Castle: End of an Era
‘Hello, Trixie.’
She remembered this place. It was a land without definition. There was no scenery, there was no background. There was no white or black or grey or any of a myriad of colours for her eyes to lay upon. It just was. Only the souls of the dead had presence here.
‘Hello father,' Trixie greeted.
Only to realise there was another pony here.
‘M-mother?!’ Trixie asked, shook.
It had been so long since Trixie had seen her mother, but she recognised the mare at a moment’s look. September Midsummer was larger-than-life in Trixie’s fillyhood memories. The passing of the years only made the heart grow fonder.
‘Hello, Trixie,’ September said. She smiled, and Trixie felt herself weak-kneed as the memories flooded in. A warm spring afternoon, playing in the front yard with her mother, whose vibrant oranges and yellows mirrored the sunset itself. A chilly winter morning, having an impromptu snowball fight with the neighboring foals, her mother bringing her hot chocolate after Trixie was wet soaked. A late fall evening as the sun had gone down, curling up with both her mother and father in front of a roaring fireplace.
The pride in September’s green eyes as she saw Trixie off on the caravan that would take her to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. The reassuring forelimbs that had held Trixie in hugs non-stop for weeks after Trixie returned home, having to drop out to hide the mystery of her changing magical aura colour. The fond smile September had always given her own and only daughter even as she was on her deathbed.
The funeral at which Trixie, still too young to be called a mare, having not yet even gotten her Cutie Mark, had grieved for days and nights on end. The heartbreak that lingered with Trixie even as she grew up into marehood, only temporarily reprieved by her ability to conjure a phantasmal spectre of September, and finally only beginning to truly heal at the Mysterious Magical Maladies in Canterlot when Wooden Chisel had hinted at her presence in the endless rolling field of the great pastures beyond.
‘Oh, mama,’ Trixie bawled, and before she knew it, her mother’s forelimbs were wrapped around her. The sensation was clearly different than Trixie remembered, having still been a filly when her mother last hugged her. Now, her mother was a few inches shorter at the withers, and had to reach up to hug Trixie around the neck. But the love that could be felt in the gesture was still the same, the love of a mother for her daughter.
‘There, there, my little Trixie,’ September cooed, embracing Trixie tightly. Suddenly, Wooden Chisel joined the hug, wrapping a hoof around daughter and wife both. For the first time in many years, the father, mother, and daughter had been reunited. Wooden Chisel could no longer sense emotions, but years of experience helped him understand everypony all around needed a good crying session.
The moment ended. Trixie reluctantly backed out of the family hug. She sniffled, and wiped the tears away from her eyes before they could dry out in the hair of her cheeks. ‘Mother...father…’ Trixie trailed off, unable to find words. However, they came quickly, as the mare recalled what she had just been doing earlier.
‘I’m dead, aren’t I?’ Trixie asked. It was obvious. She could still remember Deinos’ last strike against her, possessed of a mystical energy that went through her body and seized her soul. When Trixie was last in this realm, there was a difference of ‘realness’ between her and her father. Now that difference had shrivelled up.
‘Yes, you are.’
Trixie sighed, and sat down on her haunches. There was no discernible floor in this world of infinite nothingness, but sitting down she nonetheless did. ‘Well, it was a good effort. I practically pioneered a new field of magic and made some great friends and challenged a goddess.’ Trixie’s bitterness at her end was obvious in her tone of voice.
‘You sound disappointed,’ said September.
‘No. Not disappointed. Well, yes. Disappointed. Disappointed in myself,’ Trixie admitted. ‘I failed. My magical abilities and the idea behind it will disappear with nopony to know about it except for a few changelings who can never replicate it. But no, I mean, I failed my friends. Deinos...she’s still down there. I was the core. I know them, everypony except for maybe Windspeaker is disciplined enough to keep fighting. But I know Deinos won’t let them live. I wish I could have continued to help them fight back. But destiny truly is a fickle mistress.’
‘It is,’ Wooden Chisel agreed. The last time Trixie had met her father, there had been an odd flicker between his true changeling body and his assumed pony identity. Now he stood tall as a unicorn, with a black coat and grey mane. Around his wife, it was obvious what his self-identity now was. ‘When we last met, there were many things I could not have told you. For you to brush the astral realm was something amazing, but you would never be allowed to know the true secrets of the dead. We have watched as you fought Deinos. What she says about the purpose of existence is true. Our lives are a test for all of us, to see the potential of our souls. The three sisters weave a web that sprawls across all creation to assess the gestalt of our lives at the very end.’
