Gusty the Great
In all of the many wild eternities that lay within the realm of Chaos, there is just one house. A house that doesn’t walk about, or sing carols, or any of that fun stuff. Anymore, at least. Discord had to make some accommodations for his family, after all. Fluttershy was a light sleeper.
But within that mad house was a little colt. A little pegasus colt – seemingly – with a bright pink coat, and a minty white mane that flowed like cloud vapor. Oh, and a bushy pair of suspiciously familiar white eyebrows over gigantic, pupiless eyes the same blue as his mother’s.
Ignore the blue, crystalline horn on his head. Frenzy wasn’t an alicorn. No, much like his siblings, he was merely a Ponequus, a creature of both Pony and Draconequii origin.
Also ignore the fact that Ponequus just meant ‘Pony-Horse’. This was the Realm of Chaos, after all. Discord and Fluttershy’s children could be whatever they felt like being. And at that very moment, little Frenzy felt like playing with his wooden toy blocks.
And by ‘playing’, he was actually ‘feeding them into a woodchipper’. As long as the chunks came out square, they were still blocks, naturally.
More blocks, more toys. More toys, more fun. Logical, yes?
Just don’t let Discord hear that.
But, on this specific morning, Frenzy found he couldn’t concentrate on his little game. Somecreature was knocking at the front door, which was somehow louder than the whirring machine before him.
“Fine!” he groaned, tossing the mountain of woodchips back into their box, “I’ll get it…”
He sullenly trotted to the front door, and pulled it apart with a flicker of Chaos. The door peeled aside like a ripe banana.
“Alright, what do you… want…?”
Frenzy was looking at a set of golden horseshoes. He turned his head up, and saw a golden petryal.
Then, once his eyes spent a good long hike up the tower of purple majesty that was an alicorn’s neck, he saw an especially unamused Princess Twilight Sparkle looking down on him.
Frenzy slammed the door shut in the visitor’s face, and held it up with his back to the purple sovereign that was, right now, standing on his front porch.
Frenzy, breathing hard, knew he had seconds. So, he whipped out a small hoof-mirror from the air, and a heavy jar. From the jar, he took a huge helping of some goopy, greasy substance, and swiped it through his mane, slicking it back like his Dad once showed him. One quick conjuring later, and Frenzy also had a capsule of minty breath spray in hoof. He uncorked the bottle, and downed its contents in a second.
Finally ready, the little colt threw on a black bowtie, and slowly opened the door again.
“Hey,” he said, in as low a register as a prepubescent foal could muster, “How you doin?”
Princess Twilight had a perfect face for politics. Despite her own body’s insistence, she emphatically did not roll her eyes at the strange little creature before her, nor his foalish crush.
Instead, in a slightly strained tone of voice, she asked, “Is your father here?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Frenzy said, polishing one hoof against his chest, “Oh! But Miss Silver Spoon is having us put on a play for the Two Sisters’ Festival. I could swing you a ticket, if you’d want to go with me?”
“How about your mom?” Twilight pressed on. “I really need to talk to her, if you don’t mind.”
Undeterred, Frenzy shrugged. “I think she’s doing something in the back. Did you know I’m gonna play Sombra in the play? It’s the main character, you know?”
Twilight drew in a single, strained breath.
“That’s great, Frenzy,” she said, “Then can I talk to Anarchy? Where is she?”
Frenzy refrained from blowing a raspberry in her older sister’s general direction. Which would have been difficult to do, being in different dimensions entirely.
“She teaches Zap Apple his lessons on Wednesdays,” he said, rolling his eyes. Then, he spun about in the air, and landed on his head.
“Oh! D’ya wanna see me do a headstand! I’m really good at it!”
“Hey! Jerk!” a voice suddenly rang out, “It was my turn to talk to the Princess!!!”
A blue portal, much like the ones Twilight had seen Discord summon many times before, popped into existence right above Frenzy, allowing a second strange creature to appear. And to dogpile him with great vengeance and furious anger.
“C’mon, May!” Frenzy protested, “Not in front of Twilight!!!”
May, or Mayhem, was the same age as her brother, but appeared much taller, thinner, and colored similarly to their father. Her bushy black-and-pink mane got tangled with Frenzy's ethereal, and her crooked horn came very close to jabbing the colt in the eye as they thrashed. Her bright blue insectoid-wings buzzed madly to keep her slightly aloft, and in control of the scuffle..
Discord and Fluttershy’s kids were certainly unique.
May glared her yellow-and-crimson eyes straight down at Frenzy, and snarled, “It was my turn!”
“Was not!” Frenzy got back on top. “You weren’t here!”
“I was helping Mom!”
Twilight leaned down, just a little, and tried to insert herself in the all-too-familiar familial squabble. “Oh! So, you know where Fluttershy is? I really need to ask her something…”
“Was not!”
“Was so!”
“Ah, we’re doing this then…”
The two foals wrapped each other up in their hooves, legs, and wings, sending up a small cloud of dust as they grappled and fought.
“Was not!”
“Was so!”
“Nu-huh!”
“Ya-huh!”
And on, and on it seemed to go. Twilight, having run a whole nation for decades now, had little issue keeping her nerves in check around squabbling children, but time was very much an issue she couldn’t ignore.
Yet, just as she was about to cough, or raise a note of protest, somepony else did it for her.
“Ex-cuse me!?”
Frenzy and May paused, literally. Even the smoke cloud just stopped where it was, dangling above the ‘Welcome’ mat with the two foals still locked in mortal combat. Or rather, frozen mortal combat.
Their eyes locked with one another’s and shared a look. Twilight was quite familiar with that look. She’d gotten that look herself on one or more occasions, the most egregious of which involved a certain stuffed doll, a certain obsession-elevation spell, and her old mentor’s disapproval.
“Mom! It was May!” Frenzy got off first, already falling into a low, cowering stance.
From out of the kitchen… or, what looked like a kitchen, but was most likely a sub-dimension filled with things that approximated a kitchen… walked a butter-yellow pegasus mare with a long, luxurious pink mane tied up in a messy bun. Fluttershy’s steely gaze even caused Twilight to flinch involuntarily as it settled onto the two foals in the room.
May, balking, gave her brother a little shove, and said, “No! Frenzy took my turn! He…!”
“I heard what he did,” Fluttershy said in an icy, if still calm and loving tone, “But that’s no excuse! You two are fighting in front of one of my very best friends! How do you think that reflects on all of us?”
Frenzy’s eyes went downcast, and he scuffed his hoof against the shag carpet. “Not good,” he sighed.
“We…” May started, her mane crackling. But one look from her mother, and she also lowered her head in shame. “We’re sorry, Mama.”
Fluttershy held her gaze for another moment. It didn’t vanish, not completely. It simply softened, somewhat.
“Now,” she continued, “Apologize to Twilight, and then go to your rooms. I know you both have homework from Miss Silver Spoon’s class…”
Both foals let out a sullen, “Aw…”
“No ‘buts’!” Fluttershy said with authority in her voice.
Frenzy and May turned back to the Princess as one.
“We’re sorry, Princess Twilight,” they said in unison, “We didn’t mean to behave badly.”
With their apology over and done with, Frenzy and May began the long, slow trudge up the nearby stairs… which Twilight noted didn’t appear to lead anywhere, but she’d been in Discord’s place enough to know how things ‘worked’ around here.
As soon as the upstairs door – which Twilight wasn’t sure truly existed – slammed shut, Fluttershy practically collapsed into herself with a heartbreaking sigh.
“Oh, dear,” she said to herself, only distress in her voice now, “I hate doing that. They’re really sweethearts, Twilight. They just get carried away sometimes.”
Twilight nodded along, suddenly mindful of how second-nature being polite and politic was for her these days. She knew now wasn’t the time to talk about such things.
“I can see that,” she said, reaching out a comforting wing to her dear friend, “Fluttershy? I…”
“Discord isn’t here.” Fluttershy cut off Twilight instantly. “And I don’t know where he is right now.”
Twilight frowned, and pursed her lips. “Fluttershy, I need to speak with him,” she said, maintaining an air of magisterial authority, “It’s important.”
Fluttershy looked away, whispering, “I’m sorry, but I don’t…”
The towering alicorn lurched forward, her head craning down from up on high to meet Fluttershy at eye-level.
“Please, Fluttershy!” her voice cracked and her eyes glistened. “He knows something! Something about Trixie’s condition. Her lungs were saturated with Chaos Magic, and we both know who could, or would, do something like that.”
Fluttershy’s eyes widened, slightly, a shiver of a nameless fear crawling up her spine.
“Oh, dear…” she said quietly, her eyes widening in shock, “He…?”
She paused, and bit her lip. Then, the pegasus closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
When she opened them again, Twilight could see a core of resolute steel, beneath the pools of gentleness she usually found in her dear friend.
“I know Discord has made some bad decisions in the past…”
“He has almost literally stabbed me in the back before, Fluttershy. And actually literally betrayed us on more than one occasion.”
“… But he’s changed,” Fluttershy said, pressing on through the interruption, “Whatever you think he may have done. Well, I’m sure it’s not something bad or hurtful.
“Can you trust me?” she added, a little frown of her own joining, “Trust me that I trust him? After all this time, I know in my heart that whatever game he’s playing, it’s with the best of intentions. Please? For me?”
Princess Twilight winced under the open, yet resilient blue eyes which watched her. Trusting Fluttershy was never a problem, so long as Discord wasn’t a part of the equation. Despite him doing…well, ‘better’ didn’t seem like a great descriptor of the Spirit of Chaos’ behavior, except in comparison to the one or two times he’d outright betrayed Twilight and her friends.
But she’d forgiven him for all that years ago.
Hadn’t she?
“When you see him again,” Twilight sighed, “Please tell him I want to talk?”
“I will, of course,” Fluttershy said with a soft smile, which only grew as Twilight reached another few inches out, and nuzzled her dear friend.
“Alright,” Twilight managed a haggard smile herself, genuine joy being quite hard to come by in the current crisis, and said, “Take care of yourself, and give Ann my love.”
“And Cozy?” Fluttershy asked… politely, not expecting an answer.
Twilight rolled her eyes, and almost let out a chuckle as she stepped away from the strangely normal house. With a flash of her horn, a perfectly-rectangular portal formed before her, and the Princess stepped through, bringing her back to Equestria.
