I cast spells that altered time. I cast spells that changed ages. I cast spells that transmogrified both her body and mine, yet still she was underwhelmed. She just stared at me with a bored expression on her face, waited until my energy was exhausted, and then smiled and offered me breakfast. If I protested, she only replied in that rhyming sing-song.

"I can see you grow filled with frustration and sorrow, Let us break for today and come back tomorrow."

I felt weak.

Passive.

Broken.

I had resolved to never feel that way again.

So I trained. Day in and day out I trained, both physically and mentally. I trained until my luxurious coat was slick with sweat and my flowing silver mane was bunched and tangled. I worked until my mind ached from a potent mix of rage, frustration, and stress. I was determined to impress at any cost. I would impress this snooty, backwoods Zebra if I had to eat, breathe, and bleed magic.

The life of a showpony was not a glamorous one, despite my own innate beauty.

Days and nights blended together in a constant slog of sleeping, eating, and practicing. Oftentimes, I skipped meals, or went days without sleeping to pour more and more of my time into practice. I developed new techniques, experimented with spells and tampered with my casting. I even invented a few new spells of my own, in a desperate attempt to find something that would please my tutor.

Yet all she did was shake her head disapprovingly.

I felt a deep seated anger well up in me every time I saw that gesture. It was the sort of anger that went beyond mere shouting. It was a seething, poisonous anger. The sort of anger that flares in the heat of the moment, and then simmers for days afterwards. It was the sort of intense anger that ate away at the very fibers of my emotion, until they snapped and left only a festering rage in its place.

One day, I lashed out. I screamed, throwing every spell I could at her. I cast balls of fire, razor sharp shards of earth and ice, streaks of brilliant blue lightning, but all of them to no avail. She seemed to either effortlessly avoid the spells I slung, or was otherwise seemingly defended by an unseen force.

It was like trying to punch through a concrete wall. I smashed and smashed my hooves against it, but it never broke. In fact, I never even chipped it.

Finally I collapsed, eyes flushed with tears and throat hoarse from screaming. I lay there in the dirt, bawling and blubbering for what felt like an eternity, trying in vain to catch my breath.

Finally, I spoke. I spoke in a voice barely above a whisper.

"I give up."

Zecora only raised an eyebrow at me, as if to get me to continue.

"I've spent almost a year training, refining, and making my spells better. I've trained till I was sick, but its never been good enough for you. I've never been good enough for you. I. Give. Up."

She looked down at me for a moment. then smiled warmly.

"I apologize for putting you through such abuse, but I wanted to show you where magic sprouts roots. It lies not in works of great power or splendor, for the truest of magic begins with surrender."

It took me some time to figure out exactly what she meant by this. Somehow surrendering would make me more powerful? It seemed as though this zebra had her head screwed on backwards. Magic became stronger though intense study and practice. To develop our powers, we delved deep into ancient tomes written by the great mages of old. What did this backwoods zebra know that these ancient ones didn't?

Surrender.

To relinquish control of oneself, depending on others for your protection.

To let go of dominance, and allow another to take the helm.

To rely on others more than oneself.

The more I turned the idea over in my head, the more it began to make sense. Magic was never meant to be an individual affair. Real magic, magic uncorrupted by the interpretation of the user, relied on others.

In the simplest of terms, friendship is magic.

However, it ran far deeper than that. It wasn't merely caring about others, it was actively allowing yourself to submit your own goals to theirs, working as a group towards a single common goal.

It was harmony.

This meant that the strongest magic, that which transcended all others, was found in the ties that bind us to others. Whether those people are friends, family, or even our enemies, we are all bound by the common thread of harmony.

There was power in harmony, and everypony knew it. In the past, harmony had thrown down gods, thwarted usurpers, and restored the world from chaos. These days though, nopony believed in harmony. We viewed it in the same way we had viewed its bearers since the incident; that it was no more than a corpse, dead, buried and inert.

But that was all wrong.

Harmony was alive and well. Just because those who had once embodied it were slain did not mean that it was gone. Ponies were born and died everyday, but the ties that bound us still existed.

Harmony was alive.

It lived in me, in Zecora, and in everypony else.

Now was the time for harmony to return.

I am the Harbinger of Harmony.

I am Trixie Lulamoon.