> And the show went on > by Magenta Cat > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > One thousand years latter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Equestria. One thousand years later. Personal diary of Trixie Lulamoon, the Fifth. -It’s not like I could choose my name. My father called me Starbright Shine, he said I was his little star. My mother, on the other side, gave me another name and a family tittle. Both made a target out of me.- *punch* A smaller than usual filly, with an azure coat, fell to the ground. When she tried to look up at who punched her, her silver mane obstructed her vision. “And that’s for trying to get into our classes,” an orange with blue mane filly said to her target while massaging her right hove. It was a heavy hit. “Let’s make that a lesson, ‘Trixie’, you’re not at our level.” “Why can’t you understand it ? Your grades don’t matter, we’re better than you,” a silver colt wit amaranth mane added. The azure filly was finally getting back on her four hooves when a green filly with golden mane knelt next to her. “And if you keep trying, we will push you down. Harder.” She pushed the azure filly back to the ground. By this point she didn’t dare to rise again. Satisfied with their work, the three bullies walked away. “If you really are as good as you claim to be, why were you named after the most pathetic pony in history?” The orange and blue filly shouted at her from the distance. -That was my first encounter with my family’s ‘fame’, and I’m being very liberal with the term. As a child, I knew that ‘Trixie Lulamoon’ was a family name, unused for generations. I didn’t know why. I learned fast. Bellatrix Silverlight Lulamoon and Blueblood was my (repetitively) great grandmother by my mother’s side. She lived a thousand years ago, aspiring to become the ‘Greatest equine who ever lived’. The keyword there is ‘aspiring’. Although she seemed to be on par with the Elements of her time, to the point that only Princess Twilight could surpass her, she also antagonized the Elements of our time. She didn’t seem to be different from Discord or Nightmare Moon, if the registers are to be believed, but there’s no known record of Trixie reforming like the former two. Trixie was an enemy of the Elements of Harmony who had to be defeated by Princess Twilight two times. Although only those two confrontations are documented, there’s no sign of her in any other place, so it’s commonly assumed that she never achieved anything else and died without becoming that ‘Great and Powerful’ pony she claimed to be. And I was given her damn name. Why?- “Why did you give me that name?!” Starbright shouted at her mother. Bronze Compass, a.k.a. Trixie the Fourth, was soft yellow pegasus with scarlet mane. She was sitting in her study, patiently listening at her daughter’s rant. “Trixie Lulamoon was an enemy of the Elements, she even fought the Princess!” The little filly was exasperated. “Her name became synonym of failure. Even the family didn’t use it for almost a thousand of years--“ “Until I took it back to the family and named myself ‘Trixie the Fourth’.” Compass suddenly interrupter her daughter. The younger pony hesitated at first, but she quickly continued. “Yeah, exactly!” Her hooves were trembling. “Why did you do that?!” She wanted to keep ranting, but she wanted the truth first. There would be time for more shouting after getting her answers. “What good could come from doing that?” “Trixie was our ancestor, Starbright, and we are her descendants, regardless of how blessed or cursed that makes us.” Trixie the Fourth rose from her seat, but only to kneel before her daughter, looking up at her. “Is up to us... to you and me, to retake our family’s name and make it something to be proud of.” Golden Compass put a hove over Starbright’s shoulder. She was smiling. “I already made my try, but now it’s your turn, your time. Soon, the world will know how a great pony you are; The greatest and most powerful in Ponyville’s Institute.” Starbright Shine looked back at her mother, astonished and confused by her last two words. “Hold on,” she tried to figure it out. “Ponyville’s Institute? What do you...” “Today I received a letter from Princess Twilight.” Trixie the Fourth rose back to her hooves. “Tell me, Trixie the Fifth, what do you know of her majesty’s school?” -After that day, I’ve been working real hard to prove myself to the Princess’ royal eyes. Sciences, magic, sports even arts. It has been a tough time, four of the toughest years of my life, but the effort has been worth it. I have the respect of my teachers and the admiration of my classmates. I also no longer hide the Trixie Lulamoon name, I embrace it. It isn’t a motive of shame anymore. It’s mine, and it means what I want it to mean. But. Yeah, there’s always a ‘but’ in everything. I may be in control of my life, but there’s still something that doesn’t fits. I didn’t even know, but her majesty gave me a very sounding lead that I may have it wrong when it comes to my family lineage.