Trixie slept for the next four hours. But despite its brevity, it was among the best sleeps she had ever had. It had been dreamless and unbroken. She had finally gotten a very brief sense of satisfaction and peace of mind with something she had done. She was finally back in Ponyville, and she had already earned the trust of one of its citizens. Granted, that citizen was Fluttershy, who would have probably forgiven Sombra himself if he had asked, but it was a start.
Fluttershy, however, was not having the best of luck with Trixie's arrival. After showing Trixie to her bed, Fluttershy had quietly crept out of the cottage to recover her missing animal, an extremely rare bird that she had befriended. It had silver-tipped wings and an amazing talent for mimicry. She flew over the Everfree Forest while singing to it for an hour, but it never came.
But while she was away, many of the other animals that lived inside Fluttershy's cottage became very uncomfortable with Trixie's presence, and they made it very clear to Fluttershy once she returned. Even with all the noise though, Trixie slept soundly. But the time Trixie got up, silence reigned in the cottage.
Trixie rolled herself out of the bed at ten. Her mane was more of a tangled mess than she cared to admit. She'd have to find somewhere to get cleaned up. She pulled the curtain shutters wide and took a look outside. The morning sun immediately poured in, causing her to squint her eyes. The view was worth it, though. The small stream in front of the cottage flowed lazily, and the animals that surrounded the cottage blended together their various sounds well enough to create a rather relaxing atmosphere.
Trixie found a brush lying on a table in the bedroom and quickly used her levitation magic to brush her hair. She walked downstairs and found Fluttershy hovering near the ceiling in her kitchen. She was rifling through some high cupboards.
"Oh, good morning, Trixie!" Fluttershy said. She quickly grabbed a box of cereal and poured a bowl for her guest.
"Good morning, Fluttershy," Trixie returned. She retrieved some milk from the table and poured it into her bowl.
Fluttershy slowly descended to the floor. "So, did you sleep okay?"
Trixie took a heaping bite of her cereal. She was starving. "Yesch, it wasch fine," she said, bits of half-chewed cereal flying out of her mouth.
Fluttershy cringed, but she decided not to say anything about it. "So, do you, uh, have a plan for today?"
This time Trixie had the decency to swallow before speaking. "Well, I was thinking that I could—"
A knock at Fluttershy's door interrupted her. The visiter didn't wait for the door to be opened.
"Hey Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash called out. "I was wondering if you wanted..." But as she walked in, the scene in the kitchen cut her off. Trixie and Rainbow Dash stared at each other for a few intensely awkward moments, the pegasus with wide eyes and a slack jaw and the unicorn with a mouth full of cereal, milk dribbling down her chin.
Trixie quickly wiped away the milk and swallowed. "Hello," she said, wearing the most awkward of smiles. Just like Fluttershy at first, Trixie could not think of Rainbow's name.
Rainbow pointed at the intruder and looked over at Fluttershy with an unchanged expression. The yellow pegasus winced as if she had been stuck with a needle. Rainbow opened her mouth, but no worlds came out at first. "How... what... why... explain!"
"Rainbow Dash, you remember Trixie, right?" Fluttershy said as calmly as she could. Trixie took note of the shocked pony's name.
Rainbow Dash tightly sealed her mouth shut, as if a massive explosion would issue forth if she dared to open it. In fact, that's exactly what happened. "WHAT IN THE NAME OF CELESTIA IS TRIXIE DOING IN YOUR COTTAGE!?"
Fluttershy was practically blown off her hooves from the shout. "Now, Dashie, please be reasonable about this..."
"Reasonable?!" Dash repeated, her voice cracking. "Give me one good reason why I should be!"
"Because Twilight was with her," Fluttershy countered.
"Oh yeah, because it's like Twilight and I see eye to eye on everything."
"Let me interject right here," Trixie said, but neither pony heard her.
"She's just looking for some friends!" Fluttershy retorted. Her assertive side was beginning to show.
"What about our friends?! The ones that she made miserable?!"
Soon the two were bickering back and forth, which greatly annoyed Trixie. "Hello?!" she said loudly.
They were still going at it.
"HEY!"
Finally Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash stopped and looked at her.
"Fluttershy, thank you for sticking up for me," Trixie said calmly. She looked over at the multicolored pegasus. "And Rainbow Dash, I do want to apologize for everything that I did."
"Yeah, and?" Rainbow snapped.
"Well, I don't know much about friendship, but I want to try my hoof at it. It seems to work a lot better than revenge, anyway." Trixie extended her hoof towards Rainbow to shake. "So? How about it?"
Rainbow sighed, but she didn't shake hooves. "Look, Trixie, you seem sincere, I guess, but I'm not ready for that yet. You hurt my friends and that bugs me more than you know."
And there it was. Trixie felt the sting of rejection, and she knew that it was the first of many to come, but she hadn't fully prepared herself for it. She let her hoof drop in disappointment. Her instinct told her to yell, to get angry, but she quickly swallowed it. "All right, fine. But my offer still stands."
Rainbow Dash turned away from Trixie. "Who else knows about this?" she asked Fluttershy.
"Nopony," she replied in the tiniest voice.
"I'll keep I that way, then. See ya." And with those words Rainbow was out the door.
A minute of silence passed. Trixie needed to pipe up. "That could have gone better," she said bitterly.
