Trixie gets a second chance. What will she do with that? And what will be the cost?
After losing control of the Alicorn Amulet, the Elements of Harmony sealed Trixie inside an obsidian statue. She didn't refuse. She didn't fight back. Trixie gladly accepted her penance in order to keep her friends safe from her own demons.
But some things come back, even if they shouldn't.
Now Trixie has to figure out her own position in the great scheme. Yet as she does so, she will also have to protect her friends, and she doesn't know if she's strong enough.
“Me damn it!” Discord thought while hearing the latest round of chattering about theories and plans. “If those phonies don’t stop being so careful and structured, I’ll go sane in here!” He tried to not think about it. In fact, he didn’t have to think. Discord was the very Spirit of Chaos, the essence of chance and anarchy in the great scheme of things. If there was one thing he shouldn’t be doing, that was thinking, let alone thinking clearly.
That’s why he hated being imprisoned in stone like this so much. Inside, there was only thought and only thinking to be done. It was so calm, that it took him actual effort to stay insane in there. Discord feared what the isolation would turn him into. He couldn’t let himself be smothered by the peace and harmony of this state of pure thought. The last time he had been here, he’d barely managed to hold out.
Suddenly, he felt a spark of something touch his paw.
This is an illusion! Madness, surely, he thought. Good.
But there was another touch.
Then another.
Then another.
Discord realized the chitchatting was no more. Instead, the funny sensation was beginning to spread from his paw to all his limbs. He soon remembered what he had been doing with his paws before being hit by the “friendship cannon” — as he liked to call it — and that was holding…
“Oh, fragg!” Discord felt how the chains he was holding were separated from his grasp.
Discord tried to resist the separation with all the might a stone could muster. Of course, a stone being a non-moving object, the resistance was only psychological and it did nothing to stop what was happening outside his imprisonment. He started to feel how even the magical links that held him and his charge together were being severed, so he had to think fast or those fool girls would soon end up separating him from her.
At least if there was one thing his prison was good for, as he had just been lamenting, it was thinking. Granted, the idea of not being magically tied to an mad omnicidal maniac was an appealing thought, but it was a terrible thing for everyone else. Discord was surprised to find himself agreeing that being enclosed in stone was preferable to letting such a being loose to hurt anyone else.
Now it wasn’t that he really cared about everyone, but there was one, specific… special somepony that he had found his thoughts turning towards again and again during his time in stone.
Fluttershy…
He did care about Fluttershy, the only being who had chosen to be his friend. She who just happened to be part of everyone.
Of all the thoughts that rattled around in his head, her and the memory of his time with her, were the ones that kept coming up, kept dragging him back to sanity. It was about the last thing he needed now, but that touch and the knowledge of what he was holding back from the outside world forced her to the front of his mind.
How was she doing? How long has been since she had last seen him? A week? A millennium?
Fluttershy was mortal and mortals had that pesky shelf-life thing going. How long was it they lasted again?
The possibility of Fluttershy not being around anymore saddened Discord.
Sadness.
Discord had never minded things that didn’t directly affect him, and mortality was one of them. He never really had to confront the idea as anything more than an occasional annoyance at best, a demarcation that he couldn’t do something he’d enjoyed to a being that was no longer there. As long as the universe existed, there was going to be an element of uncertainty, and as long as that existed, so would he. He never really had to face the idea of losing anything significant either. Until Fluttershy, living beings were little more than toys for him, so losing a few of them wasn’t something that had ever bothered him all that much.
But there he was, one of the fundamental pillars of existence, facing for the very first time the ideas of mortality, loss, and sadness on a personal level.
For a second, Discord allowed himself to be sane, long enough to pay one coherent thought to the memory of Fluttershy.
That’s when he felt Harmony’s touch take hold.
Discord lost focus again, trying to forget any resemblance of coherence and get back on his game, but it was too late. Harmony had found him again and it was pulling him out. He had one last thought before re-emerging onto the physical plane.
“Maybe I could make another friend.”
Twilight Sparkle felt the ground under her hooves as she descended after casting the releasing spell. As she expected, the stone cracked and broke, releasing Discord from inside it, just like the last time. However, instead of languidly stretching and striking some cocky pose, he slipped off Trixie’s back, landing on his scaly backside and looking confused.
The draconequus blinked and looked about him. Twilight wasn’t sure what it was, but it almost looked as if Discord was afraid of something. When he noticed Trixie beside him, he went so still that Twilight wondered if they had really managed to fully de-petrify him from his stone prison. Pinkie noticed it too, cocking her head to a side, trying to puzzle out Discord’s troubled expression.
Twilight was about to say something when Discord blinked, smiled and looked back out at them. His stillness lasted only and instant more, as the draconequus coiled his body back like a spring, making a loud metallic creaking in the process, and launched himself forward with a sharp twang. Only Princess Celestia managed to register how he speared Fluttershy right out of the air, the others catching up as the pair rolled to a stop on the ground. Discord had wrapped himself around the yellow pegasus as one might expect a boa constrictor, but was nuzzling over her neck and cheeks like a dog reunited with its long-lost master, all while purring like a well-fed housecat.
Twilight, Pinkie, Applejack, Rainbow and Rarity could only gape at the sight of Discord’s happiness.
“Fluttershy!” he finally managed to exclaim, stopping his nuzzling long enough to look her in the face. “I thought you…” He then looked around, realizing that the other five Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, plus the three Alicorn Princesses, a green pegasus and a baby dragon were all staring at him. “Yeah, you see...” He then realized he didn’t care at all, and turned back, squeezing her tighter and producing the most adorable squeak. “Doesn’t matter, got my friend back.”
“Aww, I missed you too, Discord,” Fluttershy finally managed to reply while returning the too-tight hug.
“One down, one to go,” muttered Lightning Dust as she watched Fluttershy try and untangle herself from Discord.
“You sound surprised,” Spike commented.
Lightning shrugged, the light spring jacket she was wearing rustling softly as it was pulled over her feathers. “What can I say? I didn’t think it would work on the first try.”
Fluttershy had managed to free herself from Discord, who, after a final ruffle of her mane, proceeded to go around to and greet rest of the ponies present. Pinkie got a brohoof, Twilight a noogie, and Celesita a big, wet kiss on the muzzle, much to her apparent shock. He looked like he was going to try the same for Luna, but a raised eyebrow by the younger sister caused him to instead move on.
“Heh, well, let me tell you,” said Spike, leaning in closer, “as long as I’ve known Twilight -which has been my whole life, mind you- I’ve only seen her fail at magic a handful of times, and most of those were because she was either rushed or was working from incorrect information that she was given.”
A small smile tugged the corners of Lightning’s lips. “How big was the scroll she used for the checklist on this spell?”
Spike let out a hearty laugh. It felt good after the tension of preparing the spell to free Discord without disturbing Trixie’s own stasis. “I’m pretty sure it killed an entire tree on its own.”
Lighting chuckled as well. Meanwhile, Discord had started an inspection of Trixie’s statue, eying it through an oversized magnifying glass. Appearing to find something of interest, he gave the statue a long, wet lick on the snout and contemplated the taste before going back to Celestia and Twilight.
Dust’s laughter petered out as she glanced up at Trixie’s obsidian statue, ending in a sigh. “Well, it looks like you’ve got things well in hoof here. I’ve got to get to the hospital. Dr. Stable wants to have this orthopedic rehab specialist he knows from Vanhoover have a look at me.”
“Want some company on the way there?”
Lightning looked down to where Spike was touching her foreleg. She then looked up and smiled at the little dragon. “Sure.”
The two bid the rest good-bye and headed out. Spike did most of the talking along the way and they made it as far as Quills and Sofas before Lightning stopped. Growling irritably, she twisted her head around back, biting and chewing at the jacket where it covered her wings. “Sorry about that,” she said once apparently satisfied, “but the brace has been itching something fierce today.”
“You could have just asked,” Spike softly admonished while reaching up and working his claws against her covered wings. Over the last several months, he’d learned the spots that usually irritated her.
Lightning sighed and leaned in, closing her eyes and muttering thanks. In her relaxed state however, she let slip the question that had been bugging her for a while. “Do you think Twilight can really do it?”
“What, Starswirl’s spell?” Spike smoothed over Dust’s jacket. “Well, she has been working on it long enough. Given Trixie’s situation ‘outside of fate’ as it were, I mean even Celestia thought it could help her.”
“Still, it’s… not exactly an easy spell. It did stymie Starswirl, even at the very end of his life.”
“Hey, if there’s any pony that is going to be able make heads or tails of that spell, it’s Twilight. More than a couple of her professors called her the next Starswirl. Of course some also called her Starbutt the Beard-less, though never to her face.”
Lightning laughed as Spike came around front. “Did they actually call her that?”
Spike smirked. “Canterlot ponies habitually ignore ‘the help’. I’ve heard more than a few things Twilight would probably prefer I didn’t when she’s not around.”
Lightning laughed again but couldn’t keep it up and it quickly faded once more. Having let slip that last question, she was now faced with the real one that had been bothering her. “Do you think we should really be doing this?”
The little purple dragon backed up a bit so he could look up at her clearly. Spike could tell that this was really the matter that had her so worked up. “You mean releasing Trixie.”
Her ears backed with worry, Lightning slowly nodded confirmation. “What I saw there that day… that wasn’t Trixie.”