Which left Fluttershy, standing alone on her porch, gazing at the swiftly vanishing portal her dear, dear friend had just hopped through…
Well... almost alone.
“I don’t like lying to my friends,” she said with a weary sigh. “Even for you.”
A voice like smoked maple syrup sounded behind her, from one of the hidden places in the house. “Don’t think of it as lying, my dear,” Discord said as he materialized back on his favorite sofa, “You’re just delaying the truth a bit.”
“Delaying?” she asked, turning back around, “Until when?”
The Lord of Chaos lounged in his seat, though not in the enjoyable ways he normally would, Fluttershy noticed. When he was comfy, or feeling warm and fuzzy, he’d coil up like a spool of rope… sometimes with her in the coils. When he was plotting something – happily, less world-overturning these days and more Hearth’s Warming surprising – he would lean back and click his talons and claws together.
Now, he seemed a bit brittle, or possibly condensed. Like there was some weight pressing down on him. He almost looked like he was looming, especially in the way he arched himself.
“Until the third act, I suppose,” he noted, though without the usual humor his ‘fourth-wall’ awareness implied, “Or until Twilight calms down. I’d like to make it to Frenzy’s play, after all…”
Fluttershy nodded along in silence. Noticeably loud silence, as her husband also noted.
“You want to ask me, don’t you?”
His tone was quiet, like the rest of the house.
“I trust you,” Fluttershy answered, quieter still. Then, as she closed the door gently behind her, she added, sadly, “But you’ve broken my heart before…”
Discord didn’t say anything in response. He just sank a little further into the couch cushion, and sighed. Seeing this, Fluttershy silently walked past him, and back towards the kitchen-like dimension, where she knew she’d be making Zee and May some fresh cookies for later.
And in the following silence, the Spirit of Chaos himself turned his ancient eyes downward, to gaze at his talons. He gave a little snap of his fingers, hardly audible amidst the cacophony of Chaos all around him.
A bound folder appeared in his hands. A sheaf of papers, all freshly printed. They’d been in mid-flight between Daring’s office and Twilight’s apartment.
He cracked open the report, and peered back into the mists of time.
I’m sorry to say that we lost some pages. Trixie, as you well know, is a notoriously messy eater. It seems that some cheese and a sort of paste, made from rocks of all things – a Pie family recipe no doubt – somehow managed to get into the journal, which turned moldy, destroying the entries. I’ve reconstructed what I could, but there are some gaps I’ll have to summarize or skip over entirely. Sorry about the inconvenience.
Trixie seemed to worry over Discord’s appearance for a while, but kept quiet about what happened to Starswirl. She was worried about timeline contamination (ha, I say ha!) as well as upsetting the little guy. Troggles did destroy his home, after all, and Trixie was feeling a bit bad about not disliking them all that much when she got to talking to them. For the record, Trixie’s track record with authorities is so spotty, I’m not surprised she’d get along with Troggles. They don’t seem to want to ticket her or check license and registration.
In the next couple of days, Trixie was focused on teaching Swirly some actual magic. It was still mostly boulder-training and sleight-of-hoof, but from what I can make out, she actually did cover some of her illusory spells! I hate this, since getting a look at Trixie’s hoofnotes on magic is already difficult enough as it is. A firsthoof account of her method would have been as good as gold.
We pick back up a few miles outside of Gallopoli, in the village of Springfall, where Trixie is putting on a show.
“I can’t do this, Master Trixie.”
After all the work I’d put into that stage, that was the last thing Trixie wanted to hear from her apprentice. There were almost two dozen ponies out there, waiting for the show, and Swirly was just sitting backstage, moping!
“Listen, Swirly,” I said as gently as I could, “We don’t perform, we don’t eat. That’s facts. And right now, you’re the only one who can do any magic at all!”
“I know, I know,” Swirly groaned. He shuffled under the weight of his little red cloak and hat, clear signs of jitteriness and nerves. Trixie had been there. I’d never really left, actually. Part of the thrill of performing was getting to tell those stomach butterflies to shut up and sit down. He just needed a little confidence boost.
I held out my still-wrapped hoof.
“Come on, remember the magic words?”
He snorted. “They’re not real magic.”
“Of course they are!” I snorted back, “Do you doubt my magical tutelage?”
He was oddly quiet, for a second there, before he said, “No.”
So, we did the chant again, like we’d done the night before.
“We’re great!” I said.
“We’re powerful!” he replied, a liiiitle smile just beginning to come back to him.
Then, together: “We got the magic that makes you mar-a-vel!”
Yes, I know Journal. I was just so happy we got it to rhyme! And once we did it again, Swirly’s face lit up with a real smile. It’s been hard to get him to do that, lately. Seeing that colt happy, and energetic—
Wish I didn’t have to ruin it. Well. Wish he didn’t make me ruin it.
Newly invigorated, Swirly took to the stage, and began his performance. Trixie knew, right from the start, that kid had stage presence. Ever since I met him, honestly. And now, seeing him up on my stage, it was obvious for everypony else.
He got out there, and almost immediately tripped over his cape. Anypony else might have lost their nerve right then, but not Swirly. He did this adorable little shuffle, trying to recover, and I could feel the crowd around me practically ‘oohing’ and ‘awwing’ instantly. Everypony loves a goofball, and Swirly was too cute to be anything but.
When Swirly got back on his hooves, I knew he’d be alright. There’s something intoxicating about an audience, and Trixie could see it in the way Swirly moved towards his first trick, a simple card trick, that he was eating that attention up.
Which meant, I had to get to work.
The nice thing about ponies in this day and age was that more of them wore clothes than not. Sure, it might not be more than a cape, or a hat, or some cufflinks. There were a couple of jerkins and tabards as well, but you get Trixie’s point. More clothes.
More clothes? More pockets. And more pockets, more coin purses.
Every performer, when starting out, learns about how things are done. It is the mark of a great performer that they can leave such practices behind, but at the moment we were desperate. Swirly didn’t notice me slipping him Trixie’s own food the last two nights, and it was starting to eat away bug me. The not eating part, obviously.
Yeah, turns out a grassy plain wasn’t the best place to hunt for food. And the grass wasn’t, like, edible at all! Swirly didn’t have a clue about what I was talking about, so chalk that up to another stupid past-ism, I guess.
Turns out, the history of edible grass is a lot more complex than I gave it credit for. If you weren’t aware, edible grass is a relatively recent innovation. Sure, a few millennia ago, our cavepony ancestors could eat wild grasses for sustenance, but something about our evolution into modern, Equus Sapiens caused us to lose the ability to digest them. According to CSGU’s Head of Botamancy and Enchantment (that’s a weird combination) Wallflower Blush, it’s something to do with wild grass not having the right sort of nutrients to sustain a lifeform with higher brain-functions and as much magic as ponies possess. Her hooman-self, currently teaching botany at CSGU on loan from someplace called Midnight Sparkle’s School of Sorcery, confirmed this through her own research.
Hooman-Wallflower is an odd one, by the way. Do all hoomans wear so much clothing when they’re on this side of the portal? That sweater can’t be comfortable.
After the first Hearth’s Warming, I guess Starswirl got it into his head to revisit Trixie’s stories about edible grass. He convinced Mage Meadowbrook and Mistmane to help him with the project, but despite working on that for a decade, nothing ever came of it. Them getting sucked into a timeless void probably didn’t help much. Surprisingly, Princess Platinum of all ponies funded a commission to continue their work. She was almost destitute by the time the commission made a breakthrough and completed the project in the year 87, and by then she was ancient, dying less than a year later.
She left a note in her diary, you know, explaining why she threw all her bits away on such a project. Guess she must have felt guilty over how she’d treated earth ponies in the past, and wanted to give something back for all she’d done. Guilt’s an ugly thing.
Either way, that’s how one of the largest public health projects in Equestrian history got done. Nopony will ever go hungry again, so long as edible grass exists. The commission was so successful, actually, that wild grass has died out everywhere except for the Unexplored West and the Badlands. Trixie literally never knew a world in which she couldn’t grab a quick and nutritious – albeit bland – bite off the side of the road.
Now, you may be wondering why Trixie felt the need to do this, and it wasn’t what you think! Trixie totally trusted the kid to do well and sell a good show. And he did! Sure, he was a newbie, but his cuteness factor won over the crowd like that!
Trixie realizes she just clapped her hooves for emphasis.
What he wasn’t going to get, however, was money. Springfall was a nice little—
Okay, cards on the table, it was a hole. Dank, and poor. The fact we weren’t shivved and robbed as soon as we showed up was more because the locals had to hawk the communal shiv for food.
While Swirly performed, I went around the back of the crowd, and used some of my sleight of hoof mastery to get what I could. Nopony even noticed, as they were distracted by my brave apprentice flubbing a line, and accidentally letting off a magic-firecracker early.
Not that it helped. Gold was utterly unheard of in these parts. Silver was as rare as good dental hygiene. I managed a solid fifteen copper bits, spread out across the whole crowd, and one of those was wooden. More useful was the fact that some of the crowd were carrying groceries, and I was able to make off with a couple muffins and a banana.
Kinda surprised about the banana, but I’m not picky.
**section lost to mold**
“—have to give it all back!”
Trixie just rolled her eyes. The nerve of this kid!
“I can’t give it back,” I explained, “You already ate the muffins!”
Swirly got really quiet, all of a sudden, which was great since I was still busy mixing up my firework powder, and listening to somepony have an ethical meltdown wasn’t helping me concentrate.
Then, Trixie heard him say, “I’m an accessory…”
Look, Journal, I love the kid, really. But Swirly’s got some loose screws in his brain or something.
**section lost to mold**
From what little I could reconstruct, it looks like Trixie and Starswirl had a fight over her thieving antics. While most of the section is lost, it looks like Starswirl convinced her to not do it again, though not before she might have bitten his head off with this:
“Oh, what do you know, kid!? Up until a few weeks ago, you’d never had a hard day in your life! You ever go hungry on Hearth’s Warming? I have! You ever ask your mom where Dad is, and see her cry instead of answer you? I have! You pampered little… when you’ve had to do what I’ve done to survive, then you’ll understand that good things don’t happen to good ponies. You want to survive in this world? Take what you can! Lie, cheat, steal, whatever! But don’t you dare judge me! At least your folks didn’t--”
Trixie, notably, crossed all that out. I think she might have been embarrassed. Or regretful. Can’t rightly tell. But that's not all. Starswirl seemed to have written something else in the margins.
