The Living Wind: Mysterious Magical Maladies
“The Living Wind? What is that?,” Iceheart asked.
Windspeaker leaned back in his chair, loudly exhaling. He brought one hoof up to his chest. Nopony missed how his hoof trembled as he moved it. “The Living Wind. Where to begin? I’ve considered that question so many times, and I’m still at a loss how to proceed. Hmm...how about the classical systems of magic unicorns once believed in? In the West, unicorns believed magic could be split up into four elements: earth, fire, wind and water. In the East, it was a five element system: wood, fire, earth, metal and water.”
“Both systems of which were disproved long ago,” Trixie said, shaking off the cobwebs that had grown over her memories of long-ago lectures as a filly. “Though it’s not a perfect model, the reigning system today is of a unified magical system, with ponies and other races learning how to manipulate the same magic in different ways, pioneering and forming new disciplines and subdisciplines over time.”
“Yes, yes,” Windspeaker nodded in concession. He looked around the room, assessing how well the others understood what had just been discussed. “Magic is magic, but magic is not all-pervasive. If you could describe creation, then philosophers would say this physical world exists, intertwined with magic, but still its own separate entity. Now, the Living Wind.” Windspeaker brought his front hooves up, leaning his chin against them. He quickly withdrew his hooves, as they were clearly unable to support the weight of his head.
He looked down at the floor. “Have you ever listened to the Wind, ever truly listened as it howls? It's beautiful.” Windspeaker then looked back up, facing the five ponies opposite him. “No, of course you haven’t. Nopony else has, but for me.”
Noire scrunched her nose, uncertain whether she was being insulted or not.
“Now, the Living Wind. The Living Wind. If I were to attempt to describe it, it’s impossible to fully express it, but I guess you could say it’s something that intersects the physical realm and the magical realm. Not like us, not like us ponies. We exist physically, but can draw on magic.” Windspeaker winced, squeezing his eyes shut. His tongue flicked out, before he pressed the tip of it between his teeth. Slowly, he scraped his tongue with his teeth, pulling it inwards multiple times.
Trixie was simultaneously fascinated and horrified, unable to look away. Is that an extreme nervous tic, or is he in pain?, she thought.
“Argh,” Windspeaker let out a grunt, bringing a hoof up to press against the side of his head. He shook his head before looking back up, blue eyes once more exposed. “The Living Wind, we, I, we, we ponies refer to ourselves as sapient. We call other races with thinking and reasoning skills sapient. We refer to animals who lack those higher-level, abstract intelligences sentient, for they can still feel. What if I were to tell you the very wind itself, the magical wind all around us, is sentient?”
“Hogwash,” Red Wings said, more out of reflex than anything.
Trixie dissented from Red Wings’ opinion. “Even a few months ago I would have thought it impossible,” she said. “But I’ve had my eyes opened to the fact that there’s a lot more to magic than any of us ever might know. So, you’re saying magic is sentient then? There’s been a few ponies out there who claim that to be the case, citing the existence of the Elements of Harmony as a proof, but it’s so far been unproveable.”
Windspeaker shook his head. “No, not magic itself, but the wind, the Living Wind. We, the wind, is capable of empathy. Argh, I rehearsed this meeting so many times, but I still can’t explain it.”
Iceheart wrinkled her nose. “Wait, what? You rehearsed this meeting? But how?”
“Y-yes, I did,” Windspeaker admitted. “Everywhere on this planet that air moves in currents, creating wind, almost everywhere is the domain of the Living Wind. When I was born, I was weak in form and magic. My powers go little further than levitation. What I lack in strength of body and magic, however, I make up for being the only pony alive with a close connection to the Living Wind.”
“A connection? To the wind itself?” Trixie asked, trailing off as she suddenly realised the total ramifications of Windspeaker’s statement.
Windspeaker nodded. “Yes. I was born linked with the Living Wind. We grew up with it, I am the Living Wind, so much that sometimes it is difficult to remember that I am a pony, not the wind, a pony who can control the wind, not the wind who has a puppet for a pony.” He continued, even as Trixie felt herself reeling, having to put a hoof against a table to not stumble over. “I, I cannot be everywhere, the world is too wide for me to hear everything at once. Creatures of extreme might or divine status are off-limits for me. I cannot eavesdrop in on the conversations of Princess Celestia or Luna, and I cannot see entities like Tirek coming before they strike.
Then he looked over at Iceheart, looking straight into her blue eyes with his own blue eyes. Iceheart looked back, curious why the unicorn had singled her out, but unafraid. “But the Living Wind will take notice, and so will I, when a block of windigo ice disappears, changing the pattern of the wind in the world.” Next, he looked over to Red Wings, whose red eyes were unflinching. “Or when a pegasus, wing previously clipped, returns to the skies in an unheard-of feat, flying on the wind.” Red Wings jerked back in surprise.