Spike let go a heavy sigh and rubbed the back of his neck as he looked away. “I know, Lightning. I know.” He looked back at her, steeling his expression. “But I trust Twilight and the rest of the girls. If they say that Discord brought her back before the end, I believe them. And if Trixie was brought back, that means she’s locked in there with that… thing. That’s the other reason Twilight wanted Discord back first; if worse comes to worst, we’ll need him on our side. Trixie is our friend; we owe it to her to try and help.”
“It’s true and I keep hearing it, it’s just that…” Lightning grimaced and stood up, giving herself a quick shake. “Now that we actually seem to be doing it, I can’t help but worry.”
“If there’s one pony I trust in matters of magic, it’s Twilight. The Element of Magic chose her for a reason after all, and I for one am not going to argue with it.”
Lightning couldn’t help smiling at the little dragon, standing there tall and proud. “Alright, Spike. Now, come on. Let’s see if this specialist has any better ideas than the last seven.”
Chapter 1: "The Blackest Night falls from the sky…"
The imaginary pony lived in an imaginary house in the midst of imaginary trees on the bank of an imaginary river
From walls which are imaginary hang ancient imaginary framed paintings irreplaceable imaginary images which recall imaginary events which took place in imaginary worlds in imaginary places and times
Every imaginary afternoon she goes up imaginary staircases and leans over the imaginary balcony to survey the imaginary landscape which is made up of an imaginary valley surrounded by imaginary hills
Imaginary shadows approach from an imaginary path singing imaginary songs to the demise of the imaginary sun
And during imaginary moonlit nights dreams with an imaginary pony who offered to her their imaginary love
Once again she felt this same pain the very same imaginary pleasure and once again began to palpitate the heart of the imaginary pony
Trixie is… wet. Cold and wet.
She blinks and looks around. In all her time off adventuring with her friends, she had never imagined them going through miserable weather like this. Blinking water from her eyes, she tosses her mane back and looks around again. Her neck aches when she moves it, the joints cracking loudly. It feels as if it’s the first movement she’s made in a very long time. Out of reflex, Trixie stretches, cracking the rest of her joints. That’s when she feels something weird on her--
“Oh.” She looks at her paws, sporting the razor sharp claws she almost forgot.
The north wind howls again, showering Trixie with a cold she hasn’t felt in what feels like years. She looks up, where the storm has taken the place of the moon and the stars. A burst of lightning cuts across the sky. Trixie lowers her gaze to look around her in order to see where she is. It is… Ponyville. She is back in Ponyville, but not as she imagined it. Trixie realizes she is standing on a stone platform. She jumps down, but staggers upon landing, every muscle in her body protesting with pain and the promise of more if she does that again.
As the cold starts to creep deeper into Trixie, she begins to move. It isn’t easy, as each motion brings only more pain. She is in agony. Muscles ripping, tendons screaming, bones feeling like they’re going to snap. But above it all, Trixie feels tired. Broken, spent, unable to move. It’s almost as if she had trotted galloped the entire road between the Frozen North and the Badlands. But she needs to move. The rain hits harder by the second and the cold brought by the wind is getting worse.
Trixie just wants to get someplace warm, someplace safe. She just wants to get home.
Struggling through the rain, she makes her way towards the one home she can recall. It’s not a clear memory, but she remembers the library.
“No!” Twilight Sparkle woke up with a jump.
She sat there for a while, looking at the shadows in her room. Unable to move. Unable to remember the nightmare. Unable to think about anything but able to feel fear. Five other ponies did the same that night. The fright was too much for them to feel anything else. To realize that the storm had come back.
“I don’t belong.”
Trixie looked around herself. She was inside a dark room, almost pitch black.
“I shouldn’t be here, this isn’t right.”
The place looked like a library, but in a severe state of disarray and destruction. Most, if not all of the woodwork was either broken or had scorch marks. Likewise, what was left of the books looked as if they had been submerged in water and then thrown around. Only some shelves in a corner seemed to have escaped whatever hit the place, and even the remnants of books they once contained were heavily deteriorated. Trixie didn’t know why, but she was very tired.
“But I did came back,” she thought. “Why?”
She remembered some things, probably her life. There were others. Ponies she cared about and who cared about her in return. There was something else too. Something Trixie hated, and feared. It was a threat, always present. She couldn’t grasp it all, but she could tell something happened to her involving both extremes. Trixie got up. There was something she knew was in the back of her mind, a key piece that would give sense to it all. She began to trot in order to clear her mind.
It all started with hate. No, not hate; despair. She remembered being desperate, and afraid. Trixie was in a bad situation, stripped of everything she loved and left with no hope of ever getting any of it back. There was also greed. She didn’t just want revenge, but also to gain from it. All of those emotions drove her to accept something. Trixie tried to figure out what did she did, but whatever it was, it turned against her. It twisted her and her mind. She was betrayed and as a result, Trixie…
Trixie died.
She had to sit after remembering her death. She couldn’t remember exactly how she died, but there was a lot of her own blood splattered in front of her. The stress made Trixie lean on a half burnt bust to support herself. She felt the tears coming out as she also remembered she was alone when it happened, and had been alone for a long time before it. Just like now. Trixie died as she lived, alone.
Then why did she remember other ponies? Why did she feel like it didn’t end with her death?
A lightning bolt illuminated the room through a hole in its wall, which Trixie hadn’t noticed before. She trotted over it to investigate, but as she did, she also looked aside.
She froze for a moment, seeing a monster standing before her.
Trixie looks again at the endless space. That is literally all she can do.
When she started, she began to regret her decision, but as usually happened in Trixie’s life, and in whatever it was that succeeded it, it was too late for regrets. And so, now she can’t move, she can’t speak, she can’t hear. All she can do is see into the endless white in front of her.
Alone.
Alone in the white void.
By the end of the first day, Trixie is completely insane. The initials hours are the worst. She is assaulted by memories, guilt and regrets. The more she remembers why she is there, the worse the assault becomes. Gradually, her own regrets become fears. The fears become terrors. At the end, the terrors are too present to be just a thought, and Trixie is confronted with hallucinations of her own life. She is trapped between the horrors of a regretful past and a terrifying future.
And then, nothing.
Just white.
Minutes become centuries. Centuries become seconds. Seconds become eons. Eons become milliseconds. The infinite inside continuity, one inside another in an endless abyss of recursive irreality.
After an eon of milliseconds, Trixie realizes that time has become meaningless where she is. Same as space. The very idea of dimensions seems to not apply anymore in Trixie’s new reality. Even what she first interpreted as white was really just void. There is no light, nor darkness, nor harmony, nor chaos. Even life is just a relative term to describe existence, making death as meaningless as everything else. The physical world ceased to exists and there is only Trixie and what she wants to make out of that.
She realizes how peaceful it all is.
Trixie is no longer bound to anything. True freedom and peace, as she so much needed and desired deep inside her heart. She relaxes all her past perceptions. She is pure thought now. Trixie finds something that reminds her of joy in the serenity of it all. She allows that to build as she keeps recalling the good things of her past and the still present promises of her future. All the good and bad of Trixie’s life are all there for her to claim. The good to drive her, and the bad to teach her.
Trixie has come to terms with herself, existing in peace inside the white void. That’s how she spends her first second of eternity.
The next one begins when she starts to imagine.
The north wind howled in the distance.
Trixie tried to stay still, expecting that the monster wouldn’t see her if she didn’t move. So far, it looked like it was working. The two red, glowing eyes staring back at her hadn't moved either. Without moving anything else but her gaze, she inspected the beast, trying to discern if it was something she either knew how to face, or how to escape from.
It was bigger than a pony, almost as big as one of the Princesses. Its skin was jet black, sans four white stripes crossing its chest like a ‘V’. The featureless face only sported two red eyes, surrounded by white markings, like the ones of a killer whale. There were also wings over the monster’s back, folded over it and covering most of its sides, but letting its forelegs out. The limbs were slightly red, ending in what looked like claws to Trixie. That’s when she noticed the chains surrounding the upper forelegs. Since it stayed unmoving, Trixie reasoned that the monster may have been chained down. To test her theory, she tried to move away from it.
Thunder roared outside.
A flash of lightning illuminated the room, giving Trixie a full view of the monster, and the frame of the mirror where it was.
“No,” Trixie whispered. “No, no, no, no, no.” She shook her head with each repetition.
In order to avoid looking at the monster (it wasn’t a mirror), Trixie looked down at her own hooves (they were still hooves). To her horror, she saw two crimson paws, edged with the same claws the monster had (it wasn’t a mirror).
“What happened to me?” She was stranded there not knowing what was going on.
The north wind howled again, this time entering the destroyed library through the hole in the wall and washing over Trixie. That’s when she realized she wasn’t feeling cold anymore, or anything else. Trixie knew she was alive, but she couldn’t feel. The only thing she felt was a numb sensation all over her body. With reluctance, she looked again at the mirror, once more seeing herself as the black monster, and only now did she now realize she was wearing a costume.
The costume was all Trixie could feel. She needed to get it off, get away from it. Hastingly, Trixie took off the mask first, breathing in all the air she could, now that her muzzle was free. Then, she looked at her hooves, covered in the scarlet cloth. She bit down on the left one, feeling four fangs as she did so, and pulled the thing off.
“Stars!” Trixie cried when she saw the three razor sharp claws. “What am I?!”
She fell back, sitting down between a bookshelf and a desk.
“What am I?” Trixie hugged her back legs against her barrel.