September agreed. ‘What we know now allows us to know you did the very best you possible could, Trixie. To be honest, in life, I was always miserable that you were never able to find any true friends. Oh, you had the fillies and colts in Whinnychester that you played with, but I could tell you wanted something more. Even as you returned from Canterlot, you yearned to break free of our idle little village. It made me happy you were able to find five companions you could call your best friends forever, one of them perhaps something more.’
Trixie swallowed. She recalled Deinos’ words about her five friends. In an alternate world, Trixie might have come to the Castle of the Two Pony Sisters with no friends at all. To get to that point, it would almost certainly have meant Trixie’s illusions would not have progressed one iota since she left Whinnychester. In that time, perhaps she may even have welcomed Deinos’ appearance.
She was possessed with ennui. ‘So, what now?’
‘We return to the pastures, and we wait,’ said Wooden Chisel. ‘Eventually, one of us will be spun back out into the world. Our reincarnation does not mean we disappear entirely. Our memories still remain, and when we once more perish on the mortal yolk, we will gain yet another life up here. September and I came down to limbo to greet you, but we are not the real September Midsummer and Wooden Chisel, only fragments. Shades, as I told you when we last met. I only remember my life as Cognito the changeling and Wooden Chisel the pony.’ A frown appeared on the black-furred stallion’s face. He was struggling to remember things. ‘There are bits and pieces of previous lives that I can barely make sense of. I think in my last life...I may have been a yak?’
‘I was definitely a gryphon,’ September said. ‘Trixie, you too will gain memories of your past life when we go. It will be strange, and it will be weird. It may be that one of your lives will dominate your memories, and you will go by that identity, instead of Trixie the unicorn mare from Whinnychester, daughter of September Midsummer and Wooden Chisel. Know that we will always love you.’
Trixie sniffed. 'I love you too, mom, dad.' There would be time for more heartfelt reunions. Trixie shuffled about on her hooves, looking at the ground. 'I just hate this feeling of leaving things undone. I know my friends will be coming up soon, but I am disappointed that this is how it is all to end.'
Wooden Chisel and September Midsummer traded looks, then looked at Trixie. Then Wooden Chisel, the changeling-cum-pony, said six words that changed everything.
‘Would you like to go back?’
‘Of course I would!’ Trixie said, her voice rising as much as limbo would allow. ‘My friends are back there fighting Deinos! I cannot let her win!’
‘But destiny is in her favour,’ said September. ‘You were fated to die today, Trixie. There is no getting past that.’
‘I would figure something out. There has to be something. She was rattled when we threw our combined magic at her. No, not rattled. Deinos was scared. I was unable to synchronise the magic to perfection. If I was able to do it successfully next time, I think we could win.’ Trixie let out a huff. ‘But no, that’s not the issue. I’m dead. That’s it. Maybe my friends can pull something out. I have faith in them to stand up against Deinos until every last hoof is in the grave. But I cannot help them from beyond.’
‘There is a way.’
Trixie jerked, looking up at her father, who had just spoken. ‘No, there can’t be,’ were her first words, immediately spoken on reflex. ‘That’s utter nonsense. Ponies can’t just come back from the dead. No power or magic has ever resurrected a pony. Maybe the gods can, after all, Deinos apparently has memories of several lives in the living world. But they wouldn’t help me, would they? I was supposed to die today.’
Wooden Chisel shook his head. ‘No, they would not. But it is not the gods who would resurrect you. Think, my little Bella. There is something special about you. You, and you alone, have a quality that no pony else ever has. If you can understand it, truly and completely realise its potential, you alone can return.’
‘Woody speaks correctly,’ September said, rubbing up against her husband the faux-unicorn. She set her head against his neck, leaning in on him. Wooden Chisel reciprocated the action. In death, the two lovers were well at peace. ‘Think, my daughter. Live up to your name, little Trixie.’
The younger mare stood there, slackjawed. Trixie could not understand what her parents were talking about. But the two of them seemed confident, so she thought on it. Something special about her? Living up to her name?
Epiphany struck Trixie in that moment, her mind alight and blazing with possibility as if it had been possessed by a thousand fireflies. She jumped up back onto all four. Trixie at last understood what her parents were saying. It felt a fool notion, but then, Trixie had been filled with foolish notions ever since she began her journey. What was one more impossible feat to accomplish on her road to greatness?
‘I...see now,” Trixie said, breathing steady. ‘So...I guess that means it is time for me to go now.”
‘Not quite,’ Wooden Chisel responded. ‘Time moves differently in limbo. You do not need to return this instant. You are right though, there is not much time left. But enough for us to say a few final words.’
Trixie struggled. The situation was still too odd to comprehend, but she followed along. “Mother, father. I missed both of you very much. Even though I got to talk to you again, father, it was too short.’