"I'm sorry, Trixie," Fluttershy said gently. "Dash has always been like that."
"Yeah, whatever,"
"I think ponies will warm up to you after a while," Fluttershy said comfortingly. "It'll just take some time."
"If you say so," Trixie replied despondantly.
She walked out the door into the cool morning air. The breeze made her cloak gently sway around her body. She sat at the edge of the brook and tried not to think about later on. If the rest of Ponyville reacted in the same way as Rainbow Dash, then she was in for a very long haul.
Trixie caught some of the flowing water with a magenta glow and brought it in front of her. If nothing else, she had her magic. It was the only thing that had been constant in her life, and the only thing that never failed her. Concentrating, she shaped the water into many forms. She found that using her magic was therapeutic, and having to focus on it took her mind off other things.
Trixie spent the next hour exploring the area around Fluttershy's cottage, namely all the animals she had. There were birds, fish, bugs, and rodents, among others. One enclosure she found had various reptiles, which made Trixie positively cringe.
"Aw, reptiles make you nervous?" Fluttershy approached her.
Trixie quickly straightened. "Absolutely not!" she cried indignantly.
"Not everypony likes them, but I think they're fascinating." Flutterwin stroked the chin of one of the snakes with her hoof.
"What do they have that for?" Trixie asked, referring to a narrow burrow that descended deep into the ground.
"Reptiles hate the cold," Fluttershy explained. "They're cold-blooded, and they can't warm themselves during winter. So they burrow down there to avoid the cold."
"Animals are strange," Trixie concluded.
Fluttershy ignored the comment. "So, anyway, the campaign stater is going to begin soon. Are you coming?"
"I might as well. I can't sit around your cottage all day."
"That's the spirit!" Fluttershy said encouragingly. "Come on."
Trixie decided to stay hidden for now. She put her hood back over her head as she walked into Ponyville for the first time in a year. It looked exactly the same as she remembered. Ponies everywhere were flocking to the largest building in the community, Town Hall.
The crowd was packed tightly into the building. All along the walls were banners with large green check marks on them, encouraging ponies to vote. Mayor Mare, the current leader of Ponyville, stood on stage, waiting for the last of the ponies to file in.
Trixie and Fluttershy squeezed their way through the sea of ponies. Near the front, Fluttershy spotted her other friends, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack, standing together. She began to approach them, but looked back at Trixie, torn between choosing who to be with. "Go, go," Trixie said, waving her hoof as if shooing the yellow pegasus away. "I'll meet up with you later." Fluttershy nodded and went to her friends.
Once everypony was settled, Mayor Mare tapped on a microphone, silencing them with the feedback. "Welcome, everypony, to the campaign starter event!" she announced. The crowd erupted into hoof-stomping applause. The mayor waited until they quieted down to continue. "Every four years, we come here together to elect a new mayor to lead Ponyville! And while I have spent the last eight years doing this, I am pleased to pass on this incredible title to the pony most worthy of it. Of course, it will be up to all of you to decide who this will be.
"For those of you who may have moved here recently, I will explain how the campaigning works. Up until this point, candidates are forbidden from advertising their campaign. But after this event, they will have two weeks to go after it will everything they have. At the end of the two weeks, you citizens will vote for whom you feel would best lead Ponyville. The candidate that receives the most votes will win!
"Now, without further ado, let us meet the candidates!" The crowd started to cheer once again. One of them accidentally bumped Trixie in his excitement and knocked her hood off. Having a miniature heart attack, Trixie quickly pulled it back over her head. She looked around in panic, but nopony had seen her.
"Our first candidate," Mayor Mare continued, "moved here to Ponyville just within the last six months, but he is quickly adapting and is eager to campaign. Please welcome Grass Roots!"
During more stomping, from behind the curtain stepped an Earth pony stallion so handsome that not even Trixie could prevent her jaw from dropping. Grass Roots was an extremely well-built pony and was taller than everypony around him. He donned an iron-gray coat, and his mane and tail were an icy periwinkle blue. His cutie mark depicted a small patch of green grass with a red check mark over it.
Grass Roots stepped up confidently to the microphone and spoke. "Thank you, Mayor," he said. Even his deep, reassuring voice could make a mare faint. "And I want to thank all of you for being so welcoming to me as I settle into this fair town. Ponyville is already one of the best small towns in Equestria that one could live, but I seek to make it the best. If elected, I will make Ponyville the quintessential place to be as far as a life of peace and tranquility. I would like for our fair town to grow, but I promise to not sacrifice the feeling of the small but loving community that we have."
Trixie found herself stomping along with the other citizens. This pony was simply captivating, and she could easily tell that he knew it. His devastatingly blue eyes were scanning the crowd, taking in his easily-won supporters. She began to pity anypony that sought to run against him.
Mayor Mare stepped back up to the microphone. "Thank you very much, Mr. Roots!" she said. "Now, I have just been informed that one other candidate has signed up to run. May I see the signup sheet, please?" An attendant levitated the sheet over to the mayor. She took it in one of her hooves and straightened it with a flourish. "Our second candidate is..." She paused and stared at the sheet in confusion. Everypony waited with baited breath. Mayor Mare looked back up, her eyes filled with bewilderment.
"Trixie Lulamoon."