//------------------------------//
// Eldest: Stonehenge Elderwall 
// Story: Phantasmare 
// by Emperor 
//------------------------------//

Trixie had a habit of rolling around in her bed during the night, and it only got worse when she was on an unfamiliar mattress. As luck would have it, however, she had turned into such a position that when the first light of day broke through the flimsy curtain, it fell over her eyelid.

“Nngh,” Trixie groaned, tightening her eyelid before rolling over, burying her head back into her pillow. After a week walking from Dodge Junction all the way up to Manechester, she was greedy for sleep in a nice, warm bed, and Trixie would not be denied.

It helped that in her semi-conscious state of half-sleeping, half-awake, the things that pained Trixie could be buried deep.

Trixie’s lips curled up and she wrinkled her snout, trying to repress the whimper that threatened to come out. She hadn’t been entirely honest the night before. Yes, Trixie had cast a spell upon herself to focus her state of mind to become more serious, more devoted to her practice, and less whimsical. However, there had an extra benefit that Trixie had left out.

The scars left behind by the Alicorn Amulet, and the trauma from the Ursa Minor incident still remained with her. For a few glorious days, even as Trixie slept in a tent on hard earth, wind whipping away at the canvas, she hadn’t once dreamed of those two things. But now, the Alicorn Amulet haunted her still.

It had been good while it lasted.

She grumbled when she realised she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again instantly. Turning around, she opened her eyes and faced the curtain. Trixie cast a spell, dragging a spare blanket that had been set to the side, and hanging it over the lone window. Satisfied as the room fell into a pitch darkness again, Trixie rolled over back into her original sleeping position.

Let’s see, what can I think about? Trixie thought. A marvelous method for getting back to sleep over the years that she had discovered was to think about things, typically boring things, that still needed to have some thought given to. It didn’t take too long for Trixie to think of something: the magic that had petrified Stonehenge.

There had been something odd about it. It didn’t work the way normal magic should. Of course, Trixie had never actually encountered a cockatrice statue before, so she had no baseline to compare this one to. However, compared to other magic, it felt off. Even just inspecting the statue with a magical scan had been difficult. Where her magic had bounced off the Windigo ice, creating a tingle in her horn, here, her magic seemed to simply turn inert as soon as it came within the field of the statue. Both effects were so wildly beyond Trixie’s normal understanding of magic that it left her troubled.

But she had defeated the Windigo ice. Though it had required the help of the Crystal Heart, Trixie was also fighting against the magical residues of multiple Windigo remains. Compared to that, the magic of a single cockatrice was nothing.

But that was just it: it was more than one cockatrice that had fueled the spell. Trixie felt a little uneasy about the idea that somehow, all the cockatrices that had been slaughtered before their king had powered its own magic to the point it could paralyse a pony with his eyes closed, and leave a petrifaction spell that required a century before the most powerful pony in the land could even think about undoing it. Trixie always felt a little trepidation every time her mind wandered back to that fact. Princess Celestia herself couldn’t even do it.

Nay, forget Princess Celestia, there was that other one, the Princess of Magic. Could she do it?

Trixie grit her teeth, wishing she could fall asleep now. It had been a blissful few days, even if she knew better now that her spell had been a bad idea. Trixie didn’t want to think about her, but her mind was Trixie’s worst enemy, constantly seeking ways to turn her train of thought onto the perfect pony princess, she who had saved the realm so many times they may as well rename the land after her.

OK, think about something else, Trixie. Back to the statue. Right, the statue. It wasn’t just the magic of the statue. Trixie wasn’t foolish. She could see that every time she was using her illusion magic on something big, she was extending her idea and concept of what illusion magic could actually do. The first time, with New Moon, Trixie had cast a spell that merely created a visual illusion, somehow altering New Moon’s Cutie Mark too as the bat pony had taken on the name of Noire. That had been done with the aid of the magic of the Black Moon.

With the Windigo fossilised remains, it was the first time Trixie had reached beyond the common conceit of illusions as fooling the physical senses of others, and into the idea of tricking the world itself into thinking that this was the way such-and-such should be. It was still such a heady concept that it left Trixie wobbly on her hooves when she tried to think too much about it. It was no wonder she always had a fainting spell of some sort since the first time with the Windigos. Forcing her mind to change its own understanding of how things should be, just so it could trick the fabric of reality into also believing that this was how things must be, was frankly exhausting on its own, even before Trixie brought her magic into play.

Back on track, Trixie, she prodded herself. Right, so that was the first time that had happened, where she had changed how reality interpreted things should be, and said ‘There is no windigo ice here’, and reality had obeyed. Even then, she had needed the aid of the Crystal Heart to neutralise most of the windigo ice’s magic even temporarily, as well as her own magical stores, her changeling energy, and much of Noire’s magic as well. All she needed to do was focus on the Windigo ice as a physical object, not as a physical object infused with Windigo magic.

Then Red Wings was next, Trixie thought, remembering the uniformly red Pegasus and the joyful look on his face. It had been that expression Trixie always looked to inspire in the faces of fillies and colts, but Trixie knew she would never be able to see something like that in one of their faces. No pony merely watching a show could match the joy of a pegasus who had his wing restored, and Trixie was certain she would never go wanting for that small part of her she had inherited from her father that could store emotional energy.

But Red Wings’ wing had been one step above merely being a physical object. It was an organic thing, a complex body part, which made it so much more dangerous and complicated to reject how reality was and assert this was how reality was to be. It was also the first big thing Trixie had done that had been unassisted by any power source. It was so much more than a simple rock being turned into a marble, or small pools of water being conjured from nowhere.

Trixie wasn’t sure what that premonition was that had led her from Dodge Junction to Manechester, instead of going west to Colt Springs, but she was thankful for it now. She had found another roadblock in her journey. Though the unicorn despised being used, she also knew that every little way she could improve the magic she was pioneering from scratch would help Trixie when she met the changeling above all other changelings.

But that’s also the problem, thought Trixie’s darker side, the one that nagged at her and sometimes told her she should go find another magical artifact to abuse. You aren’t sure if you can surpass the obstacle in front of you this time.

And Trixie wasn’t. Because there was a clear trajectory in what she was doing. First, something that merely fooled the senses of others, anchoring it in magic to make Noire’s new form permanent. Next, something that erased a physical object. Afterwards, creating an organic form out of scratch, and attaching it to a still-living pony, with no side-effects in the process. And now, she had to reach beyond the physical plane, and into the realm of magic. The metaphysics of understanding how to square a magical curse with her power to fool the world was giving her a headache, and she had just barely begun.

First, Trixie would have to figure out how to get her magic merely to be able to interact with the statue, and not lose its potency. Then she would have to relay, through the framework of her illusion magic so powerful it could trick all of creation, a thought. And Trixie still didn’t know what that thought would be. Should it be something like ‘The petrifaction magic never took hold’? It could backfire on her, and reality might spite her by aging Stonehenge fifty years in a second, thinking that if the petrifaction magic had never took hold, then so his age should never have been frozen either.

No. Right now, the best idea she had was ‘The petrification magic has finally worn off’. It was getting there, and Trixie making herself believe it before making existence itself believe it in turn, that was going to be difficult.

With that thought about trying to mash metaphysics and thaumaturgy together to come up with a bastardised hybrid that had been left out in the sun too long to bake, Trixie finally fell asleep.





The key to everything was Red Wings.

It wasn’t that his case held some special philosophical significance that Trixie could derive from. Really, she had to start fresh with her latest case.

Rather, it was because even with the muted senses of a changeling that she had inherited from her father, she was practically on cloud nine just from feeling him.

Quite honestly, it was intoxicating, and she could see Noire was the same. “Why aren’t you up there, flying along with him?” Trixie asked Noire, standing next to her.

“Are you kidding me? How could I take away from a moment as happy as that?” Noire asked, casually deflecting the implication she’d be flying like a drunk if she were.

“I assume that means Red Wings is in a very good mood right now?,” asked Iceheart.

It was a beautiful morning out, with just a little bit of a chill from the morning dew. Trixie had trudged out after getting up, following the road down to where she knew her friends to be, just outside another one of Manechester’s few remaining gates. Ponies and the odd donkey were out and about already, picking tomatoes, sorting tomatoes into crates, and loading up tomatoes into crates to be taken up to the nearest train station.

The four weren’t anywhere close to running low on their funds, and Trixie and Noire had in fact gotten a minor top-up from the changeling hive in the Badlands while visiting. However, Trixie was certain if they absolutely needed, they could acquire additional funds by working for a few days on the tomato orchards around Manechester.

For now, however, she was determined to have some relaxation time, and it was for that that they had found a small meadow outside of Manchester’s decrepit walls where a few other younger ponies were already frolicking. While Noire and Iceheart seemed content to just sit down on their haunches and laze around, Red Wings had taken to flying.

