Of Maids and Mistresses

When they opened their eyes again, they were standing in the middle of a large village square, which was seemingly completely deserted. The buildings all around them had that charming, rustic quality the ones in Ponyville possessed as well, although the use of timber had, in many cases, been abandoned in favour of stone. Many mountains dotted the landscape just outside the borders of the village, so it was easy to see why such a decision would have been made.

The wind played a haunting melody as it descended from the mountain passes, and Twilight wondered why there were no ponies within sight; surely a village like this would be quite busy around this time of day, if Ponyville was to be any sort of indication?

This and more Twilight wondered, but the thoughts that occupied Trixie’s mind were of an entirely different nature. She stared at the nearby city hall and at the mountains in the distance, and wondered why an unknown force seemed to have stirred her heart, causing it to beat ever faster, pounding almost painfully within her chest.

“W-where a-are we, mistress?” she whispered quietly, taken as she was by a fear that she could not comprehend. She stuck close to Twilight, not daring to stray more than a step or so away.

Twilight smiled at her reassuringly, as she stepped even closer and lightly put a hoof against the other mare’s cheek. She knew that what she was about to say needed to be said at some point, but now that she had come so far she dreaded that final step--which could so easily lead to salvation, but also to ruin.

“This, my love,” she finally whispered, taken too by fear, which resembled Trixie’s fear only in name, “is Neighton... the place where you were born.”

An involuntary shudder coursed through the maid’s tender form upon hearing those words, as some long-forgotten part of her recognised within them the truth, yet that same part fought now to contain it.

“N-No... this... it wasn’t here, Trixie wasn’t... wasn’t born here.” She shook her head in confusion; her mistress had never been wrong before, so how could she be now? She averted her gaze and kept her eyes shut: her body’s reaction to her own subconscious desire to turn away from the truth.

“Look at me,” Twilight commanded, as she softly stroked the ex-showmare’s mane. Not even the deepest depths of Trixie’s being could resist such a direct command, and slowly she turned back towards her mistress, and looked her in the eyes. “Tell me where you were born, if not here.”

The maid opened her mouth, but she stumbled over every word she attempted to utter. She dug deep into her own memory--or at least what she considered as such--and discovered a startling emptiness, a disconcerting absence of facts, as the information she now sought to retrieve remained hidden, forbidden even to herself. She glanced away and her eyes scanned the nearby city hall once again, and for one shocking moment she suddenly saw reality overlaid with a different image. The image she saw was, without a doubt, of the same building that stood before her, yet it was painted in a slightly different colour, and it seemed to have had suffered the whips and scorns of time just a teensy bit less.

She attempted to turn around completely, and Twilight allowed her to do so, as she watched her marefriend silently; this she had to do alone. Every building she laid eyes upon--save for a few--had been replaced with an image whose origins Trixie could not comprehend. An enormous feeling of disorientation and disconnection descended down upon her, and she sunk down to a sitting position as she pressed a hoof against her head in reaction to the headache she felt setting on.

The maid’s voice started out strong, but quickly shrunk to something small and weak. “Trixie... Trixie doesn’t remember... But not here! It wasn’t here... it... it wasn’t here...”

Twilight felt her throat clench; they weren’t off to a good start, and the lack of ponies around still bothered her. Where had they gone?

“Come, Trixie, walk with me. Surely there are places within this village you wish to see?”

“No!” Trixie said more fiercely than she had ever dared speak to her mistress before, and she instantly hid her face in her hooves out of pure misery when she realised who she was talking to. “No mistress, please... T-Trixie doesn’t l-like it here... can we... can we go home?”

Twilight had tried to find ways to break the maid’s obedience for quite a while and found nothing, yet now, when a small part of that obedience seemed to have (at least temporarily) faded, Twilight wished it hadn’t; her task would’ve been a lot easier if the other mare just played along. However, at the same time, she had to admit to a certain sense of elation, as this was no doubt a sign that Trixie’s core personality had stirred slightly--enough for it to dampen Trixie’s maid persona in an act of self-defense.

“But Trixie, this is home for you, or at least it was so once upon a time. Will you not try to remember for me? For us?” She kneeled down next to the now shaking mare, and drew her into a gentle hug.