Trixie inspected her own hoof. It took her another second of eternity to remember exactly how her old body, the real one, felt. At first, it was rudimentary, like a badly drawn sketch. However, Trixie always had a knack for detail, and knowing her own body wasn’t beyond her. The first things she recalled were her senses; touch, hearing, smell, taste and finally sight. From there, she followed with the form of her body. A head, a torso, four hooves. Trixie kept adding the details to her imaginary body as she could remember them, until all that was left were the colors. Finally, Trixie pictured herself, down to the last detail, moving her left hoof in front of her face. She kept imagining, pouring willpower into her fantasy. Trixie realized while she herself was now present, she hadn’t added anything to her surroundings, so she started with the feeling of ground under her hooves. It started as a line, then a plane, then a space. When she got where she could do so, Trixie began to walk. At first, she was only moving her hooves and shifting herself forward. It soon got boring, so Trixie imagined herself the one thing she craved the most in a featureless void: a road. The more she advanced down the road, the more she added to her imaginary world. Telling herself her own story, Trixie found herself exiting the darkest of forests and entering an open valley, high up in the mountains. It wasn’t too complex, as Trixie still only wanted something simple. Nevertheless, for her, feeling the green foliage under her hooves and seeing the blue sky above her head were the best feelings she could have. Trixie threw herself over on her back, enjoying the sensations around her the most she could. There, in her little fictitious world, she could have and be whatever she wanted.
The rain was still falling, but softer. The storm that hit Ponyville with the sunset started to fade as suddenly as it came. No more roars from the thunder, nor the howl of the north wind. Only rain, continuously murmuring against the empty streets of the town at night.
For Trixie, the storm could have as well continued its rampage, for the same turmoil was happening inside her own mind. She hadn't moved at all since she first saw her claws. Although she still could feel them holding her back legs against her barrel, she didn’t want to acknowledge them. She blinked the tears away, again. Were she less distracted by her condition, she would have noticed how much ticker they were than normal tears.
There was a mask lying next to Trixie. Jet black, almost as if just absorbed any light cast upon it, except for two white marks over the eyeholes. She had taken it off as soon as she realized she had it on, and since then she had ignored it. Only now did she focus on it, so she could avoid looking up instead. Up and front, where a mirror was. The only time Trixie looked up, it showed Trixie a monster the likes of which only the deepest of nightmares could spawn.
It showed her her own reflection.
Trixie sighed in defeat, as if accepting a harsh truth. Still avoiding looking up, she straightened herself and looked down. Her left foreleg was uncovered, so she could see the dark blue coat it had. Trixie would have wondered what happened to her azure color, but the claws replacing her hooves were more striking. She moved them one by one and then together, getting accustomed to the feeling. It wasn’t so hard, almost as if she had done it before. Once again, Trixie found herself realizing how little she remembered.
She looked at the other foreleg. It was still wearing the crimson glove. Just like with her left ones, she moved her fingers, noticing how uncanningly well fit the glove felt. Although Trixie did feel the fabric over her… paw, it was barely noticeable. She moved up the foreleg, finding her entire body covered by the same material, only black. Then Trixie looked over her shoulders, and saw the tall red collar over them, held in place by a chain.
She got up to see it better, realizing that what she thought were the monster’s wings was in fact a long crimson cape. Curiosity got the best of Trixie and she decided to turn around and face the mirror. Although the image still startled her, she was ready this time. She trotted closer to examine the monst-- her face. Just as she suspected, her coat there was also darker, like her foreleg. There were also the four long fangs.
But what stood out more than anything where her eyes. They were red, crimson, just like the cape over her shoulders. Trixie had to blink several times to convince herself those were hers. They looked nothing like a pony’s. There wasn’t a visible sclera, or at least not a white one, and the pupil was a vertical slit. All in all, there was a primal savagery to them, like a dragon’s. But despite it all, the face in the mirror was still Trixie’s and she could still recognize herself in the reflection.
Trixie collected the mask and the glove from the floor and put them on. She couldn’t say why she did so, but it made some strange sense. Trixie had to take hold of what little did make sense. Nothing in her situation felt real. One moment she remembered floating in nothingness, and then bang! she was standing inside a destroyed library in the middle of a storm. She turned around, spotting a flight of stairs and trotted over it. Maybe the higher ground would, at least, give her a better perspective.
In the darkness, Trixie found her way towards another demolished room. It was like the library downstairs, riddled with broken furniture and scorch marks. She ignored them when she spotted the balcony and went outside. The rain was still falling, but the storm was long past. Some clouds had even dissipated, giving space to the new moon to show itself among the dark sky. Standing there, Trixie tried to ponder her next move.
It would have been far easier for her to consider it all a dream. But she couldn’t. Something inside her kept telling her it was all real. Trixie did die once, but now she was back. She took a moment to grasp that reality, raising her gaze and feeling the water running down her face through the mask. It felt like washing her fears away, or at least it helped to believe so.
Trixie was alive, and that was as good start.
Trixie worked hard on her creation.
It was all in her mind, and it could have been finished with just a single thought. But she had learned her lesson; easy routes were not the answer. Also, there was the roani tradition of valuing the journey as much as the destination. Trixie found enjoyment in the work itself, so she didn’t skip a step. First things first was walking to some place she wanted to be. To her amazement, but not really to her surprise, the first place that popped into Trixie’s mind was Ponyville. She thanked Twilight for the tour she had around town, so she had the details she needed to work with and find the places she would need for the next phase.
To begin with, she decided to build herself a house. She imagined the entire building, piece by piece. Only when she had every detail worked out and memorized did she move on. Trixie thought about each step in real time. If it took four hours to assemble a pickaxe, she took four hours to envision the entire process. If it took three days to dig the foundations, Trixie would mentally go through the seventy-two hours’ worth of work, making sure everything was done perfectly. She even stopped to have coffee breaks. Due to that, Trixie could keep some sorts of track of time. That was how she could tell how long it took her to finish the building.
On the last day, Trixie admired her finished house, complimenting herself on a job well done. Yet, there was something missing. Yes, she was trotting inside the literal house of her dreams, filled with everything she thought to want, but it still felt empty. In addition, with the house finished, Trixie didn’t know what else to do. In a place without time like the one she was in, boredom was easy to come by if she wasn't careful. She ascended to the observatory of her new house and looked up at the constellations she could recall being over Ponyville.
In the middle of her own mind, Trixie did the one thing she still could. She told herself a story.
She started by outlining a main character. She was a unicorn, who, like Trixie herself, never met her parents. Therefore, she would go into the world looking for them. She had a pink coat with white and purple hair. The mare would face dangers all over the world, helping the needy and defeating enemies, but never through force. The heroine of Trixie’s story had to be overall smart. Instead of just fighting one side marked as ‘evil’, she set about making the world a better place through understanding.
Happy with the idea, she called the unicorn Twilight, the Errant Mage.
Trixie would continue telling herself Twilight’s story, between imaginary coffees and the occasional bourbon. First, Twilight would meet Surprise, the pegasus Trickster, who helped Twilight to bring joy back to the Gray Town. They would later clash with another party of traveling heroes; Jackie the earth pony Paladin, Firefly the pegasus archer and Sparkler the unicorn Enchantress. The five of them joined to face the Masked One, a mysterious mare who controlled an entire castle through lies. Finally, the group would be complete when Posey, the earth pony Druid, saved them all from a dragon.
As Trixie continued her tales, their adventures became more and more complex, taking place in a world that grew richer in detail as she worked to flesh it out. Each new tale was different from the previous. Some involved entire nations, others just personal struggles. Sometimes the friends would have to travel enormous distances to save ponies in unimaginable dangers, other times they would just hang around and have a quiet time among cider and songs in a peaceful settlement. It all went on like that until they met the ultimate evil, who, through manipulation and deceit, was behind many of their previous adventures; The Moon Queen.
It was her, the one who arrested Twilight’s parents. Who sent Surprise’s sisters to the labour camps. Who destroyed the fields of Jackie’s family. In the end, the six heroes found out that the Queen’s influence was vast and dangerous. Only one pony could help them to outdo such an enemy. It was the mare known as the Masked One, Abra-Ca-Dabra, an illusionist unicorn. Thanks to her knowing well of manipulation and lies, she was a great help to Twilight and her friends, allowing them to stay ahead of the Queen’s moves. In the end, the heroes managed to overthrow her, not through force, but by bringing back the previous ruler, The Star Queen, sister of Moon.
That brought peace to the world inside Trixie’s story, solving the problems of the heroes, finishing their quests and giving them a well-earned happy ending.
Leaving Trixie once again alone, without anything else to do, sitting at the top of her empty house.
She looked to the side, catching her image in the mirror once again.
“Why did it have to be red and black?” Trixie commented to her reflection, sighing. She had come off the balcony and was sitting once more in the main room. “It looks like a villain's outfit.” She inspected the chains over her forelegs and waist. “Trixie is certainly not the villain of her own story.” She turned around, catching a glimpse of the the cape billowing out. Trixie had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from admitting that looked rather neat.
More details of the suit kept appearing as Trixie looked back at it. Along with her claws, she realized the gloves over her forelegs also had small spikes on the front. Going up, above her elbows, there was a chain rounding the limb. The same chains were on her thighs, hips and holding the cape over her neck. For some reason, she hated that the most. She recalled enough to know a chain was a way to restrain something. If there was one certainty in Trixie’s blank mind, it was that she hated being held.
