For a moment, I forget to breathe.
"Trixie...?" I gasp out, halfway into shock. "Buh...what...how...what?"
The unicorn in front of me stares me dead in the eyes, her mouth set into a faint smile. "Good to see you too, Sparks. It's been a while, huh?"
My mouth works up and down for a few seconds before I can bring a response up into my mind: "It's been...ten years, Trixie. What...I..." Finally, everything consolidates in my head and I cut right to the heart of the issue: "Where in Tartarus have you been?"
She rubs the back of her head sheepishly. "Sorry...when I left, a series of rather unfortunate events occurred, culminating in an epiphany for me that kept me away for even longer. So," she grins, "how have you been?"
I answer in the form of a lunging hug that draws the attention of quite a few nearby ponies who stare at me with raised eyebrows and no shortage of snickers. My eyes clench tightly closed. "I missed you so much, sister!"
She chuckles for a moment, then gently return my overzealous embrace. "C'mon, Sparks, I told you not to call me that."
I finally draw back after a few more seconds of hug time, looking happier than I have in a long while. "Well, yeah, but you've been off the map for so long that I thought you might've changed your mind! Ohh, Trixie, you never even wrote! I thought you'd died! How could you do that to me?"
It's at this point that Dash, who's been looking nothing more than faintly bemused, cuts in, glaring at me. "Okay, okay. Good talk. Now three things: One, what in Equus is going on, two, how does this pony know about me, and three, why didn't I ever know you have a sister?"
I chuckle. "Oh, Trixie? She's not my sister by blood, but I've known her since we were both very, very small. She's a few years older than me and she lost both of her parents, so mine adopted her and she became my older sister. After a while, our brother got assassinated when he was attending the entrance ceremony into the Solar Army. She really loved him, and a year later—about ten years ago today—she up and left. She never came back. I was distraught, and I never really got over it, so I never let myself get attached to another pony in the same way. That's why I never really had a friend for the last ten years."
Trixie ruffles my hair, blatantly ignoring Dash's chain of questions, much to the pegasus' disgruntlement. "Sorry you got so upset about it, kiddo. I needed to do some soul-searching, that's all. Anyway," she continues, before I have a chance to respond, "I really need to talk to both of you in private. Come with me, I have a room here for tonight."
She rises from her seat and begins to make her way through the crowd to the narrow wooden staircase off to the side. I prance after her, happy beyond all reasoning, and Dash follows, head low, slinking in irritation. I can hear her grumbling.
---
"So, Trixie," I begin, once we're ensconced in her small room, "what did you get up to while you were away?"
She grins. "Well, for starters, I got that cutie mark that I was always after." She levitates her cloak over to a coathook in the corner, letting me see the wand and stars on her blue rump. [1] I ooh and aah suitably hard. She lifts her head in pride. "It's a mark for astral magic. I got it when I was doing a stint as a street performer."
My ears flick, a sign of my confusion. "Astral magic? What's that?"
"Oh, it involves the use of celestial bodies to see and communicate over long distances. I believe the common term for it is scrying. As it turns out, I can't scry with the sun, only the stars."
Hang on, stars? Those are only... "Trixie, did you...go to the Sovereignty?" I ask, bewildered.
"Absolutely. Remember that epiphany? I met Luna at one point, after the group of performers I was traveling with abandoned one of our companions on a mountain, I tried to save her and ended up getting captured myself. There was an enormous castle there, so I decided to go escape into it when our captors had their backs turned. Turns out that basic invisibility spell that you taught me was useful after all, huh?" Something about her story seems...familiar, but before I can place it, she continues. "Anyway, while I was running through it, I ran slap-bang into Luna. In alarm, she teleported us all the way to the Lunar Sanctum."
So, I guess I'm not the only pony from the Dominion that's been over there, huh? "Wow. How long did you stay there?" She smiles enigmatically.
"Luna convinced me to be one of her palace staff. I'm head of communications. My scrying has helped with a lot of the war effort. I stayed there until, oh, I don't know..." her little grin blossoms into a full smile, "maybe a few days ago?"
My mouth drops open. "You mean...you were there?"
She tosses back her head and laughs. "Oh, the look on your face! Yes, Sparks, I was there. In fact, I was standing right next to Luna when Rarity—oh, sorry, Marks—teleported you in. I guess Luna distracted you enough that you didn't notice."
Wow. I wonder if she was watching me during my trip? I briefly recollect all of my experiences. Cullwood, the Stormwinds, Canterlot and Pinkie...
WAIT.
Street performer? Captured on a mountain and abandoned with one other companion next to a castle?
"Trixie..." I slowly ask, "Did you ever meet one 'Pinkie Pie?'"
Her hooves fly up to her mouth. "Oh Luna, is she...she's still alive? I thought she was dead! How did she survive up there? How did you meet her?"
I give her a brief rundown of my trip through the Canterlot Pass and tears bead in her eyes as I told her about Pinkie's alternate personality, Mena. "Oh, wow, I really feel scummy. When Luna got me out, I never even thought about Pinkie. She was so good at making fireworks, and the foals loved her. It's a real shame what our troupe did to her. I wish she had mentioned me, though I guess her mind isn't fully intact; she must've just lumped me in with the rest of those unicorns that ran off without her. Still, thank you for getting her off of that mountain."
I smile back at her. "Yeah. She should be fine. Did you see her come out of the Chasmlands, Dash?"
Rainbow, who's been silent and confused up to this point, takes the opportunity to jump in. "Yeah, she came out and tried to basically bite my head off. When I took off, I saw her ranting for a minute or two, then she bounced off to the north. She should be fine."
Trixie exhales slowly. "That's good to hear. I should like to see her again, and maybe the others as well. It would be nice to repay them for what they did to her." Her eyes narrow during that last sentence and I shudder. Trixie's anger is a terrible thing, though slow and hard to rouse.
"But enough of all that gloom and doom," she suddenly cries, "You never did answer my question. How have you been, Sparks?"
I shrug. "Before or after the nonsense in the Sovereignty?"
She ponders for a moment before answering: "After. How are you holding up in the life of a spy?"
I sigh, dropping my head. "It's taxing, Trixie, it really is. It doesn't help that I have a freeloader living with me—"
"Hey!" Dash protests,
"—So I have to keep making excuses for taking way too much food for one pony. I've learned some appalling things, so it's all just kinda spinning around my head. You wouldn't have been there, but I had to hatch a dragon egg for one of Celestia's tests and I surged. She said I killed the dragon, but then she magically aged it into a monster and gave it to the army." Trixie's seen some terrible stuff, I have no doubt, but even she's angry about that. "Also, I can't go into forests anymore. Apparently, the Watcher from the Cullwood is basically omnipresent wherever there's shadows and trees, so I can't really risk that."
She raises an eyebrow. "Luna never mentioned the Cullwood. You must be tough to make it through that."
Oh, she has no idea. [2]
---
[1]: I never understood why the foals say "blank flank;" a cutie mark isn't on the flank at all.
[2]: Apparently, even though she was probably the best scryer in the Sovereignty, she let Luna do most of the work in tracking me. She was needed to coordinate troops, so she could only check on me sparingly.