Trixie shook her head, and tears silently rolled down her cheeks, her body shaking. Twilight sighed; it seemed her marefriend was locking herself down, which bode ill for her plan. Dragging her through the town would not accomplish any kind of beneficial effect, but without a means to shake the mare free from her stupor at her direct disposal... what could she do?

She had just parted her lips to again ask the same question, hoping that it would work out differently that time, when a wary voice called out from behind her.

“Who are you, and why have you come to this village? If you have come seeking riches, you will find there are none, and even though we are remote, we will not be bullied easily.”

Twilight stood up and spun around in one fluid motion, and found herself face to face with an earth pony stallion. His coat was a mottled brown and his mane a clear white, while his Cutie Mark represented a little wooden gavel striking a sounding block. He was clearly quite old, but the spring in his step warned youngsters not to underestimate the vitality which he had carried with him into his senior days.

“I... what?” Twilight said with surprise. “I’m Twilight Sparkle, and why would you assume we’ve come here to do anything like that?”

The stallion stopped just a meter or two away from her, and he threw a quick glance towards Trixie, who was still cowering behind Twilight with her back turned towards the scene. “For fifteen minutes or more your magic lit up this place like a Hearth’s Warming Eve tree. That is magic the likes of which I have seldom heard of, let alone seen. Why would a master of the magical arts come to this remote place, if not to play mischief upon a population that has no answer to such powers?”

Twilight blushed slightly. “Master of the magical arts? Me? Oh, you’re too kind. But, um... we’re not here to play mischief...”

“Then why?”

“Well, my marefriend here has some... issues with repressing her past. I thought that, if she saw the village in which she was born...” She shrugged.

The stallion frowned. “Sorry, I’ve never seen anyone dressed like that here. Beg you folks pardon for questioning your fashion choice, of course, but uh... we don’t usually wear clothes.”

Twilight nodded. “Trixie, come here a moment.”

“Y-yes mistress,” the maid said, slowly rising up to her hooves.

“Wait,” the stallion said as his eyes grew wide with understanding. “Did you say ‘Trixie’? Surely you didn’t mean... ?”

The blue unicorn stepped forward and stood beside her mistress, shyly meeting the older colt’s eyes. A shock went through her body and her breathing stalled, and within the space of a few seconds the stallion bridged the gap between them, pulling the mare into an embrace against his chest.

“It is you!” he cried out with a voice overcome by emotion. “We thought something had happened to you! All the others came back, and we waited so long, but you... you never came... I’ve apologised to your parents so many times since then... I was afraid they’d never forgive me for not keeping their daughter safe... But here you are!” He held her at hoof’s length. “Look at you! All grown up and beautiful, the apple of your mother’s eye.” A lone tear fell down his cheek.

Twilight’s heart pounded inside of her chest, as she did her best not to move, not to breathe; somepony from Trixie’s past was the best she could’ve hoped for, and she dared not do anything that could have jeopardised the moment.

“W-who... ?” was all that Trixie could manage, her head filled with a raging vortex of images and emotions, as all kinds of different forces tried to establish or maintain their control.

“Why, child, don’t you remember me?” the colt said with a bit of doubt in his voice. “It’s me, Lex... Friend of your father, and your father’s father before him?”

“O-old Colt Lex?” Trixie said with a choked voice, as tears pearled in her eyes.

“Yes!” Lex cried out happily. “Haha, you do remember! That is indeed what you always called me, and I would always say-”

“-come on now, lassy, I’m not that old,” Trixie finished the sentence for him. She gasped as a shock ran through her entire body, images forcing themselves to the forefront of her mind.

“Isn’t she adorable, Lex?” her father, Woodrow, said as he smiled down upon her. “Tell me you’ve ever seen a prettier smile than that in your entire life!”

The older stallion smiled. “Prettier? No. Just as pretty? Yes. She has your mother’s smile, the way she used to look at your father. It must have skipped a generation, and good thing that it did, too. She certainly couldn’t have counted upon such a pretty face if she had to get it all from you.”

Woodrow chuckled, and said with an artificial note of hurt in his voice: “Ah, Lex, how your words wound me!”