Trixie’s heart skipped a beat as she suddenly honed in on the obvious question. Why was somepony with a skill like this in a hospital of all things? “So why are you in the Centre for Mysterious Magical Maladies? Is it connected to this, the Living Wind?”
Windspeaker chewed on his tongue, the nervous tic obvious to all else. Then he said, “Yes. For me, the wind isn’t about magical strength, it’s about my very being. I’ve been frail since I was born, but in the last few years my health has taken a turn for the worse. The doctors can’t even tell why it is. All that they know is that it’s magically-related, which is why they chucked me in here.” He chuckled, bitterness leaking into his laugh. “Of course, I know exactly what it is.”
“Then why do you not tell them?,” Iceheart asked, taking control of the questioning. All the others fell in line behind her. Iceheart, while not the nicest pony, had shown herself to be the most composed throughout their adventures. When dealing with Windspeaker, a pony who had shown himself to be erratic in the few minutes since they had met, it was her deft hoof everypony else trusted.
“It’s simple. They can’t cure it. Nopony can,” said Windspeaker. He closed his eyes again and continued speaking even as he was blind to the world, “The Living Wind is both a boon and a curse to me. I can communicate with the Living Wind, and she, I call her she, back with me. The Wind is a gentle thing, playful. But we are linked at such a level it is impossible to separate us.” The white-furred unicorn looked and sounded forlorn now. “Thanks to our communion, my very body is fading away. It may be slow, but eventually one day, I will disappear and my consciousness will be subsumed into the Living Wind.”
The words landed in the room with a thud. Everypony there hoped that Windspeaker would drop the other horseshoe, and reveal that his fate was to be a happy one. As the seconds passed, it dawned upon them with horror that it was not to be.
Iceheart narrowed her eyes. “Yet you are telling us this all now, so there must be something you are leaving out.”
Windspeaker let out a chuckle. It was the laugh of a broken pony. “Oh, do not get me wrong. I will not regret being subsumed into the Living Wind. I just do not want it to be like this, not when I have barely lived past my twenty-secondth winter, and have been confined to this room for the last few years. Both myself and the Living Wind wish for me to live a long, fruitful life before I finally join her. Trixie,” Windspeaker said, turning to face the other unicorn in the room, who jerked back in surprise at being singled out, “The Living Wind advised me that your magic could possibly, just might be able to sever the link between us that is causing me to fade away.”
Trixie flinched. She was still struggling to process everything Windspeaker had just told them. When she had come to the Centre for Mysterious Magical Maladies, this was not what she had expected to hear. Speaking of which, how had Windspeaker known they would be here? “Something seems odd. How did you even know we were coming? This seems a little too perfect that we would come here, to your room.”
“Like I told you, the Living Wind told me,” said Windspeaker. “That Princess Celestia sent you here was happy circumstance, and I asked the receptionist to look out for the five of you and send you up here when you arrived, instead of going to go see one of the doctors. Yours is not a talent that can help the other ponies here, however, just so you know,” he warned.
Stonehenge spoke for the first time since coming in. “That us being directed here by the Princess was circumstance, you say. That implies there are other things we have done that were not.”
Trixie frowned. Stonehenge had a point.
“Y-yes, that is true,” Windspeaker conceded. “Trixie, after you healed Red Wings, I was so happy. Here was a pony who might be able to help me. However, though we do not understand the scope of your power and how it works, the Living Wind advised me that you still were not at the point you could help. So it was then I nudged you north, towards Manechester, where you would find something that might help you develop your ability yet further,” he said, taking an aside glance at Stonehenge.
“Wait, that was you? You were the one who gave us that feeling we had to go north?,” Red Wings asked.
Windspeaker nodded and said, “Yes. I make no apologies for it. You may have had to delay your visit to Colt Springs and the strongest changeling alive for a few weeks, but would you rather Stonehenge continue to be a statue in the middle of a courtyard for another five decades?”
Red Wings fell silent, the question stinging. Of course he wouldn’t. Had it not been for Windspeaker’s intervention, they wouldn’t even have known Stonehenge existed, instead going straight west.
All eyes turned to Trixie, who squirmed slightly under the collective gaze, but then steeled her back and stood up straight. “I cannot say I like the feeling of being manipulated, but in your circumstances, I can all too easily understand. I felt depressed once, thinking there was no way out, and when Noire showed up and broke the status quo for me, I eventually found a way out.” Trixie swallowed. “I would have done almost anything to seize that light at the end of the tunnel, and we did find Stonehenge in the process. But how far did it go? You sent us to Manechester, then brought us to Canterlot, and finally here?”