‘And we missed you,’ September affirmed. ‘This is for your benefit, Trixie. Please remember that we are only shades of the real Wooden Chisel and September Midsummer. When you truly depart to the endless rolling fields of the great pastures beyond, we will fully meet. Even if we are reincarnated back into the lower domain by then, a part of us will still remain, and we still be real. But for now, we are enough of the true thing to know how they would respond. And although I said it before, it bears repeating. I am proud of you, Trixie.’
Trixie stood strong. There were definitely not tears rolling down her cheeks, and she most certainly was not letting out a coughing sob.
‘You have the ambition to become an alicorn. Do not be ashamed of your desire anymore, Trixie. Maybe you have some selfish purposes for it as well, but that is alright. You are indeed only equine. Even the Princesses are still only equine, as divine as being an alicorn may be. I loved your father for every bit of what he was. It made me sad to see the changelings and ponies driven further apart since my lifetime. I know you can help reconcile them, my daughter Trixie, and if the best way to do that is an alicorn, go for it. If your feel you can help heal others of wounds or pains as an alicorn, go for it,’ September encouraged.
‘Oh. There is one other thing,’ said Wooden Chisel. ‘There is that stallion of yours. Red Wings, is it?’
The tears cleared up instantly. Trixie thought her blue fur might become as red as the aforementioned Red Wings. “Y-yessss…’ she said, trailing off.
September took over again. ‘We both approve. He is a healthy young stallion. The affection you show one another is genuine. It reminds me of the two of us, really. If you continue to pursue your relationship, the two of you may have ups and downs. But true love is a beautiful thing, Trixie. Don’t let him get slack. Call out his flaws. But embrace his good side and encourage him the way he has encouraged you.’
Trixie turned her head to face away from her parents. She felt her cheeks becoming heated. ‘I, I will, mother.”
‘Besides,’ September added. ‘At that very last moment, when Deinos killed you, Red Wings was rushing to throw himself in the way. The best partners are those who sacrifice for one another. He is a fool stallion, of course, and fool stallions are wont to get hot-headed sometimes, so you will have to drill it into his fool stallion head not to sacrifice to the point of self-destruction.’ Wooden Chisel, next to her, stayed silent on his wife’s continuous slurring of stallions as being foolish. ‘Maybe you will fall out of love someday, but with the affection and goodwill you two have shown, you can still continue to be good friends. But know that we are both rooting for you to forever be true to one another.’
‘Remember, Bella,’ said Wooden Chisel. ‘Who dares, wins. And you dare. You dare to defy Deinos the Terrible, and you dare to defy even the gods. You will win, for you too shall become great.’
Trixie jerked at her father’s words, before she calmed down. Yes. Hadn’t she left Whinnychester once upon a time to break the rut she had found herself in? All along the way, she had developed her magic of illusions until it became so specialised it had challenged every the very nature of things. She had gathered a tight fellowship along the way, one which had spent six months together in Colt Springs to train up so they could support Trixie in her faint chance of grasping alicornhood. She would not disappoint them. At last, she felt that tenuous state of self-actualisation sink in again.
“Mother, father, thank you for everything,” Trixie said, wiping her eyes one last time. “I...will take your words to heart. And do not worry. I don’t intend to come back here, not for a very long time. I will win!”
“You—really—are—persistent!” Deinos roared. The madmare tried to string together a comprehensible set of words, but Deinos found herself having to constantly teleport every time she spoke. “I—you—stop it!” she shouted, turning into shadow completely and becoming completely impermeable, avoiding the last attack that was launched at her instead of teleporting.
The reason Deinos found herself flustered was the red-furred pegasus opposite her, who took the opportunity to rest as Deinos had gone incorporeal. Red Wings was panting heavily as he sank down onto the ground. If he was not already red, Red Wings would have been red with exertion by now.
“Ah, that’s better,” said Deinos, finally unperturbed by attacks. As a shadow, she had no real mouth, so the noise came out deeper than her regular suave, medium-pitch. “You really don’t know when to give up? I should be happy about this. I wanted entertainment, after all. I wanted a battle. And you’ve been providing it to me.” It was true. Deinos had expected the rest of this motley crew of fools to fall apart after their ringleader’s death. Instead, Red Wings had gone absolutely berserk. However, unlike Deinos’ expectation of him launching a suicidal attack, he had rallied to raise everypony’s morale, before pressing the offensive.