The small filly Trixie walked clumsily over to Lex, and stared up at him with her big, honest eyes. “Old Colt Lex, please don’t tease daddy... he is the best daddy in the whole world!”

Lex laughed, as he patted her head gently. “I don’t doubt it! But lassy... I’m not that old!”

The images disappeared but the impression stayed, and Trixie fell down upon the ground, covering her head with her hooves. “N-no...” she said with a sob as her entire body shook and shivered. “Trixie... Trixie wasn’t born here... s-she can’t remember you!”

“I... what’s wrong?” Lex said in alarm. His gaze fixed itself upon Twilight. “You! What have you done to her?”

“It... it wasn’t me!” the purple unicorn quickly said in her own defense. “The shock of losing her parents coupled with the uncaring and harsh environment she was placed into within the orphanage have caused her to develop a sort of defensive mechanism wherein she denies her past and her past self, as a way to cope with the pain and loss. I’m trying to help her by bringing her here...”

“I... I see,” he said as he kneeled down next to Trixie, softly stroking her mane as she shivered and sobbed. “I suppose I am to blame then... After the sickness--which you seem to know about--I intended to adopt Trixie and raise her myself. But I was unconscious for over a month after she was taken away, and there were so many orphans... they had been scattered all across the kingdom as no one place could hold them all, and the one in charge was a careless and lazy colt... no records of their destinations existed. I searched for a while, but eventually I gave up, thinking that, at the very least, she’d be with other children, and safe. If I had known...”

“It’s... it’s not your fault... We’ve all made mistakes,” Twilight said, without knowing whether she was trying to console Lex or her own guilty conscience.

The colt nodded. “The other children all came back once they came of age; she was the only one who never returned... I never understood why, until now. Occasionally, the rare traveller passing by would say something about a performer in distant cities called ‘Trixie’, but not every name is unique, and I thought that, surely, if it was the same Trixie, she would have come back to us... Not to mention that they all called her arrogant and boastful; quite unlike the Trixie I remember.”

“It... it was the same Trixie. She just goes through, uh... ‘phases’, because of her condition,” Twilight said, deciding to simplify the truth a bit. “But you talked about others, yet this village looks deserted. Where are... ?”

“Oh, that. You just scared the hay out of everypony with your magic.” The colt turned around, and yelled towards the houses on the edge of the square: “Hey, pansies, are you going to continue hiding there, or are you going to come say hello to Trixie and her marefriend?”

Suddenly ponies popped their heads out from behind every window and corner within sight, and Twilight gasped. It reminded her somewhat of how everypony in Ponyville had hidden themselves from Zecora in the past, and she realised too late that their method of travel must have been every bit as strange to these ponies as Zecora had been to the citizens of Ponyville back then.

The ponies hesitated for a few moments, their increasingly excited voices ringing out from all around the square.

“Trixie?”

“Trixie’s back? For real?”

“And she has a marefriend?”

“A cute one, at that.”

“Is that really Trixie?”

“She does look like it, save those clothes, and older.”

“Well, we all got older!”

“Who’s Trixie?”

“You don’t remember? Oh, right... you weren’t here back then.”

Finally their curiosity triumphed over their hesitation, and they made their way towards the three ponies in the centre of the plaza. Pretty soon there was a small circle of ponies around them, and another group (much bigger than the first) quietly talked to each other some distance away. Probably the ponies who didn’t know Trixie from before, Twilight mused.

Trixie stopped shaking as she lifted her head, looking at the many faces around her. If it hadn’t been for the party some days ago, she may have panicked, but she wasn’t all that concerned about strangers with her mistress that close to her. Except they weren’t strangers.

“Trixie!” a green unicorn greeted her. “It’s me, Vermillion! Remember?”

She sat upon a bench at the edge of town, as a young colt approached her.

“Go away, Vermil,” she said quietly. “I want to be alone right now...”

“Awww, don’t be like that,” he said. “I came to cheer you up. I lost a pet too, you see... what you need now is a friend. Candy?” He levitated a small bag towards her, and she picked out a brightly coloured sweet, the beginning of a smile on her face.

“You’re trying to bribe me with food again!”

