A Family Matter.

by Thait

Hospital pt. 2

thoughts
{mental speak}

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Ponyville

Twilight couldn't help but be amazed by the large pile of books, artifacts and small chests that now dominated the center of the Library. When she had went to Snips and Snails for whatever they had managed to salvage from Trixie's wagon she had expected a few knickknacks that might have managed to not get crushed. Instead she had found a clubhouse filled with books and magical artifacts that had weathered the paw of a rampaging celestial bear quite well. There had been so much stuff that she had enlisted Applejacks help with hauling it all to the Library. They had run into Rarity and Rainbow Dash on the way back and now all of them were in the Library looking at everything piled before them. The books were what had caught Twilights attention first, if only because she was certain she had seen a title that she had never read before somewhere in there.

"Seen this one, and this one." Twilight floated several more books past her taking a quick glance at the titles before moving them on. Most appeared to be magic volumes, ones she had already read, and several were books on repairing everything from faulty springs to wagon wheels. She had whittled the pile down quite a bit when she started to get to some more interesting books, one of which appeared to be a History of the Crystal Empire tome like the one she had read while in they had been in the Crystal Empire. The only difference was that this book still bore the ending chapters that talked about the Crystal Heart and that chapter was quite a bit larger than she had expected it would be. A minor scanning spell brought to light the surprisingly large amounts of preservative magic that had been placed on the tome and she began to wonder if the book was actually an original copy from the empire before it had vanished, the magic's protecting it were certainly old enough to have been placed on the book at that time. The strange thing was that the book seemed to even bear several chapters that were not in the one she had read, one of which looked to deal with changelings of all things. The loud crash as Rainbow Dash accidentally knocked over a chest and spilled the contents out drug Twilight back to the present.

"Look at all this junk." Rainbow Dash looked through the things that had spilled across the floor.

"Careful Rainbow, we don't want to break anything." Twilight glanced at the items and saw that most appeared to be sheets, though there was a small stuffed griffon doll that looked heavily worn.

"It's just Trixie's." Rainbow Dash dismissed the worry casually.

"Really, are you still holding a grudge after all this time?" Rarity quickly straightened out the items Rainbow Dash had spilled out, noting that most looked to have been patched multiple times.

"She took over the town, and banished Twilight! Why the hay should I care if her things get roughed up." Rainbow flew over to another chest and rooted around inside.

"Anypony wearing that amulet would have done the same, it's a corrupting influence. I'm not even sure where it came from." Twilight stopped her examination of the items from the first chest and tried to think of what little was written about the Alicorn Amulet. The only really definitive things known was that it would corrupt those who wore it, and that it gave the wearer a massive power and skill boost to allow them to cast spells they wouldn't have normally been able to.

"Yeah well she chose to wear it, not like Anypony forced her to put it on." Rainbow stopped digging through the chest and pulled out what looked to be a large scroll which she unrolled on the floor.

"Ah gotta agree with RD Twilight, Trixie's been nothin but trouble every time she's shown up." Applejack walked over to Rainbow and looked at what she had found. "It's just a map."

"Yes but a very well drawn one." Rarity pointed to one section "That is the griffon empire, and over there are the Minotaur city-states."

Twilight had to admit it was an impressive map, covering everything from Equestria to the Diamond Dog Kingdom. She noticed quite a few of the cities and villages on the map bore circles in red around them while a handful bore a large red X over them. Looking around the edge of the map revealed two lines of writing in the same red ink, the top line reading Places I've performed with a line and a circle after it. The next line below read Places not to go again followed by a line and a large X. The amount of circles on the map was shocking to anypony who hadn't traveled very far in their life when seeing the distances that the showpony had crossed in her travels. Trixie had been in cities in all of the major lands to the point of traveling into areas that Twilight was certain ponies weren't even welcome in.

It was while looking across the map that her original reason for searching through Trixie's things came up as she noticed what she had been looking for lying nearby. Leaving the map behind she snagged the two items. "This is what I wanted. I'll be back as soon as I get these to Trixie." Sending Rainbow Dash a glance she gestured at the chests and books "Please don't make a mess while I'm gone."

