Marble Magic

by TheCrimsonDM

Chapter Thirteen: Falling Rain

The sun wasn’t shining today, and Trixie hated it. After losing Marble the night before the least the universe could have granted her was a sunny day. Still she found a new friend, and better yet, one who was offering the impossible on a silver plate for her.

Rarity sat at the table, the plate of steamed vegetables sitting in front of her had hardly been touched. “So I heard from Rainbow Dash that this storm is originating from the Everfree Forest, and if maps are to be believed at all, it’s centered over the old castle.”

Lyra took a sip of her milkshake. “You sure? I’ve only heard of storms coming out of the Everfree once or twice. Usually when something really bad is going on.”

Bonbon ignored her sandwich completely and grabbed Lyra’s hoof in her own. “It’s fine, I used to be a monster hunter remember? Before the uh… you know.”

“You know when you’re identity was revealed to the town I was really impressed,” Rarity said.

“Monster Hunter Celestials,” Trixie said. “My mom helped found the group after she killed the ursa major of Hoofington.”

“Didn’t you used to claim that?” Rarity said.

Trixie stared down at her piece of chocolate cake. “Yeah, I was stupid and foalish.”

Rarity frowned. “We are going to get you and Marble back together, I promise.”

“Why bother? I’m the villain of the story after all,” Trixie said.

“No you are not. You are a victim of Pinkie’s… bigotry. I saw the way Marble was touching you, she doesn’t touch anypony and for good reason. If she was willing to go as far as to kiss you, then you two have a bond so deep that I couldn’t bear it if you two were separated for any good amount of time,” Rarity said.

“But what can you do?” Trixie asked. “If I go near her, Pinkie Pie will kill me… and I don’t think she’s over exaggerating.”

“Me neither,” Rarity said. “But that’s only if she has time to catch you.”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “We already tried the secret relationship status, we got caught and now we’re both being watched like a hawk. You told us yourself that Pinkie has you keeping an eye out on me to keep me away.”

“That’s what she thinks,” Rarity said with a wink. “But I was wracking my brain all night to come up with a plan, and then it hit me. A little old story about a unicorn wizard who fell in love with an earth pony princess. They came from different worlds and their love was forbidden by their families, so they came up with a plan for eternal happiness. I won’t go as far as they did, mostly because it ended in tragedy, but I will set you guys off on the right track.”

“If Pinkie Pie finds out what you’re doing,” Bonbon said.

“Then she will be furious, but we are close friends. I am sure she won’t do anything drastic to me.”

Bonbon looked at Lyra and then back at Rarity. “What can we do to help?”

Rarity clapped her hooves together. “Be my witnesses.”

“What are you planning?” Trixie asked.

“It is better that you don’t know the details,” Rarity said. “The devil lives there, and only I’m qualified to deal with him.”

“Uh…”

“It was a play on an old saying, I do not actually cohort with most demons or devils,” Rarity said.

Trixie smiled. “That’s good, for a moment you had me worried.”

“Oh come on,” Pinkie Pie said. “You don’t have to hide from me. I’m only helping you.”

Marble hid up in the rafters of the loft, just out of sight. When Pinkie Pie had her head turned around she dropped the severed head of a stuffed donkey in Pinkie’s blindspot. When Pinkie turned around and saw the decapitated donkey head with a note stuck to its forehead she frowned.

“I am not letting you go back to her!” Pinkie Pie said. “If you keep this up I will ground you… I promise! I know how to do that! I think… um… no comic books for a week.” Pinkie sounded less than confident about that.

Marble stayed hidden. There were still plenty of hostages up here with her, and she wasn’t playing around anymore. Pinkie had the doors guarded, and refused to leave her room until Marble gave up. Marble would fight for her lover, even if she couldn’t go meet her now. Pinkie Pie had the strongest deterrent just outside of her room, she had the entire town of Ponyville, awake and moving about their daily business waiting like a barbed wire electric fence. Marble couldn’t leave the house with so many ponies outside, it was too scary. Plus Pinkie had hidden the last of the Confidence Marbles which meant that Marble really was stuck in this little room.

“Marble, please, you have to believe me. Trixie is evil and she’s just using you. I don’t know what kind of magic she’s worked on you, but trust me on this she is not a good pony,” Pinkie Pie said.

Marble dropped the body of the donkey next.

“Darn it!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed after seeing the body. “Fine, be that way. I’m leaving, and when you feel more like listening to me you can apologize for destroying my friends.”

Pinkie Pie picked up the donkey’s body and head before walking out the door. Marble quickly grabbed a rock and threw it at her sister but the door closed just in time to halt the rock’s advance. Pinkie Pie screamed from the other side of the door, “That’s not an apology, that’s a rock!”