There was also a creeping though that this wasn’t the first time she’d had something unpleasant around her neck lately.
Out of frustration, she tried to yank the chains holding the crimson cape in place, if only to get rid of the wide collar surrounding her head. But when Trixie’s claws reached for the metal, something smoother touched her wrists. She looked at her forelegs, seeing the edges of the cape wrapped softly around them. Carefully, she put the limbs down. As they touched the ground again, the cape unfolded behind her. There was no wind inside the library, but the piece of crimson cloth still flapped around Trixie. It was way bigger than Trixie’s own body, extending away from her. It looked like an unholy pair of giant wings covered in blood.
“O... kay” Trixie said nervously while trotting forward. The cape’s movements following her. “This is creepy.” Just as she said so, the cape went limp as if was a piece of ordinary cloth. Trixie felt the temptation of taking the edges of the cape to try and make it float again, but something in her mind, probably her common sense, told her not to.
She needed to move. Get out and find things out. There were too many questions in her head to be answered. Trixie knew that the answers weren’t inside the dark ruins of a library. She began to trot towards the hole in the wall. She wondered why wasn’t there a door. Maybe the hole was made because there wasn’t a door. Or maybe the door used to be where the hole was. But if that was the case, what kind of being would be powerful enough to destroy a place like that, but not smart enough to figure out a door.
A corner of the cape got tangled with Trixie’s right foreleg and she tripped. Although the fall was forwards, somehow Trixie rolled to a side and ended up hitting one of the bookshelves. She tried to get up, but as she did so, her head hit the lower shelf, shaking the entire piece of furniture. She backed away and rose again, only for a small but heavy object to hit her on the same spot the shelf did. It was like the universe felt that Trixie was getting it too easy for a moment and decided to restore balance.
Trixie had to take a time to recompose herself. She looked at the crimson cape over her back. It looked way shorter than the silk behemoth it was back when it moved by itself. It had to be--
“Magic…” she whispered. There was something about it, about magic. Trixie was an unicorn, or at least remembered being one.
She looked up at her horn and wondered if she could still use spells. Trixie gazed over the floor next to her, where the small object that hit her head was barely visible among the shadows. Trixie felt strange. She knew what she was doing, but not how. Her horn ignited in the same crimson of her eyes. The mix between the red light and blackness of the night gave the library a hellish look. But Trixie didn’t notice, she was too focused on lifting the small object in front of her.
It was like walking after a lifetime of not being able to do so. Clumsily, she finally managed to get the object to levitate steadily in front of her. Now, getting a better grip on it, Trixie made it spin slowly to inspect it. It looked like a compass, not unlike the one on a ship. The cap had a strange symbol made out of multiple arrows curved and pointed in different, seemingly random directions. Trixie tried to open it with her magic, but it was too much. The crimson aura blinked and she had to catch the compass before it fell.
Once opened, the compass could only be described as strange. It kept spinning at different paces, changing direction once in awhile. At one point, it slowed down enough for Trixie to read the characters, which only added to her confusion. The only one in place was the W and even then it was painted red as if it was the main direction. Meanwhile the N, S and E directions were replaced by an A, an H and a T. As the disc kept moving without a reason or a purpose, Trixie realized the points spelled ‘what’ from the right point of view, which finally made her give up on the instrument altogether.
“Useless.” Trixie tried to close the compass, but the cap was somehow stuck. She kept pressing her claws together, using both paws, but the little thing wouldn’t yield. Trixie looked around it to see if there was a lock she missed. However, she found something else instead. She moved from one side to another to be sure, turning around over herself multiple times. Yet, the disc had become still, with the W fixed in a single, immutable direction.
Trixie looked outside, at the dark of the night. The rain was softly falling over the town, with the black clouds keeping the light from the moon and the stars away. She stepped out and, out of reflex, checked the direction in the compass again. It was pointing to her left, towards a lone road among the houses. She closed the compass without trouble, putting it inside the a pocket she knew the cape had inside it.
It would have been easier to just wait for the morning, but how could she? There she was, asking for a direction and she got one.
With one last turn, and a flick of her cape, the beast that called herself Trixie began her procession into the night.
Abra-Ca-Dabra held her old mask in her magic. Under that disguise, she once controlled an entire city. But then, the Six Legendary Heroes of Ponyland came in and destroyed her hold on the castle, tearing apart her dominion over the feudal land. It could have meant the loss of everything for Abra-Ca-Dabra, until Twilight, the leader of the Heroes, came back to her with an offering; friendship.
Despite Abra’s past, she and the others wanted Abra’s help. Not only that, but they actually wanted to help her too, giving her the house and companionship she never really knew and always tried to replace with power and influences. A year passed after that, at the end of which Abra returned the help of the Six Heroes by helping them defeat the Moon Queen, not by force, but by bringing her lost sister back and offering her redemption.
A year later, Star and Moon ruled Ponyland together and Abra could finally leave her past behind her.
She put the mask down in the vault, next to her old attire of hat and cape, and closed it with a key she would later hide, so it could never be used again.
Abra-Ca-Dabra stepped down the inn’s stairs. Although the Queens granted her more than enough money, as well as a room in the Midnight Castle, she prefered running an inn down in the town surrounding the royal buildings. It was the anniversary of the day she and her friends had returned of the Star Queen, and she had invited the Six Heroes as a way to thank them once more for everything. Abra sat down at the main table, where one of her employees served her a generous tankard of nord mead.
The Six Heroes shared their tales with one whom they considered to be one of them. Even if the fall of the Moon Queen’s solo reign meant an end to most of the problems of Ponyland, it wasn’t the end of all of them. Firefly, for instance, joined a guild of adventurers with the purpose of keeping peace. Twilight did something similar, with the school of magic at the north. But as they kept going, Abra realized how hollow the stories felt.
There was an idea and a character in each one, but nothing else. Almost as if they were just there for no reason, and didn’t really happen at all. Then, they began to ask Abra-Ca-Dabra about herself. She had trouble coming up with remembering. With each question, she felt like there was less to tell. That was, until Twilight asked the first question for which Abra-Ca-Dabra had no answer.
“Where do you come from?”
It wasn’t made out of malice, or with hidden intentions. It was just a friend asking another a natural part of life.
But Abra-Ca-Dabra didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t think about recall anything from the times before Twilight and the others came into her life. She was so distraught trying to build remember her own past, that she didn’t realize they were alone inside the now lifeless inn. When Abra looked up at them, her friends, the Six Legendary Heroes, vanished into nothing right in front of her.
Desperate, she ran outside. Instead of Ponyhold around the Midnight Castle, Abra-Ca-Dabra found herself in the middle of an empty valley. As she turned around, she heard the door of the inn closing, but the building, and the rest of the city, was nowhere to be seen. Abra began to walk, trying to make any sense of what was happening, but as she did so, the view was becoming more and more disturbing. There was no sound around her, not even the wind, and the few bits of green life left didn’t even look real anymore.
But something compelled her to continue trotting. There was something in the horizon calling for her, and she couldn’t find it in herself to say ‘no’.
As Abra-Ca-Dabra kept advancing, her grayish purple coat began to turn bluer, and her blond mane became lighter with each step. The green of her eyes was replaced by violet tones. When she reached her destination, at the edge of reality, there was no more Abra-Ca-Dabra. In her place, there was the storyteller without a story to tell, gazing upon the ending of her last work, unable to turn back and keep it going.
Trixie stepped out of her fantasy. She was once again alone in the white void. No world of fantasy, no companions to share it with, and no ideal home to call her own. Not even a body, or senses to feel. Only her thoughts and nothing else inside the eternal whiteness, just as she began.
Except this time, there was a black spot in front of her.
The streets of Ponyville were silent and dark. Although the harsher part of the storm had left long ago, the rain stayed, blocking the light of the moon and the stars with dark clouds. It was also a cold night, so there was no reason for ponies to be out. Only the streetlights prevented the town from looking like a mausoleum. Under the soft cover of the rain, Ponyville was frozen in calm.
This peace was only interrupted one street at a time, by an imposing figure dressed in red and black. Like a small wave advancing across a lake, this strange figure of the night was the only sign of movement. A red cape, unreasonably large, flowed behind this black pony, as chains around her body tingled with every step. It was hard to look at this large mare moving under the dark of the night and not think of a figure of bad omens, like a Banshee calling for death, or a vampire preying for a victim.
But her true nature was a mystery, even to herself. She advanced so calmly because any focus she had was being spent in figuring out who — or what — was she.
Trixie kept her silent march down Ponyville’s streets, trying to remember a faded dream. She needed to think harder.
Since she had accepted most of her situation, Trixie began to ponder where to go from there. It wasn’t an easy task, as she didn’t have one real and solid memory to go by. All that was there were feelings and half-formed impressions, floating in the mist right in front of her, but just far enough to be unreachable. There was an image of an unicorn filly. She was bright azure with a silver mane and dark violet eyes.
The filly was in a room, sitting on a bed and reading a history book.
“Lone orphan.”
Later, that same filly stood at the gates of a palace made out of marble and gold.
“Great expectations.”
The unicorn was a mare now, pulling a cart behind her on a road in the middle of the night.
“Wide road.”
The mare wore a magician’s cape and hat. She was standing before a crowd as lights went off behind her.
“Magic fate.”
Trixie kept going in the dark. Those bits, those pieces. Those were her life. So why couldn’t she remember them better? Why did she feel there was so much more?
