//------------------------------// // Chapter Fifty Seven: Memory Lapse // Story: Trixie and Maud: Heart of Stone // by TheCrimsonDM //------------------------------// HEART OF STONE Chapter Fifty Seven: Memory lapse Written by TheCrimsonDM Trixie sat still on the cold frozen ground while staring at Lyra for a long time before she finally managed to speak. “Lyra, is that really you?” Lyra stood up and brushed the snow off her white jacket before replying, “Yeah it’s me. It’s been a long time, Trixie. I had heard you moved back to Ponyville, but I didn’t believe it until now.” Trixie stood up and shook herself thoroughly, causing the snow that was stuck to her to fly off in random directions. Trixie then grinned and said, “I moved in here with my fiancé, Maud.” Trixie wrapped a foreleg around Maud’s neck and pulled her into an embrace. Lyra giggled a little at the sight. “Wow, I can’t believe that you’re engaged. Sound’s a lot like what I’m doing with my marefriend Bonnie. You know what? We should totally go on a double date sometime,” Lyra said enthusiastically. “We can catch up about everything we did after we left school.” Trixie nodded and said, “We’d love that. Right now I got to get back to Twilight though; she needs to hear something that I just learned.” “Sounds terrible, I can’t believe that you’re still talking to her,” Lyra said with a frown. “I mean she is always acting like she’s better than everypony. I know that she’s a princess now and everything, but what exactly did she do to earn it?” “She ruined her friends entire lives for a few months by changing their cutie marks around… actually that doesn’t sound like she earned it at all, does it?” Trixie said, now wondering why Twilight was an alicorn. It didn’t actually make as much sense as she once thought it did. “Wow, if I did something like that I’d get locked up for it. Ugh, it’s not fair either, I mean do you remember the way she used to demean us all the time, you were the only one who ever stood up to her,” Lyra said. “It’s not her fault, I mean when you tell her what she’s doing she apologizes for it. So she’s actually really nice when you get to know her,” Trixie said in an attempt to convince Lyra. “Yeah, and what does it say about her when she screw’s up and can’t repair the damage she did? We both know a unicorn who has suffered that under Twilight’s command,” Lyra argued. Trixie was quiet for a moment while contemplating this, at length she said, “Well at least she is not in charge of anything now… although she does still destroy things sometimes. I actually wonder sometimes if Celestia didn’t send her to Ponyville in part to keep her out of everyponies hair, but also so that when Celestia needed something ruined, like Tirek for example, she could send Twilight in to basically destroy everything by accident.” Lyra laughed again, and looked towards the bright blue sky before saying, “You know I think that I saw an Alicorn last night. It didn’t look like anypony I remembered, but there’s apparently alicorns in other countries, so maybe it was a foreigner?” “Nah it was just…” Trixie stopped as her mind went blank all of a sudden. She was going to tell Lyra something important about the mysterious alicorn, but she couldn’t remember what it was. The worst part was that it was on the tip of her tongue too. Finally she sighed and said, “I guess it was just some weird thing we saw last night. Maybe it was a foreign princess.” Maud looked at the two of them and said, “We should go meet Twilight, we have something important to tell her.” Trixie smiled and said, “Yeah, she’s right. Well we will definitely have that double date soon. First I got to meet with the Princess.” “Be careful, Trixie,” Lyra warned with a worried tone in her voice. “I don’t want you to lose anything important. She’s dangerous to be around, in fact I’d dare say that all of those ‘heroes’ are dangerous to be around.” “It’ll be fine, nothing too bad has ever happened to me because of Twilight,” Trixie said. “I’m the one who keeps her in line after all, because I’m the great and powerful Trixie.” Trixie finished by standing on her hind legs and spreading her forelegs wide. The truth however, was that Trixie knew that Lyra was right to be worried. Twilight was a hazard to be around sometimes, Trixie’s magic and psychic powers could attest to that. After that Trixie said goodbye to Lyra, and walked away with Maud. Something was bothering Trixie though and it wasn’t until after Lyra