- “Starbright Shine?” Princess Twilight called at the mare’s door in the student’s rooms. “Can I come in?” Trixie the Fifth almost lost it. Princess Twilight Sparkle? Calling at her door? And asking for permission? She ran as fast as she could for the door, all the three steps from the bed, and opened with all the grace of a snow dragon... a drunken snow dragon. “P-P-Princess Twilight?!” the recently graduated mare bowed before her ruler. “What can miss Trixie the Fifth make for your majesty?” “Oh, I see you are using your ancestor’s name.” Twilight observed while entering the small room. Since Trixie the Fifth was packing, there were only boxes, scattered around a single bed. “Oh, I do it in the hope I can, someday, redeem Trixie Lulamoon’s sins against you.” Trixie the Fifth lowered her sight in front of the Princess. “Redeem her sins?” Twilight asked, confused by the words of choice. “I’m sorry, my little pony, but I don’t understand.” “Why, of course. The first Trixie was only problems for you and the other Elements. Since she was our ancestor, my mother and I took the responsibility to atone for her mistakes.” Trixie the Fifth was having problem on keeping her voice steady. After all, she was talking to the very pony to whom her ancestor wronged in the first place. “My my. Did Trixie’s image really twisted this much over the years?” Trixie the Fifth raised her gaze to see how her Princess was shaking her head from left to right and back. Watching back, Twilight Sparkle, not the immortal ruler of Equestria, but the scholar pony decided to shed some light over the matter. “Sit down, Trixie the Fifth, you need to hear the truth, for you bear the name of a very special pony.” It happens that the Trixie Lulamoon name is not the legacy of failure and mediocrity that a thousand years of rumors has made it look like. > The Legacy of Lulamoon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything started with Trixie Silverlight Lulamoon, the Great and Powerful. Who were her parents of ancestors was lost with the time passing. But she never let her past (or lack of it) to define her. What characterized Trixie the First were her motives. In her times, most of ponies limited themselves to what they cutie mark told them to do. Not for the first Trixie. She wanted more. Although Princess Twilight knew her, she never understood if it was a desire of self-improvement or just plain greed, but the first Trixie just wanted one thing from life; to be on top. Before the United Republics came to existence, she was already traveling far and wide around all of Equus as the same. Saddle Arabia, the Griffon Republic, Zebrica. You name it and she was probably there at least once. That was Trixie the First. The infinite would have been only a start for her. Then, she happened to meet a stallion in one of her visits to Canterlot. When Princess Twilight told me that said stallion was Vladimir Duke Joseph Franc de Pansy Jan Nepomucký Faust of Remedies Escriba of the Holy Pony Sisters Rex and Blueblood, I directly asked her if she was pulling my leg. She wasn’t joking. One of the most influential figures of politic history was my ancestor! Not even my obsessed-with-history mother knew that. That’s how Trixie the Second was born. Although Prince Blueblood tried to inherit her his many tittles, Trixie the First stopped him and the newborn was simply named Trixiana Valentina Lulamoon-Blueblood. Princess Twilight says there was an actual duel over the filly’s last name. Trixie the Second was an earth pony. Her mane was golden as the sun and had coat blue as the sea. Unlike her parents, she never caught an especial like for having a public image. Instead, she turned herself to the arts. A revolutionary of heart, whit her mother’s desire of being the best and her father’s disregard for other’s opinions, Trixie the Second dedicated her life to always create a new and unique piece for every discipline she could find. Princess Twilight took me to a trip over the Rarities and Belles Museum in our second day of history telling. Inside the museum was a thousand pages