Before, when there were six, they had been too conservative in their attacks. Now there were five, but Deinos found herself on her back hooves more often than not. She wasn’t sure if she was suffering from some lingering aftereffects from that attack earlier that came close to imitating Harmony, or if Deinos just had underestimated their capabilities. While her power over the shadows was great, Deinos only had so many shadows. The accursed Red Wings was suddenly everywhere at once, attempting to hit her from in front, from her sides, from her rear, from above, and even from below when she was flying. She might have been able to injure Red Wings, but the other four ponies had done a splendid job tying down her shadows such that they were constantly on the move, splitting apart and melding together to block attacks. Even more, small nicks were repeatedly appearing on her coat. If Deinos had not been an alicorn with a superb regenerative ability, they might have actually started to add up.
“Won’t...give...up…” Red Wings said. He was panting heavily. His chest was quickly rising and falling as he gasped for air. Sweat freely dripped down all across his body. His eyes stung from the salty substance coming down from his forehead, but it was no matter. After all, the tears washed the sweat away, and the pain in his heart was greater than the irritant in his eyes.
“Won’t give up? Bah, you’ll kill yourself before I can kill you,” said Deinos, dissatisfied. Events as the Mœræ had dictated said that she would kill all who came here today. It could have been anywhere from a single pony to as many as six, and providence had brought six for her to devour. After Deinos won today, her magical power would increase even further. With it, her power over shadows would become even more unparalleled, and Deinos would finally gain an immunity against Harmony. Why she couldn’t be immune in the first place, she didn’t get. All she knew was that the Mœræ liked a logical proceeding, and a creature supposedly born from a plunderseed and dark magic should be originally weak to Harmony when both her parents had been imprisoned for a thousand years by that same force.
But first Deinos had to win today. Until then, her shadows were still imperfect. The five opposite her had become like cockroaches. “Well, I have to commend you. You made me frustrated enough to just turn myself into shadows. I don’t like doing that. I would rather give you a sporting chance. You made me feel pain, earlier. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that. Hehe, just thinking about that is getting me so turned on. I will truly have a feast tonight!” Deinos was beginning to feel the bloodthirst settle in again. Her eyes sped up their rotation as a red haze settled over her vision. It had been so long since she had experienced that euphoric state. The Mœræ had come up with a fitting punishment, leaving her to rot in a decrepit castle for a thousand years. Though a great deal of slaughter, meat-eating, and general mayhem was finally soon to come, a millennia of monotony was too long for Deinos to suffer before she could cut loose.
Across from her, the band of five who continued to oppose Deinos had since regrouped. Windspeaker and Noire stood up front. Noire had since recovered an iron spear from one of the statues dotting the walls of the throne room, and was wielding it in her front hooves. They were as stone guardians, calm, steady, and unflinching. Though they were both exhausted, the two were ready to intercept any attack that came their way. Most of all, Windspeaker and Noire each knew they had to protect Red Wings and give him time to recover. They could not afford to lose another member of their party. They still had a chance to win. It was a minor one, but it was still there. They had been savvy enough to realise one small loophole in Deinos’ words: only Trixie had been fully fated to arrive at the Castle of the Two Pony Sisters that day. Only Trixie was fully fated to die that day. If destiny as Deinos preached it was loose enough that they may have been in Canterlot and Whinnychester still, Windspeaker and Noire thought it may be loose enough to slip the noose that Deinos was attempting to tighten around them. Maybe Deinos hadn't been precise enough with her words and they were all meant to die, but there was still a glimpse of hope until then.
But they could not abandon Red Wings. They could never abandon Red Wings.
“Can you not abandon your masters and strike out on their own?” Windspeaker suddenly asked, seeking to make small talk to buy time for Red Wings to recover.
“Oh? Moi? Abandon the Fates Three?” Deinos asked with mock surprise. If it weren’t for her eyes already spinning, Windspeaker would have expected Deinos to roll them just now. “Preposterous. The gods will humour those who are able to surprise them, but as one of their actual servants...hohoho, a foalish foal such as you could never comprehend just how foalish you are! You think I could just throw this battle and walk away? Never! Besides, they threw me a piece of meat for once. This is the very last role I must fulfill before I can finally rejoin my sisters. It is only fitting that I will finally be satiated with the blood of sapients before I meet the makers. Enough of that, stop delaying me. If you want to talk about spinsters so much, try this on for size!” Deinos said, sneering.
Some of the shadows that had been guarding Deinos came together once more, forming a large mass on the ground. The mass then began to elongate to take a three-dimensional form, before fully reshaping itself. A large spider stood in front of Deinos, standing even higher than the already-tall alicorn. There was no colour to the spider: as a creation of shadows, it was pure black, sucking in all light around it. Despite its uniform blackness, there were eight obvious eyes on its head, increasing its creepiness. The spider clicked its teeth together, before suddenly pouncing on its prey.