was already out of sight that she remembered what it was. Red Velvet, the unicorn not alicorn, was the one flying around last night. How could she forget something so important, in fact this was exactly what she was going to tell Twilight about. Maybe something was wrong with Trixie’s head again, even so, Maud would remember for Trixie, so either way Twilight would find out soon. *** After walking around town for awhile Maud and Trixie stumbled across the sight of three vary familiar ponies; Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle standing in a circle and talking to each other. Trixie motioned for Maud to be quiet as she snuck up on them. “So what actually killed that windigo, it had to be gnarly as Tartarus,” Rainbow Dash said ending with an excited grin. “I think it was an alicorn,” Pinkie Pie said. “Well if it was alicorn,” Twilight said quietly, “Then there is no way we are dealing with one from Equestria. If it’s a foreign alicorn, then this is all very strange. Usually alicorn’s want to have parades thrown in their honor and when they do fight monsters like this, they demand to have a banquet to celebrate. Honestly speaking, Celestia and Luna are very tame compared to the others out there. “And if worse comes to worse, it’s one of the alicorns from southern Equestria. Something like Queen Chrysalis wouldn’t be out of the question,” Twilight said her voice heavy with concern. “I still remember how hard it was to fight Chrysalis.” Rainbow Dash snickered and said, “Yeah, well we have the six of us, plus Trixie and Maud. Chrysalis would be foalish to take us on again.” “The big problem is that whoever did this, they killed the windigo while we were sleeping. Windigos as far as my research is concerned, and unfortunately there isn’t a whole awful lot on the subject, prefer their victims to be awake when they… devour them,” Twilight said quietly. “So it must have been the alicorn who put the town to sleep, but I want to know how.” “Sleep powder? Sleepy time tea? Oh wait, the alicorn sung us a lullaby right?” Pinkie interjected. Twilight face hoofed and Rainbow Dash giggled. Trixie wanted to tell them something really important, something about the alicorn perhaps? The thing was that Trixie forgot what she was going to tell them. She gave it only a second’s thought before deciding that it wasn’t important, and that now was the time to strike. With sudden swiftness, Trixie leapt into the air and tackled Rainbow Dash bringing the blue pegasus down. Trixie grabbed hold tightly as the two of them rolled several times in the snow before they stopped with Trixie on top. Trixie stared down into Rainbow Dash’s wide purple eyes and grinned madly. “Hi,” Trixie said happily. “Uh… hi,” Rainbow Dash replied. Rainbow Dash looked over at the surprised looking Twilight and the laughing Pinkie Pie. Trixie got off of Rainbow Dash and said, “So what were you three up too?” Twilight still looked a little confused by what just happened as she said, “We were just talking about the windigo killing. We actually have no idea what’s going on here, and now I’m just waiting on a response from Celestia.” Trixie scratched the bottom of her chin and thought about this. Windigos never appear this far south, actually they rarely even appear in the Crystal Empire. What was worse is that an alicorn, or possible monster as Twilight thought, was the one who killed it. This whole situation had trouble written all over it. “This is actually kinda scary,” Trixie said. “I had a nightmare about a windigo, and then one appeared in Ponyville, not to mention the fact that Lyra and me saw an alicorn last night. I didn’t even know that there were other alicorns out there. I also had something important to tell you… but I can’t remember what it was.” Trixie looked at Maud and said, “Why don’t you tell her. I’m sure that you remember whatever it was.” Maud stared flatly at Trixie and said, “I can’t remember it either. Must not be that important.” Pinkie Pie looked between the two ponies for a moment before settling on staring hard at Trixie. Twilight shook her head back and forth slowly before saying, “Well you’ll tell us later. Right now I’m just surprised that you don’t remember any of our studies from school. There was a whole class on alicorns and their influence on pony culture.” “Like I’d remember something so boring; history is usually a pretty dull class,” Trixie said. “Yeah, history, smishtory,” Rainbow Dash said in agreement with