Even after a week, the euphoria the red pegasus felt was stunning. Trixie closed her eyes, feeling a few tears of joy leaking out. I did good there, she admitted to herself. She watched as Red flew through the sky, gliding along the warm thermals, occasionally doing a trick such as a loop-de-loop or diving and then reversing his dive. Red Wings had said it would be weeks at a minimum before his wingpower would be back up to what he once had. Right now, however, his mere joy was enough to lift Trixie’s own spirits. Even some of the Manechesterites, unaware of Red Wings’ backstory, seemed to be delighted by the stallion’s pure joy, infectious as it was.

“So what are you doing, then?,” asked Trixie. “I took the opportunity to sleep in for the first time in nopony knows how long, but you two got out here earlier than I did.”

“Noire asked me to teach her a little bit of what I knew about Earth pony magic,” said Iceheart. “Honestly, I did not acquire much that I could help her out with. My resistance to cold was my own in-born trait, refined through several expeditions into the frozen wastes, and my experience with fighting Windigos is not something that can easily be adapted to other purposes.”

“But you still learned things,” Noire insisted.

Iceheart conceded the point with a nod of her head, and said, “Yes, I did. Earth ponies are intrinsically linked to the very earth itself. Even when there are several hooflengths of ice between our hooves and the land, that connection was always there, calling to us.”

Trixie listened to the Crystal pony, interested as well in what she had to say. Trixie had never really bothered delving into the magic of the other two pony tribes, even if she was able to make a passing impression of their magic by proxy of the changeling traits she had inherited. Even Noire had not bothered to diversify until just recently, settling for the weather manipulation magic inherent in all pegasi and bat ponies. Now, however, Trixie had little else to do, not wanting to currently think about the petrified Earth pony waiting for her back in Manechester’s plaza.

“It may be a little odd ponies such as you two, who can summon gusts with your wings or levitate objects with your horn, and I realise I am barely scraping the surface of what is possible with your magic,” Iceheart continued, tongue fully in cheek, “But Earth ponies can also ‘ground’ magic, for lack of a better term. It is why we rarely get magical sicknesses: the magic foreign to our body is dispersed by our connection to the earth.” Iceheart paused, and added, “It is the same for curses and magical attacks. Of course, Sombra figured out the weakness every Earth pony shares: if we lose our connection to the earth, it no longer works. He permeated the land of the Crystal Empire with his dark magic before brainwashing most of the citizenry.”

Trixie and Noire both shuddered at how nonchalantly Iceheart mentioned the former king’s evil deeds.

“I do not know how much of it is known in Equestria today, thanks to the passing of time, but before we went into stasis, there were a number of pagans in the Crystal Empire who believed in Mother Earth as being her own sentient entity. Of course, they also believed Mother Earth favoured her Earth ponies, closest to the land. I do not put much stock in it, given how we were fighting Windigos,” Iceheart said. “But it is a fact that the Earth pony segment of our population turned out the greatest number of those resistant to the cold, and I presume it is that same connection to the land that helped us.”

“But how much of it is a passive ability, and how much of it is an active skill?” Noire asked.

Iceheart furled her eyebrows. “It is mostly a passive ability, but it is not as if it can be trained. Many of the superequine feats that you sometimes hear about Earth ponies is from those rare few who trained themselves, such as say, perhaps a mare who can throw a giant rock several hundred feet, or grind the same rock to dust with her same hooves. Even my ability to tolerate the cold grew with practice and understanding my body and magic. I once had to bulk up with many layers of clothing. Granted, it was even colder during the days the Windigos were around than it was when you came to the fortress, but still, over time I was able to strip off a few layers for greater mobility.”

“Go back to that part about grounding magic,” said Trixie. “Could you improve your passive talent in that area to basically dissipate any magic thrown at you in a battle?”

“Yes. Yes you could,” said Iceheart, looking up at the sky, her eyes tracking Red Wings, who was now flying upside down. “I would love to see how the Hearth’s Warming Eve tale has changed over the years, but...during the time of the Three Tribes, the Earth ponies were treated horribly, from what I understand, though the Crystal Empire was an entity unto itself even then. However, legends abound of a hoofful of Earth ponies who broke free of the yoke of tyranny of the other races. They learned their own race’s magic, and were able to shrug off lightning bolts and magical attacks alike. However, all they were able to do was merely keep the unicorns and pegasi from enslaving the Earth ponies, not put the three tribes on even hoofing.”

Trixie patted her hooves around nervously. It was never nice being reminded of what utter jerks her ancestors had been. Maybe they didn’t see any option, but to Trixie’s modern-day sensibilities, the unicorns that were many generations beyond her grandparents were not paragons of virtues to emulate.

“Well, I want to learn, anyways,” Noire insisted. “Whatever I can."

Trixie frowned. Iceheart’s lecture had given her an idea. Trixie was able to emulate what Earth ponies could do, though only to a small degree, restricted by her changeling heritage being the lesser part of what and who Trixie was. Nevertheless, the idea of grounding negative magic was an inspiration to her.

Perhaps she had been tackling the issue of Stonehenge the wrong way?





Trixie found Stonehenge again. It was all too easy, given the Earth pony hadn’t moved a hoofstep in fifty years.

“Who were you truly, Stonehenge?” Trixie whispered to herself. The other ponies in the square regarded her curiously, before moving on. No doubt many other ponies had talked to the not-statue over the years (and though Trixie was certain petrified ponies had no awareness of the world while turned to stone, even a pony talking nonsense to them would be a helpful distraction if that were not the case), and Trixie would just have been one of many.

In Trixie’s case, however, she wasn’t talking at the statue, but to the statue. “How many ponies who knew you forgot your voice over the years, your eyes, the way you could smile, frown, or look confused? How many ponies could soon only remember you by the look you have right now, the look of determination at killing a monstrous cockatrice? Were you scared? No, that’s a silly question. Of course you were scared. But you went out there and fought anyways, and you lead your friends into battle. I wonder what you left behind? Parents? Siblings? A wife? Foals?”

“No foals or no wife, thankfully, or else that would have made Stonehenge’s story more depressing,” a soft voice said from behind her, and Trixie nearly jumped. She swung around to face the new pony, an old mare with a dark green coat and a tail with alternating lime-green and lemon-yellow stripes. “He flirted with a mare his own age from time to time, and while she never quite moved on, she did find love again later on.”

Trixie spotted the mare’s horn, and the spots of dirt and tomato juice that clung to her legs. “Sorry, but might you be Offa?” Trixie asked.

The elder unicorn blinked, then smiled. “Yes, that’s me. I overheard what you said about Stonehenge. I take it somepony already told you about The Wall?”

“Yes. Me and some friends of mine came into Manechester yesterday, and we’re staying at Tomato Cato’s place. He had Hadrian come over and tell us about The Wall’s formation and your fight against the cockatrices.”

Offa shook her head, making an audible ‘tsk-tssking’ sound. “Of course he would. Cato misses his grandfather. I think he hopes we’ll have some new story about his grandfather every time he has us over at his restaurant, even though we exhausted all our tales a long time ago.”

Trixie had nothing to say for that, so she fumbled around, looking for a new topic to speak about, now that she had one of the mares who had fought so long ago standing right in front of here. “I’m surprised they took the wall down,” she said.

“It didn’t go without a fight,” Offa replied. “But after the agency from Canterlot helped us go through the forest and use every last spell they knew to make certain the place was monster-free, and the lack of monster attacks for several years following that, the wall came. The stones were used to build the plaza and a few stone houses, but we managed to keep the gates preserved at the least. The cities have all sorts of old relics that ponies there love to brag about, and we felt that at least some small part of the wall should remain.” Green eyes settled upon the statue with a hint of longing, and with a startle, Trixie realised which mare it was who had moved on in her feelings for Stonehenge. “I’ve always wondered what will last longer, the gates, or Stonehenge standing here in the plaza?”

Trixie chose not to say anything.

“But that’s just an old mare talking, one who still shows up to work every day to help pick tomatoes, wondering where life went. It used to be Stonehenge was the eldest of us. Then one day I woke up and realised I was older than he was when he was turned to stone. It may not have been the day The Wall officially disbanded, but it was the day we finally all went out separate ways,” Offa whispered that last part.

Those words struck Trixie. She had only known Iceheart and Red Wings for a short period of time, and suddenly, Trixie found she couldn’t bear to be separated from them. It would be a cruel thing for Trixie to be taken this world early, as if she was a marionette on strings, leaving her friends with a massive hole in their hearts.

“I’ve seen your ilk here, before,” Offa suddenly said. “Many a unicorn has thought she had a novel idea that might work and end the spell early. You’ve felt it, haven’t you? The magic just goes dead as soon as it touches Stonehenge.”

“It becomes inert,” Trixie offered as an alternate word.

