Great and Powerful Trixie in the Exordium under the Pyramids | MLP FIM

"Ahhh, what bliss..." murmured Trixie. Resting, that was all her body longed for at that moment.

Lying on a green meadow, under a blue sky dotted with lazily floating white clouds, listening to her favorite music and wrapped in the warm embrace of midday. Trixie, with her eyes closed behind sunglasses, imagined herself in such a place at that moment.

A calm and wonderful day, which could even get better, as she was not alone.

Her best friend was with her, Starlight was...

No.

Trixie opened her eyes abruptly. Her vivid dream was not yet over.

She wasn't where she had imagined. Remote, distant, and nebulous, the unicorn found herself sitting in the middle of a cosmic corridor full of doors.

"Where?" Trixie's confused voice got lost in the emptiness of the hallway, with echoes bursting into different tones and emotions.

Then, a headache overcame her and Trixie's memory refreshed. Her mental confusion (caused by fatigue, stress, and the red potions she had drunk) had considerably decreased. Lucid, she could remember that this was the same place she had dreamed of the previous night. That disturbing nightmare.

"Was it all just a dream?" Trixie exclaimed hopefully. There was a great possibility that it was, nothing that had happened that morning could be considered routine in her day-to-day life. The castle barrier, the corrupt potions, the ghosts, the manticore, the hawk-turkeys... she had experienced so many things in the last few hours, more than she had lived in the last three years.

Like a flower opening to the sun, Trixie's face transformed, filling with a single emotion: joy.

"Hahahahaha!" Trixie burst into laughter that echoed throughout the hallway. She pounded the ground with her hooves and soon fell on her back from the excitement. She didn't need to think about it anymore. It had all been a dream!

The fights, the pain, the anger... none of it had really happened.

This was just a dream.

Trixie continued laughing and almost crying on the hallway floor for a long time, happy that none of her questionable actions had been real. She continued this way until her passionate feelings gradually calmed down.

Slowly, she became aware of herself and her strange situation again...

Worried once more, Trixie immediately stood up.

The cosmic corridor she was in remained just as desolate and unchanged.

"Ahem... Hello! Is anyone there?" Trixie asked, her voice getting lost in the infinity.

There was no response, just more echoes.

"Okay... fine! Trixie... this is just a dream, just stay calm and you'll be safe."

She wasn't really sure where to go or who to expect. She vaguely remembered the mysterious pony who had guided her before in that place, but now she didn't think about her. Standing still, waiting in uncertainty, was not an option for Trixie.

Distrustfully, she began to move down the hallway, the white light from the doors on either side illuminating her path.

"Oh, I remember now... uhmmm, each door leads to a memory of mine, right?" Curious, Trixie peeked through one of the doors...

//--------------

"Is Counselor Trixie dead?" Sandbar spoke with a trembling voice.

A crushing silence enveloped the main hallway of Twilight's Castle, where all the members of the Young Six were gathered. Their faces reflected a mix of bitterness and disbelief.

"It can't be so. Counselor Trixie is very skilled, she must have escaped with some trick!" Yona tried to deny.

"No, Yona. I saw her fall among the hawk-turkeys myself and disappear into Fathungry's beak. There's no way anyone could escape from that..." Gallus responded dejectedly, sitting on the floor. Regret was evident in his words.

Ocellus and Smolder were speechless at that moment, still processing what Gallus had told them.

"This can't be happening," murmured Silverstream.

Despite her flaws and eccentricities, no one would have wished for Trixie Lulamoon's life to end that way.

The silence continued after the hippogriff's words. The possible loss of their substitute teacher, student counselor, and friend weighed heavily on all of them.

Then, amidst that feeling of desolation, one of them looked up.

Sandbar, in his wheelchair, without asking for help from his companions, moved towards the castle door and carefully opened it to see outside.

Outside, just a few meters away, a dozen burly hawk-turkeys were avidly pecking at the beautiful flowers surrounding the castle, crushing ornamental arrangements and destroying the few decorations that remained from the Festival of the Two Sisters.