Ponyville Hospital

Trixie's sleep was interrupted by the click of the door opening and the sound of hooves on the wooden floor approaching her bed. She remembered a time when she would have slept through the noise of a pony entering her room but those times were long past and she was a very light sleeper now. A quick reach for her magic in case of any kind of danger proved to her how exhausted she was, as if the struggle to keep her eyes open wasn't proof enough. When Twilight Sparkle, of all ponies, wandered into her view she tried to get angry only to find that she really didn't have the energy to sustain a truly good feeling of rage. "What do you want?" The answer came in the form of soft purple cloth, covered in blue and gold stars, that settled onto the bed in front of her.

"I wanted to return these to you." Twilight watched as Trixie pulled the cloth tightly to her holding onto it as if it was one of the most important items in the world.

To say that Trixie was shocked would have been an understatement, she had believed the items destroyed in the smashing of her wagon. She had known the chests had enchantments on them, placed by family members centuries ago, but she had never believed that they would be able to hold up to the strength of a celestial bear, even if it was a baby. When she had fled Ponyville she had simply assumed that all of her possessions, from her cape and hat to her collection of family journals, had been destroyed. She had had several fake versions of her original outfit created but none could every truly match up to the items given to her by her mother after her first successful performance in Los Pegasus.

"Trixie I..." Twilight struggled to organize her thoughts for a moment. "I want you to know that I never wanted anything bad to happen to you. If I had known what was going on I would have done something to help you." She didn't get a response from the injured mare. "I...I was just hoping that we could be friends." That received a response, even if it was only soft bitter laughter.

"Friends?" Trixie looked up from her clothing and focused pale eyes on Twilight. "Trixie is not stupid enough to trust so easily. When Trixie was little her mother told her that no matter how bad things got she would always find friends to help her. That every bad thing could have a silver lining if only Trixie would look for it." Trixie pulled her cape and hat closer, focusing on the purple fabric. "She lied. She wanted Trixie to believe in other ponies, to believe that when things were at their worst there would be other ponies to help her. Trixie has learned that nearly all ponies are just waiting for weakness to show itself so they can exploit it."

"That's not true Trixie." Twilight couldn't even begin to understand the kind of life Trixie must have led to believe things like that about other ponies. "I'm sure if you were to look you would find lots of ponies who would want to be friends with you."

"Says a national hero, wielder of the element of magic, personal student of princess Celestia and sister to the prince of the Crystal Empire. Have you ever known hardship? Have you ever struggled to find food or wonder if you will make enough bits in the next performance to tide you over to the next town? Have you ever been chased out of a town because somepony started rumors about you and nopony will even listen to your side of the story?" Growing anger filled Trixie's voice. "Have you ever been laughed at and insulted by everypony for something that isn't your fault? Even worse is to step into every town and know they know your name, the great Twilight Sparkle is known in Every. Damn. Town." Trixie grew quiet for a moment. "Trixie learned a valuable lesson for the last two years, that to the ponies of Equestria she's a nopony. Just a pathetic waste of space that they don't care about." Her voice firmed. "But that's not what Trixie is. Trixie is sister to Pokey, daughter to the greatest mom in the world and descendant of one of the greatest families in world, and Trixie will do anything for her family. To every stupid pony in Equestria Trixie might as well be nonexistent but she is everything to her family and they are everything to her, and that's all that matters to her now." Silence filled the room before Trixie looked down at the bed. "Please go Sparkle."

"Snips and Snails managed to salvage a lot of your things, they'll be at the library when you want to get them." Twilight turned dejectedly towards the door and had nearly left the room when Trixie's voice stopped her.

"Sparkle. Trixie...Trixie is grateful for the return of her cape and hat, and for taking care of her things." She seemed to struggle for a moment before deciding what to say. "She supposes you aren't too bad." There was a small amount of mirth in her tone and Twilight couldn't help the smile that spread across her face as she slipped from the room to head back to the library.