“N-no, actually, the rest of that was luck,” Windspeaker said, his front hooves shaking again as he tried to speak. “The elder ponies in Manechester requested you head to Canterlot, and you chose to come here. The Princess mentioned the Centre, and you chose to come here. All I had to do was ask the receptionist to send you up here when you came, instead of you asking to see the doctors.”
“Yes, I had forgotten about that in the last few minutes,” said Trixie. “I had come to this hospital to see if there were others I could help with my magic, on the sly.”
Windspeaker shook his head. “Like I-I said, we are pretty sure there are not any. Many of the cases in this building are those that baffle the doctors entirely, and who use of magic on may affect adversely. Others have magical diseases that have mentally twisted them, and so far as I know, your magic can do nothing about that, not without its own problems given your trial run. At least with me, I know what my problem is, and I also know the solution. But I didn’t think that solution was possible until now.”
“I’m not certain I can honestly help you,” Trixie admitted. “I’ve come so far in developing my magic, but what you describe seems as a level higher than the magic I’ve overcome before.”
“Wouldn’t it be like dispelling the curse of the cockatrice king?” Stonehenge asked, curious.
Trixie shook her head. “Not really. Long ago, well, only a month ago, it feels longer than that now...anyways, when I was out on the ice flats where the fossilised Windigo remains were, that was passive magic. The Windigos had died off long ago. This sounds like active magic. More than just that; this Living Wind sounds like it’s intertwined with the world itself.”
“T-true,” Windspeaker said. “It w-was why we hoped you might be able to h-help me, though. Your power is one we haven’t seen before, the power to reject how the world is supposed to be and change it.” Windspeaker’s voice was steadily getting shakier as he spoke, much like his body and limbs.
Trixie frowned. “I can try. I can’t guarantee it, however. This would be fundamentally more difficult than anything else.”
“But you succeeded in everything you’ve attempted before,” said Windspeaker.
That is true, but what I said also still stands, Trixie thought, before she briefly shook her head to clear her mind of her troubled thoughts. “Casting here would also be an issue. Any other pony who can sense magic being used will come up here to see what’s happening, and I would rather not expose my talents just yet.”
“Good point,” Windspeaker said. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
Then the room shifted.
It was difficult for Trixie to say she could feel it, for such a word implied a sense. But whatever it was, it was as if the room had been tilted on an axis, at an angle of just a few degrees, yet sufficient enough to leave her disoriented. Around her, the others all stumbled, succumbing to the same weird phenomena that had just occurred.
“The Living Wind is not all-powerful, not by a long shot. However, I am more than able to mask a small room this size against eavesdropping, which includes any magical sensors,” Windspeaker said, explaining what had just occurred.
Trixie found her way back to her hooves again, though the grease in her stomach made a short, aborted attempt to lurch its way back up. “That wasn’t like any magical spell against eavesdropping I’ve felt before,” she said.
“That’s because it wasn’t magic,” said Windspeaker, his blue eyes now open again to the world. “Or at least, not solely magic. As I said, the Living Wind intersects both our physical realm and magic. My magic is a weak, feeble thing, but with the Living Wind I am capable of many things other unicorns can do.”
Trixie wrinkled her snout. Every time Windspeaker spoke, Trixie found herself both more impressed and more discomfited than before. Such a power as Windspeaker described it was amazing, but at the same time it intimidated her. Even from his wheelchair, Windspeaker could have done great things, be they beneficial or terrible.
Most of all, how was she to have a chance of breaking Windspeaker of the curse that was robbing him of life, when he was as intertwined with the Living Wind as he said he was?
“Give me a bit of room, please,” Trixie said to her friends standing on either side of her. All four complied, leaving Trixie and Windspeaker with a few feet clear to either side of them. Closing her eyes, Trixie meditated, forming the image of Windspeaker in her mind’s eye even as her eyelids filtered out most of the sunlight.
Then she cast.
Her unconscious mind recoiled at what she wandered into, and created a visual interpretation of it instead for her to cope with. The stream of magic in front of her went from top to bottom in a coiled helix, tinged the pink of her own magical aura. A second helix sat right next to the first helix, offset so it was close but never quite touched the first. This was a white, not so much the absence of colour, but a white with the presence of all colours mixed in.
The Living Wind was something even her mind couldn’t put an image to, but she just knew that it bound the double helix together in a beautiful twine, all while resisting any effort to separate them. Trying to analyse it was like a jigsaw held in a three-dimensional puzzle in a Rubik’s cube: there was a key, a way to fit it all together, but the sheer complexity of all its parts was too much for her feeble mind to comprehend. All three entities all came and met together in one small being, much like her own form, that was being torn apart by the powers three.
Not for the first time, she felt insignificant. Many a youthful night had been spent gazing into the cosmos, feeling out of place, like she was one pale blue dot compared to the rest of existence. This, however, was something altogether different. Instead of sizing herself up against the night sky, she was gazing out onto the breadth of two of the facets of all creation, and a force that intersected upon them both. To that, she was less than an ant, let alone a mare.