“Yes, that’s a good word, it becomes inert, I like it,” Offa agreed. “I spent many of those dark first days trying to find something to heal Stonehenge. When we went and actually got Princess Celestia to come here, I had my hopes up, thinking the ruler of our nation, who has been around for thousands of years, could fix it. When she couldn’t, I raged for many days. I owe Anastasia more than I was ever able to pay her back during her lifetime for putting up with me during that time periods. Nowadays, we hold vigils by her and Severan’s graves, and by Stonehenge,” she said fondly.

Trixie again said nothing, even when offered the chance to speak up.

“Well, there’s no harm in trying whatever hare-brained idea you might have,” Offa continued. “I like to believe that every time someone uses magic of some sort on the statue, it dissipates away a little bit of the cockatrice magic.”

Trixie’s eyes widened at that word. Dissipate? Yes, Iceheart did say the same thing, didn’t she?

“The magical half-life of the spell is simply too long, though.” Offa sighed. “Had I been younger, I would have gone to the School for Gifted Unicorns, and tried to find a solution, even if it took me an entire lifetime. Alas, I was too old, and so I stayed home, took over the family orchard, found another stallion, and raised my own family.” She looked up at Stonehenge’s petrified form, looking at his closed eyelids. “It’s selfish of me, but I still wonder what might have been. I remember his voice, even now. It was deep, the deepest voice I’ve ever heard in a stallion, but it never scared me, he was always in good humour, even when we went hunting. It’s his eyes that I remember most, though. You would think he and Hadrian truly were brothers. It was eerie how close their eyes were, both that piercing yellow.”

Offa turned around, smiling at Trixie. “Thank you for listening to me, anyways. I’m getting older every day, and I feel the need to talk more and more about back then. The dwindling amount of time we old folks have does something strange to us. It gets more and more urgent for us to tell our stories, even if we’ve already told them many times before.”

“It was no problem at all,” Trixie said, genuinely appreciating what the other mare had told her. “I, um, I used to travel between many small villages, coming from a town like this, except it grew wheat instead of tomatoes. I put on magic shows, but I also told stories, many of them, be they fables, stories from other land, or even skits I came up with on my own. I know the value of a village wanting to have its own story to tell.”

“That’s nice,” Offa said, sounding suddenly disinterested. “Will you be in Manechester long?”

“Probably for at least a few more days,” said Trixie. “I am here with friends of mine, and it will be when we have a general consensus to move on and travel some more.”

“I see. It was nice to meet you, ah…”

“My name is Trixie Lulamoon,” Trixie supplied.

“Ah, it was nice to meet you, Miss Lulamoon. I was going to go see my grandfoals before I got distracted. I can’t leave them waiting any longer.”

With that, Offa left the square. Trixie wrinkled her nose. The elder mare had seemed pleasant for most of the conversation, before suddenly growing standoffish at the end. Trixie wondered if that had anything to do with what she had said about being a storyteller and magician.

No, that wasn’t it, she thought. It felt more like she was jealous of me for escaping the village I grew up in. It wasn’t a surprise, truly. Trixie had met more than one filly who desperately desired to get out of her backwater ponydunk town, and she knew some never would. In Offa’s case, having to daily see the petrified form of a stallion she had once loved, never changing, might have embittered her even more.

Trixie couldn’t fix that. That was out of her purview, and no amount of magic could solve it. She could try something to affect the mind, but the mere idea of trying it on somepony other than herself left Trixie’s stomach roiling in revulsion.

Instead, Trixie turned to look at Stonehenge again. She noticed new details every time she looked at the statue. For example, his eyes weren’t just close: they had been shut tight, with the skin around his muzzle slightly stretched in a frown, no doubt trying to keep his eyes protected from the cockatrice’s petrifying stare. The slightest hint of teeth could be seen in between lips. There was faint scarring on the frog of his upraised hoof, perhaps developed from fighting monsters, or maybe just an accident while working on a farm. The more Trixie looked, the more she wondered how she could ever have mistaken this for a statue.

“They’re all wrong, you know. Hadrian is wrong, Offa is wrong, yes, even Princess Celestia was wrong. You won’t have to wait another fifty years. I’ll find a way to get you out,” Trixie whispered, before finally turning around and heading back to the inn.





“Hoho, did you really have to go rescue your soldier out of a snow drift?” Hadrian asked, chortling as he slammed back a shot of whiskey.

“Yes. He was overconfident, so the others made certain the rookie did not forget it for many months after,” Iceheart said. The mischievous look on her face was so rare to her that both Trixie and Noire made note of it.

“But at least he caught the fish!” Hadrian laughed, slamming the floor hard with a hoof.

“Yes, yes he did!” Iceheart said heartily. It had been quite a long while since the last time she had been able to let loose. She had never really been a very outgoing pony to begin with, and when leading two hundred ponies in a post where very day brought the potential of death with it, Iceheart had become even more restrained. Here, several hundred kilometres away from home, with friends who were not also her subordinates, Iceheart had found the opportunity to trade war stories of a sort with another old soul.

Well, I am not really an old soul, but I think being stuck in stasis for a thousand years counts, Iceheart thought. She had held back on the alcohol, sticking to a single shot just to be polite. Hadrian, however, had downed them at a startling frequency.

“That reminds me of when Severan went fishing one day,” Hadrian recounted with fondness, stroking his beard. Cato could be heard in the background groaning, leaving Iceheart little doubt it was an embarrassing story. “I don’t really remember most of it, but he fell in the water, and when he came back up, he had speared a fish right on his horn!”

The wizened stallion laughed out loud again. Iceheart’s own chuckle was more restrained, and she decided not to encourage him anymore for the night. It was clear Hadrian was near or even past his limits. Any more, and somepony would have to drag the Earth pony home.

“Ah, I remember when Stonehenge saw it,” Hadrian suddenly continued, sobering up at the mention of his friend and brother lost to stone. “He coined a new nickname right there for Severan, ‘spearhead’. It didn’t stick, maybe because we were worried Severan might gore us one day, but we got a few good days of mileage out of it. Ah, good times, good times,” Hadrian said, relaxing against his seat.

Iceheart found herself floundering, lost in the sudden emotional whiplash in the restaurant, much like how she imagined Severan himself had once floundered in the water of the fishing pond. Iceheart decided to take the opening Hadrian had offered her, fishing for more information about Stonehenge. “What was Stonehenge really like?” She asked.

Up on the bar counter, Trixie’s ears perked up, having been engaged in small talk with Red Wings. Noire had retired to bed early that night, having been tired out from practicing Earth pony magic with Iceheart.

“Oh, him,” Hadrian sighed. “Stonehenge, he was, well, he wasn’t a saint. Time has coloured some of my memories. He could occasionally be a jerk, and he played mean-spirited pranks sometimes. But that doesn’t detract from the Stonehenge I remember. We all looked up to him as our leader. It was more than him just being the eldest of the group: he had a unique charisma and drive that lifted the rest of us up. Even after he was gone, it took a long time for the rest of us to fall apart. Then, of course, we made up again in our old age,” he added with a smirk.

“I’ll say. So this is where you were hiding out Hadrian, at the good ol’ water hole.”

Iceheart raised an eyebrow at the entrance of the two newcomers. She identified the one mare with green coat and lemon-lime mane as being Offa, having been told about her by Trixie earlier. The other pony was new to her, however. Though he was old and had a little bit of a limp, the pegasus still carried himself well. 

“I’m Antonine, and this is Offa,” the pegasus said, introducing both himself and his companion. Iceheart’s gaze lingered on him for a few seconds, before she finally clued in why he seemed so familiar. With his golden-brown coat, mane with grey and darker grey stripes, and purple eyes, he could have passed for the hero of those adventure books Iceheart had seen many ponies reading on the train, if Antonine were forty years younger and a mare.

“Hah! The old water hole was the stuff of legends, my friend,” Hadrian declared. “Calling a bar and restaurant a water hole just doesn’t seem to fit.”

“Good evening. I am Iceheart. Over at the counter are my friends Trixie and Red Wings,” Iceheart said. She didn’t think she needed to specify who was Trixie and who was Red Wings, given only one of them had wings and was red.

“Nice to meet you, Iceheart. Hadrian, why didn’t you tell me you found a Crystal pony?!” Antonine asked, grabbing the other stallion in a headlock and giving him a noogie with his free hoof.

“Ack, no touch, no touch Ant!” Hadrian squawked, pushing the golden-furred pegasus off him. “They didn’t even come in until yesterday afternoon, and it was me Cato grabbed to tell them a story, not you.”

“Honestly, I would have thought you’d have stopped roughhousing by now, but it seems colts never grow up,” Offa said, rolling her eyes. However, the smile on her lips betrayed her thoughts.

“Well, we’re here now, so maybe we can tell more stories. I’m certain my daughter will be impressed I got to meet a Crystal pony before she did. That’ll teach her to traipse across the south looking into old ruins,” Antonine gloated, sitting down

“If she ever returns, you mean,” Hadrian snarked from beside Antonine.