Something ominous.
Yes, Trixie. You were right. Lie, cheat, steal. Do whatever you must, in order to survive. I wish I understood that then. But I do now. Even as I write this message to one already dead, the ponies of this time are proving that they don't deserve to survive. They are not the Equestrians you came from. I have three foals to take care of, as well as the Pillars who need my guidance! I can't be dealing with all these idiots and their ridiculous tribalism!
I ask myself, sometimes, what would you have done?
Ah. A thought occurs. A dark thought. One worthy only of your most diabolical genius. I dare not even write it here, lest I remind myself of my own conscience, and back away from the precipice.
I will make you proud, Trixie. I will create that world you came from.
Happy Hearth's Warming, Trixie.
Like I said: ominous. I'll let you know if he lets slip any more hints as to what he was talking about, but you might want to check in on him sometime. Even that stallion needs a break from what he's going through.
Alright. Well, we finally got to Gallopoli a few days ago. The rest of our trip was pretty quiet, all things considering. Swirly kept up his practice, but he wasn’t as enthusiastic as before.
Yes, Journal, I know it was Trixie’s fault for yelling at him. But the kid’s gotta know how the world works. It isn’t nice. Good things don’t just happen. Especially not to me. Or him, by proxy.
I know he knows that. After Hynieghria, how could he not?
After I said those things about his parents.
I’ll apologize in the morning.
**section damaged by idle doodles and quill-stabs, probably Trixie thinking about stuff**
The dreams stopped right after Luna last talked to me. I stopped seeing Hyneighria on fire. I stopped showing up to class without my cutie mark. I even stopped hearing Mom’s voice.
But that night, the dreams came back. Or, the last one did.
I don’t know if I’m crazy, Journal. Every once in a while, Trixie gets these dreams. I’m just held by my mother, and she’s singing to me.
“What’s crazy about that?” I hear you say.
I don’t remember what Mom sounded like. Sunflower Spectacle was a singer, but she never got big enough for anypony to want to record her voice, and by the time sh growing up, I only heard her sing a few times. She didn’t have a lot to sing about after—
The lung-thing got to her. She couldn’t sing after a while. Trix I don’t like thinking about it. About her, and how it all ended.
Nopony deserves that. Dying alone. No applause for a show well-done. No curtain call. Just an end, with no ending.
When I dream of Mom, I can’t really see her face. Can’t remember it. How weird would it be if I said I sometimes dream of Starlight as her? With the same voice, even. What else do I have to go by?
But this time, it was different. I was back in our old kitchen, and it looked like a bright morning. I was small again, waiting for Mom to figure out what we were going to eat, since Dad wasn’t around to help with that again. And she was singing.
It wasn’t a voice I recognized, but it was familiar. She was singing a wordless version of the Wanderer, but slower. Sadder. She only sang sad songs, after a while.
Mom came over to the table, and set down a plate for me.
I’d seen this once before. And, for a second, I thought I was reliving that memory again. Kind of cruel, for the dreams to go away, only to come back with that memory.
But, instead of burnt toast – and an ungrateful little filly whining about there being no eggs, or peanut butter, or juice, or seconds – Mom set down a heavy plate of Prench toast, absolutely drizzling with syrup and whipped cream.
I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. It was beautiful.
And it was wrong.
I asked, “What is this?”
And Mom answered, laughing a laugh I hadn’t heard in years, “Breakfast, silly girl.”
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
Mom looked at the food, and then back to me. Her eyes were bright and shining.
“What do you mean, my love?”
I pointed at the food with my little hoof, and explained, “The food! Where did it come from? We didn’t have that kind of money.”
My mom’s smile was like seeing the sun rise, Journal. That was something I remembered. It made you feel warmer just by being around it. And this one, on this mare’s face, was no different.
It just didn’t reach her eyes.
“Ah,” she said, nodding along, “I… forgot to tell you. I got a new job… singing again. So, it’s alright. Everything’s alright.”
The food didn’t look quite as delicious as I thought it did anymore.
“But you’re still sick,” I said, watching the gold-colored mare hold back a wince, “You can’t sing.”
“The doctor said…”
“We couldn’t afford a doctor.”
“Your father…”
“Isn’t coming back.”
The mare’s face was becoming strained. She glanced nervously between me and the food, and then between me and her own hooves.
She licked her lips. “I… I don’t understand. I was just trying to make you happy.”
Her voice wasn’t Mom’s anymore. It sounded hollow, like a distant, broken wind chime .
“It’s cruel to lie to me like this,” I said. I pushed the toast away, even as it vanished into dream-stuff, “Mom couldn’t afford much, and I didn’t understand then. But I do now, and lying about what she did… and what I did to her, is heartless.
“Who are you?”
Spectacle didn’t look up. She couldn’t meet my eyes. That, more than anything, got me up on my hooves. There was a sick-feeling crawling up my stomach, creeping into my throat and head.
I was so angry, Journal. So mad at this dream. At what it was trying to do.
Another voice spoke behind me, cutting through the anger, stopping me from doing something to the dream.
“The Tantabus does not know what it is doing is wrong, Trixie.”
I spun around, and found none other than Princess Luna standing in my kitchen. As I turned to see her, the sun vanished from the windows, replaced by the still, cold beauty of night, which made the Princess seem just a little less out-of-place.
“The Ta— that thing you put in my head?” I asked, turning back to look at the thing impersonating my mother.
It was just a filly again. A filly made out of starlight and darkness. And it was sniffling.
Despite still being raw over what it had done, Trixie couldn’t help but also feel bad. Especially since it was just… miserable looking.
Still. There was a Princess to deal with.
“You finally showed up,” was the best I could come up with at the moment.
“Indeed. I apologize for my absence. Hopefully, the last few moons haven’t been too strenuous.”
I frowned, and looked at Luna as she walked past me to stand over her little experiment. “Uh, moons? It’s been like, two weeks.”
Luna’s hoofsteps stuttered.
“Oh?” she said, surprised, and stared at me, “But… Ah. I suppose Ponhenge isn’t as stable a connection as I was hoping for. I kept missing you due to the time difference…”
She shook her head.
“Regardless! You’ll be happy to know that your attempted takeover of Ponyville was successfully thwarted by the now Princess Twilight Sparkle. Of course, I was only conscious for the last hour or so of your apparently tyrannical rule. I barely made the fireworks show…”
Trixie must have blanched, but since I can’t see myself outside of a mirror, you’ll have to take her word on this, Journal.
“I’ve said sorry a lot over that…” I began to say.
But the Princess cut me off. “It matters not, Trixie. For you, you have long ago been absolved of wrongdoing. And… seeing everything end up alright in the end, I have had enough time to forgive you as well.”
Something was off about all this. You don’t need to be a great actor to spot a bad one after all, and Luna was badly trying to avoid something.
It only took me a moment to figure out what. All I had to do was follow where her eyes weren’t looking.
“Why aren’t you more concerned?” I asked.
Her face didn’t move. “I… beg your pardon?”
I swept my hoof down, across my body. Even while dreaming, every crack, cut, and bruise was still visible. Every inch of Trixie was still as ruined in dreams as it was in real life.
Luna’s eyes twitched, and she looked away. But, instead of denying something was wrong, she just breathed. Long, slow breaths.
She turned back to me, and said, “I didn’t wish to… make you feel more conscientious of your condition. I apologize, if you took that to be rude, or patronizing.”
“I do,” I said, folding my forelegs together, “But… it’s alright. I just expected you to ask about it.”
Luna shrugged. “I presume you had some difficulty discharging the excess mana I granted you? I wasn’t too concerned, as our connection through my construct allowed me to glean upon a sense of your wellbeing.”
For the first time, her eyes followed the shape of my body more closely.
“Though…” She was slower, more hesitant. “If your dream-form is accurately reflecting these injuries, there might be some concern. Can you still…?”
“Cast magic? Not yet,” I sighed, “But… well, no spoilers, but apparently Swirly found me a salve that held me together. I should cast spells again. Just… not yet.”
Is it just me, or do Alicorns like to stare a lot? Luna was watching me like. No. Not like an audience. And not like a judge or a teacher or anything like that.
It’s like, she wasn’t judging me at all. I don’t like that kind of look.
“Hm… you are lucky,” she said after a moment, “Very lucky indeed. I suspect that the loss of your gifts would very much be the same as death. It gladdens me to know you are well, in that regard at least.”
I shrugged, but didn’t know what else to say. Luna’s smile was nice, though. She always had that calming presence, you know? Not like Mom’s, but nice all the same.
Regardless, I didn’t know what to say. And it wasn’t easy to come up with something while that Tantabus thingie was still sniffling and snuffling at Luna’s side. It was very distracting.
After another minute of just sitting around, and being awkward around each other, I stepped up to the Tantabus and started stroking its hair. Filly or not, crying or not, it pressed its head into my hoof like a sad puppy.
“Well,” I said, pulling the thing closer to me, “I’m still upset over what she did. Whatever that was.”
“I designed the Tantabus for dream-management,” Luna offered. “It was designed as a form of… therapy. I have long struggled with dark thoughts and emotions, and felt that if I had somepony to help me through such times, I would not have made such poor decisions in my past.
“Likely,” she said, shrugging, “It was trying to comfort you. By bringing up some past experiences and making them less…”
“Awful,” I finished for her. “I guess. All my dreams disappeared for a while, and then she goes ahead and changes this one. Has my… my mom make me Prench toast.”
Luna hummed to herself, and then said, “You don’t seem happy about that.”
I shrugged, but kept patting the Tantabus. For an elbow eldritch horror, it was a pretty cute filly.
“It was lying,” I said, “That wasn’t how it happened. She gave me toast and ketchup, and I complained. And then she cried...”
“But lying is a part of your performances,” said Luna, “Is it not?”
“That’s the show!” I countered, a little too angrily, “It isn’t real. It doesn’t hurt anypony if I can do a few flips, or change somepony’s mane color…”
“You did what?” she asked, incredulous (Still got it).
“Luna, I don’t know what my mom looked or sounded like. Not really. Even when Aeva almost… well, did the thing, I wasn’t focusing on her. I don’t remember, so how can your oneiric golem sound like her, except by making it up?”