A mare who had defied phantasia before, however, and brought joy and healing everywhere she had gone. She exerted her will, poking and prodding at the strings of her mental vision. The double helix was like the ethereal chords of a musical universe, and as she plucked each chord, the reverberation reflected upon herself, her very being and anima. There was beauty in the world, and there was ugliness. There was hope, and there was despair.
Through it all, she had persevered, and she would not give up. The third force there, the Living Wind, seemed to ever so gently ease her task, much like the aid of the Crystal Heart and the black moon before it. She would need it, for imposing her will was becoming an ordeal. To first reject reality and substitute her own, she first needed to comprehend the way things currently were. The totality of what she saw was overwhelming, however.
This time, however, for the first time ever, reality and magic pushed back. The more she attempted to exert the way she wanted things to be, the more magical chords tensed, then snapped back.
It scared her as she reeled under the backlash. For the first time, she felt like it might not be the rest of the world that was changed, but her, and not in a desirable way.
She fled with her metaphorical tail tucked in between her haunches.
“I am sorry, but I cannot do it,” Trixie apologised, eyes readjusting to the moderate glare of the room’s lighting. She could feel drops of sweat stinging her eyes. “Whatever the Living Wind is, it is something even beyond me. The way it binds magic and our prime world together is difficult for me to even comprehend in the first place, yet alone actually force my own vision unto.”
Windspeaker sighed. It was a weary sigh. Trixie thought nobody should sound as tired as Windspeaker did. “It’ll be alright, but thank you,” the other unicorn said, but the disappointment was unmistakeable. “You’ve had times in the past where you failed at first, but upon a second try you succeeded, correct? Come back when you feel confident. It is not as if I am leaving, and the Living Wind will tell me when you return.”
Trixie bit her tongue. Given Windspeaker’s story, she did not want to tell him it was a matter of if, not when as he so optimistically believed.
However, Windspeaker was not done, and he turned to Noire. “New Moon, you do not have to worry about visiting your mother. The guards stopped attempting to find you months ago. If something goes awry, the Living Wind will let you know to leave.”
Noire was stunned as the white-furred unicorn suddenly used her old name, and staggered back as the full meaning of his words hit her. I can go home, she thought. Noire suddenly felt sad, her emotion intense enough that she could see Trixie wince at the emotional feedback the other daughter of a changeling felt. Home, to where my father died.
It was a homecoming that Noire had never hoped to see, yet if she took Windspeaker’s words in good faith, it could happen today still. Noire banished what little she could of her melancholy, and steadied herself. She was going to go home, where she could at least meet her mother and begin to heal wounds that had merely scabbed over instead of being fully treated. Only then could Noire once again feel free to fly without a weight pulling her down.
"I'll come with you, Noire," Stonehenge murmured from beside her.
Iceheart broke the mood in the room. “In that case, I will meet up with the four of you later.”
“Wait, what?” Red Wings asked.
Iceheart turned her face, regarding the mystified Windspeaker with an empathetic look. “I do not need to meet Noire’s mother myself. Barring unforeseen circumstances, we have a few days in Canterlot here, so I can wander the city to my heart’s delight later. But I believe there is at least one pony here who could use some company for a little while longer.”
It took Windspeaker a few seconds to decipher Iceheart’s words, but his eyes widened when he did. “Th-that’s…”
“It would be remiss of me not to offer my companionship, at least for a little longer. You hide it well, but we can all tell how devastated you are that Trixie was unable to help you,” Iceheart said. “Even if it is not a cure, I would spend a little more time with you. Do not think I am taking pity on you. Rather, having led my ponies in the North, I know how much every pony needs another pony to talk with, and while the Living Wind sounds fascinating, I doubt she is the best conversation partner.”
Windspeaker bowed his head. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” the purple-furred Crystal pony said, moving over to one of the room’s few chairs. Hopping onto, she turned around and sat down. “Go get your rooms and do whatever else you need to do, everypony. Come back later, please.”
“Is there anything we should tell the receptionist?,” Noire asked.
“Just tell her one of you is staying behind. She won’t bother you over it,” said Windspeaker. “It was nice to see all of you. I hope to see you again later.”
“Y—yeah,” said Trixie. She felt a lump in her throat. She never liked leaving a pony behind that she could have helped. Defeat had stung her twice before, and it wasn’t getting any easier with the third one.
The ponies went through a few more goodbye greetings, though it was blessedly short since they would come back in the evening for Iceheart. Then Trixie turned the room, and left, hoping Noire would stay silent about the shame Trixie felt.