“Oh come now, she returns once a year,” Antonine groused. “Granted, she spends most of her time sitting in her room typing, but I can still pull her out and get her to give me the unadulterated tale. Maybe next time she’s home we can finally convince her to write about us instead!”

“Knowing our luck, we’ll be in the fiction section,” Offa said, sitting in next to Iceheart in the booth. “Cato, I’ll take an order of hay fries, and be generous with the mayonnaise!”

“Ah, yes auntie,” said Cato, scampering into the back where the kitchen was.

“Auntie?” Iceheart asked.

“Oh, I’m not his actual auntie,” Offa said. “However, we were all the best of friends back in the day, so there were many occasions where we foalsat one another’s brats, and for Cato, calling the rest of his uncles or aunts stuck.”

“It should be great-aunt, though,” Hadrian pointed out.

Offa scowled. “Now you’re just making me feel old.”

“But you are old!” Antonine said in jest.

Iceheart watched as the three bickered in good humour with one another. She couldn’t help but be envious of them. We had the looming threat of Windigos to the north and the Witch King sitting on the Crystal Throne to the south, and I was their leader. Truly, Trixie coming along was the best thing to ever happen to me.

“By the way, Hadrian, you and the lass were talking about Stonehenge right before we came in, right?” Antonine asked.

It took a few seconds, but Hadrian eventually nodded. Nopony at the table missed his eyes watering up.

“I miss Stonehenge,” said Antonine. “I still feel like it’s my fault, y’know? If I hadn’t gotten petrified and then reverted to normal after you guys killed the chicken who did it, Stonehenge might not have gotten overconfident.”

“Oh, Antonine…” Offa said, but was unable to stop Antonine from continuing to pour his feelings out.

“I know, I know, I’ve said it a hundred times, and I’ve heard it a hundred times, it’s not my fault. None of us could have known, especially not Stonehenge. But it still gets me, thinking about what it must be like from Stonehenge’s perspective. He choked the king to its death, thinking that even if he was petrified, he would be right as rain again in a few seconds. He wouldn’t have known he’d be stuck there for a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years.” Iceheart was startled to see the boisterous, lively Antonine suddenly sag in his seat, his long face setting the mood.

“You’re right, he wouldn’t have known,” said Hadrian. “None of us would have known. If he hadn’t stepped up and choked that damned chicken, I would’ve done so. Yes, it would be heartbreaking to suddenly find myself off in the distant future, all the friends I grew up with and knew all dead, but I wouldn’t have regretted it either. Anything to stop that chicken from getting into Manechester, and wiping all of us out.”

The three elders shared a sigh. Hadrian took out two more shot glasses, and shared a third each with the other two.

“To Stonehenge’s memory!” Hadrian proposed.

“To Stonehenge’s memory!” The other two concurred.

As one, they tilted their heads back, downing their drinks.

Iceheart thought it was one of the saddest things she ever saw.

“Enough.”

“Hmm? What? Oh, sure, I suppose I’ve had enough drinks tonight,” Hadrian said, turning around to face Trixie, who had just spoken.

“Not that. I mean, enough of this, this sadness,” Trixie said, pressing a hoof against her forehead, seemingly staving off a migraine. “It’s like you ponies were beat down once, and you gave up hoping long ago. Is this what I’ll be like if I fail even one more time, this time with others depending on me?”

“Hold your tongue,” Offa said sharply. “You said you travelled as a showmare when you were younger, right? Maybe you saw some sob stories that you solved, and you felt good about it. Well, it’s good of you to have helped others, but that doesn’t give you the right to judge us—”

“No!” Trixie shouted, and Cato quickly came out from the back side. Trixie hopped off her bar stool, and stood up on her hind hooves. “I won’t let myself fail tonight. I won’t lose hope, not like I did the last two times I fell down! Come, we’re going to go see Stonehenge!” With that declaration, Trixie fell back onto all fours, before leaving the restaurant. Red Wings looked baffled, jaw hanging open slightly, but the pegasus flapped his wings and was quick to fly out right after Trixie.

“What does she think she’s doing?” Antonine asked, his hooves trembling. “No, she’s just another showoff. She’ll fail like all the rest,” he said, but that didn’t stop him from jumping off his seat and heading out as well.

Offa’s eyes were wide, still stunned from Trixie cutting her off, but she moved as fast as a mare a third her age in following Antonine.

Hadrian looked at his empty shotglass. Then he looked back up at Iceheart. “Your friend has got a big heart, Miss Iceheart. You should come with to help her pick up the pieces when her heart breaks. From what Trixie said, when her heart breaks again.” Hadrian wobbled a bit as he got out, clearly still inebriated, but he made a good show of striding out with a calm posture.

Iceheart briefly thought about grabbing Noire, then decided to let the bat pony sleep. Instead, she faced Cato, who seemed to be uncertain about what to do. “You should hold the hay fries,” she advised. “You might just be seeing a new, old face in town.”

With that, Iceheart got up, leaving the restaurant. As she opened the door and took a step outside, Iceheart let the cool night air wash over her, before following the audible commotion taking place in the plaza. I hope for all of us that you can pull this off, Trixie. But after seeing what you did both for me and Red Wings, I believe you can do this.





I can’t believe I actually said that.

In truth, Trixie had been bluffing just a bit. Even as she made long strides along the short walkway connecting Tomato Cato’s restaurant to the village plaza, Trixie wasn’t one hundred percent confident she could do this. Granted, she hadn’t been sure about the last three times she had pulled off a major spell, but she was less sure about this than she had been with Red Wings or Noire. Trixie would still rate her confidence level above when she had encountered the Windigo ice, however, and that was good enough for her.

However, once the distance between her and the pedestal in the plaza centre shrank to nothing and Trixie found herself standing in front of Stonehenge, she found herself doubting.

“Bit for your thoughts?”

“I’m not certain I can do this,” Trixie admitted to Red Wings, and she suddenly wanted to go back to the pleasant, intimate one-on-one conversation she was having with him back in the bar.

Suddenly, something touched her. Trixie jerked at the contact, only to relax when she saw it was Red’s left wing, the one she had restored to him completely in form and function. She accepted the wing hug, blushing slightly as he held her close to him, enough that she could hear the thumping of his heartbeat through his chest.

“Well, I believe in you. You did restore my wing,” Red Wings said. He looked around for a few seconds, trying to find something extra to say, before adding, “And if you fall down again, then this time, I’ll be around to help you back up. You won’t have to pull yourself up like with the Ursa, or stay down for years after the Alicorn Amulet.”

A chill swept through Trixie, and she closed her eyes. It was a good chill, a warming chill. Yet she felt so weary now, so tired. How long had she been doing this, fighting the good fight, with insurmountable obstacles at every hoofstep? First an inadvertent change in her magical aura, then a star bear, then a dark magical amulet, followed by her father’s death?

No. She had friends now. They had said as much themselves. This time, if she stumbled, Trixie would get right back up.

There was an annoying buzz in her ears, of the other ponies who had come out to play. Trixie ignored them.

The living wind howled.

Trixie cast.





Through her conversations through the day, Trixie had thought she had an excellent idea on how to finally end the curse of the cockatrice that was affecting Stonehenge. However, with a little bit of thought, Trixie realised how dangerous the potential option was.

It was foal’s play to think of grounding out the petrification magic, except it came with at least two ways Trixie thought it could backfire. The first thing she could do was to somehow nudge time itself, making the world ‘think’ that enough time had passed for Stonehenge to finally be free from his stone imprisonment. However, Trixie was unable to fully hold the metaphysical idea in her head to do so. It hurt her to try contemplating and understanding it. Additionally, even if she succeeded, Trixie had to get the timing of how much time needed to pass down pat. It would not do good if she overshot, freeing Stonehenge, but in the process aging him another hundred years in a split-second and leaving him four hooves deep in the grave. If she erred really badly, she might age the entire world.

The other possibility would be to ‘speed up’ the right at which the earth underneath Stonehenge’s three hooves could absorb, dissipate and ground the cockatrice magic. However, that was not without potentially fatal consequences, either. Much like the issue of the precise right amount of time, Trixie risked turning the area into a localised magical black hole that would suck in any magic it could get. Trixie had heard of what Tirek had done: a magical black hole might be able to grow in area so long as it consumed more magic, eventually sucking up all the magic in Equestria, it could not be reasoned with, and nothing could destroy it and force it to give back all the magic it had taken.

So that option was out. Even if Trixie had seen the faintest hope going down that road, she suspected whatever entity had pressed her to come to Manechester wanted her to grow her powers, not to merely find a novel solution that involved little flexing of Trixie’s illusions.

Nay, she would have to confront magic itself. This was going to be phenomenally more difficult than before. Then, Trixie had used magic to alter something on a physical level. Now, she had to use magic to fight magic itself.

