And With It A New, Long Night Without The Stars To Guide Us ~ PART II FINALE

The water spiraled around her, bubbles moved towards the distant surface. Her world was black however and she only felt the cold around her. It stung through her coat and flesh and cut deep into her bones. She was aware of it, though only faintly. There wasn't enough strength in her body to move and even something like breathing felt like a hassle right now. She did not try. Neither breathing nor moving would really help her now anyway. There was blackness around her and she didn't even need to open her eyes to see it. She simply let herself be carried by the water. Down and down and deeper down.

She felt the chill growing stronger with every second. Funny, it was the only thing she seemed to feel. She found herself unable to determine where exactly she felt the chill, since her entire body was far beyond her control already. She was growing colder, that she knew. It was too much of a hassle to struggle against it. Instead she let herself drift farther and farther. To where, she did not know but hopefully it would be somewhere else.

"You tried leaving again?" Rarity had asked.

She remembered it, the last time she had seen the most generous filly she had ever known. Her eyes had been fixed on her, as the white filly had seated herself by the bed.

"I know you don't like it here, but mum and dad are really trying their hardest," she had said and tried to smile. Trixie had thought in the beginning that Rarity never felt the brunt of the force but that had been wrong. Her parents hit her like any of the orphans, hardly treating her like their own, or maybe they were treating everypony like their own. Trixie couldn't quite figure that out.

"Certain spells only work at certain times," Trixie said and she remembered as she drifted, there hadn't been snow nor rain that day, just a few white clouds on a blue sky with the sun shining and a mild breeze moving through the leaves of the trees.

"Spells won't work. Magic won't work. Magic doesn't exist, if it ever did."

"I'll make them work. I'll bring magic back and make the spells work." Trixie remembered the eyes of the filly. They reminded her of how her mother had looked after the life had faded from her. They were without light in them, looking at a place so distant and wonderful, yet knowing that she could never reach it.

"You won't. You'll run, they'll find you and hurt you. Please don't run anymore. I don't want to see you like this anymore." She had been generous, shedding her tears for Trixie. Nopony had done that before, so Trixie laid her hoof on the other filly's head.

"Everyday I wake up in a world without magic, Rarity," she had said, "but I'll find it, I'll find magic and then I'll make everything better. Just you wait."

She had forgotten and now she was drifting through the darkness. The memory of Rarity embracing her lit up a tiny light within her but it wasn't enough. The chill was strong and swallowing her and the water was like a cascade that threw her deeper into the darkness.

She remembered her new parents and she remembered how often they hit her, because she clung to the gifts her real parents had given her. She remembered how they'd hit her so hard, she would need to go to the hospital. They would tell the doctors that Trixie had fallen off the stairs, that she had gotten into a fight with other kids, that she was a unicorn and they did stupid things more often than any other pony. They never said the truth and they told her to lie, too.

Trixie never cared, so long as she could keep her cape and hat. They had been her last link to that tower by the cliff and two magicians who had raised her to be as great and powerful as they had been. Maybe she could've done it, too. Now she wasn't so sure anymore. But in the short time she had never given up, not once had she taken a step back and not once had she even thought that she could've been wrong.

She remembered running from her new parents once and huddling up in an old warehouse, filled with stuff thrown away and forgotten by the ponies. She had wrapped herself in the cloak and put the hat on, both had been too large for her and the hat especially kept falling down her face. After the fifth or sixth time she hadn't bothered pulling it up again, instead had just looked at the darkness inside of it. Thinking back it seemed like a far different blackness than the one she was experiencing at that moment.

"You got a nice hat, are you a wizard?" she had heard the pony ask, the unicorn who had lost her horn and hope, the one who had long since given up her dreams of music and magic.

Lyra she was called and she had told Trixie that magic didn't exist, while also trying to convince the wizard to give her hands and make her human. Trixie had always thought that Lyra had been mocking her but now she wasn't so sure anymore.