Noire was the first to intercept the spider. She retracted her wings in to her body and quickly rolled underneath the spider, attempting to pierce its underside with her spear. The spider continued to move through the air, but two of its legs came around to block Noire’s strike.
Cling! came a high-pitched noise. Noire grunted as spear met shadows, an uncomfortable vibration shaking the batpony’s body. As an otherworldly power gifted to the Pony of Shadows, they were something else. The shadow was like metal as it followed up its block with a counterattack, which Noire in turn stopped with her own thrust.
By that time, the spider had finally soared past Noire, at which point Windspeaker stepped up. His horn was ablaze with a blue aura, conjuring ethereal blue dots of light. Windspeaker propelled the blue dots forward, and they impacted the shadowbeast. The arachnid was repelled by the projectiles, staggering back several steps. It quickly found itself on the defensive, doubly so when Stonehenge got a running start, climbing up several hoofsteps onto a nearby telamon column before backflipping, swinging with a backhoof kick towards the spider. Several appendages came ahead to block Stonehenge, but his momentum was great enough to push the spider sprawling again.
Iceheart met the arachnid in its path of retreat. Her hoofs flew out at top speed, each strike meant to cripple and incapacitate. Against a foe like the golem forged of shadows, there was no way for Iceheart to truly wound it, for it had no organs, no joints, no eyes made of flesh, no real weak points. However, if the shadows could be damaged by brute strength, Iceheart was aiming to prove it. The spider’s limbs tried to stop her, only for several of them to be occupied by Noire joining in again and using her spear to slash the shadowbeast once more. Stonehenge quickly entered the bray once more, substituting Iceheart’s agility for pure strength. Windspeaker stood off to the front, using the Living Wind to help intuitively coordinate his three companions so they overlapped each other without throwing one another off their balance. Occasionally, he snuck in another magical attack at the arachnid when it looked vulnerable.
The four were in a flurry of motion that would have appeared beautiful to a neutral observer as they worked off one another smoothly, six months of training together helping each of the ponies find a niche in battle. However, each of them quickly realised that no matter how many strikes they got in against the shadowbeast, it wasn’t actually doing anything. Deinos’ conjuration was made of shadows. Those same shadows had been invulnerable throughout the entire battle. Only a perfectly-harmonised magical attack might have been able to actually damage it, and they were now missing one of the two most pivotal members of their party required for the spell. Deinos was still just continuing to humour them, allowing the remaining five to expend the rest of their energy before killing them and eating their flesh.
Slowly, despair sank into Windspeaker’s heart. He used the Living Wind, drawing on its deep sea of ethereal calm to chase off his own emotion. A lifetime of sitting in bed and communing with the Living Wind gave him an appreciation for unorthodox tactics. Frantically, Windspeaker tried to think of something, anything that he could do.
“MOVE!”
Windspeaker didn’t even think before he moved, his body recognising the voice as a friendly one. The other three fighters did the same. A split second after he did, Windspeaker winced, and he covered his ears with the Living Wind’s forewarning as the air suddenly screeched. Two blades of air, razor-sharp enough to the point they were visible, quickly passed through the air, and struck the spider on either side of its head.
The moment hung in the air, as if time had frozen. Windspeaker saw Red Wings standing up again, both his wings outstretched. The red pegasus looked like he was on his last legs, barely able to stand up, with blood dripping from all over his body and pebbles and plaster dusting his coat. Still, Red Wings struck the most profound pose Windspeaker had even seen in the stallion, looking for all the world as if he was truly going to defy the heavens and seize the day. The red pegasus had summoned a blast of air from each wing, with an edge fine enough to cut the air itself, and the shadowbeast was Red Wings’ target.
Then the moment passed.
There was another screech. This time, it wasn’t from the air. Instead, it was the spider, cooing a sad rhapsody of defeat. Suddenly, its body fell apart into three sections, with four legs each on the two sides and a middle section, all flopping to the floor. Where Windspeaker, Stonehenge, Iceheart, and Noire had all struggled to inflict lasting damage against the arachnid, Red Wings had just split it in three.
Then the sections suddenly stood back up, before they melded together into a single lump once more. The shadows returned across the room to Deinos.
“Impressive, truly impressive,” said Deinos. However, she looked unperturbed. “Those shadows should have been able to stand up to anything. How long did you ponies train for in that old husk’s hive? Your coordination is impeccable, even with one of you gone. I really wish I could fight you all night.” The praise in Deinos’ voice was legitimate, a rare phenomenon from the vile, pugnacious alicorn. Her golden eyes were rotating even more frantically than ever before.
Stonehenge found he despised those golden eyes of hers, always spinning.
