The Living Wind: Windspeaker
There was no gradual awakening for Trixie. One moment, she was asleep. The next moment, she was awake.
Trixie attempted to flutter her eyes, only to find rheum had crusted around her eyes, forming a yucky gunk that resisted her attempts to dislodge it. She flared her nostrils, and rubbed eyes to finally free them up.
She immediately decided she should have left her eyes be. Though it appeared to be dark out, the lights in the room she was in were still on. Trixie was feeling an ache in her shoulders, likely from bad posture in her sleeping position. She also had a killer headache.
Then she wrinkled her eyebrow, remembering just what had happened right before she had collapsed outdoors earlier. She stiffened.
“You are in friendly hooves, Trixie,” said a voice from beside her.
It took Trixie a second to identify the voice, before her body relaxed, relieved. “Where are we? Oh, the hotel room. Who brought me back?” She asked Iceheart, the pony sitting beside her.
“Red Wings brought you back,” Noire said, sitting over on the far bed. “Fortunately, there were actually a few ponies to help clear you out of the Commons, given most of them were going towards the Commons for the show.”
“They all bought the line that you were suffering from stress and exhaustion. I was with Windspeaker still when you collapsed, but from what he tells me, nopony suspects otherwise,” said Iceheart.
Trixie was about to comment on Iceheart’s words, suspecting how Windspeaker knew that. Noire, however, cut her off before she could speak. “You had an emotion overload, didn’t you, Trixie?,” asked the batpony.
“Yes. Yes I did. I have not had something like that since fillyhood,” Trixie said, feeling hot with embarrassment. She had thought she would no longer be paralysed by being in large crowds radiating lots of emotions. After all, Trixie had plied a trade for many years where her goal was to get ponies excited, happy and entertained, and never once had she suffered a bout of overload.
But that was a few years ago. I managed to desensitise myself over time as well, but being out of the magician act for so long, my tolerance for emotional energy has decreased, hasn’t it? Foolish, Trixie, that was foolish of you! There was no doubt about it now. Trixie had to head to Colt Springs to tackle this drawback of her heritage and, with Noire, see if she could conquer it for once and for all.
There was a light knock on the door. “Come in,” said Noire.
Stonehenge and Red Wings came in, quietly closing the door behind them.
“Is she alright?” Red Wings asked.
“I’m alright,” said Trixie, her nose twitching at how the question was directed at the other mares, as if she herself could not determine her own condition. She merely had an energy overload. She was not so frail as needing to be doted on like an infirm!
Red Wings sighed in relief. “That is good to know. I was close to a panic when you collapsed, but I was able to get you out of there, with the help of a few other ponies.”
“I’m alright, OK?” Trixie repeated herself. “I have a bit of a headache, but that should clear up overnight.” Her migraine suddenly flared up, and Trixie bit her tongue to keep from crying out. She squeezed her eyes shut, but they were already watering up.
“If you say so.” Red Wings frowned. “There’s something as well that you should know, Trixie. Windspeaker...he helped me get you out of there.”
Trixie snapped her head up at that remark. “What? What do you mean?”
“The Living Wind,” Iceheart said. “He is capable of eavesdropping with it, he was able to nudge us to Manechester once, but it appears Windspeaker is also able to communicate through the wind. It appears to be a versatile tool. Windspeaker told Red Wings the route out of the Commons with the fewest ponies. He also kept me updated while I was talking to him, and even knew our room numbers.”
As if I needed to be reminded of how powerful a force completely out of my understanding and reckoning and control is. What next, that destiny is a tangible force, that it’s been futile since the day I was born for me to struggle for greatness? Trixie kept her distaste hidden. She had recognised Windspeaker as kinship, a fellow spirit in suffering. It would not do to think badly of him. After all, the other unicorn was not the only pony with a great power that he was hiding from the world.
“I’ll have to thank him tomorrow, then,” Trixie mused aloud, before she sought to change the conversation. Looking over at Noire, she knew exactly what topic to shift to. “So how did your visit to your mother go, Noire?”
“Oh. That,” Noire said, lowering her head with a sad smile on her face. Trixie could feel the subtle brew of emotions from Noire, and knew there weren’t going to be any surprises. It was precisely how Trixie thought the homecoming might be: some joy, mixed with some melancholy and feeling of loss.
“It went as well as could have been expected,” Noire said, turning to face Stonehenge. “We got there, and she opened the door. I didn’t flat-out tell her I was New Moon, of course. I proved it with a few things, led her into the idea first, and then...”
“Hello, mother.”
Noire could tell her mother was uncertain, even without the ability to sense emotions she had inherited from her father. Frigor didn’t let her own confusion affect her, however, as the elder bat pony mare outwardly mellowed out and smiled. “Oh, come in then, both of you!”
Stonehenge and Noire awkwardly shuffled inside, the former having to maneuver to get his bulk through the door frame. Frigor didn’t stop there, however, as she led them through the front entrance, past a corridor, and then into another room.
“This isn’t the kitchen or the living area,” Noire said, uncertain as to why they were in the tea parlour.
“It isn’t,” Frigor agreed. “But this is the only room in the house big enough for all three of us that also doesn’t have windows, and I don’t want the neighbors to see your transforming. Now, how did you do it? I thought you weren’t able to transform, just like any other pony with a changeling father.”
It took Noire a second to realise what her mother meant. Oh! I hadn’t considered that, she thought. In retrospect, that Trixie had cast a spell to anchor and permanently change her appearance sounded more fantastical than the idea that Noire had achieved a feat any normal changeling could.
“Trixie helped me,” she said, before Noire flared her nostrils as she realised how misleading that sounded. “Not how to transform, though. Rather, she cast an illusion to change my colours, and even my Cutie Mark.”
Frigor raised her eyebrows, and Noire could taste the distrust from her. It appeared she would have to convince her mother some more.
“When I was seven, I had an obsession with marrying Prince Blueblood and becoming Princess New Moon,” Noire said, ears flattening as she confessed a mortifying part of her life. “I even had this ugly pink thing at the boutique that I had already picked out in my head to be wearing for the perfect day.”
The distrust faded away. Simultaneously, however, Noire could feel the mirth radiating from Stonehenge. “Pink doesn’t seem to fit you.”
