Trixie and Maud: Heart of Stone

by TheCrimsonDM

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Nine: A Few Days Later

Heart of Stone

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Nine: A Few Days Later

Written by TheCrimsonDM

A few days later, Starswirl was in critical condition and under maximum guard. Rainbow Dash was wearing bandages for her bruised ribs. Fluttershy was better now, but she was still a batpony. Meanwhile Rarity, Spike and Sweetie Belle were all on the apple farm admiring Applejack and Soarin’s little filly. This left Trixie, Maud and Valiant sitting quietly in Twilight’s crystal tree castle waiting for Princess Celestia and Luna. Rainbow Dash was with them as well, though she looked tired.

“So,” Rainbow Dash said. “I uh, I’m going to be on medical leave for like awhile.”

“Your ribs were hurt that bad?” Trixie asked.

“No,” Rainbow said shyly. “After I went to the doctor he told me that I’d be out for a couple of weeks, but then he noticed something strange. He did some tests, and I was about to think he was some kind of weirdo until he told me why I’ve been feeling strange.”

Trixie smiled at her. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Can you fast forward time by about nine months?”

“W-why nine months?”

Rainbow Dash grinned. “It turns out I’m so awesome, that I’m three months pregnant.”

Everypony was quiet for a long time after that. Finally Maud said, “Congratulations.”

“Yeah, thanks, I think. Ugh, I’m going to have to track down the father and make him marry me or something now… I, do, not, want, to marry him.”

“Who’s the father?” Trixie asked.

“That’s a great question,” Rainbow Dash said. “If it’s any of the suspects I have in mind, than I’m screwed… well okay, I was already screwed, that’s how I ended up this way, but you know what I mean.”

Trixie shook her head. “You should be happy you have a kid.”

“I am,” Rainbow Dash leaned back against the wall and rubbed her belly. “More than I knew I could be. It kinda sucks to not be a knight for awhile, but I’m going to be a mama like AJ. My kid’s going to have better rainbow hair.”

Trixie laughed. “How can it have better rainbow hair?”

“Because it comes straight from the one and only Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow Dash said with a grin.

Trixie smiled, and for a few more minutes they were quiet. Finally the door opened and Celestia walked in, Luna stood behind her. They were both still wearing bandages. Celestia gave a kind and knowing smile to Rainbow Dash. “We agreed, Rainbow Dash, you will become one of Twilight’s knights the moment she awakes.”

Rainbow Dash grinned. “Sounds great.” She stood up and walked to the door. “I gotta go and tell the others about the good news, see ya later, Trix.”

Trixie shook her head. The door shut behind Rainbow Dash leaving the room with only Celestia, Trixie, and her family. Celestia found a place to sit on the floor nearby and offered a kind smile to Trixie. “How have you been feeling?”

Trixie glanced at her bare shoulders, the bandages covering the wounds still stung a little. “Much better, but… I’m not a princess anymore am I?”

“We are still receiving reports of ponies waking up as alicorns, so far we have counted over fifty alicorns and growing. Some of our laws have been changed with great haste; so far there are precisely six active princesses in Equestria… I mean five,” Celestia said.

“Why did you say six?” Trixie asked.

“I have called in a temporary replacement for Twilight, just until she wakes up from her coma. As for you, you’re still a princess, alicorn or not you have shown great courage and leadership skills during this war. If you would still like it, I would ask you to stay onboard. Ponies need to see the princesses staying strong, especial with what happened to Twilight.”

Trixie looked down. “Yeah… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, you redeemed yourself. Luna told me of your bravery, and the way you defeated the greatest threat that Equestria has ever seen. I am willing to overlook your involvement with Red Velvet.”

“About that,” Trixie said as she looked up and met Celestia’s soft, kind eyes. “What happened to them?”

“We have no idea, simply put they have completely vanished. We will keep our ears out just in case they show up, and when they do I will offer a truce. I can only hope they do not wish to start another conflict with us so soon.”

Maud spoke in a dry and toneless voice, “Is Starswirl dead yet?”

“Dead?” Celestia asked. “No, he’s healing, slowly. We have made sure to strip him of all of his magic and as soon as he is able to be moved we will do so.”

There was only one place that Trixie could of, to put such a monster. “Tartarus is going to love having him.”

“I’m afraid not,” Celestia said. “He knows Tartarus inside and out, keeping him there would be too much of a liability, but there is one place that even he can’t escape from. Me and Luna have only used it lock up the most dangerous of creatures that we have ever met, we call it The Depths.”

