Lyra and Sweetie were at work in Canterlot, Scootaloo was at school, and Trixie was left to look over the remains of her life again. She'd put-off the inevitable for a day while she recovered emotionally and just avoided the town and its inhabitants—but now it was time to get things done.
Working through her possessions, she started sorting them first into groups of what was required to live her life—this had things like the kitchenware, bedding, and general items she needed for everyday life—all the way down to frivolities. Trixie Lulamoon did not have many frivolities in her life.
Next, she sorted each individual stack by what was fine, what was damaged and could be repaired, what was damaged beyond repair, and wrote a little note for each stack of things she was missing.
"I hate how long these lists are." Trixie let out a huff and picked up the first fixable item in her required to live stack—the pot she cooked most of her meals in when traveling around Equestria was a cast piece of iron that weighed a ton. Normally it was bowl shaped with a heavy lid that could sit on top—now it was bent sideways and the lid was folded in half.
Trixie's telekinetic grip was a trained and precise marvel. She was the best student of her class when it came to fine manipulation without using spells—which is why bending an old iron pot back into shape was both trivial and a waste of her skills.
Straightening her cutlery too, Trixie heaved a sigh. "This isn't what I'd planned to do after the weekend. How did thing—?" A knock at the door interrupted Trixie.
Walking to the door, Trixie started pulling it open while saying, "Neither Lyra nor Sweetie are here right now, bu—" This time she interrupted herself. "Twilight?"
"Oh thanks goodness. I was worried you'd run off and had gone looking for an ancient artifact to seek your revenge and come back later to enslave the town under a giant dome!" Panting by the time she was done, Twilight shook her head. "I mean, can I come in?"
"Sure, I guess. That was awfully specific just now." Trixie backed up to give Twilight room. "Can I get you a drink of something?"
"Why don't we go and had something at Sugarcube Corner?" Desperately wanting to make as good impression as she could, Twilight didn't want to impose on Trixie.
Tilting her head, Trixie tried to work out what Twilight's angle was, but when none was apparent, she let out a sigh. "Sure."
The walk to Sugarcube Corner passed without either saying a word to the other. They only barely got into the bakery when a huge gasp from the front counter drew their attention. Pinkie Pie was almost overcome with surprise—gleeful and happy surprise at that. "Trixie! Twilight!"
Pinkie wanted to vault over the counter and hug her two friends, but she had the tiniest thread of self-control when actually working, and managed to keep her reaction to just a huge grin until the pair were at the front of the line. "Oh! Fancy seeing you two here. What can I get for you?"
Twilight was about to introduce Trixie, but she was halted by Trixie herself saying, "A horse!"
"A horse?" Pinkie asked, smile widening further.
"My kingdom for a horse! It's good to see you again, Pinkie." Leaning across the counter, Trixie gave Pinkie a hug. "I hope the performance on Saturday wasn't too much for you?"
"Oh pssh. It was good to get on stage again. How are you feeling after all that?"
A little bewildered, Twilight watched as Pinkie and Trixie chatted for a good minute or two before one of them turned to look at her. "Oh. Uh… Huh?"
"I think we broke her." Pinkie walked around to stand in front of Twilight. "Twilight! Can you hear me?! It's your friend, Pinkie Pie!"
The gag worked, and Twilight was giggling along with Trixie at the joke. "I know it's you' Pinkie. I just didn't realize everypony I'm friends with—well, almost everypony—was friends with Trixie. I'd never even met her before."
Trixie snorted. "It's okay. You don't have to know everypony. You didn't know Pinkie back then either—did you?"
"Nope! We met on her first day in Ponyville. That was the day before Nightmare Moon—that's Luna's—return. If you thought hecklers were bad, try dealing with a princess who thinks you should just give up and do everything she wants." Pinkie leaned on the counter. "Want a table?"
"That'd be great, thanks Pinkie," Twilight said and followed Pinkie to a table. Sitting down, and with Trixie opposite her, Twilight let out a deep sigh. "For my part—and Spike's part—in what happened, I'm sorry."
"Thank you, Twilight. I just—This town has been a very strange place to visit. I'm not sure if I will be back, but if I'm not—it won't be because of you." The words startled Trixie with how well they flowed. In the mare across from her, she saw everything the little filly living in her father's shadow in Las Pegasus wanted to be. But she had changed and adjusted who that was, and now Trixie didn't want to be a Twilight—a hero. "That said, what were those two foals thinking?"
"That's a very good question. I believe our next stop after here will be to see Mayor Mare. Snips and Snails might be foals, but their parents should have been supervising them—to say nothing of letting them run off after dark." Twilight mentally flinched a little, since she'd been letting Spike get away with a bit much lately herself.