“It didn’t fit my old colours, either,” said Noire, glad that Stonehenge was not of this age and didn’t know what Blueblood was like. Then she might really have been in for a ribbing.
“It’s you then, isn’t it? Oh, New Moon,” her mother bawled, and then leapt forward, pulling Noire inwards with a giant hug.
Noire hugged her mother back. It had been so many months since she had been home. She had no words to speak, merely tears to shed and a motherly embrace to seek comfort in.
Mother and daughter stayed like that for several minutes. Stonehenge stood off to the side, wordless. He knew this was a moment not to interrupt.
It was later that Frigor brought in a pot of water, moderately hot but not boiling — the mare was one of those tea traditionalists who insisted on a precise temperature of water for sipping tea — and the three found themselves sitting down at the table in the tea parlour.
“Where to begin?” Frigor asked, looking clueless what to talk about first.
Noire had a better idea, having actually had an hour to anticipate speaking to her mother again. “How about what happened right after I ran away?”
Frigor sighed. She sounded exhausted. “Where to begin?” She asked for the second time in as many minutes. “Well, the guards came and cordoned the area, and immediately began searching the house. They asked me questions about if Cognito had been behaving strangely the last little while. They thought he had been replaced by a changeling right before the changeling’s death, and that the real Cognito had been kidnapped with nopony the wiser.” Her blue eyes looked off into the distance, haunted. “When they realised you had disappeared, that changed things. You were spotted flying from the city.”
Stonehenge frowned, taking a sip of his tea. “They assumed Noire, sorry, New Moon had also been replaced and that the other changeling was fleeing to avoid being captured?”
Frigor nodded. “Yes, that was their deduction. They shut the city down for a few hours, and started a ponyhunt right after. You made it to Whinnychester safe and sound then, Moon?”
“Yes. I flew all day and night and I was exhausted by the time I got there, but I did. Trixie offered me sanctuary.”
“I see,” said Frigor, bowing her head. “Is she in Canterlot now, or is it just you and, erm…”
“I am Stonehenge,” Stonehenge introduced himself. “I am not from Whinnychester, but I am from a community much like it, Manechester, to the east of here.”
“It’s good to meet you then, Stonehenge.”
“Trixie is here in Canterlot,” said Noire. “Her and a few other ponies we’ve met and made friends with. We split up right before coming here, and Stonehenge came with me.” Oh, yes. I suppose while I’ve been busy traveling with Trixie, mother has been here all by herself. It made her feel guilty.
As if her mother knew exactly what Noire was thinking, Frigor smiled and said, “That’s good. You will have to bring them over and introduce them to me. It sounds like you have been on an adventure, then.”
Noire wrinkled her snout. “I’d love to tell you all about them, but first, how have you been, mother? No, please don’t give me the boilerplate response. I want to know how you’re truly doing.”
Frigor reclined back in her seat. She took a sip of her tea. Then she slammed the empty cup down on the table, startling both Noire and Stonehenge. It wasn’t out of anger or rage. It was as if Frigor lacked even the willpower to hold her hoof up, and let it drop on its own. She took a breath, then closed her eyes. “I was hoping to be able to take your father and bury him back home in Marequelon. Instead, I had to disavow him and let the guards take his body away.”
Noire’s throat clenched instinctively. Just like Trixie’s father. Neither of us ever got a chance to see our fathers off properly. It had hit home for Noire several months ago that she would never see her father again, but that Cogs’ body was taken away and not even given a proper burial reignited the sharp pain in her heart.
What was worse was the choice her mother had to make. Either Frigor would have to admit she had loved and married a changeling, and be ostracised, so that she could at least have his body to marry, or she would have to claim her husband had been impersonated by a changeling and not receive his body. It was a choice with two heart-breaking options.
“Oh, mom,” Noire said, squeezing her eyes shut. She sniffed, wiping the mucus that threatened to leak from her nose. She took a sip of her tea, hoping it could at least unclog her throat.
“It wasn’t a choice that I wanted to make, but I did. And you know what? I think it was the right choice. If nothing else, if you want to reappear again as New Moon, you won’t have that sword of Damarecles hanging over your head.”
“Sorry for interrupting, but what do you mean by that?” Stonehenge asked.
Noire sniffed again, and explained her mother’s logic. “Very few ponies even know that changelings and ponies can reproduce, though only with female ponies and male changelings. If my mother took the first path, then that would become maybe general knowledge. However, I would also become known as the daughter of a changeling. You weren’t around for it, but after the wedding there was a lot anti-changeling hysteria, which flared up every time a few changelings were discovered hiding around in Equestria, taking the forms of ponies. It didn’t matter if the changeling had been living as a pony for several decades: everypony assumed he or she had just kidnapped a pony only recently and taken his or her form. Even if the Guard couldn’t find something to stick me with, they would have no doubt made my life a living hell until I had put in enough time for an honourable discharge.”
“Oh,” said Stonehenge. The Earth pony stayed silent after that. It was impressive how small Stonehenge could look.
Frigor looked at her daughter, peering closely into Noire’s eyes. Noire fidgeted under her mother’s gaze, but held her head straight forward, answering look for look.
“You’ve grown,” Frigor said. “No, not like that, but you’ve changed. I felt troubled when I was younger over packing everything up and moving to the mainland, eventually landing in Canterlot. You went on tours with your company, but you were never independent. You were always just another cog in the machine, as Cogs would describe himself. But not this time, was it?”
“No, most certainly not,” Noire shook her head. She looked over at Stonehenge. “Stonehenge didn’t join us until we were four ponies deep, but where to begin. Ah, I suppose it would start off with the magic Trixie has been studying for the last few years…”
“It was a conversation we both needed,” said Noire. She turned to Stonehenge. “Thank you for coming along again. I needed a third pony there.”
“Not a problem,” the grey Earth pony said.
“Well, at least your mother is safe. Thank goodness,” Trixie exhaled, relieved. While she had not known Frigor or Cognito as well as she had Noire, who Trixie had spent much time with as a filly, she still had memories of the older mare. That was one less thing to weigh down on their merry troupe of ponies.