“He’ll be stuck there?”

“The place eats magic and willpower alike. He will not be able to leave once he’s inside,” Celestia said.

“Why not execute him,” Maud suggested.

“Maud!” Trixie exclaimed.

“It’s quite alright,” Celestia said. “You have a right to ask me that. The truth is that although he deserves such a punishment, he was like a second father to both me and Luna, and I simply cannot bear to kill him. What I am doing may in actuality be worse, but at least his blood won’t be on my hooves.”

“When are we going to take back Canterlot?” Trixie asked.

“Soon,” Celestia answered with a smile. “In fact this is some of the only good news that I have; first of all, the ursa seems to have fallen off of the mountain and did not survive the impact, secondly, after Starswirl was downed, the windigo seemed to become displaced, and began wondering back toward the north. The city is virtually empty at this point.”

That brought a smile to Trixie’s lips. “So at least that’s looking nice.”

“Yes…” A sorrowful look came over Celestia’s eyes. “Even so, it will take months if not longer to repair the city and it may never return to the bustling city it once was. Until things are complete there, I will be staying here in Ponyville. There is… a problem.”

“What’s wrong?”

Celestia stood up, and stretched her wings. She cringed and pawed at the bandage on her chest before quickly sitting down again. For a few seconds her breathing was strained. “Twilight’s condition is grave. She will survive these wounds, but she will need cared for in a private and quiet place for some time. Cared for by somepony she and I both trust.”

Trixie nodded. “There’s a place down south called New Slate. You’ve been there before. Me and Maud still have the deed to that cottage, and were already considering going down there for some rest ourselves. We would love to have Twilight join us if you think that would be wise.”

“Even if that means you won’t be able to be a hero and get to go on adventures such as this anymore?”

“I don’t want to get wrapped up in this kind of stuff ever again. We almost lost everypony… I just want to settle down with my family.”

Celestia rose again, this time slowly. “I would dearly appreciate that. You two are precious to me, and it would mean the world to me if you could only help each other in times like this.”

Trixie stood up. “Twilight took me when I was at my most damaged, and saved me. Of course I would do anything to help her.”

Maud and Valiant rose as well. Celestia walked to the door and stopped at it. “You may also want to know that our replacement princess has taken a home down in New Slate for the very same reasons that you mentioned.” The door handle began to glow with golden light. “I would very much like to introduce you three to her.”

The door opened up and just behind it Trixie saw somepony she hadn’t seen in such a long time. The peach colored mare walked in with her fiery mane and wearing a black jacket that looked awkward with her new alicorn wings. Starfire walked in and gave a wink to Trixie.

Celestia smiled. “Trixie this is our replacement for Twilight Sparkle, Princess Sunset Shimmer.

“How goes the search for truth?” Sunset asked.

The grin that spread over Trixie’s lips was full of warmth. “Ever seeking.”

The End

Comments

[CWO]

7071643 I ain't worried about my credibility, I'm a soldier and my username isn't just some thing, that's my rank. I've got nothing to prove that those things don't already say.

I ain't insulting your readers, I'm directing that at you. I wasn't a long term invested reader like Ix, but I did waste a few hours to get up to speed. Now I'm a weapon, point me and pull the trigger. So analogies aren't my forte and all so I'll explain it. The story is a heap of excessive and overdone tragedy and drama, way more then can conceivably be justified. You layer it on a foot thick. For every step forward, your characters tend to be knocked back a thousand. So when something 'good' happens, it is almost meaningless. That is a very poor way to do drama, tragedy, and 'Sad'. Starving the reader and then throwing them a sparse bone is not adding impact, or giving it meaning.

Now I've fought in four wars... conflicts, whatever politicians want to call them, and on the side can be considered a bit 'experienced' with life. I know a bit about tragedy. So take it from me when I say you put it on a bit thick.

[radekmiramax]

The end? What? End as no other chapters? No I need more. I am not very good in english so now in my language :
Ano, ten příběh je občas hodně přitažený za vlasy, má slepá místa v ději a charaktery se chovají iracionálně, ale nemůžeš nás nechat být s tímhle narychlo slepeným koncem.
I am no literal expert, but i like this story and it look like (for me) you just cut it in half.

[TheCrimsonDM]

7093031 There is a novella I am uploading that hits up some of the things that just didn't fit into the story. As for why it feels why it ended sharply, I began this project two years ago and it has actually ended three or four times by now. If you want to see Trixie and Maud's adventures continue check out the novella.