"What are you doing?" Gallus finally asked, raising his head, the others followed suit.

"I must... no. We must go and retrieve Counselor Trixie!" Sandbar exclaimed to his companions. Despite his delicate state, there was great strength in his voice.

Astonished looks followed the pony's words.

"Didn't you hear what I said? It's over! The counselor is..."

"Inside the gullet of the most dangerous hawk-turkey in Equestria. Yes! I understood perfectly, Gallus. That's why we must go!"

"It's madness..." Gallus replied, extremely serious.

"I hate to say it, but Gallus is right. We can't face those guys alone," added Smolder. "We must wait for the princess and the royal guard to come..."

"They'll take too long to arrive. We're already here, we can handle this."

"That's very brave of you, Sandbar, but... how are we supposed to deal with a horde of giant hawk-turkeys?" Silverstream asked alarmed.

"I'd like to know that too," added Gallus.

"Well... there's always a way... there must be!" Sandbar replied haltingly. He didn't have an answer for that; he hadn't thought it through that much before. Hopeful, he turned his gaze to the one who could answer that.

Ocellus, who had been silent all that time, felt the weight of Sandbar's gaze immediately, not just his, but also that of her other companions. Enormous pressure arose within her; her friends needed an answer from the one person they could trust to determine if it was possible to carry out that dangerous rescue mission.

Her decision would determine Trixie's fate.

Ocellus took a deep breath and then exhaled. Just as she had learned from her teachers, she set aside her emotions and coldly began to calculate the possible solutions to the serious problem they were in.

It didn't take long for her to find the obvious answer.

"There is a way. If we use the power of the Elements of Harmony that exists within us, we could make our way through the hawk-turkeys and rescue Counselor Trixie," she answered decisively.

"Whoooo!" the rest of the Young Six responded in unison, none of them had thought of that possibility. Since Twilight's coronation, they had barely used that power a couple of times.

The discouragement that had dominated the Young Six's spirits vanished; they all now shared words of encouragement and optimism.

All except a bitter and blue griffon.

"Do you really want to do this?" Gallus asked Sandbar coldly, interrupting the atmosphere.

"Yes, we are responsible for this happening, we must fix it."

"Even when she is the reason you ended up in this state?" Gallus continued without averting his gaze, pointing with one of his claws at the wheelchair where Sandbar was convalescing.

"Yes," Sandbar replied even more firmly.

The two friends exchanged cold looks for a tense moment.

Until finally...

"Ahhhhhhhhhh," Gallus exhaled, tilting his head and stepping aside.

"Any problem, Gallus?" Sandbar asked with a smile. To him and the rest of his friends, it was obvious how difficult it was for Gallus to accept Sandbar's good heart. A heart so noble that it was simply unbearable to the griffon.

And this very thing was the reason why he respected him so much.

With his back to his friends, Gallus muttered unintelligible things while swishing his tail from side to side. Then, without warning, he turned around.

"What are you all staring at? Let's go already! Let's show those pigeons they shouldn't mess with the friends of the first class of the School of Friendship!" Gallus exclaimed to the others, puffing out his chest and spreading his wings to the fullest.

With everyone's spirits high, the Young Six formed a line, holding hooves and claws, the group of friends moved forward.

The castle doors opened wide, outside the hawk-turkeys let out threatening squawks, inside the bond of those young friends materialized into unparalleled magic.

The Young Six took the first step... and a rainbow light enveloped everything.

//--------------

The light from the door went out, and the image of the Young Six faded. With no strength in her legs, Trixie, unable to believe what she had just witnessed, fell sitting down abruptly in front of the entrance.

"Am I dead...?" Trixie murmured in a barely audible voice, an expression of disbelief on her face.

There were many things that had scared Trixie throughout her life: crocodiles, giant spiders, piled-up bills, etc. However, these fears had only caused a moderate impact on her. Once Trixie finished releasing her passionate emotions, she could quickly adapt to the situation.