"Here you both go. Double-fudge-sundae-surprise. Two of! And a large extra-strawberry shake for Twilight, and vanilla malt for Trixie." Pinkie Pie looked left and right shiftily, as if looking for somepony following her. "And a mint-chocolate for me!"
Trixie and Twilight both made room for Pinkie, only for her to pull up a chair to the end of the booth. Slurping at her shake, Pinkie let out a satisfied sigh. "There's nothing better than a good drink with friends."
Turning from looking at Pinkie to Trixie, Twilight gave a hopeful glance. "I—I'd really like to be friends, but after what you've been through here, I wouldn't expe—"
Thrusting her hoof out, Trixie said, "We have too many friends in common to not be friends too."
Bopping Trixie's hoof with her own, Twilight couldn't help but smile at this—the first step. "Okay, that's good to establish, but friends help each other. What can I do to help with what happened?"
"Just saying that's a relief. I mean, I've heard stories about what Lyra can get done after a simple nod from Princess Celestia, but you—you picked up an ursa minor and calmed it down. Lyra wouldn't shut up about it yesterday." Trixie levitated her spoon up and got a good scoop of her ice cream and put it in her mouth.
When Twilight saw the pure, unadulterated joy on Trixie's face, she knew she had to have some of the ice cream too. Likewise using her magic to pick up her spoon, she dug into her own sundae and was soon wearing a similar expression to Trixie.
Pinkie Pie was about as happy as anypony who makes food can be. She watched as Trixie and Twilight ate her ice cream until there wasn't a so much as a drop left. "Sooooo—how was it?"
Twilight and Trixie started gushing at the same time. "It was amazing!" "I can't believe how good—" Both mares looked at each other and giggled.
"You first," Trixie said.
"That was, Pinkie, as amazing as everything you make. Your food is—well it's like a second special talent for you." Scraping the bottom of her bowl with her spoon, Twilight tried in vain to search for one last taste—one last memory—to savor.
"I mean, my special talent is parties. Party food, party decorations, party games—all part of being the best party pony in all Equestria!" When Pinkie threw her hooves in the air, party streamers rained down around all three of them and confetti fell in random patterns—though never in their drinks.
"I've done a bit of traveling since graduation, and I have to say this is the best ice cream ever. Thanks, Pinkie." Trixie was aware that the confetti wasn't fouling her drink, so picked it up and tried to gather some in the remains of her milkshake—with no luck at all.
"There's still one matter we need to bring up." Twilight looked to Pinkie to get her advice on the topic. "Snips and Snails."
Pinkie spared a look at Trixie and sighed—part of her mane deflating a little. It was a tough job being happy for everypony in town, and right now there was some very unhappy things to fight through. "That's a tough one. Earth pony parents, of both of them, with unicorn foals. They dote on those colts and have no idea about limiting them or their magic. I know Lyra was teaching them the basics of magic, but I don't know if she'll keep doing that now."
"I wouldn't blame her," Twilight said, "not after all this. Perhaps I can take on teaching some of the unicorns around town? I could talk to Cheerilee about Snips and Snails, too. She'll probably be best to ask to talk to their parents."
"Their teacher? Probably better to talk to than the mayor." Having given up trying to violate the laws of Pinkie, Trixie settled for just drinking her shake.
Pinkie's mane returned to full bounce now a plan had been organized. "Can I help with anything else?"
"I think we can handle it from here. Thank you, Pinkie, you're the best at this." Twilight stood up and caught her friend in a hug.
"Likewise." Standing, Trixie caught up Pinkie from the other side. "We need to catch up more often. I guess I will be coming back here regularly then—what with all the friends I'm making here."
As she felt the corners of her mouth reach a new level of smile, Pinkie couldn't hold back a giggle or stop herself from squeezing Trixie and Twilight in the Pinkie-of-All-Hugs. "I was extra worried about this. I had a kink in my tail all yesterday that made me think something terrible was about to happen regarding friends, but this definitely wasn't that." Pinkie was about to continue, but realized the implication was that another of her friends was about to have a bad day.
Not noticing Pinkie's fugue, Twilight let go of the hug. "Thanks again, Pinkie. I'll fix you up for the ice cream and shakes once all this is dealt with. Don't let me forget."
Trixie felt good for the first time in two days. The world felt lighter and she felt herself wanting to get back on stage. "If you ever want a part in my act, you just have to ask. Never hesitate to raise your hoof and have some fun again, Pinkie."
Giggling, Pinkie tried to brush off the praise. "You two are just trying to make me blush! Go on, get out there and make other ponies happy—I'm already as happy as can be!" With goodbyes exchanged, Pinkie waited for Trixie and Twilight to leave Sugarcube Corner before her face turned serious again. "Now, who else might be having a bad day?"