I really hate to ask, but how many of your friends have almost destroyed reality? And how did you convince everypony in Ponyville to keep that little secret? I’m not going to blab, don’t worry, but it’s really incredible that you managed to keep it under wraps for two decades that one of Luna’s Tantabi came within inches of un-making all of reality.
And right here, I think I can see where that got started. I haven’t confirmed it with the Princess yet, but Trixie’s little speech to Luna might have had far-flung consequences she wasn’t aware of at the time. Getting called out on for making happy dreams had to suck. Probably the wrong time to get told something as depressing as “I deserve to be unhappy”.
On the bright side, Trixie actually used the word ‘oneiric’ correctly. Nice.
I flinched. I don’t mean to have outbursts, Journal. They just… happen. And happening at royalty is a great way to get banished to a dungeon in another country.
The Tantabus pressed her face into my coat, and whimpered.
But Luna just stared at me.
“Trixie?” she said, “The Tantabus cannot create things. It can only approrp appropriate from your own memories, taking what is already there in order to create something different. It cannot make new memories.”
There was a twinkle in Luna’s eye. If I could breathe in a dream, that look could have stopped me doing that.
“Perhaps…” She smiled. “… you remember more than you know. It...”
“She,” I insisted.
“… She was designed to parse the memories of those she was in contact with,” Luna continued without a pause, “With the memories you possess.”
I bit my lip, and tried not to think about that. It was just a little too much for Trixie just then.
“Well, just tell it not to lie anymore,” I said, “At least, not about real stuff. Important stuff.”
“Stuff that paints you in a bad light,” Luna unhelpfully clarified, “I know the feeling all too well.”
I just shrugged, and continued to hold onto the little monster. Okay, harsh, I know. But, yeah. Trixie didn’t feel like saying anything else. Enough had been said.
Well. Almost.
“So…” I said, slowly, “What’s going on, up-time with you?”
“Up-time?” Luna raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh, yes. I see. I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Trixie. Especially if we are to keep the number of paradoxes to a healthy minimum.”
She tapped her chin in thought.
“Though, it should not surprise you that Twilight Sparkle is, indeed, a Princess now, in my timeline.”
“Well good for her,” I said in a totally not-pouty way. Trixie does not pout, especially about Twilight.
Clearly, Luna thought otherwise. She didn’t say anything, but the way she peered down at me started to feel like an inquisition. Very good, as far as stares go, I’ll say.
“We were rivals,” I explained. She made a face when I said that, so I kept going. “What? You want me to love her? We used to fight, and then she… she got a bunch of advantages.”
“She’s an Alicorn,” Luna nodded, not getting it.
I shook my head. “No, I mean, she was born in Canterlot. Her folks are pretty loaded, as far as I ever heard. And she got to be Princess Celestia’s personal protégé right off the bat!
“She got every break,” I said, focusing on the little filly still hugging me, “And I just got broken.”
“Do you hold that against her?”
I pffft’d.
“That’d be pretty petty of me,” I admitted without admitting anything, “It didn’t help that I was a jerk to her, or that she and her friends were jerks to me…”
Luna nodded, but said nothing. It seemed like I’d have to carry the conversation then.
“So, Discord’s around now, right?”
A grimace swept over the Princess’s face, and I couldn’t help laughing at her obvious discomfort.
“Indeed,” she said with a sour look, “Apparently, my sister – without consulting me – freed the Lord of Chaos and allowed him to run free. I fear for dear Fluttershy’s safety…”
“So, Twilight’s got her crown, and Discord’s got his ball and chain…”
Oof, Journal. Now, that got a good grimace going! I thought Luna was about to lose her lunch in my dream.
Oh, jeez. What would that have done?
Anyway, Alicorn constitution must be made of sterner stuff, since she didn’t ruin my foalhood kitchen.
“When was the coronation?” I asked, noticing something that the Princess, currently trying to forget harder than she’d ever forgotten before, did not.
Hey, I knew things were gonna work out all right. Why worry?
“Only a few days past, actually,” she responded. Then, with a suspicious glare, she asked, “Why?”
I smiled.
“Oh, nothing… just remember that Discord gets better. Eventually.”
It was at that precise moment that the black vines, which had been crawling up the dusty window above the sink, burst through the wall and wrapped around Luna like a spider catching a fly.
“Don’t worry!” I called out to the rapidly retreating (and screaming) Princess as something snatched her away from the dream, “It all works out! Promise!”
Well, that was that. A rather troubling dream turned into another weird conversation with the Princess of Night. And the only thing I got out of it was the Tantabus.
Who was just watching me with those spooky white starlight eyes of it’s it has.
Who knew I’d be taking care of two kids?
“Alright,” I told her, “Bring back some toast and ketchup, and I’ll teach you how to make fireworks. Sound good?”
**following pages lost to mold**
Well. That was heavy. It might be hard to remember, considering how annoying and egotistical she is, but Trixie didn’t exactly have an easy time, did she? I can understand the sort of jealousy she must feel towards you, is all I’m saying.
I’m guessing those thorns were related to the time Discord tried to choke the Tree of Harmony to death? What a jerk. Trixie wasn’t in Ponyville when the Everfree Forest went nuts during the Princess’s absence. She was already doing a show in Neigh Orleans at the time, and only found out about the disaster later.
The lost pages appear to cover very little. Most of it is just doodles that I think are of the Tantabus? They’re not exactly legible. Or that good, for that matter. Trixie has many talents, but drawing isn’t one of them.
But yeah, Gallopoli. If you’d asked me what an older, somehow worse-looking Baltimare looked like, I’d probably describe it like this place. Row after row of old, red-brick buildings with a couple marble ones splashed in for fun. Everything smells, and absolutely everything is covered in a thick layer of grime from the odd smokestacks on the waterfront. Probably why it smells, to be fair. Clouds and water vapor are a great way to take rotten stink from one place, and dump it somewhere else.
Gallopoli’s also huge! Hyneighria could probably fit in one of the neighborhoods around here with room to grow! We got turned around three times, just trying to find Swirly’s family.
Oh. Right. That.
I mentioned before that Clean Slate and Page Turner technically still had family in Hoofburg. The way Swirly’s parents talked about his uncle, it sounded like he was dead or something. That turned out to be a slight miscalculation on the Great and Powerful Trixie’s part. He was merely treated as being dead. On account of being a huge jerk or something.
Trixie can relate to wanting certain parts of one’s family to get dead. Yes, I know that’s not grammatically correct, Journal. It’s still true.
So, apparently Swirly’s uncle was from Hoofburg, but then moved to Gallopoli, for some reason I was too tired to understand at the time. But Swirly brought it up, so I figured we ought to check.
Anyway, Swirly starts getting antsy as soon as we pass through the main gate. He was either nervous about meeting his jerk-Uncle, or the Troggles watching us enter the city.
Yeah, more of them. And not just Troggles. The main gate had a few of them, sure, but there was also a small platoon of dragons marching around the walls. These ones take after that dingus, Garble, more than Sparkle’s pet Spike. Trixie can tell a bully a mile away.
Plus they were, you know, bullying ponies they came across. I stayed clear, either way. So, Troggles, Dragons, and even some of the local pegasi were armored up as if they were working for Grogar. Didn’t see any more centaurs or satyrs, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Still a little worried about all the ponies on their side.
Not sure why Gallopoli has such an earth pony name if it’s mostly pegasi, bee-tee-dubs*. Maybe Starlight will know once I get back.
Trixie may be overselling the tribal makeup of the city at this time. Gallopoli was most likely founded by earth ponies, at least going by the Epic of Gallopmesh. Pegasi invaders conquered the original city inhabitants about a thousand years before Trixie showed up, but the city always had a mixed population.
Yes, I’m also confused-slash-worried as to why there’s this apparently huge city here, when Gallopoli is supposed to be a small farming town.
*I presume we can thank hooman Trixie for that “word”?
So, day one being in Gallopoli, we spent the whole day looking for this uncle, or whatever.
Has Trixie mentioned lately how much I hate time travel? Because this is the part where I think my Great and Powerful head almost exploded all over the road.
See, we found the house his uncle was supposed to be living at. Supposed to. He wasn’t there, though. The current owner, a rather rude donkey named Earl who I hate for entirely justified reasons, informed us that the previous owner had moved away.
Yup. He decided to follow his passions, instead of sticking it out in the city. Too many Troggles, or something. Said he’d gotten a bad Sense of the place.
So Swirly’s uncle finally put his Rocktorate to use, and went off to found a rock farm.
Swirly’s uncle, Holder. Holder Cobblestone.
Why do I keep running into Pinkie’s family everywhere I go!?
Peachy Peaches will eventually (I think we both know not everypony in Hyneighria died, obviously) have a child named Crumble Pie. Crumble will have something like twelve direct descendants, one of which is recorded as being Marshmallow Pie. Marsh married a mare named Facet, who grew up on an old rock farm a few hours train ride away from Ponyville.
Skip forty generations or so, and their descendant, being the last living member of Holder’s line, inherits a rock farm, and passes it onto his son, Feldspar. Father of Igneous Rock Pie.
Sorry. Just needed to process the fact that Pinkie Pie is a first cousin – one-hundred-times removed – from Starswirl. I’m okay now. I am not okay. Nothing will ever be okay again.
The Pie farm is all the way on the other side of future Equestria. Weeks away, at least! I know I said I’d teach Swirly magic, but keeping him safe and alive trumps that. Which means Trixie is back to planning mode.
We need food and other supplies. Which means at least a dozen shows, if I want enough to get us there. There’s a whole seaboard of cities around us, so there’s no shortage of venues. Apparently, New Maresterdam is north of us, across a bunch of swamplands, and everypony here says it’s got the right kind of scene. Could make a shiny bit playing there.
But, without Uncle Holder, Swirly’s stuck with me for now.
Lucky him.
After running into that dead-end, we found an inn to stay at. Normally, I prefer my wagon, but when you’re in a city as large as this place, you can’t afford having to hop through the gates every day. If they lock up, or charge extra fees, you could see a whole day’s profit vanish! Plus, walking from the outside, passed the gates, and going through all the local traffic just to set up your stage? That’d take hours!
**section lost to mold**
Trixie went off for a couple pages here about venue selection, I think. There’s a bunch of odd words here and there I can make out that might just be her complaining about taxes. It’s like a dang manifesto in here.
