Heart of Stone
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Seven: The Glass Heart
Written by TheCrimsonDM
For now it looked like the plan was to stay hidden in forest and rest. Trixie had enough time to look around and out of the forty ponies that they had originally tried to save, Trixie saw a little over a dozen left. This realization left her with mixed feelings.
On one hoof, over a dozen ponies managed to escape the wrath of an ursa major. Yet on the other hoof, they had lost so very much in the sheer attempt to escape. Trixie heard Rainbow Dash giving Luna a report of the situation, last she’d seen it. Anypony, guard or otherwise that did not evacuate on time, found themselves in a terrible fight. Too many ponies had been lost, and there was very little hope of anypony still up there escaping.
Trixie barely noticed as Fluttershy shoved a hoof into Discord’s chest and shouted, “Get out of here!”
He lowered his head and floated off. Apparently his purpose here was done, and with both Trixie and Fluttershy disowning him, she felt a bit sad for him. Where he would go now, nopony really knew. He was the spirit of chaos, a wandering spirit without rhyme, reason, or direction. He disappeared into the forest.
Candle Light walked up and took a seat next to Trixie. “Hey there.”
Trixie gave her a tired look. “Hi.”
“So… this has all been pretty stressful,” Candle Light said. “If you have a concern or just want to talk, I’m here. Sometimes you need a neutral party to talk too.”
“We lost a lot of ponies up there,” Trixie said. “A lot of ponies died because I wasn’t good enough. We weren’t good enough.” Trixie finished by glancing over at her fellow princesses.
“No, we were just unprepared, and from what I understand, tricked. Equestria hasn’t been to war in a very long time, I guess the princesses didn’t think anything like this was even possible,” Candle Light said. “We just lost Canterlot…”
“Yeah, we did…” Trixie added as if to reaffirm the loss. It seemed impossible that this could have happened. It did though, Canterlot was lost, and there wasn’t a darned thing that could be done about it now.
“As far as we know, we got all four of the princesses to safety,” Candle Light said. “You helped with that.”
Trixie nodded, but she couldn’t help but to glance at her shoulders. She could still feel her wings attached to her, even though they were gone. Her body remembered what the wings felt like. It left a haunting feeling on her.
“Now you know what it’s like,” Candle Light said quietly. “You and Twilight both.”
Trixie looked at the white mare, studied her golden eyes and the fiery mane. The scar left on Candle’s forehead where a horn had once been attached… she was right. Trixie finally understood what losing a limb, a part of yourself was like. It left her wondering if Candle Light still felt her horn sometimes.
“I forgave you two a long time ago,” Candle Light said. “Part of my therapy, I had to learn how to forgive you for what happened. Admitting to myself that there was nopony to blame for what happened and that the perpetrator was long gone was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I didn’t just blame you two though, I also blamed myself.”
“For what?” Trixie asked disbelieving. “You couldn’t have done anything else.”
“I know that now, but I used to think that I lost my horn because I had somehow failed in my training. That I could have been more focused, stronger, maybe if I just told you two that I was scared and needed help, any of that would have been better,” Candle Light said. “I realize now that there really wasn’t anyway it could have played out differently. I learned to accept what happened to me. Trixie, I want you to do the same, accept what happened and don’t beat yourself up. Just try to be stronger in the future, don’t let yourself be a burden to others and to better yourself.”
Trixie nodded. “I’ll do my-“
Trixie froze as she saw a chain wrap around Candle Light’s neck. A second later the mare was yanked off of the ship, over the side and onto the ground. Her hooves clawed at the chain around her neck, but she was unable to do anything about them. Frailty stood, covered in dark blue liquid, holding her end of the chain in her mouth and grinning at Trixie, madness in her eyes.
Before Trixie could even move, or shout, Frailty spun around and took off toward the trees. Trixie gave a shout, “She took Candle!”
She didn’t wait around to see who listened to her. The first thing Trixie did was throw herself over the railing and onto the ground about ten feet below. She landed, her legs hurt as she tucked into a roll and came up on all fours. She saw Frailty enter the trees and Trixie gave chase.
