Chapter 1: A Long Road Ahead
There is a nameless place, deep in the wilds of Equestria. Far beyond the murky depths of the Forest Ever-Free, it lies, shrouded in half-forgotten myths and whispered legends. Ancient Magyks lie there still, undisturbed. Waiting. Few ponies ever venture here, and those who do.... never return. The forest grows freely there, the canopy allowing the Sun to kiss the ground below. The clouds float lazily in the blue sky above, casting shadows on swaying fields of grass and sunflowers. Many relics of ages long past remain here, rusting and forgotten long ago. The most noticeable landmark in the valley is a mountain. This solitary monolith soars far into the sky, challenging any who see it to try and conquer its heights, to attempt to unlock its secrets. Towers poke from its sides, providing refuge to those lucky enough to reach them. The mountain has no name, much like the land it claims. Many a grim tale surrounds it. When it is mentioned, it is only known as "The Mountain", the name spoken barely above a whisper. "The land is cursed," most ponies say, "It must be. For those who dare to accept the challenge of that lonely mountain never come back." But our tale is not of rumours, barely whispered in darkly lit places. No, our tale is of a mare, and her journey. It began near the fringes of the Forest Ever-Free, in the shadow of the lonely giant.
Trixie Lulamoon had nothing. She had lost her caravan and her reputation in Ponyville the first time she had visited that place. The next, she had lost everything but her star-spangled hat and cloak, passed down from her father. Twice, she had challenged that accursed town. Twice, she had been defeated. And now, crushed and humiliated, the mare once lauded across Equestria as "The Great and Powerful Trixie" sought only to disappear from the view of her fellow ponies. After the Ursa Minor incident, she had been openly ridiculed wherever she had traveled, unable to find work anywhere. The whole "Being-Corrupted-by-an-Ancient-Artifact-of-Doom" thing hadn't helped at all. Instead of ridicule, she had been ignored, treated like she didn't even exist. The cerulean mare would have preferred the ridicule to her being an outcast in all but name. So, she had decided to make it official. She would disappear from her homeland, and travel far beyond the Everfree Forest, where no-pony would dare to follow her. And so, this is how she found herself, deep within the forest. Utterly, hopelessly... lost. Still, the dishonoured mare trotted on, her hooves thudding softly on the dirt floor. As she progressed, she began to notice silver beams of moonlight breaking through the nearly impenetrable canopy of the ancient forest. The trees, which had been old and gnarled, began to look less old and hateful of all that lived. Trixie still felt an immense sense of age from the forest, but none of the thinly-veiled hostility that had been her constant companion from almost day one. Somehow, without ever having been told, Trixie knew that those trees still remembered the sharp bite of axes. However, the tall oaks that now surrounded her emanated an aura of peace, of wonder, of curiosity. Unlike the bent, twisted, and bitter trees of the Everfree Forest, these trees grew tall and proud, stretching ever higher as if to spite the mountain whose shadow they existed under. Ahead, Trixie saw a clearing. She stepped into it, and stood there in awe.
The mountain was huge. It towered higher even than the mountain of Canterlot. It was visible only by the startling lack of stars visible around it. The full moon glowed above the goliath, casting down shimmering beams of liquid silver on the forest canopy, giving everything a ghostly light. The night sky blazed with more stars than Trixie ever knew even existed. It was captivating, absolutely stunning, and undeniably beautiful... and very, very alien. Trixie gulped nervously. In the pit of her stomach, she felt a growing sense of dread. She didn't belong here. A light breeze rustled the branches above, so that they appeared to be talking. Turn back, They said. Leave now, before it's too late.
Trixie wanted to listen, wanted to turn back. Her very being railed against this place, screaming at her to run, to run and never look back. Trixie wanted to turn back, with all of her heart. But where did she have to go? Home, The trees whispered. You could go home.
Home. Whenever she heard that word, Trixie felt a profound sense of loss.
Home. Trixie hadn't had a home since... since... The silvery maned mare felt her eyes begin to burn.
NO. Trixie rubbed away her tears almost as soon as they appeared. She would not allow herself to think about that. Not here. Not now. Not yet. And yet, she could not resist looking at her hat once more. Gently, gingerly, she lifted the battered cap off of her head, as if she were afraid that, at any given moment, it could crumble into dust.
Even after so many years, it still felt wrong to her to call the hat hers. It, along with the cape on her back, had been passed down to her by her father, given to him by his father, passed down from his mother, all the way to the first Lulamoon ever born. 'Wear it with honour,' He'd told her, those long years ago. 'Wear it with pride. You, my daughter, are a Lulamoon. You,' He'd said with utter conviction, pointing a foreleg at her, 'Are going to change the world.' So far, Trixie had done no such thing. Her only magical aptitude lay in illusion, the weakest of magics. So, she had become a magician, wandering the world.