Trixie rolled over in her bed, pushing herself off the mattress. Her head flared up as she did, but Trixie pushed through the pain. Walking over to the window, she threw the curtain open with her mouth, fumbling a bit due to how rare she used her teeth for something other than chewing food.
“Canterlot is beautiful at night,” Iceheart said.
“Yes, it is,” Noire replied. “For all that Canterlot has odd design choices, I loved flying over the city at night. The warm thermals that would lift me up without any active flapping, the pleasant glows of the streetlights at night, and the wonderful smell of food from the bakeries...it always brought my spirits up.”
Trixie looked out at the streets, watching ponies go about their business. A few ponies walked at a languid pace. Others trotted, some cantered, and a few galloped. She wondered about all the stories they might have to tell. Some were more boring than others, but there wasn’t a one who Trixie couldn’t empathise with if they were struggling and in dire circumstances.
Hers was a gift that Trixie had developed out of an inherent skill in illusions, but it had grown into something more than she had ever dreamed of. For Trixie, there was no question. She had to return to the Centre for Mysterious Magical Maladies the next day, and again attempt to help Windspeaker.
First, though…”By the way, does anypony know why Princess Celestia and Princess Luna held an impromptu lowering-and-raising ceremony tonight?,” Trixie asked.
Iceheart shook her head. “No. Though they made the decision, whatever their rationale was, they did not tell the guards.”
Red Wings frowned. “Is that what Windspeaker told you?”
The Crystal pony acknowledged his question with an affirmative nod.
“We’ll go back tomorrow,” Trixie said suddenly. “Back to the Centre.”
“Are you certain, Trixie?” Red Wings asked. “You did have that episode earlier today.”
Trixie bit her tongue, as much to hide her headache that continued to flare up as she did not to let out a scathing remark. “It is just a migraine. A good night’s sleep, and I will be fine.”
“Speaking of which, I would prefer the three of you do not come tomorrow,” Iceheart suddenly said, looking at Noire, Stonehenge, and Red Wings.
“Huh? Why not?” Noire asked.
“Windspeaker’s room is not that large,” said Iceheart as if it explained everything.
Which it did. “I can’t see a problem with that,” Red Wings said. Finding no issue with Iceheart’s logic, the other two assented to Iceheart’s request as well.
The five continued to chat and banter some more, sharing some food and drinks that Stonehenge and Noire had picked up on their way back from the batpony district. Each of them suspected they were unlikely to have peaceful, relaxing nights like this very often in the future.
It was unsettlingly quiet out as Iceheart led Trixie along the cobbled roads of Canterlot. The morning rush of ponies going to work had just finished, leaving only the occasional housemare walking around to go shopping in the residential areas. It was a cool day, uncharacteristic for the season, though Trixie expected it to warm up as the sun continued its inexorable rise.
“Are you truly alright, Trixie?” Iceheart asked.
Trixie grit her teeth. She had already been asked that multiple times the night before. She was not a frail wallflower. Iceheart’s voice rarely varied in its tone. Just now, it bothered Trixie to hear a well-meaning question in that tone. “I am fine, thank you for asking,” said Trixie. “My headache has faded away, and that is really all it was.”
“Very well.”
There was a spring to Iceheart’s step today, Trixie noticed. The Crystal pony normally walked at an even trot, but today, she seemed excited. What happened in that room yesterday when she was speaking to Windspeaker? Trixie thought to herself. Hmmm...I went with Red Wings, Iceheart stayed behind with Windspeaker, and Stonehenge went with Noire. Ah, it doesn’t matter, so long as it doesn’t split us up. They had all been together only such a short time, but it would make Trixie sad if she had to say goodbye to Iceheart, Red Wings or Stonehenge. Noire would hurt the most. For being a friend from fillyhood that Trixie had not seen in over a decade, they had reconnected well.
If they stayed together, and found even more personal bonds with one another, Trixie would be happy. She could never have predicted the turn of events life had taken her since that winter night in Whinnychester long ago, when a bat pony had flown through her window, but it had been worth it.
“Have you enjoyed going through Equestria with us?” Trixie suddenly asked Iceheart.
That gave the Crystal pony pause, and she actually stopped. Iceheart greeted Trixie with a smile. “It has been a wonderful time going with you Trixie. I was merely glad to have finally been able to leave the fortress, but it was not until the last few days that I realised how I needed to depart the north altogether. What were you thinking about?”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m floating on air, like I’m weightless. Not like self-levitation, but that I’m truly weightless,” Trixie admitted, scrunching her nose up at how she was fumbling her words. “When I was younger, there was a period where I felt like life had it out for me. I learned, I studied, I practised, first in school then under a mentor for the stage. I started my own show, going on the road to small towns and putting on performances. And every time I started to get my life going, disaster would strike.”
“You’re worried still, then? About, what? That we will eventually not travel together any more?”
“Yes,” said Trixie. “It’s been a month since Noire and I met you, and even less for Red Wings and Stonehenge. We have so much more time in the world, all of us, and I don’t want to spend so little of it in the time of such good friends. You know, when I confined myself to Whinnychester, I bought books and studied, and practiced and honed my magic further. But even with all that, I’m not sure I would have ever left Whinnychester again on my own. When I was younger, I felt like I was going to be great. In my search for greatness, I fought the world many times. Eventually, the world won.”
Iceheart stayed silent. The purple-coated mare knew a good spiritually-cleansing rant when she saw one.
“You know, it’s funny, now that I think about it. In a sense, my magic is all about defying the way things are, and instead making them the way I think they should be.” Trixie sighed wistfully, looking off at the distant tower of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. “I guess it’s my little revenge against life having battered me down. Now that things are going good for me again, I want to spend as much time as possible together with those I consider my friends.” The unicorn mare started walking again, moving towards the Centre for Mysterious Magical Maladies.
“Some are unfortunate to have less time than others,” Iceheart remarked.
Trixie nodded. “Yes, like Windspeaker. I will put forward my best effort, Iceheart, but I cannot make guarantees.”
“It would mean a lot if you could. Not make guarantees, that is, I mean actually healing him.”
