Slowly backing down from the mirror with the shocked child in it, Twilight slowly loses her expression of shock and fear. Replaced with one of determination and purpose she turns her head away from the mirror and towards the open door.
”My name is Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia. I have been in worse situations than this. This is nothing I cannot handle on my own. But not here, and not now. I need information, as much as possible. I have to ask around, find out where I am and how to get away from here. I need a library,” she reaffirms to herself as she sits there on the dirty ground, all alone.
Slowly getting back up, she easily turns around in the cramped room. Making her way out of the bathroom again, Twilight once again find herself in the middle of the giant river of ponies. Carefully navigating down one side of the road a quiet yelling makes itself heard over the crowd. Turning one ear towards the sound Twilight waits for the sound to once again make itself known.
“Extra news! Princess Celestia taking on a new student! Read all about it,” a voice from somewhere on the other side of the road yelled. The voice sounding much like a colt several summers older than Twilight.
“New student? Can it be possible?” With the old goal of finding information momentarily forgotten, the journey across the road to find the source of the voice begins. Sliding, dodging, jumping and side-stepping the oblivious adults the trek across the road take much out of Twilight and by the end of it she’s panting from slight exhaustion. When she’s just a few meters away from the newspaper selling pony, Twilight abruptly stops to outright stare at the pony in front of her.
Standing there, selling newspapers at the side of the road is none other than the Wonderbolt Soarin’. His unmistakable light blue coat with a darker blue mane and tail, messily fixed to some resemblance to order adorning his head. The scene completed by the paper in a fore hoof, saddlebags overflowing with the same on his flanks and the high volume of his advertising.
“Soarin’?” Twilight asks confused before she’s able to stop herself. The pegasus in front of her stops his screaming for a moment before looking down at a fairly worried you filly at his hooves
“Huh? Oh, hey kid. Have we met before?” Soarin’ asks surprised and Twilight very hesitantly shakes her head. “Then why do you know my name?”
“I…um, heard you were pretty good at flying from some ponies talking around town.” While feeling horrible for lying, Twilight worried telling the truth would be even worse. And trying to sneak away would be nearly impossible in this crowd anyway. “I’m sorry, I should just go.”
“Wait up, kid. I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t mind at all, in fact just a few days from now I have tryout for the Wonderbolts themselves. On their request of course.” Pride oozed out of him the longer he took that sentence and by the end of it you could almost cut it with a knife. “In fact you could almost say you’re my first fan if you know my name on sight. What’s your name kid?”
“Tw… Trixie. Trixie Lulamoon,” she replies, correcting herself in what she hopes is in time. “I can’t use my real name now, not if I look like this. Ponies will start asking questions, and I can’t afford that.”
“Trixie huh? I bet it suits you just fine. Now for my first fan, take this newspaper. It’s not a lot, but I bet it have some stuff you care about.”
“But I can’t just take it, you have to sell those. Won’t they miss it?”
“Nah kid, it’s fine. I can pay for this one myself. I don’t really need the money anyway.”
Nodding once, Trixie gathers her magic in her horn and reaches out to take the newspaper and, nothing. Not even the tiniest of sparks leave her horn in the now futile attempt at using magic. Sighing loudly she grabs the newspaper with both her fore hooves instead.
“Hey, kid”–waiting for her head to turn up to him again–“still bummed about not being able to use magic?” he asks and Trixie nods. “Don’t worry so much about it. It comes to you when it’s supposed to, no sooner and no later. Focusing on what you can’t do will make you lose track of what you can do already. They told me I could never join the Wonderbolts you know, but I’m about to prove them wrong. All my life ponies have told me to give up the Wonderbolts because I’m not fast and agile enough.
“I never listened to them, and neither should you kid. Now I don’t know who would tease of make fun of you for not being able to use magic but if you ever need somewhere to turn, why don’t you write me a letter?” Soarin’ grabbed a quill he apparently had stored somewhere on him and quickly scribbls down an address to Cloudsdale in a corner of the newspaper’s front page. Trixie stared wide-eyes at him, mouth hanging open. This pony had given her his address out of nowhere, a filly he’d never even met before.
“Hey kid, stop staring. It won’t go away you know. Now as I said, if you ever need somewhere to turn I’ll be there. Just write me a letter.”