Trixie. Twilight sat down and began rubbing her temples while saying, “Ugh, this conversation is giving me a headache. Seriously, history is wonderful. I just can’t fathom how you two find it so boring.” Trixie shrugged and Rainbow Dash joined her. Trixie looked at Pinkie to gauge her opinion and was startled to see Pinkie’s nose bleeding. “Pinkie, are you okay?” Trixie asked quickly before trotting up next to her. Pinkie Pie sat down and looked very sick as though she was about to vomit. Maud joined next to Pinkie and wrapped a leg around her little sister giving her a gentle hug. Pinkie Looked at the ground and wiped the blood away from her nose and said in a quiet whisper, “What happened to your mind. It’s like trying to read Celestia’s, only worse.” Trixie wasn’t sure what to think or say, she had tried to read Celestia’s mind once before as well. It was not her smartest idea. But Pinkie had never been hurt when reading Trixie’s mind before, so what happened to change that now. Maybe that was what she was forgetting about. Pinkie suddenly looked at Maud and her eyes grew wide and terrified. Maud stared back flatly at Pinkie for a moment and slowly Maud’s eyes began to look worriedly at her scared sister. Pinkie Pie began shaking before saying, “No. No. No. No. NO!” “What’s wrong, Pinkie?” Trixie asked. Pinkie pushed Maud away, and then pushed Trixie away before standing up and back peddling away from the two. She looked at them with a horrified expression and began shaking violently. “Why?” Pinkie asked. “Why what?” Trixie asked hopping to get an answer that would help her in making Pinkie feel better. Pinkie suddenly shouted, “WHY CAN’T I READ YOUR MIND?” Everypony just stared at Pinkie in completely silence for a long unmoving moment. Pinkie shook even more then before as she said, “Reading your mind is the only way that I can connect with you, why the hell can’t I read your mind?” “Pinkie, language,” Twilight said. Pinkie gave a quick glare at Twilight before returning her stare at Maud, and saying, “I don’t give a flying rat’s hairy ass about language right now. I can’t read Maud’s mind. I have never not been able to read her mind, why can’t I connect with you, Maud?” Trixie looked at Maud and tried to sense her lovers mind, and found something pushing her away. Trixie tried a little harder, and stopped the second she began to feel a headache coming on. She was completely unable to read Maud’s mind… or even feel her emotions. Trixie’s eyes widened and she looked back at Pinkie who was barely able to stand from how badly she was shaking. Suddenly Trixie stood up and said, “Pinkie Pie, it will be okay, I’ll fix this. I don’t know what happened but I’ll fix it.” Pinkie Pie suddenly dropped to her knees and began sobbing, hard. Maud, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight all went to Pinkie’s side to support their distraught friend. Trixie however looked away towards the forest, the only thing she could think of to explain what was going on was the fact that she had forgotten something important, and the only thing she knew was that it was in the forest. Trixie galloped off at full speed towards the forest, with determination set in her heart, she was going to fix this. Pinkie’s entire relationship with Maud was based off of being able to sense her sister’s emotions, and to read her sister’s mind. This was the worst possible thing that somepony could do to Pinkie Pie, and Trixie was going to fix it, now! Only after getting out of sight from the others, and reaching the edge of town did Trixie finally remember what she had wanted to tell Twilight about; Red Velvet. Trixie had no idea what the hay was going on, but for whatever reason she kept forgetting about that mysterious unicorn around other ponies, even Maud had forgotten. Pinkie had been able to read Trixie’s mind, and even Maud’s before they met Red Velvet. Whatever was going on had to involve her, and Trixie was determined to fix it at any cost, she couldn’t let Pinkie lose her connection with the sister that she loved more than anything else in the world. Even more so, Trixie couldn’t let Maud loose Pinkie like this, this could destroy the both of them if Trixie didn’t fix it. Even though she wasn’t sure where she was going exactly, she had read Twilight’s journal, and she had snuck a few peaks into the Mane Six’s diary when nopony was looking. She had a good enough idea as to where she was going to find it; The Castle of the Two Sisters.