“As it were.” Trixie sighed. “You know, I never expected to return to Canterlot, but here we are. It won’t last, though. Soon, we’ll be heading west to Colt Springs. Perhaps Noire and I knew we would eventually head there, even before we left Whinnychester, but every stop we made helped us to delay going there. No more. We’ll go, and Noire and I will learn what we can,” Trixie resolved.
“And then what?” Iceheart asked, bringing her friend back down to earth.
“I don’t honestly know,” said Trixie. “Perhaps when this is all over, I will become a healer. My powers were capable of restoring an amputated wing and ending a petrification curse. Who knows what else they may be capable of?”
Perhaps preventing a pony from being subsumed into the Living Wind at the prime of his life was the unsaid thought in both ponies’ heads.
“I will come with you to Colt Springs,” Iceheart said bluntly. “You have been a fun pony to wander across Equestria with, Trixie. Besides, I suspect you will need the moral support.”
Trixie couldn’t deny that. She shut her muzzle up as they finally walked into the Centre for Mysterious Magical Maladies. There were a few ponies sitting in the lobby, and she did not want an eavesdropping pony to take interest in what she and Iceheart were discussing. Instead, the two took the elevator up to the fifth floor.
At last, they came up to Room 512. Iceheart went to knock, only for Windspeaker to call out from the other side of the door, “You can come in.”
Iceheart and Trixie walked in, closing the door behind them. Without Red Wings, Noire or Stonehenge there, the area seemed far more spacious. With a start, Trixie noticed the room was sanitised, with few personal effects. Was he listening in on us as we walked here, or were there other things holding his attention? Trixie thought.
“Welcome back,” said Windspeaker. He looked hopeful.
“The others stayed behind, at our request,” Iceheart explained. “We felt that just the three of us would be sufficient for Trixie’s second attempt.”
“Thank you then, both for coming and for the other three staying behind. While I do not mind visitors, it was getting a little crowded yesterday.”
“I thought the same,” said Trixie. Using her horn, she levitated a chair over, sitting it down in front of Windspeaker’s wheelchair. Sitting down on all fours, she faced the other unicorn. “Before we start today, I am curious. When I made my attempt yesterday, did you feel funny at any point?”
“Whatever it was you did, you were only in the trance for a minute. I did have the most curious sensation, but it feels impossible to describe. If I had to say, it felt like I was underwater. I wasn’t drowning or anything, but every second, I felt like I was paddling and climbing, getting closer and closer to breaking the surface of the water,” Windspeaker said, clearly struggling with the metaphor. “I never did break the surface, but I felt more buoyant than I ever have in my life.”
Trixie regarded Windspeaker closely. She realised why his blue eyes had surprised her before. They were much the same shade as her father’s.
She closed her own eyes, so she wouldn’t have to see his. “I see. The both of you, unless it is absolutely vital, please do not interrupt me.” Trixie swallowed. “More than ever before, I will need complete concentration for this.”
“Very well, Trixie,” said Iceheart.
“Go ahead,” said Windspeaker.
Trixie took a few short breaths, cycling out the air in her lungs. Then, comfortable in her seat, she cast.
A stallion had once told her that the Living Wind was playful. He had been all too truthful. She had been intimate with the Living Wind only once before, and already it welcomed her back like an old friend. Even in this odd realm where her mind interfaced with the powers that dictated creation, it was like she belonged there.
The physical world and the magic that interacted with it were parallel yet interacting forces, but they were merely there. The Living Wind, however, beckoned her.
Having seen it once before, she was no longer surprised to see how the three powers came together, intertwined in a small mote of dust with a magical aura much like her own. The insignificant dust mote was feeble, being torn apart by the complex chains of the world. He had said something about only a few years left, hadn’t he? She could all too easily see the truth.
The Living Wind looked as if it was trying to partially extract itself from the stallion. She looked. Even now, her mind was too feeble to truly comprehend all she saw, but she could see it. The Living Wind had no way to remove itself from the stallion without killing him. It was like one of three twines of rope wound together into a coil, and that coil defined the stallion’s identity. The other two twines were unsympathetic: what difference did it make if a dust mote died?
She knew all too well the chain reaction the passing of a single mote of dust could do. It was more significant than the massive reverberations the three coiled twines went through whenever one of them was plucked and released. She had to do this, for the other pony’s sake.
With some mental acuity, she continued to poke at the way everything fit together. Slowly, comprehension dawned on her as she deciphered the riddle, solving the Rubik’s cube, putting together the three-dimensional puzzle and assembling the jigsaw. The key she had wasn’t perfect, but it could work.
It was like she had flipped a light switch. Suddenly, she saw how everything came together. There was a way to unwind the strings that bound the Living Wind, the force of magic and the realm of creation all together in one hank of yarn in a lone mote, no, Windspeaker.
She began tugging at the strings, trying to unweave the nasty weave that was killing Windspeaker. It was dangerous work. Death lurked around every untangling motion she made. It was as if she was trying to pull out individual stalks of straw from a haystack without disturbing the rest of the pile, except the stakes were far greater.
Cracks began to form in her concentration, and she backed off as she felt the fatigue of her physical body leaking through. If she treaded any further, the backlash from one wrong move might now maim her, if not outright kill her.
Time to admit defeat. She was a coward. Perhaps what she had done would give Windspeaker a few more years. That was a moral victory she would take.
In the odd ethereal abstract of her magical spell, she turned to flee once again, only to stop.
“Hello,” said the other pony.
She felt as if she should recognise the other. The unicorn had a blue coat the colour of the morning sky, with a mane a few tints away from white. What sent shivers down her spine was the other’s red eyes. Red eyes were uncommon in ponies, but this mare’s eyes were full of gleeful malice.
“Don’t you recognise me?”
She could feel the walls she had built through years of meditation groaning under the weight of ages. The mare’s tone of voice was too much. There was a hint of ill will there, behind the fangs and the forked tongue. More than that, however, the other’s mere words left her unsettled, as if the answer was at the front of her mind, but she couldn’t remember.
The other mare’s wide smile faded, but the manic light of her haunting red eyes burned even stronger. “I suppose you don’t. After all, you’ve tried your hardest to forget me. You’ve done a good job, actually!,” she said in a sing-song voice. “But I’ll never let you go,” she hissed, her voice suddenly deepening as green purple vapour leaked out her eyes, and a red outline of an amulet appeared around the other’s neck.