No, she knew there was more. Something happened to her mind, she could tell that much. It seemed so much… faster. Clearer and simpler. Like a streamlined engine, or maybe a silver arrow. She felt very few restraints and all of the drive. Yet at the same time it was empty, so very empty. It should have contained the memories of a lifetime, but was instead filled with nothing but outlines and shadows.
In very few minutes, she had assembled what little she could recall into two distinct images.
The first one was the one of an adventurer. A vagabond who would travel the lands far and wide, searching for adventure. It was the story of an errand hero saving the world, one adventure at time. The second one was about a tragic figure. A once bright performer who fell in disgrace because of her own pride. It was the cautionary tale of an outcast who became blinded by rage and the desire of revenge. A pony who ended up cursed forever to be in the presence of friends who wanted to help her, but who couldn’t actually do anything.
There were two roads behind Trixie and she didn’t know from which one she came from. One inspired hope and the other fear in her heart. Both seemed so real to her.
Trixie found herself in some kind of central square. She realized that, despite her mind being focused on one task, her legs had kept going. There was something about this place that pulled at those half-formed memories Trixie had, trying to draw them out. Like the library before it, Trixie felt a certain familiarity with the square. She decided to check around, hoping to find some clue to her past. It wasn’t easy, as the square wasn’t anything to write home about. Just the typical center of an apparently typical town, in the shadow of a building big enough to be a town hall, and prepared to host a market place or maybe a street…
“Show,” Trixie whispered from under her mask.
Something clicked inside her mind, something important. As if on cue, the north wind came back with a howl and rain began to fall faster. Trixie hastily trotted towards the center of the place, close to an unmarked stone pedestal. From there, she looked around, slowly recognizing the things around her. Trixie lowered her head a little to change the perspective, but immediately pulled back up in surprise.
She has been there before.
A lightning cut the darkness, followed by thunder breaking the silence. But neither of those could snap Trixie from her trance. She was long away from the town’s square, in another time.
"Trixie!" Twilight ran towards the collapsed magician. Something was wrong. Trixie was supposed to just lose the amulet's magic boost, not lose consciousness. As she finally reached her, Twilight surrounded Trixie in her magic, carefully lifting her from the ground and closer to herself.
"Sss... Sparkle?" Trixie softly called for her. "Why is... whys is so... c-cold?" She was getting pale, very pale. The azure of her coat was quickly leaving and being replaced by a very light blue. "Wha... what's happening to me?" Fear was clear in her voice and her eyes only showed fright.
"I-I don't-- I don't know." Twilight was panicking. True to her words, Trixie was already cold. "Help! Somepony help!" She called desperately.
"Sparkle, my enemy," Trixie continued. "Don-- Do not-- forget--Trixie..." She rode that last 'e' with her last breath, both air and life escaping from her body.
Trixie had to brace herself on the empty pedestal next to her. It was like an avalanche of knowing. One by one, the small details appeared in her mind. Trixie was managing to assemble the puzzle, getting a broad outline of it all. That’s when she realized she was wrong the first time. She didn’t die alone on that road, as she previously recalled. Instead, there was an entire chapter of her life she couldn’t remember. A time that seemed to end when Trixie meet her actual end at the hooves of…
“Twi… light,” she said out loud, trying to recall details she still couldn’t quite. “Sparkle.” It didn’t make sense.
Despite knowing more of her own past, this time enough to piece together what could be called her life, there was, once again, two options behind her. On one hoof, she remembered hating the name of Twilight Sparkle. Trixie had associated that name with misery and loss. In fact, now she knew more about it, she realized that both of the previous options were real. She once was a wanderer, traveling around Equestria. But then, she lost it all and became a hateful monster. All because of something that happened. Something with Twilight Sparkle at the front and center, her actions causing Trixie lose everything she cared about.
Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to that hate anymore. Somewhere inside her, not in her mind, but in her heart, Trixie knew there was more to it, but couldn’t remember it. She had more questions than answers and was still alone in the dark. Nopony to turn towards to and nothing else but her own incomplete memories. When the rain began to annoy her, she trotted over the porch of town hall to cover herself. But what was the point of it? Trixie had nothing left that could be called a life. Or did she?
She closed her eyes and started with Twilight Sparkle. Why did she remembered hating her, but couldn’t bring herself to do so anymore?
The new memories weren’t helping things. Although Trixie managed to reconstruct most of the events before her fall from grace, it only made her feel more desperate, as it confirmed that Trixie was, indeed, a tragic figure. From what she could tell, that was all there was before her death at Twilight Sparkle’s hooves. However, she still had memories of events that couldn’t fit with that, as they contradicted everything she already had in order.
For starters, she remembered Twilight being a friend. What was more, she remembered having more friends. Neither of those elements fit with her more solid memories of being alone and embittered. Trixie knew the details of her life, her story, but she didn’t know what her life was. She missed the story itself.
“Maybe I need to tell it in order?”
Trixie began to rearrange the events inside her mind. First, she needed to know the premise. Trixie could remember clearly up to her magic duel with Sparkle, so that was where the story began. Everything else was fuzzy. She had some feelings to go by, like those friendships she couldn’t fully recall, but knew Trixie had, for some reason. There was dying too. In the dark of the night, under the smooth cover of rain, the only certainty she had was death. That one memory, her death alone in the dark, was far too sharp and vivid to be dismissed as anything but truth. Just recalling it again made Trixie shiver.
So, the story was about Trixie’s last days. It was a drama, a tragedy about the inevitability of death.
“I don’t want to die, trapped in the dark… all alone.”
The image of a dark hospital room appeared in Trixie’s mind. She remembered that scene clearly now. She was defeated, alone and chained to a fate worst than death. By all accounts, she should have surrendered right then and there. But Trixie didn’t. She was made of a sterner material than that. However, something else helped her. There was something-- no, somepony. There was a hoof offered in kindness that broke her fall.
“You’re not on your own,” Said Twilight. She saw her!
There was a cleaner image now. It was Twilight. She saved Trixie. More than that, she helped her afterwards, gave her a home, held her when she fell apart, and even encouraged her to continue onwards. She, Twilight Sparkle, was Trixie’s first and best friend.
But she wasn’t the only one.
More moments with other ponies came back too, and the mismatched feelings slowly became the memories she’d lost. Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie. Those weren’t just names and faces. Those were the ponies that stood by her when she needed them the most. Fluttershy, Applejack. They were all there, in her life, helping her get through. And in return, Trixie gave them her friendship too, even supported them if needed. Spike, Lightning Dust. Trixie opened her eyes and looked around the square again. She recognized some of the landmarks of Ponyville!
Trixie stood up and began to trot. She had to run to the library and tell Twilight she was aliv--
“No,” she whispered, freezing in her spot under the rain once again. A gust of wind made her crimson cape wave under the rain, shaking the chains strapped to her body. It was the only movement around Trixie.
The library. That’s where she woke up. But it was destroyed, void of any signs of life. What happened there? Were Twilight and Spike there when it happened? Where they okay? Was Trixie there? Was that how she died?
A horrible thought entered her mind. Was it all Trixie’s fault?
“I need to find them!” Trixie thought, looking around her, searching for any sign of where to go.
That’s when she felt a sharp vibration against her sides that startled her and caused her to reach inside of her cape. Trixie knew it was somewhere, but the cape’s crimson cloth was as flat on one side as in the other. Only when she pictured the compass instead of the pocket, did Trixie find it in one of the cape’s many folds. She didn’t know what she was expecting from the strange device, but when she opened it, she thanked whatever was above that the disc wasn’t motionlessly pointing at the town’s square, but once again spinning without any control or sense.
Trixie extended her paw and held the compass parallel to the ground. When it kept spinning, she reached up and tapped it with a single claw. The compass stopped as she did so, pointing the reddened ‘W’ in what she realized was a new direction from before. Trixie took hold of the compass with her magic, which seemed easier to focus this time, and placed it inside her cape. With this new direction, she set off at a gallop. As she ran, Trixie began to piece together the more of her disjointed memories.
“I need to find them,” was the only coherent thought in Trixie’s mind.
Whatever happened in the library, it couldn’t have been good. Of all the hazy memories she possessed, she wished the images of what she saw upon first waking were amongst them, but they were burnt too sharply into her consciousness. The destroyed cases, the ruined books, the hole in the wall. All of it in deep contrast of her regained memories of a library perfectly cared for. And of course, that brought up the matter of its occupants; Twilight, Spike, and Lightning.
“I need to find them,” she repeated to herself.
Going through the fragmentary memories she had recovered so far, Trixie couldn’t place the last time she saw her friends. Once again, she was assaulted by the same doubts of before, about what could have happened. What destroyed the library? Was that how Trixie died? What if Twilight, Spike, and Lightning were there at the time? What if all of her other friends were, too? Were they okay?
Were they even…
A burst of lightning cut the dark of the night as Trixie skidded to a halt at that thought. She didn’t want to acknowledge it, but it was there. Like the devil in the details, looking back from the blackest corners, waiting. What if it was something she had--
Further consideration of that thought was stopped when Trixie felt another faint buzz against the side of her barrel. She took out the compass to see what it wanted this time. It wasn’t pointing in front of her like before, but to her left. Trixie slowly turned her head, fearing what could be waiting for her there. There was a sense of creeping dread that she was on the cusp of remembering something unpleasant. She teetered there, both wanting and dreading what memory might arise when she looked up.