Trixie looked at the closed door for a moment before looking happily at her cape and hat, remembering the day her mother had given it to her while telling her of the story of how it was handed down through the Lulamoon family. Even though her mother was an earth pony she had spent time teaching Trixie slight of hoof tricks she could use to augment her magic. Of course that had been back when she was a little filly, when her family was still normal and sane and she believe that it would never be anything else. It had only taken a few days to shatter that young filly's perfect world, broken by the view of her mother finally giving in to the madness of her family and then spending nearly a month on the run from the royal guards as they attempted to catch them. She still remembered spending nights and mornings trying to control a mother that acted more like a wild animal than a pony. For a time she had still believed her precious mother would come back, that she would wake up one morning and smell breakfast already cooking and find her mother smiling and happy and looking after her and Pokey again. But in time she realized it would never be that simple, and that it was going to be them that would look after their mother from then on.

Pokey had known. He had spent the next day's telling her everything their mother had told him about what the family had learned over its long existence studying the madness that afflicted the mares of the family. Several years passed as they moved around the country and cared for their mother while making attempts to return her sanity. They had traveled and Trixie had performed, though at that time she was known as the Wondrous and Amazing Beatrix. Their spare time was spent hunting down every rare magic user in Equestria that they thought they could trust, followed by every single one of said magic users telling them that the magic that was causing the sanity break was so far beyond their ability to understand that even attempting to study it might cause horrible reactions in the spell. The two had struggled onward in their search, finding more and more exotic spell casters in the form of Diamond Dog wizards and Minotaur shamans until the few contacts that still worked for their family simply told them it was hopeless. Worse was watching that same death of purpose in her brother as he woke day after day and struggled to care for their mother while growing more and more haggard and run down as the years progressed.

And then began the knowing looks her brother sent her way as they grew up and he began to wonder when the family madness might start to afflict her as well. Trixie had refused to accept what seemed like a growing inevitability and decided that the open road was no longer the place for her mother. They needed professional doctors to look after Screw Loose so that they could continue their search to cure the affliction that both knew would eventually affect Trixie as well. Canterlot was out at the very beginning as it was the seat of power for the princesses. Manehattan had to many ponies who knew them and would report them at a moment's notice if they showed up there. Which had left a few large cities and lots of small villages dotted throughout the country. They had eventually settled on Fillydelphia as it was one of the few places where money could buy silence. Once Pokey and mother were secure Trixie had set off on a whirlwind tour of every nation she could get into searching for whatever information she could find.

A search that had led her around the known world and into cities and lands where ponies were everything from common to rare myths. More than once she had been mistaken for prey by intelligent creatures that didn't know she was intelligent herself. One race of feline creatures that she still couldn't remember the name of hadn't gotten the picture until she had started casting more and more impressive attack spells to stop their assault on her wagon. At first they had believed her magic to be nothing more than the defensive ability of a mindless animal. Once she had started countering the spells cast by their shamans they had realized that she was as smart as them. It took nearly two weeks of hard spell work to get her mind around their language and begin to speak to them, even after all of that they still seemed to see her as a sort of lesser species. They particularly seemed to find her pulling of her own wagon to be somehow demeaning as they only used mindless beasts to do so in their lands. She had managed to speak to their shamans about their magic and learned that overall they were actually on the lower end of magic users. That had been a conversation she hadn't been meaning to have, considering their high estimation of themselves, but it came out eventually and necessitated a quick exit from the lands controlled by them. Though in truth she supposed that she did feel a bit of gleeful pride when that information had been thrown into their faces, along with a few choice spells to cover her leaving.

Pushing the memories aside she snuggled into her pillow and was about to slip into slumber when the door creaked open eliciting an irritated groan from her as she sent a baleful glare towards the pony entering the room.

"You look better Beatrix." Pokey sat next to the bed.

"Trixie would be even better if ponies stopped interrupting her so she could sleep for awhile." The complaint held only minor annoyance in it as she couldn't help but feel happy to see her brother again. "How is mother?"