We also lost a bit that seemed to cover Swirly doing another show, but since the text picks up again right after he finished, I don’t think we lost much.
“—apologize.”
Swirly blinked at me a few times, clearly unused to Trixie having flaws. This is common among other ponies as well, if I am being honest.
“Apologize?” he repeated, dumbly.
“Yes, I apologize,” I also repeated, though not loud enough for anypony passing by to hear us, what few there were at this hour, “Trixie should have trusted in her apprentice to make enough money for us to survive. You did a great job tonight, kid.”
Swirly grinned, cheekily, and said, “I did, didn’t I?”
Yes, it was cute, Journal. But that doesn’t mean I have to encourage him all the time.
Now, there was one more thing I was going to apologize for, but as you may have guessed, I didn’t get around to it. Because, just as Trixie was working herself up to it, we turned down the next corner, the last before our accommodations, and found a dead-end.
A dead end. Me, Trixie. I never get lost, Journal. It’s a physical impossibility! I might get turned around, here or there, but lost? Never in a city. Not once!
Technically true. However, I do have my hooves on a report that Trixie was once lost for sixteen hours on the Pegasus Interchange, a rather notorious road network in Los Wrangeles. She apparently kept getting on and off the interchange, not being sure where it ended. According to the officer on scene, she broke down and began performing one of her shows after hour fourteen, and it took thirty-seven police wagons to eventually catch her. Starlight paid bail, naturally.
Oh, but my favorite part? She was quoted by a witness as beginning her performance by yelling out:
“Screw it! We’ll do it live! WE’LL DO IT LIVE!!!”
“Did we get turned around?” Swirly asked me, spinning about to see what had happened. “I don’t understand?”
Trixie unhitched herself from the wagon, and looked about. The Inn we were staying at was just on the south side of the city center, and only a few short blocks from the main street. A five minute trot, at best. From what I’d seen so far, we were mostly surrounded by inns, taverns, and a few gaming dens. Not the nicest part of town, but the liveliest, so it was a great place to disappear into.
But the street was deserted. The sun hadn’t been gone for more than a half hour, but the streets were already empty. The buildings were the same as when we’d left, with the same ugly whitewash as everywhere else, but there was just this freaking wall cutting across our path.
I smelled something fishy, and it wasn’t the fish market.
Trixie walked to the wall and gave it a few experimental prods. I couldn’t do a normal magic-check with my horn still out of commission. Trust me, I tried, and all that came out was a spark and a stabbing pain down my left side. So, I had to fall back on some older techniques. First, I gave the wall a solid rear-kick, like those Apple bumpkins do.
Hey, I can learn new tricks from even the worst ponies.
Did you know about this other incident report? Ponyville Police got called in to a disturbance at Sweet Apple Acres right around the first Cozy Incident. Apparently, Trixie liked to sleep under the apple trees in the Northwest field back then (no, I can’t find out why), and Big Macintosh was sleep-bucking due to stress.
His aim was off, but she spent a few days trying to convince ponies Big Mac had tried to “assassinate” her. While they settled the issue privately, out of court, Rainbow Dash likes to regale ponies with the story after a few ciders, and once let it slip that Trixie has the sole right to keep a hammock on Apple family property.
The wall was solid enough. Next, I checked its harmonics. Trixie hummed a few notes – nothing special, just the first couple notes of the Wanderer – and listened close.
There was an odd echo. A familiar echo.
I licked the wall.
“Um, Trixie?”
I turned back around, and saw Starswirl standing there, staring at me. He looked at me like I’d just—
Okay, so I did just lick a wall. But there was a very good reason for that!
Chaos. I’ve been pranked by Discord a lot. Sometimes, it was just because I was too close to Starlight or Twilight when he got into a little huff, but I’ve been the target of more than my fair share of his chickenry chicanery! And after a while, I started picking up some things about Chaos Magic.
For example, Discord’s creations always resonate at a D-minor. And since Wanderer is D-major, Trixie has found you can figure out when he’s messed with something by how the two notes sound next to each other.
Musical notation isn’t so stupid now, Starlight!
Second, the taste. You’d be surprised to find that Chaos Magic tastes exactly like milk chocolate, peppermint, orange juice, and pickles.
Discord’s jaw hit the floor. While a slew of tiny Police-Discords handled statements from the witnesses – a nearby salad bowl and a four-sided triangle out on a walk – and took in the jaw for questioning, the Lord of Chaos himself stared off into infinity.
Then, he gave his paw a little lick, and gasped.
“How did she know!?”
Just like that wall. Discord was screwing with me again!
I explained all this to Swirly, of course. I am teaching him magic, after all. And learning about Chaos Magic and Discord’s antics—
Ah, fooey. I did it again, Journal. A paras paradox. Another paradox. I gotta learn to stop doing that before I do some real damage.
Unless I already have?
Can’t think about that. Stop thinking about that.
Trixie, stop thinking about that!
Paradoxes aside, Chaos Magic having a particular harmony (let’s ignore the taste thing for now) is fascinating, especially in light of Grogar’s Disharmonic magic. It leads one to wonder just how the Dark Lord actually used his magic to create Discord, Rhapsody, the Troggles, and so many other monsters. As much as talking to him made my fur stick up on the back of my neck, I almost want to try again, just to figure out what he did. Almost.
Interestingly, the oldest versions of The Wanderer do often start with a common folk tune as a lead-in. A common folk tune whose origin is shrouded in myth and legend. And yet, Trixie knew that it formed a perfect harmonic resonance with Chaos. I wonder how often Discord has picked on Trixie in the past now. Public records on that sort of thing are scarce, mostly by Discord’s own design.
Actually, looking over what records exist, I’m getting the feeling that there’s a pattern. Ever since Discord became permanently unfrozen (reformed is such a strong word), he has consistently popped up to target Trixie or any Trixie-adjacent creatures no less than once every 3 moons. About 99 days apart, give or take.
According to Luster Dawn, who brought this to my attention, most of these spells fall into set ranges of duration, depending on a number of factors I’m sure you’re already aware of. Long term, heavy enchanting spells typically have duration limits around one to three moons. If Luster and my calculations are right, Discord might have been enchanting Trixie half a dozen times a year, for the last three decades.
What is Discord doing to Trixie?
Fine. I gotta wrap this up. The sun’s gonna come up soon. I’m sorry I’ve been so slow, Journal. It’s just that I only just got my horn back, and it hurts worse than when I burned it up. Using magic this soon after recovering can’t be good. Swirly will have to take up doing the performance for a while longer, until I can do more than slowly push a pencil across a page.
Trixie was about to pull us out of that dead-end, and bolt for safety from whatever sick trick Discord was going to play, when it happened.
Not the trick. I still don’t know what Discord was doing putting that wall there. No, Trixie is talking about the bomb.
Discord's bushy eyebrows knitted together above his brow. That was fine, as Fluttershy was quite good at knitting herself, and would probably not mind helping him de-knit later.
But, so long as his brows were knitting themselves up, Discord would use the time to ponder a question that had suddenly occurred to him.
"Why did I put that wall there?" he asked himself. "Actually... did I put that there?"
He snorted, irritably, as the answer came to him.
"Of course..."
An explosion rocked the city. It came from a few blocks away, right where I knew the Troggles were garrishing were garg garnish
The place where Grogar’s troops were living. It blew up. Like, a lot. My fireworks are half magic and half chemistry, and I follow very specific spefic specifications to make sure they’re safe for the show. Whoever built that thing had no such concern, let me tell you.
A huge plume of fire rose up into the air, so bright that Swirly hid beneath his hat. Normally, I’d pop on my patented Sunscreen Spell, and just stare right at the light, because I’m amazing like that, but that wasn’t really an option at the moment, so I also hid under my hat.
The sound was also incredible. Most of the window shutters in town shuddered shook as the blast roared over us.
Can explosions roar over stuff? Whatever. Edit later.
Still, it wasn’t deafening, so I could clearly hear the clatter of approaching hooves. Three ponies whipped around the corner like Tartarus was on their heels, and it probably was. All three were dressed in those stupid black cloaks that ponies think make them look cool and mysterious, but only serve to make you look like a dingus.
Also, they really hurt your peripheral vision.
Can confirm. I’ve dealt with so many cultists who could have taken over the world if they had just picked more practical headwear.
They came to a sliding halt just before crashing into our wagon, and I could hear the panic in their voices.
The one stallion amongst them sputtered, “What? Where’d that wall come from!?”
“It wasn’t here before! I swear, I checked!” Now that one sounded familiar, but I didn’t get a good look at her yet.
The third one, however, almost rammed her nose right into mine. I felt a hot, hot breath wash over me, and—
Okay, I’ll admit. Trixie was scared. I thought I saw flames under that hood!
Huh. I probably did.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, “Who are…?”
She stopped and stared at Swirly. In the depths of her hood, I could see a pair of emerald green eyes glaring his way, working something out in her brain. I didn’t like her staring at him like that. One explosion, plus a group of spooky ponies running away and screaming? Oh yeah. These were bad ponies, I was sure.
“Hey!” I shouted, “Eyes up here!”
The third pony, the mare I sort of recognized, fidgeted, and a pair of pegasus wings fluttered under her cloak. I could tell she was panicking more and more, like I did some actors do when they first get up on stage.
“They’re coming, darlings!” she whisper-screamed, “We need to hide!”
Okay, she didn’t actually say ‘darlings’, but I don’t know how to make it clearer to you what she sounded like. Though, considering you’ve never heard the real—
Whatever. I was about to do something. Maybe. I think. I wasn’t a friend to any of these ponies, after all, but I also wasn’t about to just let some angry, on-fire Troggles eat them or anything like that. Problem is, I don’t know exactly what I was going to do.
Because Swirly decided for me.
“Get in the wagon!” he called out, and flicked the backdoor open with his magic, “Hurry!”
“Now hold on!” I started to protest, but I knew when somepony else was in charge. And there was something in Swirly’s eyes. Something I’m not sure I’d ever seen in him yet.
Anger. Pure, bottled anger. The kind that’s loving tended to, boiled slow over an open flame, and aged in the oak barrel of the heart. Not sure where I’m going with that, but Swirly looked so peeved I thought he might explode.
So, I let it happen. The three ponies dove in, and we battened down the hatches, so to speak. Swirly himself took up a spot next to me as I tried to re-hitch myself.