She recoiled. She knew exactly what it was. But how? Had she done something by accident when working on Windspeaker’s dilemma earlier to summon up the vestiges of the Alicorn Amulet’s taint? She grit her teeth. If only she could remember, but she couldn’t even recall her own name. It was at the tip of her tongue, yet the word danced around like a mischievous faerie, refusing to be captured.
“Oh-hohoho, you and I will have so much fun,” the tainted one told her. To her horror, the tainted mare’s coat began to fade, losing its azure luster.
She lowered her head. Then she raised it back up, staring the other in her mirthful red eyes. There was no other way to leave but to exorcise this apparation that had possessed her for long enough. The power of illusions wouldn’t help here, but then, somehow she knew it was never going to be like that.
“Leave,” Trixie ordered her phantom. “I'm working. Never return.”
Her doppelganger recoiled. The other Trixie’s form was beginning to fade even more, to the point of becoming see-through, but those powerful red eyes were shining as bright as always. “Hmmph. So you finally remembered yourself? No matter. I'll leave you be, since you're working on this stallion right now," she snorted. "But I’ll be back, and again and again, until one of us wins this dance of ours.”
“I’ll defeat you next time,” Trixie promised.
Her spectre gave her a mocking laugh. “So you say. The loud words of a foolish foal who can’t even help a pony, and chooses to flee instead.” The other Trixie sniffed obnoxiously, before whipping her head around, covering her face up with her mane.
Then she was gone.
Trixie had few ways to emote, not really having a physical body to work with, going more off of abstract symbolism her mind had best interpreted as a shadowy form of herself. That had been unexpected.
The other Trixie was wrong. Trixie, herself that was, had nothing to be ashamed of. She had gotten here so far by pioneering an entirely new subdiscipline of illusions, the power to change not just how others perceived things with their senses, but the capacity to actually alter the very world itself. In the process, Trixie had helped so many already.
But then, the other Trixie had also been right. She was running away from Windspeaker’s troubles. It just didn’t sit right with Trixie. She knew herself. If she stopped trying now, it would be a guilt that would eat away at her for the rest of her life. It was, after all, how the taint from the Alicorn Amulet still resided in her.
Trixie turned back around.
There was a maxim another stallion had once told her, and which she had taken to heart before. Her father was long gone, but his spirit still lived on in her inheritance, both the magic that had helped her to get this far, and the beliefs of Wooden Chisel that his daughter had taken to heart.
Who dares, wins.
Trixie clamped down on the gusto that filled her. It was going to be a delicate job now. Wetting her lips, she focused, manipulating the strings of life-force that fed Windspeaker.
Quickly, she reached the point of no return. It was the moment where, if Trixie went any further and slipped up, the backlash was certain to be harmful. She pressed forward.
To reject the way things were and impress upon the world the way things should be was always something that was more than just magic. To Trixie, it required her to sharpen her mind, for her to truly believe it herself. She had believed that Noire should have a different coat colour and Cutie Mark. She had believed that the windigo fossils on the ice flats had dissolved a long time ago, that Red Wings had two wings, that the magic had worn out on Stonehenge’s petrification spell.
This was more daunting than anything else. Trixie had to be exact in how she believed the unity of forces within Windspeaker worked. Instead of doing it all at once, she was working piecemeal, altering her state of mind every few loops of the twines to believe this slightly different state was the way everything should work, and her magic did the rest. It was simply too complicated to do it all at once, even with the key she had unravelled. With every change, Windspeaker’s life expectancy increased.
Trixie swallowed. Her work was getting more and more delicate as everything resisted being altered. Magic and physical existence remembered how they should be, even though that shouldn't happen, and they wanted to spring back into place. The taut tension within them threatened to snap back at any moment. It was only the totality of Trixie’s will and the experience she had accumulated up to this point that let her continue.
She undid the last knot. The three twines, coiled together, fell apart.
The dust mote, cracking apart at its edges, reconstituted itself.
‘Hello, Trixie.’
She blinked.
‘It’s been some time, has it not?’
Trixie recognised that voice.
“F-father?,” she asked.
Standing in front of her was a male unicorn. His coat was as dark as a night untainted by the stars or the moon, with blue eyes much the same shade as her coat. Though not enormous, he was taller than most, with Trixie only just coming up to his withers.
Then if she tilted her head, she saw something completely different, of a changeling, one of ponykind’s most feared enemies. Either form was familiar to her, but Trixie wondered why she was somehow seeing both aliases of her father at once. Cicada was born a changeling, but Wooden Chisel had spent so long in pony society that they were at once two halves.
No, more importantly, why was she seeing her father?
“What are you?” Trixie asked.
‘Ah, that’s the correct question,’ Wooden Chisel said, solidifying in his pony form. ‘Asking who I am would have been incorrect. What I am is the better question. You could say I’m a memory of the one who was Wooden Chisel, but that would fail to describe the truth.’
“I don’t understand. I was healing Windspeaker just earlier.” Trixie frowned. “Am I...dead?”
Wooden Chisel shook his head. ‘Hardly. You are still alive. When we finish this conversation, you will return to your body with nary a scratch. No. Think about what you have done on your journey, Trixie.’
Trixie scrunched her nose, feeling moments away from a breakdown. Why was she seeing her father? She was in no mood to be strung along right now, and yet she felt like bursting into tears, hearing Wooden Chisel’s voice, seeing him in something other than a fever dream for the first time in five years.
‘Every pony you’ve met, you’ve progressively advanced your spellcraft to help. You stopped imitating the illusion spells of changelings long ago, Trixie. We could heal our own forms, but never could we have impressed our will on the reality of other things, changing inanimate objects, regrowing body parts, or ending curses through phantasmal magic. At some point, you would wander across a force that wasn’t just magical or physical, but divine.’
Wooden Chisel’s words bothered Trixie. She knew she should be focusing on his last few words, but instead she focused on his middle sentences. “Regrowing wings, ending curses...wait, you’ve been watching me? Either you’re really my father, and this is the afterlife, or you’re not my father and just in my head.”