Marble rolled over and sobbed silently. She could see Rainbow Dash circling outside the room. This room was a prison, and there was no escape. Sure Pinkie might have thought she was trying to protect Marble, and Marble really believed that, but Pinkie was in the wrong. If only Marble could somehow convince Pinkie Pie that either Marble really did love Trixie, or that Trixie was actually a good pony.

Slowly Marble’s eyelids closed and she drifted off to a nightmare filled world where all she could see was Trixie. Trixie was always just out of hoof’s reach and no matter how much Marble fought, galloped, or tried, she could not reach her. In the end, Marble was forced to see Trixie from a distance, but never to hold her again.

When Marble heard the door shut, she opened her eyes and realized that she couldn’t even see Trixie again. Rarity was standing beneath her looking around quite confused.

“Um, Marble, are you here? I’d like to talk to you if we can. Trixie wanted me to give you a message, she said she loves you and will get you back,” Rarity said.

Marble rolled off her perch and dropped to the floor silently. She stood just behind Rarity, and when Rarity turned and saw Marble, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Marble waved at her, but didn’t smile.

“Okay, listen here and do not tell a soul. I have a plan to get the two of you back together, but you need to follow my instructions okay?” Rarity said.

Marble pointed a hoof to outside where Rainbow Dash was currently sitting on the balcony and drinking from a water bottle.

Rarity grinned. “I can take care of her. You in?”

Marble nodded. Anything to get my love back.

“Good,” Rarity leaned in and began whispering. “Okay, so here’s the plan…”

Trixie walked down the street with her mother by her side. For the first time in a long time she felt the eyes of judgment upon her as she walked. Ponies were giving her mean and disgusted looks. All it took was angering Pinkie Pie to gain the hatred of the entire town. Marigold on the other hoof shot looks right back at them, and on a couple of occasions she even spat curses at them and watched as they turned fearfully away.

“These ponies don’t know what their losing,” Marigold said. “By turning their backs on you they are losing the greatest friend they ever could have.”

Trixie may have agreed, but it was just so hard to keep her spirits up when she thought about how Marble was so cruelly taken away from her the night before. “It’s horrible. I… I just want my Marble back. She belongs to me, not some… evil pink headed freak.”

“Good, let your anger out, you need to express yourself,” Marigold said. “I could call in some help from my contacts. I bet Celestia would have a word or two to say about this.”

“You can’t do that,” Trixie said. “You’d have to spend one of your favors.”

“It would be worth it to help my baby girl get the love of her life back,” Marigold said. “I let the love of my life slip through my hooves once thanks to indigestion and I have never once been able to find true love again.”

“Indigestion?”

“Suffice to say, don’t eat at Sergeant Tomato’s Salad Bar.”

Trixie decided that she lucked out with such a vague answer. “Rarity will get my Marble back.”

“We shall see her plan first, and hope that it plays out well.” Marigold looked up at the castle as they steadily approached it. “We also need to worry about those storm clouds and Baast. She could be casting some sort of magic spell to keep ponies away while she works on creating a new body.”

“Is that really important?” Trixie asked.

“It might be, we don’t know what she plans to do afterwards,” Marigold said. “If she really is evil we will have to stop her, if she is good then we can use her… if she’s neutral we keep an eye on her.”

“I don’t care about her anymore,” Trixie said.

“You should, Baast stole your friend’s body.”

“She promised to return it when she was done,” Trixie said.

“I’ve seen many a body snatcher promise the very same. Only a hoof full have kept their word.”

They reached the castle doors and opened them. After stepping inside and closing them once more they continued into the castle. They were heading straight for the map room. Marigold smiled for Trixie and said, “This is a nice castle. Looks horrible in Ponyville, but its large and the shape is interesting. Just needs some servants.”

“If I remember correctly there are well over thirty bedrooms and twice that in bathrooms. How Twilight keeps this place so utterly empty is beyond me,” Trixie said. She thought about Twilight lying in a hospital bed. “But without here, it’s going to remain that way for awhile…”

They reached the doors and found them already open. Starlight was inside, hunched over the Ponyville map. Trixie saw it, but she could hardly believe what was on the map. Hovering just over the Everfree Forest was a cutiemark, not at all unlike Twilight Sparkles. Only it was darker, and didn’t have the excess white stars around it.

“Okay,” Starlight said. “What the hay do you make of this?”

Spike stuck his head up over the map. He had to stand on his tip toes to see over the table. “Uh… maybe it wants a Twilight rip off to go there?”

Trixie looked at the map. “I don’t think so. Didn’t Baast say something about reincarnation?”

“Um… m-may I make an observation?” Fluttershy’s voice rang out above them.