To her surprise and relief, the place next to her wasn’t a cemetery or a hospital. Instead, it was an ordinary, if fairly new, tenement building. An image flashed in front of her eyes. It was of Lightning Dust showing her this place, saying she was planning to move to that very building. Relief washed over Trixie. She needed to find a friend, she needed to know what happened to her, and the compass seemed to have guided her to the closest one.
A smile on her face, Trixie practically leapt for the door, but stopped before her claws could reach the doorknob. Her gaze deviated from the door and to the left, where a window was close enough to show a reflection. Despite it being a reflection, Trixie couldn’t see herself clearly. There was only a black mass with white markings, covered in chains and a crimson cape. And yet, despite it standing still, the eyes, red as blood, looked menacingly penetrating as they glowed against the blackness. Trixie only wanted to turn away from it and never look back.
But at the same time, inside that building was her friend. A pony that not only Trixie could rely on, but who also once relied on Trixie herself. Lighting Dust was a friend. It was not right to face a friend as she was, hiding behind a mask. Trixie reached up and pulled it off, tucking it into her cape’s pocket.
“I’m a pony,” she muttered to herself. “Not a monster.”
She took a moment to steel herself before trying the door, but it wouldn’t move. Pulling instead of pushing didn’t help either. The third time she pushed, the door opened with ease and Trixie quickly went through. She had been so elated with the thought of seeing Lighting again, she didn’t notice the red glimmer around her paw the second time she pushed against the door.
Lightning Dust runs. It’s the only thing she can do now. Her lungs caught fire ages ago and her tendons have been threatening to tear at any moment for what feels like an eternity. Two broken wings dangle uselessly off her back, bouncing off her sides as she attempts to flee.
She can only run through the forest. Or is it the jungle? Doesn’t matter. All she knows is that she’s in the darkness of the wild, surrounded by creatures that were never meant to know the light of day. Each one a nightmare on their own right. Lightning begins to feel what’s under her hooves; a carpet of rotten vegetation and dead insects, and… and…
And bones.
Death itself pursues Lightning Dust in the infernal race she’s locked in. She’s now surrounded by the vestiges of dead things, not only under her hooves, but all around her are signs of lives that are no more. Dark as coal. Cold as ice. She can’t feel anything but repulsion. She has no choice, she has to keep running away, fleeing the terrors that follow behind her…
Only to find that the terror was waiting for her at the end of the road.
Lightning can’t make out anything of what’s in front of her, she’s too afraid. The only thing she can really understand is the red eyes, staring down at her. Those eyes, red as the blood coming from a fresh wound, only bring Lightning the memory of the worst pain she has ever felt, and the promise of further despair.
In the distance, a drum beats, like a heart.
*Boom boom* *bock* *knock knock*
Lightning Dust woke with a jump of shock. The small stabs of pain in her back, where old injuries were, made her deeply regret the movement. The knock at the door came again, so she shook her head to clear her thoughts. With her eyes still closed, Lightning turned the bedside lamp on and slowly slid out of the bed. She gave a small glance at the clock but her vision was still too blurry to see the hands clearly. The knock called a third time, so she shouted from her room in reply. Finally managing to keep her eyes open against the light, she took her robe from the nail in the wall and put it on while trotting down the hallway towards the main door.
“Who is it?” She asked.
“It’s me, T-” A sneeze prevented Lightning from hearing the entire reply, but the voice was familiar enough to give her pause. No, that was impossible. It was just her dream messing with her mind.
Shaking her head once more, she unlocked and opened the door of her apartment.
Only to see Death’s Red Eyes staring back at her.
“Lightning,” Trixie let the word go in a sigh of relief and joy. Before her friend could react, she threw her arms at her, dearly holding onto the first familiar pony she had seen in what felt like a lifetime. “It’s so wonderful to see you!”
The pegasus she was squeezing could only squeak and gurgle incoherently, standing rigid against her.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Trixie, letting go. “I didn’t realize I was squeezing that hard. Are you alright?”
Lighting stood there gaping at her.
“Hello?” Trixie asked, playfully waving a paw in front of Lightning. She was beginning to get a bit nervous here. “Equestria to Lighting. Are you alright?”
“Tr-Trixie…?” she finally managed to get out.
“Hey, you do remember me!” Trixie gave her a playful slap on the shoulder, causing her slack wings to rustle under her housecoat. “I knew you couldn’t forget a pony as Great and Powerful as Trixie!”
Where had that come from? Trixie wondered. Wherever it was, it just felt so right to her. The image of a pony in hat and cape before a cheering audience came to mind. Was that where this crazy cape had come from? Yet why would Lightning seem so off put by Trixie being in her old stage costume?
“B-bu-but…” Lightning tried to be brave. Even if this thing moved like Trixie, and talked like her, the imposing figure standing in front of her was something she had only seen in her worst nightmares. She had to move, to put some distance between her and this thing. “But how?” she managed to say, despite most of her efforts being spent controlling her shivering as she retreated into her rooms.
“Trixie doesn’t know,” she admitted, trying to maintain a friendly smile. But despite her cheerful stage mare act, Trixie was shaking under the cloth of her cape. There was something she was missing, something very important about Lightning she was forgetting. “As a matter of fact, there’s a lot Trixie can’t remember.” She trotted past Lightning and entered the apartment, trying to look as calm as she could. Trixie tried to be brave.
As Trixie made her way to the apartment’s living room, Lightning trailed behind her and tried to keep her panic under control. In another life, she would have bolted out the window, flying as fast as she could to get away from this thing. But that was another life, and in this one she was trapped in her home with a monster. Out the door and to the stairs? No, Trixie was faster than that. Lightning had to buy time to think.
She stood on the other side of the coffee table from Trixie, the monster watching her with a stupid fake grin on its face. The table didn’t make for much of a barricade, or even put much distance between them, but it gave Lightning some peace of mind to have it there. While Trixie kept pacing back and forth, Lightning had to take a seat on the couch. This whole thing was becoming too much. She repressed a wince of her wings being pushed and moved by the couch’s backrest. If she weren’t so scared, Lightning would have regretted not putting on the harness that would have kept her wings still. “So,” Lightning finally managed to get out, “you say you can’t remember?”
“Uh, no. Nothing more than pieces, really,” Trixie replied, flashing Dust what she hoped was a quick, disarming smile. Why did the fangs she had feel so odd? Were they something new, like her outfit? “I just… woke up and managed to find my way here.”
“You… you just woke up?” stammered Lightning. The creature across from her wasn’t making this any easier. It looked more like Trixie than she remembered from her nightmares, and even had that hangdog expression the show-mare wore when she was trying to apologize. But all that was impossible; that Trixie was gone. She had to buy herself more time. “So, uh, where did you wake up?”
Trixie heaved a big, theatrical sigh. “I don’t know.” She looked at the floor and sat on her haunches, holding her paws up and out to the sides. She missed Lightning flinch. “I just… I think it was the library, but how…”
Rage. Literal boiling rage exploding from within Trixie.
Trixie looked back up before Lightning could respond. “How’d it get burned? How’d it get burned? What happened to Twilight and Spike? What happened to me?” she pleaded.
Lightning was off the couch again, slowly backing away towards her front door and trying not to blink as she kept an eye on the monster in her living room. Something in its tone though, a hurt coming through where none should be, made her stop. “Really? You can’t remember any of what happened? Not even with me?”
“No, that’s what I’ve been telling—”
“All you have to do... is accept.”
“—you…”
Trixie stopped, finally noticing her friend’s obvious discomfort. There was something strange in how she moved, how she stood rooted on the floor and not hovering in the air as was typical of pegasi. Trixie realized her wings were hanging limply off her sides under her robe, not tucked up on the outsides as normal for pegasi fashion. Another memory came into focus for her; the feeling of crumpled feathers and hot, wet blood running between her talons and along her forelegs.
She lifted her gaze from them and looked into Lightning’s hard, copper eyes, silently pleading that what she had just realized was wrong.
“You did this, Trixie,” Lightning whispered, her voice carrying an edge that had been honed over months of being grounded, of having doctor after doctor look her in the face and say there was nothing they could do for her. “The library, me. You did all of it.”
The monster that Lightning had fought all those months ago would have reacted differently. Lightning wasn’t sure if it would have roared or screamed at her, but it wouldn’t have just crumpled like that. It was as if all those blows from when she had fought it had finally landed.
Pegasus and demon faced each other across a coffee table, but only one was still focused on the fight. The thing that was Trixie no longer wore the facade of friendship it had when coming in, or even the pleading help from moments ago. Instead, it sat gaping at its paw, a look of absolute revulsion and self-loathing on its face.
This was… a monster. This was the thing that had taken her wings so long ago and haunted her nightmares since. Yet now… it looked weak. Pathetic even. She was absolutely certain that the thing she had faced down that day could never react like this. It was impossible.
But that meant that it really could be Trixie lying there. How, Lighting didn’t know, but if it was...
“I…” she tried to say something. Her throat had gone dry. Anything that could help her friend. But she couldn't. So, instead, she swallowed and decided to go for help. “You... you stay right there, okay Trixie? I'm going to get Twilight.”
“No!” Trixie reached with her left claw. In a split second, ruled over by an instinct that wasn't hers, before she reigned it in and made a gesture with her claws. “Sleep,” she said as her eyes flashed red. Crimson sparkles fell from the tip of her claws. Dust’s eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Trixie shuddered, her insides twisting themselves into knots. Bowing her head in sorrow, she wrapped her paws over her face, her claws digging into her brows. A low whimper escaped her lips.