“Rainbow Dash!” Luna cried.
That was the last thing Trixie heard from the group at the Lightning Runner. The forest was just dense enough to make visibility poor. Trixie quickly lost sight of Frailty. Fear of losing the mare struck her hard, until she thought about what she could do. Even without magic, she could track a mind as twisted and cold as Frailty’s.
Trixie reached out and felt the life around her. Dozens of animals surrounded her, their minds small but full of energy. Hundreds of insects, their minds but slivers, but together they felt warm. One cold and vile presence was just ahead of her and running fast. Its energy was different from everything else, it was cold, dark, and hurt to touch. Almost like it was the antithesis of life of itself.
And Trixie was chasing the thing.
The chase lasted only a minute or two, but it felt like it had gone on a lot longer. By the time she reached the ravine her body was run ragged and her lungs burned with fire. Her shoulders were in a special kind of torment that was in a class of its own.
She stopped short at the edge of the water and stared down those hateful eyes. Frailty stood at ten feet away on her hind legs with a knife in her mouth, and held Candle Light up with blade poised at her throat. A small line of crimson ran down Candle Light’s neck.
“Let her go,” Trixie growled.
“Oh nd wat are you going oo do if I don’,” Frailty said around the blade. She moved the blade with her teeth a little and Candle Light gave a sharp yelp. “Not like you haff magic.”
Trixie snarled. “If you kill her I will end you here and now. If you let her go… without further harm, I… I’ll let you walk away from this one.”
An evil smile grew around the blade. “I don’t trusht you.”
This was bad, Trixie didn’t have access to her magic, she didn’t have wings and the longer she waited, the higher probability there was of windigo reinforcements arriving. Trixie looked down at the sword by her side. The Trickster Blade called to her, it wanted to be used. It was probably Candle’s best chance.
“You can’t fight with that, I’ve sheen you,” Frailty said. For being an evil wicked mare, she spoke very well with objects in her mouth.
“You’re right, all I know how to do is swing it around,” Trixie said. “Kinda like this.”
She grabbed the handle in her teeth, pulled hard and the sword slid out. Her will went into the blade and she felt the power resting inside stir. As she slashed across at the air, a line of blue energy danced out toward Frailty and Candle Light. Frailty’s eyes widened as she saw it. The energy wrapped itself around the two of them, and Frailty slipped.
The knife stayed in her mouth, Candle Light gasped, and Frailty hit the foot deep water with a splash. A thin line of red appeared at Candle’s throat, and for one terrifying moment, Trixie watched as the mare stumbled forward before falling face first into the river.
Trixie sat there, staring in abject horror at the limp white body lying in the water. At her fallen friend. She saw Frailty try to stand up, but it was as though the plant vines in the river had a will of their own. They wrapped around the mare’s legs, and tangled up. The more she struggled the tighter they got. She eventually gave up and started trying to chew her way through.
A pair of light blue hooves landed next to Trixie. The rough voice that spoke sounded quiet, and full of pain, “Trixie, we need to get back.”
Trixie looked up at Rainbow Dash and blinked. “I… I killed her.”
Rainbow Dash looked down at Frailty, who evidently couldn’t chew through the vines because she was still struggling with them. “No, you didn’t. That… monster did.”
“Monster…” Trixie said quietly. “Frailty is a monster.”
“Yes she is,” Rainbow Dash said. “Don’t you worry, I’ll go and-“
Trixie stood up. She picked up her father’s blade and marched over to Frailty. I can kill monsters. I’m good at killing monsters. Celestia taught me just how to kill monsters.
Frailty looked up as Trixie stood over her. “Oh, what’s this? You gonna set me free? What a good little toy you are.”
Trixie put a hoof on the side of Frailty’s head, and turned the mare’s face down into the water. She didn’t stop until Frailty’s entire head was submerged. Frailty struggled, her body thrashed as much as it could, but the vines kept her pinned. Trixie pressed harder. She didn’t let go until Frailty stopped jerking and went limp. Then she pulled her hoof away and stood there waiting.