Twilight and Trixie made their way to Ponyville school, mostly chatting about their school days. Trixie discovered that Twilight had studied everything. Twilight found out about Trixie's final project. They were just about to start discussing the deepest workings of the magic aura snakes when they were both startled to find they were at the school.
"Should we wait until class finishes?" Trixie asked.
"Probably a good idea. We don't want to disrupt classes, after all. Cheerilee might give us detention." Twilight was joking, but she remembered the fear her time at Celestia's school made of detention. At first, she'd thought it was a reward—more time at school, after all—but had quickly learned otherwise.
Trixie managed a laugh for the joke. "Don't even get me started on that. Did Miss Hackney threaten you with detention every time you didn't sit straight enough for her?"
"I sat straight enough, but she kept telling me my pencils were not placed correctly. That's why I got into the habit of using a quill. There were school rules about how to place ink wells and blotter, and she couldn't argue with me about them." Walking over to the school swings, Twilight lifted herself up and sat on one—then started to slowly swing.
Climbing onto the second swing, Trixie started moving too. "I wish I'd thought of doing something like that." She sighed and stared off into the distance—looking at nothing in particular. "I don't have all the magic of you or Lyra, but I like to think I put what I have to good use."
"Making ponies happy?"
Trixie just nodded and swung a little in silence. School hadn't been easy for her. She'd wanted to master everything at first, but her talents didn't stretch past delicate and directly physical manipulations and their complete opposite—showy illusions. "Yeah, I—"
The school bell cut short Trixie's reply. Standing up from the swing, she waited for Twilight to do the same and they turned together for the schoolhouse.
Cheerilee saw the two unicorns approaching and was curious as to their intent. "What can I help you with?" She remembered Trixie from her show on Friday, and everypony in town knew Twilight, so she wasn't exactly going into the conversation blind. She hadn't, however, heard about events on Saturday.
"We'd like to speak in private, if that's alright?" Twilight felt the need to speak up first.
"Come right in." Discretely showing Twilight and Trixie inside, Cheerilee followed them—paying attention to Trixie more than Twilight—to her classroom. "Now, to what do I owe this pleasure?"
"It's about Snips and Snails," Twilight said.
No words relating to two specific foals could fill Cheerilee with so much dread. She braced herself for what she expected to come next.
Continuing without being privy to the way Cheerilee mentally clenched, Twilight caught Cheerilee up with what she knew of events on the day in question. When the destruction of Trixie's wagon was divulged, Cheerilee's face and heart fell together. "I'll send letters home with them for their parents to come see me. Miss Trixie, I hate to have to ask this, will you be in town long?"
No, Trixie wanted to reply, I was going to put a lot of distance between those colts and myself as I can and never look back. Instead she nodded. "I will be, but I'm going to need to find somewhere to stay. I don't want to keep intruding on my friends' lives, and without my wagon I can't exactly—"
"You can stay at the library if you need to," Twilight said.
"I used the plural of friends." Trixie spared a smile to Twilight. "I'll contact the authorities and see about getting a place temporarily."
"You'll want to speak to Mayor Mare about that. I can take you to see her if you like?" Ever watchful for more ways she can put things right, Twilight was quick to offer assistance.
Having spent years living on her own on the road, Trixie was unused to all the support. She wanted to turn Twilight down, but she couldn't help but admit (to herself at least) that having the savior of Equestria at her side would get things done. "Thank you, Twilight." Trixie was thanking ponies more in the last several days than for the previous five years.
"I'll let you both know when I can arrange a meeting with their parents. I can only watch the foals during school hours, but I'll keep an extra eye on them." Cheerilee tried to remain as detached from the two mares as she could, but Trixie's physique was appealing to her. Mentally telling herself to tap it down, Cheerilee went on, "And please, if you need any help—with anything—don't hesitate to come and check me out."
The look Trixie gave Cheerilee told the teacher she'd said something wrong. Her brain rushed to review what she'd said and immediately located the problem. "I—I mean come and see me. For help. Not to—"
"I think," Twilight said to save Cheerilee from further exclamations, "we're all under a lot of stress. I'll go see about getting you some sort of temporary accommodation, Trixie. Leave that to me, okay?"
Before Trixie could even reply, Twilight had given her best smile and retreated from the room—leaving her alone with Cheerilee. "I…" Trixie could see the nerves on the other mare's face increase as the silence continued. Being a showmare, she knew all the best ways to break an awkward silence. "Perhaps not check you out, but perhaps you might know somewhere for me to take you out?"