Subject: Lulamoon, Trixie Silverlight.
Species: Necro Sapiens Sapiens (formerly Equus Sapiens Sapiens); Order: Corniger
Height: 1.2192 [m]
Weight: Variable (decreasing)
Bloodtype: Necroplasm (formerly O negative)
Eye color: Gray-purple (formerly violet)
Fur color: Gray-sky blue (formerly azure)
Mane color: Gray with light gray stripes (formerly silver with light cornflower stripes)
Gender: Female
Sexual orientation: Undefined (unnecessarily aggressive when being asked politely about it, for some reason)
Horn’s length: Unmeasured (attempts to measure have led to physical attacks)
Aggressiveness: Highly territorial especially when it comes to unexpected invasions of personal space.
Reflexes: Top condition, close to equine peak, in spite of physical degradation otherwise
Strength: Above the average (enough to lift an average sized mare with one blow), again in spite of physical degradation otherwise
Side notes:
Trixie’s new condition is, according to the archives in Ponyville’s Golden Oak Library, the very first where a clinically deceased corpse has successfully reanimated without losing its sapience, sentience and/or self awareness. Ever.
All previously recorded attempts date back to the Discord Era. The condition is thus already named Necro Sapiens Sapiens, impeding the use of the more logical name Crepusculum Sapiens, or that proposed by the subject, Lulamoonus Sapiens.
In regards to physical condition, Trixie is entirely dependant on the necroplasm in her bloodstream for her energetic needs. Her latest x-ray show that Trixie’s inner organs are all but fully atrophied. One can only guess at how they have not begun to fester and rot since magical scans are being disrupted by the necroplasm’s dark magic.
Requires further experimentation.
The x-rays have also revealed new details on the Alicorn Amulet. Apparently, not only has it encrusted to her rib cage, as previous examinations have shown, but has begun to fuse and merge with the bones, muscle and skin surrounding it, making all but impossible to determine where living organic matter ends and the magical artifact itself begins.
Requires further experimentation.
For some unknown reason -- theorized as magical until proven otherwise -- most sentient species who view Trixie’s exposed body corpse, feel immediate aversion. Experimentation has proven that this is limited to only a visual effect, which can be avoided by covering most of Trixie’s corpse from view.
Requires further experimentation still.
Trixie’s Journal.
Day 1 - Still dead
So, Twilight is forcing Trixie to write down her experiences as an undead abomination against all the laws of nature. Joy. Although Trixie would rather die than have to expose herself like that, she supposes that, since she has already died, she might as well start writing about it. Also, Trixie can see the value of this in helping our investigation, especially since the efforts of Twilight, Spike and Trixie in going through the library have only given us back a name for this condition.
Trixie will put her four hooves in the grave before letting anypony call her “necro sapiens”.
Day 2 - Nope, still nothing
The raven didn’t come back when Trixie expected it. Of course, Trixie was duly upset over becoming so naive, believing that even animals were tormenting her now; a simple, regular, ordinary raven can now raise Trixie’s expectations as if she was a school filly only to drop them from on high to watch them dash upon the ground.
Or at least that’s what Trixie thought until certain bird from the night’s Lunar shore landed on her new hat this morning. Since then, the little bastich has started two fights against Twilight’s owl, chased Spike each time they’re in the same room and at least one time he drank Twilight’s tea. I’ve tried to shoo him away, but each time, this feathered hellspawn shapeshifts into the cutest raven ever, while nuzzling Trixie’s commanding hoof and giving her mind-controlling puppy (nestling?) eyes.
I don’t have the heart to push him away… literally.
Since the feathered pest changes from cute little pet to evil devil of evilness, Trixie decided to call the two-faced fella Duo.
And no, Sparkle, no self respecting bird would respond to being called Harvey.
Day 3 - Well, at least there’s still no signs of rotting
This afternoon was tiring and Trixie’s saying that despite the fact that she can’t even feel tired anymore. Trixie wishes she had a casket for a bed, so she could just lie inside and keep it closed to escape from annoying things or more annoying ponies. Ponies like Pinkie, Lyra and Spike, who spent Trixie’s afternoon with their own ideas on how to advance our investigation. Or what Trixie calls “how to make the dead pony wish for her rest in peace”.
Apparently, the two adult mares read comic books. Lots of them. They met the baby dragon at the store and the three convinced themselves that fictional comic books’ logic applies to real life too. Trixie is deducing that from of seeing them at Twilight’s door, holding an unhealthy amount of issues and saying they wanted to “test some theories”.