“Six months,” said Red Wings. His breathing had steadied out, and he looked like he was back in full fighting form, despite having just summoned one of his most intensive attacks. Despite standing tall, everypony else in the room knew he was on his last legs. “We trained together for six months. You won’t win, Deinos. We came too far to be stopped.”
“Oh, please,” Deinos mocked. She was quickly losing patience for playing word games. “Did losing your marefriend really hurt that much? It’s not like you’re going to miss her for long. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes tops. I’ll help you reunite with her soon enough.”
“Her name is Trixie!” Red Wings growled, a guttural roar working its way up his throat. “Call her that! Call her that!”
“Pfft.” Deinos blew a raspberry back. “What point is there in getting to know the name of ants who will soon be squashed? I have more important things to do, like figuring out how to cook tonight. All of you look too fit. Lean and full of muscle, not enough fat. It’ll take a lot of boiling to tenderise the muscles down.” Deinos ignored the habitual revulsion on the other ponies’ faces at her repeated mentions of her cannibalism, and instead summoned the mass of shadows to her side.
“Truly, the fact you came this far, and even managed to batter my poor, poor, pwecious spider shows the potential of your souls. Perhaps you will even leapfrog your way up with this lifetime. Enough talk!” Deinos said suddenly. “I’ve given you foals multiple chances to prance around and play heroes. It’s time to end this. Feel blessed, my little ponies, for today you shall witness the end of an era!”
The shadows started to rotate around Deinos at breakneck speed. They were moving so fast that trying to track any part of it would cause an individual to become dizzy, much like looking at the blades of a moving fan. The three stallions and two mares that had fought Deinos and struggled for so long were put on their guard, sensing from Deinos’ words that she meant to inflict fatal strikes again.
Suddenly, the throne room plunged into absolute darkness, the moonlight no longer penetrating the holes in the castle walls and roof. Then it lit the room up again, as if it had just flickered. In that brief second the room was pitch black, Deinos had moved. The remaining cadre of ponies felt their bodies seized by the same empyreal force Trixie had been earlier locked down by, unable to move.
Deinos gloated to herself as she pounced towards the five fleshy bodies that awaited her fangs. She had waited a thousand years for this moment. A tendril of her shadow floated out ahead of her, ready to inflict misery at Deinos’ command. Truly, life was great.
Suddenly, the tendril of shadow disappeared.
Deinos found herself stunned as she continued through the air by her forward momentum. The shadowy appendage she had just sent out hadn’t merged back into Deinos’ mass of shadows. It had just vanished.
The madmare didn’t have a second moment to dwell on what had just happened, as her vision was suddenly filled by something that she only had time enough to identify as being blue.
Then there was pain.
Both pain and disorientation blended in as Deinos suddenly found herself looking at the ceiling, spotting the stars and the moon through the holes in the roof, soaring through the room for the second time that night. Then the moment ended as she hit solid floor. Pain overwhelmed disorientation, as her back skidded through the stones, friction tearing off parts of her skin. Before Deinos could even comprehend what was happening, she hit a rock, and her body flipped over into the air, finally hitting a stone statue pillar. The telamon, a column with a carving of a nondescript Earth pony, had lasted a thousand years holding up the roof, up until Deinos had crashed into it. Deinos had hit it head-first as well, and her horn was afire, sending her to tears for the first time in over a thousand years.
Finally, her momentum stalled out by the impromptu obstacle, Deinos flopped over onto the floor. The alicorn grit her teeth. Pain was immaterial. Surprise was taking over. What had just happened? Rolling over, Deinos stood up, only to be greeted with the most shocking sight she had ever seen in her many lives.
“Miss me?” Trixie asked, blowing on the hoof that she had just bucked right into Deinos’ face.
Deinos flinched, her battered horn giving her a raging headache. “Y-you?! Y-you’re supposed to be dead! You’re supposed to be dead! You’re supposed to be dead! I killed you!”
“Trixie? That—” Red Wings’ words were choked off by his sobbing. A strange combination of disbelief and relief filled the stallion, turning him into a blubbering mess. Similar scenes could be seen with Windspeaker, Iceheart, Noire, and Stonehenge to a one.
“There, there, Red,” Trixie said, booping him on the nose before wrapping her arm around his neck and hugging the stallion close for a moment. “It’s alright. I’m here now. Death was but a temporary setback for the Grrrreat and Powerrrrful Trrrrixie! Heheh, maybe not appropriate now, is it?” she asked sheepishly. She turned to face the other four. “I’m back now, everypony.”
“Impossible!” Deinos screeched, still disbelieving herself. “I killed you! I pushed your soul out of your body! You can’t be alive!”