“What did you think?” Trixie asked Red Wings as they left the Centre for Mysterious Magical Maladies. Noire and Stonehenge ambled on beside her, but she knew they would be splitting off in a few blocks. In the minutes it took them to get from Windspeaker's room down to the lobby, Trixie and Red Wings had decided to go off on their own, while Noire and Stonehenge would go to visit Noire's mother.
Red Wings shrugged. “About Windspeaker, you mean? Honestly, the concept sounds a little fantastical, truly. But I think I remember something odd about the wind, both during that time in the Badlands, and again in Manechester.”
Trixie frowned. There had been one more time even before the Badlands. A part of her had noticed an odd shift in the wind there, but she had forgotten about it when the winds all subsided after the Windigo fossils disappeared. Had the Living Wind been there, even then?
Red Wings continued, saying, “Well, if he’s being truthful, then Windspeaker can hear us right now. The fact he knew practically everything about us and we haven’t been stopped by guards yet or anything means we should at least take him at good faith.”
“The Living Wind is real, alright. What I saw in that brief moment when I tried to help him was something I can’t quite express in words, but it was far too real for Windspeaker to have been anything but truthful.”
Stonehenge looked thoughtful. “So do you believe you will be able to truly help him?”
She bit her lip, pressing hard against it with her teeth. “I truly don’t know. Windspeaker was right, though. Twice before I used my magic and failed, but each time, I bounced back and managed. This time, however, it feels impossible.”
“You cannot be too pessimistic about it,” Stonehenge said, only for the four to turn the corner.
Trixie stopped. A few hoofsteps later, the other three ponies also stopped, turning back to face her.
“What is the matter, Trixie?” Noire asked.
The lone unicorn narrowed her eyes, raising her snout to look off into the distance. “It’s been so long, hasn’t it?”
“What has been so lon—oh,” Noire said, as she turned to see what Trixie was peering at.
Red Wings and Stonehenge also craned their heads to chance a glance. “That is a large building, but what is it, precisely?” Stonehenge asked.
“Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns,” Trixie said blithely. “I went there when I was younger, only to have to drop out after only a year. I told you before, didn’t I? I left Canterlot only a few days later, claiming to be sick and having issues at home, and I never returned, until now.”
“Oh, Trixie,” Red Wings said, his tone of voice clearly empathetic.
“What I’ve done over these last few months was clearly something I never would have learned in Canterlot, and very possibly might never have achieved after graduation if I had finished my schooling here. I’ve fantasised many a night about what my life would have been like if time’s spinning gears had rotated the other way, but I’m not fooling myself.” Trixie sighed, still gazing longingly at the campus building for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, and said, “I’ve singlehoofedly pioneered a niche field to an extend that nopony would have even dreamed possible before. But what I saw in that room intimidates me. I think I have finally hit the end of the road.”
And isn’t that a shame? After all, I did something Princess Celestia herself was unable to do by undoing the petrifaction on Stonehenge a half-century before her earliest estimate. Surely, I thought, that might mean...but is this my limit?
“That doesn’t sound like you, Trixie,” Noire said, even as she nudged the group to the side to allow others to walk by along the road, finding a quieter place to converse. “I’ve never heard you be this self-defeatist before.”
Trixie sagged against the wall. “I just don’t know anymore, Noire.”
Noire scrunched her nose. “Well, there’s no way you can go to Colt Springs with that attitude. Where’s the Trixie I met for the first time again when I came to Whinnychester? Where’s the Trixie who spent years studying theory and practicing magic from her parent’s old place, learning how to teleport after long last? The Trixie that...the Trixie that...that saved me,” said the batpony. Noire snorted and pawed the ground, but the fire wasn’t quite in her anymore.
“She is right, Trixie,” Stonehenge said, his deep voice once again rumbling. “I cannot fathom precisely how it is your talent works, but you have done something very real in helping all of us here. I do not care to think of what it would have been like for me to be free again, only to find everypony I knew was dead and gone for two generations already. Do not beat yourself up until you are certain you can go no further. Until then, you need to try. If what Windspeaker says is true and you can assist him, then it would be a great deed.”
Red Wings said nothing. He had given Trixie his praises many a night since he had regained his left wing. Exhorting her now to continue on was not necessary.
Trixie sighed, looking back up at the other three, and cracked a small smile. “You’re right, all of you are right. Separating Windspeaker from his curse felt impossible, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible. Hehe,” she giggled.
“Is something funny?” Noire asked.
“Oh, not really. I shouldn’t be making light of Windspeaker’s situation, but I just thought to myself, if I can cure his condition, then self-levitation should be a breeze in comparison.”
“I suppose that is amusing,” Noire admitted. “Well, if you are alright now, Stonehenge and I will take our leave.”