“Yeah!” he said with a mischievous grin. “And it appears to be working.”

“T-Trixie remembers...” she said with a shocked look on her face. “But how... ?”

She didn’t have much time to think about it, as yet another pony stepped forward, a pegasus mare with a red mane and a light coat. “Oh Trixie, it’s Swift! I’ve still got those dolls you gave me, you know?”

She sat playing with her dolls in the park, when a filly pegasus just slightly younger than she was came up to her.

“Those are very pretty,” the pegasus said wistfully, “where did you get them? I haven’t ever seen ones like this before...”

“My daddy made them for me,” Trixie said proudly. “He can do anything with wood, you see?”

“Ah... that must be nice for you. My daddy has gone away, mommy says, and she also says dolls are too expensive...” A sad expression came to her face.

Trixie looked at her for a few seconds, and then put two of her four dolls down in front of the other filly. “I only have two hooves, so why don’t you take these two? Then we can play with them together! We’ll be able to take better care of them if we split them, too.”

“A-are you serious?”

“Of course.”

“I... oh thank you! They’re so... they’re so pretty, I... thank you!” the filly beamed at her, as she carefully picked up one of the wooden dolls, looking at it from every direction in the light. “Amazing...”

“Oh, one thing, though. They’re all a family, so if they’re apart too long they’ll miss each other... So we have to play with them together often! I’m Trixie, who are you?”

“I... Swift, I’m Swift.” the filly stared at her. “You... you want to play with me? Does this mean you’ll be... my friend? We only just moved here, I... I don’t have any friends.”

“Don’t be silly. You have lots of friends here, you just haven’t met them yet. Come on!”

They picked up the dolls--Trixie with her magic, and Swift under her tiny wings--and ran into the village, laughing and cheering all the way.

The dolls. She had forgotten about the dolls. They had been important to her, once, but she had forgotten. What else had been important to her before? Why couldn’t she remember? She wanted to remember.

“Oh Swift, Trixie... Trixie doesn’t remember what happened to her dolls, Trixie-”

“Oh, doesn’t matter,” the pegasus interrupted with a smile, “we’re a bit old to play with them now, so don’t worry! They still look amazing above the hearth, though!”

A new pony stepped forward to claim her attention, followed by another, and then another. They kept coming, and each one bombarded Trixie’s mind with ancient memories, memories which she had not even realized existed. Her mind frantically sought to suppress them as they popped up, but the sheer volume and intensity was such that they could no longer be stopped.

“It’s... it’s working!” Twilight told Lex breathlessly. “She’s remembering, it... it just might work if...”

Trixie turned around on her hooves, and every time she saw a new face or heard a shouted name, more and more images came back to her, building up to a great whole. Slowly but surely, she built up an understanding about her past, although she did not understand what it was doing in her head. It was as if she was looking at the life of another through her eyes, yet the images were unmistakably present only inside of her own head. It was baffling, mystifying, and together with the knowledge arose a wave of confusion. Trixie stumbled and fainted amongst her old friends, and Twilight finally stepped forward to intervene, pulling Trixie into a soft embrace.

“What’s wrong with her?” Swift asked Twilight.

“I’m sorry everypony, I’m going to have to ask you to leave Trixie alone for a little bit,” Twilight stated. “She has some health problems, and while seeing all of you is a crucial step in her recovery, she needs a bit of time to process it all.”

There was some mumbling from within the small crowd; they had only just met an old friend after all those years, so there was a base reluctance to let go of her again so soon.

Lex nodded. “Alright lads and lasses, you heard miss Twilight. It’s the middle of the day, I’m sure you all have plenty of business to return to. Trixie will be fine, and seeing as they got here by magic, they should visit again soon. Isn’t that so, Twilight?”

The purple unicorn nodded enthusiastically. “Of course, absolutely... as soon as she’s better.”

“Yes Mayor Lex,” Swift said, and her departure seemed to sway the other ponies gathered as well. Slowly the crowd dispersed and the ponies went back to their daily duties, although the ones who had little to do that day hung around the edge of the square in small groups.

“Ah, so you’re the mayor,” Twilight said as she softly stroked Trixie’s mane.