book with photos, descriptions and the locations of Trixiana works, none of them signed by her. Refusing to use her parent’s fame, she always went under a different pseudonym for each piece, letting her art speak for itself. Trixie the Second, the creator who looked at the world and wanted to make it look better. Her daughter was Beatrice. No more second names or appellatives, just Beatrice. When Trixie the Second reappeared one day in Canterlot, she refused to reveal (or didn’t know) who was the father, but went back in order to raise her daughter around the family. Beatrice was a unicorn, just like her grandparents, with a soft violet coat and black mane. Unlike anyone in her family, Beatrice was a simpler pony, more of a sportsmare than a scholar and definitely not as multidisciplinary as the previous two Trixies. In fact, she also refused to be called Trixie the Third Never wanting to be under her family’s shade, Beatrice did the only thing that neither her ‘equine universale’ grandmother nor her ‘multitalented artist’ mother did; Beatrice joined Princess Twilight’s guard. Princess Twilight herself knew Beatrice too. She was a competent and helpful guard, with little to no problems with not being under the spotlight. Instead, she was happy with helping others from the less public position of ‘the door’s guard’. Still, her more adventurous nature got the best of her on the multiple ‘events’ that occurred on her time’s Ponyville. Not for nothing that Princess Twilight’s city is still known today as a ‘weirdness magnet’. From her spot in the main gate, Beatrice witnessed and fought a very astonishing collection of events, of which she never took proper credit. If it wasn’t for her military record, there would never be a proof of her feats. Princess Twilight explained me that Beatrice was actually shy and didn’t want to withdraw too much attention. With each generation, the name of Trixie retired itself a little more from the public’s ear. When she retired from active service, Trixie the First was in her dead bed. It was her grandmother’s dying wishes what finally made Beatrice accept the family’s legacy, becoming the third and last Trixie. Trixie the Third, she never wanted fame or notoriety, and cut the Trixie legacy for the centuries to come. Since then that my family went down in the fame-to-obscurity-to-infamy scale. Till my mother was born. Golden Compass was the seventh daughter of a spacecraft’s engineer and a history’s teacher. Under their education, Golden Compass grew up accustomed to search in her books for the answers to basically any question she encountered. With the time, her hunger for knowledge was too much, that there was only one answer she didn’t know; who were her ancestors. When she finally discovered the truth, she didn’t have the immortal ruler of our land to tell her the whole story. Because of Trixie the Third complete distaste for notoriety, her name was buried in the military records of Princess Twilight’s guard as she wasn’t mentioned anywhere else. Then, there was Trixie the Second and her philosophy of never signing her work. It ended with her as just another graduated from arts school with little no pieces to her name. Finally, she found Trixie the First. Yes, she walked the entire world and yes, she learned a lot from it. In her prime, Trixie the first was a well-recognized master of a wide spectrum of magical and practical abilities. But her prime happened outside of Equestria, between Zebrican tribes and Griffonian schools. For Equestria, she only passed to local history as another of the Elements of Harmony’s ‘Rogues Gallery’. A wicked mare who confronted Equestria’s greatest heroes twice and then disappeared from their lives. At the end, Golden Compass took this as a sing. She renamed herself as Trixie the Fourth and decided to bring back the family’s denied glory. As a teacher, my mother took her majesty’s program of education and extended it around the world, sharing the quality of education that only Canterlot and Ponyville had with every other city. Then, I happened. My name is Starbright Shine. I’m the fifth mare to use the name of Trixie. There will be a sixth one, but right now, it’s my time. I’m already a graduated of her majesty, Princess Twilight Sparkle’s Ponyville Institute as the first of my class. In fact, I’m basically the first pony in centuries to pass with a straight 10/10 record. Also, I gained Princess Twilight’s trust. Only this morning she sent me to prepare everything for her visit in Hoofington, tomorrow at the Summer Sun Celebration.