“Deinos, Deinos, Deinos,” Trixie said, clicking her tongue as she turned to face the frenzied alicorn. “You know my history. My illusions were able to fool reality into thinking the way things should be is what I wanted. I was the one who vanished Windigo fossils from this world. I was the one who restored a pegasus’ shorn wing. I was the one who dissolved a well of petrification magic. I was the one who unbound a unicorn’s soul from the Living Wind. When you think about it, isn’t it obvious? I am capable of even deceiving death itself!”
The implication of Trixie’s final statement blew everyone away. Deinos unwillingly took a step back. For the first time in several thousand years, Deinos found herself scared. “Th-th—blasphemy, blasphemy!” she shouted. “Utter heresy! You’re meddling with the domain of the gods!”
“Oh? Should I be worried?” Trixie asked nonchalantly, enjoying Deinos’ panic. “After all, I was already defying the gods by fighting you earlier, right? What’s one more thing like tricking death?”
With that, Trixie took the opportunity to turn around and face the others, her back towards Deinos. “Hello, everypony.”
“Trixie? Is that really you?” Iceheart asked, completely perturbed. For once, the Crystal Earth pony was shaken, her face visibly pale under her purple coat. The night had brought far too many surprises.
“Deceived...death itself? Is such a thing even possible?” Stonehenge asked, attempting to wrap his head around the concept and utterly failing. Then again, if anypony could actually conceive and believe themselves capable of deceiving death, it would be Trixie, Stonehenge admitted. He knew of how Trixie’s illusionary talent worked, and how it required the unicorn to believe something and force that perception onto reality. Still, to overwrite her death with the idea that she was alive was too surreal for Stonehenge.
Trixie flicked her mane back behind her head. She said, “I find myself to be surprised too, honestly. It is never something I would have thought of, until fate itself forced my hoof. But, well, here I am.”
Deinos blinked as she found herself suddenly ignored. She found herself rapidly breathing. Anger filled her senses, as a red haze blanketed her vision. The pain from her earlier impact against the column was vanquished, as rage set in instead. The unicorn before her had just embarrassed Deinos in a way she never had been before, not even when she had been a mere mortal mare fighting alongside her sisters as the Mares of Diomedes. “Your body. It was perfectly intact. Destiny says you’re supposed to die today. I just have to kill you again. This time, I’ll make sure to chop you up into pieces so you don’t have a body to return to,” Deinos said, clearly unhinged.
Swiftly, Deinos summoned a large rod-like tendril out of her shadows. Mirroring the opening move of the battle, she intended to bludgeon Trixie, who had turned around in response to Deinos’ threat. As Deinos sent the instrument of death down at the blue unicorn, there was a niggling thought that she was forgetting something.
The alicorn remembered instantly what she was forgetting when the tendril of shadow sent out disappeared.
“H-how?” Deinos said, confused and once more scared. Her shadow just disappearing like that was not a phenomenon Deinos had ever seen.
“Oh, that? Why, whatever are you talking about?” Trixie gloated in a sing-song voice. “Was there something there? Trixie simply didn’t believe it existed, so it didn’t.”
Deinos swallowed as she examined her shadows. The alicorn had been with her shadows given to her by the gods for a thousand years. They had kept her warm in the drafty winter. They had curled up around her when she slept, acting as her pillow and blanket. The shadows and Deinos were companions for so long, they had become one and the same. Deinos could tell that the amount of shadows in her possession was not right. As Trixie was vanishing the shadow appendages, the mass of her shadows was decreasing.
An unsettling thought forced its way into Deinos’ mind. She could turn into shadows herself. Could. But if she did, then would Trixie be able to make her disappear entirely as well? Deinos very rarely felt her golden eyes, always spinning in their sockets. But now, she could feel them, as they continued to spin harder and harder, faster and faster, as if they were trying to build up enough speed to escape their sockets.
“I see you’ve realised it,” said Trixie. “You’ve lorded over us all night with your shadows! They were what stopped us every time, and when it looked like you might get hit, you became a phantom yourself. Red Wings, Noire, everypony,” Trixie added, looking behind her. “How do you feel? I only returned at the tail end there, when Red Wings cut that shadowbeast in three, and waited around to sneak attack her. Do you all feel up to one last tussle?”
Noire grinned, showing off her teeth. She swung her spear around in anticipation, feeling her blood pumping again. “I was born ready.”
Iceheart had regained her bearings. Nerves steady, she stepped forward. “It would be an honour, Trixie, to fight with you one more time.”