But then, the Troggles came.
Four of them, half-armored, and all smoky-baconed. They pounded past our little street, only for the last one to spot the wagon and turn his compigions around. The biggest of the set marched right up to me, and I can say for certain that he was now the angriest thing I’d ever seen outside of Starlight.
“YOU!” he shouted, a crack forming along one of his tusks, “You! See? Boom! Ponies!?”
Okay. I didn’t know how to answer that one. Neither did Swirly, though he just sort of planted his hooves and glared back at the Troggles.
The second-biggest Troggle walked past his leader, and said in a much clearer way, “Have you seen three ponies run by here?”
Again, Trixie was about to give them an answer that would (hopefully) get them to leave her and Swirly alone. I’ve talked to plenty of cops, for plenty of reasons. I knew how to handle their kind.
Too bad Swirly was quicker on the draw, and much less experienced in cop-talk.
“What’s it to you?” he sneered, “We don’t know nuthin’!”
Dumb, dumb Swirly. You always lead with a bribe!
“Watch that mouth, brat,” the Troggle snarled, “Or else!”
Dum, dumb Trixie. You always shut your mouth.
“Hey, leave him out of it!” I shouted.
I mentioned before that Troggles are a lot faster than you expect them to be? Yeah, I’ve been in hoof-fights. I’ve had to do some ugly things to get by. But none of them prepared me for this. I didn’t even see the hoof before it clocked me in the eye.
Still can’t see out my left side. Hopefully, the salve the innkeeper gave me will take care of the swelling.
I was scared now, Journal. Every plan falls apart when you get punched in the face. I was laid flat out, on my back. I think I might have lost a few seconds too. Not sure. Can’t remember.
But, as I came to, Swirly was there. He tried to haul me back up, and I let him. The Troggles were glaring at us.
Or, I thought they were. Then, their boss spoke again, a little calmer now that violence had been done.
“What’s in the wagon?”
My hoof went out so fast, I think it made Swirly’s head spin. I clamped down on his muzzle, and took a few breaths. Couldn’t see out my left eye, but I wasn’t worried. I know what a black eye feels like. And recently, I’d felt much worse pain.
“Nothing,” I said, quickly, “Just stuff for our magic show.”
“Magic?” one of them grunted.
“Magic show,” I managed to find my voice again, “You know? Illusions? Card tricks? Sawing a pony in half?”
The one in the back blinked.
“That sounds pretty cool,” he said, nudging the one to his side, “But how do they stitch the pony back together?”
Yeah, Troggles are dumb.
“Open it up,” the Troggle leader demanded, pointing with his unblemished tusk, “Come on! Hurry up!”
I had to think fast. These guys were mad, and on a mission. Being careful, Trixie trot up to the lead one.
“It’s locked up tight,” I said, quickly, “Really complicated lock. Might take a few minutes. Are you sure…?”
He snorted in my face. “We’ll wait. Open it. I want to see some… magic.”
I don’t need to tell you, Journal, that I am as cool as cool can be, under pressure. But, without my magic, I was just one mare against a whole squad of these brutes. Even Swirly wouldn’t be able to do more than mildly inconvenience one of them before we were beaten down and skewered. Or whatever it is pigs do to—
Oh. Right. Pigs eat everything, don’t they? Good thing I wasn’t thinking about that tonight.
Instinctively, as I approached the door, I reached out with my magic to grab the “lock”. You should know by now that illusions are my specialty, and the illusion of security was just as good as the real thing, and at a bargain price. Peachy didn’t have any locks to give me, back in Hyneighria, so I’d sort of made some of my own. Mostly by plating the area around the door with a scrap of metal. Couldn’t really do that anymore without magic, but at the time, it seemed like the smart move.
Anyway, as I reached out, the stabbing pain came back. My whole face, starting with the side that was swelling shut, blazed like I was on fire! I caught my breath, and steadied myself.
“Hurry up! Or we’ll just bash it down and be done with this!”
“You knocked her around once already!” Swirly snarled back at the Troggle, “Give her a second! She has to use magic to open the lock.”
Yeah… magic. I flared my horn again, and the pain started up worse than before. Not only was my eye on fire, but it felt like a spider bite was traveling down my neck. Even my hooves were starting to feel hollow.
But I had to try something. Anything. Desperate times, and all that. I still don’t know why I was helping these random ponies. Just because Swirly asked me to? Really?
Yeah. Really. And maybe, just maybe I was thinking about Hyneighria again. About how I stood on a hill and watched what happened before. Or maybe I just wasn’t thinking. Whatever.
Now, Journal. A lesson in magic, and illusions. Most tricks can be done by being quick and having a great stage presence. But the best tricks are the ones the rubes can see you do, and they never notice it because of one thing:
Perspective.
See, most amateur mages will try to picture what they want reality to look like, and then try and do just that with their illusions. But, that’s why they’re amateurs. My bestie, Starlight Glimmer, once turned the two of us invisible to hide from some changelings, and she probably burned up as much mana with that one stunt as my entire show does!
You don’t need to fool yourself, aspiring magicians. You just need to fool the audience.
Trixie pulled away from the wagon, and dimmed her horn. I held out a hoof, inviting the guard to inspect the vehicle. Luckily, he took me up on that offer, and quickly.
I once did a show with DJ Pon-3 – don’t ask, it was for charity – and during the third set or so, I accid some stupid idiot had screwed up the lighting and electro-magical system. One thing led to another, and right in the middle of my fireworks, I ended up stepping on a fuse and got lit up like a Hearth’s Warming tree. Woke up a week later, still tasting copper. Took three moons for my mane to grow back, and I was in constant, twitching pain the whole time.
I wish I felt as good now as I did then. I locked my knees, and fell back on some breathing exercises I’d learned in the circus to quiet the shrieking pain every inch of my body was in.
Had to keep the spell up. Just for a few moments.
The Troggle opened the door, and looked inside. His beady eyes swept left, and right. All seemed normal to him. Just a magician’s wagon. Hammocks. Books. Chests. A cooking pot starting to mold up.
Yup. He saw nothing special or hooded-pony-like in there.
At least, so long as he didn’t lean another two inches forward. If he did that, he’d probably notice passing through a paper-thin set of illusory pictures hovering in front of his face, each angled perfectly so that it would look three-dimensional.
See? Perspective. A fraction of the mana and magic, for the perfect con.
Sure, it was still killing me, but I still win on style points.
Now that’s interesting! That’s actually the same technique used by those fancy new ‘animated’ movies. Cabbie got into them a while back, and he told me that angling a bunch of flat images using illusion magic on top of each other is a great way to trick the camera into seeing more depth than really exists. Trixie really was ahead of her time.
“All right,” the Troggle grumbled, and shut the door a bit harder than he needed to, “We’re done here. Hurry up! Let’s circle back and see if we can pick up the trail again!”
And like that, the Troggles rushed away to find their targets.
I didn’t let the spell go, so much as it collapsed in on itself, leaving me to gasp for fresh air. Trixie’s lungs were burning as the three ponies hopped out of the wagon, cheering and whooping it up.
Like they were the ones who did something.
“That was amazing!” the lead pony laughed, “It was like… like you put up a one-way mirror! How did you do that?”
Talking didn’t seem like a good idea, at the moment. But who could refuse a curtain call?
“They don’t call me the Great and Powerful Trixie for nothing,” I said, nonchalantly. Though, I must have appeared somewhat tuckered out, since even Swirly gave me an odd look then.
Starswirl wrote the following in the margins:
Your right side was paralyzed, your left eye was swollen shut, and you slurred your words so hard that I only now know what you were trying to say. Saving our lives or not, efficient or not, that spell almost killed you. Again.
My knees gave out, after that, and I can distinctly remember hitting the cold cobblestones with my face. Perhaps I was tired.
Anyway, just before passing out, I could make out a few words and shapes going on around me. The stallion hitched himself to my wagon, and Swirly started hefting me up into the air. The other two hooded ponies were talking, I think. Planning what to do, I suppose.
But, as I was dipping in and out of consciousness, I saw something. Or, I thought I saw something.
One of the hooded ponies wasn’t a pony at all.
“A kirin?” I remember asking.
Said kirin locked her eyes with mine, but I couldn’t hear what she said before I finally passed out.
That seems to happen a lot to me, these days.
It was still dark when I came to. I’m not sure if I dreamed about anything this time, but I do have the distinct impression of a ‘COME BACK SOON’ sign floating in a void. Best not to think too hard about that.
The only light Trixie could see were some candles the innkeeper had let us have when we’d moved in. I was wrapped up in the bedsheets, and tied down securely. Trixie discovered this fact when she tried to lift herself up, and found that every single atom of my body was screaming at me to knock it off.
I might have also screamed out loud, since there were a lot of hoofsteps as soon as that happened, all rushing towards my bed.
Swirly got to my side first, and even through one swollen eye and a whole heaping amount of pain, I could see he’d been crying.
“Hey, now,” I said, or grumbled. Can’t tell which at the moment. “I’m okay. I’m here.”
“You almost weren’t,” a stallion spoke, and I noticed the three ponies from before were in the room as well. Their hoods were gone, so I finally had a good look at each of them.
The stallion had to be the most painfully generic looking guardpony I’d ever seen. Blue crest-style mane, and a shiny white coat. At a distance, under gold armor, Trixie might have suspected him to be anypony from a traffic-guard to Twilight’s big brother. Except for being an earth pony, of course.
He spoke again. “Your ward told us you nearly burned your mana channels out completely some time ago. It was risky, even foolhardy to aide us… but we cannot thank you enough for the effort, regardless.”
“Huh?” I asked, still delirious.
And here came that pegasus mare, making apologies for how ‘rude’ her companion was being. I know you don’t know her, Journal, but just imagine a particular pony named Rarity. Got it? White unicorn? Purple hair? Full of herself?
Trixie. Glass houses.
Yeah, now just make her a minty-green pegasus with a dark-green mane, and you’re golden.
“Now, now, Joyous Guard!” she admin admop admonished him, “Trixie here saved our lives! The least we can do is thank her for aiding us. And besides, we should do more, darling.”
Sorry, Journal. But she really looks like her! I almost do the voice myself while she’s talking!