A little black stain in the middle of the white void that was Trixie’s world. Barely even noticeable, but it was a black imperfection in the otherwise perfect white.
She tried to focus on it. It was the first thing she saw that wasn’t a product of her imagination. It also seemed to be moving. Not actually going anywhere, just a small quivering. Trixie wondered how long had it been there. But then again, there was no way to tell time in the void, and even now she couldn’t even begin to guess. It was like the very concept of time was like all other physical elements inside the void; non-existent.
Yet the black spot was there, existing and occupying the totality of Trixie’s world.
Before, she hadn’t been sure she had senses to perceive, as the white void was exactly that, a void; full of nothing, not even space. But now, Trixie could see something -the black spot- and that point of reference allowed her to orient everything she knew around it. There was something else in here with her, which meant there had to be space for it to be in. She could see, therefore there was light that would bounce on the spot and to her…
Trixie realized that she needed a sense of sight to be able to see anything, which also meant her other senses, and by extension, her body, existed too. Out of reflex, Trixie moved a trembling limb in front of her. Instead of the dark blue paw with sharp claws she was expecting to see, she was met with an azure foreleg ended in a smooth hoof. She moved quickly, inspecting her body; four legs, azure coat, slightly above average height, cornflower and silver mane and tail. Reaching up, she could even feel her horn. Trixie felt inside her mouth, missing the four fangs she had grown accustomed to.
Finally, Trixie slowly lowered her gaze to her own chest. She closed her eyes out of fear. She sat there like that, still being unable to tell how much time had passed, but her curiosity eventually won out. Trixie opened her eyes slightly, expecting to find the marks of the Amulet on her chest, or worse. But there was nothing, only her blue coat. As a final test, she put a hoof to her neck. Trixie felt her own pulse for the first time in longer she was willing to admit.
Trixie was finally free of the Alicorn Amulet.
And she would have never discovered it if it wasn’t for the black spot, filling the white void with existence and giving Trixie back hers.
She started to theorize about the spot, thinking what could it be, what would she want it to be, and what she didn’t. When she had the first three theories fleshed out, she tried to combine them, maybe even unify the ideas that could help her define the nature of the black spot. Trixie’s thoughts evolved the perception of the spot into entire cosmologies surrounding this mysterious part of her very limited universe.
Trixie was also able to sort of measure time too, through the beating of her own heart. Just the thought of that made her immensely happy. She kept trying to figure out the spot’s existence, which ended up giving her the hope of understanding her own situation and maybe finding a way to get back to the physical world. With the return of her body also came some of Trixie’s memories. They weren’t all there, mainly the broad outlines of who she was, but she did remember her friends, and she wanted to get back at them. For that, her only hope was the black spot, literally the only thing available for her.
Growing tired of thinking, Trixie took a leap of faith and reached out for the spot with her magic. It was the first time in ages since she did so, but it was still an essential part of her. It was like walking again after an extended period of being still. Like drinking for the first time after crossing the desert. Like breathing after emerging from underwater. The feeling of Trixie’s horn igniting was invigorating in its energy and encouraging in the memory. She focused on the black…
Crack.
The black spot was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a fissure, looking like a jagged crack, was in front of her. Trixie tried to move closer, but her body was floating still in the void. However, there was movement from the black crack. Like the spot, it was quivering. Unlike the spot, it did so at steady intervals. Very familiar intervals. Trixie focused on it, trying to figure out why the intervals seemed so familiar.
Then, when counting the time again, Trixie realized that the black crack was pulsing in perfect synchronization with her own heart.
It was also spreading, a little more with each pulse.
Trixie stood still, mesmerized by the only thing happening for her. The crack became bigger and bigger, growing quicker by each pulse, reaching twice Trixie’s own size. That’s when she realized that the black was replacing the white in her space. The black stained an effective half of her vision and then some more. Trixie couldn’t tell if the blackness was overtaking the infinite void, or if it was surrounding her. Whatever it was, there was a very small portion of white behind her, closing just as she turned her head to have one last glimpse of it. Unlike the white, which gave her the sense of infinite, the black was oppressing. Trixie felt enclosed, trapped by the dark mass.
“STOP!” she shouted, mostly out of despair than expecting anything to happen.
To Trixie’s surprise, the black retreated from the small spot of white. Almost immediately, it went back to be only an element of the white void, instead of dominating it. The black mass stood in front of Trixie, still pulsating, only it was changing form. From the center, four lumps of it extended downwards like limbs. Then a bigger one upwards. It took definition too. The fractured edges that extended like cracks now changed into a smooth outline. The five lumps took more definition, too; four slim pointing down and the round one up. Trixie couldn’t decide if it was fear or curiosity that kept her from screaming again, but she kept herself silent, gazing over the spectacle.
When it finally stilled the black had become a perfect silhouette of Trixie’s body.
Pony and shadow stood unmoving in front of each other.
“Uh, hello?” Trixie greeted it, cocking her head and raising her left hoof. To her surprise, the shadow copied her motions. She moved her hoof from a side to another, something the shadow also imitated. Trixie’s confusion only increased, but at the same time, an idea crossed her mind. She and the shadow sat down, while Trixie began thinking things through.
“You will do everything I do?” She said without moving anything but her lips. The shadow didn’t do anything. Trixie took note of it being only a silhouette, without a mouth to move.
“I guess I will do the talking, then,” Trixie said aloud. “You know, I once thought you were all of creation.” She chuckled. “Way back when you were only a tiny black spot.” She put her hooves closer to each other and laughed a little when the shadow did the same. “Not gonna lie, I still don’t know what are you.” She lay on her belly, resting her hooves over the smooth surface of the void. “But you make a good listener.”
Trixie yawned. “So, I don’t expect you have the shadow of a deck of cards, don’t you?” The shadow shook its head. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Trixie closed her eyes and rested her head on her forelegs, but once her mind registered what just happened, she rose up almost in a jump. “Did you just move?!”
The shadow, still sitting on the ground, only nodded.
“Alright, there are only two options here,” Trixie began trotting around the silhouette, seeing how they were still connected by the hooves, like a real shadow. “The first one is that I’ve finally and understandably lost it.” Trixie got closer and put a hoof over the shadow’s surface on the floor. It was smooth and cold, like touching a fine ceramic. The shadow moved its gaze towards Trixie’s hoof. “Or you are actually here, wherever ‘here’ is, and this is really happening.”
The shadow looked back at Trixie and nodded again. She sighed, drawing back her hoof and turning away. “Damn, I was hoping it would be the former.” Trixie looked over her shoulder. “I was actually looking forward to it.”
“Whatever.” She shrugged as the shadow trotted to her side. They both sat down as Trixie looked back at it. “I’ll guess you’re supposed to be that thing that took control out there?” The shadow cocked its head. “Yes, I remember enough of that.” The shadow’s only reply was to look away, avoiding Trixie’s gaze. “Calm down, I’m not as angry as I should be,” Trixie reassured it. “But I do want answers.” The shadow gazed back at her, ears at attention, and slowly nodded.
“Does that mean that you truly are Trixie’s shadow?” It shrugged, raising a hoof and spinning it from side to side.
“What do you mean ‘kinda sorta’?” The shadow tapped a hoof over its chest.
“Oh,” Trixie looked away this time. “You mean you come from the Alicorn Amulet?” The shadow nodded, but after that it also pointed at Trixie.
“Alright, now you’re just plain unclear.” Trixie stomped her hooves as she got up. “Which one are you?!” She pointed an accusatory hoof at the shadow. Its only reply was to nod again.
“Agh!” Trixie’s hooves trembled as she threw her head back in frustration. “Can’t you give me a straight answer?” The shadow gazed back. Then it shrugged.
“Seriously?” Trixie cocked her head. “Isn’t there any way you can, I don’t know, at least communicate with more than hooves and gestures? Because just between you and I, Trixie sucks at charades, so we’d be here a very long time.” The shadow’s ears perked as it got up. It pointed with a hoof at Trixie’s horn and nodded. Then, it pointed one at its own horn and shook its head.
“Alright, you have no magic,” Trixie replied. “So?” The shadow trotted closer to her, making Trixie feel uncomfortable, although she didn’t know why. It once again pointed at Trixie’s horn, while pointing at its own at the same time. Then it nodded.
Trixie was going to reply, asking what that would mean. But then an image flashed in the back of her head. It was herself in the middle of a lonely road, putting the Alicorn Amulet for the first time. She remembered having to accept the Amulet’s magic in order to use it. Trixie realized that she didn’t know why she remembered that, but had a suspicion. She looked directly at the shadow, which stood quiet, but gazing up at her horn.
“Let me get this straight,” Trixie rubbed her the bridge of her nose. “You can’t use your own magic, so you want to use mine, right?” The shadow nodded excitedly.
“Is there any catch? Because the last time I agreed to something like that, I ended up here.” The shadow shook its head quickly. “How can I be even sure this is not a trick?” The shadow put a hoof over its chest, making a small cross, then it opened both hooves and finally put one hoof over its eye. Trixie stood dumbfounded at the gestures.
Out in the real world, Pinkie felt a twinge in her hind-leg muscles and a wave of nausea roll through her gut.
“Someone just made a Pinkie Promise,” she said out of reflex. Then she felt a small twitch in the back of her right hoof. “And it’s unclear if it’s honest.” She squinted her eyes.