“That is fine. Red and I will get our hotel rooms set up and paid for,” said Trixie. She refrained from wincing at the cost of a hotel room in Canterlot for several nights. The elders of Manechester had sent them off with plenty of spare bits, but Trixie was frugal to the last, having once been a nomadic performer who ate the grass off the side of the roads. “One of us will have to tell Iceheart our room numbers.”
“Windspeaker could tell her,” Red Wings murmured.
Trixie bowed her head slightly, still having issue with the fact a unicorn could eavesdrop on them over long distances through something that was as alien to her as the Living Wind. “Yes, he could.”
Noire and Stonehenge traded nods with Red Wings and Trixie, and the batpony and Earth pony were off on their own way. That left Trixie alone with the red pegasus.
“So, you know where to go?” Red Wings asked.
“Ah, right. Yes, follow me,” Trixie said, moving her hooves again in the opposite direction of the two that had just left.
Red caught up to walk beside her, matching Trixie’s hurried pace. “So we check in, get ourselves two rooms, one for me and Stonehenge, one for the mares. What then?”
“I don’t know. I expect Noire to be at least a few hours, and maybe longer if she stays for dinner. As for Iceheart, well, she’s the type of pony who works well in small settings. I got the impression she intended to stay there for a while, so perhaps we can return right before visiting hours end tonight to pick her up?”
Red Wings grunted. “That sounds like a good idea.”
“I’m always full of good ideas, aren’t I?” Trixie asked, not passing up on the chance to gloat.
“What about the time you showed up with more salt licks in your saddlebag than you needed for crossing the Badlands?”
“A mare has her needs!” Trixie said, abashed.
Red Wings let out a chuckle. Even if it seemed Trixie had gotten into a funk again, she was still in good enough spirits to take his teasing like the usual Trixie.
To say Canterlot had suburbia was to be incorrect. But for the Royal Family and the richest nobles, a thousand years of history had grinded wasteful uses of land into the dust, and the prevailing trend was to build upwards, resulting in rows upon rows of many-coloured terrace houses along every street of the capital.
However, there were distinct neighborhoods, each with their own character and charm. Noire noticed that Stonehenge held himself well, even as the tribal make-up of those walking around shifted from a unicorn-plurality to a batpony-majority. The deeper they went into the district Noire had once called home, the more Stonehenge was the odd pony out.
It was his size, Noire decided. Stonehenge might have felt intimidated being surrounded by so many batponies, but his massive frame meant he would always physically tower over others. That alone meant few others were likely to mess him, even if this was Canterlot, where rough-and-tumble behavior was simply unheard of.
Fortunately, the other batponies wandering and flying around barely blinked at Stonehenge’s presence, given he was being escorted around by Noire, herself a batpony. Though Noire no longer resembled that mare of old, New Moon, she still fit right into the tribal make-up here.
“Just another couple of blocks,” Noire said, taking to the air and lightly flapping her wings. Even hovering above a few hoof-lengths above the ground, she still didn’t come to eye-level with Stonehenge.
“So this is where you grew up?” Stonehenge asked in a quiet whisper, looking around at the blocks of houses. The paint was faded on many walls, but it was otherwise an alright place. There are more ponies living in the last few streets than in all of Manechester, Stonehenge mused, feeling the proverbial fish out of water. The oddest thing to him wasn’t the rows and rows of terrace houses, however. It was the smooth paving of the roads, worn down by wind and water, but not by the many hoofsteps of others. It was clear most residents here flew around, with the walkway more an ornament than anything else.
“Yes, it is. Except for when we went on tours, I spent my entire life here. It’s good to be home.”
Stonehenge thought Noire’s sigh wistful. He knew something of that feeling of longing and loss.
The two were silent for the last few blocks, until Noire finally came up to a house. Stonehenge noted with a keen eye that whereas the house on either side had a small fence and a gate with pointed spikes, Noire’s house did not. His stomach curdled, having heard about her father’s last moments and the freak accident that led up to it.
Noire seemed to have noticed as well, her shoulders shaking. Nonetheless, she moved forward, and knocked on the door.
The two stood there for a few seconds. Just as Noire wondered whether to knock again, she heard movement from inside. Soon, the door opened.
“Oh? Can I help you with something?”
Noire blinked away her tears. Though it had seemed like a lifetime, it had really only been about half a year since last she had seen her mother, Frigor. In that time, however, her mother had gotten so old. Had she always looked that worn down? Her father’s death must have affected her mother more than Noire had thought.
Nevertheless, she had rehearsed this in her head, coming up with the magic words to prove to her mother who Noire was. Instead of saying it outright, she first had to prove her own identity. “Incognito left from the Badlands, first working in Dodge Junction for a short while, then in Baltimare. After a short layover in Weston-Mare, he came to Canterlot, working at a clock shop, where he developed a fascination with his lifelong hobby. Meeting a mare he fell in love with, he ditched both his job and his pegasus form to become a batpony, eventually joining the Royal Guard. Their daughter was a pony in every way, except she had inherited changeling magic on a limited basis.”