"Happy that you're here and safe." He moved to the side of the bed and sat down. "You found it?"

"In a manner of speaking." Trixie looked pointedly at the glass of water on the bedside table and waited till Pokey brought it to her and helped her drink. "Trixie traveled to the crystal empire because she knew that if there was information there the princesses wouldn't have had time to reach it yet. Even so Trixie must admit that she almost didn't get her hooves on the information due to the princesses niece now ruling the empire. Trixie managed to corroborate the information with that which was found in the recovered journals of Sombra. With that information she traveled deep into the crystal mountains on the same path that Sombra took in his search for the Archive."

"So he truly did find it." Pokey frowned as he turned that information over in his head. The belief among those who knew of Sombra's trek had always assumed that he had failed to find the archive.

"Yes and no." Seeing the confusion on her brothers face she sighed. "The path into the archive can be found in many places, the crystal mountains, the Everfree forest, the caverns below Canterlot, and many more. The problem is that all of these paths are trapped and impassable to any pony. The stories of those falling to the trapped entrances to the Archive aren't just stories, they are very true."

"You got caught in a trap?" It would explain both the markings on her body as well as her legs.

"Trixie searched deep into the crystal mountains for the Way and found many dangerous things before stumbling across it." Trixie decided not to go to deeply into her trip there, it hadn't been excessively eventful anyway. "When Trixie entered the Way into the archive she found a hallway filled with traps meant to kill the unwary. Trixie is far too great and powerful to get captured by such trivialities and so she made it deeper into the Way until she passed into a major chamber that must once have been a connecting hub for those entering the archive from different places the world over. Many of those entrances were blocked off but there were still four that were open, Trixie had come through one of them and it is obvious now that one must exit into the Everfree."

"The trap?" Pokey watched his sister closely.

"It was left by Him." The hatred in her voice was far greater than that which she had shown Twilight earlier, it was a hatred aged by decades of knowing the one responsible for your pain but never being able to bring them to justice. "Trixie barely escaped with her life and that was with large amounts of running and spell casting."

"So it's a bust." The slump to Pokey's stature and the way his voice changed told Trixie that her search had been one of his last hopes.

"You give up to easily brother, Trixie has not finished." Trixie lifted her good foreleg and tapped her brothers horn lightly "Think, if we can't get in through access of the Way how else would one reach the Archive?"

"There is no other way, the Archive is held within a small sub-magical dimension that can only be accessed by the Way." His sister was giving him the 'I know something you don't' look and he couldn't help but start to feel excited.

"Trixie found another of Sombra's journals while traveling, it was buried deep within a canyon in the frozen remains of several destroyed wagons. Sombra found that the Archive can be accessed by a direct entry point that leads straight into the Archive itself instead of into the danger prone access ways that are filled with defenses." She took another drink to sooth a throat that was starting to get scratchy again. "He never found out where that entrance was so he tried to simply smash through the defenses in the Way instead."

"And he failed." Pokey frowned "But if he couldn't find out where it is how do you plan on us doing so?"

"Do you remember the story of the last Journal of Lulamoon? How it was taken by the royal guards and never seen again." Trixie looked to the shadows again letting a frown set in "Sombra managed to find out its location, within containment floor six of the royal archives."

"It's inaccessible then." Seeing the look on his sisters face Pokey began shaking his head "No, absolutely not! Even if I called in every favor from every friend I have in the guard I couldn't get you into even the first containment level, those levels hold some of the most dangerous artifacts and books the kingdom has. Only the senior archivists, captains of the guard, Celestia and Luna are allowed in there. The magic defenses that protect even the weakest of the containment levels is too difficult for either of us to break even if we were working together. What makes you think it's even still there?"

"Sombra believed it was there a thousand years ago and Celestia has had no reason to destroy it. Trixie needs that journal if we want to find out where the primary access portal to the Archive is."

"You are asking the impossible, there isn't any way into those levels unless escorted by the captain of the royal guard, or one of the princesses." More than once the family had attempted to sneak into the containment levels but had always failed to even penetrate the first door.