But the fear that was beginning to arise within her was something entirely new.

Her own death...

A metallic taste began to flood Trixie's mouth. At the same time, her stomach tightened her chest, causing her to hunch over and breathe with increasing difficulty.

"No, no, wait Trixie... It's a dream, of course!" the unicorn exploded in denial, standing up immediately. "None of that happened! You're not dead, Trixie, you're just having a crazy, very realistic dream. You drank a lot of cider last night, remember? You'll get out of this as always!"

Thus, Trixie spoke to herself with joy and enthusiasm. With a click of her hooves, she began to gallop down the hallway.

--------------

Far away in another place, a candle was lit.

--------------

Several minutes had passed since she started running, yet nothing changed.

Silence... and more silence... the faint echoes of Trixie's gallop resonated in the vastness of the cosmic hallway. She left behind countless crystal arches, each one a door to some moment of her past life. Special moments of joy and happiness.

But Trixie didn't want to know more about them, she had seen enough.

Every memory she explored only increased her frustration. Every laugh from her past versions made her bitterness grow. Despite her relentless search, she still couldn't find a way out, much less a guide who could lead her out of there.

Thus, Trixie kept galloping down the hallway with a rage that was already showing through her mouth.

"Do you think this is funny?" Trixie stopped abruptly, frustrated. "I know there's someone there! These kinds of tricks don't impress me. If you're trying to teach me a life lesson by showing me my past, you're doing a very bad job. I tell you from experience, Trixie has also given lessons. Trixie is a good pony!"

Trixie's intense shouts at her supposed captors were lost in an even more intense silence.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaa" still more enraged by not getting any response, Trixie neighed loudly and then continued her exasperating search.

--------------

Far away in another place, two more candles were lit.

--------------

Hours had passed since Trixie began her search.

The sweaty unicorn, with slow and exhausted steps, continued down the vast hallway. She exhaled and cast nervous glances around her. Paranoia grew within her, and even more so her frustration. Nothing in that place had changed, no matter how much she ran or how far she went, everything remained the same.

Every crystal arch, every door that appeared before her, looked the same as the previous one.

It was as if she were trapped in an infinite loop with no way out.

"This is a dream, right Trixie?... But then, why is this place..." Trixie murmured, scared, stopping in her tracks.

She didn't want to accept it. It was inadmissible! But the possibility became more real every moment.

Maybe she really had died...

When Trixie was a filly, her father used to tell her that good ponies, when they died, their spirits traveled to a magical place of joy and rest where they reunited with their friends who had also been good in life. This place was 'The Happy Meadows,' which, in Trixie's father's words, was in the sky beyond the sky above the sky.

On the other hand, those who had done wrong in life would end up in a dark and lamentable place, where they would spend eternity alone with themselves. This place was none other than 'The Gray Mines.' A place that, as its name suggested, would look like a coal mine. However, grown-up Trixie, in her constant travels, had heard stories that this place could vary for each pony...

A lump formed in Trixie's throat.

"No, no...Ugh," Trixie murmured brokenly. An intense pain began to weaken her already very exhausted heart. Then, like a dam that had been filled to the limit, she broke into tears with a wail. She could no longer deceive herself.

This wasn't a dream. This was reality.

She had died. And this place was undoubtedly the purgatory where she would spend the rest of eternity. Reliving those happy moments she had been so proud of, which would now be the chains she would drag in her torment.

In the midst of her uncontrollable sobbing, Trixie suddenly remembered everything she did that morning. The recklessness, her fear, the red potions, her subsequent madness...

"It's not my fault that things ended up this way! I did it for my best friend! Starlight would have done the same for me!" she shouted into the void, trying to justify herself.

But no one responded.

Defeated, Trixie hung her head and continued crying with clenched teeth. For she knew it wasn't true.

--------------

Far away in another place, many more candles were lit...

--------------

A lot of time had passed... really a long time...