Trixie finally managed to tear her eyes away from the address to reply with another nod. Slowly putting the paper on the ground, she got back up on her hooves after sitting down to accept the newspaper.
“Thank you so much, Soarin’. I’ll remember that,” she exclaimed and put her hooves around his neck in something resembling a hug but thanks to her size didn’t quite make it all around his neck.
“Don’t mention it, kid. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to get back to my job for the day. I’m not in the Wonderbolts yet, so I have papers to sell. So see you around kid, and cheer up. Life is only as fun as you make it.” And with that he turned away from her and resumed his, very loud, advertising of newspapers. Picking up the paper in her mouth, Trixie gives him one last look before moving back along the walls towards what looks like a clearing in the rooftops in the distance.
“Soarin’ not in the Wonderbolts selling newspapers at the side of the road? The princess got a new student already? Things aren’t adding up. He joined the Wonderbolts several years ago from what I recall and how did the Princess find a new student already, I died just yesterday,” she thought to herself as she absentmindedly followed the buildings with a days’ worth of practiced reflexes.
Finally making it to the gap in buildings she finds herself in the outskirts of a smaller park, barely more than three or four trees and some hedges in a single corner. Elsewhere all there is to be found is a well-tended to lawn without any form of weed or other unwanted growth.
Unceremoniously collapsing down onto her belly Trixie folds her legs under her and paces the newspaper in front of her where she can read it all. Before anything, she studies the address a bit closer but without knowing much about Cloudsdale’s layout it doesn’t really mean anything to her. Giving up on the address, Trixie moves her attention to the news on the page instead and begins to read out loud to herself.
“Princess Celestia takes on a new student. In the events following a normal entry exam to Celectia’s School for Gifted Unicorns (henceforth referred to as CSGU) the school sustained severe property damage as one of the students succeeded in the entry test and more. During a magical surge, the filly hatched the dragon egg and grew the hatching so large it went through the roof. The incident was stopped by none other than the Princess herself who said, and I quote ‘I don’t think I have ever come across a unicorn with your raw abilities.’ Now for the first time in centuries, Twilight Sparkle…”
“What?!” Trixie exclaims as she rereads the passage a few more times just in case it changes after the first time. “But that was over a decade ago, how is this possible?”
Closing the page she had moved on to Trixie examines the front of the paper once more. This time looking more closely in the header, looking for today’s date.
'April 5 2001 AD.’
“Today is that day? I’m in the past as well?” a confused and severely freaked Trixie ask herself. “It would explain Soarin’ selling newspapers and no mention of Luna anywhere. I still have no idea where I am and this newspaper apparently doesn’t tell me that.”
Looking around to make sure nopony is overhearing her, Trixie find the park just as deserted as when she entered it. Sighing in relief she turns her attention back to her predicament.
“But if I’m there, yet here too then what happened to Trixie? I need more information, but I don’t think libraries have this kind written down. But assuming this date is true and I am a decade into the past, I need to be careful. The slightest alterations I do could have horrible consequences in the future. Oh I hope my talk with Soarin’ didn’t break anything.”
Trixie is very rudely interrupted in her musings by a very insistent rumbling from her belly, reminding her that she in fact had nothing to eat today. Looking over the top of a nearby house, Trixie catches the last glimmer of light from the fading sun as it descends down the horizon to make way for the moon. A moon very rudely blocked by the weather pegasi setting up clouds for what appears to be a midnight shower.
“That can wait until tomorrow I hope, I need to find shelter and food.”
In a narrow, nearly deserted alley a small blue shape is lying curled to a ball under the largest cardboard around. The cardboard is drenched from the rain, and the wind whipping around makes an already harsh night even worse. Curled tightly into a ball in an attempt to protect the now precious newspaper from the rain, the small filly shivers as a particularly cold wind blows through the alley and find its way under her cover.
With a muddy coat and tangled mane the small filly does its very best to fall asleep. But sleep is far away for the kid tonight. Somewhere off in the distance a bell chimes, signaling for another hour of restless sleep. Yawning deeply Trixie scoots as far back into the corner as she can, in a desperate attempt to block out as much of the weather as possible.
“I wish I had a blanket, and food. Food before blanket really.”