‘This is not the afterlife. You can think of it as something like an in-between, between the world of the living and that of the dead. Not that you are dying or anything,’ Wooden Chisel clarified. ‘But you can call this the ethereal realm, the aether if you will. Perhaps you could even call it phantasia. It is responsible for some of the unexplained phenomenon in the real world. We dead occasionally cycle in and out of here, but the living are unable to touch it. Unless of course, they beat back a force with roots in this realm from killing a young stallion prematurely.’
Trixie narrowed her eyes. “So the Living Wind really wasn’t something fully of our world, then?”
‘No, it was not. You can call it divine influence, or a semi-spiritual force, or an ethereal power. But it is mostly entrenched in the living world, to be clear. The more I speculate on it, the more I believe that there are other entities out there that infringe upon here. The mechanism by which we changelings absorbed love, for one. The powers of some of those locked away in Tartarus, for another. Even the alicorn princesses, I believe, are more than simply beings with the power of all three tribes and long lifespans.’
“That...puts a crimp in one of my plans then, maybe,” Trixie admitted.
‘Yes, I think I know. You have hidden it well, Trixie, but I can tell. It was on your own initiative that we enrolled you into the School for Gifted Unicorns, after all.’
“You don’t think less of me for it?”
Wooden Chisel shook his head. ‘Had I heard about it before I died, I would have been disappointed about the Alicorn Amulet, but I would have welcomed you home in open hooves.’
Trixie squeezed her eyes shut. “I wanted to, I really wanted to. But I—I was ashamed of myself,” she said, bursting into tears.
The changeling turned pony took his daughter into his hooves, hugging her close.
The mare bawled into her father’s embrace, the warm, jet-black coat as familiar to her as his harder changeling chitin. It had been years since she had done this, not since her mother died. It would have been humiliating were any others around. Now, however, it was liberating. At least, Trixie felt that not her body, but her soul was beginning to heal from its torn wounds. Had her double been there at that moment, she would have faced herself.
“Oh, father,” Trixie kept hugging him, afraid to let go. “I don’t know what to say.”
‘I do,’ said Wooden Chisel. ‘You’ll go back, and wonder if this was a hallucination, or the real thing. You might think it the former, so that you can torture yourself over having not returned home before I died. If it’s the real thing, then I’ve forgiven you. If it’s merely something you conjured up in your head, then I’m a figment of your imagination, yes, but it also means that you’ve forgiven yourself.’
Trixie snorted, though it was short-lived. She felt as if her nose should be runny, but accepted that in this realm, she was likely some sort of quasi-spirit instead of there in her real body. “You sound as logical as I ever remember you.”
‘Your mother is up there, as well.’
She froze.
‘In death, all things reunite,’ Wooden Chisel said. ‘So it was that September and I were one once more. She is as sweet as I remember her being.’
“I...I would much like to see her again.”
Wooden Chisel shook his head. ‘It is not possible, not at this time. The aether is unpredictable like that. Even though no time passes in the realm below, you still have a time limit for how long you may stay here.’
Trixie’s heart sank, as her hopes of seeing her mother again was dashed, and her reunion with her father was also to be cut short. “Then...for however long I have left, I’d like to stay like this,” Trixie said, referring to her hugging her father.
‘I would very much like that,’ Wooden Chisel said, smiling.
The two were silent for several seconds, until Wooden Chisel said, ‘You go to see her next.’ It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
‘She is powerful, perhaps the strongest changeling ever born. She needed every ounce of that strength to survive the windigos, Discord’s era, and a thousand years of hiding from the world. She, like Chrysalis, will see the opportunity to be had in helping you, but do not let your guard down.’
Trixie looked up, resolve in her purple eyes. She found her father’s blue eyes, eyes which she had been reminded of only a short time before. “I will, father.”
‘Good,’ Wooden Chisel said, his eyes shining with pride. ‘You too shall become great, my little Bella. Only those who dare can win. So long as you keep going forward, only death can stop you, and I expect not to see you up there for many, many years to come. ’
They stayed like that, in an embrace of father and daughter, for what time they had left.
Then it ended.
“It is done,” she said, blinking.
“It is?!,” exclaimed a mare from beside her.
Trixie was slow to exit the zoned-out state she had been in, but each consecutive blink of her eyes saw her emerge more into the waking world. At last, she remembered who she was. Bellatrix Midsummer, Trixie Lulamoon, a wandering showmare, a budding magician who specialised in magic. Always before had the use of her illusionary magic resulted in some loss of self-identity, but that was the strongest it had ever been.
Even as she remembered the good she had done, even as she remembered meeting her father, Trixie shivered. That had been close. Her phantom doppelganger showing up had stopped her slide down into forgetfulness. Was she to one day become so engrossed in changing the world that she would forget her own self?
No, even more than that...father? I’m glad I got to meet you again, but I wish it had been longer. I wish I had had all the time in the world.
“It is,” Windspeaker confirmed, his eyes staring off into the distance. “The wind is finally at peace. She still beckons to me, but not longer is her tug an irresistible pull. I will still join with the Living Wind the day I die, but that day may now be decades into the future, not mere years.”
There was a brief tinge of jealousy from Iceheart, but it was drowned in the Crystal pony’s happiness. Trixie smiled at that as she sat back down into the chair she had taken before casting. She was tired, but not so tired as to collapse, like the last two times she had cast her magic and succeeded. Was it because the Living Wind helped me again, like the Crystal Heart did on the ice flats, or the Black Moon in Whinnychester? Or am I truly growing stronger now, not just in the extent of what I can change, but also by not tiring me out as much?
She had to go to Colt Springs. It was there that Trixie hoped she could find something that would let her surpass her limits as a unicorn, even if it meant having to meet her. Chrysalis had been terrifying only in part, and she was subordinate in spirit to the changeling that sat upon the throne on the west coast.
Windspeaker stood up.
The white-coated stallion furled his eyebrows as he dropped down onto his front hooves. “Well, I will not be standing on two hooves any time soon,” Windspeaker said, and Trixie could feel the brief concern from Iceheart. He trotted around a few steps. “Fortunately, sitting in a wheelchair has not so debilitated me that I cannot walk on all fours, though it will take many days before I am not winded, pardon the unintentional pun, by walking a short distance.”