She had met Twilight and had wanted to show her a world filled with magic, yet instead, Twilight had shown her a world of change and horrors. Was that what magic was? Or had it been a bad dream she had after her new parents had whacked her over the head with some metal thingie again? Could it be that? Or maybe all of this had been a test. She didn't know and she knew that she didn't care. There remained only one question that truly meant something to her, before she could leave the cold and the darkness and this horrid world forever.

Is all magic truly gone from this world?

The question rang through her head and she was drifting. The chill was so cold it felt like a fire burning through her entire being. A flame so cold, she would've never believed something like it to exist. She had known cold, back in the orphanage but there had always been a fire lit, a warmth by her side and a generous pony to share every moment with. She needed to end it, she knew. Trixie felt the wetness against her coat and thought of every time she had tried, of every spell she had cast and how she had waited by her mother's bed until the strangers had come to pick her up and take her to the orphanage.

Everyday she had woken up in a world without magic and yet never had stopped dreaming. The dream was at an end however. Her friends were gone and probably dead, just like she herself and everything she had ever hoped to achieve was impossible now. Nightmares and eldritch terrors would haunt the equestrian plains forever and the thing she had believed to be magic would never start to exist. There wasn't a speck of hope left in her.

Just a hope, just a dream, that's what it all had been in the end. Just like Lyra had always hoped her own laughter had been real. Just like Octavia had hoped that with her honest play she would reach somepony. Just like Derpy who had hoped that her kindness would reward her with muffins. Just like Raindrops whose hopes Trixie never had grasped. They all were ending in nothingness in the end.

Trixie felt content with that realization. She felt like she had grown up a bit and maybe she could tell her parents and maybe they'd accept it, too.

That moment she let go of the cold and the darkness and a different kind of strength was coming into her body. The strength she needed to leave it behind. Trixie took a deep breath, inhaling the air that wasn't there to begin with and then opened her eyes.

She was somewhere else now, Trixie knew. There were stars all around her and little else. She turned around herself, looking up and looking down but she didn't spot anything different. She turned once more, and again, but there were only stars and the black space between them. She didn't know where she was or why she was suddenly here. Was she truly–

She blinked and then something had changed.

A mane like the the starry night and a coat of deep blue. There she sat before Trixie, tall like a giant and with cyan eyes that told a story of a thousand years. The alicorn didn't smile, instead she simply looked at her with little to no expression on her face.

"It is coming to an end," she said. "Tell me, Trixie, do you still think you can dream of magic?"

The tiny filly looked at her. "Who are you?" she asked, scared of the stranger.

"I am Luna, the princess of night and dreams and I put all my hopes into you and your friends."

Luna looked so strong and proud but her voice and eyes both told a different thing, that was apparent even for a little filly like Trixie. The mare before her was old, so old in fact, that it scared Trixie. Her thoughts turned to the princess of love who had lived and died, to Celestia who had died with magic. Legends had said her sister had vanished, maybe died, too. Was she still alive?

Trixie looked around. "Where are we?"

"Each of you was destined for a decision. This here, as is apparent, is the plain of your own," Luna told her without moving an inch.

"My decision?"

Luna's eyes went up, as she gazed at the stars. "Magic died a long time ago and we with it. I am the last of the alicorns, the last piece of an era long gone. The dragons died, the gates of Tartarus vanished and the world lost what made it itself. Now a piece of it returned, the first piece of magic."

Trixie blinked, "Magia?"

Luna nodded, closing her eyes. Suddenly her horn began to glow and a wind blew, throwing the grass around them into the air and suddenly, a black cascade was above and around them. Trixie looked at it, with fearful fascination. She knew what it was, she had seen it once and it had nearly gotten Twilight.

"Magic wasn't originally a part of this world. It was a world without magic,a world which would develop on mere chance without divine intervention or anything else. Magia didn't belong here. I cannot even tell you from whence it came. However at one point it arrived in this world. A shapeless terror that went into the minds of the creatures that inhabitated the world," Luna explained, pointing behind Trixie.