Side Note: Twilight will agree to anything if the word “hypothesis” is used.
Preserved here, for the sake of posterity, are what pass for theories about Trixie’s condition, as presented by two ponies and one dragon who have way too much spare time on their hooves:
Trixie does not have the ability to project herself onto the astral plane.
Trixie does not have the ability to project herself onto the material plane.
Trixie can not summon the spirit of historic figures to advise her.
Trixie will not ever try out the “healing factor” idea.
Trixie does not even know what are the implications of “transmuting herself”.
Trixie can not vanish into the shadows.
Trixie does not telekinetically control her clothes, which are not sentient.
Trixie can not listen to nor talk to other dead beings. Ick.
Trixie is not able to summon elemental Tartarus’ fire, though ponies like those make her wish she could.
Day 4 - Trixie and I miss alcohol
No, really. If I could get anything back from when I was the living Trixie, it would be a functional digestive system and enough bourbon to drown this town. Obviously both things are related. Oh, and a coherent sense of identity, that would be great too, but primarily booze. Especially after today. I think that Trixie’s primal needs for, how lesser ponies would put it, “getting wasted” started with another visit from more pestering ponies.
It was almost night and Twilight and Trixie were checking the last of our first load of books from the old Castle of the Two Sisters. Trixie was getting frustrated. Almost a hundred books read each and literally nothing on the Amulet beyond one single page in one single book from Twilight’s own library. Of course, when Trixie is already down, existence finds it the appropriate time to kick her, too. This time, the kick came in the form of the two ponies that are largely responsible for all this mess happening. The couple of morons whose Trixie would like to set on fire; those two idiots.
Trixie remembers talking about them with Cheerilee at Pinkie’s party. As she put it, they’re not directly malicious, and their hearts are in the right place; their heads just happen to be rather empty. They do feel bad for what happened to Trixie. I suppose Trixie should feel bad too for using them as magical test dummies during her time with the Amulet, but I can’t.
I think that Trixie feels specially aggressive towards these two not because who they are or what they did, but rather what they are; Trixie’s biggest fans and the town’s biggest dummies. I mean, if this is the best Trixie could do back in her prime, what does it say about Trixie’s old life? What does it say about now? About me and Trixie?
Anyways, as I was without the veil and hat when they came in, and they entered without even knocking (sidenote: Twilight’s security sucks), my skull-like face scared them so much they fell over in a faint. I decided that it was enough punishment for now and put on Trixie’s veil and hat so as not to repeat the same effect.
After their recovery, they did a poorly planned and worse executed attempt at apologizing for the Ursa incident. There was also a mention over how they still admired my work and even brought a picture of them trying to emulate Trixie’s act from the school’s talent show.
I couldn’t bring Trixie to outright forgive them, but instead, Trixie asked them if they would like some tips on turning their comedy show into a proper magic act. After a long time of conceptualization and aggressive stupidity, Trixie managed to explain them how to not screw up the coin trick. It’s not that amazing, but they managed to do it right and parted happier and wiser than when they came in, so I’m calling it a win for Trixie.
I still miss bourbon.
Day 5 - Dead like me
Today we received a letter from the Princesses. Apparently they finally managed to check all, or at least most, of the relevant books in Canterlot’s archive. At the least, they found something worth mentioning. My first thoughts were the same as a little filly at Heart’s Warming. Heck, I was almost bouncing at the idea of getting Trixie’s life back.
Well, that was until Twilight and I read the actual letter.
Of course, a collection like Canterlot’s Archives that contains most, if not all, of the country’s knowledge, magical and mundane alike, in the same place can’t be easy to navigate. Even with a small army of librarians tasked on it. Even with filtering the obviously irrelevant titles. Even with the daily assistance of an alicorn who can read an entire book in minutes and has lived through the ages those books record. Even then, five days are still not enough to navigate even a fraction of what’s there.
Anyways, the letter wasn’t entirely pointless. Princess Celestia sent her regards and even asked after Trixie’s well-being. I’m still amazed at her interest in being close to us mortals. Even in her letter, the words felt the same as when she spoke to me; as truthful as sunlight itself. That perceived honesty was confirmed when she even told us what they have already found. It wasn’t like a monarch sending a formal report, but more like a medic assuring her patient.
Now, on what she has found, there’s one very weird truth that neither Twilight nor Trixie know how to react to; there have been other cases like Trixie’s. A small number over a great many years, but there have been others.
The one that really caught my eye was about a ghost ship. If Trixie wasn’t so dedicated to her act, I would have become a sailor. The endless mysteries and romances of the sea were something that used to captivate me a lot.