“Didn’t use to be, but am now. I never really thought myself well-suited for the job, but the others...”

The purple unicorn smiled. “I think they’ve made a fine choice.”

He blushed a little. “Heh, thanks. So what happens now?”

Twilight shrugged, as she looked at her marefriend. “It depends upon the state of mind she’s in when she wakes up. I have a few ideas ready for different situations, though... But, um, I don’t want to be rude, but-”

“But you’d rather be left alone with her for now,” Lex guessed. “That’s alright. Once, when her parents died, I’d have considered myself to be the one who knew her best... but now... now I suppose that honour falls to you. You take care of her now, Twilight Sparkle, or we will be having words.” He winked at her to lessen the severity of his threat a bit, but Twilight was quite certain he meant it. “Also, in case you go disappearing the same way you came appearing: Come back sometime. Soon. Alright?”

The unicorn nodded. “Alright. And thank you... thank you for everything... before you appeared I... I was losing hope a bit.”

“I did nothing but live here, Twilight Sparkle. You’re the one who brought her home. Thank yourself.” He gave her a respectful nod of the head, before turning around and walking back towards city hall.

Smiling, Twilight carefully carried Trixie just outside of the village, where she gently laid her down upon a patch of soft grass. She cuddled up to the mare and held her close, whispering words of encouragement as she waited for her to regain consciousness.

“M-mistress?” Trixie’s voice came a few minutes later, as she opened her eyes. “Where are... Trixie had such an odd dream...”

“Not a dream, my love... It was real, you merely fainted.”

The maid threw her a look of bewilderment. “But... Trixie... Trixie remembers somepony, somepony long ago, who was Trixie, and yet she is not... And Trixie remembers a stage and a city, yet they are not Trixie’s memories...”

“No, they are you. They are who you are.”

“But,” Trixie averted her eyes, as she felt tears well up in them. “But Trixie... in all of them, Trixie... Trixie didn’t see... “

“Tell me,” Twilight whispered encouragingly.

The other mare looked back at her, two salty streams running down her cheek. “None of the memories Trixie saw had you, mistress... T-Trixie doesn’t... Trixie doesn’t want to be somepony who doesn’t have you...”

“You silly thing, that’s not how it works.” Twilight smiled at her gently, caressing her lovingly. “You don’t need to see me in your past, we will simply make new memories, together. Not memories of you or me, but memories of us...”

“P-promise?”

“I promise upon our love...”

“T-Trixie’s mother says... if you make a promise upon a kiss, it binds the hearts of two ponies together...”

Twilight grinned down at the other mare mischievously. “Are you trying to get me to kiss you? My love, whenever you want a kiss, the only thing you nee-”

“Twilight,” Trixie suddenly interrupted her, to the purple unicorn’s great surprise, “shut up and kiss Trixie.”

“I... yes,” Twilight whispered breathlessly, as she leaned in and pressed herself against Trixie. Their lips met, and they shared a kiss that was at the same time more gentle and yet also more passionate than any that had come before. For several minutes they forgot about the world and their place within it, losing themselves only in the presence of the other, whose body they explored with their hooves almost as if it was the first time.

“Haahh... wait...” Twilight managed with a gasp, as she gently broke off the kiss. “We can’t... we’re in the open, ponies can just...”

“Does... does Trixie look like she cares, Twilight Sparkle?” the other mare managed breathlessly, and Twilight had to agree that her flushed face, unkempt mane and ruffled maid’s outfit didn’t exactly transmit a message of innocence or chastity, and she almost felt herself get sucked into the lustful look in Trixie’s eyes. She didn’t know where it had come from all of a sudden, but she theorised that, together with the old memories, some more recent feelings had been freed as well.

“N-no, and Celestia knows I want you...” Twilight thought about that for a moment. “Actually, I hope she doesn’t know, or at least not in detail... but, now is not the time, I... how do you feel? If you think about the past, I mean...”

“Trixie...” the maid--or was it ex-maid?--considered the question for a moment. “It’s like... water. It’s there, Trixie can see it, but when she grabs it... it flows away... But Trixie doesn’t mind. Trixie has you. And Trixie has everypony back... everypony she knew before.”