Wandering with her head down in the cosmic hallway, the ghostly figure of a pony advanced silently.

No one who had known her could recognize her at that moment, there was no trace of the great and powerful unicorn she had been in the past.

A disheveled mane swayed at her sides, her ears hung down like withered leaves, her gaze was as still as a lake in a forgotten cavern, there was no light of life in her eyes, nor in her face that could no longer show any emotion.

Her coat barely had tufts that revealed the magnetic blue she had once boasted. However, now it only showed the grayish color of the ocean in winter. The rest of her body, now only skin and weak muscles, creaked as she walked.

Trixie had aged...

During that eternity that had passed since Trixie accepted her end, she had advanced without looking back down the corridor.

So many doors she had explored... so many memories that had come to life again, so many moments of reflection she had had...

Time and time again, Trixie had walked through her life...

What had she learned?

"I think we're finally near the grand finale..." said the aged Trixie, observing the unusual darkness that enveloped the end of the hallway ahead of her. There, for some unknown reason, all the cosmic lights had disappeared, and now it was just a hole full of shadows.

"Indeed. There have been practically no doors in the last thousand meters..." replied a young Starlight behind her. "It was to be expected that nothing lasts forever... not even purgatory."

"Uhmmm," grunted the old Trixie with slow steps.

With the momentum of her youth, Starlight began to move ahead, getting very close to the deep darkness...

"Maybe it's just a hundred meters more..." murmured the young Starlight before turning back. "Hey! It's only about a hundred meters left! We're almost there!"

But no one responded. Trixie had stopped.

Worried, Starlight came back to her friend. "What's wrong?"

The old Trixie didn't respond immediately; she slowly lifted her head.

"I'm tired..." she murmured lethargically.

"Come on, come on! It's only about a hundred meters! You can rest all you want after that."

"Uhmm..." Trixie grunted again.

"Don't be like that now. Come on! Let's go! Put those hooves in motion." Starlight wasted no time and started to push Trixie to get her to stand up.

However, Trixie remained as rigid as a rock.

After being pushed by her friend for a long while, Trixie finally spoke.

"I'm scared..."

Starlight, who had been pushing her, stopped abruptly and immediately turned towards Trixie.

"Scared? Now?" she replied seriously.

"Yes."

"Why? At this point, we have nothing left to lose. No home, no friends, no future. What could the great and powerful Trixie be afraid of?"

Trixie took a moment to respond. She had lowered her head, but then she lifted it.

"I'm afraid of losing you," Trixie replied. Now it was Starlight who was left speechless.

"That..." Starlight murmured, surprised.

"This darkness is slowly swallowing all the light around. But it's not just the light from the stars that's gone. The doors too. If the doors are my memories... then maybe when we get beyond, you will disappear too..." Trixie murmured, looking at her friend.

Or rather... the memory of her friend.

During all that time of solitude, Trixie had relived every moment she had spent with Starlight, cherishing and reliving it in her mind. At some point in her long journey, those memories accumulated to such an extent that they gave rise to this imaginary Starlight.

Even so, despite her old age, Trixie had retained her sharpness. She still remembered that the Starlight in front of her was not real.

However... she didn't want to lose her, imaginary or not, she didn't want to let this Starlight go.

The old Trixie lowered her head. She didn't want to show her pain. Even though she knew her face would remain rigid, she preferred not to risk it.

Then, something soft touched her face and lifted her head.

There, in front of her, a radiant Starlight hugged her and spoke affectionately.

"Don't be afraid, Trixie. We've been together for a long time. It's time to let me go."

"I don't want to."

"But you must... remember why we're doing this. There is still a possibility," affirmed the imaginary Starlight.

This was something Trixie had discovered a long time ago. Although the doors showed her lived memories of her past, many of those repeated memories appeared altered and in several cases showed things that hadn't actually happened. Coupled with the inexplicable fact that she was still aging despite being in a supposed place outside of time.

If she couldn't feel hunger or sleep, then... why was she aging?