"Put a little more faith in Trixie, do you think she has been traveling for nothing?" She sighed "Trixie will explain everything after she has had time to sleep, she is very tired. Please check on Trixie's things, she doesn't need Sparkle adding Trixie's books to the library."

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Canterlot

The stars shone as pinpricks of light in the sky as the moon began to slowly rise. Luna had put more work into the night than she had in some time, and yet was still acclimating to the shifted positions of the stars due to her long banishment. It was as she looked across the night that she noted something strange. "A red star?" Looking to the strange crimson star she was almost certain that she had seen it before somewhere, it made her thing of a time when she and her sister had been having an argument.

{We hear his words} Luna stiffened as the voice whispered in the back of her mind.

"Show thyself!" Spinning around she examined the shadows around her but found only the night.

{We remember him, he whispered in our ear and woke us to madness.}

Multiple spells spread out creating a shield around her and protecting her from outside influences, but the voice continued.

{He fears us, we grow stronger, beware the red star. We wish to sleep.} The voice trailed off into what Luna could swear was a faint snoring. Looking to the sky again she frowned as she noticed the star was gone.

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Ponyville

Twilight set aside the history book while trying to wrap her mind around what she had learned about the link between the Changelings and the Crystal Empire, she was certain that the book she had seen in the Crystal Empire hadn't contained any information on changelings. Which begged the question of why those books didn't have it but this one did. Spike had sent a letter saying he'd be back tomorrow, which would be a great help in organizing all of the books that were now lying in the Library. Floating another book to her she blinked in surprise at the realization that it was a journal of some kind. Opening it up she could just make out the words Journal of Melody Lulamoon before seeing that that entire first half of the book was water damaged to the point where nothing was legible. She had flipped slightly more than halfway through before finding the first entries that were able to be read.

Month 4, Day 12

Amazingly I found my journal in all the wreckage, though it is obvious that the first half is an entire write off I am certain that I can salvage the last half of the book and use it for collecting my thoughts instead of trying to begin an entire new journal. Not to mention that I would have to find a new journal if I truly wanted to write a new one. Considering that we're now trapped on this island in the middle of nowhere I highly doubt another journal is close by and ready to be written in.

Well let me start by being truly surprised that so many of us are still alive after a storm like that one. The pegasi tried to divert it or break it apart and failed due to the nature of such wild storms, especially those that happen out at sea. The Headhunter took some heavy hits in the storm and then we hit something in the water which just made it start taking on more water. The fact that we reached this island is completely dumb luck. Not that all of us were so lucky, the crew lost four of their number and one of the pegasi who were nothing but a simple traveling passenger like me got injured pretty badly. I've asked around and found out her name is Blitz, unfortunately we have no doctors left and I know no healing spells of any kind.

Month 4, day 15.

Our situation certainly hasn't improved very much. The island we are on is fairly large and populated by a handful of creatures capable of being eaten by those among our crew that need such a meal but the food supply is getting low and hunting will only tide our members over so long. Blitz's left wing has become infected, with no doctors and no understanding beyond low level herb lore we might end up having to amputate it. The mere thought of such left the mare an emotional wreck for the rest of the day. I've stayed near to try and help her through the situation, all the while cursing my failure to learn even a single medical spell in all my travels.

Month 4, day 20.

Long days. Pretty tired but decided to start up the dictation spell and have it record some thoughts again. I've spent the last two days trying to keep Blitz from killing herself after the removal of her left wing. She's been alternating between saying she can handle it to trying to find whatever sharp object is nearby to end her life. As much as I can sympathize with her I'm also getting quite angry with her as well, she acts as if her life is over without the ability to fly. While I know she doubts it I can understand her situation as I once spent two years unable to do a single spell. Well, I really need to sleep now and Rock Slide is watching her.

