//------------------------------// // Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen: The Leading Mare // Story: Trixie and Maud: Heart of Stone // by TheCrimsonDM //------------------------------// Heart of Stone Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen: The Leading Mare Written by TheCrimsonDM Trixie looked back at her family and frowned, she didn’t want to leave them. Looking at Luna however reminded her of the seriousness of this. She avoided the princess’s eyes and said, “I don’t know how much help I can be, and I want to stay and protect my family.” Princess Luna nodded. “I understand that, but I require somepony with some knowledge of the windigo to help my subjects in their battle.” Trixie looked again over the town, from her position all she could make out was a fury of combat. Ponies blended in with windigo, the larger windigo stood out as hardly anypony dared to get near them. Several larger groups of both ponies and windigo had gathered together, locked into fierce combat. She didn’t have to reach out with her mind to feel the anger, the fear, or the darkness that had swiftly taken over the town’s hospitable atmosphere. It was everywhere. “If you are still worried for your family, take heart in the knowledge that Bookworm here is as formidable as her cousin. Maybe more so,” Luna said. The Librarian pushed her glasses up further along the bridge of her nose. “I will protect them.” Trixie looked at Maud. “Honey, what do you think?” Maud frowned and lowered her head. “I don’t like it, Lulu. But… if you think you can help…” Trixie nodded and looked back at Luna. “I won’t leave them alone for long, but I’ll see what I can do.” “It won’t take long,” Luna said. “Just long enough for me to distract the cloud while Rainbow Dash does the rainbow thing.” Rainbow Dash grinned like a madmare. She flicked her wings and the leathery armor pieces that resembled bat wings flew off. She did the same to her tail piece and once she was her vibrant colorful self again she looked up at the sky with a determined glare. “Oh this is going to be fun.” It took only a single flap of Rainbow Dash’s mighty wings and she pushed off into the sky faster than Trixie thought possible. Luna took off in a gallop before leaping from the ground and flying after her. Luna gave one last look at Trixie and shouted, “Good luck.” Trixie nodded. Then it was time. She didn’t look back at her family as she left, she could feel Maud’s fear, but she had to trust that Bookworm would keep them safe until her return. It couldn’t take that long to help out, now could it? Unlike the others, Trixie still didn’t know how to fly properly, she could only do so on reflex, barely. Instead of risking herself with her poor flying skills she used something she was already sure about. She leapt toward the grass, reached out with her dark magic, and hit the hard earth as she failed to melt into the shadows. It dawned on her that glowing foliage did not leave much in the way of shadow. She looked around, shook her head, and took off in a gallop. Great, now I can’t even use one of my most useful techniques. This might end up being longer than I wanted it to be. It took a few minutes to get down to the first group of ponies she encountered. It was a mess. She passed by a number of injured ponies, hastily wrapped in bandages. Both mares and foals were tending to the wounded, here on the outer ring of the town there seemed little in the way of threat. It was the inner ring, around the mansion, that the largest section of the battle was taking place. Trixie stopped when she saw a mare she recognized. “Elizabat?” Trixie asked weakly as she stared at the pony lying on a bedroll. Half of her face and torso were covered in stained bandages. One good eye focused on her and a weak smile grew over the mare’s lips. “Hiya, Trix ‘n Treats. How ya doin’?” Trixie choked a little. “F-fine. “ “How’s the filly?” “Val and Maud are safe. I’m here to help,” Trixie said. A wet and painful cough shook the poor mare’s tiny body for a moment. “Good.” “Do… do you need anything?” Trixie asked. The mare looked over at a lumpy sheet, and her eye glistened. “Can… you stop this?” Trixie’s eyes stared at the lumpy sheet, for a moment she couldn’t figure out what could be underneath a sheet in a battle like this. Why they would waste a perfectly good sheet to cover… She saw a purple tail running out from the bottom of the lump. Trixie had to look away. She felt herself shaking, terror and hatred ran through her like both hot and cold air. In the middle was a tornado of desperate half thoughts. The shaking increased until she looked again at Elizabat, with tears running down her face. Elizabat moved her lips, but didn’t speak. It was only a single word that she mouthed, but it was the one word that Trixie couldn’t bear to even consider. ‘Mom’. The terror was shoved aside, and a much darker and cold feeling filled her chest. A deep seated hatred that grew over her heart. She expected hate and