As she reflected on her life, Trixie continued to walk forwards. She was so caught up in her memories that she didn't notice the cliff until she started to fall. And by then, it was too late.
She screamed as she fell, a shrill, ragged yell that was cut short when the unicorns' head connected with a rock. There was a sick crack, and Trixie felt something hot and sticky begin to flow down her head. She tried to get up, but she couldn't see. Everything was getting hazy and starting to swim around. With every passing second, Trixie felt herself growing weaker. Everything was so cold. She fell down again, and this time her limbs refused to respond. Actually, why did she need to get up? The dirt was so.... so comfortable, and she was... so..... tired. Her eyes began to slide closed. So... Sleepy. Yes, sleep. That's what she needed. She'd just go to sleep, and... everything..... would...... be fine......... in... the............... Morning.
Trixie Lulamoon closed her eyes, and knew no more.
Author's Note
Gimme comments, people. Please. How can I improve if you won't help?
Chapter 2: The Grey Vaults
When Trixie opened her eyes again, she was afraid that she had gone blind. All around her, a constantly shifting wall of grey mist flowed and blocked her view of everything. What she could see in front of her was a bleak, featureless landscape. She was alone. All alone. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. So, with nothing else left to do, Trixie did the logical thing: She got up, and started walking onwards.
For an indeterminable amount of time, Trixie walked. She had no idea where she was, or where she was going. She just walked. Eventually, she began to notice something through the mist: A range of mountains, far in the distance. Suddenly, she knew that this was where she had to go, beyond a shadow of a doubt. As she continued onwards, she felt a strange presence. It was strange because... it was incomprehensibly OLD. Impossibly old. This thing was old when Equestria was young. No, even before that. For some reason, without quite knowing why, Trixie felt sad. The feeling soon passed, and Trixie moved on.
More time passed, and before she knew it, Trixie came to a pass through the mountain range. She looked up, but the grey peaks stretched upwards out of sight. The cerulean mare gaped in awe, feeling a surge of relief at the fact that she didn't have to try to climb those peaks. She felt a slight niggling in the back of her mind, such as one who is on the verge of remembering an important fact, but is not quite there yet. She stood there a moment, contemplating what it was she had forgotten, then shrugged, unable to remember, and carried on. As she passed through the peaks, what little illumination there had been from the mists faded, leaving Trixie alone in the dark.
She stopped again. The feeling was back, stronger this time. Wait... She'd been walking through a forest, remembering her father, and then.... and then.... she couldn't remember. The showmare frowned deeply. Something had happened, though. Something bad. Her head.
Tentatively, gingerly, she reached up to her horn. When she touched it, a wave of pure agony washed through her body. It had been shattered.
Despair, utter and absolute despair, flooded through Trixie. Now she truly was nothing. Even during the direct aftermath of the second Ponyville incident, she'd still had her magic.
It proved to be more than the illusionist could take. She broke down crying, sobbing uncontrollably. She'd failed. First, she'd made a fool of herself. Then, she'd become a tyrant. But even after all that, she'd still had a shot at clearing her name and returning her family to honour. Not anymore. Without her magic, she was less than nothing. Her illusions had been her only talent, her only redeeming quality.
Now she had nothing left. She had lost everything she'd ever had. First, there had been the scandal of her birth which had cost her father his position on the royal Canterlot court. Though her mother had grown resentful of their poverty, and blamed Trixie for it, her father, once known as Archmage Lulamoon, had been content to step down and fade away as Evening Star Lulamoon. So, to put bread on the table and keep a roof over their heads, her father had taken the stage name "Presto, The Magnificent".
Naturally, when the nobles learned of this, the Lulamoons could find no place safe from the searing scorn and disgust of the ponies that Evening Star had once called friends. At school, Trixie found herself unable to escape from the bullies. They mocked her mercilessly. Along with the normal insults like "blank-flank", some of the crueler, richer children called her things such as "half-blood", "abomination", and the tried but true "freak!"
The first time she'd been called a half-blood, Trixie had sneaked out of school. She ran home, crying, hoping to find some comfort from her father. The scene that had greeted the filly, however, hurt her more than all of the insults combined.
Trixie had crept up the stairs to the apartment that she lived in with her father. The rent was thankfully non-existent, due to the friendship her father had with the landlord from back when they were young colts, still learning about the world. Trixie reached the door and silently pushed it open. Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.