“Alright, first of all, how do you know that?” Trixie pointed at the shadow with a hoof. “And secondly, that doesn’t really assure me you’re not lying.” Trixie looked to both sides, then above and up, then back and forward. There was white in every direction, except where the shadow was projected over.
“But then again, what else is there to do here?” Trixie ignited her horn. “Alright, I’ll lend you some magic.” Trixie somehow knew how to do it, probably the same reason she could interpret the shadow’s gestures, as the shadow’s horn got enveloped in the same violet aura. “But one misstep and I’ll just ignore you the rest of our time here.” She chuckled, thinking it was probably the worst threat ever, but at the same time, it was the only one she could really make.
The shadow nodded once again, as it looked to a side and pointed its horn.
A square of purple light appeared in the space next to them. It looked like Trixie’s own screen spell. It was all white, but then a small silhouette of a pony appeared. It was very simplistic, almost minimalistic. From the silhouette, a smaller one grew under it. Next to the first figure, another one sporting wings appeared. This one also grew a shadow under it. Under then, a third drawing of a unicorn appeared with its own shadow too. An alicorn and its shadow also joined the three.
Trixie felt how more of her magic was being directed at the illusion as more drawings appeared. First a griffon, then a sea serpent, then a dragon and so on. The screen soon was full of silhouettes picturing almost every species Trixie knew of and then some she couldn’t recognize. The only thing in common in all of the small drawing was that each one of them had a shadow.
All the drawings then disappeared and were replaced by a more familiar one. It was a black and white version of Trixie’s own cutie mark, also projecting a shadow under it. At first, Trixie didn’t know how to react, but that changed when a second drawing appeared. It was a triangle with wings and an unicorn’s head. It was noticeably smaller than her cutie mark, but Trixie couldn’t help feeling a chill on her back nonetheless.
It quickly shifted to fright when the Alicorn Amulet was placed above her own cutie mark, touching the upper tip of the star. When that happened, the shadow of Trixie’s cutie mark began to retreat. As it did so, the drawing’s white parts began filling with black, until the cutie mark was turned into a pitch black silhouette. It also began to grow. Trixie felt how the shadow was pulling more and more magic as it continued, and so abruptly cut the flow.
She yanked her head away, panting. Trixie didn’t want to look up. She didn’t want to see more. She didn’t want to even think about it. She wanted to go back to being alone. Shutting her eyes tightly, Trixie tried to ignore everything, but when she did so, a cold and smooth thing touched her shoulder. It took all of Trixie’s willpower to not jump away at the feeling and only look back. However, she couldn’t help but wince and recoil away when she saw her own shadow standing right in front of her, no longer projected on the ground.
“What are you?!” Trixie shriked in fear. Her shadow only pointed a hoof back at her and then extended both to its sides. Trixie remembered some words said with her own voice.
“The dark side of the world,” Trixie repeated. “Present in everything and everyone who has a shadow.” She looked back at her shadow and then down, checking that their hooves were still connected. “So, the Amulet never took possession of me? Only empowered my own evils?” Trixie felt the weight of what she was saying. “Am I a monster?”
Her shadow shook its head and forelegs vigorously. It then pointed at itself.
“But you’re just another part of me,” Trixie protested.
Trixie’s shadow pointed at her with a hoof and at itself with another. It then put both hooves together.
“So what if I can be good too? You are the one who won in the end.” She looked down, trying to hide her tears. “Now we’re paying the price for it, trapped forever in this white void.”
A black hoof lifted Trixie’s chin. Her shadow was shaking its head again, only this time slower.
“No?” Trixie’s shadow kept shaking its head. “What do you mean by ‘no’?” Her shadow only stood still as she looked around them. “Last time I checked, the freaking Elements of Harmony sent us here.” Trixie’s shadow shrugged. “Okay, you got that point, but it did take a millennium for the last two guys who escaped to figure that one out.” Her shadow quickly raised a hoof in the air. “Did I say a magic word?”
Trixie’s shadow nodded excitedly. It lifted its right hoof and then its left one. Then, it put them together and lifted them together higher, only separating them to entirely extend its forelegs aside.
“You mean we can be free?” Trixie took a few steps back. “If we do it together?” This time there we no more gestures. Instead, Trixie’s shadow trotted closer to her until they were only a hoof away from each other. Two slits of red appeared in the shadow’s face, slowly opening like eyes. Trixie’s shadow raised its left hoof. Trixie looked down at it, seeing the Alicorn Amulet being offered to her.
“If I do this,” she took a step forward, swallowing her fears. “I won’t be your puppet again.” Trixie extended her left hoof too. “That’s my condition.” She lowered her head, looking directly at her shadow’s eyes. “Understood?”
A third slit appeared over Trixie’s shadow’s snout. It was bright red too, like its eyes, and curved into a smile. Slowly, it opened wider, as if about to speak.
“To… Ge… Ter.” The voice was Trixie’s own, only deeper. It once again made the motions of the Pinkie Promise. This, somehow, didn’t really assure Trixie.
The back of Pinkie’s head was violently assaulted by an astonishing amount of small twitches.
“Why?!” Pinkie looked at the heavens, shaking at the uneasy feeling. “Who is making these morally ambiguous Pinkie Promises?!”
Trixie sighed, taking her time to feel her own heart racing. She didn’t want to forget that feeling. After blinking, she took the Amulet in her own hooves to inspect it. It felt heavier than she remembered. Besides that, it looked exactly the same as when she first saw it in the shop. The smooth metal, the small details, the admittedly good cut of the gem in the middle. She remembered admiring the design of it for a long time before putting it on the first time.
Trixie looked up to ask her shadow for one last gesture of reassurance. But when she did so, there was nothing there. Once again, Trixie was left alone in the emptiness of the white void. It was once again the flawless white as it was at the beginning; perfect and incorruptible. For a moment, Trixie considered putting the Alicorn Amulet down and going back to her dreaming. The fantasy she created when being only thought was beautiful, and she really enjoyed the eternal calm the void offered.
But.
Calm only offered so much to her. After all, she was still Trixie, the pony who craved to be Great and Powerful. How could she do anything about that by being enclosed in the middle of nowhere? She had her heritage too. The last Lulamoon, daughter of the road and the wind, wasn’t supposed to be away from the open landscapes and big skies that were her true home. And at the end, being enclosed by the Elements of Harmony took away from Trixie the only thing that really mattered to her: Her freedom.
“I do want to be free,” Trixie surprised herself saying out loud. “But I don’t want to hurt others.” She thought about her friends. She couldn’t remember their last moments together, but she could feel she was once willing to sacrifice her freedom for them.
Trixie clenched her jaw.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t just stay chained forever.” She inhaled, lifting the Alicorn Amulet. “But I promise I won’t let them get hurt.” Trixie felt the metal touching her chest.
The storm came back to Ponyville.
In the sky, the moon didn’t shine like usual, bringing the always watching light in the darkness it represented. Instead, it showed its dark side. The new moon reigned over a darker night as the clouds began to gather. Lightning furiously hit the ground as thunder roared in the distance, accompanied by the north wind’s own howl. Nature’s very elements were in revolution.
*baBum*
The first drops of water fell over the black statue of the pony turned into a demon. The drops ran down the obsidian, making it shine brighter with each flash of light in the darkness. The mist surrounded it, slowly forming a swirl around it. Once again, the north wind howled through the storm.
*baBum, baBum*
The ground under the statue began to slightly shake. The mist swirling around it was pushed away, along with small pieces of dirt. A new lightning bolt flashed in the night, but instead of white, it was red.
*baBum baBum*
Small bits of red electricity traveled over the statute’s surface. Trixie could feel her body again. She couldn’t move and her eyes were closed, but she knew she was back in the abomination she was turned into by the Alicorn Amulet.
*baBUM! baBUM!*
Trixie felt trapped inside the obsidian. The feeling ignited the rage in her. In her chest, the red marks on the stone outlining the Alicorn amulet shone brightly. The obsidian began to crack, creating a small network of glowing red fissures.
*BABUM! BABUM!*
Two sets of claws broke free from the black stone, stretching and then pressing on the pedestal under them, crushing its border. The rest of Trixie’s body followed, first contracting, only to violently stretch out, sending away the bits of obsidian.
*BABUM! BABUM!*
Trixie, still on her hindlegs, roared in the night. When she opened her eyes, they were glowing in the same red as the marks on her chest. There was a red aura surrounding her, but it wasn’t the smooth magic of a pony. It was the cascading one of a power above mortals, way beyond their darkest nightmares. Trixie fell down on her four paws. The aura around her stretched out and dissipated, as the glow in her chest and eyes slowly shut down.
A small group of beings across the world, all of them linked in some way or another, felt the disturbance. The younger ones, just recently connected to the great scheme, barely noticed it enough to think anything of it. Some of the older ones, who had a life of learning to lead their minds, had to meditate carefully of what just happened. Only three of these beings really understood that something with the world had changed.
It's been far too long since I stopped writing this story. More than that, a long time I've carried it in my mind and computer, without making any significant progress. I think it's time to be honest about it and admit that I didn't finish it. It's hard to admit (literally took me years), but it's the truth.
I'll never stop apologizing for it.
However, there was still an untold story. Here are the links to the unfinished chapters 5, 6 and 7, as well as a link to the sketchbook with the major plot points, developments and the intended ending. Hope it's enough.