Red Wings stood up, flexing his wings. As he did, the world swayed overhead. Red Wings gritted his teeth, then bit his tongue to combat his disorientation. The stallion was exhausted, especially after his wind slicing technique. But Red Wings felt it in his bones, that this would be their last parley. He could rest afterwards, whether it be in this world or in the great pasture beyond. “Let’s, Trix.”
Stonehenge flexed an arm, then slammed it into the floor, cracking a stone. “This stallion will have to wait a while longer to sleep, it would seem,” he mused.
Windspeaker found himself in a state of zen. The Living Wind howled, but he was as calm as could be. Slowly, he grappled the Living Wind into submission, finally achieving oneness. He was startled to find that for once, Windspeaker could actually feel Deinos’ shadows directly. The white unicorn smirked. It would seem Trixie had truly gained something in the time she was dead to rob Deinos’ shadows of their pure divinity. “The Living Wind and I are both chomping at the bits,” he reported.
Trixie smiled, glad to see her friends’ spirits were all back up. Her smile soon slipped back into a hard glare, as she once more faced the madmare before her. Trixie fumbled about for a second for a suitably epic line, before she finally said, “Here I come, Deinos, Pony of Shadows! Do you have enough shadows in your possession?”
Deinos lurched backwards. She realised what she had done, then moved forward again. Deinos snarled, her spinning golden eyes defiant. “You think you’re so great, my little pony?! I have sat here a thousand years! My name will stand for ten thousand more! You throw your petty little talents in the face of literal GODS! I will end you where you stand!”
Trixie shook her head, not willing to lose the battle of words. "You were right, Deinos. It's the end of an era, but it's not our end. Neigh, it's the end of your era of terror!"
She wanted to add on one last line. Trixie hesitated, but then words that had been spoken to her mere minutes ago reassured Trixie of her purpose.
‘For you too shall become great’
With that, Trixie cast a spell, once more restarting their great battle.
"For I am the Great and Powerful Trixie!"
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9795175
Beef or Salmon
Retired racing horse located at the Irish National Stud and Garden
Good chapter btw
...is Deinos Gilgamesh now? Seemingly invincible, barely able to be scratched except by those who refuse to be beaten? I suppose they are both "one-trick ponies".
i always liked referring to pony heaven as the great herd myself
Is this the final chapter? I sure hope not.
Thank you! So happy to get to read more.
Great story so far, only big complaint is the romance between Trixie and Red Wings. It feels forced and if you took it out it wouldn't really change anything. But other than that it is a great story.
9795175
I did recognize the name and what it meant, I had not mentally connected it to the Thracian Horses (which is weird because I have also used them a lot in my own writing and I should've connected the two)
Still, excellent mythology nods, and I'm glad you're updating again ^^
I am enjoying this very much. Wonderful story.
There may be larger plot holes in this chapter or previous ones that I've overlooked. There is one small issue in this chapter that I realised when editing that I didn't bother to mention in the author notes and which I'll explain away now. Trixie reveals that she returned early enough to see the shadowbeast. Yet she didn't use her powers to vanish the shadowbeast at that time, which she could have given it was a manifestation of shadows. The explanation for that is she was still disoriented from returning from the dead and wasn't yet in the state of mind to use her powers.
Epic!
You walk a fine line whenever dealing with afterlife stuff, but I feel it is well handled here. I'm a little sad that I'm not mote knowledgable about Greek mythology, though I caught that the names seemed Greek. Tricking death itself to think she should be alive... from beyond the grave no less... Incredibly clever, especially as this entire story has been using that tricking reality and changing it. It fits perfectly and doesn't then feel like plot armor. Well played.
Things got really intense in the middle of that with shadow spiders and the group banding together... I'm now sad that I have run out of story again! :
I'll be okay. This story is worth the wait.
I caught a little error, "he younger mare stood their, slackjawed."; should be 'there'
Cool
Too much world, not enough story.
So close but yet so far.
Gods, this is such a good story. I read it in a marathon session and loved every second of it! I await the update and inevitable conclusion with bated breath.
9795395
I honestly can't remember, but I think that line may have been entirely spur-of-the-moment when I wrote that. (Hehe, 'spur'-of-the-moment) When I thought of it, it was too perfect not to use
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This has been something I've heard a few times, and it's a fair comment to make. It's strange though, since I've been trying to actually minimise it so it's something in the background instead of taking centre-stage, outside of one of the Living Wind chapters.
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Yep. Her identity was something I had in my initial outline, way back in 2015. Considering a lot of the MLP lore is Grecian-influenced, it fits, too :)
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Great to hear from you guys, thank you!
9816096
Fixed, thanks. Yep, I'm still pretty proud of myself that I managed to pull off what would be a completely
ham-fistedham-hoofed plot twist in other stories, but make it fit here precisely because of the magic system I built up.