A herd of ponies was sleeping on the ground, they were all earth ponies, looking normal from Trixie's perspective and yet something didn't feel right. They were sleeping without fire, as if they didn't need it. Something was definitely off about that. The darkness swirled around them, still, and moved in closer. Trixie could feel how it manipulated the sleepers and they started to move, even though they did not wake.

"This is the dawn of magic," Luna suddenly said. "Magia came to terrorize the creatures of this world but its presence changed this plain and its interaction changed the inhabitants."

The scene changed to a young looking creature sitting on top of a tree. His head was like a horse's with a mane like one, too and he had an antler and a horn on top of it and one long fang in his mouth. His eyes looked weird, the pupils having different sizes and a snake's tongue went over his lips. He had a goat's beard growing and his extremeties were as weird as his head. His right arm belonged to a lion, his left to an eagle. The legs of a lizard and a goat were crossed atop one of the tree's branches. Adding to that came what Trixie would've described as a batwing and a pegasus wing. Then his tail was like a dragon-like snake's tail with a white tail tuft. Truly, this creature didn't seem normal.

They both were in the air before the creature, but Trixie knew she wasn't even really alive anymore, so that was probably normal. Still, she noted how he looked. He seemed astounded at himself, looking at his hands and touching his beard carefully.

"With the Night Terrors fear spread and with fear the creatures learned of madness. Some turned insane and then they spread chaos. There were emotions were like never before, powerful like never before and so the first of the dragonequui was born. A creature whose only purpose it was to become an avatar of chaos. There were five of them, each defining a different aspect of chaos. By the time Celestia and I appeared however, all but one were gone."

The dragonequus looked at his claw and then snapped his fingers. A cloud appeared above him and suddenly it started pouring frogs. They fell and seemed utterly perplexed at where they suddenly where, some clinging to the branches, others croaking angrily at the beast that had summoned them. He seemed to find the sight utterly amusing.

"Discord used the influence Magia had spread for his own gain, thus becoming the first magic user in the world. Alas, he thought everything a joke. A reason why his empire was in such terrible shape that it needed to be saved in the first place. In the beginning however, he spread magic. It was a joke that grew bigger and bigger. He tried to teach rabbits and hamsters, sadly failing, but with every spell he cast the power solidified more and more in the world. And all the while he managed to stay out of the Night Terrors' sight."

The scene drifted away and suddenly they stood by a crystal clear river in the middle of the night. The sky was filled with stars and forest filled with dark shadows was all around them. Trixie stood close to Luna, for which she was glad.

"Magic became more entwined with the world and then something happened in a herd of ponies that roamed the wild lands," Luna said and looked over her shoulder. A mare walked past her, stopping by the water to look at her own reflection. She had a white coat with a green tint to it and her mane was green as grass. And she had a horn.

"What is going on?" She questioned, like she didn't even understand the words that were coming out of her mouth.

"The first unicorn, Trixie, the first actual pony."

Luna sighed and looked at her. "She later called herself Dreamcatcher and she was the one who convinced the dragonequui to help her end the night terror's reign. There are no memories in the world of the event itself, but the bond between those six was strengthened through magic. On her deathbed, that bond became tree and it was the harmony of it that allowed me and my sister to be born into the Everfree Forest to begin with."

Trixie looked at her, as they stood on the fields of grass once more. "Magia is back now," she said.

Luna smiled bitterly. "Yes, but its defeat allowed something new to be born. An alicorn is something that has never happened before, it is always something new. Celestia and I were the Elements of Harmony. But first came Magia's defeat and the hope that the world would grow restful."

There was a bright light and suddenly they were amidst thousands of ponies and other beings, even the five dragonequui were assembled. The light was not of the sun, Trixie quickly found. Instead it came from a balcony. They were at a palace? Maybe. The light originated from the rough silhouette of an alicorn. Trixie couldn't make anything out, only a strand of red hair and smile like the dawn of a new day.

"Bright, isn't it. Warmth filled that day but like dreams, days end and then comes a darkness so scary and a cold like fire."