The other mare was stunned. Frigor’s eyes widened as she seemed to clue in just who she had greeted. Quickly, her eyes darted left and right. Noire just confirmed the elder batpony’s suspicions.
“Hello, mother.”
“That was remarkably painless,” Red Wings remarked as the two left the hotel, having dropped off their saddlebags.
“Canterlot is a big city and our capital, so there’s always lots of ponies coming in for a few days. But Canterlot also has many, many functions going on throughout the year, so the hotels were built up to accommodate those peak periods,” Trixie explained. “It’s a slower peak for the next week, so any hotel would be glad to take our bits.”
Of course, it wasn’t often that she had to actually rent a hotel room. Her time in the Crystal Empire and then in Manechester were the exception. Even when she was travelling, Trixie had usually slept in her own wagon.
It was rather fortunate that the two had gotten their rooms quickly arranged. Looking up at the sun, Trixie noted it was getting to be rather late in the day. It felt like she had only just had lunch, but between her meeting with Celestia, finding Red Wings and Noire, and then their encounter with Windspeaker, time had flown away on her, like a pegasus in a hurry. Already, the blue sky had given way to shades of pink, orange and yellow off in the horizon.
Trixie gulped. Sunsets had been tainted for her, ever since the day she had returned to a pretty Winchester sunset, only to find out about the death of her father.
The two walked. Neither had any particular destination in mind, instead taking joy in walking alongside one another, taking in the sights of Canterlot’s architecture, which seemed to morph every few blocks as the newer outskirts of the city turned towards its older core. They had time to kill, and Trixie, though she had thoughts of magic and levitation on her mind, desired a peaceful night. The clip-clop of their hooves melded together with the other ponies filtering in and out of the core.
Before Trixie knew it, she and Red Wings found themselves in the Canterlot Commons, the large square at the centre of the city, just outside the palace grounds proper. From what she remembered, it was a popular place for ponies to casually hang out at every part of the day. She and Noire had spent a few afternoons there as fillies, playing in the park and splash pools.
She closed her eyes.
“Memories?”
“Yes.”
Perhaps it had been a good thing she had come to Canterlot. Even now, she could feel the pent-up resentment and regrets that consumed a part of her. Over the last few days, Trixie had done some self-reflection. Every place I went to, there was always a pony who needed healing of some sort, and I provided it for them.
Didn’t I need some healing of my own?
Trixie looked over to Red Wings, who appeared content to wait for her. While it had only been a short time since she had met any of the ponies in her party besides Noire, they were now close friends. In the pegasus’ case, Trixie had felt a spark develop, and she knew he reciprocated. How much of that was idol worship, Trixie didn’t know, but she was certain there was also something genuine. The bits and pieces of changeling magic she had inherited from her father had come in use on many occasions.
“Let’s head over there,” Trixie suggested, pointing a hoof off to a copse of trees sitting next to one of the Commons’ fountains.
Red wrinkled his snout, as if he had been thinking about doing something else to do, but he didn’t resist. “Sure, let’s go—eep!”
The pegasus let out a startled squeak as Trixie grabbed his hoof in her own hoof, and led him over to the copse. She smirked, feeling the warm tinge of embarrassment that washed through Red Wings. Well, that was another useful benefit, one Trixie hadn’t abused in a long time, but delightful nevertheless.
Red Wings had been a nervous wreck for a few moments in Trixie’s hoofgrip, but he calmed down by the time they made it over to the copse. The two sat down against a tree, and Trixie leaned against Red Wings, the stallion’s body providing a nice source of heat in the cool afternoon. A soft breeze washed through the copse. Trixie didn’t even care anymore about the wind.
One day soon, she would journey to Colt Springs to discover and potentially train what she had inherited from her father, Wooden Chisel. Maybe under the greatest of changelings, the blemish on her spirit the Alicorn Amulet had left could at last be purged. From there, perhaps the odd, errant thoughts Trixie had had over the months and years about a greater destiny than what life had dealt her would coalesce.
For now, Trixie would sit here wordlessly, looking at the sunset, hoof in hoof with Red Wings.
Suddenly, there was a stirring of excitement in the crowd. “Hmm? What’s going on?” Red Wings asked, breaking the silence. Ponies suddenly were pouring into the Commons. Above them, multiple pegasi were flying around, some marked in the garb and colours of the Royal Guard.
“I don’t know,” Trixie admitted.
“Hang on then, I’ll go check,” Red Wings said. He didn’t want to break physical contact, but something had happened, and curiosity won out. Stumbling up onto his hooves, he flapped his wings, taking into the air to talk to one of the Royal Guard pegasi, who was hovering in the air.