anger to feel hot, but right then, in that moment all she felt was cold and hollow. Trixie straightened her neck, flicked her tail once and stood proud. “Trixie will not let this injustice stand. She will do everything in her power to save you, and your village. The windigo shall beg for mercy before Trixie is done. You have Trixie’s word.” The mare looked up, tears welled up in the corner of her eye. For a moment the eye hardened and she nodded ever so slightly. “Thank you.” Trixie galloped away from the wounded, and toward the danger. She was running into Tartarus, which was just fine, because she was about to become the devil that windigo should fear. They were all going to pay for this. The battle was unlike what she had expected from a war, but then again it wasn’t exactly a war either. At least she didn’t think so. This battle was mostly a series of small skirmishes. A few batponies working together to stop the scattered windigo. Every now and then she saw a unicorn or an earth pony helping out as well. As she tore through the battlefield she lashed out, not just with her magic but with the darkness inside of her. From her own shadow she conjured tendrils to lash out, wrap around the windigo holding them still, and then she would blast them away with magic. She told whoever she could about the windigo hearts, and how to stop them, and just as swiftly as she appeared she would run off to the next skirmish. She avoided any of the larger fights for the moment, choosing rather to get all the ponies she could free from the smaller skirmishes, so that they might join in the larger ones. After a dozen or so windigo deaths she found only three large battles still being waged. The smaller skirmishes either combined into big ones, or the freed ponies went out to help their friends and family. Trixie’s horn was a little sore, and the cold inside of her had grown. She ignored it and made a break toward the largest battle she could see. A group of batponies stood screeching in unison at one of the large windigo. Trixie watched as the ice cracked, shattered, and then the gem fell to the ground. Before it even hit the dirt, there was a white earth pony with silver mane and angry red eyes leaping onto it. A dagger held aloft next to him as though by magic, but without a discernable aura. He stabbed down into the gem and it broke into pieces. While Trixie very much wanted to question him about what, or how he’d just done that. There simply wasn’t time. The white wardens were taking part of the fight now. Which made Trixie feel more confident about their chances at victory. At the same time, it reinforced just how bad this was getting. She couldn’t help but cringe as she watched a pony being impaled by one of the windigo’s ice cicle hooves. She didn’t turn away though; she unleashed a Hellstorm of fury and magic into the beast. It was destroyed completely in two bouts of lighting and a thrashing from dark shadowy tendrils. Her horn throbbed painfully. An explosion from the sky above made everything stop for one brief moment. Rainbow light flashed from deep inside the windigo cloud, and then a hole formed in the middle. Waves of rainbow light pushed the cloud back in every direction. With the cloud cover gone, everypony could see what was residing inside of it. The long clawed paw was attached to a dragon made of solid ice. Trixie’s heart tried to claw its way out of her throat at the sight. She’d only heard rumors of such creatures before. Dragons made entirely of the elements. They were the primordial dragons discovered by Starswirl himself. This one was working with the other elemental forces of winter. It was working with the windigo. A trail of rainbow light swooped down, and as it passed overhead Trixie saw that the light belonged to Rainbow Dash. She swore that she saw the mare wink at her as she passed overhead. Rainbow Dash tilted up and flew back toward the ice dragon. Luna followed in close behind her, slowly losing pace to the speedy pegasus. A beam of white energy shot from Luna’s horn, split into a dozen missiles and flew true toward their target. Trixie felt satisfied as each missile exploded upon impact. The dragon flinched in reply, but opened its mouth to counter her generous offer. Luna veered off course, Rainbow Dash didn’t. A blast of white smoke flew down toward the pair. Trixie yelped as Luna was caught in the blast, but Rainbow Dash moved so swiftly that the blast couldn’t catch her, the rainbow light trailing behind her cut a swath through the smoke. Trixie couldn’t believe her eyes as she realized what Rainbow Dash was doing. With a hoof pulled back, she saw Rainbow Dash take a straight swing at the dragon’s chest. Trixie couldn’t believe what happened next. A prismatic explosion occurred on contact, the dragon, from its neck all the way to it’s rear end was enveloped in the magnificent light. For one brief and colorful moment, Trixie was blinded. She looked away rubbing at her eyes, but everything was still tinted