All this made Trixie doubt if she was really in a purgatory or in a completely different place. Because if that were the case, then...

She could get out of there.

"But... what if there's really nothing ahead. If that darkness is the very oblivion of everything..." Trixie said, trembling.

"Maybe. But staying here won't do you any good. We promised to find the way out... and we're very close to achieving it."

"I..."

"Trust, Trixie... be brave."

"But..."

"Be brave."

With these last words, Starlight stepped away from her friend. And after exhaling a couple of times, the old Trixie stood up. Her spirit seemed to shine again in her eyes, trembling not from fear but from her old age. Determined, Trixie began to move forward through the cosmic hallway towards a dark and unknown end.

--------------

Far away in another place, the light of the candles burned, the preparations were complete.

--------------

Darkness enveloped the elderly Trixie. Beside her, Starlight accompanied her, raising her horn high to light the way.

But... the further they advanced down the ominous corridor, the more invasive the darkness around them became, as if the light itself could no longer penetrate it.

Gradually, the light from Starlight's horn began to wane. Trixie, who was beside her, could see and feel that she was with her, but that feeling of warmth, of companionship, also began to fade.

They continued advancing, saying no words, sensing that if either of them spoke, everything would probably stop.

Suddenly, with the light barely visible, Trixie began to feel the darkness pressing in on her sides.

"Starlight..." Trixie murmured.

"I'm here..." was heard beside her, but it was a low voice, impossible for the short distance between them.

"Starlight!" Trixie now spoke louder.

"I'm here..." Starlight's voice was heard even further away. Her friend's figure... was just a barely visible silhouette beside her. Even the light from her horn... was like a red star about to disappear.

"STARLIGHT!" Trixie shouted, stopping and looking around, straining to see her friend.

But no one responded.

All light had disappeared. She could no longer see anything. There was only silence... and darkness.

There were no whispers. There were no sensations... there was nothing else.

At that moment, in the midst of the inexorable void, Trixie began to cry bitterly. It had happened just as she had feared. The last glimmers of the memories of her friend were gone... from Trixie's dry eyes fell her last tears, those she had kept all this time for this bitter end.

The old Trixie no longer knew what to do. There was no way back. The light at the other end of the corridor had disappeared long ago. The cosmic walls no longer existed.

She was lost in the middle of an immeasurable nothingness.

"What do I do now?" Trixie spoke, her voice echoing inside her hollow self, as if she were only a mouth at that moment and the rest of her body no longer existed.

Then, a memory came to her... there was no image or light in it. Just another voice... a distant voice, one she thought she would never hear again.

"Be brave..."

"Be brave..."

These words resonated inside her like a tide pushing against the rocks.

"Heyyyyy!" suddenly exploded the old Trixie in the middle of the nothingness.

Courage burned within her again. An emotion she thought she had lost long ago and that now drove her forward. With the strength she had left, the old Trixie galloped intensely into the nothingness.

She galloped and galloped, immersed in darkness.

Then...

"Thud!" Trixie collided abruptly.

It was surprising. Trixie took a long time to recover, but she quickly understood the situation. In front of her... within those shadows, there was a wall.

The end of the cosmic corridor.

The old Trixie raised her hoof and touched the invisible wall in front of her as a blind person would against a wall.

"Haha, haha, hahaha!" a crazy and raspy laugh suddenly burst out in the middle of the darkness. Incongruous with the situation, Trixie laughed.

The darkness stirred restlessly around Trixie.

"Ahhhh Starlight... you were always right... this is not the end," the old Trixie declared between laughs.

She could feel it. She had been in the cosmic corridor for so long that in many fits of madness she had tried to destroy it with her magic. However, the walls of that place were impossible to break. No matter how much magic she used, nothing she did could damage them. Thus, she spent a lot of time touching them and studying them carefully without finding any solution.

But now, all that accumulated experience told the old Trixie one thing.

That shadowy wall was not insurmountable.

This place wasn't the end...