Rainbow Dash approached slowly. “You… you did the right thing. She was evil and you killed her.” She looked down at the body lying face down in the water. “I’ll… carry her back.”
Just as Trixie had suspected; Frailty shot straight up, coughing violently. The mare choked up water and looked at Trixie with red, hateful eyes. “You bit-“
Trixie pushed Frailty’s head back down. She smiled, and again waited for the mare to stop moving. Again, when Trixie let her go Frailty revived. This time Trixie plunged her father’s blade straight into Frailty’s chest, through the sapphire gem and didn’t stop until she felt her sword hit something hard. She let go and stepped away.
Frailty looked up at Trixie with cold eyes, they slowly softened. “You killed me?”
Trixie stayed silent.
“Thanks…” Frailty closed her eyes, her body went limp and as if she was made entirely of ice, her body melted away into the river. A weak and tired energy lifted up from the water, Trixie saw it. A white mist lifted into the air, and swirled around her head.
As it did Trixie saw things, things she had never known, never wanted to know. She saw Frailty, a young filly living in a small orphanage in the outskirts of Manehattan. It was a nice looking place on the outside, but Trixie got an up close and personal look at what the orphanage was all about.
The ponies inside, filly and colt alike were abused, horribly. They were trained by their masters to obey, and lessons were forced on them. These ponies were taught the kind of skills only a mare of the night would know. When the time came, the foals were sold to the highest bidders as slaves.
One day, Princess Celestia arrived; at her side stood six ponies that Trixie recognized. Her father and his team. Trixie watched as Celestia and co slaughtered each and every one of the adults, the mares and stallions that had been behind the whole operation. They took in the foals and once they were outside the building, Celestia lit it on fire and burned the entire place to the ground.
Frailty was put into a house with a nice family. They tried their best to help her, but something in her mind was already broken. It wasn’t just her though, somehow Frailty had gotten into contact with a group of foals from the orphanage, and together they ran away to live life by their own terms to make sure that the only ponies that got hurt were the ones that opposed them. The brown and lemon stallion that followed Trixie into Ponyville was amongst the group, as well as a dozen others.
The broken foals formed a crooked home all joined together to form one destroyed little family. Slowly things began to deteriorate. It would have stayed stable until the gang tried mug and rape two mares that Trixie knew personally. Fluttershy and Rarity. The second the brown stallion tried to cut Rarity, something inside Fluttershy snapped. Over half of the gang was slaughtered in the ensuing fight. The others ran for their lives, including Frailty.
This led to even less trust between the remainder of the group. What was left slowly separated, and what stayed with Frailty began growing power hungry. They challenged her rule and she beat them down. Things were only made worse, and worse, until Frailty was forced to make an example of somepony. She tortured them, for days. At first she was against it, but slowly she realized just how much she loved it.
The last thing that Trixie saw was Frailty’s personal connection to the ursa major. She fallowed the mental trail all the way up to Canterlot, and saw the cloaked stallion standing on thin air above the rear wall and staring down. The ursa stood just behind him. Suddenly, Trixie was aware of something.
The ursa, and the connection to it were now hers.
Almost as though she had won the ursa as a trophy she could now feel its mind underneath hers. Twisted into a raging whirlpool of agony by the frozen magic working within it. She could bend it to her will. Trixie saw an opportunity that she knew she needed to move on.
With a whisper of will, Trixie sent the ursa charging toward the stallion, floating or not she was going to kill him for what he did to Twilight. And what better way to do it than to use her most feared enemy. The dreaded ursa major!
The giant lumbering beast picked up speed, and broke through the wall as though it were made of wet paper. Its massive skyscraper sized body fell over the stallion, and together the two of them plunged off the edge. Trixie heard the stallion scream in outrage, a small and insignificant sound. Fire spread through the ursa’s body as it fell to the earth, hundreds of feet below. Even the ursa could not survive the impact. Before it hit the ground Trixie was back.
