Heart of Magic

by TheCrimsonDM

Chapter Nineteen: Trust Falls

Heart of Magic

Chapter Nineteen: Trust Falls

Written By TheCrimsonDM

Trixie stood in the abandoned office of Twilight Sparkle. She expected the mess of empty whisky bottles covering the floor behind the desk, trash piled in the corner, and books strewn about as if they were rats swarming the place. What she didn’t expect was a series of folders with Trixie’s name on it.

The first one was fairly easy to understand as it had a message written on its cover just for her. “Trixie Lulamoon, if these documents find their way to you then know that I have been taken out of the equation. Whether I’m dead, injured, or kidnapped it doesn’t matter. What matters now is that you need to keep the world safe, you’re the only pony that I can trust to take my place, at least until Amber has grown up enough to really help out. Please share these documents with Valiant Heart as well as she still works close with me on these projects.”

Trixie felt hesitant to open it up for a moment but let out a sigh and resigned herself to being forced to do this. It was true, with The Princess of Friendship gone, having up and run away everypony was looking for someone to fill her place. Trixie might have dragged her family to the castle and wouldn’t let them leave her sight for more than two seconds, with Maud actually standing right outside of the office looking… quiet. Even so Trixie couldn’t abandon her other friends and if what Valiant had told her was true, she couldn’t abandon her country as well. If this country fell to those dark creatures then even Trixie’s family wouldn’t be safe from harm. The best way to keep them safe in the long run was to pick up Twilight’s slack and do the job best suited for an alicorn princess. The Greatest and most Powerful Princess that is.

Trixie walked out of the room and into the next one over where Amber was sitting. She was surrounded by books and staring at them with a distant expression. She hadn’t talked much since Twilight vanished. Out of everypony here, perhaps the betrayal hit Amber the hardest. Knowing that her mentor, teacher, and the pony responsible for her future turned into such a mess must have really destroyed her. It destroyed everypony.

Now that Twilight was gone, Trixie really had to step up to the plate. Luna retreated back to the Canterlot castle, and everypony in town was more or less shellshocked and trying to simply live there normal lives. Each one of them knew though, that soon that would end. Whatever darkness was coming for them it was going to be more than they’d ever faced.

Trixie did make sure to do one thing that Twilight had never done. “Amber, I need your help.”

Amber looked back up at her. “What’s up?”

“You know that were going to be facing some real hardships soon. Even if Maud wanted to keep you safe, I need your help. Will you help me keep Equestria safe?”

Amber smiled briefly. “Sure… but um… sure.”

Trixie nodded and left, Amber followed her out. Outside in the hall sat Maud and Pinkie. Pinkie had basically attached herself to Maud’s side after she returned. Considering they both lost their entire family, it was understandable. Maud saw the ruins, and from her description it was… whatever did this was a threat beyond anything Equestria had ever seen.

Amber trotted over to Maud’s side, laid down and snuggled into her. “Don’t leave me again, mom.”

Maud’s lower lip quivered and she laid her head down over Amber’s. “I won’t.”

Trixie smiled. This was the first time in many years that she’d seen Amber and Maud be… family. They’d lost Twilight, but Trixie realized this loss led to them gaining each other once again. This time Trixie was going to keep her family.

Trixie went back into the office and stopped short. Valiant was in here, and she was reading through the notes. She glanced up at Trixie, didn’t speak a word and only nodded to a small pile of notes, folders and journals that were now on the table. Valiant must have found something that Trixie needed to read. The first one was labeled, “Twilight’s Journal of the multiverse.” This was going to be a long day.

***

Luna laid on her bed, her everything had a dull constant ache to it. Her physical wounds had all healed by now, those didn’t trouble her. The ache instead seemed to end at the tips of her hooves, but it started from her heart. All she could do was stare at the last piece of her she had left, the flask, now clean but empty was sitting on her dresser. She knew she should throw it away, but for some reason she just couldn’t bear the thought of throwing away the last piece of her Twilight she had left…

“Where are you?” Luna whispered to herself.