Month 4, day 25

Well I don't think I need to spend so much time with Blitz anymore. It seems she was ranting about her inability to fly and said something quite insulting about powerless ponies. At which point Rock Slide tore into her about shouting such insults at an earth pony. While I don't know what all was said Blitz seems to be more at peace than she was earlier and has even begun to help out around the camp. It's a good thing for her and Rock Slide seems to be getting more interested in her, not that that is surprising considering her looks. I have to admit that even I find her quite good looking, and if my remembrance of history is correct her rainbow colored mane and tail means that around five thousand years ago she would have been a member of the pegasi royal family. Their family line appears to hold its colors quite well compared to other family lines.

The captain is beginning to set his crew to work building us a fairly large raft in the hopes of heading to land. This would be an impossible task were it not for the pegasi on the crew who will be able to pull the raft far faster than any wind could push it as well as do scouting runs to find the closest land to us.

Another of the crewmembers found a strange structure deep in the forest, I've gone and examined it but found I can't make heads or tails of the civilizations writing style. I certainly have managed to see several references to the creature known as Discord, depictions of him anyway. A being that seems to crop up far too often for my likings in the writings of old civilizations. Whatever that creature was it was well known across all currently discovered civilizations. Though information on what it was, beyond a being of chaos, has never been found.

Month 4, Day 35

We've finally finished the raft, and none too soon as we are running extremely low on food for our more meat oriented crewmembers. The last thing I need to do is have to defend myself from the crew.

I have found myself wondering what would happen were I to remain on this island. Would the princesses come for me? Would the royal guard launch a Cutter and fly out here to try and find me when my time is up? It is nearly laughable to think of them putting so much effort into grabbing a wandering singer, but then they stormed Blackwatch to capture Swift Arrow so it's likely they'd find me out here.

Which means I need to keep moving, to keep looking. It is a pity that the forward sections of my journal were destroyed as there was some information there that was useful. Well I shall attempt to recreate the information in the rest of the journal so it can be of use to the family. Hopefully the rest of this journal will remain in good shape.

I shall dictate again when we reach land.

Twilight flipped the page and blinked in surprise at the destroyed pages beyond that last entry. The next pages looked to have been damaged by both fire and water which made the rest of the journal unreadable.

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Pokey's Classified info.

Twilight Sparkle: Element of magic.

Birthplace: Canterlot

Education: Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. Personal student of Celestia.

Power level: Extreme. Seriously Pokey, don't screw with this one. I've met a lot of unicorns in my days but the information I've managed to dig up on Twilight Sparkle puts her magic reserves at nearly ten times that of the strongest arcanist in the royal guards, And that's a conservative estimate.

Parents: Night Light and Twilight Velvet. Currently living in Canterlot.

Addendum to Parents: Now this is interesting. Took a bit of digging on why a couple of ponies of their supposed modest means are able to live in Canterlot without a job. Well I can honestly say I was surprised to learn that they don't need to work due to the money accrued during their last jobs. Night Light is still listed as a reserve combat trainer for the Royal Guards, and Twilight Velvet is listed as a reserve member of the Nova Guard Aracanist squad.

Siblings: Shining Armor, Prince consort to Princess Cadance and general of the Crystal Empire armed forces.

Adopted Sibling: Spike. Young dragon. Twilight bears a older sister/mother relationship with the young dragon.

Author's Note:

This is actually the second attempt at this chapter. I wrote it and then trashed it and rewrote it again in the hopes of making it better, not sure if I succeeded. I have the bad habit of writing something and then telling myself it's junk and that it needs lots of fixing. It gets bad enough that I have to force myself to put the chapter out and stop messing with it.

Anyway, tell me if you see anything I screwed up on as it would help me fix things and get better at writing.

Comments

[yayme]

C'mon Pokey! Get your flank over there and secure Trixie's things!!!

And why the hell does Twilight & Company, think it's ok to go through other ponies' property?

Can't wait to read more. And I hope Trixie get's her due.
And Twilight and Celestia are thrown out an airlock into the cold vacuum of space.

[Nightflight406]

You want into the archives and I dream of the thrones of the world. Trixie Nightflight alliance

[Bluebottle27]

if my remembrance of history is correct her rainbow colored mane and tail means that around five thousand years ago she would have been a member of the pegasi royal family

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH.....