* * *
Evening Star Lulamoon was a stallion who had not been treated kindly by the world, but you would have never known it to look at him. He had a long, flowing mane of silver, with a long beard to match. He had smile lines under his twinkling eyes, which were a mismatched jade and mellow gold. His coat was a light heliotrope that matched his daughters eyes. Trixie could just see his face. He was gazing sadly down at a picture of himself and another pony. A pegasus, to be exact. She had an azure coat, the same shade as Trixie. She had an impish grin on her face that was tempered by the softer glint in her sapphire eyes. The pegasus's windswept mane looked like it had never met a brush before, and was a deeper, more metallic silver than Trixie's own. Her wings were blurry as she hovered just above Evening's head. Both her and the Evening Star in the photo were gazing lovingly at a bundle of cloth the pegasus held in her forelegs. Her fathers hat was placed on top, obscuring the face of the foal within, but Trixie knew that it was her. She remembered this. The pegasus was her mother. She'd been sitting there silently for almost three minutes. So of course, the universe decided to change that.
Trixie sneezed. She shot behind the door as quickly as she could, but she wasn't quite fast enough. Her father jumped, surprised, and hastily put the photo back from wherever he had gotten it from. "Who's there?" he called out in a deep, gruff similar to the one he used onstage. "Come on out, I know you're there." Slowly, Trixie poked her head out from behind the door. Her father was frowning slightly, his eyes stern. When he saw his daughter tentatively peek out at him, though, that all changed. His face immediately brightened, and he started to chuckle. Trixie began to laugh, too, glad that her father wasn't angry at her. Suddenly, she remembered the picture her dad had been looking at.
"Daddy, was that Mom in that picture with you?" Evening Star's expression darkened slightly. Trixie could tell from the look on his face that he was debating whether or not to dodge the question. Finally, he sighed softly.
"Yes. Yes, it was." He sounded sad, and Trixie felt a pang of guilt for asking her dad about the photo. She hung her head as she felt tears begin to burn in her eyes again.
"I'm sorry." She whispered, tears threatening to fall. Trixie heard hoofs clop on their wooden floor, then a comforting warmth and pressure enveloped her as Evening Star pulled his daughter into his forelegs.
"It's alright, Trixie, it really is." He looked down at her for a moment, then smiled. "Would you like me to tell you about her?" She looked up at him, stunned at her fathers sudden willingness to talk about her mother.
"R-really?" She sniffled, hope filling her voice. Evening Star nodded in response.
"You deserve to know." He frowned suddenly, as if remembering something. "Wait..." He began, his eyes narrowing and a small frown appearing on his face. "Shouldn't you be in school?"
* * *
There was a flash of light and Trixie jumped as she flew back into the present. The path ended in front of her. Looming even above the mountains was a massive gate engraved with scenes from history and old legends. She saw carvings of dragons, of strange beings that stood on two legs and manipulated the world around them through magic, and later, through science. Even as Trixie watched, the gates were slowly growing taller with every second that passed. The gates were sealed tightly, allowing no entry. Trixie was confused by this. This was her destination. She was supposed to be here. So why was the way blocked? As she was pondering this, a deep, rumbling voice spoke. It reminded the showmare of avalanches, of mountains growing, of the stone underneath her feet shifting endlessly.
"You should not be here." It declared. As it spoke, the grey, formless void around her shook. The voice was stern, but not unkind. "So why are you, hatchling?"
Trixie thought for a moment. Surely she, of all ponies, would know why she was in this desolate wasteland. After a minute of silent contemplation revealing nothing, Trixie started to panic. "I-I... Well,.... um..... I think......" After another minute of this, Trixie finally admitted defeat. Unconsciously, unicorn slipped back into her habit of referring to herself in the third person. "Trixie doesn't know why she's here." She whispered, almost too softly to hear. "Trixie doesn't even know where here is."
The voice was silent for so long that Trixie began to grow afraid that it had left her here alone. "Dann Grau Horda." The voice suddenly said, just as Trixie was about to ask where it had gone.
"What?" Trixie asked, utterly flabbergasted. The voice made a deep rumbling sound. It was chuckling, Trixie realized.
"The Grey Vaults, little one." The voice sighed, a sound that reminded Trixie of an earthquake. "You should not be here yet."
"Trixie still doesn't understand." Trixie knew she sounded whiny, but she didn't care.
"Be glad of that, youngling. You'll know far too much about this place soon enough."
"What do you mean?" Trixie felt a sudden jolt of fear tingle down her spine. "Trixie is scared."
The voice simply sighed. "Slaef, youngling." The voice rumbled, waves of power washing over Trixie and making her eyes heavy. "Slaef." She closed her eyes and slept.
As she slept, she dreamed.
Author's Note
And That's Chapter 2! Chapter three coming sometime soon, I hope.
Dragon language for this Chapter:
Slaef- Sleep / Rest