Twilight withdrew a bit, alarmed, and then stood up, to Trixie’s great disappointment. “Slipping away? Like water? And Trixie, what do you mean with ‘everypony you knew before’? Surely you know that... that...”

“That what?”

Twilight shook her head. “Back in the village square... was that everypony you knew? From before, I mean.”

Trixie laughed. “Of course not, my silly filly... The rest must have been busy. We can meet them next time... Oh, I still have to introduce you to my parents!”

The hair in the back of Twilight’s neck suddenly rose up. It was no wonder that Trixie’s memories still felt like water to her: they were just as fabricated as before. A bit closer to the truth, perhaps, as now at least she had accepted being born here. But she still repressed one element, one final detail: most of the ponies she now remembered were already long dead. She was still repressing that knowledge, and as long as she did so, the Trixie who stood before Twilight was just playing yet another role; the role of the happy village filly, who had not had a care in her life. On the outside it may have looked like an improvement, but on the inside precious little had changed. If Twilight just left her like that, she’d slip back into her old habits in no time at all.

“Come, there is one thing we still have to see,” Twilight said grimly.

With that cryptic remark Twilight led Trixie around the edge of the village, following the directions from Omnus’ book which, after only a single reading, she knew by heart. After a few minutes of walking they came upon a massive iron gate set into an equally massive wall. The gate was open, and they stopped just outside.

“What’s this?” Trixie asked with a small voice.

“What you need to see.”

And so they entered the graveyard. A village as young as Neighton normally would not possess a graveyard worth mentioning, but then again, few villages had encountered terrors the likes of which Neighton had known so early in its life.

They walked amidst the graves, and both of them could tell at once that there was something peculiar about that place, something that set it apart from other graveyards they had seen in their lives. All of a sudden it came to them: there was a great absence of diversity. Normally one would have seen time pass by with every grave; every tomb in a slightly different style to fit the customs of old, every stone a bit less worn than the one that came before. But there was none of that here. There was a certain sense of uniformity which spoke of a great many ponies succumbing, all at once, to a tragedy of which the graves did not speak. They did not have to; visitors already knew.

Trixie’s eyes scanned the graves for something she did not really wish to find, and suddenly her breath stopped inside of her throat. “Carol?” she whispered hoarsely as she approached one of the stones. “But... you...” She quickly proceeded to the next grave, and then the next, a squeal of sorrow passing by her lips after every one. “And Waltz... Tuner... and here’s the brothers Blitz, and over there... Chivalry...”

Twilight followed after her lover, a caring look of concern in her eyes as she witnessed the pangs of pain and loss from which she could not protect the other mare, even had she wanted to.

Trixie spun around on her hooves and faced Twilight, distress clear on her face. “They... they’re all dead... all of them are dead. Some were in the plaza, yes, but... so many more... gone...” She pressed a hoof up against her forehead. “Trixie remembers... Trixie remembers all of them, but... but Trixie never knew who died... who was ill... Trixie didn’t realise...” She took in the rows and rows of tombstones as she looked around. “Why are there so many?”

The purple unicorn approached, a sad smile upon her lips. “Love, it was a terrible disease... Many ponies died, entire families were lost. I wish I could tell you the population was decimated, but in reality... a tenth wasn’t what was taken. A tenth was all that remained.”

“No...” Trixie backed away from her slowly. “No!” she repeated more loudly. “They can’t be gone, Trixie refuses to accept it! She remembers... remembers all of them! They can’t be... they... they cannot...”

“Trixie...” Twilight attempted as she stepped closer, reaching out for Trixie with a hoof, but the confused mare backed away again.

“Why...” she whispered hoarsely, “why did you bring Trixie back to regain her memories, if you were going to take so many of those Trixie remembered away?”

Tears started to come to Twilight’s eyes. “But Trixie... they have been gone for years... I wasn’t the one to take them from you... The disease did that. Time did that... And, love, they would have wanted you to accept it, to move on...”

“No... they can’t be... Trixie can’t...” She continued to back away from Twilight in her confusion, and suddenly she bumped up against a big tombstone in black marmer. She spun about and as her eyes fell upon the letters engraved within the stone, she let out a defeated whimper.