Trixie watched as she conversed. There was no chance from that distance to be able to eavesdrop on their conversation. But the Living Wind could, couldn’t it? She thought. It’s an open area, and what few limits Windspeaker said it has, and that I saw, don’t apply here. Windspeaker could have been so many things in life if his body was stronger. He could have been Equestria’s greatest spymaster, a businesspony who knew things he shouldn’t have, or a powerful sorcerer who used undetectable magic.
And instead he was relegated to a lone room in a long-term clinic, with nothing to keep him company but for what was only a semi-intelligent force of nature. He had been as lonely as Trixie was in the depths of her life, but at least she had a mother and father who knew her secrets before they passed. For Windspeaker, he had grown up his entire life with nopony who could truly empathise with his situation.
A cool breeze washed over Trixie again. She was filled with determination. I have to help Windspeaker.
Red Wings returned, breaking Trixie out of her reverie. “You just had a normal conversation with the Princess earlier, correct?”
What an odd question, Trixie thought. “Well, as normal as it could be under the circumstances. Why?”
He frowned. “It seemed the Princess has ‘unexpectedly’ decided to do a live lowering of the sun and raising of the moon with her sister tonight.”
Trixie raised her eyebrows. That was unusual. When Trixie had been a filly, Princess Celestia rarely did a live showing of the rotation of the celestial bodies. The only date it was guaranteed was on the Summer Sun Celebration, and throughout the year and a bit Trixie had been in Canterlot, there were only a sporadic few dates Celestia raised the sun live, unlikely to be repeated the next year.
“Then I guess we will be in for a treat,” Trixie said as she got up to her hooves. She bit her tongue. Trixie felt as if she was forgetting something.
The two made their way up towards the centre of the Commons, Red Wings leading Trixie as they walked, elbowing other ponies aside gently to get in closer. “Is here good?” Red asked as they finally got near the edge of the inner square, where a large pedestal was set in the centre of the plaza.
Trixie bit her lip. She was forgetting something, but what? “Yes, that is go—”
The excitement of the ponies continuing to pour in washed over her. A migraine was beginning to form, and it wasn’t from the loud chatter of the crowd. Trixie’s eyes widened as she finally recalled why going into crowds such as this was such a bad idea. “No, we have to leave.”
“P—pardon?,” Red Wings asked, confused and also a little bit hurt. Trixie didn’t have time to explain, however, as she grabbed his hoof again, and started to move out of the crowd.
“Pardon. Sorry. Excuse me. Coming through,” Trixie said, trying to escape the massive influx of ponies crowding in. Where are they all coming from?! Trixie thought to herself in astonishment. She and Red had only learned a few moments ago about Celestia and Luna coming out for a ceremonial raising and lowering.
It was no good. She was trying to exit, and everyone else was trying to get in. Trixie was like a lone grain of sand pushing against a wave, and she could feel the tsunami of excitement washing over her. Her headache worsened.
An idea seized her. It would look bad to do it out in a large crowd like this, but she had to get away now. “I’m going to teleport. I’m taking you with me,” Trixie said.
Red Wings was baffled. “Wait, w—”
Trixie cast, and then he was no longer in the crowd. He recognised the area where they had been teleported to, however, as being just outside the Commons. Other ponies scattered around him and Trixie in surprise at the suddenly-appearing duo.
“Trixie, what was that about? Trixie? Trixie!” Red Wings hollered, as the mare suddenly collapsed, falling to the street. He panicked. What just happened? Why did Trixie collapse all of a sudden?
And then the living wind howled, and Red Wings listened.
Stats
Page generated in 0.021 seconds
Total duration
601 users online
769,825 hits today, 1,822,946 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Ah, poor Trixie, excited crowds are normally her forte
I see you wasted little to know time introducing the next member of the traveling circus, and this time, via exposition dump, heh. I suppose it would make a certain sense for a tell not show of his condition considering how he guided them there, but there's only one question I can think to ask:
Does the living wind relay the smell of farts across Equestria as well?
Hmmm interesting guess were entering the divine powers now. ^^
7887538
Yes. Yes it does.
fart.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/1507/when-the-wind-blows-sure-its-source-deadly-farts-somebody-ha-demotivational-posters-1435754130.jpg
An interesting turn! At least now we know what sent them north. I loved your description on what Trixie saw when she cast, though I was not surprised that she didn't succeed... yet.
For some reason, I hadn't though about Trixie being super-sensitive to other's emotions letting her know when a stallion had those... special feelings for her...
It makes sense why she teases at Red Wings a little. I'm guessing it's just the fear of emotional overload from the crowd is the reason she panicked and had to get out of there quickly?
I felt rather sad for Noire's mom... I'm sure there are going to be some questions as why she doesn't look like herself anymore.
All in all, another fantastic chapter!