Just in time to feel the earth tremble and shake. Trixie nearly fell down, and Rainbow Dash cursed as she looked around with wild eyes. An army of birds flew out of the trees and into the night sky from somewhere to the south. Trixie could no longer feel the presence of the ursa, nor of Frailty.
Frailty was a broken and desperate mare. She was insane, and she used that to become dangerously powerful. Trixie could pity the mare, for her life, and for the things she’d experienced. However, Trixie did not agree with her. Frailty had her chance to pull her life together and make a fresh start. Sooner or later she was going to die. At the very least Frailty did one good thing in her miserable life, she let Trixie control the ursa to hopefully end this war.
Considering the fact that Frailty thanked her for death, it would seem likely that Frailty knew she was going to die eventually anyway. In fact, this challenge against Trixie might have been a suicide attempt. Trixie was reminded of when she fought the ursa major for real, the first time. It looked like Frailty had succeeded where Trixie had failed.
Trixie picked up her sword, sheathed it, and walked back to the ship. Rainbow Dash carried Candle Light’s body over her back.
***
The trip back to the ship was silent, and even though Rainbow Dash had tried on several occasions to start up a conversation with Trixie. Nothing had taken. The chase had drawn Trixie further than her body was capable of, and now that her adrenaline was leaving, her body was reminding her of why she needed to stay in bed.
Trixie dared only a glance at the lifeless body that lay across Rainbow Dash’s back. The paled face of her old friend lay cold and expressionless. A pit formed in the middle of her stomach, a twisted gnarled pit of regret. Sure Frailty wasn’t going to let Candle Light go, but if Trixie had only waited a few more seconds. Rainbow Dash would have arrived to help. Instead the Trickster Blade’s magic lashed out and affected both of them.
In the end, it had been Trixie who’d murdered Candle Light.
“Trixie, when we get back you need to rest,” Rainbow Dash said.
Trixie grunted in reply.
“I’ll explain this to Moondancer,” Rainbow Dash said.
Trixie nearly tripped over a stupid branch. Oh Celestia, not Moondancer. I hadn’t even thought about Moondancer!
“What I want you to do is to go to Maud, curl up in her legs, and rest. You can cry, you can swear, you can do whatever you want, so long as you’re resting when we get back. I don’t know what happened to Frailty, whatever dumb luck it was that saved you. If Frailty had been given even a chance, she’d have taken your head off,” Rainbow Dash said.
She was right of course, but that didn’t mean Trixie could just let herself off the hook. Now that Moondancer was part of the equation, she honestly didn’t know what to do. Rest sounded impossible, wounded or not. The only thing she could think to do right then was to run, hide, and scream. She’d just ruined two of her friends’ lives. One was dead, and the other… after learning about Candle Light, might as well be.
“And don’t you dare think that I’m not going to lecture you once this is all said and done. Princess or not, what you just did was incredibly reckless and downright dangerous… but I’m going to let you rest first,” Rainbow Dash said, her tone even.
A thought struck Trixie and it hit her so hard that she closed her eyes and walked head first into a tree. Rainbow Dash stopped, and put a wing over her back, carefully avoiding the wounded area. “You okay to keep going?”
“What if I lost Maud?” Trixie asked, her voice shook.
“Don’t,” Rainbow Dash warned.
Trixie looked at her; she could feel the tears building at the edge of her vision already. “But wh-“
Rainbow Dash brushed a wing gently across Trixie’s cheek. “Look at me, okay. First you are getting back to the ship. Then you are cuddling up with that wife of yours. Until then you are not allowed to think, only move.”
Trixie blinked. “But-“
The wing pulled back a few inches, and then smacked Trixie across the cheek. It burned and Trixie wanted to cry but before she could do anything, Rainbow Dash barked, “Walk solider.”
Trixie began walking. After a few seconds, of focusing on the simple task of walking things grew a little easier. The knot in her stomach stayed, and her mind felt fuzzy, but it took more effort to avoid the rocks and branches on the ground than she thought it would. It really did take all her concentration to avoid tripping again.