Here lie Woodrow Lulamoon and Rose Red.

Splendid father

Compassionate mother

to the very end.

Another flood of images overtook the blue unicorn: flashes of the day she found her parents, dead, followed by the knowledge of all the deaths that came after, and her time in the orphanage to boot. She collapsed in front of the stone, tears streaming down her face.

“No... no...” she said with a sob. “Mother... father... why? You went away...You left Trixie alone... so alone...”

A great wind started pulling at her coat and mane, and Trixie looked up to find that the entire area had been wreathed in darkness, except for two brilliant figures floating over the tombstone. It was quite possible that they were just figments of Trixie’s stressed mind, but they felt quite real to her all the same, as dreams are wont to do.

“Mom... dad...” she managed a faint whisper.

“Child,” her parents’ voices came, mingled into one. “Why are you here after all these years, weeping at our grave? We died protecting you, the one we hold most dear. Do not mourn our passing. Live, instead, as a testament to our sacrifice.”

She let out a choked sound, and sank to her knees. Her shoulders started to shake slightly, and then more violently as she let go of years of repressed grief. “I... w-why d-did you leave me behind? Mother... father... We... we could’ve tried... together... s-so why?”

“Child,” the ethereal voice spoke once again, “that is a risk no parent should take. A risk no parent can take, if truly they are worthy of the name... We love you dearly, and in your heart we live on... but only if you remember us, only if you honour the gift of life for which we passed away.”

Their words struck Trixie deeply. Her memories were finally complete once more, and she could clearly see that in all those years, she had failed to keep the memory of her parents alive. Had she, by running from the truth, almost condemned her parents to a death more permanent than the one that had already befallen them? The idea was hard to bear.

“But... Trixie is so alone... How can Trixie go on living, after seeing all this loss?”

“Dear child... you need us no longer. There is already another.”

The images of her parents pointed at some point behind her, and as Trixie turned around the darkness all around her broke, and the sun came up together with Twilight’s face.

“Trixie, I’m so sorry, I... I know it’s difficult for you, but you really had to see. There was no other choice, and-”

“My father,” Trixie interrupted, “always called my mother ‘My beautiful red rose.’ She’d always get upset with him for turning her name around, heh... she loved him so dearly...” She let out a choked sound, and averted her gaze for a moment. “And they loved me dearly, too...”

Twilight stepped closer, and this time Trixie didn’t back away. “As do I...”

Trixie smiled, as memories of what she had once told Swift came back to her. “Trixie once told somepony that she had so many friends, but she just hadn’t met them yet... Trixie reckons she does, too...”

“Yes! That’s exactly right.” More tears came to Twilight’s eyes, but this time they were tears of joy, as she broke out into a smile. “That’s exactly right, my love...”

“Hey, no more tears,” Trixie told Twilight. “We’ve had enough of those. From now on, it’s a happy day... it’s how Trixie’s parents would have wanted Trixie to live.” She gently wiped some dust from the engravings upon the stone, and then turned back around. “Let’s go home... to Ponyville.”

“To meet our friends?” Twilight asked as Trixie walked towards her.

“Oh, yes, eventually, but first, Trixie wants to...” She stopped next to Twilight, and softly whispered something in the purple unicorn’s ear before passing by. Twilight’s entire face flushed a deep purple.

“T-Trixie!” she stuttered. “D-don’t say that in front of y-your parents!”

“It’s alright,” Trixie replied as she looked over her shoulder. “Certain memories I got back from them make a loooooot more sense now that I’m older, if you catch my drift. They won’t mind.”

“I... I’m sorry,” Twilight muttered as she made a little bow towards the grave. “It’s... it’s not my influence, I swear, I... well, maybe it is a little, but...” She bowed again and then quickly turned around and ran after Trixie, looking over her shoulder every few steps of the way.

They reached the gates again and Twilight took out a piece of parchment she had prepared back at the library. One incantation later, they vanished with a flash.

As they did so, a single blue flower started taking root upon the Lulamoons’ grave; a silent testament to the resilience of life, and proof that beautiful things can grow even upon the shadows of the darkest of days.