rainbow color. When she looked again, she saw Rainbow Dash’s limp form falling from the sky. Fear shot through her heart as she imagined her friend hitting the ground, and becoming nothing but a broken mound of dead pony. Before she could do anything however, her eyes were attracted to an even larger problem. The dragon head, larger than any of the surrounding buildings, was falling. She could only assume that other parts of it were doing the same thing, the head took precedence however as it was directly above her. Trixie took one look around her. There were at least a dozen batponies around, one warden, and a few injured ponies lying on the ground. The falling mountain of ice was more than enough to crush them, not to mention what the shockwave from such an impact would be. Somepony had to do something. Well… crap. Trixie leapt into the air, her horn lit up and she began firing bursts of lightning into the dragon’s head. When that did next to nothing she decided on something else. Her horn screamed in protest as she channeled as much red hot anger as she could through her horn. Fire erupted forth and a torrent of flames flew out to embrace the dragon’s skull. Despite the hot flames that licked toward her face, and the air steaming around her. She could tell that it wasn’t going to be enough. She took in a breath that burned her lungs and poured as much rage as she could into the blast. The fire tripled in size, and turned color, to the same purple hue as her magic. The air around her evaporated in an instant, leaving her breathless. She kept the flames going.  A giant frozen head hit the flames and shrunk within moments. It looked like she had just saved the day. Than something slammed into her chest. Pain flared across her torso and the fire vanished. What had slammed into Trixie’s chest was no larger than a foal, but it was still moving fast enough that it knocked her off course and blinded her world in an explosion of pain. She began falling, and the world grew black. Cold air rushed around her, bit into her body and filled her lungs. Then everything just sort of slipped away. *** Bright light filtered through Trixie’s eyes, stirring her to life. The hard bed was uncomfortable and had made her muscles sore. At the very least she was thankful for the warmth of the cabin. There were six beds in the small room and Red Velvet and Wind Rider were still sleeping soundly. Lightning Dust had taken the bed closest to the door.. Starfire’s bed was empty and the mare was nowhere in sight. Trixie got up and walked to the door. She needed two things, one to get some coffee, and two to find the nearest restroom. After a minute she managed to at least get one of those two things solved, coffee however eluded her. she couldn’t shake the notion that she should be taking medication as well, even though Red had told her that she would no longer need it. Up on deck she found Starfire sitting with her hood down and basking in the sun’s early morning light. The snow covered landscape looked dreary and cold. The crystal spire that stood proudly to the south was the Crystal Empire. “Good morning. How goes the search for truth?” Starfire asked. “Uh… I don’t know,” Trixie said, feeling a bit confused. Starfire laughed. “You have no idea what that means do you?” “No, not really,” Trixie said. “It’s the Seekers greeting. I say, ‘How goes the search for truth?’ to which you would reply, ‘ever seeking.’ Let’s try it again, how goes the search for truth?” Starfire said. “Ever seeking?” Trixie replied. “Good job! The seekers have a farewell too. It’s, ‘Always seek truth’.” Starfire said with a smile. She looked toward the sun. “It’s a glorious morning isn’t it? Something only she could come up with.” “Do you mean Celestia?” Trixie said. “Yeah… she was an… important part of my life once upon a time. Sadly she abandoned me, I guess I can’t blame her, I failed her after all, in the worst way. You know it’s one thing to make somepony like that mad, or upset, but to make them disappointed… there’s no getting away from that.” “You were that close to her?” Trixie asked. “Once upon a time. She’s a kind mare, with a generous heart. I just can’t believe that I screwed that all up,” Starfire said somberly. “Don’t ever take somepony’s love for granted, trust me, you will never forgive yourself for it.” “Too late for that,” Trixie said. “Before I left on this journey I did something… horrid and ripped the love of my life’s heart out. I don’t think I’ll ever gain her forgiveness, and even if I do, how can I ever accept what I did to her?” “I wish I had an answer to that. I might be smart, and wise about many things, but this is sadly one thing I don’t have an answer to,” Starfire said. The sound of something scraping along the side of the metal ship drew their attention the south. A pair of bright blue boots threw themselves over the top railing, and a pink pony covered by a blue jacket climbed the rest of the way up. Her purple hair was a bit of a mess but she