A house flew past them, upside down, the earth shifted and divided, it rained chocolate frogs and fire was kindled with water. Chaos ruled and Trixie saw a world without sense.

"This was before the fall of the Crystal Empire, may their souls rest peacefully. Discord was the only remaining dragonequus, a mad demi-god whose only thoughts were of mischief and whose only actions ended in chaos."

She saw him laugh and then vanish into a light.

"What happened?"

"Trixie?"

The tiny filly looked at Luna and noticed they were on the plain once more. Dark clouds had gathered above them and she could feel the rain starting. "Y-yeah?" she asked.

"Discord, the first alicorn, the dawn of magic, they are all linked to one being."

Trixie looked at her for a moment, not really getting it. Then the realiziation came and her eyes widened.

"Discord was the first being using Magia's magic, his abilities were a piece of the king of the Night Terrors. He had helped spread it through the world and he had used his abilites to teach others magic. He may even have been involved in Dreamcatcher learning her own magic, and even if not, her powers can be traced back to the Night Terrors, too. She was gone by the time of the first alicorn and magic had grown strong on its own. However, it still needed a link, a piece to keep it together. Discord was that piece, even though he did not know it. When we banished him into stone, we killed the magic in this world."

"But. . . Magia came back." Trixie said, the rain falling heavy down on her, covering the grasslands in water.

"And with it comes the break of a new, long night without stars to guide us. And then the return of magic," Luna explained, sadness filling her voice just as the world was flooded with water. "The rise of a new discord maybe, another story like the one of me and Celestia and another tale just like yours. Going on in an endless circle."

Trixie looked at her and smiled. "It's fine then. . . That I'm gone I mean."

"No, without you it won't happen, the dawn of a new age, a new era. The age of my little ponies and a new magic," the alicorn said and looked at Trixie, with a sudden smile. The filly wondered what the alicorn meant, but lucky for her, Luna decided against being cryptic. "I waited for one thousand years, I worked on it, I guarded it, I protected it. Now there is need for a pony who can make the Lunarium work. I am the princess of nights and dreams, I can't do magic. Trixie, you however, you and Twilight, your talents involve magic and you both carry the hope within you, the dream of a world filled with magic."

Luna looked at her with those old, tired cyan eyes and in that moment she seemed so alive and so young once more. Then, she looked up. The water was up to Trixie's neck, the filly suddenly noticed. Luna however, calmly turned towards her again. "It is time for your decision. Trixie, alicorns are always something new. You can do it. I trust you."

Trixie was left alone, the water slowly coming up and the rain coming down from above relentlessly. For a moment, she still had decided to leave and closed her eyes.

“I’ve seen you a few times,” she had told Twilight, “and you’re always looking somewhere far away. I doubt you have seen anything of Canterlot, so I could take you somewhere wonderful and maybe show you a thing or two."

Then she decided again and the water was all around her, a black swirl that threatened to take her into the deep darkness. A cold flame was burning in her body and she couldn't really feel anything but now, more than anytime before she had decided to do it. She would fulfill the promise she had made, even if it wouldn't bring her parents back.

She was drowning and kicking and screaming and swimming and then she felt something touching her, warmly covering her, protecting her and taking her up again. She tried to see it but couldn't. Something was with her in the water and was helping her and she couldn't make it out.

Trixie woke up by the side of the water lake. Covered in the remaining rags of her cape. She was lying on her back with her eyes fixed on the point from which she had fallen and suddenly Trixie was laughing. She was alive, she was well. Maybe her friends were, too. No, surely they were. It wasn't like them to give up or fall to some monster. Trixie wasn't scared of nightmares, even if they were real and Trixie wasn't afraid of losing her friends. She had never dreamt of dying before and she sure as hay would have some muffins again. She felt alive, truly alive as she lifted herself up with a grin on her face and a feeling in her horn that would lead her to her destination.

She was on her way again to become the most powerful wizard the world had ever seen and nothing would stop her from achieving that goal, now that she knew what would happen if she and her friends failed. She would change this world's fate before it would happen because she was ultimately the Great and Powerful Trixie.