“You can walk?!” Trixie asked, baffled.
“I have never lost the capacity to walk. A few months ago, however, the muscle atrophy was enough that it tired me out, and I chose to not risk hurting myself,” said Windspeaker. He lifted a hoof, and flexed the muscles of his foreleg.
He looks so thin, Trixie thought. Only now that he was out of his chair did she realise just how reedy Windspeaker was. Even the most shut-in unicorn could have pinned down Windspeaker. “So, now what?”
“Now he comes with us,” said Iceheart.
“Ah. I should have seen that coming,” Trixie admitted. It had been a running trend that her merry band of ponies gained another hanger-on at every stop they had made along their journey. Windspeaker would not be the odd one out. “So how long do we need to stay in Canterlot for? A few weeks? I assume that would be enough time for you to be discharged and build up your stamina.”
“Actually, I was thinking we leave tomorrow,” said Windspeaker, as he strode past her to the door.
“What?!”
Iceheart regarded Windspeaker cooly. “You are certain you will not be a burden?” It seemed she was wary of him departing right now.
Windspeaker shook his head. “I am reasonably aware of my own limits. Besides, where we are going next, I am certain it would not matter if I was in physical shape or not.”
“No, seriously?” Trixie asked. “You’re just going to walk out the building right now and depart Canterlot tomorrow, just like that? Do you not have family or friends or anything to say goodbye to?”
The other unicorn paused. Then he narrowed his blue eyes. “I didn’t make very many friends when I was younger. I was always distant, thanks to the Living Wind, and I knew what ponies would say behind others’ backs. My parents and sister do not live in Canterlot either, so I will send them mail instead. But. But, there is one pony I should say goodbye to.”
Chocolate Chip never thought too much about the path she had taken in life. With a name like hers, she might have gone into baking, but instead, she had taken to working at the Centre for Mysterious Magical Maladies. She enjoyed working with the fillies and colts here, even if it broke her heart to see them suffer, and the good doctors unable to heal them.
There were adult patients too. It would be remiss of her to admit to favouritism, but Chocolate Chip did indeed have favourites. Rubedo on the third floor was a sweetheart, passionate about his writing even as eyesight was shot. Sand Storm on the seventh floor had his odd disease with parts of his body temporarily turning to sand, but he had taken it in stride. Then there was Windspeaker. Even as the unicorn’s body was slowly wasting away, unlikely to reach even his late twenties, the stallion was forever stoic.
She hummed out a little ditty as she wheeled the cart down the train, full of meals for those able to eat on their own. Water vapour hissed from a dinner tray whose top had been bumped off. Moving around, she gripped the plastic lid with her wings, pushing it back into place. A spicy smell wafted into her nose. Immediately, Chocolate turned her head around, and let a soft sneeze into her feathers. She would have to wash her feathers when next she got back to the kitchen. Hygiene was important in a clinic, after all.
“Good morning, Chocolate Chip.”
“Oh, good morning, Windspeaker. You felt well enough to leave the room?” Chocolate Chip asked. She turned around to face him, only to receive a pleasant surprise. “Oh. It’s not often I see you actually walking.” In actual fact, Chocolate Chip couldn’t recall the last time Windspeaker had been out on all four hooves. She had seen it a few times, but it had surely been years.
“Yes, I am,” Windspeaker said, sound like he was in a good mood. “More than that, really. Thank you for all your hard work, Chocolate. You were my favourite caretaker while I was here.”
“Aw, you’ll embarrass me,” Chocolate Chip said, certain she was blushing through her tan coat. Then her mind caught up as it rigorously parsed through Windspeaker’s words. “Wait, was your favourite?”
Windspeaker nodded. “Yes. My time here is finished at the Centre for Mysterious Magical Maladies.”
Chocolate’s mouth hung open, the pegasus incapable of forming coherent noises.
“The magical illness that afflicted me was a one-off, and it has finally gone away,” Windspeaker said, as he walked past her. “A healer came and cured me of it. It is unfortunate that I am the only pony here who she was capable of saving, but I am forever grateful to her, much as I am to you. Continue to do what you have done. You have made my stay here more pleasant.”
It took Chocolate Chips a few more seconds to finally get past her stuttering stage, and she snapped around. Windspeaker was gone.
“Windspeaker!,” she called out, and dashed around the corner. The stallion was not in sight. Chocolate Chip furled her brows. She would have to let the doctors and the administrators know about this. Windspeaker’s method of checking out was most unorthodox, and what had that been about being cured?
“You succeeded,” was all Stonehenge had to say as Trixie walked into the room, with Windspeaker and Iceheart behind her. “It is a good thing Red Wings and I have a spare bed in our room.”
Iceheart snorted at the understatement.
“After seeing what she did with my wing,” Red Wings said, flexing his left wing for emphasis, “And with Stonehenge, I’m not surprised anymore. We all thought it was just a matter of time.”
“Thank you, then, for believing in me,” Trixie said. She lowered her head, her teeth feeling heavyset in her jaw. “But it’s beginning to take more and more out of me to do it. I’ve helped all of along the way, and you’ve helped me in turn. I’ve never had quite good friends like all of you.”
“It is nothing,” said Stonehenge. “Even if it has only been a few weeks, the four of you already feel kindred to me, as much as the Wall did.” He turned to face Windspeaker. Stonehenge’s hulking body was a striking disparate next to the starved Windspeaker. Stonehenge resolved to make sure the unicorn was well-fed over the next while. If he had been healed, then Windspeaker would surely be able to recover some physical strength. “Well, you are the odd one out, if I am correct in assuming you are joining us.”
“I am,” Windspeaker said. He leaned back against a wall, sitting down on his haunches. “I have spent a few years cooped up in the Centre, and if nothing else, your journey has been interesting so far.”
Noire was scathing in her assessment. “You want to come with us just because we’re interesting?”
“Hardly. If it were just that, I have the Living Wind for that,” said Windspeaker. “But as I said, I wish to leave, and it is not just the Centre but all of Canterlot that feels restricting. But even more, I have the feeling that you, Trixie, will soon be at the epicentre of something great, and I feel like I need to be there to help you in it, much as you helped me.”