"Oooooooohhhhhhhh," the old Trixie began to channel all the accumulated magic within her being. Years of magical abstinence had made her power grow considerably. The brightness and power were so intense that even the darkness trying to contain her began to falter. The light shone from her horn, and her eyes lit up like lamps. All her power made her body rise and ignite like a true star.

Then, Trixie's horn discharged a single spark of pure magic against the wall of shadows. It was tiny and almost ridiculous. But it was of such great and powerful potency that the entire wall trembled from its foundations. Even the darkness that sought to envelop her recoiled, cowed for an instant.

However, after the attack, like waves trying to crush her, the furious shadows returned to envelop Trixie to drown her once and for all.

But the damage was done.

A crack had appeared, and from it, a current pushed inward, pulling everything nearby inside.

Surprised and unable to react, the old Trixie's body was swept away by this current.

The wall of shadows closed again, and eternity resumed its slumber.

--------------

Far away, in another place...

Trixie opened her eyes, everything was dark. A cold floor pressed against her from below, and a strange caress-like sensation ran through her fur.

Still, lying on the ground, it took her a moment to identify that sensation...

It was the wind.

With difficulty, Trixie stirred and opened her eyes, trying to orient herself. Her atrophied senses began to be bombarded by all sorts of sensations.

"What...?" She fully sat up and could see the rest of her own body under a pale light.

It was her again. Young and full of vitality.

Astonished, she babbled some unintelligible words. Her emotions started to burn within her again, but they had no time to be released. The world around her captured more of her attention.

She was in a high place, similar to a great portico with steps. There were large candles burning weakly beside her. A sanctuary, perhaps? There was no other light nearby to give her more clues.

But beyond her, from that height, the horizon revealed more to her.

Blurry at first, it took her a moment to recognize what she saw. It was dark. Yes, but it was the clear darkness of night under the light of the moon and the constellations. Ahhh... the moon! A beautiful moon whose light she had missed so much.

Trixie's heart leaped with emotion at the sight of that light. That glow calmed her agitated spirit and made her cutie mark shine.

But her relief ended there.

Under the light of that beautiful moon, a dark world took shape.

Immense shadows of pyramids rose around her, like gigantic black teeth sprouting from the ground. One very close and many others distant that she couldn't count. There was an aura of malice surrounding those pyramids, as if an unknown evil awaited beneath them.

There weren't just pyramids. From the nearest one, long paths of fire led to the others.

And the light of those burning paths revealed the dunes of an arid desert.

"Heee...?" confused, Trixie had no idea where she was.

A sensation shook her entire body, as if the ground were trembling.

Trixie staggered, her body failing her... she felt like she was about to faint.

"ahh, ahh, ahh..." Trixie began to breathe heavily.

Suddenly, a light streaked across the dark sky, a bright spark cutting through the firmament for an instant. Trixie raised her head and, in wonder, watched the passage of a shooting star among the stars.

It was beautiful. The most beautiful thing she had seen in such a long time.

That light brought back memories of her past, of her friends... of Starlight.

Amid the spectacle, Trixie lowered her gaze. The deep shadows of the pyramids had trembled for a moment. Trixie watched them and found it amusing. She had no way to explain it, but she felt that the benevolent light had scared them.

"Are they scared of a bit of 'Starlight'?" Trixie laughed cheerfully.

Then another tremor shook her body. This time she couldn't stay on her hooves and fell to the ground.

For some reason, her strength was leaving her.

"What's happening...?" Again, the world was darkening around her.

An irresistible fatigue began to dominate her. Everything became blurred. Her eyes started to close...

Then, a new light crossed the sky. It was brighter than the previous one.

"Another shooting star... hahaha, what luck! What a beautiful end!" Trixie murmured as she faded. "Should I make a wish?"

Trixie began to disappear, but she already had a wish in mind.

With her last breath, she voiced it and vanished.

The brilliant light of the great shooting star crossed the sky, carrying that final wish.