“Enough!” the third ‘pony’ said, approaching the bed, “You’re smothering her. Yes, even you, Melody. Trixie? How are you feeling?”
I tried to smile, but quickly gave up when I felt my gums revolt. “Eh, could be better. You guys?”
The third pony, the kirin? She was something else. I always liked kirins, once I found out they were a thing. Applejack brought somepony named Autumn Blaze to town just a few weeks before this nightmare started. We got along famously! Even got myself invited to the Kirin Grove to perform my show.
Really hoping I’ll make it to that.
I confirmed with Applejack that she set up a kirin-exchange program around the time Trixie’s talking about, in order to promote each others' cultures, or something. I bet she was just trying to sell more apples. You were, according to Spike, returning a library book at the time. For an entire week. Must have been some book.
Either way, Trixie is very popular among kirin. Ridiculously so. Anarchy's friend, Shade Bright, is part of a large kirin subcuture who self-identify as ‘Krixies’ (kirin-Trixies). They hold conventions every year in Baltimare to celebrate Trixie and performing arts in general. I wish I was kidding.
Anyway, said kirin had a white coat, and her mane was green with little red stripes. Kinda reminded me of Sunset Shimmer, actually. Even sounded like her.
“Thank you, again,” she told me, and even gave me a little bow.
A bow, Journal. Like, nodding your head to someone you respect. She didn’t decorate me or anything.
Oh, boy. A whole night without sleep is not doing me any favors.
“Thank you, again,” she told me, “You really saved us back there.”
“It was nothing,” I replied. I didn’t really need all the praise and glory I deserved, and the amount of pain I was in meant that I just couldn’t muster all that much energy anyway.
The pegasus chirruped, “For somepony of your amazing talents and power? Perhaps!”
While I tried to wave down the praise without actually moving my hooves, the kirin stepped up again.
“You know?” she said, eagerly, “We could always use somepony like you.”
I’d heard that before. It was never a good sales pitch.
“Oh? Use?”
She blushed, but kept on talking. “Well… um, yeah! Use! Uh, in a good way, obviously.”
“Surely, you’ve seen how Grogar rules over ponykind?” the stallion said with a growl, “He lets his monsters roam freely. He enslaves us, experiments on us, and destroys any who stand up to him!”
“And… you want to be the head of that line?” I asked, rhetorically.
“There are ponies like us, all over this land, who would want to get rid of him!”
The pegasus sang, “We are the Resistance! And together, perhaps with your help, we just might succeed!”
Great, I thought. More revolutionaries*. And she really did sing that, by the way. I thought she was going to kick off an entire Heartsong all by herself!
*Also, yes. Trixie has worked with revolutionaries before. Would not recommend. The checks always bounce.
I can't seem to find any information on Trixie's activities involving any revolutionary groups, and that scares the Tartarus out of me.
“Look, not that I don’t want to get trampled by Troggles or blown up by an angry magical ram of evil,” I told them, “But no. Thank you, but no!”
“Trixie…” Starswirl started.
“No!” I put my hoof down, and managed to not cry when I did so. “Leaving aside the fact that I’m just a... one pony," Trixie dodged a close one there, "or that I almost died from one punch from a Troggle, or that I'm taking care of a kid...!"
“Trixie, I’m not some helpless foal!” Swirly cut in, oddly stern and serious-sounding.
No matter, I ignored him.
“… But I’m also in no condition to help. I’m not looking for a fight, and I’m sure I can’t help you win this one. Grogar’s too powerful!”
“What are you talking about?” the Not-Sunset kirin snorted, “You moved the sun and moon around! Surely, you can help us beat Grogar!”
I was already rounding on the little shrimp before Swirly could slink off. Another downside of wearing a bright red outfit, I'm sure he learned that night.
I snarled. “Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry!” he cried, falling onto his knees by the bedside, “I just…”
Despite the way my lungs felt like they were trying to pull themselves inside out, I managed a strangled, “You can’t keep a secret to save your life, can you?”
Bit of a coughing fit followed, after that. The others were kind enough to get me some water, but I could tell they were still in ‘fresh hire’ mode, by the way they so eagerly rushed to help me.
“That was a one-time sort of thing,” I said, once my throat stopped stinging so much, “I’m not…”
Swirly jumped up from the floor, and nearly landed on me in his sudden excitement. “You are!”
Trixie was taken aback by just how forceful Swirly could be. The others seemed just as surprised as I was, and let the colt talk.
“You’re one of the greatest wizards I’ve ever…” he said, pausing a moment to swipe the hat off his head, “Okay, you are the only wizard I’ve ever met. But you’re amazing at it!”
“Swirly…” I tried to stop him.
“No!” he shouted again, “You can do all these incredible things! I’ve seen you walk on clouds, and vanish before my eyes! I’ve seen you fight monsters, cow Goddesses, hurl earth-shattering magic about, and yes… I even saw you move the very heavens above!
“Why don’t you see it?” Swirly’s voice cracked, right at the last, and I knew it wasn’t puberty. He had to wipe at his eyes before he started again. “Trixie… you are Great and Powerful… but you can’t even see how true that is.”
Journal, I was speechless.
Okay, not that speechless.
“Swirly, I can’t,” I said, shaking my head, “I’m responsible for you. I can’t just go running off to join an armed rebellion without endangering you.”
His eyes lit up at that, and I already had a sinking feeling in my gut.
“What if I join your Resistance?” he immediately whipped around and asked the kirin, “Trixie’s taught me everything she knows…”
“Hey!”
“And I’m strong!” He hefted up a nearby stool in his magic to demonstrate. “I can learn! And I have every reason to want to hurt Grogar!”
To her credit, the kirin caught my eye. If I could have learned how Fluttershy Stares, I would have given one just then that would have melted anypony in the room.
She swallowed, and shook her head.
“Sorry, kiddo… but, Trixie’s right. You’re too young for this sort of thing. And…” She looked back to me. “… if that’s your decision, we’ll respect it.
“But…” she shuffled her hooves a bit, and glanced out at the moonlit night, “Um…”
Truth be told, I was in way too much pain to care. If it meant not having to deal with these crazy ponies for another day, they could stay the night. I told them as much, too. Especially the ‘crazy’ part.
“Oh, thank you again!” she laughed, “But, that’s actually not what I wanted to ask.”
The kirin crept up a little closer, and with the pain slightly subsiding, I could make out her expressions better. She was looking at me in an odd way. Like, she was worried? Or, maybe just really curious.
“How… did you know what I was?”
Trixie was confused. “Huh?”
“Nopony I’ve met so far has had any idea what a kirin is!” she said, her eyes lighting up, “How…?”
Okay, after what I’d said before, I knew Swirly wouldn’t blow my whole time-travel cover, but I had to come up with something.
Luckily—
Actually no. Not luckily. I mean, it was lucky, but the context is pretty bad, all things being equal.
See, that stallion? Joyous Guard? He’d been standing near the window this whole time. And he had a really, really good eye. So, it was no surprise that he was the one to finally notice something was wrong.
“Uh, Gusty?” he called, and pointed out the window, “Isn’t it supposed to be a waning moon, tonight?”
“What…?” she asked, and rushed to see for herself. And, while those two started gawking out the window, my brain started spinning.
No, not in the bad way.
In the Twilight way.
“Wait… Gusty?”
Melody nodded, and smiled. “Our esteemed leader, and founder of the Resistance!”
Gusty.
Gust the Great.
Gusty the Great… is a kirin.
Trixie suddenly feels very cold, and she doesn’t know why.
Gusty the Great. The Liberator. Bellsmasher. The most famous and most beloved of all unicorn pony folk heroes outside of the very Founders of Equestria. And she was a kirin.
That’s huge! This, this right here is like—
Heck, it’s like finding out Gusty the Great was a kirin!!! There’s no other comparison! If you let this go public, it’d shatter academia! It’d be like lobbing a bomb into every university! Did the old unicorn historians just forget? Or was this a deliberate hornwashing of history?
Look, there are dozens of theories about Gusty. There was a fifty-fifty chance she wasn’t even real, you know? Sometimes, a theory about her truly being an earth pony or a pegasus got published, and usually to thunderous derision by every credible academic journal in the world. But nopony ever thought she was a kirin.
I just realized you might be having a nostalgia-induced panic attack right now. Um. Sorry.
If it helps, the doodles of the three Resistance ponies is… almost legible. Joyous Guard does look like your brother, though with a sword and shield cutie mark. And Melody, as it happens, actually has the famous gusty-leaf cutie mark, since Gusty can’t. Since she’s a kirin.
Again, sorry. Pleeeease let me publish this part!
Oh, and Trixie apparently broke the moon.
“That’s not possible,” Gusty whispered, “It’s… it should be almost a half-moon, right?”
Every eye was on Trixie. Every eye! With an enormous amount of effort - enough to where I almost passed out again right on the spot - I managed to lean over, and glance up and out of the window myself.
Yup. Full moon. Right smack dab in the middle of the sky.
I sighed. “You’re all going to blame Trixie for this, aren’t you?
That was six hours ago. I’ve just spent the last four writing in you, Journal, and the two before then waiting for the others to go to sleep so I could practice using my horn again. It still hurts to do anything with magic, so I hope you appreciate what I go through for you.
I really don’t know what I’m going to do about all this. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
So. Moon is broken. Discord is loose. Swirly is a dangerous radical. And I’ve been beaten to within an inch of my life, again.
But at least Gallopoli has indoor plumbing.
Everything's coming up Trixie!
That was sarcasm, Journal. Goodnight.
The relative cacophony of noise that was the Chaos Realm was… relatively quiet. All save for the crackle of popcorn popping out of the fireplace, and the arrhythmic ticking of a clock made out of smaller clocks.
Discord liked some relative quiet while he read.
He closed the report slowly, and stared at Daring's hoofwriting on the cover.
“Hmmm…” he hmmm’d to himself, “Getting close to the good parts, I see. Ah, and before I forget...”
A small, blueish portal formed in the air before the Spirit of Chaos, and he eagerly peered inside. Looking down from a starry early-evening, he was sure not to be spotted.
Troggles had terrible night-vision, he knew.
And there, just about to turn the corner…
“Trixie should haf trusted in thine leorningfola to make bitsen enof for we to survive. Thou did… uh, a great job tonight, kid.”
Swirly grinned, cheekily, and said, “Ja! I did, did not I? Tho, be not I a goatswain sod, Maester.”