She mentally snarled at that. She bet that if that perfect princess who was the Princess of Magic itself were here, she would have figured something out in an instant. Well, Trixie wasn’t her, and she wasn’t Princess Celesta either. But Trixie was Trixie, and she didn’t want to be the Trixie that had finally met her match. She wanted to be the Trixie that had taken on magic and won.

Hadn’t her father’s motto once been ‘Who dares, wins’, the same mentality that had lead him to meet her mother, ultimately resulting in Trixie’s own birth? She would be ashamed not to emulate her father, here and now.

For once, her experience with the Alicorn Amulet was going to help her. Trixie wished to forget the whole incident entirely: more than to just put it behind her, but to vaporise her memories altogether. Every day, when she woke up and took a shower, there was always that last niggling bit of grease on her soul Trixie couldn’t quite reach. Now, however, she was going to put those memories to good use. During her time with the Amulet, Trixie had felt detached from her body, her magical power so great that it felt like her mortal form was merely a shell, a vessel for a great power.

Trixie channeled that feeling, faded as it was from several years of time, and focused. Magic was a wonderful tool, yet an irrational one, interacting with the real world at not quite a right angle. Studies had been made, and yet new magic was still being made to this day. Trixie brushed aside the knowledge of a mare who had made her kingdom in the study of friendship. Trixie had her own friends now, and with them she had the will she needed.

There was to be no tricking the world into ending Stonehenge’s sentence through a clever alternative. Though the mental concept to hold was much more complicated and prone to failure, Trixie knew she would have to straight-up trick both the world, and magic itself, into believing that Stonehenge’s time as a statue was up.

Trixie pushed, and magic pushed back.


Trixie pushed harder, and magic lost.

The living wind subsided.





Trixie was certain she hadn’t fainted, and wondered if she was getting stronger. After all, this had been more arduous than the time with Red Wings, and yet she had merely gone into a fugue state this time. She was rapidly climbing out of it, not satisfied to sit in a hole and wait for somepony to pull her out.

“It...it can’t be,” she heard somepony speaking.

Then she heard another voice. Offa hadn’t been wrong. It really was the deepest voice she had ever heard in a stallion.

“Severan, is it dead?” The stallion asked.

“My Celestia,” Antonine whispered.

“I heard you, Anton. Did I kill it?” The stallion grew impatient when no answer came, and he growled, “Speak, Anton! Don’t tell me being petrified gave you a knock to the head too!”

Trixie managed to open her eyes.

It didn’t take her long to realise that, outside of his eye colour, nobody had ever actually mentioned Stonehenge’s colours. The moonlight didn’t dim his slate-grey coat one bit, almost precisely matching Noire’s colouring when she was New Moon. Where Stonehenge and Hadrian might have been brothers for having the same yellow eye colour, so Stonehenge and Antonine could have been brothers for having the same mane colour, with strands of alternating grey. The pony formerly lost to time still hadn’t opened his eyes, but Trixie imagined he had struck an imposing figure when he was younger. He really was larger than even Princess Celestia.

“Anton, I swear on our ancestor’s names, if that cockatrice didn’t paralyse me, I’d be choking you right now. I can’t see yet, so tell me: Is it dead or not?”

“It’s dead, Stonehenge,” Anton said quietly. “There’s something else you should know, too.” Trixie had to admire the pegasus. Even in what seemed to be an impossible situation, he still managed to recover in about a minute.

“What? Did one of them get away? I thought you said we got all the rest of them!”

“We did, Stonehenge, we did. It’s just, that cockatrice was a lot stronger than the other ones. When I was petrified, I changed back to normal within seconds. For you, it was far longer.”

Trixie felt the world suddenly swoon under her hooves. Oh no, she thought. Her eyelids protested being open one second longer, and she fought to stay awake and hear what was happening.

“Ha! So what, was I out for a whole day?” Stonehenge asked. Trixie tried frowning at the cockiness she could hear in his voice, but she was just so tired…

“No, Stonehenge. It was longer than that.”

“What then, a week?...A month? Did I miss the harvest? Please tell me it was that?” Now the uncertainty and nervousness was audible, odd in such a deep, booming voice. “A year?”

It ended up being Offa who broke the news. “Fifty years, Stonehenge. It’s been fifty years.”

Trixie swore she heard an anguished cry, but she wasn’t able to hear any more of it, as she finally flopped over.





There was a mirror right beside her. She thought there was something off about it, but couldn’t quite pinpoint what. It was a little fancier than the ones her family had owned, with a circular frame taller than most ponies with gold embossing of intricate patterns, but it was still a mirror nonetheless. She could see bits and pieces of her reflection from the side of her eyes, but wanted to see all of it.

With a few quick steps, she had walked in front of the mirror, and looked herself over. Violet eyes peered back at her, curious at her appearance. Her blue coat practically shined with luster today, and her mane shone in the light coming from somewhere, never quite able to fit in the spectrum between moonlight white and pale silver. She curled her lips up, and was delighted at how pretty her smile was. It was this look that had driven Einkorn mad in the past.

How odd. There was something hanging around her neck. She didn’t remember putting it on. There was a shiny red gem set in a triangular arrangement, with a unicorn head coming out of the top of the gem and, oddly, two red wings to the side. Red wings? Why did that sound so familiar.

She shook her head. Looking down at her own self, she reached her hoof up to look at the real necklace, and—

A sudden movement caught her attention, and she jerked her eyes back up to the mirror. Her reflection was suddenly smirking at her, red eyes gleaming with malice, and suddenly—

“Hello, Trixie!”





Trixie felt like she was falling, only to impact a bed. She took in a deep breath, her automatic breathing response having a misfire as her body went from sleeping to awake. Trixie brought a hoof up to her forehead, wiping a thin trail of sweat off. Hypnic jerks were never a pleasant way to wake up. This time, however, she thought it was a good thing. She had been having some sort of nightmare, though she couldn't remember much but for a brief glimpse of red.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Noire said from beside her, sitting in a chair, reading a Daring Do book.

“How long was I out for?” Trixie asked. She tried lifting her head up. It was a futile act, and she dropped her head back down.

“Only a couple of hours. We were worried that maybe you finally pushed yourself too far with this one, but it seems that’s not the case.”

Trixie yawned. “Oh, I guess that means Iceheart or Red woke you up.”

Noire shrugged. “Me and the rest of the town. I think you were probably the only pony who hasn’t been up for the last few hours. You caused quite a stir.”

The unicorn blinked, before bits and pieces of what she had done before earlier falling unconscious returned to her. “I did it, didn’t I?” Trixie whispered.

“You did,” Noire confirmed. “I saw Stonehenge earlier, when Red came to grab me and Cato to come out to the plaza.”

“What was he like?”

“I can’t really say. He was still stunned. Finding out you’ve been a statue for fifty years will do that to a pony. Of course, it seems he was bit by the cockatrice before he was petrified, and he was still barely able to move, aside from talking. They took him to the clinic. Dragged him, more like it.”

Trixie let out a weak laugh at that. “He is enormous, isn’t he?”

Noire nodded. “They weren’t kidding when they said he was huge, bigger than even Princess Celestia. There have been a couple of Earth ponies like that in the Royal Guard from time to time, but it always feels intimidating to meet a stallion like that, even if he’s on the ground and unable to move most of his body.”

Trixie closed her eyes. “What did Hadrian, Offa, and Antonine have to say?”

“Oh, those three.” Trixie couldn’t see Noire’s face, having closed her eyes, but she could imagine the bat pony frowning anyways. “Well, that was the first time I met Offa and Antonine, so I can’t really say what they’re normally like, but I don’t think Offa is normally a babbling mess.”

Trixie groaned. “I just realised I screwed up. I shouldn’t have done that in front of a crowd. Every time before, I only did it in front of one pony who wasn’t already aware of what I could do.”

Noire clicked her teeth. “Well, you can thank Iceheart and Red Wings for being on the ball enough to damage control. Red had Cato help him bring you back here when Red came to wake me up as well, and he told Cato all that happened was you had developed a spell that neutralised the cockatrice magic. He and Iceheart managed to keep that story straight, and him and Iceheart are still at the clinic, minimising your role in the story. As far as I know, the intend for only Cato and those three old ponies to know you were the one who de-petrified Stonehenge.”

“That’s good,” Trixie said, rolling over in her bed to face Noire. Opening her eyes, she said, “So, what? Do we go visit Stonehenge right now?”

“No, we don’t,” Red Wings said as he strode into the room, Iceheart right behind him. “The bite of an average cockatrice is supposed to knock out an average pony, so you would think the bite of a king cockatrice would knock anypony out, no matter if they’re as large and physically fit as Stonehenge is.”

“The nurse believes the poison may have lost its potency over the years,” Iceheart added.