Minutes passed by as they slowly wound their way around trees, underbrush, and fallen debris. Finally the forest opened up into the small clearing where the ship had landed. The ramp was already lowered for them to board. Trixie did so, but she was silent as death as she did.
Rainbow Dash was behind her, and nopony she made a sound as she stepped up onto deck. That is except for Moondancer. The white unicorn galloped to Rainbow Dash, her horn flaring up as she did. Before she stopped she had lifted Candle Light off of Rainbow’s back and laid her out flat onto the deck.
Moondancer was crying, shaking and making promises to the goddesses to help her save Candle Light. She pounded her hooves against the deck repeatedly. Trixie stood still, all she could was watch. Moondancer tried a healing spell over, and over again. Candle’s body didn’t so much as twitch. It hurt Trixie to watch, as Moondancer’s hooves splintered the wood and came back red.
It cost Rainbow Dash a bit of strength to pull Moondancer away, before the mare broke down into a sobbing fit. Everypony just stared in silence for a moment, and then slowly one by one they looked away. All except for Trixie and Valiant Heart.
“Why?” Trixie asked as she stared with wet, stinging eyes.
Valiant took a few steps past Trixie. Her muzzle twitched. The little brown filly removed the eye patch, and Trixie looked down at the whitish pink eye. Somehow it didn’t look milky, it looked strange, ghostly. For a moment Valiant Heart stared at the body, and then she gasped.
Before Trixie could ask, the filly took off in a half limping gallop. Tried to slide to a stop near Candle Light, tripped and rolled over a few times, and then pushed herself up. Now everypony was certainly watching. Valiant Heart looked at Moondancer and waved her hooves wildly. Moondancer wasn’t looking though; she had her face covered up with her hooves.
Valiant made a sour face, wrote something on the whiteboard and stomped up to Moondancer. Even if Moondancer was in the middle of a break down, she couldn’t ignore a filly shoving a whiteboard into her chest. Moondancer took one look at the board, and then at Valiant, finally at Candle Light.
“B-but… she’s gone…” Moondancer said.
“Alright, Val,” Rainbow Dash said, she reached out with a hoof and Valiant smacked it away.
Valiant spun on her fetlocks galloped to the body, and jumped a few feet into the air. She landed on top of Candle’s chest. A bright white light flashed from the filly’s hooves. Everypony gasped, and the air shifted around them. Trixie felt the surge of something… powerful. It only lasted a second, but Valiant Heart had done something. Only after the filly rolled off the body and onto the floor did Trixie see the impossible.
Candle Light’s chest was moving up and down. She was breathing!
The filly stood up, pointed at the Moondancer and screamed in frustration. For a second Moondancer hesitated before scrambling along the deck, finding her balance and galloping to Candle Light’s side. Once again her horn lit up, Candle Light’s body took on the same glow, and Moondancer was doing her best to heal her lover. Valiant Heart raised her hooves, and placed them on top of Candle Light’s chest. From those tiny miniscule hooves came a white light, mixing in with Moondancer’s aura.
“Impossible,” Trixie murmured.
“What’s going on?” Maud asked, she didn’t hide the concern in her voice.
Trixie shook her head. “Valiant Heart is an earth pony, right? I mean… she doesn’t have a horn. How could she… use magic?”
“What is she doing?” Maud asked.
The air shifted again, and a deep warm sensation filled the area. It felt almost like a mid day spring. Power, not simply magic, but pure power filled the deck of the ship and surrounded Candle Light. The power was deep, full of loving warmth and spread out in every direction.
“I think she’s using healing magic,” Trixie said quietly.
“Does she know what she’s doing?” Maud said flatly.
The aura around Candle Light began to waver and die down. Valiant’s eyes went wild and she looked at Trixie and Luna, and something unexpected happened. Tiny words, just barely audible escaped her lips. “More magic!”
Luna hefted herself off of the ground and walked over to the fallen body. Her horn lit up softly and the aura surrounding Candle Light grew in intensity. Trixie shook her head. This was preposterous, radical, simply… insane. Only a couple of the other survivors were unicorns but they too stepped up and added their magic to the aura.