had a particular sense of fashion that Trixie found… familiar. “How goes the search for truth?” Starfire asked. “Ever seeking,” The mare replied. “Buttonbelle, I’ve been waiting for you forever now,” Starfire said. “Sorry, Star. But you can’t rush genius, okay. It’s like ya know, hard, and the snow is everywhere here. I just want to go back to Manehattan already, okay?” the mare replied in a too cool for school tone of voice. “Did you bring it?” Starfire asked. Buttonbelle threw a black suitcase onto the deck of the ship and shook her head. “Do you know what it was like making that thing? It was hard, okay.” “I get it, now what do you want?” Starfire asked with a raised eyebrow. “Well… you promised some help on the new designs,” Buttonbelle said. “Ugh, can’t you come up with anything yourself?” Starfire asked. “I did, and it… it just doesn’t feel right. Besides you promised me access to those secret designs,” Buttonbelle said. She looked over at Trixie and frowned. There was disgust in her tone as she asked, “Is that the Great and Powerful Trixie?” “It’s nice to meet you too, Buttonbutt,” Trixie said. “HEY! First of all that’s rude, okay. Second of all you are not allowed to use that name. You have to call me by my proper name, Suri Polomare,” She said with pride. Trixie rolled her eyes. Some part of her deeply missed Maud’s comfort, hearing the mare’s disgust hurt, and Trixie knew that only Maud could make her feel better. It only made her shame all that much worse. Starfire opened the suitcase and pulled out a dark red cloak complete with hood. A gold insignia of an eye was embroidered on the back. Next, Starfire summoned a picture into existence next to her and took a look at it. There was a cloak in the picture that looked exactly like the one in her hooves. Starfire smiled. “Good work, this counterfeit looks perfect. See you do have skills,” Starfire said with a smile. Buttonbelle looked away shyly. “Yeah… okay.” “I’ll get you a ride back to Manehattan.” Starfire said. She looked back at Trixie. “The next step of our plan is going to work perfectly. *** The warm air stung at her horn, and her chest ached dully. Breathing was painful, but not impossible. Slowly she opened her eyes to see a dark brown ceiling, and a large room. Rainbow Dash sat on the bed opposite of hers. The pegasus had a sling over her right foreleg, the one she used to punch the dragon with, along with bandages over her eye and her left ear. She looked like a mess. The room was all wood walls, and a painting of a moonlit sky. The door was slightly ajar. The floor, again more wood, at least had a deep purple rug covering most of it. Trixie tried to sit up, her chest surged with fresh pain and she quickly gave up. “Rainbow,” Trixie said quietly, it hurt to breath. “What happened?” For a second she looked over at Trixie, surprised. She quickly recovered and flashed a cool grin. “I punched an explosion into a dragon and exploded it! To death!” A small smile grew across Trixie’s lips. It made her happy to see Rainbow Dash being herself. “I saw… impressive…” “You didn’t hear me, but I was totally shouting, ‘RAINBOOOOOW PUNCH!’ as I did it,” Rainbow Dash said as she did a slow enactment of the very punch with her free leg. Trixie’s smile grew. “What happened to me?” “You…” Rainbow Dash said. “I… I don’t know. Sorry, Trixie.” Trixie tried to shake her head, a ball of pain appeared in her temple and she stopped moving her head. “It’s fine.” The door opened all the way, and Princess Luna walked in. “Rainbow Dash, I wish to honor your valiant service. I have a proposal that you may find appealing.” “What’s up?” Rainbow Dash asked. “First, I would personally like to offer you a posi-“ Luna looked over at Trixie and her face became horrified. “You, you’re awake? How can you be awake? Are you in pain?” Trixie didn’t shake her head this time and lied. “No.” “Is there anything I can do for you?” Luna asked. Trixie looked over at Rainbow Dash. It hurt to speak, so she simply said, “Me?” It took Rainbow Dash the better part of a minute to figure out what Trixie was trying to convey. She finally looked at Luna and said, “She wanted to know what happened to her. I was conked out before she got hurt, so I don’t know what happened.” Luna shut the door behind her, almost all the way. “While I was busy attempting to catch Rainbow Dash before she collided with the earth, what little remained of the dragon was falling to the earth. I caught the legs in my magical grasp and diverted them out of the path of any unsuspecting ponies, meanwhile you charged toward the thing’s head and melted almost all of it. A small chunk of the dragon’s head made it through your impressive flames, and hit you hard enough to injure you.” Trixie looked at her bandaged horn. “The fire spell you used burned the skin around your horn, as well as your mane. Fire magic is very deadly, there is a reason why Celestia prefers teaching energy magic to her students,” Luna said. Trixie tired to nod, it hurt so