Red snorted, showing what he thought of that theory. “Regardless, he was still awake when he left, though he seemed to still be a wreck. Maybe it’s cruel of me to to say it, but it may actually be a good thing he was left paralysed for however long. At least there was a little bit of lead-in to breaking the news to him, instead of him just instantly seeing his three friends, only much older than before, and a few other strange ponies, at a different time of day, during a different time of year, in a different location than where he took his last stand at.”

“Yes. It may be cruel to say, but it is also true,” said Iceheart. “I have seen many a pony under my command panic at small things. I cannot imagine how he would have thrashed about if he were still possessed of full control over his body, being a danger to himself and others. At least he will have time to understand the situation. Offa, Antonine, and Hadrian are maintaining a vigil around his bed. When we left, they were telling him many of the things that had happened over the years.”

“Oh, good. At least I didn’t screw that up,” Trixie said, sighing. She adjusted her position on the bed so she could see all three of the other ponies.

Red Wings frowned. “What do you mean, ‘screw that up’?”

“Oh, Trixie just thinks she ruined everything because she did her little magic show in front of three other ponies tonight. You know, beating herself up as usual, just like she was doing yesterday,” Noire said, making sure to lay it on thick.

The red-furred pegasus shook his head. “Trixie, I won’t lie, it’s been a hectic few hours, so maybe I sound a little annoyed. Trust me, I’m not. I can’t claim to even fathom what your magic is capable of, but so far, all you’ve done with it is good. You’ve heard Hadrian, Offa and Antonine talk. There was a hole in their hearts that’s been there for fifty years. No matter what they did, they couldn’t fill it, and then you came in and filled it in for them. Hadrian looked like he was in pain, having to tell Stonehenge about the two other ponies in The Wall having passed on, but except for then, I could tell he was overjoyed to have somepony back he thought he’d never see again.”

“Like a cliched ‘back from the dead’ story, except for real this time,” Noire said.

Iceheart cocked her head, seeing the book in Noire’s hooves. “Where did you find that book, anyways? It appears to be a popular series.”

“Oh, this? It was here in the room, I guess Cato leaves travellers some reading material—no, we’re getting off-track here. Ignoring Trix’s guilt-trip, what now?”

“Pardon?” Iceheart asked.

“She means, what do we do next?” Trixie asked, sidling up her back onto the pillow to lift her head up a little higher. “It’s sudden, I know, but Stonehenge has now been healed. Do we just leave town and finally head west to Colt Springs?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Red Wings. “There’s still the matter of whatever was able to induce in us the feeling that we had to go north from Dodge Junction back then, instead of west.” He frowned. “Besides, I would have thought you would want closure first.”

“What do you mean?”

“He means that every time before you’ve done something big with your illusion spells, you’ve always informed the pony you’ve helped out about it before, and given them time to get used to the idea,” said Noire. “That, and spent a significant amount of time with us afterwards, getting to see how our lives changed. It’s different, this time, since Stonehenge was a statue. Sure, you saw him for however long before you fainted, but do you really want to pack up and leave town before really even talking to him?”

Trixie frowned. “When you put it that way…”

“If you’re feeling better in the morning, you can go visit then,” said Red Wings. “I don’t think those four will be getting any sleep tonight. I felt rude interrupting their reunion just answering some of their questions. I don’t really want to go see them until they’ve had their time together alone.”

Trixie chuckled at that. “Yes, and give me some time to feel like getting out of bed, too.”

“Very well. If that is settled, Red and I shall be retiring for the night as well,” said Iceheart. As she turned to leave, the Crystal pony added, “Oh, and Trixie? Please, really do stop feeling guilty. You did a great thing tonight. Ponies may have had wounds scabbed over by time freshly opened, but this time they will heal properly.”

It took Trixie several seconds to understand the metaphor, but when she did, she felt warm. “Thanks, Iceheart.” She gave the former commander of the North a nod of gratitude

Iceheart nodded back, before finally leaving the room. Red Wings followed, closing the door behind him.

Noire got up, and put her book away on the desk nearby. “Goodnight, Trixie,” Noire said as she extinguished the lights.

“Goodnight, Noire,” Trixie responded, trying to find the perfect position to fall asleep in.

However, sleep wouldn’t come to Trixie so easily. “Hey, Trixie,” said Noire from the other bed. “Do you remember when we were fillies and sleeping in the same room like this, when mother and father would turn off all the nights? We’d talk to one another, feeling naughty because we were cheating the reason behind the lights-out time, until we fell asleep?”

Trixie shifted uneasily. Nostalgia flooded her, of a time when she was just a filly going to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. It was a simpler time, when Trixie was able to run around Canterlot gaily on her days off with Noire, when both her parents and Noire’s own father were still alive. Now, she couldn’t imagine even sleeping in that same bed, Canterlot having all been barred off from her on the chance somepony there recognised Bellatrix Midsummer, and thought her magical aura seemed off. 

But Trixie did remember those many nights she and New Moon had spent talking, before New Moon had become a guard, and the guard then became Noire. “Yeah, I do remember. What did you want to talk about?”

“Hmmm…” Noire trailed off, before she said, “What did you think of the train ride when we were coming south from the Crystal Empire? The Smoky Mountains looked gorgeous.”

So it’s going to be that kind of chit-chat? Well, that’s alright for me. I’m not really up for heavy talk. Trixie was glad Noire had made that decision. Trixie really didn’t want to think about more difficult things, like what to do now that Stonehenge was free.

The two fillyhood friends made small talk, and in no time Trixie suddenly drifted off to sleep. Her dreamless sleep was much more pleasant this time.





It took some effort getting out of bed that morning, but Trixie was able to manage. After a quick breakfast, deflecting Cato’s questions as she was eating, Iceheart took Trixie over to Manechester’s clinic. As the two walked through town, Trixie could sense there was a distinct buzz in Manechester this morning: it seemed news had spread fast, and just about everypony already knew the prodigal son had returned home.

However, just as they made it into the clinic, they were stopped in their tracks.

“I had never thought to have hope of seeing Stonehenge again in my lifetime, of hearing his voice, of anything but for passing his statue day after day, and eventually having my rest held in front of him,” said Offa. The green unicorn mare sounded so tired. For once, Trixie truly realised Offa was old, a pony whose best years had been long ago. “Last night was the first time in a decade I stayed up all night, not since the birth of my last grandfilly.”

“Offa, I—”

“No, it’s alright,” Offa said, interrupting Trixie. Trixie could see the elder pony’s eyes were bloodshot, and the fur of her cheeks had visible tear streaks. “I had fooled myself into thinking that it was a good thing that we would never see Stonehenge again. We would never have to break the news to him that he had lost out on so much time, especially when Anastasia, then Severan had passed. I was a coward to think that.”

There were more than a few ponies in the clinic lobby, some who it seemed had been waiting for a glimpse of Stonehenge whenever he left his room. They were all now listening to the thoughts of an old mare. “We talked for so many hours. It was when I realised all the little things he had missed out on, the birth of his many honorary nieces and nephews, marriages, deaths, that I finally knew I was wrong. If Stonehenge had finally been freed as the Princess predicted, in fifty more years or even longer, there wouldn’t have been a single pony he once knew left. We’ve been slowly leaving mementos and diaries for him, but trinkets can’t make up for the real pony.”

Both Trixie and Iceheart let the mare ramble, sensing Offa needed to get this out.

“The sad thing is, I can tell Stonehenge can’t remain in Manechester. Or won’t, rather. This may be his home, but we’ve all grown up even as he was turned to stone. I could already see him hurting, just as we too are hurting. Stonehenge was born a free soul, and if we try to keep him here, we’ll all suffer for it. He might stay a week, a month, even a year, catching up and attempting to re-connect with us. Eventually, he’ll leave to get away from all the pain.”

Offa let out a sniff, then looked back up. “However, now that it’s been done, I would never choose the alternative. I’m glad I got to see Stonehenge again before I died. Go on, Trixie and Iceheart, you can head in and meet him. Hadrian and Antonine won’t stop you either.”

Trixie looked at Offa. The mare tasted of an intense blend of melancholy, happiness and love. Trixie briefly let it wash over her. This is what I set out to do, after all. I gave Offa a chance to have a last glimpse at her former love. Maybe I’ve re-opened fresh wounds, but now they can fully and properly heal.

Trixie gave a wordless nod, before turning around to head deeper into the clinic, Iceheart following behind her.





“—and then Severan said, that’s no pink party pony, that’s a platypus!”

Trixie wrinkled her nose, hoof just shy of opening the door leading into Stonehenge’s room. The pony who had been a statue just the night before seemed to have recovered, given his deep, booming laugh at Hadrian’s tale. However, she could tell that inside laid a mix of emotions that could potentially turn toxic: sadness, anger, regret, joy and hope all swirling around, more turbulent than a tornado. Never before had Trixie’s changeling heritage seemed such a double-edged sword.

She gathered her strength about her, however, and pushed the door open.