What really amazed me is that Trixie knew the legend too. A friend of Trixie’s mother, Captain Bootlegger, told her the story. It was about a crew of griffon sea bandits (a.k.a. pirates) who encountered a cursed treasure with golden coins that dammed each one of them to die in life and never know rest again. He used to talk about it as a ship with black sails that's crewed by the damned and captained by a man so evil that Hell itself spat him back out. Good old Captain would tell it with such detail and such emotion one would think he had seen it himself. Now that Celestia has confirmed the magic and the curse behind it are true, I’m wondering how much Bootlegger really did know.
What I really have to remember from the story was how the curse was broken. Perhaps if Trixie’s is similar there is hope after all.
Princess Celestia sighed while closing the thick volume enveloped in her magic. This one was a one of its kind book, whose covers made out of the leather of a now forgotten species and written with ink extracted from plants that not even the Everfree could host. It was literally one of the most obscure tomes in any archive over Equus and contained magic so strange that Celestia only wondered who could have written it.
It held no answers for her.
The celestial ruler was losing her patience for the first time since Discord freed himself. Celestia looked at the clocktower, realizing that she forgot to lower the sun for the second time in a row. She silently thanked Luna’s presence and good disposition for taking on the responsibility. Still, she winced at the situation. It was the sixth night now since she had slept and she was starting to feel tired. Sure, she was able to stay awake for far more time, but the stress of having one of her subjects suffering was getting in her nerves.
Celestia closed another book. This one was a Planetary Guide; part of an annual collection made by an immortal, with recordings of almost every occult and strange happening around the planet in the year of its publication.
It, too, held no answers.
If it wasn’t for her fond respect for the written word, Celestia would have gladly thrown the constantly growing pile of useless books upon a pyre. She looked at the three table-fulls of books that had proven useless and found herself seriously considering which tomes were replaceable and could feed her chimney that night.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, dear sister.” Celestia quickly turned her head to see Princess Luna entering the room next to her.
“I’m not sure of what do you mean, Luna.” Celestia rolled her eyes, looking up and behind her to avoid her sister’s gaze.
“Sister.” Luna paused for a second. “Tia, I know you well enough to know when you’re too tired. Please, have some rest. You need it.”
Celestia sighed again.
“Luna, you know I don’t rest when my ponies are in danger.” She paused to let a little yawn. “Even if it’s only one. And Miss Lulamoon’s troubles are in the range of things that deserve my undivided attention.”
“And…” Luna gave her a quite playful, but also questioning look.
“And what?” Celestia looked honestly confused this time.
Luna made a clicking noise with her tongue. “For the last time, sister, I’ve known you since Star Swirl didn’t even have his beard.” She softly hit her sister’s shoulder with a wing. “I know when you’re concerned and when you’re scared.” Both alicorns stayed silent while gazing at each other. “Tia, what’s really happening?”
Celestia sighed once again. She was centuries old and she wasn’t getting any younger.
“Luna, I have reasons to think that Trixie is not only in danger for herself, but everything around her could be in danger too.” She walked towards the exit of the Black Room, Canterlot Archive’s occult section. Celestia closed and sealed the gate. “Luna, tell me; you knew that time is simultaneous, correct?”
“I… remember Starswirl trying to explain that to us.” She closed her eyes tightly, trying to recall her mentor’s explanation from over a thousand years ago. “It had something to do with every event being directly tied to the previous one and to the next one, or something like that. It was part of what made time travel spells possible, that you could go backwards and forwards because events were coexistent.”
“Accurate enough.” Celestia half laughed at her sister’s obliviousness to hard science. But that’s how they’ve been since the beginning; Celestia the academic and Luna the artist. “What I’m thinking of is a little more complex and not quite so linear. Look, I’ll give you this example.” She piled fifty-two books like a macro version of a house of cards. “Think of this arrangement of books here as existence; the books themselves are events. Each depends on the other. The entire structure depends on everything stating constant and in place.” She then levitated a fifty-third book. “Now think of this book as Trixie.” Celestia threw the tome at the rest, effectively demolishing the house of books.
“What?” Luna wasn’t completely sure if she understood.
“Trixie is supposed to be dead.” Celestia looked at the floor, as if saying that was admitting a painful truth. “She should have died after being separated from the Amulet. If she had, the world would have moved onwards in the fashion it has whenever any other individual passes to the other side.” She sat down. There were moments when she really cursed herself for taking this kind of responsibility. “But, she did not. Trixie is now neither dead nor alive. She is something that should not exist; something out of place. I’m worried what kind of problems this may cause.”