Link here: Recovery Light

And thanks for reading.

[Earthen Forge]

I liked it, such strong emotion and character interactions. With the flow of everything else your action scenes seemed slightly fast paced though.

[TheCrimsonDM]

7454168 Thank you. XD
There is a lot of emotion that I drew from real life. I'm glad that came across well.

[Bio_Redemption]

Holy baals. I think I just read the equivalent of the Old Testament of the Bible in about 2 days (couldn't not read it… 130 chapters? Oh it's on buddy)
But yeah that's was crazy good! Easily the best interpretation of the Mauxie ship I've seen. It also had a lot of unique ideas that I quite enjoyed (Trixie's trauma, the backstories, Homewreckershy, the whole semi-Lovecraftian mixed with slice of life stuff). Also I found watching your writing improve over the course of this fic was almost as entertaining as the fic itself was
All in all, good work mate, I'll be moving on to the sequel now

[Slithery Reptile]

I'v just finished it and I'm already rereading it. My favorite version of Mauxie and the other added details, Trixie's story and the way you handled it throughout the fic was just amazing. I couldn't help but laugh at the way Fluttershy was portrayed in this seeing how I'v always envisioned her as secretly like that, it was nice to see that someone else had the same vision as well. With everything all said and done I'd have to say that this one of my favorite fics to date and one of my favorite, if not my favorite, Maud and Trixie rendition. I'll be hard pressed to find any other story between these two that's even as remotely satisfying to read.

[TheCrimsonDM]

8242450
aww thank you. That really means a lot to hear. Good news for you then, I am still working on the sequels to this, there is already one sequel out
Recovery Light

[TheCrimsonDM]

8560906
well i'm doing alright. Been trying to work on some projects and all. I'm still surprised that people make comments about what you said, when in all actuality there are a lot of problems with this story. Jeez, it feels like I've grown a lot since then, from both mistakes and successes.

[TheCrimsonDM]

8571271
in all honesty Starlight Glimmer wasn't even a character when I finished the first book of this series. If I had known that they'd turn her into Twilight's student she would have had a lot more importance on the story. Actually I may not have written this story the same way at all if I'd known how Trixie and Starlight would turn out. At the time of writing this story Trixie had become a dead character that rarely even got to be in single frames of rare background episodes. So I decided to finish her character arc myself, including a lot of really neat ideas behind her and Twilight.

I do really enjoy the way the show went. I'm overjoyed that Trixie's arc was fully finished and she's part of the rotating cast now. XD

[Starlight Nova]

Why are all of the following stories so much shorter than this one?

[TheCrimsonDM]

9788660
Are you asking why all the sequels to Heart of Stone are shorter than that massive 400k word project?

A couple simple answers for that are, I was a bit of an idiot when I started writing and thought it was a good idea to just keep writing until I naturally came to an ending... two years of my life went by before I could manage to get to a place to stop writing that story lol. Also a lot of the sequels from directly after the Heart of Stone were always meant to be shorter stories. The Heart of Magic on the other hand, is not going to be such a short story, as much as I wanted it to be one, there is just too much that will happen to cover in a short novel like Heart of Light was. This one is going to be another long form epic story.

When I'm writing in three or four separate universes at once, it's a real challenge to work on stories going past 90k words, but I think the Heart of Magic as the final entry in this series really deserves the time it needs to tell it's story. Granted I know that means it will take some time before it's finished lol, but I'm willing to work with that.

I hope that answers your question. XD

[Starlight Nova]

If the main OCs in this story were voiced, what would they sound like?

[TheCrimsonDM]

9881946
You sir, have just asked the most amazing, simple, and yet complicated question I have ever received. There are two oc's that are worth enough to get a voice for in this story. Boulder Dash and Valiant Heart.

As for Val she almost never speaks but I'd imagine she'd have a rougher voice that came out extremely quiet and a bit deeper than a typical filly.
Boulder Dash would have an incredibly upbeat voice with perhaps a slight British accent, something like someone who had lost most of there accent after moving to the states for several years.

[Starlight Nova]

9881969
What about the rest of the stories?

[TheCrimsonDM]

10499593
Well if we're counting the rest of the series I'd say most of the children of the Elements deserve voices as well. Of course there are too many to start deciding who should sound like who at that point. The only one I can think of would be Amber Light who might sound something like Marceline from Adventure Time.

There are other characters like Red, but I'm not sure who they should sound like.