“And then, and then—oh, hello Miss Trixie, Miss Iceheart,” said Hadrian, noticing the two mares coming in. “Well, no more stallion-only jokes for us, it was nice while it lasted.”

For the second time in as many minutes, Trixie wrinkled her nose, this time as a result of Hadrian’s last comment.

“It is good to see you again, Hadrian,” Iceheart greeted back. “Would I be correct in assuming you all have been up all night?”

“Yes, you would be correct,” said Antonine. “I think Offa already checked out, but knowing her, she probably found someplace in the clinic to catch a wink before coming back.”

“She did. She was sleeping in the lobby, though we briefly chatted when we came in,” said Iceheart.

Trixie looked over to the bed. Two beds, rather: Stonehenge was so big that somepony had had to jivvy two beds together so Stonehenge could fit on it. The large slate-furred stallion looked to be in good spirits, with a smile on his muzzle. His eyes were still shut tight, but most of the paralysis appeared to have worn off, given he was freely moving his limbs.

In all, he looked good for a stallion who hadn’t had a crumb of good, a sip of water, a shower or a sleep in fifty years.

“Good morning to all of you,” Trixie said in a pleasant tone, trying to nudge the emotional mix in the room. “It is nice to meet you as well, Stonehenge.”

“You must be Trixie, then,” Stonehenge said, turning his head to face the direction of the voice. “I already heard Iceheart a few times last night, and that wasn’t her voice. Tell me Hadrian, Antonine, what does she look like?”

Antonine frowned. “Aren’t you able to open your eyes by now?”

“Please, just tell me.”

“Very well,” Antonine said, sighing, looking over to Trixie. He clicked his tongue for a few seconds, then said, “She is a unicorn of average height. She has a blue coat, somewhere between the colour of the sky and the cornflowers that used to grow by our home. Her mane is a very light blue, and her Cutie Mark is a wand crossed over a crescent moon. Oh, shoot. We haven’t even told you about Nightmare Moon yet.”

“Nightmare Moon, Schnightmare Schmoon. Hey, when did we get a clinic anyways?”

“After the fight with the cockatrices, Manechester practically exploded in population,” said Hadrian from the other side of Stonehenge. “Ponies started building homes outside the wall, and we expanded our fields. The town tripled in size over twenty-five years, and the clinic was built about, oh, thirty-five years ago?”

“Hah, at least there’ll be more free mares available,” Stonehenge said, then his lips curled down. “So, Offa got married?”

“Yes. Widowed three years ago, four foals, nine grandfoals.” Everypony in the room knew Antonine was being bland and sterile on purpose.

Stonehenge sighed. “I really have missed out, haven’t I?”

“You were originally supposed to be petrified for at least a hundred years,” Hadrian said. “That damned chicken got the best of us in the end.” Hadrian looked up at the ceiling, a lost look on his face. It didn’t last, however, as he tilted his head back down and said, “I am curious though, Miss Trixie: how did you do it?”

Trixie fidgeted at being put under the spotlight suddenly, but she had had a few hours to come up with a cover story. “I am on the higher end of unicorns for magical power. I may not be as powerful as Princess Celestia is, but it has been fifty years. Enough of the cockatrice’s magic has faded away that it seems it was possible that I could dispel the petrification on my own, though of course I was magically exhausted after.”

Antonine and Hadrian both frowned, and Trixie bit her tongue to her any outward facial expression that might betray her story.

“She’s not telling the truth, or at least, not the whole truth,” Stonehenge pronounced from his bed. “Give her some slack though, guys. Whether she was using just raw magic or some special spell or even a magical artifact from one of your daughter’s adventures that she’s not telling us about, Trixie did save me.”

“They’re not adventures, they’re stories, you can’t go around telling ponies otherwise,” Antonine reprimanded Stonehenge. “But yes, I suppose you’re right. Miss Trixie, I apologise. If you don’t want to tell us, then we won’t prod. Now, what can we do for you today?”

“I came to see and talk to Stonehenge,” Trixie said.

“Ah, yes, that would explain it. Well, d’uh,” Hadrian said, smacking himself with his hoof.

“It is good to meet you too, Miss Trixie. I owe you greatly for freeing me,” said Stonehenge. His voice was always disconcerting with how deep it was. Red Wings’ voice had been on the deeper side, with a little bit of a scratchy quality, but it didn’t even begin to compare to Stonehenge. “I have a question for you, though. Are you single?” He asked. The stallion attempted to waggle his eyebrows, but it came out odd with his eyes still shut tight.

“Stonehenge,” Antonine warned.

“Can’t even let me have some fun, can you?” Stonehenge groused. “But in all honesty, I really am thankful, Miss Trixie. I can’t say I have a bunch of earthly riches to give you. Even as I captained The Wall, I was still a simple farmer, and I don’t even know if I own any land still.”

“It passed over to me, actually, after your parents died,” said Hadrian. “They had no other foals, and I was your closest relation as your cousin. My will was written for my own descendents to continue farming your plot, but that it would be turned over to you when you returned. Ah, I guess that I’ll have to rewrite it. Another thing to do now.”

“Oof.” Stonehenge looked like he had been sucker-punched. “Don’t tell me how ma and pa died. I’d like to imagine they were able to move on, knowing that I wasn’t dead, just petrified, and they died in one another’s arms after several more years of happy marriage.”

Trixie ground her teeth together. Stonehenge was coping, but she knew sooner or later the dam would burst. All Trixie could do was to attempt to spring a hole in that dam, so when the inevitable occurred, there would be less pent-up emotion to flood the stallion with. She wasn’t as good with words as she hoped, even after making inspiring speeches in the past, so Trixie decided to approach the problem of helping Stonehenge let his emotions loose from a different angle. “Stonehenge, why are your eyes shut? You don’t seem to be paralysed anymore.”

The emotions in the room, then in a flux, suddenly stilled. “You know, that’s a good question,” Antonine said, looking over at Stonehenge. “You haven’t opened your eyes once, but you’ve had them squeezed shut the whole time. Did the poison do something to your eyes?”

“...no,” Stonehenge said. He was quiet for the first time Trixie had heard him. A stallion with such a deep voice whispering didn’t sound right.

“Then what?” Antonine asked.

“I’m afraid,” Stonehenge admitted. “Afraid that when I open my eyes, I’ll see you two, except you’ll be so much older than I remember. Even your voices sound off now. I want to hang onto my memories of how you guys looked as long as I can.”

Antonine and Hadrian traded glances. Then Hadrian spoke. “Stonehenge. We appreciate the sentiment, and we don’t want to push you. To be honest, we don’t understand what you’re going through, at all, but we are on the other side of this situation. I don’t want to force you to open your eyes. All I can ask you is to try to accept that everything is what it is, even if it’s more painful than anything else you’ve done. We can’t go back in time to that day fifty years ago.”

Trixie backed away. She shuddered as she felt Stonehenge’s emotions cycling several times a second. It was worse than any time she had ever been to a funeral. Trixie had tried to help the three stallions heal, but she had set off a confluence of feelings she didn’t want to be in the middle of.

Stonehenge opened his eyes.

Trixie recoiled. Offa had been right: he and Hadrian really did have the same yellow eyes.

The yellow-eyed stallion looked around, like a foal seeing something new for the first time, before his eyes locked on Hadrian. Stonehenge sat as still as the statue he had been, taking in the sight of a cousin who had grown fifty years in a day. Finally, he spoke. “Brother, is that you? You have grown so...since the last time I left town, intending to return home that same day.”

Then he broke down, sobbing. Hadrian and Antonine moved in quickly, wrapping their limbs around him in a hug of brotherly love. After fifty years, the three brothers had reunited.

Trixie trembled from the side. She needed to leave, now.

She felt Iceheart lead her out of the room. “Do not worry, I will handle this,” said Iceheart, moving her away from the source of the overwhelming emotions. “Head back to the inn. I’m not affected on a magical level like I suspect you are being right now.” Within moments, Trixie was in the lobby again. Offa rose up to speak to her, only to be silenced by Iceheart waving a hoof. “Go see them, Offa,” said Iceheart. “They are having an emotional moment, and I suspect Stonehenge would do well to have you there as well.”

Offa nodded, before leaving to see Stonehenge. Finally, Iceheart managed to get Trixie out of the clinic.

“Th—thanks, Iceheart,” Trixie said. “I—I needed that.”

“You can tell better than I can. Do you think they will be alright?” Iceheart asked.

Trixie stood outdoors for a few minutes, taking in a breath of the crisp morning air. The living wind that swept through Manechester helped to lift her spirits, but it wasn’t enough. Then she thought over Iceheart’s questions.

“It’ll be OK,” Trixie pronounced. “They’ve been thrust into something they never expected to happen. It’ll take time for them to work through everything, but they’ll heal, every one of them. What Hadrian told us two nights ago, about The Wall, wasn’t just a story. It was strength of will and heart that formed The Wall, and it’ll be that same will and heart that see the four of them through this.”