Trixie stared in silence.
Valiant looked at Trixie with pleading eyes, and she mouthed the word, ‘help’. Even Trixie couldn’t ignore a request from her daughter. She walked over, one of her legs buckled and nearly made her trip along the way, but she finished the rest of the walk with a limp. She looked down at her friend. Candle Light wasn’t breathing anymore, but the wound on her neck had vanished.
“I…” Trixie started.
“Please,” Valiant whispered.
Trixie gulped. She wasn’t sure there was anything she could do. Not even to add a little magic to this collective pool of energy. She could feel it though, it was warm, and bright, and full of good feelings. This magic made her feel whole, and happy, and like she was running a magic show. Trixie closed her eyes, focused on her horn, and put every ounce of focus she had into summoning forth whatever bit of magic she had left.
It wasn’t much, but at least her horn didn’t spark and fizzle out this time. A miniscule amount of energy left her horn and moved toward the collective pool. The second it touched everyponies collective magic, she felt a surge of energy inside her horn, and it all channeled down into the pool.
Almost all of the magic here was floating around like a pool of water, not doing much in the way of any spell-work. There was however two presences shaping the magic, and pouring it into a healing spell, or… something. It felt unlike any spell Trixie had ever felt. It was raw, and powerful, and full of good vibes.
“Come back,” Valiant said, her voice stronger in Trixie’s ears than she’d ever heard it. “Come back and join us. You have something to do, and loved ones waiting. Please come back. We’ll take care of you.”
The magic spiked and Trixie felt almost like she was standing somewhere else. For that moment she dared not open her eyes but she heard two faint voices of in the distance. One of them belonged to Candle Light.
“I can come back?” Candle Light asked.
“If you so desire,” Boulder Dash replied. “They really want you to, but it is still your choice.”
Trixie swore she heard Candle Light crying, and then she only barely heard her say, “I… want to be with Moondancer.”
“Okay,” Boulder Dash said.
All at once Trixie felt like she was slammed back onto the deck of the ship, and her heart nearly jumped out of her throat. The magic around them was sucked into a central point and then she felt it burn, with vibrant life. Trixie’s magic was released and she stumbled back before sitting down hard.
She looked around and everypony else had pretty much the same experience. They all looked at the body in confusion and were sitting down. Trixie felt the barest whisper of blazingly hot magic coming from Candle Light. Valiant had her hooves still gently pressed on Candle Light’s chest.
Candle Light’s eyes shot open wide and she took in the deepest breath Trixie had ever seen.
A few hard coughs escaped Candle’s lungs and she looked at the filly right in front of her. The shock slowly left her eyes and she shook her head. “You… you saved me?”
The filly shook her head, and pointed a hoof at herself, then at each one of the unicorns around her, finishing on Moondancer. Candle Light looked at Moondancer, and tears ran down the side of her face. “Moonie!”
Moondancer leapt to lover’s side and grabbed her hoof tightly. “Light. You’re… you’re alive!”
Candle Light lifted her leg up weakly and cupped Moondancer’s hoof. “I saw my grandpa. He sat down with me and read me a book. It was weird because, the book was all about me and my life. At the end, he told me that if I wanted too I could start the new book, he told me… I think… it was called The Beginning. I think I wanted to stay and hear it.”
Trixie felt a tingle run down the length of her spine when she heard that. It was too familiar, but it wasn’t just that, she had heard Boulder Dash. Boulder Dash helped get Candle Light back here. Sure Trixie had no idea whatsoever how this worked, but somehow… somehow it had.
Valiant smiled and stood up. Before the filly got two steps into walking toward Maud, her rump exploded into bright and colorful light. It was very nearly blinding. The light was so bright that Trixie had to look immediately away, but it only lasted a few seconds before she could look again. Once she did, she saw something both unexpected and perfect. The symbol of a pink heart carefully cut out from glass sat on her flanks.
Valiant Heart just earned her cutie mark.