Trixie, clearly done with Old Ponish by this point, merely sighed, and continued hauling her wagon down the road. Discord followed her path with his eyes, up to the last corner before her lodgings. The street was empty, and totally clear.
And, with a simple snap of his talon, a wall popped into existence, cutting Trixie and Starswirl off, and setting time on its course.
His task complete, Discord pulled himself back to the future, and reclined in his chair again.
“Well,” he said to the darkness around him, “If Dad didn’t ground me for turning his favorite clocktower into a giant air horn, I would have been there originally. So, it counts! Of course it counts!
“Uh… doesn’t it?”
After a few seconds, during which Discord contemplated the entirety and totality of the time-space continuum, he shrugged, and snapped his talons again. The report, still lying across his lap, vanished in a flash of light, returning to the precise moment in time he stole it from. Trixie’s next entry would appear on Twilight’s desk without any hint that he’d done anything wrong.
Which he hadn’t.
At least, he hoped so.
He really, really hoped so.
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Oh no, they kept breeding. I can only hope that crush on Twilight will keep the Ponequi from burning down Equestria in their more troublesome years.
This sentence makes me happy on multiple levels.
Yeesh. Trixie should take up a tightrope act. She could weave the safety net out of all those bootstrap paradoxes.
Three? Does that include Clover, or some unaccounted-for contemporary of the royal sisters?
And yes, definitely an ominous bit of marginalia there...
Poor Tantabus. They can't all be Moondog. This one has yet to understand the finer points of delicacy. But if there's one thing we know it can do, it's learn and grow. Okay, two things.
Oh. Plural Tantabi. Hadn't considered that. And more of Trixie playing merry havoc with causality.
... Huh. Well, that's not at all concerning.
I... really don't know how to react to this.
Wait a second. Green mane, exotic foreigner, covert ops... Is this a kirin version of Zeetha, daughter of Chump?
Oh. Oh. Not quite.
Fascinating developments, especially as cause and effect keep spicing up their relationship. Eagerly looking forward to more.
wow, awesome plot twist.
10663810
Clover was mentioned briefly in one of Starswirl’s earlier comments.
So glad you’re enjoying the ride!
Man I love this story. The perfect mix of jokes, drama and adventure while we discover a character that have depth and more history than we can suspect. The perfect adventure.
Combine this with all the earth shattering revelation she inflict on Twilight and Daring, it's like unintentional revenge from a thousand year distance for underestimating and doubting she wasn't Great and Powerful.
The secret armed rebellion she was lart of, all the exploit she is doing, Starlight being the Time Anathema (
), covering the other races like the Diamond Dog (wich I feel really got the short side of the stick by running their civilization just to make place for the ponies, the dragons, kirins, the "Deers", all those historical facts she is shattering.
I don't know how you got such an imagination but if you ever write a book, send us a link because I am curious to see what you would come up with. Especially if it's a fantasy one.
Continue like that, each update is a joy that help pass these hard time.
Ah Trixie... still casually doing magic what others find impossible.
Forgot to mention, love the foal tantabus. The fact that she is now raising two child and teaching them, I can't wait to see how this turn out. After all, a Tantabus doesn't have to die from old age, she might be able to be one thing that can travers the more than 1000 year gap...
Can't wait to see how she will grow and what Trixie is going to teach this second apprentice.
And the best part is that even Discord is caught off guard by what Trixie know!
Nice piece of world building.
This makes me happy
After reading it and realising in what era he was in, it makes a lot of sense.
I think we're far past that line Daring, darling.
Just show's how unstoppable Trixie can be when she's stressed enough. also, great pal Starlight.
This is exactly how Dicord should react to these kinds of things.
cdn.quotesgram.com/img/11/54/238447827-NoCapes_zps82c1bcc0.jpg
Same energy
Probably because Trixie unintentionally ended them.
honestly, I'm surprised Twilight has survived half of this story
I love this more with every chapter, this is the best Trixie ever told. Great job as always!
10663815
Hehehe.... which one?
10663945
10663952
Never underestimate the Great and Powerful! Never!!!
10664318, 10663810
Everyone seems very happy about Wallflower. I never knew she was so popular...
10665082
Not very popular sadly, but the ones who love her, love her to death, or at least that's me
10665082
All of them!
More twists, more history, more laughs! And OF COURSE Discord meddled with the past to keep the journal on track.
Still, the fact Discord has been enchanting Trixie for so long worries me.
I LOVE the worldbuilding you accomplish here, even if it changes pre-established norms. Gusty the Great as a Kirin is such a cool idea! Also, we get to see Frenzy and Mayhem AND learn a bit about Shade Bright. It’s THIS kind of connectivity that makes this story’s world feel vibrant and alive.
My hope is that by the time this story ends, we can see impact on later installments. For example, IMAGINE the Kirin pride that would emerge (especially for Shade Bright) when they learn Gusty the Great was a Kirin.
Anyway, you’re still killing it with this story and I can’t wait to see the next chapter and hopefully be able to get closer to some answers!
10665082
Oh I am happy that both Wallflower appeared in the story but I am mostly interested in Midnight Sparkle School of Sorcery and Botamancy.
Another delicious piece of lore is Mr Holder the rock farmer and the possibility that there is more to Holder Boulder than at first glance. A boulder tended to by generations of Rock farmers for over a thousand years? It could be only something along the line of a family heirloom that has been lovingly taken care for generations, gaining some sort of almost religious significance along the way but... it also could be an Earth pony spell that has been cooking for generations.
Who knows what could come out of it.
Okay.
Still want to talk to him, though.
Yeah, a bit too late for that, Trixie, and anyway, I think casuality's overruling you on this entirely now. Though I suppose we ought to appreciate that she is trying...she's just not very good at it.
Weird enough that I'm certain it weird out Starlight quite a bit, so best not tell her of this little tidbit.
I think we can forgive Luna for not necessarily wanting to take you at your word on this at the moment, Trixie.
Hey, it's like what you said before, Trixie--sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to survive. Even if it means taking the enemy's side in the process.
Well...supposedly, they are tied to the Apples, and the Apples are certainly all over the place too, so...
Actually, in my head...it would help explain a thing or two...
Another one of those moments where you have to marvel at just how much Trixie does understand about her trade, and how it's really wiser than it looks on the outside of the tin.
I'm sorry, but I immediately thought of this at that.
Well, not deliberately.
...okay, it was semi-deliberately--but beside the point!
Because she's gotten too good at berating herself. In a way, looping back to Trixie's earlier comment about fooling audiences...Trixie is her own audience.
Well...it is tradition.
Oh, so now we're getting bootstrap paradoxes into this as well, are we? I mean, we technically had a few already, but up until now, they were more accidental, brought about more by causality trying to preserve itself than anything. But now? Now its happening deliberately.
Well, with time travel, it's all relative anyway.
Still...it's telling that even DISCORD is getting blown away by everything Trixie's doing at this point.
10667333
Hey. Game recognizes game.
10665723
Midnight: “It’s just sorcery. Just because magic plants exist does not give them top-billing.”
Wallflower: “Pretty sure it does...”
Moondancer: “Our roller hockey team made Nationals this year!”
10665293
Let’s hope those answers turn out well...
Once again, this was worth the wait.
10672297
Can’t tell you how happy it makes me to know people think that.
So, we did the chant again, like we’d done the night before.
“We’re great!” I said.
“We’re powerful!” he replied, a liiiitle smile just beginning to come back to him.
Then, together: “We got the magic that makes you mar-a-vel!”
Ahh there's that chant they did from the previous story I read
Aww thats cute so the tantabus is like what are those pets that you can have a therapy or some sort
What Holy mackerel that was mind-blowing right now wow 🤯
Oh so it was you Discord well from the future like in our present Discord but still you're the reason that Trixie saved two ponies and a Kirin from there certain Doom at least for the other two I don't know about Gusty
I really hope so too Discord that you didn't do anything damaging on Trixie because given your track record this would be very bad for you
Ok wow that was something any way back in the present time at least Twilight wanted to speak with Discord but apparently he wasn't home for at least Fluttershy told her that he wasn't home after she left Discord appeared and telling Fluttershy and said he will talk to her when she finally comes down but it looks like Discord wanted to look at the report what Trixie's been up to in the past and it looks like Trixie and Star Swirl during performance and trying to get enough money to get by never going to find a way to find a hotel but it was blocked by a wall which apparently it was not there before and Trixie knows it's Discord but what she doesn't know it's the same Discord in her present time so they decide to go somewhere else what time they heard an explosion and three unknown creatures running away but then the Troggle are after them but they help the three unknown creatures luckily after convincing those Troggle they left after the creatures that it looks like it put a damaged on Trixie when they hit her she's still recovering from that magical surge but those unknown creatures turns out to be to ponies and surprisingly a kirin and they wanted to ask Trixie to join the rebel against grogar and his monsters but she really doesn't know and she really don't want to get involved with this war but swirly wanted to help but unfortunately he's too young for this and turns out that Kirin is name Gusty the Great oh wow I did Not see that coming but anyway they decided to stay at Trixie's wagon until everything cools down I wonder what Trixie and Star Swirl are going to do I guess we'll find out next time and with that I finally caught up with your story
10764847
Well dang! Glad you liked it so much to power on through like that! It touches me deeply to see people enjoy the Great and Powerfulness that is Trixie.
I don’t think I can respond to every comment you made (super thank you though!!!) so maybe I could just ask what your favorite part was, or what kept you reading all the way through? Why is Trixie Great and Powerful to you?
10764937
😊
There are still some parts I did like how Trixie still trying to not spoil the future event to the Past creatures and keep messing it up but she means well and I also did like this interaction with swirly AKA Star Swirl when he was young and I do like the comment of Daring Do said when she wanted to be smart or information or even agreeing for disagreed and I can't believe it took me awhile to get to your story when I saw your other story and I was like that's pretty awesome to see and I'm kind of glad I read it I can't wait to see how this goes keep up the good work man
10813507
Hey I ain't complainin'. Almost any reason to see an SCP reference in the wild is good enough for me.
Nnooooooo! I'm all caught up. 😿 Great and powerful story so far ninja! I looooove it! Can hardly wait to see what happens next!!
10816716
Don't you worry! More Trixie is coming soon!
10816910
Good, as I am very eager to read it! :D