Everypony looked up and watched as the mare descended next to Starlight. She was wearing a scarf of brown, red, and green with white trim at the edges. “You see, Discord took me back in time once. We actually met Baast back when she was… good.”

Trixie blinked. “You did what now?”

Starlight grinned. “Time travel, not bad, considering your distinct lack of any horn.”

“A-anyway, she was traveling with a group of other cats and um… they all looked and acted… very similar to our own group…” Fluttershy said.

Marigold stamped a hoof and smiled widely. “Oh I got it! Is Twilight the reincarnation of Baast?”

“Shouldn’t Baast have died for that to work?” Starlight asked.

“All immortals have to die before they become such. Besides that we already know that her body died when her soul was removed and placed into that orb. Twilight is clearly not a perfect reincarnation but she just may be the reincarnation in question,” Marigold said.

Starlight frowned. “That’s… crazy.” She looked back at the map. “And… plausible.”

Fluttershy raised her hoof. “I read this series once where a girl went back in time and met the person she used to be before she was reincarnated thanks to the girl being brought back from the dead with a magical crystal shard.”

“So we’re looking at undead screwing up the entirety of reincarnation?” Starlight asked.

Marigold frowned. “Don’t get me started on undead things. They make the very concept of life, death, souls, reincarnation, heaven, and hell all sorts of confused.”

“Undead are not real,” Trixie said.

“Of course not, baby,” Marigold said patronizingly.

Fluttershy frowned. “But we were fighting wraiths just last wee-“

“If Trixie is scared of undead, then they are not real, simple as that,” Marigold said.

Trixie bit her lower lip. “They’re real aren’t they?”

“Not if you don’t want them to be.”

Trixie gave her mom a sour look. “I know my feelings are crushed right now, but don’t pamper me. Are undead real or not?”

Marigold looked away. “Yes… yes they are.”

Trixie let out a sigh. “Well when I get Guile back that’s an apology from me.”

“How long before the rain st-“ Starlight began.

She was interrupted by the sound of crashing thunder.

“About that long,” Marigold said.

The doors behind them opened up and everypony looked at them in shock. Twilight Sparkle marched into the room, her mane was soaking wet, and there was a bandage covering her head. She continued on until she reached the table. Starlight’s horn lit up and a towel appeared next to her, it levitated over to Twilight who grabbed it with her hooves and began drying her face. When she was through her fur stuck out in odd angles.

“You okay?” Starlight asked.

Spike ran up and wrapped his arms around one of her forelegs. “Twilight!”

A warm smile grew over Twilight’s lips. “Yeah, I am. I’ll be going to sleep soon, medication is pretty hitting me hard.”

“Um… what?” Trixie asked.

“You know what I mean.” Twilight looked at Starlight. “Fill me in on what I missed.”

They did, though they left out the details about Marble and Trixie. No need to give Twilight more to worry about. Twilight looked down at her cutie mark by the time it was over and then at the map. “Well my butt’s not glowing so it’s not trying to call me.”

“Then it is telling us there is a reincarnation of you sitting in the old castle ruins and mucking the weather up?” Starlight said.

“I suppose so. I don’t claim to know a lot about life, death or all the above. Just that my head hurts and I need some sleep.” Twilight smiled gently. “Okay, I’m going to go sleep on the problem. They wouldn’t let me sleep all night long, fear of a coma or whatever. I’m taking Spike for the cuddles, if you need me or if the storm persists after twenty four hours let me know.”

Everypony nodded.

Twilight stood up and pushed Spike toward the door. He got the message and began walking. She smiled down at him. “Thank you, Spike. I hurt, really bad, and this means a lot.”

“Don’t mention it,” Spike said. “You took care of me when I had that flu so it’s my turn.”

Once they were out the door everypony relaxed a little and tried to come up with a plan. When nopony could, they all decided it might be time to disperse. Yet again the door was thrown open only this time Rainbow Dash jumped in.

“We have a serious problem!” Rainbow Dash said. Her entire body was soaked to the bone.

Starlight walked up to her. “Weren’t you supposed to be guarding Pinkie Pie or something dumb today?”

“I was guarding Marble, from her!” Rainbow Dash said while thrusting a wing at Trixie. “We thought you might have eloped with Marble, but since you’re here that means the note was true.”

“What note?” Trixie asked. Her heart jumped into her throat.

“Like you would care,” Rainbow Dash said. “Anyway, Starlight we need your help with the search party. Marble ran away because Pinkie won’t let her and Trixie date or whatever.”

Starlight frowned. “Well… this is just great. We need to get going, where is she?”

A worried look came into Rainbow Dash’s eyes as she answered, “The Everfree Forest.”