“I won’t pretend to understand everything you just said,” Luna admitted quite bluntly. “So I’ll just ask the important question: How bad is this?”
“I don’t know.” Celestia said, lowering herself to rest in the floor. “It could mean literally anything. Magic works with rules for everything, even chaos magic has its own limitations. Trixie seems to be something else. That she exists at all implies that she is following rules, but they’re rules that I’m unfamiliar with.”
“So, she could pretty much destroy reality as we know it? Or just exist as a magical curiosity?” Luna tried to condense the information given to her.
“In a sense,” Celestia approved the summary.
“Oh, now I get it,” Luna smiled at her sister. “You’re afraid that, after millennia playing chess, there’s a new kind of piece on the board and you don’t know what to do with it.”
“Ugh,” Celestia finally dropped the regal attitude. “It’s not only that--” she noticed her sister’s accusatory glare. “Okay, I admit it. The idea of some being with the potential to make pretzels out of physical and magical laws in a way that would give Discord envy worries me.”
“You feel this one mare could be worse than Discord? How could she possibly--”
“Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!” Celestia suddenly shouted. “Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes. The dead rising from the grave!” With each one, her voice was getting closer to the Royal Canterlot Voice. “Equine sacrifice, dogs and cats living together.” She waved her front hooves. “MASS HYSTERIA!”
Luna glared at her sister from beneath her brow.
“Or she could just be able to make a toast land on the clean side.” Celestia finished her rant in a sudden soft and calm tone. Her lips twitched into a smile. “Sorry, sister. Was trying to inject a little levity into the whole situation.”
“Tia, what’s really going on?” Luna asked in a calm, firm tone, far calmer than she really felt. “The truth this time. You wouldn’t be working yourself up this much for just one pony. She hasn’t done enough to warrant this kind of concern.”
“She’s not the only one involved in this,” Celestia finally admitted. “There is something... older behind the amulet. Something malevolent.”
Luna sat and watched her sister, looking into the violet eyes she had known for so many centuries. She knew what Celestia wasn’t saying. “Is that why you’ve been keeping me at wing’s length over this?”
“Yes,” Celestia whispered back. “I fear that Trixie may act as an avatar for something worse, or a conduit for it into our world. It could be whatever corrupted Sombra all those years ago. It could be the Nightmare Forces.” Her ears twitched at that name. “It could be something else altogether. Or she could act as a magnet and attract the others, giving them a way into our world. Either way, I have to find a way to stop it before things gets worse.”
“Tia, it’s been half a year since I was cleansed by the Elements. I have almost regained all my past strength--”
“And I am stronger still!” Celestia exclaimed as she got to her hooves, towering over her sister as if wanting to protect her from an invisible threat. She stopped when she saw Luna’s look of distress, quickly backing down. “I’m sorry, sister. It’s just that I’ve only just got you back after having lost you for so long...”
“I understand, Tia,” Luna said reassuringly as she rose to face her sister. “I don’t wish to lose myself either. But please try and remember that I did have experience in dark magic long before I was corrupted by it, and I know how to protect myself from it.”
“But it still corrupted you.”
“That was a choice,” Luna said before she looked away from her sister and turned around. A shudder went through her, shaking her wings, at the memories of that choice so long ago. “It was a mistake I would never make again,” she vowed through grit teeth and closed eyes.
A soft feathered wing wrapped itself over her back. “It still worries me.”
“You worry about all of us,” Luna told her. She opened her eyes and looked back at Celestia’s, reading the concern clearly there. “Sometimes I think you worry too much.”
“And I always worry it’s not enough.”
Luna snorted but couldn’t help the smile that came to her lips. The one that came to Celestia’s echoed it. “All I ask, sister, is that you ask my help should you need it. It will always be there should you need it.” She reached up and playfully poked Celestia in the ribs. “In the meantime, please try and get some sleep tonight. Don’t make me use the dormiens spell on you. You’ll do no pony any good if you’ve exhausted yourself.”
Celestia laughed and backed off, folding her wing back down. She spared a glance back to the Black Room. “Of course, sister. If my own efforts and Twilight’s prove fruitless, I shall seek your aid.”
“That is all I ask,” Luna replied, the small smile upon her lips. There were not many ponies in the world able to tell when Princess Celestia lied to them. “I shall see you in the morning then, and I expect you to be well rested.”
“Of course,” she said, her small smile echoing Luna’s. “Good night, sister.”
“Good night.”