Iceheart bowed her head in acknowledgement of Trixie’s words. “I see. I am glad, then. I know what it is like to be displaced from time, except nearly all the ponies I knew were in stasis with me. I cannot imagine what Stonehenge must be feeling like, to be the single odd pony out.” Iceheart raised her head back up. “I will convey your words to them, as well as my own. Take care, Trixie.”

With that, Iceheart returned into the clinic. Trixie watched the purple form of the Crystal pony disappear through the door, before turning around to walk back to the restaurant and inn.

What she didn’t tell Iceheart was that the scene in the clinic room was one of the saddest, yet happiest things Trixie had ever seen.





A week passed like the blink of an eye. Trixie found herself suddenly famous in town: despite her and her friends’ attempts to keep it on a down-low, word had spread quickly about precisely which pony had healed Stonehenge. Once, Trixie would have reveled in the praise she received from others. After the incident with the Ursa Minor and then the nightmare with the Amulet, however, she was more skittish, and had retreated to Tomato Cato’s restaurant and inn.

During breakfast one morning, Trixie’s hermitage came to an end. It started with the door being opened.

Stonehenge strode in, his height and grey colouring unmistakable. He looked around for a few seconds, then spotted Trixie, chatting with her three friends over toast and coffee. As Stonehenge moved towards them, making the floor rumble with every hoofstep, Offa, Antonine, and Hadrian all followed in behind him.

The four Manechesterites settled down in chairs of their own, facing the four travellers. Trixie decided to break the ice. “Good morning, everypony. What brings you here today?”

“We have been talking with Stonehenge over the last week,” said Antonine. “Much as we would love for Stonehenge to stay in Manechester, he can’t. He simply can’t. Time is a terrible thing, and it has separated us. It would hurt if we saw Stonehenge every day, and Stonehenge saw us every day.”

“At least your daughter doesn’t write that kind of philosophical crap into her books,” Hadrian teased.

“Shut up, Hadrian.”

“If those colts would stop being colts for five seconds,” Offa threatened, instantly shutting Hadrian and Antonine up. Satisfied, she turned back to face Trixie’s group. “We’ve talked, and come to an agreement with Stonehenge. There’s simply no way we can be as close as we were when we were The Wall. We had a lot of frank and heartfelt discussion about this, and we came up with an idea.”

“You four are travellers, adventurers of a sort, right?” Stonehenge asked, taking over from Offa. “Wherever you go after this, I would like to go with you.”

So that’s what this is about, Trixie thought. I’m not really surprised, though. Every time I fix somepony’s problem, she or he has always tagged along with me. This is just a running trend, really. “OK,” Trixie said. Then, realising she sounded too blase, she added, “We’re not fussed to have you along, Stonehenge, really. It was just me and Noire to start, then we sort of spontaneously added Iceheart and Red Wings during our journey.”

“Excellent. I would love to travel with you,” said Stonehenge. “If you do anything more like what you did here in Manechester, it should be a fun journey, too.”

“Excuse me,” Noire spoke up. “Not to sound callous or anything, but are you really fine with just packing up and leaving?”

Stonehenge shrugged, taking a look to his left and right at his three friends. “It’s not like I’ll stay away forever or anything. I’ll come back to Manechester every so often to catch up with them. I just happen to agree with them, though: if I stayed here, I think we would eventually come to blows. Time apart between reunions seems the best option.”

“Hopefully you come back more often than my daughter,” Antonine grumbled.

“Well,” Noire said, “What if one of you die before Stonehenge returns?”

Stonehenge frowned, and he said, “OK, now that was callous.” Noire winced as she realised how unsensitive her remark was. “But it’s a fair question. It’s, well, it’s a work in progress for me. Anton, Hadrian and Offa are the same ponies I knew, and yet they aren’t. The connection is there, but we all feel detached. It’s like I’m visiting my grandparents, even though I remember them being the same age as I was. We simply don’t share the same life experiences anymore. I can’t connect with ponies in this town my own age, either, because they know who I am, and what I was.”

“That sounds reasonable. You need a clean break, in other words,” Red Wings summarised. “I had a similar situation as yours: not the same, of course, but similar. Well, in all honesty, we weren’t intending to stay more than a few days,” the pegasus stated. It wasn’t the entire truth, but it was a partial one. The four were going to stick around until they could find the problem in Manechester that the unknown premonition had pushed them to, then leave. Upon resolving Stonehenge’s petrification, however, they had decided to stay and see how things play out. “Unless you have some other pressing issue, we’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

“That works for me,” Stonehenge said.

“Stonehenge, one last thing,” Hadrian suddenly said from next to him.

“What is it?”

“Offa, Antonine and me were talking the other day. We can’t really come along with you, nor would we want to, but we hoped to at least give you something to remember us by. Offa, please?”

“Yes,” Offa said, before suddenly taking something out of the saddlebag she had brought with her. Using her levitation magic, she dropped that something on the table for all to see.

Trixie eyed it. It was a silver necklace, large enough to fit around Stonehenge’s neck. There was a small locket attached to the necklace, with six symbols engraved into the clasp: two hooves, two horns, and two wings.

“This is—” Stonehenge stopped, as he opened the locket.

“Yes, the symbol of The Wall, and a picture of all six of us, shortly before we fell apart,” Hadrian said. “You don’t have to take it with you, if you don’t wish to.”

“No, I’ll take it with me,” Stonehenge said, putting the necklace around his neck. Trixie could see tears coming out of his eyes. “It sounds mean of me to say, but I’ll always remember and treasure what we were.”

“No offense taken,” said Antonine. “One last thing…”

“What is it?” Stonehenge asked gruffly.

“It’s just something Offa and I remembered last night,” said the golden-furred pegasus. “After we defeated the cockatrices and the Princess came to Manechester, she knighted each of us for our service and gave us titles. They weren’t really worth much,” Antonine shrugged. “I mean, being ‘Antonine Braveheart, Duke of Manechester’ doesn’t exactly get me much anywhere. They were more ceremonial than anything. But the Princess also gave you a title.”

Stonehenge furled his eyebrows. “What was it?”

“Elderwall,” Hadrian pronounced. “You were the eldest of all of us when you fought the king cockatrice, and leader of The Wall. We thus combined the two for your title, Stonehenge Elderwall, Duke of Manechester.”

“Stonehenge Elderwall,” Stonehenge said, rolling the words on his tongue, ignoring the noble part of his title. “Not bad. I like it.”

“If that’s settled, you’ll want to go home and pack. Well, er, sorry, I don’t even know if you have a home, aaaaaaand I’m just digging myself a deeper hole here,” said Noire. The bat pony had started talking at a normal volume, only to slowly get quieter as she continued, eventually capping in a whisper as she felt embarrassed.

“What Noire means is to pack some supplies. If you do not have any, then Offa, Antonine, Hadrian, please help Stonehenge. Otherwise, we can simply pick some up in Fillydelphia,” Iceheart said, smoothly moving in to spare Noire any more embarrassment. “It is our intent to take the train from Fillydelphia west to Vanhoover, then travel south to one of the coastal towns.”

The three elders traded glances.

“Actually, you may want to hold off on doing that,” said Offa.

“What do you mean?” Red Wings asked.

“Well, it’s not something you have to do,” said Antonine. “It’s just that when Princess Celestia came here fifty years ago, she expressed a good deal of interest in Stonehenge, impressed by his bravery and strength.”

“Aw, shucks, she shouldn’t have,” said Stonehenge. He made an attempt at humility, but it was obvious to all the stallion was glowing upon hearing he had left such a positive impression on the Princess.

“Yes Stonehenge, you did,” Antonine said, a little testy at being interrupted. “Before you go to Vanhoover, however, perhaps you should stop off in Canterlot and visit Princess Celestia at her court. I’m sure she would be glad to know Stonehenge has been released more than fifty years ahead of what the Princess estimated was possible.”

“Canterlot?!” Two voices rang out at the same time.

Trixie sank in her seat, as she was sure Noire was doing beside her. Canterlot, the centre of Equestria, home to the Royal Sisters. Canterlot, the city that had once been her home for a year when she was younger. Canterlot, the city where the changeling invasion occurred, leading to a series of circumstances that had eventually resulted in her father’s death. Canterlot, where there might be a pony who recognised that unicorn mare as Bellatrix Midsummer, a filly she had attended school with before she dropped out, and oh, wasn’t her magic green? Canterlot, home to the Royal Guard, who had little love lost for bat pony soldiers who had gone AWOL. That Canterlot.

There wasn’t any question of dodging out on it, either. Trixie had known she would eventually have to return to the city where the long chain of heartbreaks that she experienced in her life had first started, if only to have some sort of healing process. It looked like Trixie would be returning to Canterlot, the city where her education in magic had all began, sooner than she had expected.

The living wind howled.