she stopped. Instead she said weakly, “Yes… Damage?” “Damage?” Luna said almost confused. She then looked at Trixie’s bandaged chest. “Oh, you mean to ask how badly you were hurt. Some minor burns, blisters, and a few bruised rips. You were insanely lucky that the blow you took did not wound you further.” She looked at Trixie’s singed mane. “There is one grave problem.” Trixie’s eyes grew wide. “You will need to get your once beautiful mane cut… short,” Luna said. “That is, if you don’t wish to look like Twilight after a week of sleep loss and paranoia.” Trixie opened her mouth to ask what that meant, than the door swung open and Maud stood behind it, with Valiant Heart standing on her back. Maud’s eyes were full of fire as she looked at Luna. Valiant copied the look as best she could. Luna gulped. “Well… I believe that we have some business to attend to.” Rainbow Dash was surrounded in a bright light and lifted into the air. “Come, Rainbow. We shall go check on… the… thing.” “What thing?” Rainbow Dash asked. “You know,” Luna said as she trotted out of the door, dragging the weightless floating pegasus with her. “The thing, thing. Tis very important.” As soon as they were out of the door and in the hall, Maud shut the door completely and slumped against it. Valiant Heart jumped off and onto the floor before trotting to Trixie. The little filly pulled the whiteboard from her saddlebags and showed it to Trixie. The writing had been smeared a little, but it was still legible. “We love you. Are you okay?” “Yes,” Trixie said quietly. Maud’s body shook, but Trixie couldn’t see her face. “You were hurt.” Trixie frowned. “Yes.” Maud leaned her head against the door and pawed at the floor. “You got hurt.” Trixie wasn’t going to repeat herself, it hurt to talk. Maud spun around to face Trixie, and it broke Trixie’s heart. Tears freely flowed down the usually stoic pony’s face and her eyes were red. She looked miserable. “We just got married, you can’t do this to me too. I can’t lose you as well. Why did you run off like that?” “You told me too,” Trixie said. “I couldn’t ask you to stay, but you know that I didn’t want you going out there,” Maud declared. Trixie didn’t move, didn’t turn her head, and didn’t speak. Instead she closed her eyes and focused on trying to breathe without pain. Maud sniffled. “Are you going to be okay?” “Yes.” “Why do you keep getting hurt. I tried so hard to keep you safe, but all I can do is clean up the damage after it’s done. You killed the windigo, they’re gone. It’s not like Fluttershy, I can’t do anything now,” Maud said. “Why can’t I do anything?” Trixie opened her eyes slowly, and she watched as Maud lowered her head and let out a quiet sob. Valiant Heart went to hold her, but her tiny legs could barely even wrap around one of Maud’s. It hurt Trixie to see her lover like this, to see the strong mare in her life reduced to a sobbing broken mess, and all because she was hurt. A little pain from talking and breathing were nothing compared seeing Maud like this. “You kept her safe. You kept our filly safe. You do things that I can’t. I need you,” Trixie said. She was quiet a moment, letting Maud silently sob. It occurred to her that she needed to ask something else, something she might have been avoiding. “What did you mean about Fluttershy?” Maud stiffened. Her sobs stopped. And she looked any other direction she could. “Nothing.” Trixie didn’t let it go. “I… saw a bandage… on her.” Maud shivered again. “Not now, my love. You’re too hurt to worry about this.” “What, happened,” Trixie said between pained breaths. “She asked for it,” Maud said flatly. Trixie growled. Maud looked up with her tear soaked cheeks. “I mean it literally. She asked me to fight her.” “So you hit her? She’s fragile,” Trixie said bitterly. Maud gave out a short laugh. “She’s fast, agile, and trained. You of all ponies should know that. She made it clear to me, without ever touching me that if we fought for real… she could kill me in ten seconds flat. Only then did she let me hit her.” Trixie wasn’t sure what to believe. There were vague memories of what Fluttershy had done to her when she snapped, but that was only when she was enraged. Fluttershy couldn’t possibly be dangerous when she was in control… could she? “I used to hate her, I loathed her,” Maud said quietly. “But now… I don’t know if I respect her, or if I’m terrified of her. She’s in control, most of the time at least, and she didn’t get even a little mad when I hit her. But if she ever loses that control… I’m just glad that she has decided to leave you alone now.” “So… you won’t kill her now?” Trixie asked quietly. Maud lowered her head again. “I’d only die trying. I’ll leave her alone, and pretend to be her friend… maybe one day I won’t have to pretend anymore.” Trixie closed her eyes and tried to relax. “Good. I hurt. Sleep now.” “Before you go to sleep,” Maud said. “Can I ask you a question?” Trixie opened one eye at Maud. “Is Rainbow Dash really going to be knighted?”