A knock at the door was quickly followed by the gentle voice of her big sister. “Luna, how are you doing?”

Luna buried her head into the pillow and groaned. “Go away.”

The door opened only a couple of inches. “Sister, I’m here for you. You know that right?”

Luna refused to look up. “I… I don’t want to live forever if it means feeling like this.”

The door creaked open and the sound of hooves followed. They only stopped once they were at the foot of Luna’s bed. The air grew warmer just from her presence. A wing laid gently upon Luna’s head stroking her mane. “It’s been a long time coming, Twilight…”

Luna flinched at the use of her lover’s name.

“It’s my fault. I made her into the pony she is today. Luna, I’m so sorry. If only I’d been a better mentor to her, a better… mother. You’d have had a stable pony to stay with you, not… not this. This never would have happened if I didn’t screw up so completely when raising her.”

Luna glanced up only to see Celestia, kneeling by her bed. Her head facing away with a pained expression carved into every line of her face revealing if ever so slightly the true weight the ages have had upon Celestia’s physical form. “It’s not your fault. She chose this… I’m wise enough to realize that.”

Celestia didn’t look at her but her features eased slightly. “It’s hard for me to believe that, considering that it was I who saw the early signs, it was I who forced her to go through such traumatic events. I could have simply done my job myself instead of forcing it upon my student. One who did not have the mettle for the tasks.”

Luna reached out with a hoof and wiped away a tear rolling down Celestia’s face. “If I had been by your side, mayhaps I could have helped prevent this. For so many years you were alone, you could only do what you thought best for everypony. The weight on your shoulder is that of the lives of every living creature in Equestria, I do not blame you, cannot blame you for what choices you made. Neither should you.”

Celestia opened her wet glossy eye. “But… it ended up hurting you.”

“I ended up hurting myself.” Luna rose her head up. “I saw the signs as well and chose to ignore them instead of facing up to them. Silence, was in retrospect, the wrong choice.” Luna took in a deep breath and exhaled. “Now let us go back to our posts, we have a duty to Equestria that is larger than either of our self pities, now more than ever.”

Celestia smiled. “With you by my side, I think we can face any challenge and come out on top.”

Luna returned the smile. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

***

Trixie stared at the pile of notebooks she had just torn through. Vague memories of the research she’d seen long ago about multiverses being turned into baron wastelands filtered through her mind. Val was still reading some of the notebooks in her pile. The thing that really stood out to Trixie were the last two reports that Twilight had left. One speaking of the changeling hive’s annihilation, and the other one written about the fall of the first settlement to these dark alicorns.

It seemed like they were targeting mostly smaller settlements along the borders for now, though they clearly had enough power to completely wipe out the changeling hordes. So why hadn’t they attacked Equestria in full force yet? One surprise attack on Canterlot and everything would be in disarray, easy pickings for these monsters.

Over the past ten years there were memories that Trixie had done her best to shove down and forget. Ones that were coming back so easily now. She recalled seeing one of these death worlds herself once, a world completely devoured by dust and ash, she saw Twilight meeting Starlight there. She had personally encountered one of these dead worlds.

One other memory she did not wish to ever remember was her final encounter with Frailty. That mare that had taken so much from her and Val. So much from all of them in fact. Trixie had made sure that she suffered for a long time before she died. The wraith and anger that hid inside of Trixie’s heart was something she wished to never experience again, and yet there she was, after Twilight’s lie she was about to unleash horrors far worse upon her enemies. Even releasing Lord Tirek himself if she had to, to make them suffer.

Lucky for everypony, it wouldn’t come to that.

Yet there was one other memory, or rather a few of them connected to a single character that she had forgotten until then. A person who, in his own awkward way helped her out. One who had also done something confusing, strange, and perhaps cruel to their best friend forcing him to vanish for sixteen years. Maybe he had just done what Twilight did, something he viewed as good, but was in fact confusing and hurtful.

She remembered Discord.