Trixie said nothing. Her father had told her as much only a short time before.
“I spoke with him for several hours yesterday. I will vouch for him,” said Iceheart.
Noire turned to Iceheart. “It’s not that I distrust him or anything, though I will take your word on it, Iceheart. It’s just, well, where we were intending to head next before we came to Canterlot is a place that ponies shouldn’t just go for entertainment.” The batpony frowned, and considered her next words. “Not that I’m saying it’s outright physically dangerous, not when Trixie and I have a legitimate reason to head there. But it’s still not someplace to just go, like it’ll be a little vacation.” Her little rant finished, Noire turned to face Windspeaker.
“So now...unless the Living Wind tells you of something else Windspeaker, now we go to Colt Springs, to meet her.”
Red Wings frowned. “You know, even though I was able to visit the changeling hive in the Badlands twice before, I still have no idea who you are talking about. I mean, I get that she must be a changeling, but I don’t even have a name, let alone who or what she is all about.”
“I don’t blame them for not talking much about her,” said Windspeaker. “She’s a powerful changeling. She’s been around since even before the age of Discord, during the time of the Windigos. She’s one of those divine enough that the Living Wind can’t touch her, so all I have to go off is reputation and what little those in the know speak about her away from her hive.”
Windspeaker looked off to the west, where the sun was setting. “Even I don’t know her name, just her title.”
Noire trembled. “My father used to tell me stories about her. He said that all changeling queens look up to her, for being the one that survived history. She isn’t hostile to ponies, and we have an in of sorts. But we’ll still be walking into hostile territory when we go to meet her…”
“...the Empress of all Changelings.”
If you've been following the first chapter of this story carefully, you can probably deduce that the 'sextet' mentioned in the first chapter has finally been formed. Unlike most alternate six-pony teams that have been formed, this one even has a gender balance! If anyone wants to make a TVTropes page right about now, I'd be grateful 
Would anyone care to take a commission for drawing these six (as in, a paid commission)? PM me if interested, but I have a prefer for 'clean' art styles.
This arc was a little bit difficult to write, since we're getting into the part where there's a lot more metaphorical stuff happening. Something that would have been nice would be to get a muse with a degree in philosophy, since there's some faux-philosophy in this fic thus far. At least it isn't as long as the last few arcs have been. That's a benefit of staying in one city, and not introducing a lot of backstory and a new raft of OCs.
That being said, I'll be taking a break now from posting this fic. Though I aborted it with the New Moon arc, I want to pre-write the entire next arc to make it fairly fluid. I also need to go through the earlier chapters and do some serious editing work, as well as tightening up the timeline of this story, too: the very first chapter takes place 4 years after the Magic Duel, so I intend to make sure everything lines up properly. I may even take a leaf from Three Wishes: Hole in the Sun and do a chapter-by-chapter summary appendix.
Anyways, the next arc, when I write it, is Empress:
"What is an illusion? Something that fools, deceives, tricks. You can trick others, but you can't trick yourself!
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And the fellowship has been formed!
Changeling Empress? This may go very well, or very badly. I eagerly await the next chapter—and arc!
Dun dun dunnn! The amulet influence/spectre/thingie finaly makes grand entrance.
Oh we have to wait a long time now for the next chapter? Oh well good fics should never be rushed. ^^
Trick yourself? Easily. When you repeat a lie a thousand times, it becomes a truth for you.
"Who dares, wins". Not really sure if it is clashes with "do not harm". If Windspeaker wasn't pretty much in a hospice anyway, that certainly would.
Trixie's illusions are based on emotions. Can illusions be based on pure logic? Certainly, but that would be a totally different story.
Why am I writing this line of text?
I feel like Trixie might slip so far away during her insertions of will upon reality that her alter ego/alicorn personal might take over. Good chapter and a nice reunion with her father
7918321 Okay, that is simply full of WIN and PIE!
7918877 There's a couple of ships I'm sort of rooting for, but I'll wait for more chapters to see if those ships sail.
Fic has been awesome so far, many thanks for recommending it to me.
Party pony and the plyatapus. ........ Now I know what my readers feel like at the mention of the noodle incident. I want to know more.......
8403875
Definitely no rush! Real life responsibilities must come first... that's just the way of it, but I'm glad to hear that you're still finding time to keep this one going. I shall continue to read and comment away! 
Yay for that!
Alas, it is with great heaviness and sorrow that I comment on this chapter... because it is the last one. Hope lives within, as a wellspring in the desert in the promise you gave to me that this story would be completed in due course. I shall eagerly await that day, as now the pieces have been set, and have but to begin moving.
Windspeaker is interesting, but I found this arc slightly less than the previous ones. Don't get me wrong, I like them all, and I'm still enjoying reading this story, a ton! I did find Iceheart's reactions odd, but only because I know I don't fully understand them. The jealousy she felt was not something that has been explained, but I assume it has something to do with the extra time she spent with Windspeaker. I surmise she has some sort of (not necessarily romantic) attraction to him, maybe for also being an outsider like her? They kind of are kindred spirits in a way... Even though his body is/was wasting away, he continued to fight and struggle on. Also, she dealt with a sort of living wind with the Windigos... I don't know... but I expect something further will develop there.
I had a feeling (probably because you said as much in the first chapter/prologue) that there would be six of them, a kind of counterpoint to the canon "mane six". I also appreciate that they are gender-balanced, as well as race balanced (magic/flying/grounded/changeling-hybrid). Well played on that. I also strove for similar balance in The Last Cutie Mark Crusader, but I ended up heavy on pegasi (but I got the gender balance!). I like all of the characters, and I think I'll like Windspeaker more as he gets opportunities to be better developed than he currently is. In any case, he's got a great start, and the others are all extremely likable.
All in all, fantastic story so far, and I look forward to the Empress of all Changelings in the next exciting chapter of Phantasmare! Until then... I guess I still have about twenty stories you've written to tide me over.
8468317
No lunar cycle??? Then how can cutie marks have crescent moons!!!
(insert joke in poor taste about feminine cycles in relation to princess Luna)
In any case, if that's a coming plot twist, I'll look forward to it!
Should be bury. The implications otherwise are a bit darker...